Suigetsu-centric fic: Come With Me
Title: “Come With Me”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13 [attempted suicide]
Timeline: five years post-canon
Summary: It’s been five years since they last saw each other, but nothing changes. When Sasuke calls, Suigetsu still comes. Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Quotes from chapters 417 (Karin and Juugo) and 346 (Sasuke).
A/N: I was supposed to write an essay for uni. And I feel like shit b/c of my allergies. What this has to do with all that, I have no idea. But damn, why is my writing so depressing these days? XD
COME WITH ME
There is silence in these caves, and silence talks a lot. Silence whispers in his mind that he will be left alone, melting in the water, like all those years ago, and the water will be no blessing, but damnation. He cannot live without water, but when it happens, he dreams of never coming across another body of water again.
But he is here of his own free will.
He feels like a sinking ship. Mere fragments of a ship now that everyone is gone. He disappears beneath the dark surface; flares of red ooze out overhead, the blood they spilt, his eyes, her hair… How many years since?..
He lets himself loose, becoming water inside water, and remembers. She, with her messy red hair, had a gruff voice that tended to get too high-pitched whenever she got angry. Her hands were covered in bitemarks; her temper was short, and when she got scandalous, he wanted nothing more than to kill her.
“Just be glad we brought you with us at all!” she had said.
He, with his imposing stature and his split personality, spoke gently and quietly, if docile, and crashed bones into chips, if out of his mind. He could speak to birds and would probably make a good friend, if given an option.
“We all got hurt protecting each other…” he had said. “We need each other.”
And then him. He, with his deadly eyes, and his lust for vengeance, and his hurt soul, and his bleeding heart, the blood of his brother on his hands that no water could wash away…
“You’re the first, Suigetsu. Come with me,” he had said.
And he can pretend all he likes, but somewhere along the way his quest for the seven swords was no longer a priority. Sasuke was a priority. Sasuke was the touchstone.
Water courses all over him and through him. Water becomes his blood, his bones, his cells. He wonders how long it will take for him to die completely. He will fuse into this lake, deep in the mountains, he will no longer think or feel or care, and the lake will evaporate, for even water does not last forever. The seven swords are safe with him, buried at the bottom of this lake. He can touch them if he likes. No one will ever find them. But they don’t make him happy.
‘Come with me…’ a voice whispers softly.
Five years. The time is five years. Five years it took him to break down completely. Time heals all wounds, they say. Bullshit. Time gnawed at his wounds like water gnaws at rock; five years to the day his loneliness began he found himself wishing Sasuke had never freed him from Orochimaru’s tank.
‘Come with me…’
“You break everything!” he had heard the Kyuubi-guy scream. “You break everything you touch! Why are you with them? We needed you here! Don’t you see, everything is gone now!”
Suigetsu didn’t want to witness this. Sasuke’s past friendships were no concern of his. Sasuke was no concern of his. It was just a job. Just a road to take, out of multiple other roads. But he had taken that one, and it led him to the Hidden Leaf Village, ruined by the Akatsuki, and he was wearing the Akatsuki cloak and listening to the Kyuubi-guy scream. He wished Sasuke would scream too. Then they’d make up in the end and somebody would fucking tell Suigetsu who to fight there already because otherwise, it was a goddamn insane asylum!
But Sasuke remained silent. And Hawk didn’t fight anyone. They just stood there, listening to the Kyuubi-guy bellowing insults and the never-ending why-why-why’s.
‘Come with me…’
By every kami in existence, Suigetsu wished he hadn’t gone.
“You’re his new pet then,” he had grinned at Sasuke from behind the transparent wall of the tank.
“What’s your name?” Confident. Self-assured. Like he wasn’t a fellow prisoner.
“He likes you. But don’t think you can make me fear you.”
“I just asked your name,” Sasuke had said calmly.
“Houzuki Suigetsu.”
“Uchiha Sasuke.”
The name had pierced him like a pebble thrown into still waters. He could feel the hunger rising from within him. Desire to kill mingled with blind admiration. This kid here had killed Momochi Zabuza.
“I know you,” Suigetsu had mouthed against the wall, “Uchiha Sasuke.”
