ic contact

[acknowledges]

Taco Salad is not happy to help you. Taco Salad hungers for justice, and for a bite of whatever you're eating.

Comments

well this is awful

[acknowledges]

[The words almost seem to startle a laugh out of him. The sound isn't as bright or loud as they usually are, but just for a moment it feels like they're little kids again- walking together after a mission, sprawled out on the grass after training. Sitting side by side on the edge of that dock.

Naruto had played those memories out over and over again in the years after Sasuke had left. How he might have changed things if he'd known the truth about Itachi sooner, if he'd been able to beat Sasuke in the Valley of the End, if he'd caught up to him just a little faster, if he's gotten to them in the forest before Orochimaru had laid that curse. If he'd reached out sooner. If he'd just reached out to Sasuke instead of being embarrassed.

He'll probably never stop feeling those things no matter how the future turns out. There had been so much pain.

The truth was that no matter how far Sasuke went- no matter what he did in those years- he was also still that boy that had protected his teammates. He was still the boy willing to die to keep Naruto's worthless little life, willing to sacrifice his own dreams- the boy that put himself in front of him and in front of Sakura-chan. I don't want to watch those precious to me die before my eyes again.

Maybe without reason, Naruto smiles.]

You're the one that wouldn't come home. Bastard.

[penitents]

[ It's true.

But even now, home doesn't mean what he thinks Naruto intends it to be. Konoha had stopped being his home long ago, back when he lost his family, and then so easily turned his back on the people that formed any kind of fragile connection with him. All of those people, in the end, had responded in kind. It was only Naruto who had never given up.

Sasuke has a family now. He has a wife and he has a daughter, and each of them he loves dearly, in his own way. Home still isn't the place he returns to after his travels, it isn't the kitchen or the pictures on the fireplace or the welcome back he gets from anyone in the village.

Home is the silences he shares with Naruto. It's the way Sakura looks at him. It's the way Sarada chased him down demanding answers, her eyes red pinwheels. ]

Well [ Sasuke sighs, relaxing back against the pool's edge. ] you brought me back eventually.