#collabu

[coy-sloth]

phil trying to pick his otp and talking and stuff and looking great and being amazing as usual and announcing that he wants to be more haru lel

[starway-bunny-blog]

[pastelzoro]

It had been her eyes that he fell in love with first. Bright, big, and warm. (His mother had kind eyes, and her green ones reminded him of happier times - of home) Sasuke was taciturn by nature, a man of few words and enjoyed his silence, but truth be told, he was still struck speechless sometimes when his wife would smile at him with those warm eyes. (Eyes that were innocent, full forgiveness, even after all this time, seeing past his sins. And he has many, many sins)

here’s the thing about getting Better: you have relapses. there is no warning, no time or date and he knows there isn’t, aren’t, any triggers

it’s just that he’s spent so much time drowning in mud, in the black, inky, sticky, gooey lies and manipulation. he’s been chained and kept in place by anger in it’s purest form that it’s impossible to assume he’ll return whole so quickly.

as the years go by, they become less, these violent mood swings. this nameless thing that goes on with him where he shuts himself in behind the walls he’s decided (the first decision he’s ever made without the influence of other) to lower, to break down.

one day, it comes back.

he is well into his life.

stable.

grounded.

married and with a family of his own. he has taken is father’s title, as silent and acknowledged without being announced: uchiha sasuke, the patriarch, the clan leader of the uchiha clan.

he is somewhere, in life, where he had never thought to be. never dreamed to be. never considered to be. giving and receiving that emotion he’d thought extinct within him. giving and receiving companionship, completion. no loneliness.

but one day, it comes back.

sarada, his daughter, is on a mission. simple one, naruto had mindlessly commented (it’s okay, ya bastard, you’re as much hokage as me. i can tell you these things!). out the village, near suna. 

it is just him and his wife in the house for a day and a half now. it’s calm, quiet, peaceful. he appreciates it. loves it. he does scroll work before breakfast (his wife has beat him to the kitchen, that annoying woman) and when they sit at the table the silence is serene and mutual.

they speak with their body language. their gestures. the quirks of their facial expression.

she makes his heart skip a beat every fifteen seconds.

but it happens after. when she’s out hanging their daughter’s bedsheets and curtains, freshly washed. she’d called out from the opened door that she’d take the chance to water his garden. he’d asked if she’d check for any weeds while he swept and mopped the kitchen only after cleaning the counter surfaces for crumbs and dust.

it’s here.

he’s sure of it, moments later when he sits on the edge of their bed, his hand covering his face and his nails digging into his skin, pulling at the loose strands of his shaggy, overgrown hair.

why now of all times, there is never an answer. but there is rage swirling inside him. a tornado, or, perhaps, a volcano. waiting to erupt, wishing to erupt, demanding to erupt.

it cuts the air out of his lungs, makes it hard to breathe.

his hand shakes.

fury and loneliness and confusion.

it weighs his head down, like a crown of thorns.

he remembers this feeling. hates it. suffocates in it.

he does not want it; not when he’s experienced it, fulfillment. happiness. pride. god, and that important emotion. the one he’d been starved of. 

there is… there is no room to feel like he did before. he is not that person anymore. he does not want it.

sasuke grits his teeth, grinds his molars and clenches his eyes shut. he wants ten different things at once: lash out, scream, lean back and let the covers and mattress swallow him whole. disappear so he can gather himself, understand what is wrong, fix it, take his time away and then reappear all better.

it makes him more confused. angrier. 

“sasuke-kun?”

he thinks: no, not now. go away, go away, go away go away.

but he says nothing. silence is his throne and he is king of all that is ruined, his crown of lies and deception digging into his scalp with its pointy thorns.

“are you alright? i… was calling you because your cosmos are blooming! I saw the broom in the middle of the kitchen floor and…” she moves closer. he feels her warmth, craves it.

he wants to lash out.

