Nine Lives
Chapter 4
By BluWhispers
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor anything else created by Masashi Kishimoto.
Warning: This is a YAOI fic. Meaning GUY loves GUY, possibly GUY kiss GUY, and if this was a lemon fic it'd be GUY bang GUY. If homosexual love does not appeal to you, don't read this. You have been warned. Flames will NOT be appreciated and will definitely be ignored. Constructive criticism is always welcome though.
A/N: THANK YOU to all who reviewed and stuck by me and convinced me to push on! Myinukoi, you're the cat's pyjamas! And black heart kitten, thank you for your compliments! Naru-Kyou, you've convinced me to continue, and I'm glad you like my work. Thank you all for taking the time to leave little footprints on my beach!
Summary: Angst. With a drama queen Sasuke. NOT a death fic (depends on how you define that, though). SasuNaru, KakaIru, and others. Sasuke POV.
Flashback
Sakura was missing. She had left to accompany a team carrying a high-value artifact back from Earth. She had been due12 hours ago.
I'd been walking back from the ramen stall with Naruto, enduring the odd looks from the elderly and barely stifled squeals from our fan-club at our clasped hands. We'd come across Lee and Neji and a messenger, and then Kakashi and Shikamaru had appeared, talking Shogi.
There had been an attack, and the team had not been ready. The messenger had come from the Hokage's office, and even the Hokage herself was grasping at straws here, trying to figure out what went wrong. As per Standard Operating Procedure however, a search party would only be sent out if a party was more than 24 hours behind schedule.
The look on Lee's face was one I would never want to see on anyone. Not utter hopelessness, not desolation, coz those I could deal with, HAD dealt with myself. No, he simply shut down completely. It shocked me, because we've all had psychological training, we've all been taught to handle our emotions. You can't have a ninja freaking out on a battlefield. But Lee, with his glassy eyes and blank, slack face was disturbing.
Naruto was trying to comfort him, saying that a search party would be out soon, that Sakura was the best at what she did and that she'd definitely be OK.
Lee turned to face him, and I could see Naruto recoil in horror.
"But she can't be missing," Lee said, smiling a blank, vacant smile. "Her dinner's ready." (1)
I'd started shaking, thinking. What if it had been Naruto missing? Would I be the same as Lee, going crazy, refusing to accept the facts?
Next thing I know, the forest is around me, and I'm running, sprinting through the trees, letting instinct guide me. I don't know where Sakura is, I don't know which direction the team was coming from, I'm just scrambling to prove to myself that even though fate seems set on pulling two people apart, there are always happy endings. Maybe I AM a dreamer, but I can't accept the fact that someone you care for so deeply can be snatched away from you with a simple ambush.
Without turning, I know that Neji's by my side, Byakugan activated. He, too, has something to prove to himself. After everything he's been through, he wants to believe that if ever TenTen was late home, she would still be alive and in one piece when she DID get back.
So we run, twin geniuses, possessors of the two most powerful doujutsus in the world. We stumble upon the team, and they are dead, in pieces. I start shaking, the rant in my head won't stop, telling me that happiness isn't meant for us, that there is a reason why most ninja don't marry, don't get attached.
Neji nudges me, heads off to the cliff. I walk with him, afraid, trembling, yet wanting, NEEDING to know. We climb down a short way, and there is Sakura, in a little overhang under the cliff, huddled in a tiny ball. It's faint, but I can feel her chakra. She's alive, but barely.
We carry her up onto the shelf, pry her body into a reclining position. She relaxes instinctively when I touch her, she knows my chakra well. She's hiding the artifact, protecting it in her bloodied embrace. I wince at the wounds I see. She won't last the trip home.
I've copied Sakura's medical jutsu before, but I know only the movements, the patterns. I don't know the chakra flow, the chakra points, beyond what we all learn in class and on the field. Thank God for Neji, with his Byakugan. He doesn't know the moves, true, but he knows the way the chakra transfers.
