My heart's like totally all-a-flutter
Probably due to drinking black tea in lieu of black coffee, although that's neither here nor there.
Not that I'm ever consistent, but my with my main goal, I'm still going back and forth tweaking a so very rough draft of this supposed one-shot, praying it will stay under 30k words, which it is for now. Barely. It's such a slow build with such little reward, far from anything light in nature I prefer, and at this point it's getting harder and harder to ignore my nagging discontent. Writing this pov is just uncomfortably intimate, and honestly, I think I'm putting too much thought into it, being horribly self-indulgent by making Sasuke especially and Naruto too complex, and in effect "not right", so I'm just feeling my way around until the scenes seemingly harried with offbeat flow have whatever I'm supposedly going for. Meh.
On a more optimistic note, I think I finally settled on a title (Providence) and summary (It's not Tobi who finds Sasuke), which are two very important things I need in order to keep the ball rolling. Simple and characteristic of me that ridiculous kind of vague defeating the point of having a summary at all. The whole thing's this jumbled mess of an emotional triangle between Sasuke, Itachi, and Naruto that somehow makes perfect sense in my mind, possibly to be proved by the notes written as I go along. At the very least, though, I'll be grateful if actually does make sense when all's said and done.
It’s still dark when you try to find your way out of sleep. The glow from a tiny light offers a glimpse of blond hair, flickers over the face you strain to see through the haze laid thick over your mind.
“Should have know you'd be the type to wake up in the middle of the night like that,” comes the voice from before.
The already soft light begins to dim even further, withers behind your eyelids. You raise you knee adjacent to your stomach, pushing with a shaky palm against the bedding to turn on your side.
“Nice to see you again, too.”
There’s a long pause from the voice, interrupted by the rustle of fabric, then the screech of something scraping across wood.
“Okay, don’t talk to me then.”
You try to draw back, but your body is sluggish, refusing to let you move far from the voice too loud inching closer and closer.
“I’ll just chalk it up to the medicine making you cranky-crankier-and leave it at that.”
Turning on your back, you lay one arm beside you, bent at the elbow and idle on top of the bedding stealing the little heat left in your body.
“At least your fever went-Sasuke?”
You moan at the familiar touch warm on your forehead, a hand you lean into but can’t follow when it disappears. A shiver makes you curl beneath the soft material pulled over you, the sound of your name whispered like a hush meant to lull, and you let yourself fall back to sleep
...
The muscles in your stomach stiffen as you sit up, suck in another harsh breath because the movement too abrupt leaves you faint, hunched over in the exertion it takes to remain upright.
Breathing out, you grit your teeth, bite the inside of your cheek at the dull ache beginning to settle within your chest. Hands in your lap clutch the sheet fallen around your waist stuck to clammy skin. The ache grows heavier, pervading your body like the keen sense of disappointment that you can feel anything at all.
Yet you can.
You do.
To wake up on this bed, in this room whose only significant lies only in the fact it’s somewhere you weren’t before, somewhere Itachi’s body isn’t lying beside you, the already waning fulfillment you should feel is undermined by a quick glance to your left.
Because then you see, remember that voice you knew without recognising-his voice-and you simply stare at the figure slouched in the chair pulled next to you.
Of all people, the one person you could live without meeting again-it had to be him.
Of all people, Naruto had to find you.
An arm hanging over the back of the chair moves when he begins to stir. He raises his head drooping with his chin close to chest, raises both arms to lengthen his body in a stretch. Eyes yet to unclose, his mouth opens wide with a yawn.
He smacks his lips, bending over and bringing his arms down to rest over his knees, fingers clasped together. Groggy eyes he opens immediately sharpen when they catch your gaze.
“Looks like you’re up for real this time,” he says, distorting the seemingly innocuous words around a grim sort of smile that already acknowledges the redundancy of stating the obvious.
Flexing your jaw, you swallow against your mouth dry and throat sore. You don’t trust your voice to speak, so you don’t. You watch Naruto, well aware of his eyes roaming over you.
It’s a subtle gesture, more subtle than you would have thought someone like him capable of, but the stout display of attentiveness, although quick, borders on unsettling. He studies you, inspecting his own abysmal bandaging skills that aren’t so abysmal anymore, over your chest and your right arm, finishing the survey near the back of your neck, where it stays too long.