Sasuke had smirked and promised to come after him when he had killed Orochimaru. Suigetsu hadn’t believed him, but he had waited, and the waiting had paid off. Sasuke had asked him to-.
‘Come with me…’
Suigetsu remembers the mist that used to blanket his native village. Himself as a child, lying in his big brother’s protective embrace. His brother was a cruel bastard, but that’s a given in the Bloody Mist. His brother is dead now, much like everyone that had ever mattered.
Suigetsu mourns silently as he disintegrates.
* * *
Someone pulls him out. His molecules bounce back together in a sickening whirlpool; he shoots upwards in rivulets of chilly water and splashes on the rocky bank. His newly formed lungs broaden as he takes a deep, greedy breath.
“Were you trying to kill yourself by drowning? That’s moronic.”
Suigetsu’s eyes are wet. Not because he is crying, mind you; he is still half-water, so it’s natural that everything is wet. Water trickles down his cheeks.
“You heartless fucker!” he coughs out. “You were alive all this time.”
Another breath comes forcibly (alive, alive, alive, pulses in his brain), and he bursts into real tears and despises himself for it. He is twenty-one, and he has been a shinobi for the Bloody Mist and the missing-nin for the better half of his life; and he cries like a baby because the Uchiha bastard didn’t die five years ago.
“Why are you alive, Sasuke?” he asks under his breath a few minutes later.
“Because I didn’t happen to get killed.”
He looks tired. Dark hair is plastered against the pallid forehead. He keeps squinting his lacklustre eyes like they are in pain all the time. Must be the Mangekyou Sharingan eating at his eyesight. Suigetsu is surprised that Sasuke has not gone blind yet.
“How did you know I was here?”
Sasuke gets up, glances at him coolly, in his oh-so-memorable manner, and says:
“I’m not here to play twenty questions, Suigetsu. I need assistance and I could use yours. Will you come with me?”
The magic words again. Suigetsu thinks he will not drop the same brick twice, no, sir, but his brain-to-mouth connection must be warped, because as he readies himself to refuse, out comes the word:
“Yes,” in a faint, strained whisper, but his fate is sealed once again.
Sasuke turns his back on him. There is no Uchiha crest on his shirt. There is nothing, just plain black fabric. He is a faceless traveler now, maybe a mercenary, shinobi for hire, a vagabond, a runaway, a betrayer, a lost friend that will never return. Suigetsu wants to ask him about Juugo and Karin (are they really dead, or did the miracle work three times?), about the Kyuubi-guy (where is he? did he forgive Sasuke?), about the point of their destination… anything… keep talking, make sure this isn’t the last illusion of his dying mind. He might still be drowning, blending into the water of that mountain lake.
“If you like, I can kill you myself,” Sasuke says. “Later. I need you now.”
Suigetsu knows this is real. Sasuke is real. Sasuke is back from the dead, and whether he likes it or not, Suigetsu is once more bound to him.
“You wish, asshole,” he grins toothily. “I’ll be the one to kill you later.”
He treads back to the lake and takes a dive and emerges a few minutes later, pulling the Head Cleaver after him. Zabuza’s zanbatou. Everything resumes its course from now on.
“I must be crazy,” Suigetsu mutters, “if I’m even considering this. Walking beside you again. Who do you want to kill this time?”
“No one,” Sasuke replies.
“That’s new.” Suigetsu blinks, inconvenienced by the sudden shower of sunlight that washes over him as they step out of the caves. The sky is flawless blue.
He must be lonely. He must have been lonely for five years, but he didn’t happen to get killed. Suigetsu remembers the Kyuubi-guy’s fierce, sad, blue eyes and wonders what happened. Friendships like that don’t die, unless you kill them. Did Sasuke kill that friendship in the end?
He realizes that he must be a mere replacement for the Kyuubi-guy. Must have been all those years ago, too, Team Hebi for Team Seven, just like that, just because Sasuke couldn’t stop and admit his mistakes. Even when he had a chance. Suigetsu knows this - and he doesn’t care. Because his life has a meaning again.
Perhaps that’s where they are going: to find Sasuke’s meaning.