With him crouched next to me, his voice as calm as ever but laced with fear and desperation, we set to work. We don't have much time, and we were careless in securing the parameter. If no backup arrived soon and the attackers returned, we'd be sitting ducks, trapped as my chakra is with Sakura's healing.
Bit by bit we mend her broken bones, seal her punctured and crushed organs. My hands are shaking, my vision's blurry, and I think I'm going crazy coz Sakura's hair is becoming shorter and blonder, and her face is becoming more angular, the streaks of blood on her face narrowing and refining themselves into whiskers…
Neji's hands on my shoulders shaking me bring me back to reality. Hastily, sloppily, we patch her as best we can, and bring her back to Konoha.
I don't remember much. Only that the sterile smell of the hospital was a stark difference from the bloody, metallic tang of the woody forest. People around me became streaks of white and grey and faces that were all distorted.
Naruto is bathing me, his hands gentle on my skin, wiping away any traces of Sakura's blood. Afterwards he dries us off, and guides me to the bed.
I move suddenly, holding him, gripping tight. He gasps for air, but I don't let go.
After awhile, I loosen my hold enough for him to pull back, which he does. He touches my face, his calloused palm gently cradling my cheek. I'm drowning in his eyes, but I don't care. I just want to immerse myself in him tonight, in everything that is him. He can see it in my eyes, I think.
When we finally lie sated, the sun is high in the sky. We should be at training, but I can't leave him. He turns to face me, cups my face. I can't remember if we kissed tonight, I don't think we did. I don't think I can handle it, not this intimacy, not this romance.
He looks like he's about to speak, about to try and console me. But I put my finger on his lips, and he looks confused.
Silence is golden, my eyes tell him. Don't spoil this.
I don't need to add the please.
He nods, understanding, or trying to understand the inner workings of a tumultuous mind. I drive into him hard, without warning, and he arches, a silent cry escaping his open lips. Uncaring, heedless, needful, I take him over and over and over, until the sun is setting, and the air is cool.
I fall into an uneasy sleep immediately, and I dream of finding Naruto in that overhang, bloodied, broken, bruised. I wake at midnight, and Naruto is asleep next to me, holding me tight.
A pigeon is at the window.
I extricate myself easily, and am in Tsunade's office in 10 minutes. A mission, she tells me, her face serious. My mask is on, the mask of a cat. I glance sideways, and an almost identical mask stares back at me. Neji and I will go to hunt down Sakura's attackers.
I don't come back for a month, and I am glad for the time away from Naruto. It helps me build my walls back up, helps me hide the fear again. I suspect Neji feels the same. We don't talk about it, but we know it's there, like stains on a mattress. (2)
I return at midnight, and it almost seems like I've never left. Naruto is curled around an imaginary me, and the sight undoes me. I slip into bed unwashed, bloody and filthy, just needing him and his touch. He wakes, smiles sleepily, knowing it's me.
This time I kiss him.
End Flashback
This time when I wake up, everything's quiet. I half-tense, waiting for the pain, expecting it to rush out and slam me into the abyss just like every other time. But nothing comes. Just the silent beeping of the myriad machines I'm attached to, and the slow, deep breaths of someone next to me. Someone who's holding my hand so gently, yet so desperately.
I try to turn to see him, I know it's him. But I can't move, I can't even squeeze his hand. What the fuck is the use of an emergency button if I can't press it, dammit?
The effort spent trying to turn has worn me out, so I close my eyes and focus. I breathe out, realize that the tubes in my nostrils go down to my lungs. It should be uncomfortable, but I'm numb.
Naruto…
As if hearing my thought, dobe stirs. He raises his head slowly, lethargically, shifting his body back against the uncomfortable plastic chair that hospitals always provide loved ones of victims. His grip on my hand never loosens though.
I can tell the moment he sees I'm awake, aware. His breathing quickens, he doesn't dare believe it. The hand holding mine falters.
