A/N: Okay, this is my first Naruto fic, and I've only watched, like, 14 episodes. So I'm sorry if they're OOC. Please be kind! But I wrote this anyway b/c my RL friend loves NaruxSasu, so I wrote this for her for her birthday. (Sorry it's so late! *winces*) Happy birthday, amaiyuuki! And happy Easter, too.

Beaches and Swim Competitions

Moonlight cast a filmy streak across the black ocean swells. Cold water rose up and fell, again and again, hypnotic in its reliability. Sasuke panted, stroking hard toward shore with his free right arm and kicking out with his feet. He surged forward, paused, and stroked again at a steady, marathon pace that he knew he could maintain, timed with the waves. Those black, endless swells swept toward the beach at an angle, carrying him farther and farther from his starting point, but he wasn't about to battle the pull of the ocean, not now; it truly didn't matter that he could barely see the bonfire dancing on the pale sand where Sakura waited. His focus thinned down to his repetitive side stroke and scissor kick: stroke, kick, and that little bit closer to land, to blessed shoreline. Stroke, kick, and pause.

But foremost and above all in his focus, he must keep Naruto's lolling head above the water level.

At least the idiot was breathing on his own; Sasuke didn't need to somehow attempt rescue breaths at sea when he could barely afford to spare any in this cool, energy-draining water.

Naruto was such an idiot. He and his need to prove himself had led to this. "A competition," he'd said. "Let's see who can swim the farthest before chickening out." And so of course, Naruto gave it his all and left absolutely nothing for the return trip.

Sasuke then was forced to lug the both of them back to shore, as per the usual, on top of swimming hard on the way out. At least he had had the foresight to set a measured pace, rather than this idiot's grueling, fast – and short-lived – tempo. Too bad all either of them had thought to wear into the cold water was boxers.

Focus on the stroke and kick. Adjust his lover's head propped against his left shoulder. Pray that the impending cramps in his arms and legs won't get so bad that he can't move, and then they both drown.

Damn it, he shouldn't have let Naruto goad him into swimming so far out to sea! But his own damnable pride wouldn't allow him to lose, either.

Somehow, when next he rose his gaze, he was close enough to shore that the gentle swells were beginning to turn into breakers. Two more strokes and the first of the white froth closed over his head; he sputtered, coughing on the salt burning in his nose and throat. He clamped his arm tight around Naruto, jerking that lolling head back onto his shoulder. Anxiety flooded him. Please, he prayed. Take another breath.

The unconscious Naruto inhaled and coughed reflexively, eyes squinting closed; his expression tightened with a flinch. The abrupt tension release nearly made Sasuke drop him, and his own next exhale was a bit shaky.

Then the wave dropped them suddenly into a trough, and the next cold breaker crashed on top of them. Sasuke broke through the surface, gasping for air, Naruto still in his steel grip. He flailed, fighting off panic as his eyes seared, tearing up. He tossed his head, throwing the dark, clinging strands of hair out of his face. He couldn't see! In his panic, he couldn't tell whether Naruto was breathing, when the next breaker would hit, if he was swimming the right way. But he needed to keep going. He took another stroke, and another, before Naruto stirred at last in his grip, tossing a lifeline of relief Sasuke's way – while also threatening his cramped hold.

"Naruto," he pleaded between desperate pants. "Wake up! . . . Please wake up."

Somehow, he got the steady side stroke going again and managed to ride over the next swell. He blinked away salt- and panic-induced tears, squinting to find the white sand in the moonlight. The flicker of the distant bonfire was gone, completely disappeared into the night.

Sasuke breathed hard, and tightened his grip, bringing the other's bare back to his own heaving chest. Close now, very close to shore – maybe close enough to stand. Warily, he let his exhausted legs drift down; his still-burning eyes closed briefly with relief when wonderful sand swirled up between his toes. The trough swept him out away from the shore again, warning him of the incoming breaker. He swept his impassive gaze to the beach. "Come on," he breathed to Naruto. Almost there. Just a little . . . farther.

He dug his feet into the shifting sand, waiting for the swell. When the pale froth hit, he kicked off and rode the wave in. In the next trough, they lost some of their headway, but the next wave carried them in even farther. At long last, Sasuke found himself on all fours in the cold ocean, froth lapping over his calves and hands, his lover sprawled as though boneless on his back beside him. More than anything, he wished he could collapse right there, but then they'd drown, and wouldn't that just be ironic? He forced his shaking legs up one at a time, locking them when they threatened to give out.

