A/N: For the June 2008 round of Naruto flashfic exchanges on LiveJournal. Set twenty-odd years in the future. Sadly lacking in angst and/or any good writing whatsoever.
xxxxx
Dusk
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Itachi is dead, gone, dead and gone and never coming back.
Naruto knows he's gone.
He knows that Sasuke knows he's gone, too.
And yet, as if Itachi had been the sun, in this nightfall he lingers like a glow on the horizon, a blood-red dusk. He blinds Sasuke just as much by his absence as he ever did with his presence. Too much light and not enough both obscure sight, and now there's no longer any possibility for a happy medium.
Naruto makes Sasuke stay with him for an entire year, ties him up and locks him away and feeds him by hand three times a day and tells him everything he missed while he was away trying to kill the sun, until he realizes that Sasuke isn't going to wake up one morning and be free. The path Itachi set him on was a prison, and all Naruto is doing is building him a new one, no less cruel than the first.
When he finally gets this, helped along greatly by Sakura's fist and Kakashi's cold and pitying eyes, it breaks him because he knows what he must do now. If he wants Sasuke to be happy, if he ever wants him to truly return to Konoha, to him...
Just as much as Itachi has been Sasuke's sun, Sasuke has been Naruto's, and letting him go feels like tearing his own eyes out.
Sasuke runs, but before he does, he turns to Naruto and smiles-- haunted, crooked, a gaping wound across his face-- and says thank you.
"Come back to me," Naruto begs the empty air after he leaves. "Please come back, Sasuke. Please."
xxxxx
Naruto doesn't see him again for twenty years.
xxxxx
There are people crying in the audience.
It makes him want to cry too, that they would cry over something as silly as his retirement.
It isn't like he's dying, or even leaving. He's just too tired to fend Konohamaru off anymore, and is also much looking forward to a life of leisure once again. Maybe he'll even take on a mission or two. He hasn't been out of the village in half a decade, not since the last Summit. He's nearly forgotten which ways the hidden pathways through the forest run, nearly forgotten how it feels to be given a mission and complete it successfully... nearly forgotten what it's like to be a shinobi. He kept up his training all the while he was in office, naturally, he would have gone mad if he'd simply sat at the desk the entire time... he hadn't, however, had many opportunities to properly stretch himself against a real opponent.
He is restless. It is time to give up the mantle to someone who still wants it.
Konohamaru's smile is bright and fierce as Naruto drapes the robes of office around his shoulders. He will make a good Hokage. He loves the village with almost painful ferocity, but he has learned from Tsunade and Kakashi to be fair and diplomatic when dealing with others. He will cause no wars at the very least.
It will feel very strange to take orders from his protege, but Naruto will learn to deal with it. It will be more than worth it for the freedom now staring him in the face.
He turns to look out over the people filling the square, grinning widely. There are just as many smiles as there are tears, often occuring simultaneously. His people. His village. Everything he's ever cared about, minus one.
His grin fades.
"There's gonna be a great party later," he murmurs under his breath, staring off across the rooftops towards the forest. "You don't know what you're missing, you dumbass."
"What's that, Naruto-niichan?" Konohamaru asks, a concerned expression on his open, handsome face.
"Nothin', brat," he replies, pasting his smile back on so as not to worry his friend. "I'm practically an old fogey now, talkin' to myself."
Konohamaru frowns. "You're not an old fogey, niichan, you're only thirty-eight."
Naruto mock-scowls. "Announce it to the whole freakin' congregation, why don't ya," he says without malice.
Thirty-eight is old for a shinobi, especially one carrying something as valuable as Naruto is. The kyuubi still lives within the cage of his ribs and veins, though he has long since been too strong for it to be a worry. On occasion it still whispers hatefully into his mind, but they are empty threats. Naruto will die with it still imprisoned within him, and then it will die too. He knows it. The kyuubi knows it. They are both resigned to walking to the afterlife together, at least as far as demons can walk with humans.
Sometimes he wonders if they'll miss each other. Perhaps he will-- it's been with him since his birth, a constant cruel companion, but it's lived far longer than he has. It has known life without him. It won't miss him. Whenever he thinks about that, it makes him strangely sad.
The sound of firecrackers brings him back to reality. They are a rare risk, as the Village of the Leaf usually takes great care not to draw attention to itself, but today it was deemed an acceptable one.