Another moment and he finally decides to draw back, sitting up with a casual posture that doesn’t fool you.
“Between trying to burn this place down and almost kicking me down there,” he says, “I wasn’t sure what you were going to do when you woke up this morning.”
Your fingers clutching the sheet slacken and tighten.
“Not that you remember that, right.” He snorts, then smiles again, small but this time a little more reminiscent of his old smile easier to disregard. “Sleeping, that’s what you’ve been doing, in and out of it for the most part. It wasn’t that bad, but then your fever wouldn't stay down-even though I’m not Sakura or anything like that, I know enough to get by, but I almost thought...”
He shifts in the chair, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “Anyway, you’re better now. At least better enough to ignore me, so...”
Leaning over, almost cautious, he reaches to touch your forehead. You intercept the hand with fingers grabbing his wrist, try to squeeze hard enough in an attempt to break it, but you can only squeeze hard enough to ensure you won’t collapse.
The room stills, fills with the sound of your breathing, haggard gasps for air hauled long and slow through the slight gape in your mouth. Your grip is pathetically loose, and the refusal to release the hold sways to the necessity of leverage rather than the desire to actually hurt him.
He doesn’t pull away until you gather the energy to let go. His mouth forms into a thin line, tight despite his expression that makes something churn in the pit of your stomach.
Your hand falls back in your lap, but he doesn’t say anything, extending an arm behind him for a small paper cup sitting on the desk.
“Here.” He holds towards you the cup half empty. “I know it’s been a while.”
The coated feeling of your tongue is slimy against chapped lips, but you don’t move to accept the cup. You look away from it. You look away from him.
“Look, it’s just water. You can’t tell me you’re not thirsty.”
You don’t deny it, yet as dehydrated as you probably are, more so than even hungry, you know your hands won’t be steady enough to take the cup, let alone steady enough to hold it without spilling anything, but Naruto doesn’t need to know that. You’ll be damned if you let him try to do something as degrading as force-feed you water.
Again, he motions you to take the cup. He frowns when you still don’t move, then sighs and turns to place the cup back on the desk. “I’ll leave it here for later, all right. Just...”
Two fingers tap in quick succession on his knee, speeding up to a haphazard tempo. His gaze travels back to you, but he remains silent, seemingly content to stare with a newfound sense of patience.
Fatigue compels you to look away first. You lay down on the bed, forcing slow breaths through lungs suddenly parched for air, and you close your eyes, hands gripping the sheets until you manage to fall asleep.
...
The ceiling’s sallow in colour, almost a sickly yellow due to age obvious from the rest of the room. Large cracks in the off-white paint appear at random intervals along the intersection of the walls and ceiling. It’s a decaying backdrop to the four modest pieces of furniture noticeably dated, maybe even old enough to be considered antiquities, but it doesn’t tell you what you want to know, where you are.
Some kind of inn, mostly likely, although how far away from that place...
Movement from the other side of the room catches your attention. Without having to move, from your peripheral, you see Naruto standing on his knees reaching for the window above his bed.
“I know it’s too cold to open the window,” he says, “but natural light’s supposed to have the same effect as fresh air. Or at least something close to it.”
He pushes back the plain curtains unravelling at the seams, exposing you to the glare of the morning sun. “Plus, sharing a room this small, it doesn’t take that much to make it feel stuffy.”
He plops himself back on the bed rumpled and unmade, bouncing on it for a few moments. After a while, when the squeaking from the springs begins to subside, he says, “How long do you plan on keeping this up?”
Arm beneath the quilt, you tug on the waistband of the pants you don’t remember putting on, curl your fingers around the gathered material too much in your grasp.
“Not talking to me, that is.”
You keep your eyes fixed on the ceiling, restless despite the disinclination to move.
He tosses a sigh that reaches you from across the room. “That long, huh?”
He’s looking away when you turn your head to face him, staring at the worn knapsack you assume is his lying against the wall in the corner of the room. Near it, to the right of a narrow door, is a small desk, on top of it only a paper cup and a Konoha forehead protector sitting close to the edge.
