[Fanfic] To Live a Dream
Title: To Live a Dream
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: T
Pairing: Sasuke and Naruto
Notes: Post chapter 693. Posted in Ao3 and FFnet
Crimson eyes trail his movements across the room.
Nails click in sync with his footsteps on the cold, concrete floor. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
Sasuke regards the dripping bag before him. Rolls his shoulder a little to relieve some tension he builds up with each sluggishly slow day.
Always tense.
He pivots to regard the corner of his office where a coiled form sat. Hears a telltale growl, feels the low tune stir the hairs on his arm and raise the anticipation that's been dormant for weeks.
He feels the pull of the sharingan rapidly spinning. Basks in the chakra responding, fluctuating, flinching from his own. Air stills, moves like a heat wave of monstrous chakra versus monstrous chakra. It is hard to breathe, but Sasuke resists the urge to lick his lips, to smirk at it all. The fire in his gut is so familiar, almost painful in it's strength.
But the sharingan's contractions quiet and still as the opposing chakra ebbs and a blond head bows with shoulders tense, movements stilted.
Sasuke thinks he relishes the power. The way a tanned shoulder slopes in defiant obedience, spine still rod straight as he bowed. All without a word.
The deafening quiet.
He throws a "tch" at nothing and resumes perusing the content of the bag staining his pristine desk.
The sharingan shows him the head is truth. Unmistakable truth.
The bulbous nose is bruised and almost split to oblivion. The rest of the head grossly mangled and covered in slashes, denoting pure, sadistic enjoyment.
Sasuke makes a mental note to deal with whomever had hunted Onoki. He has no need for a psychopath.
A bark of laughter before he could stop himself.
He remembers the old man staring him down despite his short statute. Defying Sasuke's order to stand down or suffer the consequences.
He remembers the older man spiting disgusting confidence and reminding him of too much. All too much.
The urge to chuck the useless trophy at the other boy is strong. Naruto would be disgusted, bewildered, hurt.
Furious.
Blond hair sways as the head rises slightly. Red, sharingan overlaid eyes regard him, still in a prone position. Predatory eyes filled with pure hate watching. Always waiting.
Naruto would be.
But he is long gone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sakura is the first elite konoha ninja to crack, one night after the second month of his reign. He expected as much, especially with the hope still shining in her eyes the day he'd captured her group.
She enters his public office, shabby around the edges, but oh so certain. Her green eyes vibrant and determined, though lined with dark sleep deficiency. She'd worn the clothes Sasuke had sent down to the dungeons. It's a perfect mimic of her genin clothes, down to the family crest on the back. Her smile haltingly pointed his way.
Sasuke knows she is ready to stab him in the back. In her mind she would heroically heal him. To love him into submission.
Or stop him with her inhuman strength, to release him from the world.
All because she loves him.
He scoffs.
Listens to her blabber on about helping him build a better system. Her bureaucratic experience with the Hokage and how much she could personally help him.
He needs nothing of what she offers.
He has everything he wants.
But she is the first konoha ninja that mattered. She is a batchmate and someone with plenty of sway with the other elites. Her presence alone would reassure them, give them a false sense of control over him.
He could deal with her betrayal. Easily.
Sasuke leads her to the other office. The one where all meaningful businesses occurred. It is on the opposite side of the building, separated by rooms and rooms of emptiness. He doesn't need to look to see her following him, still full of determination and purpose.
Sasuke opens the door with a thrill coursing his spine. Looks straight ahead and lays her down on the stained desk without so much as a look at that corner. Her cheeks color and it feels like he's swallowing delightful ash. It makes him smile with some teeth that probably drops the bottom of her resolve and ignites lust long ignored.
Was it nostalgia that makes her blush?
He gives her another smile. Gives her that much for her determination, before starting to peel each and every piece of her clothing with all the care he didn't feel.
The rose coloring her cheeks travels down her skin, following his pale fingers as he feels all the different curves and softness he had always disregarded.
Sasuke lifts his head away from the nipple he'd been trying, and failing, to enjoy. His eyes seek a familiar form in the dark.
Not-Naruto stares blankly at them. No recognition or emotion registering on his too bare face. He is like a bronzed statue with dark red eyes reflecting what little light comes through the office's barred and warded windows.
He stares and stares with hardly a twitch. Chest moving slightly with breath, eyes blinking in regular, exact intervals. Not-Naruto stares.
Full of nothing and everything Sasuke needs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The second elite Konoha ninja to swear to him is of no consequence. Sasuke doesn't remember who, only that Suigetsu appeared in between the meeting to mention a disturbing sound coming from his other office.
Something in him twists, uncomfortable and heavy. It yells 'he is fighting' while another part of him hisses 'he is fighting'.
