[Fic] "Set in Stone" -- Naruto

[edenfalling]

A somewhat maudlin ficlet set a year after "The Guardian in Spite of Herself," though not giving away anything about the ending. (Well, it gives away two people who survive, but I am willing to tell you right now that Yukiko, Naruto, Sasuke, and Naga all survive. Beyond that, though, I am not saying.) Anyway, Sasuke understandably still has issues about his family's deaths. (425 words)

[The revised and expanded final version is now up on ff.net.]

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Set in Stone
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"One thing I do," Yukiko told Sasuke shortly before the first anniversary, "is keep one memento for each person. I never got around to setting up a shrine, but I think I prefer them in a box. That way I can take out my precious memories when I want, but they're not always in my face like an accusation."

She paused, walked across the hall into her apartment, and returned with a small wooden box, decorated with a faded hollyhock pattern. "The keepsakes don't have to be anything important, just something to remind you," she said. She unlatched the box and pulled out a shuriken, its edges nicked and dull, one blade slightly warped. "This belonged to my teammate, Ame. She was going to get it reforged, but I lent her one of my shuriken instead. I never got around to dealing with this, and when she died..."

Yukiko shrugged, and put the shuriken back into the box. "Little things. You might try it."

Sasuke thought about it.

That evening, he went back to the still-deserted Uchiha compound and gathered scores of the flat, polished stones that lined the pond, one for every relative he'd lost. He hadn't known everyone well enough to find a personal memento for each person, and it felt wrong to favor some over others, when they were all equal in death. He took the stones home in a suitcase and stacked them on his windowsill, row upon row, until he had to stand on a chair to place the last stones. They blocked the light and were impossible to overlook.

Memory wasn't a gift, to pick up and put away at whim. Memory was a duty.

On the anniversary, he didn't go to school. When Yukiko came into his apartment to check on him, her eyes skipped to the wall of stones, and Sasuke lined up all the challenges he had ready for when she called him stupid. But she just shook her head with a rueful smile.

"I'll get you an end table," she said, "so they won't fall out the window. You never know when you might want some light in the room."

She brought the table upstairs and tucked it into the corner. Then she pulled two stones from the top of the wall, letting in a sliver of morning sun. She turned and handed them to Sasuke. "I can reach higher than you, so let me do this. Arrange them on the table, however you want."

They took down the wall together.

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Inspired by the 5/3/10 15_minute_fic word #137: box

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...You know, I think I listen to too much classic rock at work. Pink Floyd is clearly getting to me. *wry*

Comments

[theodosia21]

This is perfect. Sasuke's issues and Yukiko's coping strategies and the way she understands but won't let the past overwhelm him and the way he lets her help him...

Nothing's easy. But this gives me hope.

wherein I innundate you with cheap psychobabble

[edenfalling]

Thank you! I find coping methods fascinating (healthy and unhealthy), because there are so many commonalities, and yet each person does things a bit differently, and their actions can tell important things about them. Actually, I have a vague memory that I touched on this before, early in "Apartment Manager" -- something about Yukiko kind of breaking down when she finally cleaned out her parents' closets after their deaths. She may even have had her memory box by that point, but grief is not an orderly progression.

So while I think Sasuke is mostly doing a lot better by this point, the anniversary is bringing up a lot of bad stuff and he's, well, not choosing an ideal coping method at first. Sasuke has an amazing tendency to choose one of the worst coping methods possible in every traumatic situation he winds up in -- I would accuse him of doing it on purpose except I think it's more that he's just very emotionally inept and, obviously, damaged. In canon he never healed properly from the loss of his family, so every time he gets hurt thereafter, he just gets more and more turned around, because he doesn't really have a framework for constructive responses.

I am bound and determined to make sure that doesn't happen in this AU.

Re: wherein I innundate you with cheap psychobabble

[theodosia21]

I'm so glad. :)

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

OUCH. OUCH in a good way, though.

It's kind of sad and demonstrates exactly how much Sasuke has lost... I also like knowing that he sticks with Yukiko in the end (and you're implying she survives Guardian as well.^_^)

[edenfalling]

Thank you. Yeah, regardless of the fate of the few potentially surviving Uchiha, nobody is going to let Sasuke move back into the Uchiha district. Too many ghosts. I think he even knows and understands that, when he's in a better frame of mind.

[rianax.livejournal.com]

I want to know why in hell Sasuke wasn't some serious therapy-- they have specialists and have to deal with the fallout of trauma or risk losing highly trained personal which is the cornerstone of their military power.

Cheer up bucko isn't going to cut it.

I never really like the excuse Kishimoto gave for the killings-- civil war aside, the Uchiha were too damm valuable to lose when even a few could be savage. I doubt Sasuke was the youngest of the clan-- why kill the bush when a could pruning could yield a good crop in a few years?

Lovely story by the way. You have truly mastered the allegory.

[edenfalling]

Thank you!

My suspicion is that the same people who pushed for the massacre (and likely wanted Sasuke dead along with his family) probably hoped that without proper care, he'd commit suicide, wash out as a ninja, or otherwise destroy himself. Of course, they couldn't be too obvious -- I can imagine them saying, "Oh, the poor boy, he's had so many shocks already. Let's not compound that by taking him away from his only home and making him live among strangers."

Given that the person to "salvage" any Uchiha children would most likely have been Danzo, perhaps Sarutobi thought it was something of a mercy to kill them instead? Which is a horrible thought all around, but it's about the only way I can handwave that issue.

[brennart.livejournal.com]

Hello. I ran across your story, "The Way of the Apartment Manager," years ago. But I haven't been keeping up with Naruto fanfic for a while. I'm delighted that you're still writing in this universe. This is a lovely story. It's very quiet, but conveys a lot of meaning.

Hope you don't mind that I friended you. I'm bad with feedback, but I really enjoy your writing.

[edenfalling]

Thank you! And never fear -- I don't bite, and lurkers are always welcome.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I like what you did here with the symbolism of the self-built wall. Your writing style is very confident, too.

[edenfalling]

Thank you very much!