“love?”

jaw clenched tight, nails digging and clawing at his scalp, fingers pulling at his messy half-updo as he drops his hand, he looks up at her with a glare.

heavy.

vicious.

her green eyes stare back at him. glossy with worry. brow furrowed with uncertainty. lips parted with an unspoken question.

uchiha sakura.

sakura…. sakura and her adoration. her green eyes; pale, bright. a yellow-green mixed with gold and silver. with orange. standing out against her curled red-violet lashes, her pale skin. her pink hair.

sasuke keeps his mismatched eyes locked with her green ones. green eyes. warm. happy. loving.

he presses his lips together as the riptide of his violent emotions swirl in the center of his chest, his chest cavities never big enough to contain them.

his hand shakes as he reaches over and touches the soft curve of her chin.

[pastelzoro]

his wife is missing. he doesn't need to be in konoha to stay on top of the facts and when kakashi tells him that uchiha sakura has been officially labelled as missing in action after a medical call outside the village, sasuke's resolve to complete his own mission falters. sakura could be held captive or hurt or dead and he hasn't seen her in nearly a near. and his daughter was probably asking her grandparents where's mama after asking where's papa. he wife is missing. his wife is missing.

sasuke stares into the crackling fire of his camp and considers. he throws the bones of his dinner into the pit, lips pressed together in a deep grimace.

if sakura has not been found, it is because she does not want to be found.

if there is no lead to her whereabouts, to who could have been mental enough to begin this, it is because it is not the time yet.

but sasuke has never been a patient man, nor one that likes to sit idle and waiting for the bone-shaking storm.

sasuke is the man that causes it.

after that quiet, grim night, sasuke travels. he changes his course, his plan of action and carefully tucks whatever doesn’t coincide to the back of his mind. he is cool, calm. a collective man traveling, resting in nameless inns from nameless villages and listening to drunks of all kind with different accents--but there is nothing.

not a misgiving gesture, an indirect remark. absolutely nothing.

it is somewhere up north that he slides onto a booth, across a small, thin, hooded figure.

he rests his arm on the old, thick, wooded table and taps his fingertips on the surface before he curls them into a fist.

“i want to know why you’re here. now.”

sharingan eyes stare back at him when she lifts her head up, glasses slipped to the tip. she glares but it’s not directed at him.

to the world, he thinks. he knows that glare.

“i want her back. this time, together.”

sasuke tilts his head back.

[pastelzoro]

He thinks of hers eyes when he hits the ground. he's bloody, and wet, and cold, and its hurt its hurt its hurt and everything's pain and cold and wet and her eyes. they say you see your life before you go, but all he sees is her. her laughter and her smiles and her touch and her warmth and her damn eyes, and her. and its painful to breath, and he is so cold and he's coughing up blod and all he can think of is her. and its hurt /and her hands on his arm/ and wet/she smiles at him/ and he's cold..

minutes last enough to feel like an eternity and the numbing pain only makes it all realer. he coughs, blood rising up his throat, bubbling at the corners of his mouth and popping to pepper his paling skin.

he thinks: she’s crying.

it takes him longer to understand what that means. his brain feels fuzzy as it starts to shut down and he groans loud instead of speaking her name. he lifts a hand up; it weighs so much. he wraps his fingers around her upper arm; such concentration to get it right. he ground himself by feeling the tense muscle under her skin.

there is no point, he wants to tell her, unable to identify what that means. this, perhaps, is something even she can’t prevent.

his wife, she’s amazing but she is no god.

he digs his nails into her skin.

his arm is too heavy as the fight leaves him. her green eyes have always been so beautiful; his final thoughts.

[pastelzoro]

sasuke wakes up when he hears the patter of sarada's feet coming towards him. he sits up and soon after sarada walks in with a tray of food. "breakfast," she announces. she points to each dish, nervously telling him what they are, and when she falls silent, she wrings her hands and bites her lip. "every year i make breakfast in bed for mama. every single year, okay?" he nods and so does she and neither of them look to the side of the bed that's been empty since that day seven months ago.

they stay like that for a long moment, long enough to feel like statues. it’s always like this when they have to acknowledge it. the emptiness. the missing. the loss.

sasuke swallows.

he’s the adult now. not the kid. not the seven year old. this is not the compound and there are no ghosts. just one and she’s not haunting, she’s not tortured, she’s not furious, she’s not–

“come sit then,” he tells her, his voice is low, soft. “if we move, it won’t be breakfast in bed.”

sarada wrings her hands some more, bites her lip some more, looks down some more. she looks like her m–she looks like someone, like someone with lighter hair, lighter skin, with darker freckles. 

sasuke closes his eyes and holds the tray steady in his lap as sarada crawls onto the bed, pauses on all fours and breathes a little harder. he feels her eyes on him and sasuke pretends to not notice, to not hear, gives her space. he knows what this feels like.

when she makes it to her spot, she presses herself close to his side. so close, so close she’s practically trying to become a part of him.

