eswareinmal | Every step you take.

Entry tags:

Every step you take.

Characters: Sasuke, Bakura
Open? Nah.
Where: HH.
When: RD17, morning.
What: Sasuke's developing a...fixation.
Warnings: Bad language, harmless stalking.

He'd woken with a start sometime in the predawn with tears on his face and no memory of his dream aside from the overwhelming presence of brother.

Sickened by his own weakness--he'd promised himself he wouldn't fall asleep; he'd promised--and childish emotion, he'd pushed himself off the bed and made to leave. He wasn't sure where he'd go--the forest, maybe, to set fire to a pile of leaves and see if he could get it to burn brighter than a fucking candle. But he stopped abruptly, nearly tripping over a plate.

Onigiri.

He carried them back into his room and ate them on the bed. The first bite made him realize how hungry he'd been; the rest were quickly finished off. They weren't filled with tomato and skipjack.

Why had he...

Afterwards, Sasuke waited until he heard movement in the other areas of the mansion before slipping out of his room again, this time with an empty plate. And here he stood, just outside the kitchen with plate in hand, rooted to the spot as he watched Bakura moving about.

Damn it.

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"You're sure? There's plenty. I'm pretty used to cooking for a lot of people, so really, its no trouble if you want something," Bakura looked down with a touch of wistful emo before looking back up, smile in full force. "I even found a good bean for anpan, it's almost the same sweetness if you want to try one," he nodded over at the counter where a kitchen towel lay covering a small pile of cooling buns.

"I hate sweets." Sasuke glared in the direction of the stove, avoiding Bakura's eyes. "And natto."

This was...strange. Being dropped somewhere so tame. He'd never experienced peace like this, even as a child; he'd been born at the end of a massive, bloody war, and taught to be looking over his shoulder as soon as he knew what the words meant. Here, there was nothing watching him; more than a few times, he'd caught himself preparing to attack the wind, or his own shadow.

It was unsettling. The onigiri was familiar and made him think of home. That was all.

"Aaa-- different sort! Anpan's made with red bean," Bakura explained with a small laugh. "Never had one before?"

"I know what anpan is made of," Sasuke groused, upper lip curling into a scowl. "I'm not stupid. I meant, I'll eat anything but sweets and natto. And natto, I'd smell from a mile away."

"Aaa-- sorry, sorry. I'm used to having to explain that sort of thing," Bakura explained, rubbing the back of his neck in utter embarrassment. "One of my friends back home, he actually grew up on a space ship so he didn't even know ice cream came in more than 2 flavors!"

Again, the touch of emo. How was Matsuka doing, he wondered. And Alastair and Kiryu and--

He shook his head slightly, pushing the thought away. Focus on right now, don't worry about back home...

Sasuke saw the melancholy, through the bright words. Running headlong into a problem with a grin on his face, insisting it would go away...

"Ch." He reached over and grabbed one of the buns. "Fine, I'll eat your stupid anpan. Don't make that face."

He ripped off a bite and made himself chew through the cloying sweetness.

Bakura blinked. "I-- I didn't...." he faltered, utterly confused.

...had he been making a face...? He was normally pretty good at keeping things hidden...

He shuddered as the last of the anpan went down his throat, grimacing. Sometimes he was accused of professing a dislike for sweets to make himself look tougher, but he didn't see the point in lying when he was tough enough in reality. He really did hate the stickiness of it, the thick aftertaste that lingered.

"I'm a fucking ninja. I know how to spot a facade," Sasuke muttered in explanation. "Do you have anything spicy or sour?"

"Aaaa..." Bakura scratched at his cheek awkwardly.

You'd think he would have learned, what with the telepaths and the jedi he had kept company with...

He looked over at the dish he had just finished. "This one's more savory... more herbs that spices..." he explained apologetically.

"And my best friend is the king of 'smile at it and it will go away'."

He paused with his hand halfway stretched out to the dish. Best friend.

This place was getting to him.

"As long as it's not sweet," he said, pushing away from the subject. "Plate, utensils?"

No wonder he was so easily found out, then.

Bakura nodded, turning to pull down a rather fancy looking plate and silverware that was likely real silver. "Sorry there's no chopsticks..." he apologized as he held them out.

Welcoming the subject change, Sasuke took the dishes without a word and heaped on some of the vegetables, taking a few bites and chewing carefully and slowly to give himself time to put his mind back where it should be.

Naruto had been his friend, but wasn't anymore. This Einmal place was just a temporary detour. Sasuke would be back to his mission soon enough. And bonds still made you weak.

"It's good," he said tonelessly, poking at the food.