You haven’t seen any of your belongings since you woke up coherent, but the only thing you’re searching for is Kusanagi. Unless Naruto had the foresight to bring it, you’ll have to return to that place where Itachi fell as soon as you’re well enough to travel.
With a another sigh, Naruto pushes himself off the bed and stands. He walks towards you, pulling at the hem of a white shirt covering loose black sweatpants. The soft pattering of his bare feet upon the hardwood floor grows louder, Naruto closer until he stops at the edge of the bed you’re lying on.
He peers down as you look up, squints at you while pushing away the hair falling over his face.
The unstated literal difference in vantage is too blatant to ignore. It doesn’t quite make you feel uneasy, nor does it detract from the lack of vulnerability you feel despite being in this position, yet the simple act of having to look up to meet his gaze has you narrowing your eyes nonetheless.
“It’s been four days, Sasuke. Four days and you-”
He drops his hand, letting his arm flop against his side. “You can’t do this forever. You won’t get better if you stay like this, and I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen. I didn’t come this far just to let you...”
Slow, exhale and inhale, you take in the scent of the quilt laid up to your neck, the almost pungent smell of mothballs. The taste it leaves in your mouth is unpleasant, nearly as bitter as the taste of dirt turned into mud from blood and sweat lost amidst rain.
“...say something.” From a low whisper, his voice begins to rise, words snarled through lips curving upwards at one corner. “Stop being such an asshole and talk to me-say something.”
The fingers gripping your pants unfurl, and you watch his body tense as he extends fingers that quickly form a fist.
“Say something.”
You don’t startle when the bed sinks beneath his additional weight, sinking further as he hovers above you, when his arms enclosing your face demand your attention.
“...get the h-hell off me” The fluctuation in your voice agitates your throat, reaffirms a dull throbbing behind your eyes at the fact you don’t simply throw Naruto to the floor.
“Damn it, Sasuke, I found you. I finally found you, but then seeing you look at me like that. Like none of it matters. Like nothing ever did.”
His face lowers close to yours. His breath you unwillingly inhale smothers you, an unwanted warmth that envelops you, but you don’t blink. You don’t let your gaze waver.
“So was it worth it, Sasuke?” The sun gleams on his eyes marred by lines of red rimming white surrounding blue. “Throwing it all away for Itachi’s death, this is what you gave up everything you had for, but in the end, has it changed anything?”
He closes his eyes, keeps them shut despite the wetness from his face that spatters on your cheek.
“Does it make things different now?” Sniffing, he opens his eyes and swallows, but his voice beginning to crack develops into a low growl. “...do you even care anymore?”
The bed recoils from his hands pressing down and pushing against it.
“Do you, Sasuke?” he shouts, then again, “do you?” and shoves at the bed twice, three times and again, punctuating the baseless litany of the underlying I told you so-we told you so you can’t help but hear each time the bed carries you with its momentum, each time the emphasis scrapes at your skin like the sheets under his fingers he bunches in his hand.
Once more, the bed dips before he pushes away. A glance at you makes him wince, makes his eyes grow wide. Slowly, he steps back, wiping his face with the bottom of his palm, muttering something you can’t hear, and stopping near the foot of the other bed. Turning away, in and out he breathes, reaching for his hair with the tips of his fingers pressing down hard against his scalp.
“Shitshit-shit.”
His hand drops to slap against his thigh.
“Sasuke, I...”
He cuts himself off with a scoff mangled by his faint laugh that follows. After a moment, he paces to the corner of the room, where he leans down in front of the knapsack.
“Bandages,” he says, “your bandages-too tight, are they...”
He doesn’t finish, yet he doesn’t wait for you to answer. Frantic hands scouring the small bag find and pull out a roll of gauze coming undone.
“I-I’m going to have to redo your bandages. Soon. Now.” Standing up, he turns to face you, tightening his grip around the gauze. “Then we can-you can get cleaned up. I did what I could, but you still might want to, uh...”
He starts to walk towards you but hesitates, edging backwards until the back of his legs hit the other bed, motion controlled when he allows himself to sit, allows his shoulders to sag with a heavy sigh.