He staggered up around Naruto to his head, shoving his hands under the other's armpits and dragging him centimeter by hard-won centimeter out of the water. The water line – here. Sasuke dropped the limp boy and fell to his knees beside him, barely stopping his face from following suit. The arm holding him up slid out from beneath him, and he collapsed to the sand, just enough energy left to turn his face to the side.

Sasuke panted, eyes half-lidded, and grateful to no end he'd made it. They both made it.

He squinted. Was that the bonfire? He couldn't tell – maybe just a bright star on the horizon. His eyes slipped shut, and blessed sleep carried him under.

Sasuke awoke groggily to glaring sunlight, limbs so sore and stiff he doubted they'd move, and a sunburn stretching tight the skin on his bare back.

"Sasuke!" Naruto cried, immediately rolling him onto his burnt back. "You're awake!"

He groaned, throwing a stiff arm across his eyes. Naruto yanked him to a sitting position, and the world swam; he would have fallen back if not for the other's tight grip. The vertigo soon cleared, and he peered at his eager lover, blond hair in amusing disarray. Naruto looked a bit tired, but not overly so – certainly not like he himself. Somehow it figured, the lucky ungrateful bastard.

Naruto's expression switched from cheerful to a frowning concern. "Oi, Sasuke," he queried, "you okay?" He shook him.

Sasuke sagged into his hands, murmuring, "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" He looked down, insouciantly brushing off the sand sticking to his stomach.

The other boy scowled at him. "Baka." As though that would fool me.

Sasuke jerked his head up at that, his dark piercing gaze abruptly fierce. "And who was it that insisted on a midnight swim competition?"

Naruto's face soured even more. "You didn't have to accept!"

"And who passed out in the middle of the ocean, and who had to haul whom back to shore?" Sasuke's stony expression hardened.

The other's anger dropped off his face, leaving only surprise and dismay. For a moment he was speechless, then "Oh. I just remember waking up here on the beach . . . . I figured I just kinda . . . forgot coming back." He shrugged, sheepish.

"Baaaka," Sasuke drawled. Righteous anger now justified, he felt calm return. His expression smoothed back into unreadability.

As Naruto began to grumble in a disbelieving undertone to himself, Sasuke took a look around. He recognized nothing, spotting only trees a bit farther up the beach, the ocean, and open sky, and within earshot, just the rush of the waves and the annoyingly cheerful chirp of birds. Of course it had to be a deserted beach, not a nice, populated one. But then, he doubted they would have been left to sleep until almost noon if it was populated. He drew a hand over his face.

His hand froze over his mouth and nose as worry swept over him: which way did they come from? He stared over his fingers and searched his memory, but only a hazy impression of his half-awake stumble up the beach came to hand.

He swallowed a touch of his pride – a feat not quite so hard when he was beyond tired – and turned to the blond boy still holding him up by the arms. "Which way's Sakura and the bonfire?"

Naruto cut off his muttered monologue. He lifted a worried eyebrow. "Don't you know?"

Sasuke shook his head.

Naruto cursed again, "Damn. Damn. Then what are we going to do?" He shook Sasuke again. "You were the one who was awake! You should know where it is!"

Sasuke stared at him. "But I don't know," he answered intelligently, letting his gritty eyes slip closed.

Naruto made a face. "Come on, Sasuke! Don't go back to sleep!"

"'S hot."

"Well, duh, it's midday!" Naruto sat back on his heels in exasperation. Sasuke cracked an eye open. Naruto sighed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. He said in a tone of fond annoyance, "Shade's that way, dimwit."

Sasuke followed that thumb up to the tree line. Without warning, his lover hauled him to his feet, pulling Sasuke's arm over his shoulders. They staggered up the beach, half-draped over one another until the shadows slipped over them, and then Naruto let go. Sasuke drifted down to his knees, then sat back on his heels.

Naruto crouched down and shoved his face into Sasuke's, who drew back with a frown. At length, the blond boy reluctantly muttered, "Thanks." Sasuke blinked blankly. "For not letting me drown," he added.

To his great mortification, Sasuke felt himself flush. He looked away. "Whatever."

Naruto scoffed and leaned even closer. Blue eyes flicked from one of his dark eyes to the other. "I mean it," Naruto said in a low voice, and kissed him.

Sasuke's hand floated up to close on the side of his lover's neck, and he pulled Naruto in closer, pressing his lips tightly to those familiar warm ones. The dark-haired boy sighed, feeling lingering tension from the night before drift away. He heard Naruto take in a quick breath, which then ghosted back out across his own cheek.

