Tadaima
Prompt: Family | A03 link here | Connect with me on Twitter. Happy SS Month everyone! 🌸🍅🥗 @ssskmonth
He woke up with a start, slightly disoriented, unsure where he was. Then he saw the caved in room, the dimming candle on his desk, the slight echoes of footsteps outside his door, and finally his robe. He was in Orochimaru’s lair.
There was that sinking pit in his stomach again, a feeling of intense longing, so bad that he crouched beside his bed and puked with nothing.
Why don’t you check the pockets of your robe and see what you’re looking for? A voice he swore was his whispered beside him. His head checked both of his sides and saw no one.
Come on, look at your robe.
“Stop it, you fucker,” Sasuke gritted through his teeth. He can feel another wave of nausea coming.
Ah, you just had to burn it, didn’t you? The only picture that reminded you of home.
Karin and Suigetsu rushed inside his room, both telling him to calm down. Only then did he realize the room was burning, the candle was melting too fast, and there was the smell of scorching skin…..they were burning and he was still shouting.
His head crashed against the wall, and he swore he thought the cracks were from his skull. Itachi’s eyes were staring back at him, and he wondered whether there was legitimate hate there. He wished there was rather than this void or this piercing gaze of nothingness.
Don’t do it! Don’t do it! You’ll never forgive yourself! You’ll regret this forever! That fucking voice won’t shut up, Sasuke thought as he coughed up blood.
When his eyes followed the red droplets, he registered the hilt of his katana, three-fourths of which were deep inside Itachi’s stomach.
Brother….don’t go.The voice inside him was utterly broken, and it pleaded with whatever strength it had in him.
Itachi bled all over, his eyes, his mouth, and yet he smiled. He rested his forehead against Sasuke’s, and for a moment, he was transported back to the time when he was still a kid with a complete family and a brother who spoiled him.
“Forgive me, Sasuke. There won’t be a next time.”
No no no no no no
The frantic beating of his heart matched the panicked no’s in his head. He killed him, he got his revenge, but for the sake of what? Was the truth supposed to relieve him from darkness?
Was this supposed to lift all the burden from his shoulders and magically erase his trauma? Sasuke ruminated with a major part of him still lost and confused, and then, again, like in a time warp, he found himself in a new space, his cursed hand passing through Sakura’s chest. Somewhere, he heard Naruto and Kakashi screaming.
You were looking for them all this time. This was what was missing, remember? The picture you set on fire. The faces you imprinted on your memory. And what do you want to do? Murder them?
She got so strong, so far from the naïve, romantic girl he left behind in Konoha, so different with her arresting presence and respect she commanded, but still so beautiful, and still so in love with a low life like him. How annoying.
Her. Her with the beautiful pink hair that reminded you of spring. You stupid piece of shit, why do you like to lose the people you love?
Only this time it wasn’t genjutsu. His chakra tore through her arteries and veins, and she gasped for air amid her shock. Her hands tried to reach his face, tears already pooling in her eyes. “Sasuke-kun-“
Sasuke, stop it! Don’t let her die, you fool!
“You can regenerate, right?” Sasuke mumbled, but the hands suddenly lost life and fell on her sides. Her green eyes, the color of forests, stared back at him with a harrowing void.
And the pain pierced him like one he never experienced before.
--------------
“Sasuke!” Sakura punched him in the face, jolting him awake. He coughed up blood and some pieces of teeth.
“Wow, you really didn’t hold back.” There was a slur in Naruto’s words, and it hit him – the way there was an alcohol aftertaste in his mouth.
“He just got released from trial Sakura, and the first thing you do is punch the love of your life?” Kakashi teased, acting like he was sober, but he was tipsy enough to forget he didn’t put his mask back on.
“He was screaming my name and wouldn’t wake up!” Sakura reasoned out. “Of course, I had to punch him!”
His body moved on its own, crawling to close the gap between him and her, his lone arm reaching out to grab her closer to his chest and feel her beating heart. She was alive and warm, wriggling against his clumsy hold, reeking also of alcohol. “You’re not gone.”
“Ooooh Sasuke is flat out wasted,” Kakashi cajoled. “So he’s the touchy type huh.”
“Please reserve your public displays of affection somewhere,” Naruto spat. “I haven’t hugged Hinata since our date at Ichiraku. I’m so pathetic.”
“Keep your eyes open, Naruto. This is good material for the next icha icha paradise,” Kakashi kept on teasing.
“All of you shut up!” Sakura yelled on top of her lungs. “And also you stop touching me!”
Sasuke laughed for the first time in a while, and the three of them stared at him dumbfounded, partly scared of what happened, partly amused of the effects of alcohol. The voice inside his head was silent now; it probably found what it was looking for.
“Tadaima,” Sasuke said, barely a whisper, but it reached them all the same.
Still reeling from intoxication, the rest of Team 7 engulfed him in a tight embrace. “Okaerinasai!”
Music recommendation for this piece is Daisy by Stereo Dive Foundation - Youtube | Spotify