rosewater (and tempted);
Title: rosewater (and tempted)
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3000+
Characters/Pairings: SasuNaru
Summary: "sasuke is back. this whisper rampaged the village like a wildfire, intruded every household and razed every ear with its bitter, acrid taste. sasuke is back. sasuke is back. traitor. bastard."
Notes: this was actually two different stories, 'rosewater' and 'tempted' (hence the title), but after reading both, i realized they had exceedingly similar plots, and decided it was best if i just smushed them together. xD i also have a strange fixation for sasuke-came-back-to-konoha-and-is-in-jail scenarios, if you haven't noticed by now. also be warned that this thing doesn't exactly have a plot. >_> oops~
1.
PUSH HERE FOR FOG -
(my life is just a collection of special effects.)
2.
…and, POOF! he’s gone. what a magic trick, the audience applauds and cheers, was he ever there? is there any doubt that the rabbit in the hat is a well-managed sleight of the hand that brings crowds to their feet?
only he knows, standing in the very back of the auditorium, shielded eyes and folded hands - to me, you were always real.
3.
sasuke is back. this whisper rampaged the village like a wildfire, intruded every household and razed every ear with its bitter, acrid taste. sasuke is back. sasuke is back. traitor. bastard.
even sakura shakes her head a little. “i don’t think you should be doing this,” she admonishes naruto, who is sitting on a block of concrete at the edge of the street, rocking very slightly back and forth with his forehead supported by his thumbs, lest his head crumble to the ground in the fragile bits they’ve become. i mean, look at it this way - it wasn’t even a fair shot. naruto just remembers one autumn night, foxes aglow and moon seething down on them like some paretic streetlight, and kakashi, illuminated in all his silver glory, hauling sasuke back with one finger. one goddamn fucking finger - naruto tasted nothing but empty air in his mouth for two weeks. all he wants to ask is, how…? how…? how…? but even the tiny heartstrings are too shocked to move his mouth into action. so he sits there and waits.
waits.
waits.
sakura - “even if he’s not put to death, i still fear…”
“he’s going to be fine, sakura-chan.”
“but, naruto -”
“he’s going to be fine.” he’s insistent. he’s got to be fine, or else, or else…
she takes a deep breath. “naruto, i’m scared that even if he did come back, that things will change…”
he stops rocking back and forth, but the tremors of his body are still visible. he is shaking. sakura’s never seen him shake so bad, ever, and she swears she’s seen him go through shit most people would not even breathe through.
“naruto, i just want to go back to the old days…”
“me too. me too.”
but it can’t happen like that. sasuke knew this, VERY, VERY well. everyone in the room is looking at him with hateful, scornful eyes, and he on his podium, hands and legs tied so tightly he’s lost all the feeling humanity’s left him, staring hate and scorn right back into them. tsunade is the only exception, her soft blue eyes wafting over his visage every so often, but it’s pure nepotism that she’s even staying sane in the same room with him right now. if it weren’t for naruto, she’d be screaming her head off at him, cursing his name, and be seven kinds of batshit insane, and this is something, because sasuke is also very, very familiar with batshit insane.
there is one last murmur of indecision before the verdict is announced -
“eternity in prison.”
and god knows how long eternity is.
4.
it is the absolute worst thing, sasuke decides, to be locked up in a cell in the Konoha state prison, because even though he’s gone through worse torture, stayed in more hellish roundabouts, he realizes - he doesn’t belong here. this is the cage that’s kept him tame all this time, and how can you be tame when the fur is bursting from your skin and the hunger is keeping your teeth dry, tearing your stomach apart? so he paces (at least as much as physically possible), and paces, and someone tells him that uzumaki naruto is coming to visit him.
wait, what was that? uzumaki naruto? short, blond, hyperactive boy whose favorite hobby is to be a pain in the ass? apparently sasuke’s allowed one visitor a week, and they’ve wasted it all on uzumaki naruto. a most terrible choice. naruto charges in, an orange ball rolling into a bleak gray hallway, guns ablazing and positively glowing with the sun’s rays.
except not. sasuke is surprised to see that, when the boy comes in, although wearing his trademark orange pants, ditched the bright shirt and opted for a dark long-sleeve. the blue crystal bounces on his heart and ominously smolders under the low-light, and he barely lifts his head to acknowledge the other prisoners. instead his slow, steady eyes focus on sasuke, until they get closer, and even closer. he settles down in front of the cell, digs something out of his pocket.
