Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Indulgence	By : megladon129 Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Naruto/Sasuke Views: 1041 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, I'm not making any money from this.

Chapter List
- 1-Indulgence
- 1
Author’s note: This was a darkfic
experiment (I usually write happy, fluffy, funny stories) written for
Halloween. It involves character death and angst, so you’ve been warned.
R&R, I need the encouragement these days. RL blows.
>_<
Enjoy!
* * *
Blood seeped into the thirsting
ground beneath his soiled boots as he ran, breath
harsh in the crisp autumn air. The sounds of death echoing about him didn’t
bother Sasuke; he’d grown used to it during his misplaced time in the Sound.
No, something else made his heart race and breath
chill in his lungs as he hurried across the battlefield.
The dobe...
After his return to Konoha, only the
irrepressible determination (and whining) of the blond ninja had allowed Sasuke
to sidestep the death penalty. Why the man should have given a damn, Sasuke had
no clue. After all, he’d tried to kill Naruto several times during his
defection.
Naruto didn’t care.
Sasuke’s foot slipped in a pile of
entrails, nearly toppling the man as he hurried to the far end of the field. A
pulsating mob of enemy ninjas swarmed about his brightly colored comrade, and
even though Sasuke tried to reassure himself that the dobe
would be fine...his heart spoke differently. A harsh wind swirled about his
ears mockingly, speaking briefly of loss before moving on. Clenching his fists,
he ignored the sensation and pressed forward.
He had to make it in time. He simply
had to.
No other outcome of this battle
could make sense. Though the enemies from Sound had ambushed a fully unprepared
Konoha, there was little doubt that the Leaf would win. After all, they’d grown
over the years, and a band of misfits couldn’t overtake centuries of
time-tested strategy and skill. The death of an individual, however...
Inconceivable. At least for him.
As expected, a loud, guttural cry
rang up from the center of the swarm, and several Sound ninja flew off the
blond with a great blast of energy. Red chakra from the Kyuubi whipped about
the blond man’s stocky form, and slitted eyes briefly
caught on Sasuke’s concerned gaze. Naruto smirked.
I’ll win this.
Unbidden, a gentle smirk quirked the
right side of his mouth upwards. Throughout time and trial, the dobe’s attitude hadn’t changed. He’d always had full
confidence that Sasuke would return, despite the fact that everyone—Sasuke
included—had told him that he was insane. Again, Naruto didn’t care.
And, in the end, he was right.
Naruto had promised himself that he’d see the lone Uchiha’s return, and Uzumaki Naruto never broke his promises. Ever.
As Sasuke approached, several more
Sound ninja fell before the dobe’s enhanced strength.
It seemed as though the universe would continue to uphold Naruto’s unspoken
declaration.
Then the world stopped.
Even the haunting, howling wind gave
pause as those ferocious red eyes widened in surprise. Time slowed to the pace
of sludge as Kyuubi’s red chakra drained from Naruto’s eyes, fading to their
natural blue. The blond man opened his mouth and coughed, blood frothing upon
his lips as, lower, it meandered down from the hole torn through his chest.
After a moment, the pillar of chakra and metal retreated from the dobe’s body.
Naruto gazed at Sasuke, his eyes
disbelieving.
And then he fell.
In the moments that followed, Sasuke
couldn’t be sure if the howling he heard came from his own throat or the wind
as it hurtled past him. He threw himself forward, arms crackling with energy as
he tore through the Sound ninja who had dared to hurt his comrade. The other
enemies scattered, distracted by the abrupt presence of other Konoha ninja.
Hands shaking involuntarily, Sasuke
fell to his knees beside his friend and gingerly turned him face up. Naruto
grimaced.
“Never thought...that
would...happen,” the blond murmured. Another cough caught him, tossing blood
and spittle through the air. Sasuke trembled, clasping the other man’s form and
drawing him into his chest. Naruto coughed again, then
drew in a frighteningly raspy, watery breath.
His left hand sinking into the
yellow tresses, Sasuke brought Naruto’s face near and pressed his cheek against
the whiskered one of his friend. Ice filled his veins as he squeezed his eyes
shut.
“You hold on, damn you,” he
whispered roughly. “Medic ninja should be nearby. Just hold on.”
It took a moment for Sasuke to
recognize the shaking of his friend’s form as laughter. After another raspy
breath, a voice spoke into his ear.
