Summary: When neither Sasuke nor Naruto can find the words to say what's really important, they find a picture might say enough to get them started.
Disclaimer: I don't own either Sasuke or Naruto :( which is too bad, I think they'd make pretty badass bodyguards!
Warnings: yaoi (M/M), angstyness, mild references to drug use and sexual assault, occasional Crack!Itachi
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sasuke stared out the window at the passing scenery, almost able to drone out the never-ending chatter from the blonde in the driver's seat. He fingered his camera bag idly, glancing up at the afternoon sun and gauging the light left in the day. They were starting to get into the area with salt flats. He knew there was a big one up ahead not to far…
"Dobe. Stop the car," said Sasuke.
"And then Shikimaru said – eh?"
Sasuke's eyes widened as the SUV drifted dangerously to the right as the blonde processed his request. Said blonde then stopped the vehicle way too fast, causing Sasuke's seat belt to tighten unnecessarily. He turned to glare at the other boy.
"Why did I ever decide to let you drive my car?"
"Hey, hey! You're the one who asked me to come!"
Sasuke acknowledged inwardly that this was at least partially true, and grunted in response as he got down out of the SUV. He heard a quiet "bastard" out of his best friend and let a smirk grace his features as he walked towards the barbed-wire fence separating him from his objective. He could hear the blonde parking the SUV properly as he jumped the fence, going towards the edge off the large patch of shallow, brine-filled pools. Humming in satisfaction, he began to set up his equipment.
For a while, his entire focus was on taking pictures. The light-blue sky was perfectly reflected in the web of interconnected pools, and the salt-encrusted edges of the sand bars splayed out between them gave the landscape an almost alien look. It was just cloudy enough that he knew the sunset would be absolutely spectacular.
For the past two years – ever since the fall of his eleventh grade year – photography had been his passion. It had been completely unexpected – he'd never thought of himself as an artist – but he had found that being able to capture the moments that no one else saw, in ways that no one else noticed, gave him great satisfaction.
He glanced over at his best friend. The idiot was trying to tightrope walk down one of the sand bars, his arms splayed out dramatically as he sang to himself in a loud voice. He snorted to himself and went back to taking pictures, crouching next to a lone blade of yellow grass sticking up next to the edge of one of the pools. He wondered if it had been a good idea to let the blonde come – mixing Naruto and anything that might possibly get messy was probably not a good idea – but hadn't had the heart to turn him down when the blonde had whined about having to spend a Saturday alone. He still wasn't completely sure if a statement of "Fine. Come with me." after a half-hour of pleading counted as asking the blond along, though.
A little while later, as he was catching shots of a blushing sunset, he noticed – it was quiet. Too quiet. He looked around suspiciously, and then drew in a breath at what he saw.
The normally boisterous blonde was standing still, staring out across the landscape as if in contemplation. The raven raised his camera and shot on instinct, trying to quell the forbidden feelings that threatened to rise up in his heart. Suddenly, he wasn't sorry the blonde had come at all. Naruto didn't even notice, too wrapped up in his own thoughts to care, when he suddenly came to a decision and nodded.
"Oi, Sasuke," he said, spinning towards the raven. Said raven cringed as the blonde's foot slid out from under him, landing him on his ass in one of the muddy pools. Whatever he'd wanted to say was lost amidst sputtering and yelling as the idiot splashed angrily in the water.
Sasuke sighed, feeling the chill air of evening caress his skin. He looked longingly at the landscape around him, and then down at the count on his camera. Smirking, he fired off the last two shots at the struggling blonde before bending over to put his equipment away.
"Bastard! Come over here and help me out! There's no way I'm letting you keep those pictures!"
Glancing over to make sure the idiot could figure a way to stand up in a three-inch deep pool, Sasuke walked back over to the vehicle, opening up the back and sighing. He really should start carrying around some towels. He put the camera bag down next to a big red toolbox, and reached to pull out a couple of garbage bags before turning and looking critically at his best friend.
"B-b-bastard," said the other boy, shivering in his wet and muddy clothes.
Sasuke sighed and handed one of the bags to him. "Strip."
Naruto's eyes widened. "Wha?"
"There's no way I'm letting you ride in my car in those clothes. Put them in the bag, we'll wash them at my house later. You can sit on the other bag."
Growling, Naruto snatched the other bag out of Sasuke's hands before stalking to the side of the car and throwing it in the seat behind the driver. He scowled over at Sasuke, then looked away stiffly and said, "Go – on the other side of the car or something, give me some privacy."
