Warm Night And Half Light - 1740
And in that second the decision was made, the world was torn asunder -
or what was supposed to be the world, but was more one part of the world, merging and crashing until finally something new was expelled like life from the embryonic sac. It was odd to say the least, and here Naruto thought it was impossible to force the pieces from so many different puzzles together, because in the end they would never fit right. A space, an extension, but far too many to fully appreciate the damage.
If Sakura had been by his side (she'd been ripped away and he had no idea where to start looking) he supposed she would've laughed and banged him in the arm, sadly yet confidently telling him that they never figured it would be easy anyway. Naruto was stubborn and Sasuke was stubborn, and perhaps Sakura had always known it was cataclysmic to toss them together, because nature had a way of righting itself. Even strength, and chakra and all the brains and cleverness in the universe couldn't stand against the flow of balance.
Naruto had a crushing thought that maybe he and Sasuke were never meant to be together -
and all this, as he peered at the drifting plates of land, floating in an endless life stream, all this was just his journey to realization. It made him laugh and cry hysterically that it took the destruction of all he'd ever known just to know. At that moment, he'd never missed Iruka's blatant approach to teaching (short of throwing a book at his head) and Kakashi's subtle lessons more, because it seemed his innate ignorance had fucked him over again.
Hell, even pervy sage would've managed to knock some sense into his thick head.
Though he couldn't help reflecting bitterly how they'd neglected to warn him about this, just watched as he slowly drove himself to destruction and madness. Chasing the unchaseable, eh, guys?
He hated his stupid teacher for knowing about chasing things (Orochimaru, comrade) yet never telling him it was stupid, never insisting on the lesson. Never hitting him until he tasted blood and understood.
Some things are too damaged to bring back.
The airless wind picked up, and a sky bruised black by his stupidity and Sasuke's arrogance cracked like shards of a mirror, falling sharply. They speared the floating islands and in the calamity of further destruction Naruto was thrown from his drift into the void. He wondered, as the oxygen was strangled from his lungs, whether life existed afterwards. Such big questions for a dead-last like him.
Laughing as he choked, Naruto wasn't surprised his last thoughts were of Sasuke, because in the end it was their own puzzle pieces he'd tried to force together -
and look what it had wrought.
Light.
Light conquered the darkness, right? The darkness in peoples minds, their hearts -
their souls.
Yeah, Naruto mostly thought it was bullshit too, but it was a pretty deep thing to say. Not that he was saying it, per-se, more like pondering it. But that was beside the point. He wondered if he was dying, or had died, or something, because it was a pretty boring afterlife if there was just light.
Or maybe it had to do with his eyes being closed. Ha ha, stupid him. Grinning, as always with an affinity for self inflicted verbal abuse, Naruto popped open his eyes and stared. At a wall. Don't get him wrong, it was a nice wall, complete with cool posters in vibrant colors, chicks in bikinis, ramen (oh, this must be heaven, they had ramen) and all manner of assorted boy things, but still he wondered what place a wall with stuff had in heaven.
There was a floor too. A floor with clothes on it. Dark clothes, shirts he wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole because they were of a cool spectrum - and 'cool' could be taken either way. Then suddenly tactile sensation had returned and most of his auditory and sense of smell. He was on a bed with warm sheets, ruffling from a slowly clicking fan and an open window. Heat. The sun was spread across his shoulder that was bare, which wasn't a surprise, because he figured heaven had little need for clothes.
Then why did he see clothes and an also unneeded floor?
What a strange heaven, he mused, as his eyelids fluttered in exhaustion (which was also odd, because why should he be tired, here?) They snapped open in an instant though, when he felt a warm arm flop across his side. He really hoped that arm wasn't attached to a person, because dammit, heaven didn't have like, sex, did it? Then his previous thought caught up to him and he cringed, because it would be gross if there was just a severed arm in his bed. Ew.
He wondered over the strange feeling in his chest when the arm tightened and fingers began to brush idly against his stomach. Oh, it felt awfully nice, not many people at home deigned to touch him -
and not in such an intimate way.
He grinned sleepily. Maybe it was heaven after all?
"You'll be late for class, dummy."