“And here I thought...you’ve been
biding your time...until I bit...the dust.”
Still joking. He was always
joking.
“And you’re going to indulge me now?”
Sasuke’s voice shook, fear and anger causing him to tighten his grip on the
dying man. “You’ve never listened to a word I’ve said, usuratonkachi. Why start
now?”
Naruto called no attention to the
desperation in Sasuke’s voice. Instead, he lifted a hand and placed it on the
avenger’s shoulder, patting him as he would a little child.
“Sasuke-teme...you
idiot. I’ve listened to...everything...you’ve said.”
The Uchiha refused to acknowledge
the freezing trails upon his cheeks as tears. Teeth clenching, he shook the
wounded man. When Naruto winced, he freed one blood-soaked hand to clench the
blond’s chin and wrench it towards him.
The fading light in those blue eyes
frightened him.
Now shaking violently, Sasuke glared
into those dying eyes.
“Don’t you dare leave me alone here,
usuratonkachi!” The wind howled as Sasuke shouted at
Naruto’s unfocused expression. “I don’t care if you think it’s your fucking
time to go!” In desperation, he shook the man again. Naruto coughed.
“S...asuke...”
“You can’t go!!” Voice raw, Sasuke
continued shaking the man, unconsciously trying to wring just a few more drops
of life out of him. “Why do you think I came back here?? Why do you think I’ve
given up on hunting down my brother?? Who do you think made me believe that
life was worth living?? WHO? WHO, DAMN YOU, WHO?”
Despite the glassiness of Naruto’s
cerulean gaze, the blond managed to smile at him.
“Am
I...so...important...after...all?”
Sasuke had to lean even closer to
catch those words, determined as the bitter wind was to steal them. A noise not
unlike a sob wrenched itself from his chest. He drew the blond close again,
leaving only enough space to peer into his friend’s eyes.
“Of course,” Sasuke whispered
harshly. “You’re the only reason I...”
When he trailed off, Naruto simply
lowered his eyelids affectionately. “Still...can’t say it...can
you?”
Sasuke’s breath came in sharp pants
as he tried to control himself. His hands clenched about the blond hard enough
to bruise. Eyes closing, he permitted the next bit of moisture leaving his eyes
to be considered tears.
“Don’t leave me, Naruto. I can’t do
this alone.” He gasped in a shuddering breath. “Promise me. Promise me you
won’t leave.”
Those blue eyes shone with doubt.
“Sasuke...”
“PROMISE ME!” Sobbing openly with
pain and frustration, Sasuke screamed at his friend. “It’s your fucking way of
the ninja, isn’t it?? PROMISE ME YOU WON’T LEAVE!!”
Men and women were still dying,
children were still fighting, and blood was still being spilt around them, but
silence seemed to settle upon the pair. With great effort, Naruto lifted a hand
to Sasuke’s cheek.
He smiled.
“I promise, Sasuke. I’ll never leave
you.”
As Sasuke continued to sob, Naruto’s
hand fell away from his cheek and fell limply to the ground. The last bit of
life spilled from those blue eyes, leaving nothing behind. With a wrenching cry,
Uchiha Sasuke clenched the blond to his chest and buried his face in the blond
hair, no longer caring about the fight or those struggling for survival.
Uzumaki Naruto was gone.

The funeral was a small, quiet
affair. Many were sad, more were ecstatic. Despite decrees by the grieving
Hokage, no one could fully put a stop to the celebrations going on behind
closed doors at the death of the bane of the village’s existence. Sasuke hated
them all.
Hair shielding his face from peering
eyes, Sasuke sat towards the back of the small gathering and listened to people
wax nostalgic on the vibrant youth they were about to bury. He hated them, too.
A scowl marred his unnaturally pale face. What did any of them know about
Naruto? What did they really care, when it came down to it? No one, NO ONE
shared a bond with him like Sasuke did, and he’d be DAMNED if he listened to
them for one more minute. Interrupting the speaker, the Uchiha leapt to his
feet and stormed over to the urn surrounded by flowers. As the gathering grew
silent, Sasuke glared down into the pinched, laughing eyes of the picture set
in front of the urn.
“...Liar...”
Fists clenching at his sides, Sasuke
bit the inside of his cheek until blood flooded his mouth. “You lied to me. You
said...you said you’d never leave me,” he whispered. “You promised.”