They burst against the falling dusk, brave explosions of colour and light fighting against the encroaching dark.
They're beautiful. He wonders if Sasuke can see them from wherever he's standing.
xxxxx
His new house is still dusty and cold. He only moved into it barely a week ago, making room in the Hokage's quarters for his successor. It's off towards the edge of the village, curled right up against the dark forest, a short run along the wall from the town gate. It is a defensive position. Anything that comes to the village will have to come through him first.
It's exactly what he wanted, but it isn't home just yet.
Without turning on the lights, Naruto walks through it to his bedroom at the far end. Its window looks out into the forest, indeed has a tree just outside of it which makes it easy to make quick escapes whenever duty calls. He hasn't had to use it yet, but he knows he will be very familiar with that tree before the year is out. Konoha's prosperity is like a beacon to desperate marauders. There are several every week.
Speaking of which...
"I know you're out there," he says evenly into the darkness. "I can smell you. You should have moved faster if you were looking to catch me off guard."
"I was waiting for an invitation," says a voice from the shadows, dry and aloof and familiar in a way that suddenly makes Naruto's chest clench.
Naruto frowns uneasily. "Most people knock on the door," he points out, "that's kinda the socially acceptable--"
"Naruto," says the voice, gently reproachful.
The wind moans through the silence. Naruto can't breathe properly, only suck in hitching half-breaths until his chest is full to bursting. He staggers back from the window, hands rising to desperately fend off hope in case he's wrong. He can't be wrong. Who else would call him by his name alone, with that voice and that mocking tone? There's only one person in the world. "I thought you were dead," he whispers hoarsely, throat painfully tight. "I thought-- if you were alive, you would've-- all this time you were...?"
A figure slips through the window to land soundlessly on the floor in front of him, uncoils to stand a good three inches taller than him. His shoulders are broader too, Naruto notices, and he's more heavily muscled. He's dressed sparingly in green and black, with no trace of the Uchiha symbol anywhere in sight. He smells like woodsmoke.
"Sorry, Naruto," says Sasuke, dark and rueful.
Before he even knows what he's doing, Naruto winds back and hits Sasuke in the face as hard as he can. It has the weight of all his power behind it, and so that's very hard indeed. Sasuke rocks back on his heels, staggers, runs into the windowframe with a clatter and a small grunt of shock.
"You son of a bitch," Naruto hisses.
Sasuke recovers, puts a hand to his bleeding lip and grins, his teeth a flash of white in the gloom. "I guess I deserved that," he said, sounded absurdly amused.
It's too much. Naruto hauls off and hits him again, and again, and again. Sasuke stands as if rooted to the floor and takes each of them without a sound of complaint until Naruto falls to his knees in defeat.
"You bastard," he whispers, realizing with horror that he's close to tears. "Dammit," he snaps, wiping clumsily at his eyes with his sleeves. "I'm thirty-eight freaking years old, I am not going to cry. Not over you. Especially not over you. Not ever again. I promised Sakura, I promised myself... goddamnit." There are tears running down his face, hot and bitter.
Sasuke kneels down to his level and unhurriedly wipes them away with a strong thumb.
Naruto punches him in the stomach, but it's half-hearted this time and doesn't even make Sasuke flinch.
"Twenty years," he says quietly. "Twenty fucking years, you bastard. Where the hell were you?"
Sasuke hesitates, draws back a little to sit on his haunches. "I was... elsewhere," he says unsteadily.
"No shit."
"After Itachi died, I... I had to find out who I was without him. I had to learn what to be when I couldn't be an Uchiha anymore, or my family's avenger, or your friend, or any of the things I'd been before. I had to know who I was without all of that."
Naruto resists the urge to snort and call bullshit. "Well, do you know now?" he asks waspishly.
"I don't know," answers Sasuke softly. "Who am I without Itachi? Who am I without you? I don't know. I may be nobody, and that's frightening in its own way. I'm just tired of searching for answers." He pauses, takes a deep and trembling breath.
With something akin to awe, Naruto realizes that Sasuke isn't nearly as composed as he's pretending to be. One push in the right direction and he might just fall over. The temptation to reach out and see for sure is very great, but he holds back. He wants to hear the end of this.
"I am Itachi's brother, and I will always be. I can't escape that, and I'm done trying," continues Sasuke, smoothly as though he's rehearsed this speech until he knows it by rote. "I am still an Uchiha, and someday maybe I can make that an honourable thing to be again." Then he hesitates. "And I hope I am still your friend."
