Summary: Sasuke’s bed has three pillows.

(Which, by the why, isn’t something I made up.)

So, back in April 2007 I was sick and delusional and had a pounding headache and all, and I couldn’t sleep. But, when I took my mommy’s pillow and slept in my mommy’s bed, everything seemed so much better. Since then I’ve been slept on it every night and my mom never took it back. The pillow never lost its motherly touch.

Pillows

Sasuke’s bed has three pillows.

The first, that of his brother, is the one he punches.

The second, that of his father, is the one he screams in.

The last one, that of his mother, is the one he sleeps on.

When the day is done and Sasuke comes home from his mission or training, he is normally angry and frustrated at himself. First he sits atop his bed and fists the top pillow constantly, never stopping. He knows whose pillow this is. It is safe to hurt Itachi’s pillow.

When his hands grow tired and Sasuke grows physically weaker he tosses the top pillow aside, then squeezes his head inside the next one. By the scent alone he can tell that this is the pillow that it is okay to yell in and to scream in. Sasuke screams and shouts, until his mouth begins to ache like his arms and he cannot scream any longer.

Sasuke then pushes aside this pillow and Sasuke knows which pillow is next. He doesn’t need to sniff it or to use any technique – Sasuke’s body can tell simply by its safe aura that this is the pillow on which he can sleep soundly, protected. Finally, Sasuke lays down, a pounding headache never leaving him be. Here Sasuke thinks and reminds himself of today’s wrongs and what he’ll have to fix tomorrow.

As Sasuke grows tired, the pillow stays firm.

On this last pillow, Sasuke’s eyes remain shut and he dreams of his past and what could’ve been. This is the warm pillow and no harm shall ever come to him as long as he can sleep on it every night.

He doesn’t remember why he started doing it, but in the mornings, Sasuke replaces the pillows in the same order for his never-stopping nightly routine.