Then his face is before me, and I wish I could smile coz he looks like a constipated monkey, face screwed up with disbelief and joy and hope and glorious glorious love.
He runs to the door, slams it open, screams for the dead to hear and the living to cringe.
At least that's what I think he does. With mounting horror, I realize that I can't hear anything.
I start to panic. I miss his hand on mine.
They crowd around me, crows picking on a bleeding carcass. Tears falling on my face, it's Kakashi and I think he's crying coz there's blood flowing from below his forehead protector onto my cheek. Or where I think my cheek should be.
Kakashi's holding something in front of me now, and thank God everyone's backed off. I can't deal with all this at once.
Your chakra-system was completely disabled. You won't be able to hear, speak, feel or move properly for awhile. Don't worry, Tsunade and Sakura are working on it, and the Hyuuga house has sent representatives to help.
Kakashi's handwriting has improved at least. I'm distracting myself from the reality, I know. Completely disabled chakra-system? But that only happens…
I can see the answer in Kakashi's eye. He would never lie to me about something like this, he would never even attempt to.
Naruto's face fills my vision again, and I think he kissed me, but I could be wrong. I feel like a lifeless marionette, just a husk, a soul too small for the container. Ineffectual, useless, weak.
I black out.
Flashback
It was Iruka's fault, really. He'd somehow turned my surrogate father into a family man, a responsible husband, and a walking Hallmark card.
We were going to the famous rose-gardens for Valentine's Day. I'd refused of course, but Naruto has his ways.
I wasn't too happy about it, coz in my head I'd planned a nice, steamy evening with dobe. Nothing romantic, nothing sweet. I'm not as sensitive as Kakashi or the others.
As we walked to the gardens, Naruto was bubbling with excitement, firmly attached to my arm. If I wasn't so worried about my sanity, I'd have smirked at his possessiveness.
We get there, and instantly I crack up. TenTen's managed to drag Neji here as well, and he looks like he understands my pain. I catch his eye, signal him. He inclines his head slightly in response.
I sneak away from Naruto easily, he's busy being a social butterfly. Neji's getaway is slick as well, while TenTen is distracted by Temari.
We meet behind a crumbling wall, and I reach into my jacket, pull out a snifter of whisky, a pack of cigarettes. Neji takes out an identical snifter of bourbon, and a lighter. We sit in shared misery until Shikamaru comes to join us. We snicker as we hear Sakura and Lee express their love to each other.
Shikamaru has some very fine sake.
Kakashi's there, all of a sudden. By his stance and aura alone, Shikamaru and Neji know better than to hang around. Bastards. They abandon me to my god-father.
He sits next to me, helps himself to a cigarette from my pack, drinks the rest of the sake that Shikamaru left behind in his haste.
"Life is like a cigarette, Sasuke." (3) The aging silver-haired ninja looks off into the distance, his voice melancholy. "Before you're stubbed out, you should know what you should do."
He leaves, and I realize that my pack of cigarettes is empty. Damned copy-nin.
I get up, look for Naruto. He's sitting on the side of a fountain, the lady in the middle is pouring water onto a pool of rose petals. He looks sad.
I sneak up, put my arms around him. He starts, relaxes into my embrace. He doesn't ask where I was, he can smell the nicotine and alcohol on me.
We just sit for awhile, as the world moves around us. Naruto seems content to lie against me.
"I love you."
I am stunned speechless. Dobe has said it to me before, but always in the heat of the moment, a passionate outburst more than an expression of true sentiment.
He doesn't turn to look at me, afraid. He's crossed a line with me, saying that. Or maybe I just need to figure out exactly what I want from him.
We don't talk the rest of the night, and I leave for a mission the next day while he sleeps off the exertion from the night before.
I leave a flower on the pillow next to him, a rose that hasn't yet bloomed.
End Flashback
Sometimes I wonder if I live too much in my fantasy world. Coz when things in real life don't seem to echo those in the dramatic world of cinema, I think that some thing's amiss, something's off. Like when a momentous decision is made, if there are no fireworks, no grand soundtrack, I think that the decision isn't that momentous after all, or worse that it's the WRONG decision.