Sasuke drops all the paperwork he's inspecting, the names he'd prepared to form his new governing leaders. His haphazard movement throws a scroll against the inkwell, splashes black ruin over another scroll he'd been working on for days.
He spares it a glance, hears Suigetsu start his name, before he strides past his right hand man, past the unknown traitor and the work he must do.
The other office is far, far away. Footsteps upon footsteps away.
Sasuke hurries without hurrying. It would be unbecoming to rush in his own domain.
The door is the same as always, nondescript and functional. But..
The smell of something burning is alarming. The smell of burned flesh and hair is even worse.
He opens the door and knows the worst.
The ward on the westward window is scorched.
Across the room, splayed on the stained desk thrown to the wall by sheer preventive power, a still form covered in backlash burns and dripping red, angry slices.
~~~~~~~
The wards are used up and ruined. Burned on the windows, inerasable without replacing walls and boards.
Sasuke chooses another room for that office. One with an attached room, big enough for a bed. And windows covered in weaker wards.
Before he moves the office to the other room, Sasuke orders Karin to clean and treat the unconscious boy. All under his alert eyes.
He watches as each of her actions uncover fresh wounds, impossibly unhealed. Her applied chakra healing backfires when it touches the tanned boy's skin, cutting little fissures on her smooth fingers. She switches to a different spot and earns the same reward.
"Guess we're going to go the natural way, Sasuke-kun," Karin grimaces and Sasuke dismisses her. Before she forgets her purpose and uselessly gushes over him.
Sasuke hefts the dead weight in his arms and hates the clamminess he feels against his skin.
Naruto breathes, but doesn't stir. Still smelling of burnt flesh and blood.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sasuke thinks he's going blind and senile at once.
Once in a while his vision blurs as he feels a burn at his center. All his previous thoughts fizzle out and stop as his mind supplies pictures of pale fingers touching, tenderly touching, a tanned neck, a tanned cheek.
Images of a tanned shoulder inches from his nose.
The smell too.
Much more pungent than he's used to smelling.
Images then he's back doing something. More paperwork and planning. So much planning in all the silence.
Naruto breathes, but doesn't stir.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
By the fifth day of quiet, Sasuke vows to find the person responsible.
He doesn't remember who had laid the seals for the wards and more than likely he'd given the duty to Juugo or Suigetsu to overlook.
But there must be a paper trail to who or how.
There must.
But he finds none, so he tracks down his subordinates in the training ground. Takes all the information they can supply. They regard him with raised and furrowed brows, but ask no questions.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura calls out to him, somewhere behind his left. He looks, but doesn't turn to her. Waits while he processes the information he'd gained.
She'd clearly been training. Her hair is flat and darker with sweat, her skin flushed with exertion.
Her stomach is flat with fitness. All lean muscle under her almost skin-tight training clothes.
"Are you okay, Sasuke-kun?" She seems okay and settled. Sasuke could even call it happy.
But Sasuke knows she is a traitor. A betrayer.
He 'hns' at her, but gives a nod. Doesn't give her enough time to talk before he poofs back to his room, rummages his desk to assemble a couple of weapons and paraphernalia.
His glance slides to the right. To the opened door and what's within.
Sasuke shoves a few packs of ryo in the hidden compartments of his kimono. Packs a little more to stand beside the weapons.
Sasuke softly closes the door after one last glance.
Naruto breathes and breathes.
~~~~~~~~~~
The hunt takes only hours, but all for nothing. Of course the man is dead.
Sasuke surveys the old man's ruined shack and the telltale signs of a struggle past the opened thin door. He could already smell the old, familiarly old, blood that's waiting within.
No doubt a victim of criminals exploiting the lack of government figures in Konoha.
It is an aspect that didn't fully cross Sasuke's mind until now.
With Tsunade in hiding and her anbu guards in tow, no one dared to gather and protect the population from common criminals. All, but the few groups his subordinates had captured, hid in fear and hate.
He feels another twist somewhere, a burning at the base of his throat.
His vision blurs and, again, he sees pale fingers stroke a slight, but steadily rising and falling collarbone.
The heat of a body comfortably close.
Blond hair irritating his cheeks.
And he snaps out of it as he hovers in front of a desk strewn with scrolls upon scrolls of unknown material.
All of it looks like gibberish, chicken scratches and scribbles. He knows each stroke is purpose-filled and specific, but it is all nonsense.
Sasuke makes a sound from the depths of his throat.
He grabs a couple of the cleaner looking scrolls. Slams the door shut, hard enough to shake the whole shack. Maybe destroy the whole house if he tried again.