He fitted the other of his long-fingered hands to Naruto's neck and deepened the kiss, licking across his lips: open your mouth to mine; let me in. Prove to me that you're really here, alive and whole. The other boy eagerly responded, sliding his tongue over and around Sasuke's; he dropped to his knees and shuffled closer, pressing bare chest to bare chest.

After a few moments, they parted for breath, panting and staring at each other. Naruto shoved Sasuke onto his back, all thoughts beyond touching each other banished. Sasuke grunted as his sunburned back hit the sand, then once more when Naruto plopped onto his lap. He glared blearily up at the grinning blond boy straddling him.

Naruto dropped down close, propping his elbows on either side of Sasuke's head. He pressed his nose to the other boy's with a bright-eyed grin that was so full of pleased mischief Sasuke couldn't help but smile back a little.

Sasuke dove his hands into that tousled blond hair, and closed his eyes, breathing out in a long, shaky sigh. He's here. He's really okay. Naruto shifted the touch of skin from their noses to their foreheads, sympathy rapidly spreading across his expressive face though Sasuke couldn't see it. "I'm sorry," Naruto whispered. The stone-faced boy tightened his grip in the hair tangled between his fingers. Anxiety lines wrinkled his forehead.

"Sasuke," Naruto breathed. "I'm sorry."

Sasuke nodded, rubbing his brow back and forth across the other's. "I know." He opened his dark eyes in time to see the tightness around Naruto's own blue ones disappear.

The blond boy grinned. "Good." Then he assaulted Sasuke's lips with his own. Eagerness flooded through his touch, and Sasuke began to respond in kind despite his weariness. Naruto seemed to sag until he was lying fully on top of the other boy, but Sasuke didn't mind. Quite the opposite – he reveled in the full-body contact as further proof his lover was okay. Naruto began to run his hands along the other boy's sides, his arms now freed from having to hold up his weight.

The thought soon occurred to Sasuke that it was entirely unfair for Naruto to have so much energy; didn't he swim until he collapsed, too? Naruto grinned as though he heard the thought (brat's gotten good at reading the subtleties of his stony expressions) and abruptly sat up, slipping out of Sasuke's hands and instead running his own along the other boy's pale, toned (and sore) chest. Sasuke gasped as the blonde's fingers brushed a sensitive nipple. The stone-faced boy, empty hands now aching for the other's skin, slid his palms up from Naruto's knees in the sand, over the dry swimming trunks and up to the narrow hips. Naruto pressed his growing erection into the soft skin of Sasuke's lower stomach. Sasuke squeezed his long fingers into the flesh cupped in his hands, and rolled his hips up against Naruto's.

Naruto moaned encouragingly. His callused hand found Sasuke's nipple again and pinched it gently, spurred on when the boy beneath him arched his back and gasped. Growing more bold, he rolled the hardened bud between forefinger and thumb. Sasuke gasped again and groaned; his fingers slipped beneath the elastic band of the other boy's boxers, easing them down. Naruto groaned, urging him on. Sasuke pulled the fabric down just enough that he could cup the other's bare butt, squeezing gently.

Naruto groaned again. He stood suddenly, yanking off his boxers and kicking them into the underbrush. Sasuke took the cue and lifted his own hips, slipping his boxers off as well and carelessly tossing them in the same general direction as his lover's. Then Naruto dropped back on top of the other boy's hips, bringing his half-erect member into sudden contact with Sasuke's. They gasped in unison, throwing their heads back.

Sasuke rocked his hips in a rhythm that Naruto quickly picked up. The dark-haired boy began to pant, rapidly growing to full hardness. Liquid heat pooled in his groin, pulsing red with engorged blood. The blond boy brushed rough fingertips over Sasuke's pebbled nipples, causing him to gasp. In turn, Sasuke rested a hand over the other boy's erection; Naruto hesitated in his strokes against the other boy until Sasuke squeezed his own member against Naruto's in that one long-fingered grip.

"Ah!" Naruto cried, jerking in the dark-haired boy's grip. He rocked his hips, whole body tensing. "Harder!"

Sasuke obliged, squeezing to the edge of pain and just a little bit beyond; Naruto appreciatively gasped out, "Sasuke!" Lust threw a husky edge into his low voice that Sasuke delighted in. They rocked their hips together as Sasuke rolled his palm across both sensitized heads. He moaned at his own touch. Over and over again their erections rubbed together. Each breathy pant from the other boy turned them on further.