“here.” it’s a piece of crumpled paper, worn from constant fingering and carrying, and naruto slams the thing between the bars like some definitive go move, something to snipe the game and run away with it all. sasuke opens it gingerly with one hand.
i will follow you wherever you go.
“funny, huh? that was something i wrote a few years ago. i promised i’d never let you out of my sight, never let you leave me behind. and then again…” he trails off.
you look older, sasuke wants to say, but the words are weak. he banishes them from his mind.
“so i dunno why i volunteered, really. ‘cept maybe the fact that no one else wanted to do it. you know what, even sakura didn’t want to do it. i figured it was cuz she was too nervous or scared, but…” he shrugged and gave a soft laugh. “i mean, i was right. she was scared things would change. or just scared of you in general. everyone else just fucking hates you. i didn’t want to come, but for old time’s sake, i figured i might as well just see your face one more time before letting you rot to death.”
he’s just got that magic disappearing act.
5.
he’s sitting against the dark, concrete wall, bars casting all sorts of scary shadows on his complexion, but his face is the only that’s the same and constant, still and eyes slightly harrowed. his pale skin shines like silver compared to the dirty black prison jumpsuit he’s wearing - ironically similar to the outfit he wore to the Chuunin Exam like a hawking crow bursting onto the scene (can’t you hear all the cameras flashing?), tearing away at his cage with sharp talons and a prickly heart. and now the thorns have come creeping up on him again, because now he’s chained and tossed in jail, never to be set free again. this is why you can never tame a wild bird, he says - they simply die in the clutches of soft touch.
on the other side of the bars - naruto’s face eerily lighted in the same way, except he’s got help of that unhealthy beacon of light called radioactive blond hair - and radioactive it is, it’s poisoning sasuke and his petroleum soul, making it so neon green he can’t rub it off like he can’t scrub the dirt from under his fingernails. (his mother’s voice drifts into his head - “sasuke, make sure you remember to wash under your fingernails, okay, sasuke?” a stab of tears to his eyes, but unlike his humanity, he never lets them go.) naruto looks only a little nervous, those blue eyes flickering to and fro, and he pulls off nonchalantly (or tries to, at least), “you broke my heart.” blunt. (seems like naruto’s prime choice of weapon, these days.)
“i’m not sorry. i’m never sorry. what did you expect me to say, really?” that he’d be your bitch and follow you out of this dark cell? sorry, not today kiddo.
naruto looks away, slick eyelashes shielding his shamed eyes. “i only meant…” he sighs and shakes his head. “i don’t know what i meant. i just thought you should know. me and sakura. we’re sad and lonely people, you forgot.”
“funny. i always thought the opposite.”
“did you ever know?”
“what?”
“that the paint is flaking away, and i can see what you are underneath.”
“…what?” this threw sasuke. naruto? he’s never spoken like this before. he’s always just joking around, but this time he’s got on a serious expression, devoid of the comical features that once garnished the edges of his face. “you’re not making any sense.” even though he is.
naruto sits there for a few minutes more, not saying a word, until he stands up, pats the dirt off his pants, and declares, hands in pockets, “you better give them what you want, or i’ll be back to see you.” and he walks sideways off the screen (because sasuke’s life is a regular vaudeville act), exit stage left into a curtain of sunlight sasuke can’t reach.
6.
in this dank, moldy, anguish-infested room, where time of day is irrelevant and the bearings of your heart are all that matters, sasuke is taken to at random intervals of the day and tortured.
and despite all their sundry depictions of candy-coated justice and fairness, sasuke can tell, from personal experience, that the torture is the worst thing in konoha. it’s much like itachi’s tsukiyomi (what a fateful source of inspiration, if so) because you are tied to a table shaped like cross, thin plastic tubes snaking and suffocating your skin, and pure terror is shot up through your veins, again and again, until you cry uncle and wave tattered white flags in defeat. right now sasuke looks likes like a fucking science experiment - and probably is - white paper tag on his toe and all. ibiki is wearing a surgical mask, and, looking like a beneficiary serial killer, emerges from the shadows of the room and leans down toward sasuke. “how are you doing?”
“com…pletely shitty.” it takes some effort for him to utter these words out, because the nightmares are still fucking with his brain.
“are you hungry?” ibiki inquires, almost like he’s a matronly nurse, and completely ignores the critical subject at hand: where the hell is madara, you back-stabbing motherfucker? and sasuke knows this, but he chooses to grit his teeth and ignore the mindgames.
