The Rebound

A/N:Just a sad little piece I wrote real quick. Initially, the story wasn't supposed to have names (you'll know when you read). Let me know what you thought. Late for class!

Warnings: None as such. The rating should say it all. Also. angst.

Disclaimer: Naruto and all its characters are the property of Kishimoto Masashi.

We lie beside each other on the futon he laid out for us. I turn to look at him but he has his back to me. A spine so straight and taut that I feel it might snap if it were forced to become any straighter. My heart pounds crazily in my chest but it's not my place to say anything to him. Had I been his best friend, I would have placed my hand on his shoulder, turned him around and demanded he speak his mind. But we are just "newly formed friends" and I am not exactly sure if I can even refer to him by his given name. I mean being friends with someone for just two months doesn't exactly give you the right to become informal no matter how badly you wish to be, no matter how hard you try to get to know him.

He's hurting. I know he is. Had I been in his shoes even I would have hurt the same way but when he found out that the guy he had been secretly dating was not only straight but also engaged to a woman, he had just smiled and congratulated the fucking bastard. If anything, the shock I'd initially felt upon hearing the news as it was announced in the living room where all of his friends had gathered along with a couple of mine, gave way to stark anger as his boyfriend - no - the fucking prick had cheekily stood up and raised his glass of beer for a toast. Oh how I had wished to just smash that glass against the asshole's head!

And afterwards because it was very late and everyone had left and I had insisted to stay back and help clean, he had demanded I stay over. He had only one futon which led to no other option save for sharing a bed. Well I was pretty okay with the idea given I have a huge crush on the guy despite the fact that we're both men and the added unwanted information that he likes another guy. Just thinking about that bastard makes me want to scream.

He shifts beside me. An infinitesimal amount, a movement so tiny that had my senses not been tuned to his presence I wouldn't have noticed. And then there is another movement and finally there is the long drawn shuddering breath. He fights the tremors that ensue, keeping them down hiding them from me.

A part of me wants to do what he wants from me. Turn my back to him and pretend like I can't hear his silent crying, the silent pat of the teardrops as they hit the pillow, the suppressed tremors of his shoulders as they brush against the sheet he's taking cover under, each breath drawn so quietly yet so urgently as his lungs fight for air, each sigh as it escapes his tightly closed lips.

If it were possible for my heart to cry loudly, I bet the sobs would be louder than those of the man beside me. I stay frozen on my place beside him on the futon and listen to him pour his sorrow out on his pillow. I call myself a coward over and over again and yet the courage to turn and face that back is still above me, to put my hand on his shoulder, to whisper comforting words in his ear, I can't. So like a feeble weakling I clench my hands into tight fists and hear him cry. Each time his shoulders shake, the tremor feels like getting whipped in the heart.

How much time passes I do not know. It could've been seconds, minutes or even hours but finally when I can't take it anymore, I sit up. Turning towards him I do what I've been yearning to do from the start. I grab his shoulder. "Hey," I whisper softly and cringe at my lack of tact. But the anger inside me bubbles to uncontrollable proportions and what I really want to do is snap that traitor's neck into two. But then again, if I have to be really honest with myself, what really irks me is the fact that this man who lies beside me knew; he knew all along that the guy was just playing with him, knew that he was being used all along. When he knew it was going to come to this, then why, why didn't he back off at the right time? I wish he had backtracked at the right time because then tonight I wouldn't have to see this sight of him crying as if he's lost the thing most precious to him and he might die of grief.

At the first touch of my skin against his skin, I feel his entire being freeze. And I know slowly oh-so-agonizingly-slowly he's shutting himself up. Defense mechanism, is that what this is called? Shutting yourself, letting your guards up one by one till nothing but the façade you created hides you completely from the world till you become nothing but an empty shell? I sigh internally and when the grip of my fingers tightens on his shoulders, his flinch makes me wince.

"You don't have to hide your tears from me you know," I say and my fingers move of their own accord to card through his soft hair.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I gasp at how sharp and collected that voice is despite all the crying. The pain in my heart increases triple fold at the brave front his voice has put up. His defenses are so high up that I know he's fighting the hand that can help, the hand that can heal, that can change. But deep down I know he wants someone to comfort him, to hold him through the night and just help him let it pass. That's the reason why when his hand comes to slap mine away from his hair, I just grab it and forcefully clasp it tight in my own grip.

"It's okay," I say grabbing his arms which come up to shove me away. I keep my grip on the wrists tight knowing very well that those slender limbs haven't given up their rebellion yet. "I won't let you go," I answer his quietly mumbled order and he turns towards me then and what I see takes me completely by surprise.