April 26, 2009
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13 [attempted suicide]
Timeline: five years post-canon
Summary: It’s been five years since they last saw each other, but nothing changes. When Sasuke calls, Suigetsu still comes. Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Quotes from chapters 417 (Karin and Juugo) and 346 (Sasuke).
A/N: I was supposed to write an essay for uni. And I feel like shit b/c of my allergies. What this has to do with all that, I have no idea. But damn, why is my writing so depressing these days? XD
COME WITH ME
There is silence in these caves, and silence talks a lot. Silence whispers in his mind that he will be left alone, melting in the water, like all those years ago, and the water will be no blessing, but damnation. He cannot live without water, but when it happens, he dreams of never coming across another body of water again.
But he is here of his own free will.
He feels like a sinking ship. Mere fragments of a ship now that everyone is gone. He disappears beneath the dark surface; flares of red ooze out overhead, the blood they spilt, his eyes, her hair… How many years since?..
He lets himself loose, becoming water inside water, and remembers. She, with her messy red hair, had a gruff voice that tended to get too high-pitched whenever she got angry. Her hands were covered in bitemarks; her temper was short, and when she got scandalous, he wanted nothing more than to kill her.
“Just be glad we brought you with us at all!” she had said.
He, with his imposing stature and his split personality, spoke gently and quietly, if docile, and crashed bones into chips, if out of his mind. He could speak to birds and would probably make a good friend, if given an option.
“We all got hurt protecting each other…” he had said. “We need each other.”
And then him. He, with his deadly eyes, and his lust for vengeance, and his hurt soul, and his bleeding heart, the blood of his brother on his hands that no water could wash away…
“You’re the first, Suigetsu. Come with me,” he had said.
And he can pretend all he likes, but somewhere along the way his quest for the seven swords was no longer a priority. Sasuke was a priority. Sasuke was the touchstone.
Water courses all over him and through him. Water becomes his blood, his bones, his cells. He wonders how long it will take for him to die completely. He will fuse into this lake, deep in the mountains, he will no longer think or feel or care, and the lake will evaporate, for even water does not last forever. The seven swords are safe with him, buried at the bottom of this lake. He can touch them if he likes. No one will ever find them. But they don’t make him happy.
‘Come with me…’ a voice whispers softly.
Five years. The time is five years. Five years it took him to break down completely. Time heals all wounds, they say. Bullshit. Time gnawed at his wounds like water gnaws at rock; five years to the day his loneliness began he found himself wishing Sasuke had never freed him from Orochimaru’s tank.
‘Come with me…’
“You break everything!” he had heard the Kyuubi-guy scream. “You break everything you touch! Why are you with them? We needed you here! Don’t you see, everything is gone now!”
Suigetsu didn’t want to witness this. Sasuke’s past friendships were no concern of his. Sasuke was no concern of his. It was just a job. Just a road to take, out of multiple other roads. But he had taken that one, and it led him to the Hidden Leaf Village, ruined by the Akatsuki, and he was wearing the Akatsuki cloak and listening to the Kyuubi-guy scream. He wished Sasuke would scream too. Then they’d make up in the end and somebody would fucking tell Suigetsu who to fight there already because otherwise, it was a goddamn insane asylum!
But Sasuke remained silent. And Hawk didn’t fight anyone. They just stood there, listening to the Kyuubi-guy bellowing insults and the never-ending why-why-why’s.
‘Come with me…’
By every kami in existence, Suigetsu wished he hadn’t gone.
“You’re his new pet then,” he had grinned at Sasuke from behind the transparent wall of the tank.
“What’s your name?” Confident. Self-assured. Like he wasn’t a fellow prisoner.
“He likes you. But don’t think you can make me fear you.”
“I just asked your name,” Sasuke had said calmly.
“Houzuki Suigetsu.”
“Uchiha Sasuke.”
The name had pierced him like a pebble thrown into still waters. He could feel the hunger rising from within him. Desire to kill mingled with blind admiration. This kid here had killed Momochi Zabuza.
“I know you,” Suigetsu had mouthed against the wall, “Uchiha Sasuke.”