Sasuke refrained from commenting on how that side of the car was the one anyone that came down the road would be able to see, and walked around the other side of the car, looking out across the salt flats. When they were younger, there hadn't been an issue of modesty between them, but lately Naruto had been acting odd about anything combining Sasuke and undressing. The raven wondered if he suspected – but doubted it. The idiot was normally slow when it came to do with anything regarding relationships, and Sasuke had been very careful to hide any sign that his feelings for his friend were more than just simply friendly.
"Alright, you can come over now," said the blonde. Sasuke glanced at him quickly as he slid into the driver's seat. Naruto was looking out the window, a faint tinge of pink across his cheeks. He sat on the black plastic bag clad in nothing but a pair of bright-green boxers, clutching the other bag with his clothes in front of him. Sasuke shook his head, and adjusted the mirrors before turning the SUV back around towards home.
. . .
The ride home was pleasantly silent, except for the occasional noise of shifting plastic as the blonde squirmed around in the back seat. After a while, the raven heard the sounds of light snores from the back. He glanced back and saw that the blonde had passed out against the window, drooling slightly. Sasuke chuckled, and took a moment to let his gaze wander down over the sleeping man. He paused at the juncture where neck met shoulder before wandering down over the skin of his best friend's chest above the black bag now clutched in slack arms. The normally tan skin was washed to a pale glow in the moonlight filtering through the window.
He looked back at the road. Maybe Naruto was right to be shy around him, if he couldn't even stop molesting the blonde with his eyes when he was asleep. Sasuke sighed in frustration. He couldn't let anything happen to harm his friendship with the blonde. They'd been friends ever since the summer before seventh grade, when Itachi had made him move to a stupid small town after the death of their parents.
Sasuke had been sullen and withdrawn, prone to fits of violence and anger. One day, he'd been walking along the river in the park when a kid came out of no-where and knocked him into the water. Glaring up at an apologetic-looking kid clutching a Frisbee, something inside him snapped.
That was their first fight. Sasuke had been surprised to find that the blonde was a fairly good fighter. His friends had just stood back and watched as the two went at it, before grabbing the Frisbee and getting back in their game. The fight had ended up as somewhat of an almost-draw – Sasuke had to concede that Naruto might have been just a tad bit better than him, the first time – and the two had lapsed into companionable silence, panting as they lay back against the grass on the riverbank.
"I'm Naruto," the blonde had finally said.
The raven grunted. "Sasuke."
"You're a pretty good fighter, Sasuke. My uncle Kakashi has a dojo here in town. You should come spar with us."
"Hn."
"Oh, he he – and sorry for knocking you into the water. Sometimes I don't watch where I'm going."
Sasuke had grunted. "Way to state the obvious, idiot."
"Hey! Bastard! I was trying to apologize there!"
"Hn."
Itachi had been delighted when he took the blonde up on his offer. The older teen had been struggling to figure out how to help his brother over the grief of their parent's death without much success. It was easy for him to see that the physical release and discipline of martial arts gave his little brother a way to channel his rage, and a sense of pride and self-respect as he found that he was pretty good at it all.
Sasuke and Naruto had become fast friends after that at as well, though some might have called it more of a rivalry. The two were deadly serious about their video games, and spent most of their afternoons in the house of one or the other playing until they were forced to eat dinner.
They lived on opposite sides of the wide, slow river that ran through the south part of the town. Sasuke lived with Itachi in a big house on the south side of the river, with a long sloping backyard that led to an outdoor bar-b-que pit and patio at the edge of the water. Naruto lived across the way in a house with his aunt Tsunade. His backyard was full of terraced gardens, and steps that led down to a pool. At the edge of the water there was a shed, with a couple of paddle-boats and inner tubes that the boys used to keep cool in the heat of summer by floating down the river. They normally used a boat to get home in the evening as well, unless it was too cold. Sometimes they biked. The roads were a lot longer, but were curvy and not to steep, and there were spots where the old trees on either side of the roads met to form a canopy overhead, blocking out the worst of the sunlight.
It was a far cry from the hustle of the big city that Sasuke had been used to. It was slower-paced, but there was a lot to do, and Naruto always made things interesting – even if he was often annoying and exasperating. They were competitive in almost everything they did, though each had their own area of expertise. Sasuke had a knack for computers, especially programming. He could analyze a problem quickly and find the best solution in a way that left Naruto blathering on about how it would never work – and then about cheating, when it did. For his part, Sasuke had to – grudgingly – admire Naruto's talent with art. The kid had been stuck in a random drafting class in junior high, and had found a deep love of the things he could do when pencil met paper. After that, he'd branched out into painting as well, showing off a love of bright rich colors in his abstract works. In their senior year, one of his teachers had clued him into architecture, and how it might help meld his spatial sense with his creativity.