When no answer came forth, Sasuke
brushed his fingers briefly against the grinning likeness of his friend. A
chill settled about his shoulders, so brief as to be immediately dismissed.
Tightening his black parka about him, Sasuke turned his back on the urn.
“Goodbye, usuratonkachi.”
As he walked away, the laughing blue
eyes in the picture gazed after him.

Steady knocking on his door drew the
soon-to-be-irate Uchiha out of his slumber. Shifting upon his uncomfortable
couch, he knocked over a beer bottle as he gingerly lifted his head and glared
at the door. Who the hell is it??
When the knocking refused to be a gent and cease, Sasuke grudgingly rose to his feet
and staggered towards it. A foreboding scowl on his face, he opened the door
and winced at the blast of cold air the action brought into his apartment.
Sakura stood before him, breath condensing in the winter air as she drew her
thick down coat closer to her.
“I was beginning to think you
wouldn’t answer, Sasuke-kun,” she stated quietly, a small smile on her face.
The Uchiha growled.
“Why the hell are you bothering me?”
The weak smile faded from her pretty
cheeks, and Sakura’s eyes filled with that damnable pity she and the other
ninja insisted upon spearing him with. Sasuke had half a mind to slam the door
in her face, but he feared that said half was still curled up in the bottles
littering his floor. Without being invited, Sakura pressed her way past him to
enter the apartment. Sighing, Sasuke closed his door.
The pink-haired woman took a look
around and shook her head. “Sasuke-kun, this...this isn’t healthy, you know. He
wouldn’t want...” Her voice cracked in her throat, and she bowed her head.
Instinctively, Sasuke bristled. “...He wouldn’t want you to live like this.
Naruto would want you to move on, to be happy aga—”
“And what would you know of it?” The
vicious cut of his voice stopped Sakura mid-stream, and Sasuke took a tightly
controlled step forward. “Don’t you dare speak of him to me.”
With shoulders that didn’t seem to
know whether to curl in or brace themselves, Sakura looked up into his eyes.
“I was his friend, too, Sasuke-kun.”
Unbidden, Sasuke’s eyes flashed over
into the Sharingan. Growling, he stormed over to his door and wrenched it open.
He glared at her.
“Get out.”
“Sasuke-kun—”
“GET OUT!”
Even she knew when not to press the
avenger. Sakura hurried to the doorway, but before she passed through it, she
spoke softly to him.
“How happy do you think he’d be if
you wasted away?”
Sasuke slammed the door behind her.
Anger broiling in his heart, Sasuke
cursed darkly and made his way over to the kitchen sink. Turning on the tap, he
flooded his hands and splashed his face with cold water. It didn’t help. The
pain was still there.
He’d grown used to the pain, or so
Sasuke liked to think. Over the three months since Naruto’s death, Sasuke had
positively wallowed in it, surfacing only to make sure that no
well-wishers from the village decided to give him “professional help.” Uchiha
Sasuke wasn’t crazy. He was in mourning.
It wasn’t his fault if people
couldn’t tell the difference.
Holding his hands to his face,
Sasuke squeezed his eyes tightly shut. The familiar ache of losing the only
person in this world who understood him throbbed comfortingly in his chest.
After all, wasn’t he entitled to grieve properly? Maybe the villagers didn’t
think that holding on to the loss was healthy, but it felt right to him,
soothing and constant as the water flowing beneath a frozen river. They had no
right to judge—
The tap turned off.
After a long moment of silence,
Sasuke lifted his face from his dripping hands and stared blearily at the sink.
The water had nearly reached the edge, threatening to spill over with the
addition of a single drop. Frowning, Sasuke shifted his eyes to the tap. It
seemed normal.
Sighing, Sasuke straightened and
walked away from the sink. The occurrence was only one of a string of strange
events that followed the Uchiha ever since the funeral. Occasionally, Sasuke
would reach for his cup only to find it on the opposite side of the table, even
when he’d taken a sip from it only moments before. He’d find his toothbrush
waiting for him on the edge of the sink as he prepared for bed, even though he
knew that he’d left it in the medicine cabinet. All strange, but then, with his
mind swimming in alcohol and hangovers as it usually was, Sasuke wouldn’t put
it past himself to not realize that he’d done all of these things.
Even so, the events were
almost...comforting, in a way. It was almost like not being alone.
Scowling to himself, Sasuke pulled
another beer from the fridge and yanked the top off.
