Work Text:
Charlotta making lasagna
with Mia above the clouds
Black lacquered nails clashed off metal bars, as bones were crushed under the weight of a south-bound freight train screeching to a halt.
The man was blissfully unaware of the conductor’s panic. He wasn’t a person anymore, he was a sloppily butchered animal. A deer with ribs shooting through it’s fragile skin; mangled legs, pale skin flayed, scalp bloodied, body separated messily at the waist, and a crushed phone clutched in his eerily twitching hand.
He was unidentifiable except for his scars. Cuts and burns latticed across miles of skin like a grotesque spiderweb of self-hatred. Flesh so mangled hair was long unable to grow.
His hand finally fell still. Snapped tendons, fried nerves, and massacred palms bathed in the dim glow of an Instagram post reassuring everyone it wasn’t their fault, that it was for their benefit.
Ruined limbs aside, the job was done. Sasuke Uchiha was lost to the world.
He was selfish, but he got his wish. He became the horror movies he so enjoyed, the cautionary tale, sad news story, and traumatic memory; the ghost under the bridge.
—
But you could have waited
A quick direct message, and Naruto’s world had crumbled. The cheesy romcom he’d been watching blurred into nothingness, the world was too loud.
Naruto couldn’t breathe, his chest weighed down by phantom steel and crushed against the ground. As grief overtook him, he realized he should’ve seen it coming. Blanketing yourself in optimism can only lead to tragedy.
His day went by in a haze, fitful and dreamless sleep solidifying his denial. “Was” is a terrible substitute for “is”, after all. The last thoughts in his head were of killing Sasuke, his friend’s mutilated body a direct product of Naruto’s negligence.
—
You could have locked yourself up
for ten years or so
and when you finally came out
there would still be new chances for you
The world felt wrong. It was wrong. If the world was normal it wouldn’t hurt so bad. Everything Naruto did became a painful reminder of what Sasuke no longer could.
Then the rage came. White hot tears and nails tearing at skin, silent screams into the void. Naruto found himself wishing the afterlife was real, just so Sasuke could witness the pain he caused. He’d always said he was too scared to kill himself, too scared it’d hurt. Ironic, coming from such a masochist.
People kill themselves for a number of reasons. Since they’re dead, you can’t ask them why either, so all you can do is speculate. Rip yourself apart at the seams wondering why, if you could’ve prevented it, and if you caused it. The answer to the last two is probably no, but knowing it doesn’t stop the guilt.
Sasuke had so much potential. In Naruto’s eyes he was a nerve racking safe haven, a previously living contradiction. He rarely showed Naruto his dark sides, and if he did it was accidental.
In Naruto’s eyes, he was kind, smart, and worthy of life. In his own he was a disgusting disappointment. It was naïve of Naruto to think his words could save Sasuke. Only after his death did he realize that was his goal, but some people can’t be fixed. Sasuke was one of them.
What would’ve happened if he waited? Maybe for a minute, maybe for a day, a month, a year? What would’ve happened if there was a fence blocking the railway? Nobody knows for sure, but Naruto believed Sasuke would’ve gone on to do great things.
Time heals all wounds if you let it. The painful circumstances of his past could’ve fostered growth, self-acceptance, and maybe even self-love. If only he’d given himself a chance.
The ripple of his suicide will long carry on the water, staining lives with blood and polluting rivers with bone. Wasted potential.
—
I look for moves and I search for breaths
and it leaves me
thinking about death
A week had passed. Naruto found himself wondering how it felt. The searing pain of being ripped apart joint by joint, blood caking the train’s metal underside, staining it permanently despite cleaners’ best efforts.
The thoughts plagued him. Vivid imagery of Achilles’ tendons ripping and fingers snapping backwards with a sickening snap creeping through the cracks in his skull, clouding his mind. All he could hope was that his brain would soon forget, as the raw pain was lost in a memory.
He didn’t get quite so lucky, dreams of a mangled face creeping into his waking world, Sasuke’s face was everywhere and nowhere at once. Naruto was numb to the gory details now, and all he could do was laugh .
—
Beautiful sky
my car and we leave town for a while
you are a yellow surprise
noticing water is friendly sometimes
but you could have waited
105 days later, the ripples of death had ceased, but the water was still polluted. Naruto still thought of Sasuke every day, still expecting to see him, and hear his thoughts.
For someone who never believed in ghosts or an afterlife, hearing friends opt to console him with reassurances of Sasuke communicating with them in dreams was disconcerting. He knew they meant well, but that didn’t make it okay, nothing would. The only thing that would make it okay was if corpses could be reanimated, but even then there wouldn’t be much more than entrails.
In hindsight he couldn’t say this was unexpected, as much as he’d like to believe that. Sasuke had been hurting for a long time; he never even tried to hide it. Naruto’s alarm bells should’ve sounded as soon as he read Sasuke’s note promising to “do better”, and “improve himself as a person”, but they didn’t, and even if they did there was nothing he could’ve done. Sasuke’s mind was already made up.
True to his letter, Sasuke did need to improve as a person while he was alive, at least according to others. Gaslighting, manipulation, assault, the list went on, and Naruto wholeheartedly believed them. There were few things more Sasuke than manipulative tendencies and self-worth issues, but none of that seemed important now.
In Naruto’s experience, Sasuke was surprisingly supportive. The type of person you think is going to bully or put you down in some way, but he never did. He always encouraged Naruto to do whatever he wanted, with the reassurance that it’d come out amazing because he did it. He missed that. He missed Sasuke.
Naruto didn’t have many regrets, but never telling Sasuke how much he cared was the biggest one. Everyone deserves to know how much they’re loved. He hadn’t told Sasuke he loved him out of fear. He didn’t want to mess with what they already had. In the early days, he found himself wondering if things would be different had he told Sasuke; they wouldn’t be. It’d be egotistical to put so much worth in one person’s words, but he still wished those feelings weren’t unsaid.
In the end, missing Sasuke was a never-ending forecast of drizzle and gray skies; not overwhelming, but always there. While the ripples may have been gone, the polluted waters were there to stay; poisoning their ecosystem until the trees turned black and animals keeled over, bright red insides spilling into the water.
He hoped Sasuke was happy, wherever he was.