Archive of Our Own ^beta

Army dreamers

Our little army boy
Is coming home from B.F.P.O.
I've a bunch of purple flowers
To decorate mammy's hero
Mourning in the aerodrome
The weather warmer, he is colder
Four men in uniform
To carry home my little soldier

———————

Maggots were nestled beneath the wood, a little crusty and seemingly heavy with eggs to the point that from the spot where his finger was gripping the edge to the rest of it where the piece was still stuck into the stairs, was covered with the insects.

His skin was crawling a bit, pulling and kneading at the sensation beneath his veins,into the soft tissue of his muscles and creeping into his bones.

Disgust, as it seemed, was an emotion saved for times like this but, regardless of his attempts to feel it, he was left unresponsive and only gazing hollowly at one of the roaches trying to find its way on to his hand.

Maybe, he just wasn’t disgusted by insects.

Although, he could vividly remember a time where he’d sneak into a warm room across from his own and ask an older boy for help, because a roach was on his wall and he was too scared to do anything about it.

So, he knew that at one point, he’d been scared of them. The point in a time, a different place, a person who used to be called his name.

The roach moved its tactiles around and something uncoiled in his gut-

He still didn’t move.

The maggots crawled and only when the insect was inches away from him, did he drop the wood on the floor and backed away, his eyes never leaving the squished form of the many residents beneath the soaked item that was still dangling rather loosely from the perch.

He turnt away, nose red and his cheeks cold from the weather before walking a bit more into the woods, mindful of his boundary and counting his steps-

One, two- there was a hole in the ground, a rather deep and shallow pit with water that he usually used when the tab didn’t work.

Three- there was one particular tree with a nest full of ravens and it was placed directly in the line of the window of his bedroom. The ravens eyes glowed a gross red in the dead of the night.

Four, five and six.

Sasuke wasn’t allowed to move further than that.

It was illegal.

He turned back to the small cabin that he was supposed to call home and passed the maggots crawling from beneath the porch.

Their home was destroyed like his own too.

Sasuke envied them; they were free to find another.

—————-

Best be known that he didn’t particularly care for energy and food supply. He could easily live with just the bread rotting in the corner of his pantry until there was nothing left, in fact, he could not even taste that and lay on his broken couch, stare at the hole-filled ceiling and count the seconds.

Remembering to breathe in between.

Days passed slowly.

Sasuke didn’t know if he cared or, the hollow pit where his organs used to be needed to do anything else.

He had lost an arm.

He didn’t remember much by the chance of forgetting-

Or no. Perhaps he had stopped thinking and his mind no longer had the ability to function properly.

Perhaps, that was the reason why Naruto was so crushed to know that the stomp of his remaining hand was not healing.

Sasuke did know how to change bandages, he also knew well enough how to keep a wound clean but he just didn’t feel anything and so, he forgot that he had a missing hand, the stomp probably hurt or, maybe he was dreaming.

The voices told him what to do but, he didn’t listen to them anymore.

The voices had told him to kill the older boy.

So, he stared at the rotting bread in front of him and tuned out Naruto’s yelling as he rummaged through his fridge and fussed about the emptiness of it-

“You’re practically skin and bone!”

“Sasuke, you need to eat something!”

“That wound isn’t healing”

“Are you even listening?!”

Naruto was loud. Sasuke heard his words but he couldn’t quite understand what they meant.

Sakura sullenly wrapped his bleeding, infected stomp and slowly, calmly, kindly told him to eat the soup she had brought for him.

He forgot about the soup.

By the time he remembered, it had gotten cold and rotten.

He poured it outside for the roaches and the maggots.

Kakashi was the better of them. He didn’t yell and he didn’t try to fix him to coast him to respond or make him eat something he’d throw up later-

He sat there with him and stared into the jungle next to Sasuke’s small cabin that he wasn’t allowed to enter. They’d walk around the house sometimes, Kakashi going over and Sasuke standing at his six feet, blankly looking at the ground-

He didn’t know what he was doing.

Staring at the ceiling.

Sitting on the couch.

There were other things in the house too, probably, definitely, most likely.

Sasuke hadn’t seen them.

So he counted the maggots dealing into the soil beneath the staircase and wished he was one of them.

The raven on the tree of the eighth feet of his backyard cawed and flew away. A maggot was in its maw.

The blood dripping from his finger where he had accidentally cut it was red and red and red and his finger was throbbing-

He counted to ten. Twenty. Thirty.

Oh.

Pain in his stomach.

He hadn’t really eaten in a week.

Or was it because of something else?

Sakura was shuffling through her bag, pulling out a needle and a threat to stitch his wound close. She scowled him while he tried not keep his winced to himself as the needle ran through his skin.

He really hadn’t meant for the wound to happen.

Sakura didn’t believe him. Naruto sat down next to him a few hours later and crushed him to his massive, massive chest and murmured and murdered and murmured-

Sasuke wished he was deaf. Not dead. Just deaf.

The three people visiting every now and then wanted him alive so he supposed that he should also want to be alive.

He didn’t know how to want something.

The raven flew back on its nest and gazed at him.

Funny, from afar it’s eyes were almost red.

———————————-

Sakura cried when she saw his stomp getting infected again. In his defense, he really didn’t remember that it existed. Sasuke liked to count the seconds his heart to each time beat and so, in the process of trying to make it into some hour that he thought was appropriate for sleep, he kind of forgot about his body parts.

Naruto was looking guiltier that day. Sasuke didn’t know why.

“Do you…” he hesitated, looking at him through his wet eyelashes that shone like the sun before he continued his question. “Do you wanna be free?”

Sasuke stared blankly back at him; he didn’t know how to respond.

He didn’t want to break Naruto’s heart.

It was a cage.

It was suffocating.

Sasuke didn’t know how to fly anymore, one of his wings were broken and Naruto’s eyes were a deep, sad blue.

He had always lived for other people.

The raven was flying high outside of his house.

——————

Tears o'er a tin box
Oh, Jesus Christ, he wasn't to know
Like a chicken with a fox
He couldn't win the war with ego
Give the kid the pick of pips
And give him all your stripes and ribbons
Now he's sitting in his hole
He might as well have buttons and bows

————

“Go.”

Sasuke eyed the cabin and the dad ravens at his feet.

He looked to the eyes of the man who had been his teacher once.

“Be free.”

“Naruto-

“Naruto will have to learn to let go. You’re not his bird to cage. You should be free.”

The man took a stand towards him, his arm pointing to the distance that Sasuke wasn’t allowed to go.

“The cage is open. Be free.”

Sasuke ran.

He didn’t look back.