Red Eyes and Tears Ch.8

A/N- Decided to do this chapter from Sasuke's point of view because I know you guys could use some insight, plus I thought it would be cool to run around in his mind. It was! lol. Well erm here ya go ^_^

Sasuke P.O.V

I usually consider myself a mildly rational man, well, if not that something moderately close but there comes a point in my mind when logic wavers and I know only one thing. This one thing is teeth gnashing anger, the kind that starts on the outside and somehow works it's way into my blood. I boil from the inside like a pot of pipping hot water on a heated stove top. I know my intentions, I know that I could take this guy before he has time to make the wrong move, which they always do.

Hn.

I don't know why I've decided on this coarse of action but I know that I never go all in without thoroughly weighing out the cause and effect. In this case, my deck was a disgrace. If I attacked this man then the events that followed would be demeaning; ANBU apprehending me, Senshi seeing the man I really was and all without even having a piece of cake.

I sighed, I couldn't do that, not to Senshi and why would I...why do I even want to fight this guy?

I struggled for the answer but my mind seemed blocked off from actually wanting to find it out. I decided to just drop the feeling blazing up inside of me, though I could still feel it cutting into me like a dull blade.

"Tou-san..isn't Oba-chan's cake YUMMY?"

Hn?

I looked towards Senshi but he wasn't looking at me. The impostor held a smug look on his greater than pale face. His dark eyes acknowledged Senshi but adverted to me as if he was personally trying to provoke me or get a rise out of me. There was a game he was playing but he would loose it.

I stared at the cake Senshi had cut for me, it was a giant ass slice that I was certain I probably wouldn't finish. I was no Naruto, whom already had been on his tenth serving. His poor son hadn't even had time to eat his own slice of Peachberry before that idiot was hollering for another piece.

Pathetic but completely expected.

At my side Ino took on a motherly tune and began humming to baby Inomari, whom had fallen asleep with cake stained cheeks. Her cone hat crooked and her pale blond hair hanging away from her forehead. Ino had been sitting alone and Shikamaru and Kiba had gone off for a few drinks in the front yard. They had offered me an invitation, probably because the women were pushing at it relentlessly but I explained that Senshi and I would be leaving soon and I'd much rather get to know Sakura's fiance which, by no meanings, would I actually dare strike up a tactful conversation with that asswipe.

"Admit it." Ino snaps suddenly at my side.

"Hn, what the hell am I admitting to?"

"Your admitting that you've been bitten by the jealous bug and that you, Sasuke Uchiha, would like nothing more than to deck the hell out of Sai."

"Your right about the second part but I'm not jealous...jealousy is an affliction...hn, who is he?"

Ino took a deep breath and placed the small bundle, that was Inomari, into the stroller at her side. The fair haired child flinched a bit from the movement but otherwise, remained soundlessly asleep. Ino stared at her with a small grin and leaned in to kiss her forehead. She used Shikamaru's jacket to tuck her in and then turned her attention to Sasuke.

"You'd have to have a reason for wanting to slug a guy...fight's don't just happen because one guy decides it's their career path." she pressed. I rolled my eyes and stared at the children whom were greedily wolfing down the cake like starving grown men rather than then what their body masses suggested.

"Hn, maybe I just don't like him."

"How could you not like him, you don't even know him..." she explained defensively which was saying a lot for Ino since she was only loyal to a handful of people but never just anyone. I'm guessing this guy was probably around here during the huge gap of me not being here. It's the only explanation.

"...he was your replacement on team seven." she confirmed, her tone is scolding but I brush it off, it's a habit of mine to filter out things that seem irrelevant to the subject at hand. The subject who had convinced my son that he was somehow his father, to think that any guy could ever go along with that proclamation had me riled up enough to tear his head from his shoulders. It was pure stupidity to try and pass off an Uchiha as your son and it pissed me off to no end hearing Senshi call him 'Tou'...that title was mine and no one else, this guy wasn't even worthy of those words...not that I was either but we share the same blood, for fucks sake he looks just like me. I know those attributes don't necessary make you a father but they had to count. They did to me.

"Hn...why does Senshi call him that?"

"Well, Sasuke, he has been around Senshi since you haven't been...are you mad because of that, because if you are that's selfish Sasuke."

"Hn?" I was tempted to repudiate the accusation but something in me didn't want to go through hassle.

"It's selfish because to Senshi, Sai is as much as his dad as you are except Sai was here much longer. Your being selfish if you think that you can take that away from him or just be mad because he's here."

I feel like a line of hate has been drawn and Ino is not on my side. Can I blame her? I never really talked to her very often, I never talked to anyone as often as I should have. I thought of my comrades as merely obstacles and tools to surpass, to make me strong enough to face the real challenge. To prepare me for my true goal and when I thought of them as less as stepping stones I threw them away. Fled my village to be under the tutelage of a creep who wanted my body but he made me stronger none the less. I was blinded by my lust for power and for awhile it was the only thing I craved. I would have sold my breath for a power stronger than my brothers.