Get over it, Uchiha, he sternly told himself. You’ll always be alone. He lied.
The tap turned on again.
Pausing only for a brief second,
Sasuke left his unloved kitchen to its water-damaged fate and stalked back over
to his couch. Three minutes later, he passed out again, the bottle dangling
from his fingertips.
The tap turned off.

“For the last time, I don’t
need you to babysit me!” Sasuke snarled at the trio in front of him. It was
only the next day from when Sakura harassed him, and all he wanted was to
replenish his dwindling liquor supply and go home.
Unfortunately, Ino,
Shikamaru, and Chouji were
determined to keep that from happening. The three formed a barricade between
him and the liquor section of the supermarket, and they all had varying degrees
of defiance written on their faces. Even Shikamaru,
the man who could barely be called on to care for anything, looked
worried. Sasuke sighed, running an irritated hand through his hair.
“What will it take to get you three
to go away?” he asked wearily. Ino stepped forward,
placing a hand on the avenger’s shoulder. She frowned when he flinched away
from her touch.
“Why don’t you come out with us for
a bit, Sasuke? We’re all having a little get-together tonight, just to relax.”
When her suggestion was met with a black scowl, she gave him a hard look of her
own. “We’re worried about you, Sasuke. You need to get out of that apartment
for more than thirty seconds and live!”
Sasuke was infuriated. “What I do
with my time is none of your—”
“Technically, it is our business,
Uchiha,” Shikamaru surprisingly cut in. “We often
have to go on missions with you, and if you continue to degrade physically,
you’ll only be a burden on everyone.”
“What he means is that...well...” Chouji trailed off at the venomous look in Sasuke’s
bloodshot eyes. Shaking her head, Ino stepped in
again.
“Let me put it this way, Sasuke.
Either you come to the party, or we’ll get an order from Tsunade-sama to place
you under supervision.” She placed a hand on his arm and hung on, concern
floating in her pale eyes. “It’s for the best, Sasuke-kun. Really.”
A low growl worked its way up from
Sasuke’s chest, but he tamped down on it. He had no doubts that the woman would
follow through on her threat. In her own way, she was nearly as stubborn as—
“I’ll go.”
Glaring at their relieved faces,
Sasuke abandoned his quest for alcohol and stormed out of the store. Villagers
flinched away from his murderous expression.
“...Don’t know why he’s so upset
about that little monster, anyway.”
Sasuke had to force himself to keep
moving as the whispers caught up with him. Rage roiled in his belly.
“...a good thing it’s gone...”
“Look how unstable he is. With no
clan to kill off, what if he turns on us?”
That last comment made Sasuke stop
walking. Though he tried not to, he found himself turning to face the villager
who dared to say something so deliberately antagonistic. His eyes alighted upon
the defiant, distrusting gaze of the villager.
As focused as they were on each
other, neither saw the sign next to the villager topple dangerously. With a
deafening crash, it knocked the startled man down. Sasuke started in surprise.
“My leg! My leg!”
“Oh my god! Someone go get help!”
Minor pandemonium ensued as the
trapped man wailed in pain. Sasuke couldn’t blame him—the sign was rather
heavily made, and for all of that weight to have landed on his leg... Eyebrows
furrowing, he stared at the broad, broken base of the wooden sign.
That shouldn’t have tipped over.
Sasuke was abruptly aware of how
cold he was, standing in the snow-lined street. Shivering, he wrapped his arms
about himself and headed home. The screams in the background followed him.
It shouldn’t have tipped over. That
base was strong, and there was no wind. That man shouldn’t have gotten hurt.
His shivers no longer had anything
to do with the cold.

Well, that was fully as unpleasant
as I thought it would be, Sasuke
thought crossly as he stamped the snow off his feet. Shucking his shoes, he
stepped up into his apartment and began peeling off his gloves and coat. They
should all just leave me alone!
At the little “get-together” of Ino’s, Sasuke had suffered through petty gossip and
uninteresting stories about the difficulties of leading their own groups of genins. Kiba, Hinata, and Sakura
had joined in, involved as they were with the younger generation of Konoha
residents. The Uchiha couldn’t care less. He’d simply scowled and drank the
entire night away, further rendering himself incapable of caring. It was a
fitting cycle.
When the conversation had steered to
Naruto, however, he drew the line. Ignoring their protests, Sasuke had bundled
up and walked out the door. What should he care if they missed the blond
man? None of them truly appreciated him, anyway.