The sharingan swirls and pulls.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Dude, Sasuke, you don't look too good," Suigetsu greets him from the desk chair in his office. Sharp teeth bared in a wide, pleased grin.
Sasuke doesn't remember stationing him to watch and it sends the sharingan spinning, his stance lowering into something. To hurt and disable.
"Guh," Suigetsu stands ramrod straight, backs up from the desk and scratches the back of his head, "I was just checking if your friend is still okay. You didn't tell use how long you'd stay out."
A too familiar gesture.
"He is not my friend," The sharingan spins even faster.
Suigetsu smiles that nothing, all too familiar, smile, "God, you're so weird."
A blink of red and Sasuke relishes the water sliding between his fingertips from the white haired boy's ruined hand. Hand defensively raised in front of his surprised face.
Sasuke straightens and lowers his arm, marching past his subordinate to the door waiting, looming.
"Damn," The other teenager shoots Sasuke a glare he feels burning right between his shoulder blades. "Something's really wrong with you, Uchiha."
"No one enters this room," Sasuke says without a look back, cold doorknob cooling his head.
"Whatever you say," He hears 'dickwad' mumbled as footsteps leave and another door closes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The room is as he left it. Minimal and functioning. A light and a bed.
The bed, just as he remembers. Not a single wrinkle or fold out of place.
Sasuke stands over the foot of the bed and Naruto is just as still as before. Chest rhythmically moving in, breath by quiet breath. He considers forcing a Hyuuga to scan for anomalies. For damage wrought by the wards.
Blond hair glows from a ray of sun creeping from the window. Sways a little from a gentle breeze.
Perhaps bring Sakura to heal the wounds that still peppers the tanned skin before him. Perhaps she would be able to heal her friend and herself in tandem.
Naruto's chest rises and falls. The movement pulls at red scab edges, shifts bandages.
The scrolls he'd collected are heavy.
The silence is even heavier.
~~~~~~~~~
Sasuke is always tired.
But it is of no consequence. No world has ever been built without a few sacrifices.
Naruto's breathing dominates the blankness of the room.
The soft bed is welcoming, cool sheets beckoning, enveloping his knees in warmth.
The sharingan sees every detail.
He is always so, so cold.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Sasuke dreams.
His brother's calm, soothing assurances. His mother's lilting, muffled titter. His father's grumbles. Blood in their smiles, pride and disappointment flitting back and forth in their eyes.
A community of black and white buildings, all nondescript sameness.
Murmurs full of malice and intent.
Of tense air and clan members. Poisonous, whispered demands.
The surroundings shift and the world falls from beneath his feet.
Sasuke feels grass under his back and hears carefree laughter. Sees the blue, blue sky.
Warmth on his skin from too much sunlight and exertion.
More laughter and bright, bared teeth. Bitten and chapped lips wide open and smiling. Yellow swaying in the energized breeze. Lively sounds all around him, indistinct, but the lively, rejoicing, laughter.
The feeling of camaraderie pulses in his veins.
Fingers tingling, itching to move and...
Something.
Childish taunts and indulgent retorts.
Sasuke grasps at the sun shining up above, slightly hidden by drifting clouds. Closes his fist in hopes.
Sasuke dreams.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
His eyes flutter open, slightly crusted with sleep. His vision is still blurry, staring at a flesh-toned blob right under his nose.
Sasuke feels rested, refreshed. In spirits higher than he's ever been.
His forehead is warm as he rubs it against the object it rests on.
He takes a deep lung full of air. Feels displeasure at the burnt smell, but disregards it in favor of the stronger, comfortable familiarity.
He is in a stiffly curled position, body touching nothing besides his warm, warm forehead. His left arm is numb from his awkward position, his right sore. Something tugs at the corners of his mouth and in his chest.
The bone deep weariness feels miles away, distant and unimportant. The urge to stretch is strong. The urge to stay still and relax, stronger.
Sasuke should worry for the blurriness still haloing his normal vision.
But the peaceful stillness is everything.
"Mgh," Naruto twitches.
Sasuke bolts upright and watches as blue eyes slowly open. Dark navy haze sluggishly clearing into vibrant sky.
"Sas-" Naruto's voice cracks, husky dry and full of questions.
The sharingan activates, its swirling echo his thundering heart.
Blue eyes bleed to red. Shutters close.
Sasuke's throat constricts.
Squeezing.
~~~~~~~~~~
The sharingan is the problem, Sasuke concludes.
He tests the blond's reactions for a couple of days by dispelling and activating it at random intervals. All while he stares and notices and hates.
Naruto wakens every time the sharingan sleeps. Naruto falters every time the sharingan stabilizes.
His chest tightens the short seconds he chances to see blue eyes open. Feels congested and heavy when the sharingan flashes not long after.