They were both going off to college in a month. Luckily, just a few hours to the south there was a college that happened to be one of the best in the country for both computer science and engineering. Everything was set for them to room together in the on-campus apartment-style dorms. Sasuke knew everything was going to be great – and he didn't need some weird emotional responses to get in the way of everything and screw things up.
. . .
Sasuke pulled into his garage, narrowing his eyes at the still-sleeping blonde. He got out and pulled his camera bag out of the back of the SUV before going around and opening the blonde's door.
Naruto fell against his seatbelt, waking quickly and scrambling to get into a less awkward position. "What… hey! Oi, bastard!" he yelled at Sasuke as the raven grabbed the bag full of clothes and turned to go into the house.
"Go take a bath or a shower or something," Sasuke shot back over his shoulder as he unlocked the door. "I'm going to go develop these shots."
He walked into the laundry room and emptied the bag into the big wash basin next to the washer and dryer, crinkling his nose in disgust at the sight of the mud-caked clothes and shoes. He heard the patter of bare feet behind him and glanced back. Naruto had grabbed a big fluffy towel from off the dryer and was already wrapped up in it, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Sasuke blinked away random thoughts of cuteness and turned towards the kitchen. "When you're done in the bath, come wash off your clothes before putting them in the washer. Itachi won't be home until late."
The blond shuffled after him into the kitchen. "Mmmm… ramen?" he asked, glancing hopefully towards the pantry.
Sasuke smirked. "After the shower, dobe! But yeah, Itachi stocked up. And no, I don't want any – I'll just fix myself something when I'm done with these."
He went upstairs to the dark room and shut himself in, flipping on some soft electronica to hum along to as he worked. Itachi had given him the darkroom as a Christmas present a year and a half ago, once he saw that Sasuke was really committed to his hobby – and committed to making healthy decisions in his life. The choices Sasuke had made the summer after his sixteenth birthday had been – radically less than healthy. Itachi never gave up on him, though, and had been willing to do whatever it took to save Sasuke from himself and his demons. Even if Itachi did have his – quirks – Sasuke couldn't imagine having anyone else as a brother. Itachi had shown him the depth of what "family" really meant. Just like the blonde had shown him the depth of what "best friend" and "never give up on you" really meant.
Sasuke hung up the final negatives to dry before going out to fix himself some dinner and kick Naruto's ass at a video game or two.
. . .
Sasuke woke with a flash of light in his face. He sat up groggily, looking around to see that he had been curled up on one end of the couch. Naruto was sprawled out in the easy chair on the far side of the couch, snoring loudly. Sasuke glared up into the face of his older brother, who was leaning over the couch, a cheap digital camera in hand.
"Evening, boys!" the dark-haired man cried out, smirking down at his little brother. Years of practice had made him totally immune to whatever dark glares Sasuke sent him. After all, glares were nothing compared to what Sasuke had thrown at him in the past.
"Both fall asleep at the controls again, I take it?" came a voice from behind Itachi. Sasuke sat up and looked at the grey-haired man coming into the living room from the kitchen.
"Good evening, sensei," he said, nodding with respect at his teacher. After Sasuke had joined the dojo, Itachi and Kakashi had struck up a friendship of their own, and were known to occasionally make runs to the neighboring town to catch a marathon of cheesy old kung fu movies.
Kakashi nodded at Sasuke before going over to stare morosefully down at the snoring form of his nephew. "There are nights," he said mournfully, "when I'm almost positive we aren't actually related."
Sasuke snickered as the grey-haired man bonked Naruto on the head. "Naruto! Wake up! I'm here to take you home!"
Yawning, Sasuke watched as the man bundled the sleepy blonde out the front door before snuggling deeper into the couch. He was contemplating just sleeping there when Itachi came back from shutting the front door, looking through the pictures on his camera with a satisfied smirk.
"I trust you got some good pictures today, little brother?" Itachi said.
Sasuke nodded, covering another yawn and laying his head down on a pillow at the end of the couch. "I think so, it was good light today," he said quietly, voice edged with sleep. One eye cracked open to glare at the piece of crap in Itachi's hands. "You should at least get a decent camera if you're going to use one," he said, closing his eyes to regain sleep.
Itachi shook his head and turned towards the stairs. "It works fine for my purposes. By the way, you're really cute when you sleep. Oh, and thanks for telling me about that facebook site."
Itachi counted to five slowly under his breath. Really, Sasuke must have been tired to take so long to –
"Itachi! I'm going to kill you!"
Ah, there it was. The sound of his little brother tearing over the back of the couch in an effort to catch him as he ran up the stairs, trying to grab the camera out of his hand. The perfect end to a lovely day.