At that moment, a sensation not
unlike a pair of frozen hands clasping his shoulders startled him out of his
thoughts. Gasping, Sasuke stumbled away from where he’d been fuming and bumped
into a wall. A picture framed was jarred loose, and the crash it made with the
floor resonated throughout the empty apartment.
Heart pounding, Sasuke rubbed his
shoulders and glanced around. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary,
but...this time, he was sure that he had felt something.
He wasn’t alone.
Unsettled, Sasuke moved through his
darkened apartment and turned all of the lights on. A quick survey of each room
confirmed that no one was present, but...god, he couldn’t shake it. He knew
he wasn’t alone. Even though no one was there.
Breathing shakily, he stumbled into
the bathroom and turned on the faucet. Maybe I’m hallucinating. True, I
thought I’d sobered up during the walk through the snow to get home, but maybe
I’m not. He sighed, wetting a hand towel and dabbing his cheeks with it. No
one’s in the room, Uchiha. Get a grip.
Then he looked up.
And screamed.

Really, it was bad form when all of
the friends you’d just ditched came bursting through the door when you made a
little noise. Even if they do find you pale and trembling in your bathtub while
you stare at the mirror, it only proves that they were following you. Sasuke
simply couldn’t abide by that.
And he’d be able to tell them so,
the minute his heart started beating again.
His mind swimming, Sasuke ignored
their grabbing hands and attempts to get his attention as he stared at the
guileless mirror. Swallowing hard, he valiantly attempted to convince himself
that he hadn’t seen what he thought he did in that mirror, but his brain wasn’t
having it.
For a split second, Naruto
had been staring back at him.
He’d looked just as Sasuke
remembered. Unruly yellow hair, whiskered cheeks, vibrant blue eyes. There were
only two problems. One, he’d been precisely where Sasuke’s own reflection
should have been, and two...
Naruto was DEAD.
At that thought, Sasuke scrambled
out of the bathtub and dashed to the mirror, clenching his sink with
white-knuckled fingers as he stared into it. Nothing but his unkempt, haunted
reflection looked back at him. Sasuke’s knees gave out, and he would have hit his
head on the edge of the sink had several pairs of hands not reached out to grab
him. The avenger continued to ignore them, his body shaking.
I know what I saw. He was there.
Looking right at me! He was there!!
Only vaguely aware that he was hyperventilating, Sasuke took the bag one of his
friends thrust at him and breathed into it obediently. As he calmed, he chanced
another glance at the mirror. No Naruto.
...Maybe he was going crazy.
Shaken by the thought, Sasuke
lowered the bag and took a deep breath. His gaze focused on Sakura first, if
only because she was the one kneeling directly in front of him. Swallowing with
difficulty, he attempted to speak.
“Maybe I should be getting out
more.”
The group fell silent at his
admission. After a moment, Sakura smiled encouragingly.
“That’s the spirit, Sasuke-kun. I’m
sure Naruto would be proud.”
As the others gave him similar
sentiments, Sasuke’s eyes flinched to the mirror once more. His tormented black
eyes stared back.

The following weeks began to get a
bit more normal for him. Sasuke allowed his friends to drag him out almost
every day, and in return, they let him pretend that nothing was amiss.
Everyone ignored the issue of
Sasuke’s questionable sanity.
Sighing, Sasuke rubbed his arms as,
beside him, Ino prattled on about her flower shop. It
was currently her turn to spend time with the stoic Uchiha heir, and though he
knew he wasn’t good company, he felt marginally grateful to her for
accompanying him. At the very least, it took his mind off...him.
“...So I had to convince her that it
was actually a funereal bouquet, and that she really shouldn’t give it
to her sick friend in the hospital,” Ino finished.
The blonde woman smiled. “These tourists. Honestly.”
Sasuke grunted in reply, eyes
scanning the storefronts as they passed. As his eyes alighted upon one store in
particular, Sasuke drew to a stop. Ino paused beside
him, glancing at the display in the window.
“Hmm? So they’ve come out with a new
type of kunai?” She drew closer, peering down at the expensive set. Whistling,
she straightened and glanced at him. “Do you want to go inside?”
Sasuke hesitated. He hadn’t really
been training all that much since...his death, preferring to handle
D-level missions to pass the time when he wasn’t shitfaced. In all honesty, he
really should get himself back into shape. Frowning thoughtfully, he started to
push open the door to the store.