“not…at all.”
“good.” he makes a informal wave of the hand, signaling to the silhouettes on the wall. “untie him and send him back.”
7.
“i told you so.”
rewind and repeat last week’s scene, except naruto is significantly more morose and sasuke a little bonier, and his eyes a little more hollowed.
“shut up.”
he shrugs. “tsunade really hates you, you know,” he says quietly.
“why wouldn’t she?”
“i told her that it wasn’t your fault. that you were doing a bunch of things you really just didn’t believe in, and you were caught up in everything.” he grabbed the cold steel bars. “do you understand, sasuke? i lied for you. i lied for you. at some point i thought i was lying to myself too, but when i realized that i really hated you too, it scared me, and all i wanted to do was to take a kunai to your face and mar your perfect skin.” his clutches grew tighter, squeezing all his fingerprints shut until they lay imprinted there forever. “scar you. scar you. i didn’t get the satisfaction when all there was were scratches squeaking against metal.”
sasuke looks down at his fingernails and started playing with the pale moons. “well, what the fuck am i supposed to say to that? i never apologize.”
naruto clenched his teeth together. “fuck you. fuck you,” he says with animalistic woes and fury, “fuck you.”
8.
“do you remember?”
this makes sasuke look up.
“remember what?”
“pre-departure, that we were best friends.”
sasuke laughs. “what do you mean? all we did was fuck around,” and he meant that quite literally at that.
“we were best friends.” he says it with such certainty that it almost does convince sasuke that he forgot.
“we were best friends. we loved each other. and i would’ve followed you wherever you went, except you went somewhere i couldn’t follow.” except now i sound like a main character of a shounen manga, and am trying to redeem the brooding antagonist with all the credibility of my soul.
sasuke looks away. “i do know,” he mutters quietly.
9.
the more naruto visits, the more frequent the visits to the torture rack.
ibiki, the bastard, has orchestrated the events so that they coincide, as if ghosts from the past would prompt any guilt-tripping or rusty feelings of national patriotism, but these are just figments of sasuke’s lingering judgment. in reality sasuke has gone blind (wait, really?) and can’t see his hands pressed against his face anymore. his fingers clutch desperately to his face, glued in restraints of rosy skin, and as he agonizes the loss of his eyesight, he feels the soft touch from naruto’s own hands move over his own.
“calm down.”
“get your fucking hands off me.”
naruto is brave or promiscuous, because he doesn’t. “do you want your eyesight back? i asked, do you want your eyesight back?”
sasuke only moans. the mangekyou cries.
10.
naruto is allowed to bring a sort of home remedy to the jail cell now, courtesy of sakura’s skills. he sets the glass carafe on the dusty floor and crosses his arms.
very authoritatively, he says, “before i let you drink this, i want to let you know something.”
sasuke grunts, in the midst of his own darkness, “go on.”
naruto continues, “i know.”
“know what?”
“i can see it in your face. the angry creases of determination that say, i’m going to get the fuck out of here someday. your eyebrows framing your hate. i’m going to get the fuck out of here, they say, and i don’t give a damn about anything else.”
sasuke rubs his eyes.
“when you drink this,” naruto says, “you will be able to see again. but you will never leave this place, and you will never see the light of day again. when you get your sight back, it won’t be much different from what it is now.”
sasuke lies down on his back.
“you will live in this place, and you will die in this place. well, let’s drink and toast, shall we? kanpai.”
kanpai. turns out, it is merely a mixture of warm bourbon and whiskey. all he needed to do was calm his nerves a bit. sasuke feels the thickness in his throat and the sharpness returns to his eyes, but not to his claws.
11.
on the torture rack, he has dreams that belie his nature.
[WHAT IS FEAR? IS IT THE THING THAT CRAWLS WITHIN US, THE REAL VAMPIRES OF LORE THAT SUCK OUR BLOOD, FEAST ON OUR GUTS, AND BARE THEIR WICKED TEETH?]
he wakes in a sweat, muscles twitching and flailing uselessly, only to be restrained by the metal ties, and ibiki (fuck) once again appears within his vision.
“what do you say, sasuke? give up? even if you die? even if you have to watch your parents die in front of you again? even if you cry again for your mommy, and you miss the way she brushes the hair from your face and calls you ‘honey, honey, honey’?”
sasuke knows he’s still lingering on that hard acid, because the words do not match ibiki’s lips at all. but he disregards it, closes his eyes, and murmurs, “never. never.”