"You don't have to say that just because you feel you should," Bakura pointed out at the flat tone. "Still figuring out how to use a wood stove, I got spoiled on the restaurant kitchen Hiruma-kun had installed," he admitted with a smile, turning back to one of the dishes still simmering. "And being in the City. A lot harder to find ingredients here. I don't think anyone's even heard of tofu, or soybeans..."

"I don't lie," Sasuke said flatly, shoving another bite in his mouth. "It's not the best food I've ever had, but it's not the worst, either. I mostly eat soldier pills."

A pause. He remembered edamame, although it had been a long time since he'd eaten it. "I used to cook when I lived in Konoha." Had learned very quickly that his weekly allowance from the Hokage lasted much longer if he bought his own ingredients rather than getting takeout every night. And it helped, sometimes; the more elaborate his meal was, the more he could occupy his mind with things other than images of the bloodied Uchiha compound.

Soldier pills, huh? Again, Bakura found himself thinking of Matsuka and the restrictive diet of space travel. To have food reduced to such a practical level...

"That were you were before?" he asked, gently stirring another pan on the stove top.

"Not before here, but further back."

Sasuke finished off the food on the plate and set it down, leaning against the counter. For the first time in what felt like weeks, his stomach wasn't gnawing at him--in fact, thinking about it, he felt a little bit too full, and frowned at his error. When recovering from a long mission where food is scarce, take re-feeding slowly and carefully.

He hoisted himself onto the counter to watch Bakura stir. Overfull or not, the food still tickled pleasantly at his nose.

"The first place you started out then?" Bakura guessed with a small smile as he worked. "Or did you move around a lot even back there?"

"My birthplace." Soiled with innocent blood and preening with self-righteous arrogance. "And the site of my family's exile and massacre."

Bakura turned, eyes wide. "..oh..." He blinked. Even now, he had no idea how to react to things like that. "I-- Sorry, I didn't... Sorry," he apologized.

And how many times has he heard that before? His stomach churns, the food making the sensation twice as uncomfortable. "Apologies won't bring them back to me."

"I know. Nothing will. But there's not really anything else that can be said to something like that..." Bakura's voice is soft as he looks back down at his cooking.

The floor wasn't all that interesting, but staring at a fixed spot meant he didn't have to look up and see the pity on Bakura's face. Poor little Uchiha boy. He clenched a fist.

"This is why I want to go home. Because the only thing I can do is bring them peace, and not from here. The longer I'm here, the more their deaths go in vain."

"If this place works like the City... it may not be that way," Bakura pointed out, gently stirring the pan. "When someone's displaced in time and space like this, when they go back, it's to that exact moment, like they never left. So while you're here... no time is passing back home for anyone. So even if it's just in a limbo, it might be that they're at rest while you're here, because time has stopped for everything until you can return."

"Why should I believe you?" Pretty words, but anyone could lie and make it sound good. He almost preferred to think he was being held here in an endless genjutsu, to keep him out of the way while the citizens of Konoha went on living their ignorant, selfish lies.

He glanced up at Bakura, eyes narrowing. Another important detail. "If they're at rest, why won't they shut up?"

Their voices rang in his ears, here, louder and angrier than they had even when he'd been rendered useless by his emotions back in Fire Country.

"Eh?" Bakura turned, blinking over. "You mean they came with you...?" His left hand starting to go up to touch where the faded scars from the Ring still lingered on his chest before falling back to his side, fingers twitching just a touch as the phantom pain of the not so faded scar there flared up as it always did when he thought of the spirit who'd given it to him.

But the Voice had already been defeated-- for good this time!-- before he had arrived a the City. Did that mean if he hadn't...

He pushed the thought away. "And I guess you can only take my word on it. That sort of thing... there's no real way to prove it beyond what people have said."

"Of course they came with me. I'm the one they're haunting."

Because he came from a line of geniuses. Even after death, in forms of pure hatred, they would know it was useless to linger at the Uchiha compound, or the elders of Konoha. Haunting Sasuke was effective. He could right the wrongs done to them, and no one else.

He watched Bakura's hand twitch, but was too busy focusing on his own internal anger to notice the layer of meaning under it. He had been the only one who could right their wrongs, until he'd come here.

"I guess whatever magic they used pulled everything attached to you then.... I feel sorry for them, being stuck like that. All they can do is wait here, right?"

"Wait here and yell at me," Sasuke muttered. Failure. Worthless. Trash.

"If it brought everything attached, where's my power?"

"I don't know... Maybe yours is attached to something that couldn't come with? I don't know how your world works to tell, but... it might be something that needs something else to fuel it." Or someone else.

"Hatred." Itachi's words rang in his ears. You lack hatred.