But now I've made a decision, I'm gonna stick to it. I'm gonna tear down these walls of mine, this fantasy I've created, this waking dream. I'm gonna shine the light onto my abyss, free myself, break out of my chains and thorns, destroy these guns and roses. And I'm gonna be free at last, free to see the world, free to be who I wanna be.
And I realize that all this time it's been me who's holding myself back, I'M the one who's been forcing myself to be someone else, someone I'm not. That whenever I accused others of forcing me to be something I'm not I was actually yelling at myself, coz I always wanted to be like those characters I read about in books, those characters on the silver screen, in the video games…those people who, no matter what, no matter that they were fucked up or crazy, always managed to have a happy ending. Somehow, some way, whenever they wanted something, they'd get it.
Take the classic case of the heartless mercenary, who upon meeting the golden hope, immediately thawed out and became a normal person. PLEASE. That DOESN'T happen in real life, let me assure you. Because I'M the heartless mercenary. And golden hope's been trying to get through to me for so long, but I've just kept breaking his heart. Is life a sad drama? Are happy endings just for stories that aren't finished yet? I really wonder.
But regardless, I'm determined not to hide behind masks and mirrors and smoke, not to pull on personas from books and anime, not to imitate what I've seen. I'm now gonna be free to be myself, coz as long as I'm alive, tomorrow's another day. I've still got a fighting chance if I'm alive. And Itachi says that no one cares much about me now, so I should MAKE them all care like crazy for me. But since they'll be able to see straight through any pretenses, why bother pretending? Isn't it better to be loved as yourself? To be cherished for whom you are?
Or would I rather spend the rest of my life knowing that the person they all care for doesn't exist, that they don't even KNOW me as I truly am? Forget the saying that once you've been a face for so long, that face is you. It doesn't work that way. A tiger never changes its stripes. I can't change who I truly am. So start showing it to the world, show them the real me, show them the me that God created. If they can't accept it, at least I know I was truthful and I knew their true opinion.
At least TRUTH is in my life. And that's enough for God. Lying to myself and deceiving others won't put me in a very appealing light in Heaven's waiting list. Question is, am I ready to step out of the illusion and into reality, without my masks, stripped bare of pretenses?
"I'm ready if you are, Sasuke." Naruto smiles at me and the burnished gold of sunset shines around him. He holds out a hand to me, and I think that never in history has so much thinking gone into a simple act of leaving the hospital.
Never in my history have I been so afraid though.
We leave together, him pushing me along in a wheelchair. I might have recovered, but the doctors say that the slightest exertion and it's the ICU for me. I have to rest for at least two weeks.
That means two weeks of too much thinking, and self-berating walks down memory lane.
We make our way home, and I find that the others who live in my compound have attempted a parody of a celebration. Lee's kanji sucks.
The radio's playing, the atmosphere's somber and hushed. They don't want to admit to what I've done, don't want to face the reality. I ran away, again. I broke parole, I broke promises, I nearly broke Naruto's heart.
I broke something else too, and I don't think it'll ever be fixed.
When you try your
best but you don't succeed And the tears come streaming down your face Lights will guide you
home And
high up above or down below Lights will guide you home Tears stream down your face Tears stream down your face Lights will guide you home
When you get what you want but not
what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck
in reverse
When
you lose something you cannot replace
When you love someone but
it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth
And ignite your bones
And
I will try to fix you
When
you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I
I promise you I
will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I
And ignite your bones
And
I will try to fix you.
Forget it, Naruto. It's all lost to us now.
A/N: (1) A line taken from the ending of the book "Of a Boy". Forgotten the author's name, but it was a good read.
(2) Atley Jackson's line to Memphis Raines, in Gone in 60 seconds.
(3) A line from an old Gensomaden Saiyuki episode.
(4) "Fix You" by Coldplay.