"Hn I don't want to take anything away from him but I am his father."

"ya...but for how long...you have to know that this is a little boy, he doesn't see what he's saying as wrong. His mind doesn't understand that he's putting you both in an uncomfortable situation but look how Sai is handling it. He's always been compared to you by Sakura, he has lived through her rejection to his proposal more times then any man would have liked or even tried. She was so stuck on you Sasuke...so heartbroken, you wouldn't believe how messed up she wa-"

"I KNOW!"

I didn't mean to growl it but I had taken enough persecution from the council, citizens and friends. It's like what I was doing wasn't enough, in the back of my mind I knew that I was guilty as sin for a lot of things. The main thing was the accident that lead to Sakura being in the coma. Yes, I know that I've been wrong but I'm constantly reminded that I'm a horrible human being, I'm constantly told that I'm a piece of shit. Knowing that I am sometimes makes it easier to take. Sometimes I let their words fly right over my head, I turn off my feelings and I absorb that they hate me but other times, I need back up...I need someone to remind me that I'm not that person anymore because hearing Ino remind me of the horrible things I've done certainly still makes me feel like I was still lost. As if I'm waiting for a reason to screw up shit again, as if my loyalties were moot.

I realize that some people are staring at me, Senshi is in this audience, his green eyes wide and bewildered. His fingers reach out to touch me but I shake my head to stop him, feeling a little stupid for denying his comfort but I hated feeling this way. If this was jealousy then it was bitter. A poignant reminder that I wasn't out of the woods and would probably never be.

"Tou...?"

I look at him, my fist were planted on the table and they stung. I realize that their is a crack splintering through the wood, my body burns as furious as the fires of hell and I realize that I can't swallow whatever it is lodge in my throat. Guilt slams against my impenetrable walls of indifference and I know I'm coming undone and soon.

Why the hell didn't I just take that beer invitation, I would have been well off with a beer and sleep because I know I didn't have enough of it to deal with this shit.

"Teme...you ok?" asks Naruto leaning into the table to stare at me, his blue eyes hard and shocked, I'm sure he can no doubt read that I'm uneasy about everything because his eyes began to poor out their sympathy and pity. I don't want anyone's pity and to have it thrust down on me disgusts me beyond words, I look away with a small nod.

"...I'm fine...I just need a walk..."

I say standing but Senshi latches onto my fist.

"Tou...I wan come with you." He is staring at me with those eyes, those eyes that were alive and innocent, they were better than my eyes...they were pure. I want to tell him that I would like his company. I want to take him away from everyone and hide the truth from him for as long as time would let me. I want to go back in time and change who I was...I want to remember how he's looking at me because he was bound to change, destined to look at me the way that everyone else does.

I don't know how I will deal with that when the time comes...but I know I'll remember that smile and I'll keep it safe, even if I'll never see it directed at me again.

"No..." I say simply, I tousle his hair and then I walk past Ino. I knew I was being selfish, walking away from my kid but I couldn't risk the alternative, I couldn't risk this feeling brewing inside of me.

"Ino."

My back is facing her but I can feel her guilt, I know that she regrets giving me a a piece of her mind at a moment like this but I admire her for calling me out even at the expense of driving away. At least she didn't just stare at me the way everyone else did.

"Sasuke?"

"Thank you." I don't wait for her to answer, I began to walk for the door. Chatter swallows up the backyard and I don't look over my shoulder even though I'm tempted to see if Senshi had forgotten about me. I don't have long to keep to myself because about time I reach the living room in Naruto's house I see a man, a man whom taught me my most valuable move. A guy who put all of his faith in me at one point and took me under his wing and I had repay him by spouting out insults to his character. I slammed him, called him weak and spineless. I remembered the vile I spat at him and here he was...right in front of me.

His silver hair stands on edge as usual and his smoky black eye and the crimson one have already assessed me before I can say a word.

"Is this a party or a Reunion, Sasuke Uchiha...so your back?" it was a rhetorical question that hadn't taken much thought but it held a lot of meaning. His voice had always been so calm but I wasn't sure he should be this calm. I would have expected him to be like everyone else, suspicious.

"Yeah..I am."

He sighs and looks up at the ceiling briefly and then over my shoulder at something.

"I suppose that sounds about right, children always come back home, no matter how naughty or foolish they've been...home is the one place they know they'll be accepted and taken back into...smart choice but why did it take you so long to come home?"

I shrug, I wasn't prepared for a Q&A, I never was unless it involved my killer instincts and that was so rarely the topic.

"Hn, I don't know.."

