The air is still. Dust flakes dance, permeating, as the cones of light coming through sturdy shutters become their spotlight.
He focuses on a speck for what feels like an eternity, until it disappears somewhere between the event horizon of the sun and its overbearing shadow. Steady drumming turns to an intrusive pulse. It courses throughout. He's drowning on dry land. Muffled air carries the sound of an archaic clock hand.
For a second he's back there; confined against grainy sheets, cold stone slabs underneath his feet, dingy air and deafening silence. Whirls on the walls, the barely-there lighting - like everything is a secret - and the winding halls, lodged in time and forgotten. He can't hear the clock clearly; even after trying to shift his focus to it. For some inexplicable reason, in opposition to himself, this imperfection does not irk him. He realizes that his friend has won over him in more ways than one.
It's perhaps a first in his life, being able to "give up"; his mouth tries to smile, and fails. His jaw aches where the bruises have been left in the wake of his friend's determination. Because isn't Naruto the one who's in the endless business of "never giving up"?
He thinks his neck won't let him because the movement is worse than imagined; even so, he skews his head port to the pile of pillows and covers baked in medical green illuminated by the sun. Even here the light seeks Naruto. All he finds is shadows for himself.
The picture fits.
A tuft of blonde shapes a blinding halo. His friend is facing the opposite direction, his body contorted in ways he doesn't find particularly comfortable. He thinks he owes everything to this man. If he's being completely transparent, Sasuke is ready to live a life of endless recompense, just as he has so far led a life of never-ending rage. Because it's just like him to take things to the extremes.
On that fateful day, observing through foggy eyes and exhaustion, uttering words of apology for anything and everything, Sasuke was overwhelmed by a great feeling of remorse and longing. It slammed into him all at once; as if all this time he's the one having been in a genjutsu and somehow broken through, accompanied by an unbearable manifestation of reality; even more so as he followed abundant tears seeping down fond cheeks, fused eyelashes and eyes swimming through the ferocity - they haven't given up on him.
As if the past two and a half years were spent in a fraction of the time, in jest and familial bickering. As if he wasn't ruining their lives with every passing second.
Even then, the tears were only for him. They've never given up on whatever they saw, looking through a mirage he carefully put up. What did they see? For all of his innate gift, the continuum of generations, he was unable to perceive what they had. He cleaved off Naruto's arm fighting for his version of the world. He doesn't know what would've happened to Sakura had he not cast that betraying genjutsu; experience tells him he would be grieving anew.
All at once he's immensely grateful and spiteful. It's a contrast that he's afraid to tackle, but he can't stop himself. Because that reality was a possibility, he thinks back to the Land of Iron and that damned bridge with venomous disquiet.
He feels an intrusive static in his limb.
What was it all for, this constant torment? Is the only way for him to find peace paying hefty prices and burning everything to nothing? Is peace even available for someone who deals in tragedy? Would he ever be content with any decision in his life? He wonders if this existence is any life at all. The weight of remorse presses on his chest - who is he to live such a life when his ilk had more right to than he ever will? It's as if he's spitting on their legacy, even if he filtered everything he did through vengeance. Because in the face of finality he will always be trudging through shifting sands, first tearing then rebuilding, nevertheless failing to construct anything of substance; a Sisyphean undertaking he feels is apt. He has only himself to blame. All at once, enervation corrodes through him. He's tired of existing. Contrary to the stance of his found family, he surmises that he is not worth it.
Needles stab at his side. He's cusping it before he realizes, sudden movement stabbing at all points of his body, trying and failing to soothe his flaring left arm. The mattress creaks with every wince and he tries to take measured breaths. Somewhere to his right a machine lets out loud rhythmic cries.
There's nothing. His primary limb is gone, replaced by vacant space and the above is marred with angry strokes looking too much alike to the walls by which he was encased. He's never had a choice, he realizes. He's invariably holding onto remains. Living lifetimes behind anyone else; ever since he tasted ash in his mouth and vowed that fury is the ambrosia of shinobi. His bloodline flares in color and his skull is a supernova. He thinks he can't breathe. The grip strangles his flesh. An egg-shell popcorn ceiling stares back.
There's a gust of air and he notices - far too late for a shinobi - that someone has appeared.
Even with dust in his eyes, he sees iridescent gradually morphing into pink. She's too bright. Old habits die hard, so he can't bring himself to look away.
"Sasuke," her voice is stern but almost too quiet. Gentle fingertips nudge his own. Her posture is alarmed, but her face is stone. Her eyes sunken orbs framed by streaks of grey and purple. Kaleidoscope of emerald, two black holes he could get himself lost in and their gravitational pull equally as extraordinary; the personification of spring and innocence. Now she's looking through him. Immense stars collapsed into dust, scattered and carried by the solar wind, somewhere far away from him.
Ever since he's realized the shift from rocky terrain to egg-shell white, his consciousness is fleeting, but while she's here she's usually in the periphery, tending to Naruto. Her voice carries through the air in tandem with exclamations of machines. She fills the silence as curtesy to herself, speaking of happenings in everyday life. Neither Sasuke nor Naruto respond. Something about it perturbs him. Sasuke listens when he's able. He finds he prefers it over silence where he's slapped by revelations too burdensome to hold and exhaustion too loud to succumb to.
You're not worth it. You never were. You are supposed to be dead.
At present, his stomach sinks and he looks away, with considerable effort. He releases his hold. He loses the pink in periphery. Soothing warmth envelops his impaired limb, untangling a mess in its wake.
She works for a little while. He's begun to count the irregularities of the ceiling as a way of distraction. The number rose to the tail end of triple digits before he felt her hands lift. There's the familiar static again, a feeling akin to first-degree burns beneath the sinew. A word of gratitude is trapped in his throat, like a caged bird alarmed by its doomed circ*mstances.
He can't bring himself to even peek at her anymore. He's not sure he'd stay whole if he does. Regardless, the expression he witnessed just moments before proverbially running away invades his visual system. Damned cursed eyes and legacy.
If it weren't for you, she would've never made that expression. They would've been happy. They would've had a life to live. And you took it all away.
She doesn't speak. He doesn't move, doesn't take the incentive to turn, to look, lest he'll make a mistake of some kind, he's sure. It's the motif of his existence. He focuses on her breathing, which sounds like pushing against the current of a grand waterfall threatening to spill.
"Please live," a breathy request he wasn't expecting; like all of her effort is being syphoned out of her, and she's unsure if he will. In all her displays of feeling, he's never heard her be so defeated. It's impossible, he knows, but asks himself if she can read him from the inside out regardless. As if all the words he never released to the outside mar his insides to which she somehow has access.
Try as he might otherwise, he listens to the crescendo of sobs, a mighty waterfall cutting through stone and rock, weaving a path past all inaccessible avenues. He finds it debilitating.
Sasuke's reflections, like so many in his existence and despite his torment, left him unable to follow suit.