Naruto laughs suddenly, ragged and harsh. "Don't make me knee you in the balls, you dumb fucker," he says. There is something loosening in his chest which has been wound painfully tight for decades. The loosening hurts too, but he likes this pain much better. "Do you think I'd be sitting on the floor bawling like a girl if I didn't still--"
"Thank you," says Sasuke without waiting for him to finish, and reaches out across the sparse inches between them to drag Naruto into a rib-creaking embrace.
"You're not going to try and stab me this time, are you?" asks Naruto to cover his shock. His arms have already risen without conscious thought to feel their way up Sasuke's shaking back and tangle fingers in his hair. It's longer, he notices inanely, brushing against his shoulders now and wild as if it hasn't seen scissors in years. All he can smell is woodsmoke as though Sasuke's been camping in the woods all this time. Maybe he has. It's just the sort of crazy thing he would do.
"No, idiot," mumbles Sasuke into his shoulder, bizarrely childlike for a moment before he lets go and pulls back to look Naruto in the face. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not even armed."
"I noticed," Naruto says defensively, crossing his arms, "but who knows what crazy shit you learned while you were gone. I wouldn't put it past you to pull a kunai out of thin air."
"You give me too much credit," Sasuke says wryly. "I may be a genius, but even I can't make something out of nothing."
Naruto feels his face go flat. The air tastes bitter and surreal in his mouth all of a sudden. "Maybe not, but you've always been pretty good at making nothing out of something."
Sasuke says nothing, but there is an entire world of pain hanging in the silence between them. It last for an eternity until Sasuke breaks it by sucking in a deep, shuddering breath.
"Naruto," he says. "I'm only going to say this one more time, so listen up. I don't expect forgiveness, least of all from you. I don't expect Konoha to welcome me back with open arms... or at all, really. I don't expect anything but what I deserve. But for what it's worth, I'm sorry."
Naruto reaches out and cups one hand around Sasuke's neck, pulls him in until their foreheads rest together and they can feel each other breathing. "There's only one thing I've never forgiven you for," he tells him tiredly, feeling every one of the twenty years of absence, "and that's staying away this long. Now that you're back, there's nothing else I want an apology for."
He lets go, but they don't pull away right away, choosing to linger in touch and silent communion a moment longer.
"I'm sorry anyway," says Sasuke finally.
"Shut up. You apologizing is way too weird for me to deal with this late at night. I'm an old man, you know, my brain doesn't move so quick anymore."
"No older than I am, moron," Sasuke reminds him with a clearly audible smile.
"Yeah, well, you're an old fart too then. We can be old farts together. If you're staying, that is."
The question is huge, practically takes up the entire room. It's several moments before Sasuke can find the space to speak around it.
"At least for tonight, if you've got a couch to spare," he says softly.
"Nope," replies Naruto instantly with a gigantic grin. "I just moved in, I've got nothing but a buncha boxes and a mattress on the floor. You can share if you want, but I kinda flail around a lot in my sleep. If you're all right with getting whacked in the face in the middle of the night, we'll have no problems."
"You flail around when you're awake, too," teases Sasuke, "and hit me in the face. I'm sure I can handle it."
All of a sudden, the enormity of the situation snaps into clarity for Naruto. The murky light and late hour had made everything feel surreal as a dream, but now he knows it's not. It's real. Sasuke has returned, and just apologized, and almost clearly said he's going to stay just a moment ago. Sasuke is here. He came back.
Twenty years of pain wither into nothing and blow away like ashes on the wind.
Tonight he will curl around his best friend in the entire world, the person he loves more than anything, and listen to his heart beat until he falls asleep. He will wake up to the smell of woodsmoke on his pillow, in his hair, and he will wake up smiling for the for the first time since Sasuke left. Tomorrow they will go and find Sakura together and hold her while she cries and beats Sasuke up some more, and Naruto will watch and grin and carry him home when she's done.
Tomorrow Sasuke might leave again, but it doesn't matter. Now Naruto knows that-- eventually, even if it takes another twenty years, in which case he'll just have to punch him some more-- he'll come back.
Maybe-- just maybe, but Naruto's good at hope-- he'll stay.
XxxxxX
A/N: UGH UGH UGH