“are you alright?”

“no.”

“mmm,” he hums. “neither am i.”

“i’m not hungry,” she admits. “and i miss mama. and i know you’re trying. and i am too. but…”

“i know.” he moves the tray so one edge rests on her thigh, the other on his. “i know.”

“do you? do you really?”

“no.” he sighs. he shifts. touches the tips of her hair, the trail of hot tears on her cheek. “no i don’t. but i’m gonna pretend i do.”

“okay.” she rests her head against his arm and exhales. 

they stare at the untouched breakfast.

[pastelzoro]

letters to march [3/30]

march,

sorry for such a late reply. i know it’s near two weeks since your last letter but work got a little intense and then i took about five days off and kinda just left with sai and naruto as my accomplices.

we’re only back because naruto and his classes. sai, as you know, is kind of a dropout. like me.

before you choke or even have the half-crazy mind to call me or anything, we kinda just went to suna. a six to eight hour drive isn’t much of a roadtrip but it served to distract not just me but them too.

itachi, i’m sure you’ll be happy to know, was livid. or i’m calling it livid. you know how he is. he’s annoyingly impossible in that way where he’s feeling ten different kinds of fury but he still looks like he wants you to relax and have a good time.

anyway, so i’m being treated like i’m fifteen again except he’s being very discreet about it. or pretending to be. i know him though and the random drop ins his friends have been making at the coffee shop are too... well anyway.

ah, since i really hate mosquitoes i’m just never going to visit you so consider yourself boyfriendless until you graduate. or something.

that was supposed to be a fucking joke, sakura.

which, by the way, rereading your letter right now. what the hell, are papayas really supposed to make your boobs grow? but i like them the way they are. don’t eat any papayas. actually just don’t accept anything from eighty year old ladies.

send me more pictures of you. ino came to the apartment and took the one you sent. i hate her, i don’t even know how she got a key. i’ve taken the liberty of telling her about your new friend, ohwhatsherface, karui.

she says “you still don’t know a friend if they slap you in the face with a friendship card”. i dont know. stop sending her to check on me.

naruto bought you another cacti. he says he wants my room filled with them by the time you get back. i’m going to destroy him, so if i write you letters from jail, you know what happened.

july.

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notes: listen @windsilk we both know who would win any sort of fight or contest. i cant believe you’ve insulted me, you burnt zucchini. 

[pastelzoro]

letters to march [2/30]

sakura,

i left work early today. they say it’s because it was too quiet to have three barista on deck but i know it’s because i was more dead weight than any help. oh, and i almost snapped at a customer. or two.

i walked home because my car broke down yesterday so it’s at the car shop my roommate works at. the weather’s picked up, at least. still windy enough that i have to use your scarf.

send me pictures of your room. and your suite. and places. and you. i miss you.

see, sakura, i even considered not telling you about leaving school. i knew you’d react like this. but lets face it. it’s been a burden on me for so long now. maybe at some point it was something i liked but now it’s just something that drills holes in my skull.

anyway, this isn’t something we should put such big emphasis on. the last thing i want is to fight and argue over this decision through letters. especially when there’s already such distance between us. it’s already done, anyway.

tell me more about your classes, since you’re the one still taking them.

it’s 6:52pm here and i’ve just got home from my brother’s apartment. i’ve told him about my decisions and though he’s as keen to the idea as you are he’s settled into it and he fed me dinner and drove me back to my place where i’m finishing this over the damn noise my roommates are making.

they ask about you. especially naruto. he’s an idiot. though he does help me with your plants. he says the cactus will bloom soon. i’ll take a picture of it when it does.

take care of that poison ivy, alright? i really miss you.

july.

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notes: *flips hair* @windsilk if i didnt know you any better i would think you’re trying to one-up me. but pls stop *wheezes harder* im as out of shape as you are