His eyes half filled with tears stare at me widening with every passing moment. They look so honest and vulnerable and so…so...hurt that it makes my heart stop and lungs forget their function. He is beautiful, that I know for a fact and have understood, even accepted it in my heart and made peace with myself that it is what's been drawing me towards him all this time, but the sight of the unshed tears on those lashes takes away every coherent thought. My heart flips with so many emotions that I'm surprised it hasn't burst yet.

Maybe it was what I had said or just the fact that I'm there for him that his eyes close momentarily and a lone tear slips out from both ends of his breathtaking almond-shaped eyes. His hands give up their rebellion and I let them g to grab him by his waist and haul him up against my chest.

"Cry…cry as much as you want to," I say when I feel his entire frame wrack with sobs and I just want him to cry the grief out of his system.

Crying for an unrequited love…just like me.

I hold him tight and kiss his hair, his eyes, his temples and every bit of skin I can get. I kiss his forehead; lick the tears away from his cheeks.

There is only one question sitting in the crevices of my mind and my chest constricts with a mixture of trepidation and fear while my tongue burns with the question sitting at the edge of it.

Why? Why couldn't it have been me?

I want to ask him but I am so scared of hearing the answer that I swallow it down while I kiss his lashes, the salt from the tears dissolving the grief into something so hot and feverish that it burns inside me and makes me dizzy.

My hands shake as they frame his face between them and my heart thuds maddeningly in my chest while my eyes take in the beauty of those long lashes, of that perfect nose and that mouth from such close vicinity.

I've seen him before, noticed every minute detail from that tiny scar at the edge of his eyebrow to that one annoying pimple at his plump bottom lip. I've seen him in my dreams; he is there in my every thought, in the wildest of my imaginations. But seeing him here now, oh-so-achingly-close to me is a completely different feeling, like seeing him in an all new light.

My body aches it burns with a need so potent that I find myself losing rationality as my lips swoon down and claim his. Instantly, the world I've always lived in gets washed in new colors. I see a white so calm and serene behind my lids that for a moment I think I've died and gone to heaven. There could've been one thousand clichés in the book but not even one came close to describing the feel of this paradise.

He protests, his hands bunched into angry fists at his sides as his brow clouds up a storm and the denial for his flavor his clearly written in his stormy eyes. They are so expressive, his eyes, that sometimes I wonder why his friends cannot read him, why they cannot understand him when I can figure him out word-by-word, bit-by-bit just by looking at his eyes.

My hands clasp his and squeeze. It's a gesture seeking trust, seeking a chance but he fights so I just tighten my hold and bend down again for that exotic flavor that just leaves me insatiable and makes me want to lose myself in him.

I promised myself a flavor and here I am getting greedier by the minute wanting something that's not mine, something I cannot have.

For tonight…just for tonight

Its madness, the way my hands move, the way they shed each bit of his clothing, the way they yield and coax. It's like they know every nook and cranny, every secret his body possesses. So potent, so curious in their exploration yet so sure while he protests but every half-formed syllable that spills from his mouth gets swallowed by mine as it bites those lips, as it takes what it should not have.

Snatches of eternity…

With every breath he takes he adds fuel to the already incensed fire inside my veins, with every protest of his hands on mine, with every squirm of his hips against mine. I wish I had words to describe the madness of the moment I had with him. It was like receiving hell and heaven at the same time. And when my rationality is overshadowed by greed, the tears in his eyes are almost my undoing.

Sasuke, I breathe it as a whisper, a prayer, my salvation against his skin over and over again till the calm settles down, till peace makes its way into my system and I can't think anymore.

Finally, when I reach the crescendo of this never ending melody in my heart and soul and I lie against him spent – a mass of limbs incapable of any sort of movement and try to catch my breath against the warmth of his shoulder, he just lies under me as stiff as a board but the fight has left his body, the rebellion is all gone now. What remains is just a hollow shell but I am too tired to contemplate my actions, too spent in the bliss of his arms to let regret make its way. So I just turn myself around, lie beside him and lose myself in the ultimate dream that just came true.

I wake up the next morning to an empty futon. For a second I am too disoriented to think of anything except for trying to figure out my location and then the events from the night gone by seep into my brain and for the first time since I took him, I find myself treading down the path I abandoned last night. With nimble feet and the guilt still weighing heavily on the conscience I find my clothes and bag and then like the fucking coward that I am, I leave his house.

I should be happy over the fact that I slept with the man I've been dying to sleep with and yet here I am having these guilty thoughts and wanting to turn back time. But then the tears make their way down and I can't help but want to cry my heart out. This is the first time I've felt so miserable in my entire life.

How? How could I try to own what was never mine?