“...four days, Sasuke,” he whispers, watching you with eyes still gleaming. “Four days.”
Not that I'm ever consistent, but my with my main goal, I'm still going back and forth tweaking a so very rough draft of this supposed one-shot, praying it will stay under 30k words, which it is for now. Barely. It's such a slow build with such little reward, far from anything light in nature I prefer, and at this point it's getting harder and harder to ignore my nagging discontent. Writing this pov is just uncomfortably intimate, and honestly, I think I'm putting too much thought into it, being horribly self-indulgent by making Sasuke especially and Naruto too complex, and in effect "not right", so I'm just feeling my way around until the scenes seemingly harried with offbeat flow have whatever I'm supposedly going for. Meh.
On a more optimistic note, I think I finally settled on a title (Providence) and summary (It's not Tobi who finds Sasuke), which are two very important things I need in order to keep the ball rolling. Simple and characteristic of me that ridiculous kind of vague defeating the point of having a summary at all. The whole thing's this jumbled mess of an emotional triangle between Sasuke, Itachi, and Naruto that somehow makes perfect sense in my mind, possibly to be proved by the notes written as I go along. At the very least, though, I'll be grateful if actually does make sense when all's said and done.
It’s still dark when you try to find your way out of sleep. The glow from a tiny light offers a glimpse of blond hair, flickers over the face you strain to see through the haze laid thick over your mind.
“Should have know you'd be the type to wake up in the middle of the night like that,” comes the voice from before.
The already soft light begins to dim even further, withers behind your eyelids. You raise you knee adjacent to your stomach, pushing with a shaky palm against the bedding to turn on your side.
“Nice to see you again, too.”
There’s a long pause from the voice, interrupted by the rustle of fabric, then the screech of something scraping across wood.
“Okay, don’t talk to me then.”
You try to draw back, but your body is sluggish, refusing to let you move far from the voice too loud inching closer and closer.
“I’ll just chalk it up to the medicine making you cranky-crankier-and leave it at that.”
Turning on your back, you lay one arm beside you, bent at the elbow and idle on top of the bedding stealing the little heat left in your body.
“At least your fever went-Sasuke?”
You moan at the familiar touch warm on your forehead, a hand you lean into but can’t follow when it disappears. A shiver makes you curl beneath the soft material pulled over you, the sound of your name whispered like a hush meant to lull, and you let yourself fall back to sleep
...
The muscles in your stomach stiffen as you sit up, suck in another harsh breath because the movement too abrupt leaves you faint, hunched over in the exertion it takes to remain upright.
Breathing out, you grit your teeth, bite the inside of your cheek at the dull ache beginning to settle within your chest. Hands in your lap clutch the sheet fallen around your waist stuck to clammy skin. The ache grows heavier, pervading your body like the keen sense of disappointment that you can feel anything at all.
Yet you can.
You do.
To wake up on this bed, in this room whose only significant lies only in the fact it’s somewhere you weren’t before, somewhere Itachi’s body isn’t lying beside you, the already waning fulfillment you should feel is undermined by a quick glance to your left.
Because then you see, remember that voice you knew without recognising-his voice-and you simply stare at the figure slouched in the chair pulled next to you.
Of all people, the one person you could live without meeting again-it had to be him.
Of all people, Naruto had to find you.
An arm hanging over the back of the chair moves when he begins to stir. He raises his head drooping with his chin close to chest, raises both arms to lengthen his body in a stretch. Eyes yet to unclose, his mouth opens wide with a yawn.
He smacks his lips, bending over and bringing his arms down to rest over his knees, fingers clasped together. Groggy eyes he opens immediately sharpen when they catch your gaze.
“Looks like you’re up for real this time,” he says, distorting the seemingly innocuous words around a grim sort of smile that already acknowledges the redundancy of stating the obvious.
Flexing your jaw, you swallow against your mouth dry and throat sore. You don’t trust your voice to speak, so you don’t. You watch Naruto, well aware of his eyes roaming over you.
It’s a subtle gesture, more subtle than you would have thought someone like him capable of, but the stout display of attentiveness, although quick, borders on unsettling. He studies you, inspecting his own abysmal bandaging skills that aren’t so abysmal anymore, over your chest and your right arm, finishing the survey near the back of your neck, where it stays too long.
