Flame
(Yours, Unfaithfully)
This drabble contains spoilers.
–
The house is on fire, and Sasuke can do nothing but stand and stare. Naruto, he thinks. Naruto. Naruto’s somewhere there. Somewhere in the fire.
He thinks of the movies he’s seen, movies that echo a scene like this one, except that there the lover waiting outside tries to get in. Sasuke doesn’t. Sasuke doesn’t want to burn. Not even with Naruto. Or maybe it’s not that at all – maybe he would burn with Naruto, but Naruto wouldn’t want Sasuke there with him. Naruto wouldn’t want to spend his last moments with Sasuke.
“I can’t blame him for that,” Sasuke tells himself. Not after everything that has happened.
There are people around him. People he has seen with Naruto. His own friends and colleagues. Even Sakura is there, her green eyes taking in the sight of flames before she turns to look at him. It takes him a moment to remember why they’re here. Why even Sakura is here.
And maybe Sasuke – no, Sasuke definitely – now understands what she’s been feeling since the beginning. Sakura never hated Naruto, no. The one she despised and held such strong contempt for had been Sasuke. Sasuke. Always Sasuke.
Gaara is being held back by two people Sasuke doesn’t recognize, and he knows that if they were to let go, he would go running into the house and into the fire to either pull Naruto out or burn with him. But they don’t let go, and Gaara cannot move.
“Why isn’t he jumping out of a window?” someone sobs behind Sasuke. “Why isn’t he getting out of there? He could. He could.”
Maybe he’s waiting for something, Sasuke thinks, and it’s absurd. Who’d wait for something in the fire?
marlowfication 