Maybe if I train, it will help me
forget about—
Before he could finish his thought,
something invisible shoved him, hard. Gasping, he stumbled and fell
backwards into the street. Ino screamed.
“Sasuke! Look out!!”
By reflex alone, Sasuke threw
himself to his right—and narrowly missed getting trampled by a loose horse, its
reins dragging on the ground. A few seconds later, the owner ran past with a
desperate and angry expression on his face. Sasuke watched them from his
position on the muddy ground, feeling rattled. He slowly climbed to his feet.
Ino was by his side within seconds, patting him down to check
for injuries. “Sasuke-kun, are you alright?”
He brushed her off with shaking
hands. “I’m fine. Let’s just go.”
As he turned to leave with a
protesting Ino, Sasuke thought he saw a pair of angry
red eyes glaring at him from the store doorway. When he glanced fully at it,
however, no one was there.
Heart pounding, Sasuke hurried away.

Sasuke had grown jumpy. The gentle
but sudden sounds of icicles breaking gave him a start, and he clenched his
teeth in frustration. Huddling down into his overstuffed parka—also
black—Sasuke waited while Sakura tied a wind chime to the eave over Sasuke’s
apartment. Naturally, he hadn’t asked her to bother, but at some point she’d
decided that his apartment needed cleaning, and this was her final touch. The
chime clicked softly in the light breeze as she released it.
“There!” she declared triumphantly.
“Now you’re officially not a slob.”
“And how, exactly, does this have
anything to do with it?” he questioned dryly. She grinned at him.
“It’s a symbol, dummy. You’re now so
aware of life that you’ve given your apartment a homey touch!”
“You gave it a ‘homey
touch.’”
“It’s the point that counts. Now
then, shall we get some hot chocolate?”
Sasuke sighed. “I don’t have any.”
Apparently, that didn’t bother
Sakura in the least by the way she simply grabbed his hand and began to drag
him away from the building. She began humming to herself as they walked, and
she glanced at him with warmth in her green eyes.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am
that you’ve started to move on, Sasuke-kun. I know you miss
Naruto—heck, we all do—but you were really starting to get obsessed. We
worried about you.”
Sasuke grunted in reply, but the
fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end the moment she mentioned the
dead blond’s name. His heart started pounding, unbidden, with each step they took.
“You kept going on about how he’d
lied. If you don’t mind my asking,” I do. “—what did he lie about?”
The Uchiha was about to tell her to
mind her own business when he froze in his tracks, eyes wide and face paling. A
pair of frozen arms had wound themselves about his waist, clutching him
tightly. As he began to shake, he felt the arms shift, and a cold body pressed
against him from behind. A soft, icy breath ruffled the hair by his ear.
“Sasuke-kun?”
Sasuke could feel the warmth of him
body being leeched out of him, leaving him shaking uncontrollably. An invisible
finger began to trace words upon his chest, cutting easily through the thick
down jacket.
“I’ll...”
“Sasuke-kun?? Sasuke-kun, what’s
wrong??”
“...never...”
The Uchiha’s legs began to give out,
and he was only vaguely aware of Sakura screaming at him.
“...leave...”
The world began to spin.
“...you.”
Sasuke blacked out.

Blood everywhere. It clawed at him,
tried to pull him under, tried to drown him in its crimson depths. He struggled
valiantly, trying desperately to reach those blue eyes before him. He wanted to
be saved! He didn’t want to die!
DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE!!
“NARUTO!”
Gasping, Sasuke found himself
sitting upright on his couch, chest heaving and sweat rolling down his face.
His fingers clenched on the blanket that had been draped upon him, desperately
fighting the panic that still clawed at his throat. Sakura materialized before
him, holding a cup of steaming tea before her worried eyes.
“Sasuke-kun! Thank goodness you’re
awake. What happened out there?? You just collapsed—”
“Naruto!! Naruto was here!!” Sasuke
struggled frantically out of the blanket, for once uncaring of how he sounded.
“The dobe touched me, and he told me...he told
me—!!”
“Sasuke-kun, calm down! It was a
dream!” The cup of tea had been set down, and small, feminine hands were
clutching at his chest. Sasuke batted them away and clasped her shoulders,
staring down at her with wild eyes.
“It wasn’t a dream!” he insisted
passionately. “He was here! He—he stood right behind me, and he told me
that he wasn’t going to leave me!!”