I can't have this conversation, I refuse to. I start to walk past him but he clamps the heaviest hand on my shoulder and squeezes it so hard that I should be writhing on the ground and calling 'uncle' but it has the opposite effect than expected. This simple contact may leave a scar later but it's the warmest thing I've ever felt besides being around Senshi.

It brings back memories and it brings back just how forgiving my former squad leader was, is.

"Welcome back to the nest but the next time you feel like you need to fly solo...remember everything you've been taught here because if you had...you'd have known that this wouldn't have happened if you had a hobby."

"...what?"

He held up a book with a red ribbon wrapped around it and shoved it into my chest.

"Thank of it as a lesson except a lot cooler because I wont be around to quiz you on it...not until the next time our paths diverge..." He walked past Sasuke. "...well now, I have a god son to gift and I'm four hours late...Welcome home Sasuke, your slate will be clean in my book once you read that book."

I sighed. Did that really just happen and was he seriously expecting me to read a book...I haven't read a book in years and I probably wouldn't start now.

Hn, right.

I tossed the book down on Naruto's beige la-Z-boy in the living room and not even a moment later something sharp met with the back of my head when I turned to walk away.

"OUCH WHAT THE..."

I rubbed at the ache in the back of my head and looked down to see the book at my feet, I looked up ready to spit a few words at Kakashi but he was no where to be found. I looked down at the book and read the title.

It read four words,

'Red Eyes and Tears'

On the front cover there was a man and a women being consumed by stings of thread, it pierced through their flesh and pierced through their hearts and everything else around them...from the scenery to the very ground. The two characters held their arms out toward one another but only their finger tips touched, their facial expressions were masked in fear.

I sighed and picked it up. It was pretty heavy and the pages looked like they held a shit load of uninteresting things. I decided that I didn't want a book harpooned at my head again. If reading it was all it took to get back into Kakshi's good graces than...fuck...I guess I'd just have to give it a shot, but if it's stupid and I hate it. I'll just hunt down someone who has read it and interrogate the shit out of them.

I smiled a little and just as I stood up a pair of bare feet came into my downward view.

Senshi was in front of me with tears in his eyes.

"Senshi...what's wrong."

I reach out to touch him but he hopped back, his lips pressed into a hard line and his brows low over his eyes. My son was scowling at me.

"What is it?" I urge in a hard voice.

"You...your leaving me...I don wan to stay if your leaving." he cried out.

I was expecting him to be crying about something more...I don't know what I was expecting but him crying about me was certainly not what I thought.

"That's all..." I muse more to myself then him.

"Don't leave...I didn't even tell you my wish!...I didn't even tell you!" he panicked gasping for air. I knelt to down and pulled him unquestionably into my arms. I hold him hard because I know him well enough to know that he likes the pain of a hug, if I were squeezing him any less he would question 's done it before.

Senshi had been crying a lot often now then he was before. When I first met him he looked the part of a tough kid, one that never cried in front of anyone but later on, when he could let go of that facade. He cried as often as a little girl and it wasn't because he was weak or fragile...it was because he cared about everything, he was a passionate child, something that reminded me of myself when I was his age. I had been so jealous of Itachi, so obsessed with gaining my fathers attention and thinking he didn't give a damn. I saw myself in him and I don't know why but that makes this thing we have even stronger.

"What did you wish?" I ask him feeling his warm tears against my neck, his small nose sniffling against me, his small arms around my neck and his heart beat rapid.

"You wan-to know?"

"Hn, yeah."

He didn't speak for a moment but eventually he sighed and sniffled.

"I wish fo Kaa-san to wake up and I wish fo us to be together for ever."

My silence must have seemed harsh or upsetting to him because a moment later he asked,

"Is that bad...Tou-san...?"

I sighed and messed up his ponytail because my fingers were now peaking from his dark hair. There's this feeling I get when I comfort Senshi that makes me feel like a hero, it's out of this world and not even taking a life compares to this feeling. It makes me higher than hell and it makes me feel like a good guy for once. Senshi was all that I have, he was the only person who hadn't looked down on me or reminded me how much of a fuck up I was. I know some of that was because he was oblivious to everything and no one hadn't told him but when the word got to him I know it will kill him. The last seven months with him have made me question everything I've ever known...has made me realize that if I wanted to I could be better. I needed him...I needed him more than I could ever need anyone else. He saw what nobody else could see and for that I will always hold him this close and protect him like my life depended on it.

"No...it's not bad Senshi...let's go see your mom."

"Right now!"

"...right now, unless you want to stay...we can wait."

"No, I'll open my presents lator."

"Hn, are you sure?"

"Un!"

I picked up the book and he grabbed my hand.

"Tou-san...I love you."

I smiled down at him and couldn't help it.

"I love you...never forget that, no matter what anyone says...hn, I mean it."

He nodded with understanding.

"let's go tell your Oji and then we'll go, hnnk."

"Ne!"