12.
the one thing he remembers without pain is that naruto’s sweat smelled like rosewater. the more it lingered against his skin, the more sickeningly it stung sasuke’s nose.
eventually, sasuke would’ve turned away, opened the shades, and started putting his clothes back on.
13.
naruto’s a little slut, he realizes.
face pressed against the bars and carefree smile very simply plastered to his face, he says, “i’ve missed you.” like that’ll seduce the likes of sasuke. he only scoffs from his seat held fast at the wall.
“i’ll never leave this prison cell long enough to love you, naruto,” and “love” holds all kinds of naughty connotations that harken back to days with endless sunlight, streaming through unbarred windows.
naruto’s cheeks suddenly blossom with pink. “i only meant i’m…beginning to feel like i’m having normal conversations with you again.”
“oh, that’s a laugh. because talking to a murderer is much like everyday chatter.” (since when was he so cynical against himself? must be the neon green, seeping through and staining his otherwise white skin. forget the way naruto used to stain it so well.)
“you weren’t a killer when i knew you,” naruto states, and that cinches the deal closed. “you were a boy, i was only a boy, and…”
sasuke got down on his hands and knees, prayed for a little reverence, and crawled a bit closer to the bars.
“…when you left, i really hated you.”
a whisper. “i’m sorry.”
naruto’s hair covers his eyes, and he continues with a whisper in response - “i didn’t want to hate you.”
soft voices in the stagnant wind. “i’m sorry.”
“i love you.”
“i’m sorry.”
sasuke’s hands grazes against the darkness, reaches up, and rests on naruto’s cheek. “i’m sorry.” the more he says it, the more it empties from his mouth like chinking gold coins. “i’m sorry. i’m sorry.” quicker breaths, jerkier movements. sasuke tilts naruto’s chin up, sinks hungry fingertips for touch into the angled jawline, and fills his mouth with the taste of naruto’s lips, sweet like rosewater yet stinging from the salt of the sea - because naruto is only turbulent waves skipping quietly in your hands, and he grabs at the loose shirt covering his hips, for some closure…
the only victim and witness are the metal bars, standing obstinately between.
-
fin.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3000+
Characters/Pairings: SasuNaru
Summary: "sasuke is back. this whisper rampaged the village like a wildfire, intruded every household and razed every ear with its bitter, acrid taste. sasuke is back. sasuke is back. traitor. bastard."
Notes: this was actually two different stories, 'rosewater' and 'tempted' (hence the title), but after reading both, i realized they had exceedingly similar plots, and decided it was best if i just smushed them together. xD i also have a strange fixation for sasuke-came-back-to-konoha-and-is-in-jail scenarios, if you haven't noticed by now. also be warned that this thing doesn't exactly have a plot. >_> oops~
1.
PUSH HERE FOR FOG -
(my life is just a collection of special effects.)
2.
…and, POOF! he’s gone. what a magic trick, the audience applauds and cheers, was he ever there? is there any doubt that the rabbit in the hat is a well-managed sleight of the hand that brings crowds to their feet?
only he knows, standing in the very back of the auditorium, shielded eyes and folded hands - to me, you were always real.
3.
sasuke is back. this whisper rampaged the village like a wildfire, intruded every household and razed every ear with its bitter, acrid taste. sasuke is back. sasuke is back. traitor. bastard.
even sakura shakes her head a little. “i don’t think you should be doing this,” she admonishes naruto, who is sitting on a block of concrete at the edge of the street, rocking very slightly back and forth with his forehead supported by his thumbs, lest his head crumble to the ground in the fragile bits they’ve become. i mean, look at it this way - it wasn’t even a fair shot. naruto just remembers one autumn night, foxes aglow and moon seething down on them like some paretic streetlight, and kakashi, illuminated in all his silver glory, hauling sasuke back with one finger. one goddamn fucking finger - naruto tasted nothing but empty air in his mouth for two weeks. all he wants to ask is, how…? how…? how…? but even the tiny heartstrings are too shocked to move his mouth into action. so he sits there and waits.
waits.
waits.
sakura - “even if he’s not put to death, i still fear…”
“he’s going to be fine, sakura-chan.”