Sasuke would be more comfortable sleeping upstairs in his own bed, anyway.
. . .
The next afternoon, Sasuke spread his finished prints out on the dining room table in full view of the sun streaming through the back windows. He was pleased at how the final prints had turned out. He thought the teacher of his summer photography course would be, too. Some might consider the land surrounding the oasis of his town a desert, or a wasteland, but Sasuke found there was incredible beauty in the land, and his pictures helped other people to see that too.
He stared down at the picture he'd taken of Naruto against the sunset. It looked almost like his friend was standing on a lattice separating two skies, suspended between warmth and cool. The orange hues on the clouds contrasted sharply with the cooler purples of the shadows behind his friend. The colors of Naruto's clothes and hair stood out against the pastels of the landscape, somehow seeming to make him more a part of the brilliant sky than the land he stood on. His face was set in a rare look of quiet determination as he faced off into the distance, making the viewer wonder what he held in his mind. It was Sasuke's favorite shot from the day, and one of the favorites he had ever taken. He wouldn't use it in the assignment – it was supposed to only be landscapes, this time – but he knew it was an amazing shot, and would probably use it in his portfolio.
Sasuke heard something bump outside, and saw Naruto tying his canoe to the dock outside. A slight flush of embarrassment colored the raven's cheeks, and he quickly slid Naruto's photo under the others before the boy came in the house. He busied himself looking at the other pictures to try and figure out which ones he'd turn in as the blonde barged into the room.
"Afternoon, bastard," he said, pulling out a chair and turning it so that he could lean forward as he sat down, crossing his arms over the back of the chair. "Tsunade made me help her out in the gardens today," he continued, sticking his tongue out.
Sasuke smirked. He could still see bits of leaves and grass stuck in the other teen's hair. "Didn't you want to take a shower afterwards?"
Naruto shrugged, and then looked up from the table where he'd been glancing at the photographs. "I figured we could go for a ride or something. You know, get your sorry ass out of the house for a little bit while the sun is out."
Snorting, Sasuke said, "We spent plenty of time outdoors yesterday, if you remember. By the way, your clothes are still in the dryer, and your shoes are still in our sink."
"Good, good," Naruto said, suddenly standing up and coming around the table towards Sasuke. "But we need to get you some exercise man, otherwise you're gonna go soft." He punctuated the last word by a playful punch at Sasuke's arm, which the other blocked easily.
"Not likely," he replied, absently tapping his fingertips against the glass of the table top.
"Whoa, man," Naruto said, looking down at the pictures. "These are the ones from yesterday? You were right, that really is a badass place to shoot. I don't know how you do it, but…" he trailed off, picking up one of the pictures to look at it more closely.
Sasuke paused his tapping, a silent panic coming over him as he realized what picture Naruto had just uncovered. People take pictures of their guy friends all the time, right? It didn't really matter – wouldn't give anything away if he saw it. But, what if he saw it – and didn't like it? Sasuke turned towards the kitchen, not wanting to see his friend's reaction. "I'm going to grab a glass of water, you want anything?"
"No thanks," the blonde replied absently.
When Sasuke returned, he paused in the doorway. Naruto had the picture of him in his hands and was looking at it pensively. After a moment, he glanced up at Sasuke, and they shared a serious look.
"Is this the way you see me, Sasuke?" he said, voice a bit deeper than normal. Sasuke shrugged and came over, nursing his water as the blonde set the photo back down on the table. "Its…" he said, trailing off into silence.
Sasuke cringed, not wanting to look at his best friend.
"It's really really amazing," the blonde said, finally. "Thank you."
Sasuke shrugged awkwardly, not used to this type of talk from his boisterous friend.
"Can I have this copy?"
"Sure," Sasuke said, turning the other way to hide a small pleased smile on his face. "I can make another print. I'm probably going to reprint the final ones anyways."
"Cool," his friend replied. "I might grab another couple as well, once you're done picking them out. The colors are really… inspirational."
They'd worked on some collaborations before, Naruto using his prints as the basis for paintings – paintings that on the surface looked nothing like the photographs, sometimes, until you really saw what was going on. Naruto's aunt Tsunade even had hung a few of their collaborations side by side in her living room, showing off the complementary prints.
"You should be careful, though," Sasuke said finally, glancing down at the picture once more before walking back towards the kitchen with his glass.
"Eh?"
"Looks like you're thinking pretty hard there. I'm not sure how much of that your brain can take."
"Ah! Bastard!" Naruto said, bounding after him after quickly slipping the photographs into his backpack.
Sasuke grinned. Now, there was the dobe he knew and l – yeah. Loved.
. . .