Another moment and he finally decides to draw back, sitting up with a casual posture that doesn’t fool you.
“Between trying to burn this place down and almost kicking me down there,” he says, “I wasn’t sure what you were going to do when you woke up this morning.”
Your fingers clutching the sheet slacken and tighten.
“Not that you remember that, right.” He snorts, then smiles again, small but this time a little more reminiscent of his old smile easier to disregard. “Sleeping, that’s what you’ve been doing, in and out of it for the most part. It wasn’t that bad, but then your fever wouldn't stay down-even though I’m not Sakura or anything like that, I know enough to get by, but I almost thought...”
He shifts in the chair, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “Anyway, you’re better now. At least better enough to ignore me, so...”
Leaning over, almost cautious, he reaches to touch your forehead. You intercept the hand with fingers grabbing his wrist, try to squeeze hard enough in an attempt to break it, but you can only squeeze hard enough to ensure you won’t collapse.
The room stills, fills with the sound of your breathing, haggard gasps for air hauled long and slow through the slight gape in your mouth. Your grip is pathetically loose, and the refusal to release the hold sways to the necessity of leverage rather than the desire to actually hurt him.
He doesn’t pull away until you gather the energy to let go. His mouth forms into a thin line, tight despite his expression that makes something churn in the pit of your stomach.
Your hand falls back in your lap, but he doesn’t say anything, extending an arm behind him for a small paper cup sitting on the desk.
“Here.” He holds towards you the cup half empty. “I know it’s been a while.”
The coated feeling of your tongue is slimy against chapped lips, but you don’t move to accept the cup. You look away from it. You look away from him.
“Look, it’s just water. You can’t tell me you’re not thirsty.”
You don’t deny it, yet as dehydrated as you probably are, more so than even hungry, you know your hands won’t be steady enough to take the cup, let alone steady enough to hold it without spilling anything, but Naruto doesn’t need to know that. You’ll be damned if you let him try to do something as degrading as force-feed you water.
Again, he motions you to take the cup. He frowns when you still don’t move, then sighs and turns to place the cup back on the desk. “I’ll leave it here for later, all right. Just...”
Two fingers tap in quick succession on his knee, speeding up to a haphazard tempo. His gaze travels back to you, but he remains silent, seemingly content to stare with a newfound sense of patience.
Fatigue compels you to look away first. You lay down on the bed, forcing slow breaths through lungs suddenly parched for air, and you close your eyes, hands gripping the sheets until you manage to fall asleep.
...
The ceiling’s sallow in colour, almost a sickly yellow due to age obvious from the rest of the room. Large cracks in the off-white paint appear at random intervals along the intersection of the walls and ceiling. It’s a decaying backdrop to the four modest pieces of furniture noticeably dated, maybe even old enough to be considered antiquities, but it doesn’t tell you what you want to know, where you are.
Some kind of inn, mostly likely, although how far away from that place...
Movement from the other side of the room catches your attention. Without having to move, from your peripheral, you see Naruto standing on his knees reaching for the window above his bed.
“I know it’s too cold to open the window,” he says, “but natural light’s supposed to have the same effect as fresh air. Or at least something close to it.”
He pushes back the plain curtains unravelling at the seams, exposing you to the glare of the morning sun. “Plus, sharing a room this small, it doesn’t take that much to make it feel stuffy.”
He plops himself back on the bed rumpled and unmade, bouncing on it for a few moments. After a while, when the squeaking from the springs begins to subside, he says, “How long do you plan on keeping this up?”
Arm beneath the quilt, you tug on the waistband of the pants you don’t remember putting on, curl your fingers around the gathered material too much in your grasp.
“Not talking to me, that is.”
You keep your eyes fixed on the ceiling, restless despite the disinclination to move.
He tosses a sigh that reaches you from across the room. “That long, huh?”
He’s looking away when you turn your head to face him, staring at the worn knapsack you assume is his lying against the wall in the corner of the room. Near it, to the right of a narrow door, is a small desk, on top of it only a paper cup and a Konoha forehead protector sitting close to the edge.