“Sasuke-kun!”
“He didn’t lie!!”
“Sasuke-kun, you’re hurting me! Let
go!”
Somehow, those words penetrated the
fog in his mind, and he released the crushing grip he had on the pink-haired
woman’s shoulders. She skittered away from him, watching him with fearful eyes.
“Y-you’re not well, Sasuke-kun,” she
stated in a trembling voice. “I-I’m going to get Tsunade-sama, and—”
“NO!” Taking a deep breath, Sasuke
ran a shaking hand through his hair. “N-no. I... You don’t need to get her. I’m
sorry.”
Glancing up, he took in her
terrified expression and winced. He sank wearily back onto the couch. After a
long moment, she began to approach him.
“You...you need help, Sasuke-kun. I
thought you were starting to let go of Naruto, but...”
She trailed off, well aware that
both of them knew the end of that sentence. Forcing his trembling hands to
subside, he looked up at her. He knew what he felt, what had happened, but he
wasn’t going to let her put him away in a mental institution.
So he lied.
“Sakura, I’m sorry. You’re right...I
was dreaming.” He made a show of rubbing his eyes wearily. “For a second, I
honestly thought he was here, but...you’re right. He’s not.”
As a cautiously relieved expression
settled upon Sakura’s face, a translucent, cold hand closed about his shoulder
and squeezed warningly. Sasuke smiled weakly.
“I’ll talk to Tsunade if you want me
to,” he continued, and the cold hand disappeared. “But it really was just a
dream.”
Slowly, the last remnants of fear
left her eyes. “If you’re sure, Sasuke-kun...”
“I’m sure. I’ll go see her
tomorrow.”
Biting her lip, Sakura nodded. “All
right, Sasuke-kun. Will you be ok here by yourself?”
Smirking faintly, he cocked his
head. “Of course.”
After a few more moments, the
pink-haired woman gathered up her jacket, said something inane,
and finally walked out the door. Sasuke leaned back against the couch, letting
his eyes fall shut.

Why did you do it?
“Because you tried to forget
about me.”
Isn’t that what they say dead people
want?
“When I’m stuck with your ass for
eternity? Fuck no.”
You nearly killed me, you know.
“So? I already told you, I’ll
never leave you. I wanted you with me.”
Ah. I see.

Tsunade was upset when Sasuke handed
her his resignation the next day. She tried to argue with him, babbling on
about how it’s not what Naruto would have wanted. Sasuke didn’t give a flying
fuck what she thought. He knew the truth.
He didn’t care when he ran into Ino on the way home, and she told him that she’d had a
strong talking-to with the little boy who’d bowled him over that day in front
of the store. He didn’t care when he passed that injured villager on his
crutches, whom was being compensated by the store
owner, who had let the base of his sign rot through. He just didn’t care.
Because Naruto hadn’t lied to him.
Now, as he sat beside his frosted
window in his dark, locked apartment, he smiled. Naruto stood next to him,
running fingers cold as death through Sasuke’s hair. The sensation was
comforting, and Sasuke found himself leaning into the touch. Without a word,
Naruto handed him the knife Sasuke had asked for.
“Are you sure?” he murmured. “Either
way, I told you that I’d stay by your side.”
Sasuke gave him a dry look. “And
have you lord that particular favor over me for the rest of my natural life?
Forget it. I’m not going to sit here and age while you stay fit as a
fiddle.”
“I’m dead, Sasuke.”
“So? It’s the principle of the
thing. Now shut up and let me do this.”
Sighing, Naruto resumed petting
Sasuke’s head. Both were silent as the blade ran down the underside of his
forearm, watching as the blood welled up and pooled on the chair and floor. As
Sasuke repeated the action with difficulty on his other arm, Naruto spoke.
“I’m sorry if I scared you, by the
way.”
Sasuke smiled. “It’s all right. I’ll
just have to kick your ass on the other side.”
“Hah. You wish.”
Life dripped steadily out of
Sasuke’s body, allowing the reassuring cold of death to take its place. Letting
his eyes close, Sasuke once more leaned into the touch of his friend. His hair
was ruffled affectionately, and Naruto knelt beside him to whisper in his ear.
As he died, cold continued to seep
into the room from the crack in the window, the slight breeze ruffling his
raven locks. The knife clattered to the floor.
“I’ll never leave you.”
- 1
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Indulgence