Not that he really believed it. He had enough hatred to fuel his chakra for a century. It was this place, obviously, but what about this place specifically remained to be seen.

Bakura blinked a few times, trying to hide the discomfort at that, the fingers on his left hand twitching yet again before he buried the memories threatening to surface.

"Power born of that will only eat you from inside..." he said softly. "If that's why it's not as strong here... maybe that's for the better."

"You think I don't know that?"

It was harsh, and he turned to glare. He'd given up everything when he left Konoha--hadn't had a choice. He'd never had a choice, really. "It doesn't matter. I don't plan on living long after I take my revenge."

To be with his family--to be able to face them and say Mother, Father, I did it, I made them pay for what they did to you--

He wanted it.

Desperately.

Bakura nearly flinched at the harsh tone, but didn't look away. "Are you sure that would make them happy...?" he asked in a soft voice.

For once, I want to do something for myself. This one thing. Please, give me this.

Sasuke fisted his hands in his pants, looking at the wall. "As long as I avenge them before I do it, yes."

Bakura didn't look very happy at that, but he just nodded. "As long as it's what you want as well..." he said softly, looking down at his cooking again.

The question was so absurd, so unfamiliar that Sasuke gave a short burst of laughter, before he realized that Bakura was serious.

"What I want? It doesn't matter what I want. It never has. My entire clan is dead, and I am literally the only one left who can avenge them. I am the only one who knows how meaningless their slaughter was, who ordered it, which heads to target first."

His fists tightened against the counter. "I will avenge them. Then I will die, like I should have ten years ago. There was never a question. I don't have room, or time, for things like wanting."

He remembered himself and chewed on the inside of his cheek, brows knitted in a scowl. "Or, I didn't have time. I have all the fucking time in the world now, I guess."

Bakura was quiet a long moment before speaking. "The end isn't always so easily determined like that, you know," he said softly. "Once you take revenge for them... your life will be your own, right? You don't need to die after that. You could decide to start the clan again, since you're still carrying it with you, right?"

He slowly stirred the pan of vegetables, not really looking at it. "Even though I know it's not the same... I know my sister would be angry with me for saying that I should be with her and Mother. She told me once, the first time I died," he admitted with a faint smile. "All but pushed me back, yelling at me that since she couldn't go back, I had to. Once their need for vengeance is filled... I'm sure your family would want the same for you."

"You're lucky your family loves you. That's a luxury I don't have." The fury of his family and fear of becoming worthless to them was what kept him going, when he couldn't take another step. "They would want to see me die a warrior's death, not waste away."

Which is what would happen. Which is what almost happened, before Madara stepped in and told him the truth. For hours after killing Itachi, he hadn't been able to muster the will to move. There hadn't been any reason for him to.

Once, he'd thought of starting the clan again, but where would they go? Rebuilt from the ashes of Konoha, once he'd destroyed it? There was no one to carry his children. He didn't want their blood poisoned by the Leaf, diluted into a mockery of the Uchiha name.

"We'll be immortal," he said, and a soft smile played about his lips. It comforted him, to think of it. "There will be ballads and stories written about us. Our power will be feared and envied and adored, like it should be."

"There's a difference between dying a warrior's death and dying because you've finished what you've set out to do..." Bakura pointed out gently.

"If I'm lucky, finishing what I have to do will take me down as well," Sasuke countered. "And dying once I've filled my purpose is the only way to make sure I die a warrior. There's nothing for me to do once I've avenged my family."

"I can't believe that's true..."

"Well, what do you suggest?" Sasuke growled, turning away to glare into the ground. "Once everyone who razed my family's name to the ground is dead, what else am I supposed to do? Become a hermit and live in a cave? Fuck some random woman, tainting my blood, and start a line of psuedo-Uchihas, shitting all over my parents' names?"

Bakura shook his head. "Find out who you truly can be without having just that one thing to live for. Start over, knowing that you've succeeded and made your family proud. It doesn't matter to anyone else what you do past that, right? You could even lay the name to rest, symbolically dying so you wouldn't even have to worry about anything happening to it for anything you did."

"Don't you get it?"

No. He didn't. Why should he? Why Sasuke was bothering trying to make him understand, he didn't know. There wasn't anything else to do.

"I'm exhausted," he continued, looking sidelong at Bakura. "If I don't go out fighting, I'll take to drink, or opiates, or just cloister myself in a mountain somewhere and die of starvation. There is nothing left that I love. I don't want to die a pathetic old man."

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Every step you take.

He really is. It also amuses that yellow's a popular fanart arpon color for him. Pink is 2nd ;)

Re: He really is. It also amuses that yellow's a popular fanart arpon color for him. Pink is 2nd ;)

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