You haven’t seen any of your belongings since you woke up coherent, but the only thing you’re searching for is Kusanagi. Unless Naruto had the foresight to bring it, you’ll have to return to that place where Itachi fell as soon as you’re well enough to travel.
With a another sigh, Naruto pushes himself off the bed and stands. He walks towards you, pulling at the hem of a white shirt covering loose black sweatpants. The soft pattering of his bare feet upon the hardwood floor grows louder, Naruto closer until he stops at the edge of the bed you’re lying on.
He peers down as you look up, squints at you while pushing away the hair falling over his face.
The unstated literal difference in vantage is too blatant to ignore. It doesn’t quite make you feel uneasy, nor does it detract from the lack of vulnerability you feel despite being in this position, yet the simple act of having to look up to meet his gaze has you narrowing your eyes nonetheless.
“It’s been four days, Sasuke. Four days and you-”
He drops his hand, letting his arm flop against his side. “You can’t do this forever. You won’t get better if you stay like this, and I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen. I didn’t come this far just to let you...”
Slow, exhale and inhale, you take in the scent of the quilt laid up to your neck, the almost pungent smell of mothballs. The taste it leaves in your mouth is unpleasant, nearly as bitter as the taste of dirt turned into mud from blood and sweat lost amidst rain.
“...say something.” From a low whisper, his voice begins to rise, words snarled through lips curving upwards at one corner. “Stop being such an asshole and talk to me-say something.”
The fingers gripping your pants unfurl, and you watch his body tense as he extends fingers that quickly form a fist.
“Say something.”
You don’t startle when the bed sinks beneath his additional weight, sinking further as he hovers above you, when his arms enclosing your face demand your attention.
“...get the h-hell off me” The fluctuation in your voice agitates your throat, reaffirms a dull throbbing behind your eyes at the fact you don’t simply throw Naruto to the floor.
“Damn it, Sasuke, I found you. I finally found you, but then seeing you look at me like that. Like none of it matters. Like nothing ever did.”
His face lowers close to yours. His breath you unwillingly inhale smothers you, an unwanted warmth that envelops you, but you don’t blink. You don’t let your gaze waver.
“So was it worth it, Sasuke?” The sun gleams on his eyes marred by lines of red rimming white surrounding blue. “Throwing it all away for Itachi’s death, this is what you gave up everything you had for, but in the end, has it changed anything?”
He closes his eyes, keeps them shut despite the wetness from his face that spatters on your cheek.
“Does it make things different now?” Sniffing, he opens his eyes and swallows, but his voice beginning to crack develops into a low growl. “...do you even care anymore?”
The bed recoils from his hands pressing down and pushing against it.
“Do you, Sasuke?” he shouts, then again, “do you?” and shoves at the bed twice, three times and again, punctuating the baseless litany of the underlying I told you so-we told you so you can’t help but hear each time the bed carries you with its momentum, each time the emphasis scrapes at your skin like the sheets under his fingers he bunches in his hand.
Once more, the bed dips before he pushes away. A glance at you makes him wince, makes his eyes grow wide. Slowly, he steps back, wiping his face with the bottom of his palm, muttering something you can’t hear, and stopping near the foot of the other bed. Turning away, in and out he breathes, reaching for his hair with the tips of his fingers pressing down hard against his scalp.
“Shitshit-shit.”
His hand drops to slap against his thigh.
“Sasuke, I...”
He cuts himself off with a scoff mangled by his faint laugh that follows. After a moment, he paces to the corner of the room, where he leans down in front of the knapsack.
“Bandages,” he says, “your bandages-too tight, are they...”
He doesn’t finish, yet he doesn’t wait for you to answer. Frantic hands scouring the small bag find and pull out a roll of gauze coming undone.
“I-I’m going to have to redo your bandages. Soon. Now.” Standing up, he turns to face you, tightening his grip around the gauze. “Then we can-you can get cleaned up. I did what I could, but you still might want to, uh...”
He starts to walk towards you but hesitates, edging backwards until the back of his legs hit the other bed, motion controlled when he allows himself to sit, allows his shoulders to sag with a heavy sigh.
“...four days, Sasuke,” he whispers, watching you with eyes still gleaming. “Four days.”