“but, naruto -”
“he’s going to be fine.” he’s insistent. he’s got to be fine, or else, or else…
she takes a deep breath. “naruto, i’m scared that even if he did come back, that things will change…”
he stops rocking back and forth, but the tremors of his body are still visible. he is shaking. sakura’s never seen him shake so bad, ever, and she swears she’s seen him go through shit most people would not even breathe through.
“naruto, i just want to go back to the old days…”
“me too. me too.”
but it can’t happen like that. sasuke knew this, VERY, VERY well. everyone in the room is looking at him with hateful, scornful eyes, and he on his podium, hands and legs tied so tightly he’s lost all the feeling humanity’s left him, staring hate and scorn right back into them. tsunade is the only exception, her soft blue eyes wafting over his visage every so often, but it’s pure nepotism that she’s even staying sane in the same room with him right now. if it weren’t for naruto, she’d be screaming her head off at him, cursing his name, and be seven kinds of batshit insane, and this is something, because sasuke is also very, very familiar with batshit insane.
there is one last murmur of indecision before the verdict is announced -
“eternity in prison.”
and god knows how long eternity is.
4.
it is the absolute worst thing, sasuke decides, to be locked up in a cell in the Konoha state prison, because even though he’s gone through worse torture, stayed in more hellish roundabouts, he realizes - he doesn’t belong here. this is the cage that’s kept him tame all this time, and how can you be tame when the fur is bursting from your skin and the hunger is keeping your teeth dry, tearing your stomach apart? so he paces (at least as much as physically possible), and paces, and someone tells him that uzumaki naruto is coming to visit him.
wait, what was that? uzumaki naruto? short, blond, hyperactive boy whose favorite hobby is to be a pain in the ass? apparently sasuke’s allowed one visitor a week, and they’ve wasted it all on uzumaki naruto. a most terrible choice. naruto charges in, an orange ball rolling into a bleak gray hallway, guns ablazing and positively glowing with the sun’s rays.
except not. sasuke is surprised to see that, when the boy comes in, although wearing his trademark orange pants, ditched the bright shirt and opted for a dark long-sleeve. the blue crystal bounces on his heart and ominously smolders under the low-light, and he barely lifts his head to acknowledge the other prisoners. instead his slow, steady eyes focus on sasuke, until they get closer, and even closer. he settles down in front of the cell, digs something out of his pocket.
“here.” it’s a piece of crumpled paper, worn from constant fingering and carrying, and naruto slams the thing between the bars like some definitive go move, something to snipe the game and run away with it all. sasuke opens it gingerly with one hand.
i will follow you wherever you go.
“funny, huh? that was something i wrote a few years ago. i promised i’d never let you out of my sight, never let you leave me behind. and then again…” he trails off.
you look older, sasuke wants to say, but the words are weak. he banishes them from his mind.
“so i dunno why i volunteered, really. ‘cept maybe the fact that no one else wanted to do it. you know what, even sakura didn’t want to do it. i figured it was cuz she was too nervous or scared, but…” he shrugged and gave a soft laugh. “i mean, i was right. she was scared things would change. or just scared of you in general. everyone else just fucking hates you. i didn’t want to come, but for old time’s sake, i figured i might as well just see your face one more time before letting you rot to death.”
he’s just got that magic disappearing act.
5.
he’s sitting against the dark, concrete wall, bars casting all sorts of scary shadows on his complexion, but his face is the only that’s the same and constant, still and eyes slightly harrowed. his pale skin shines like silver compared to the dirty black prison jumpsuit he’s wearing - ironically similar to the outfit he wore to the Chuunin Exam like a hawking crow bursting onto the scene (can’t you hear all the cameras flashing?), tearing away at his cage with sharp talons and a prickly heart. and now the thorns have come creeping up on him again, because now he’s chained and tossed in jail, never to be set free again. this is why you can never tame a wild bird, he says - they simply die in the clutches of soft touch.
on the other side of the bars - naruto’s face eerily lighted in the same way, except he’s got help of that unhealthy beacon of light called radioactive blond hair - and radioactive it is, it’s poisoning sasuke and his petroleum soul, making it so neon green he can’t rub it off like he can’t scrub the dirt from under his fingernails. (his mother’s voice drifts into his head - “sasuke, make sure you remember to wash under your fingernails, okay, sasuke?” a stab of tears to his eyes, but unlike his humanity, he never lets them go.) naruto looks only a little nervous, those blue eyes flickering to and fro, and he pulls off nonchalantly (or tries to, at least), “you broke my heart.” blunt. (seems like naruto’s prime choice of weapon, these days.)