Sasuke had smirked and promised to come after him when he had killed Orochimaru. Suigetsu hadn’t believed him, but he had waited, and the waiting had paid off. Sasuke had asked him to-.
‘Come with me…’
Suigetsu remembers the mist that used to blanket his native village. Himself as a child, lying in his big brother’s protective embrace. His brother was a cruel bastard, but that’s a given in the Bloody Mist. His brother is dead now, much like everyone that had ever mattered.
Suigetsu mourns silently as he disintegrates.
* * *
Someone pulls him out. His molecules bounce back together in a sickening whirlpool; he shoots upwards in rivulets of chilly water and splashes on the rocky bank. His newly formed lungs broaden as he takes a deep, greedy breath.
“Were you trying to kill yourself by drowning? That’s moronic.”
Suigetsu’s eyes are wet. Not because he is crying, mind you; he is still half-water, so it’s natural that everything is wet. Water trickles down his cheeks.
“You heartless fucker!” he coughs out. “You were alive all this time.”
Another breath comes forcibly (alive, alive, alive, pulses in his brain), and he bursts into real tears and despises himself for it. He is twenty-one, and he has been a shinobi for the Bloody Mist and the missing-nin for the better half of his life; and he cries like a baby because the Uchiha bastard didn’t die five years ago.
“Why are you alive, Sasuke?” he asks under his breath a few minutes later.
“Because I didn’t happen to get killed.”
He looks tired. Dark hair is plastered against the pallid forehead. He keeps squinting his lacklustre eyes like they are in pain all the time. Must be the Mangekyou Sharingan eating at his eyesight. Suigetsu is surprised that Sasuke has not gone blind yet.
“How did you know I was here?”
Sasuke gets up, glances at him coolly, in his oh-so-memorable manner, and says:
“I’m not here to play twenty questions, Suigetsu. I need assistance and I could use yours. Will you come with me?”
The magic words again. Suigetsu thinks he will not drop the same brick twice, no, sir, but his brain-to-mouth connection must be warped, because as he readies himself to refuse, out comes the word:
“Yes,” in a faint, strained whisper, but his fate is sealed once again.
Sasuke turns his back on him. There is no Uchiha crest on his shirt. There is nothing, just plain black fabric. He is a faceless traveler now, maybe a mercenary, shinobi for hire, a vagabond, a runaway, a betrayer, a lost friend that will never return. Suigetsu wants to ask him about Juugo and Karin (are they really dead, or did the miracle work three times?), about the Kyuubi-guy (where is he? did he forgive Sasuke?), about the point of their destination… anything… keep talking, make sure this isn’t the last illusion of his dying mind. He might still be drowning, blending into the water of that mountain lake.
“If you like, I can kill you myself,” Sasuke says. “Later. I need you now.”
Suigetsu knows this is real. Sasuke is real. Sasuke is back from the dead, and whether he likes it or not, Suigetsu is once more bound to him.
“You wish, asshole,” he grins toothily. “I’ll be the one to kill you later.”
He treads back to the lake and takes a dive and emerges a few minutes later, pulling the Head Cleaver after him. Zabuza’s zanbatou. Everything resumes its course from now on.
“I must be crazy,” Suigetsu mutters, “if I’m even considering this. Walking beside you again. Who do you want to kill this time?”
“No one,” Sasuke replies.
“That’s new.” Suigetsu blinks, inconvenienced by the sudden shower of sunlight that washes over him as they step out of the caves. The sky is flawless blue.
He must be lonely. He must have been lonely for five years, but he didn’t happen to get killed. Suigetsu remembers the Kyuubi-guy’s fierce, sad, blue eyes and wonders what happened. Friendships like that don’t die, unless you kill them. Did Sasuke kill that friendship in the end?
He realizes that he must be a mere replacement for the Kyuubi-guy. Must have been all those years ago, too, Team Hebi for Team Seven, just like that, just because Sasuke couldn’t stop and admit his mistakes. Even when he had a chance. Suigetsu knows this - and he doesn’t care. Because his life has a meaning again.
Perhaps that’s where they are going: to find Sasuke’s meaning.
April 26, 2009