With his free hand, Sasuke lifted Naruto's hand off of his chest and to his mouth. Sasuke parted his lips and guided the other boy's forefinger inside, half-lidded gaze locked with his lover's wide stare. He rolled his wet tongue over and around the member inside his mouth, sucking gently. He slid out the dripping finger, then licked up the sensitive underside like it was an ice cream cone melting in the heat.

Sasuke's right hand had paused over their erections, but he took up the squeezing and stroking again, leaving half his attention on the flesh at his pinkened mouth. His dark, penetrating gaze never left Naruto's.

Naruto's breaths came shallowly, weakly; his chest hurt from the force of his thundering heartbeat. He'd never seen anything so sexy in his life: Sasuke, having just saved him from drowning hours before, sprawled out naked over the sand below him, dark hair tousled as though from a previous round of sex, staring up with those intense, piercing eyes dripping with sensuality, his attention wholly centered on Naruto himself. Sasuke's normally stony face had honed into a razor-sharp lust. That pink tongue emerged from between lush lips to scrape up his finger, sending chords of heat down into his groin which ached for the same kind of careful, wet attending.

Sasuke let a confident smirk spread his lips as he watched Naruto flush – his embarrassment and need an endearing mixture. They rocked their hips together beneath Sasuke's hand. Stroke by stroke, they edged closer to the brink. Naruto's blue eyes blew wide with impending ecstasy, his expression twisted into a carnal mockery of pain.

Sasuke broke first, coming with a low wordless cry. The sweet heat of pleasure shot through his body down to his toes, thrumming out from his groin. He gyrated against Naruto, his whole body vibrating with the rapture of it. The other boy joined him after a few more hot pulses of their hips, spurting out across Sasuke's already slick hand and stomach. The warm liquid rolled across his skin, pooling in the dips of his bony hips and dripping down his sides.

Naruto sagged, dropping onto Sasuke and the sticky mess without a care. His head ended up beside Sasuke's on his shoulder, and they panted into each other's ears. Breathing became difficult for the boy on the bottom, especially as the endorphins began to fade.

His dark eyes tightened as all his sore muscles reminded him of how much he'd put them through. Of course, he'd had worse, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. Naruto made as if to roll off him, but he snapped his arms up around the other boy, clutching him to his chest. Naruto gave a start of surprise, but soon sank into Sasuke's grip.

"Holy – " a voice exclaimed above them.

They tensed and jerked their heads toward the voice, only to see Sakura's beet-red face as she whirled around. "Sorry!"

Sasuke's and Naruto's flight-or-fight-ready tension tilted toward embarrassment. They glanced at each other and quickly sat up, beginning to search for their boxers in the underbrush – thankfully nowhere near Sakura.

She spoke over her shoulder as they dressed, "I'm so glad you two are all right! You have no idea what I went through, finding you. I just about died from the worry when you didn't come back! And then, when I do find you, you're just having sex!" She threw her hands into the air. "God! You could have at least told me if you wanted to be alone! I can take a hint, you know!"

Naruto rolled his eyes at his lover. She might say that, but all three of them knew she still harbored a crush on Sasuke; Naruto was usually annoyingly territorial about it.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the other boy. That had better not be the reason behind this whole misadventure. Naruto gave him a weak smile before calling out, "Okay! You can look now."

Sakura whirled around, fists on her hips. "About time!" She scanned them up and down, gaze locking on the drying mess on Sasuke's lower stomach. The blush that had faded flamed up again. "Um . . . Sasuke?"

"I know." And he stalked off toward the ocean to wash it off.

Sakura frowned at his graceless stagger until he reached the water line. She then gave Naruto the evil eye. Naruto threw up his hands. "Look, it really was just a competition! We got lost, is all."

She scrutinized his expression, but couldn't pinpoint anything of deceit. "That had better be it," she warned, crossing her arms. Her gaze drifted back toward where Sasuke stood in the water. In a gentler tone, she asked, "Is he all right?"

Naruto shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah." He wasn't about to explain his own mistake – Sasuke could do the honors if he wanted.

They waited in an incredibly awkward silence until Sasuke returned – he did not break that silence, though, only raised an eyebrow. Finally Sakura turned on her heel, saying, "Come on, then. This way. And I want the whole story before we get back!"

Naruto winced, while Sasuke gave little to no reaction. As they started off after Sakura, Naruto grabbed up the other boy's closest arm and draped it over his own shoulders – if he was honest with himself, partially to help his lover and partially, yes, to stake his claim. Sasuke knew it even if Naruto did not, but when he glanced over, it was with a smile in his eyes that probably only Naruto knew him well enough to read. Naruto grinned back.

~ Owari ~