“i’m not sorry. i’m never sorry. what did you expect me to say, really?” that he’d be your bitch and follow you out of this dark cell? sorry, not today kiddo.
naruto looks away, slick eyelashes shielding his shamed eyes. “i only meant…” he sighs and shakes his head. “i don’t know what i meant. i just thought you should know. me and sakura. we’re sad and lonely people, you forgot.”
“funny. i always thought the opposite.”
“did you ever know?”
“what?”
“that the paint is flaking away, and i can see what you are underneath.”
“…what?” this threw sasuke. naruto? he’s never spoken like this before. he’s always just joking around, but this time he’s got on a serious expression, devoid of the comical features that once garnished the edges of his face. “you’re not making any sense.” even though he is.
naruto sits there for a few minutes more, not saying a word, until he stands up, pats the dirt off his pants, and declares, hands in pockets, “you better give them what you want, or i’ll be back to see you.” and he walks sideways off the screen (because sasuke’s life is a regular vaudeville act), exit stage left into a curtain of sunlight sasuke can’t reach.
6.
in this dank, moldy, anguish-infested room, where time of day is irrelevant and the bearings of your heart are all that matters, sasuke is taken to at random intervals of the day and tortured.
and despite all their sundry depictions of candy-coated justice and fairness, sasuke can tell, from personal experience, that the torture is the worst thing in konoha. it’s much like itachi’s tsukiyomi (what a fateful source of inspiration, if so) because you are tied to a table shaped like cross, thin plastic tubes snaking and suffocating your skin, and pure terror is shot up through your veins, again and again, until you cry uncle and wave tattered white flags in defeat. right now sasuke looks likes like a fucking science experiment - and probably is - white paper tag on his toe and all. ibiki is wearing a surgical mask, and, looking like a beneficiary serial killer, emerges from the shadows of the room and leans down toward sasuke. “how are you doing?”
“com…pletely shitty.” it takes some effort for him to utter these words out, because the nightmares are still fucking with his brain.
“are you hungry?” ibiki inquires, almost like he’s a matronly nurse, and completely ignores the critical subject at hand: where the hell is madara, you back-stabbing motherfucker? and sasuke knows this, but he chooses to grit his teeth and ignore the mindgames.
“not…at all.”
“good.” he makes a informal wave of the hand, signaling to the silhouettes on the wall. “untie him and send him back.”
7.
“i told you so.”
rewind and repeat last week’s scene, except naruto is significantly more morose and sasuke a little bonier, and his eyes a little more hollowed.
“shut up.”
he shrugs. “tsunade really hates you, you know,” he says quietly.
“why wouldn’t she?”
“i told her that it wasn’t your fault. that you were doing a bunch of things you really just didn’t believe in, and you were caught up in everything.” he grabbed the cold steel bars. “do you understand, sasuke? i lied for you. i lied for you. at some point i thought i was lying to myself too, but when i realized that i really hated you too, it scared me, and all i wanted to do was to take a kunai to your face and mar your perfect skin.” his clutches grew tighter, squeezing all his fingerprints shut until they lay imprinted there forever. “scar you. scar you. i didn’t get the satisfaction when all there was were scratches squeaking against metal.”
sasuke looks down at his fingernails and started playing with the pale moons. “well, what the fuck am i supposed to say to that? i never apologize.”
naruto clenched his teeth together. “fuck you. fuck you,” he says with animalistic woes and fury, “fuck you.”
8.
“do you remember?”
this makes sasuke look up.
“remember what?”
“pre-departure, that we were best friends.”
sasuke laughs. “what do you mean? all we did was fuck around,” and he meant that quite literally at that.
“we were best friends.” he says it with such certainty that it almost does convince sasuke that he forgot.
“we were best friends. we loved each other. and i would’ve followed you wherever you went, except you went somewhere i couldn’t follow.” except now i sound like a main character of a shounen manga, and am trying to redeem the brooding antagonist with all the credibility of my soul.
sasuke looks away. “i do know,” he mutters quietly.
9.
the more naruto visits, the more frequent the visits to the torture rack.
ibiki, the bastard, has orchestrated the events so that they coincide, as if ghosts from the past would prompt any guilt-tripping or rusty feelings of national patriotism, but these are just figments of sasuke’s lingering judgment. in reality sasuke has gone blind (wait, really?) and can’t see his hands pressed against his face anymore. his fingers clutch desperately to his face, glued in restraints of rosy skin, and as he agonizes the loss of his eyesight, he feels the soft touch from naruto’s own hands move over his own.