But the sharingan is necessary. To cage the tailed beasts and the unbendable will resting on the bed. It is the center of his plan to reform the world. The shield and weapon to combat the corruption.
He knows a way to stop using his clan's legacy. To still have the power and control without triggering his eyes.
It would change everything. Increase the risk.
It is the only solution.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Under the light of a full moon. Sasuke gently pries open a pair of tanned eyelids and stays them in place with medical strips, uncovering a pair of dilated, sharingan affected eyes. Not even the bright moonlight rousing the blond from his trance.
Sasuke straddles the still form on the bed, his knees on each side of a slim waist, face hovering over Naruto's face. Their shadows are uncomfortably incriminating, but direct eye contact in this position is best way possible.
Sitting up would be easier, but one of them would be on the other's lap.
He could tie the teen standing up, but too much effort for a short operation.
Both options disturb something in him.
He focuses on those listless eyes, activating the sharingan more and more until he feels himself sinking into a consciousness not his own. Deeper and deeper in the darkness, until his feet touch cold, wet ground.
The walls vibrate from rumbles echoing in the cavernous space. A metronomic crashing, no doubt from Kyuubi's swishing tails thudding against it's cage.
The cage is not his goal, but Sasuke steps closer anyway. He needs to assess the problem, even if he doesn't mean to fix it.
The first detail he sees that doesn't belong is a series of chains surrounding the cage, which itself looks different from Sasuke's first visit. The cage is much closer to the beast, oppressively close, with barely a space for it to move. Unlike before, its bars are covered in flowing wards that Sasuke understands only in bits. The chains, the darkest crimson red, twists and meanders around the cage until it meets within the cage, to circle around the beast's neck.
Even from a distance, Sasuke could see the strain on it's neck, the tightness of chains pulled to choking. But, despite this, the Kyuubi laid quiet as it stared at him with no reaction. Sasuke moves an arm to catch the demon's attention, but receives no response. Not a twitch on it's nonreactive eyes, not an irregularly timed strike of a tail against the cage side.
Without the cage, the chains would have some slack for the demon to function.
The chains clink and slither, winding slightly tighter.
The sharingan's control in a physical form. He knows it in his bone.
Unyielding. Merciless.
There is no way for him to fix the situation. Deactivating the sharingan would let the demon function in it's packed cage, but activating the sharingan is the only way to see and disarm the ward-laden cage imbedded in Naruto's subconscious.
The Kyuubi is a sunk loss, but he has eight others to pick up the slack.
Sasuke turns to observe the walls and corridors surrounding the cage. Seeks out the most lively feeling direction, where he could accomplish his goal. Finds the tug of consciousness to the west.
The liquid beneath his feet is different. Much more viscous, darker, slipperier than he remembers. Almost feels like resistance as he heads west.
The liquid is up to his knees by the time he reaches a wall of unlabeled doors, identical to the next.
He plans on sealing most of them, but first he needs to form a room with the reality he approves. To bridge the gaps Sasuke plans to make.
He touches the wall and wills it to form a door. Pushes his all in creating the one thing that will be his.
The liquid swirls and drags him in the new space. Pure white walls, pure white floors.
Waiting for him to touch. To create.
A room full of childhood wishes and hopes.
A room full of memories without dark events that mar and taint.
A room full of teen trysts, meeting in far-off unmemorable ramen stands after their separate personal training.
A room of shared memories. All created for him.
He still doesn't know where Naruto's conscious is hiding.
Sasuke feels the strain of the sharingan. A flaring around his eye sockets that intensifies with each pulse. His chakra is depleting much faster than he'd planned.
The room he created is incomplete, still so much to fabricate. It will have to do.
Naruto will have double memories for now, but Sasuke knows it could easily be deflected as dreams and nightmares. Naruto is a simpleton.
It will work.
But first, he turns to the last door and seals it without checking what lays within. It would contain Kaguya's defeat and their seamless teamwork, after years of separation. It would also contain his resolve and the other Uchiha men.
The Kyuubi fighting his control, struggling as the sharingan dug deeper and deeper.
Hands squeezing a tanned neck.
All unnecessary details.
A scream throws Sasuke all the way to Kyuubi's prison. Up and up and up. Further and further into the light.
The scream repeats, louder and longer. Raises the hair at the back of his neck.
A child's scream full of anguish and grief.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sasuke gasps and jerks to consciousness, eyes burning hot. There's a trail of warmth on his cheeks.
His vision is worse than before. His peripherals almost a mess of indistinct colors.
The only clear image in the middle of his sight.
Naruto blinks, once, twice. Blue eyes regard him with a puzzled frown, no doubt for their position, before smiling.
A smile full of everything.