He Is My Wind

The first time was by accident. I'd like to say I remember it clearly, but so far the only fractions I can manage are washed out and faint.

It had all happened so fast, was so unexpected, and I was angry, full of the whip-like thunder I carried in my youth. It practically poured from my skin.

But things did come to change, and there were moments when my thunder turned to rain and that rain into mist and suddenly I found myself vulnerable to him, each moment building until I was eventually so wasted I gave into my weakness. And then the second time happened.

Ah, now this one I know.

I remember the way my eyes felt when they widened, how they stretched with my breath when I realized how dangerously open I was becoming; how much I was willing to fall just to see if he'd give wind to carry me. My young, thick heart had shrunken up and pattered like a quiet drum behind my lungs. I was ignorant then, and soaring inside as I drew nearer and he did not move away.

It was through those few bittersweet years that the third time happened, and the fourth, and the fifth one too, all just as soft, curious and awkward as the last. Each with no weight—none at all—and that is a curious thing to me now, a very curious thing.

Later came a time when the sweet was gone and all that remained was bitter, because in that time there was only me. Only me and my rage, my abandonment. Only me and my pain.

I was surrounded by many and still so alone.

From this a seed had been planted, and from that seed I grew—hungry, angry, and missing a piece of myself I didn't even know I needed, a piece that left me behind, that bastard.

And I would find it—so I swore—and bring it back. Back where it belonged, to home, to me, back to where it was loved because how dare it run away and turn its back like it didn't care. I knew it did. It had too.

So I tore through the pain, ripped deep enough to etch its words onto the skin of my bones, filled myself with it, and let it harden me like a shell so I could be strong. With that my journey began, stealing my years as it went, and my shield held me together until I would see him again. Then I knew it would crack.

And it did. The sound had been deafening.

With each encounter came another, and another, until I knew if I met his eyes once more everything would shatter and I would be exposed, when I was so close.

Of course he was there again, and my eyes found his. The dust of my shelter clouded around me as it crashed upon the ground, leaving me raw for him to see.

But he was too.

So we rested beside each other in the dirt, breathing the dust and bleeding out our past.

A war had been finished, not just around us, but in us, between us, and I remember wanting to grab his hand but finding that there was nothing for me to hold onto or with, so I stayed still and simply lived. With him by my side, it was enough.

It was shortly after that, after returning home and beginning the long process of putting things back together and mending, that the sixth time happened, still as clear to me as sunlight.

It was like falling.

And then it was like shooting straight into a thunder storm.

We went up and up, until the air was thin as thread and I couldn't breathe, so I pulled away from him and gasped as cold sank down my throat and left it all at once, electricity spiking, its current zipping down my spine. I felt my old, youthful thunder thrash about inside of me, begging to strike. I shoved him against a wall and forced him to look into my eyes, to see the hurt he put there, but he saw the tenderness he put there too, and without realizing it I had seized him again.

We never waited for the storm to pass, we just became it.

That's how it was for a while. We healed by stretching our wounds until they gaped, leaving nothing to be discovered, and dug the farthest into the grit we could go. All the years we spent not saying, not seeing, and not being—they were over. We were done.

A new seed had been planted. We grew from it together, and all our times after have been sweet and never bitter, each one reminding us of what we've been through, what we are, and what we will become.

He is the reason I fly.

He is my wind.

A single-chapter recollection of intimate moments between Sasuke and Naruto throughout their journey. All from Naruto's P.O.V.

Simple and sweet :)