“calm down.”
“get your fucking hands off me.”
naruto is brave or promiscuous, because he doesn’t. “do you want your eyesight back? i asked, do you want your eyesight back?”
sasuke only moans. the mangekyou cries.
10.
naruto is allowed to bring a sort of home remedy to the jail cell now, courtesy of sakura’s skills. he sets the glass carafe on the dusty floor and crosses his arms.
very authoritatively, he says, “before i let you drink this, i want to let you know something.”
sasuke grunts, in the midst of his own darkness, “go on.”
naruto continues, “i know.”
“know what?”
“i can see it in your face. the angry creases of determination that say, i’m going to get the fuck out of here someday. your eyebrows framing your hate. i’m going to get the fuck out of here, they say, and i don’t give a damn about anything else.”
sasuke rubs his eyes.
“when you drink this,” naruto says, “you will be able to see again. but you will never leave this place, and you will never see the light of day again. when you get your sight back, it won’t be much different from what it is now.”
sasuke lies down on his back.
“you will live in this place, and you will die in this place. well, let’s drink and toast, shall we? kanpai.”
kanpai. turns out, it is merely a mixture of warm bourbon and whiskey. all he needed to do was calm his nerves a bit. sasuke feels the thickness in his throat and the sharpness returns to his eyes, but not to his claws.
11.
on the torture rack, he has dreams that belie his nature.
[WHAT IS FEAR? IS IT THE THING THAT CRAWLS WITHIN US, THE REAL VAMPIRES OF LORE THAT SUCK OUR BLOOD, FEAST ON OUR GUTS, AND BARE THEIR WICKED TEETH?]
he wakes in a sweat, muscles twitching and flailing uselessly, only to be restrained by the metal ties, and ibiki (fuck) once again appears within his vision.
“what do you say, sasuke? give up? even if you die? even if you have to watch your parents die in front of you again? even if you cry again for your mommy, and you miss the way she brushes the hair from your face and calls you ‘honey, honey, honey’?”
sasuke knows he’s still lingering on that hard acid, because the words do not match ibiki’s lips at all. but he disregards it, closes his eyes, and murmurs, “never. never.”
12.
the one thing he remembers without pain is that naruto’s sweat smelled like rosewater. the more it lingered against his skin, the more sickeningly it stung sasuke’s nose.
eventually, sasuke would’ve turned away, opened the shades, and started putting his clothes back on.
13.
naruto’s a little slut, he realizes.
face pressed against the bars and carefree smile very simply plastered to his face, he says, “i’ve missed you.” like that’ll seduce the likes of sasuke. he only scoffs from his seat held fast at the wall.
“i’ll never leave this prison cell long enough to love you, naruto,” and “love” holds all kinds of naughty connotations that harken back to days with endless sunlight, streaming through unbarred windows.
naruto’s cheeks suddenly blossom with pink. “i only meant i’m…beginning to feel like i’m having normal conversations with you again.”
“oh, that’s a laugh. because talking to a murderer is much like everyday chatter.” (since when was he so cynical against himself? must be the neon green, seeping through and staining his otherwise white skin. forget the way naruto used to stain it so well.)
“you weren’t a killer when i knew you,” naruto states, and that cinches the deal closed. “you were a boy, i was only a boy, and…”
sasuke got down on his hands and knees, prayed for a little reverence, and crawled a bit closer to the bars.
“…when you left, i really hated you.”
a whisper. “i’m sorry.”
naruto’s hair covers his eyes, and he continues with a whisper in response - “i didn’t want to hate you.”
soft voices in the stagnant wind. “i’m sorry.”
“i love you.”
“i’m sorry.”
sasuke’s hands grazes against the darkness, reaches up, and rests on naruto’s cheek. “i’m sorry.” the more he says it, the more it empties from his mouth like chinking gold coins. “i’m sorry. i’m sorry.” quicker breaths, jerkier movements. sasuke tilts naruto’s chin up, sinks hungry fingertips for touch into the angled jawline, and fills his mouth with the taste of naruto’s lips, sweet like rosewater yet stinging from the salt of the sea - because naruto is only turbulent waves skipping quietly in your hands, and he grabs at the loose shirt covering his hips, for some closure…
the only victim and witness are the metal bars, standing obstinately between.
-
fin.