And suddenly it wasn't heaven (he refused to dignify that little voice in his head that said liar - even though he was - shuttup) at the sound of that painfully familiar voice. He would know it anywhere, because it haunted him with feelings of inadequacy, hate, affection, friendship, betrayal, obsession -
and the list went on, because one word couldn't describe the depth and breadth of that four letter word he'd never say.
He couldn't turn, couldn't look, because maybe this was hell instead and it would end up disappearing. Sasuke felt so real and warm at his back though, just a breath from indecency. Did he dream a dream of death, then, and this was nature's way of saying sorry for all that cruelty? Naruto felt kind of weird thinking Sasuke Uchiha a present for all the things he'd suffered in his life.
And because he'd never been one to contemplate or think about why something occurs (the sun rose, the sun set, ramen tastes good, and Sasuke's his friend) he tumbled out of the bed and gaped wide eyed at the boy behind him.
Sasuke propped himself up on an elbow and stared back, one eye brow lifted in question.
"Idiot. Did you forget where you were again?"
You have no idea, Naruto thought with a gulp as nearly hysterical became hysterical and he truly did want to know where the fuck he was. He blinked.
He also wanted to know why Sasuke looked fucking fifteen, instead of the twenty-two years they'd parted with. In the ensuing minutes of silence, Sasuke rolled his eyes and muttered a whatever before turning over on the mattress and, Naruto suspected, falling back asleep.
It was funny, but hearing a familiar voice, and watching such familiar actions, Naruto found his previous anxiety replaced with an odd calm. Whether it was heaven or hell, he didn't care, because they were together again and the world wasn't exploding into a million different pieces. They fit together here (wherever here was). They fit, and that was all that mattered.
He slowly got to his feet, and marveled a little at the fact he wasn't any shorter than -
before. Okay, he decided, lets call it before. Ha, wouldn't it be a hoot if he was still twenty-two and Sasuke a little widdle baby? Oh, man, he'd never let his friend live that one down.
But did Sasuke still remember him then, from before?
Naruto edged closer, and crawled quietly onto the bed, only wanting a chance to watch Sasuke a little. He didn't get very long though, as his friend suddenly flopped over and grabbed the back of his head, hauling him down into a very long, and warm, and inviting (and all matter of expletives) kiss. A kiss that left him floundering, like he'd been mouth raped -
but in a really, really, really good way.
Then he was on his back with Sasuke stretched out on top of him, and Naruto was able to notice the distinct difference in height. He probably would've laughed if he wasn't being stared at so intently. Like the universe rose and set on his shoulders, and damn if it didn't make him swallow again, because, even though Sasuke had always looked at him like he was an enigma or the crux of everything, he'd never looked at Naruto like there was nobody else.
No brothers, no blood vendettas, nothing.
It felt so good he wondered again if this wasn't some forgiving version of heaven.
Then Sasuke was leaning in close, breath fanning out like fire across the other boy's lips, hand idly fingering the strands of blonde hair at the back of his neck. He felt the nudge of something hard against his stomach. It made Naruto shutter, and with a sense of anticipation and need, he thought how it would feel to have Sasuke shove inside him.
It was so wrong that he'd been whipped from the start, because Sasuke had known, he'd always known dammit, how much sway he had. That only a word, a nod in his direction, and Naruto would be on his hands and knees, begging.
The thought was humbling, because he had a feeling Sasuke felt the same way.
So much power over one person. Again, Naruto truly wanted to know if this Sasuke remembered him at all from before.
"Don't think too much about it."
And with those few carefully spaced words, he knew Sasuke remembered and feelings of something in his chest intensified until he couldn't take being even this far away from his -
eternal rival. He slammed their lips together and made sure it felt just as painful as sweet, because he needed to reaffirm their existence here as stationary. Naruto had gotten so damn tired of transitions.
In between breathless kisses, he managed to ground out something important. "You can't ever leave me, okay?"
Naruto hated that it sounded more needy than demanding, but he sucked at masking his emotions, so whatever.
Sasuke paused in his fevered licking and biting. He gave Naruto a surprisingly solemn and just a little guilty look.
"Okay."
And in that second that word was said, the world was put whole.
A/N - don't even get me started, that story made my teeth rot. But I'm, happy with it on the whole. I wanna do more older Naruto and young Sasuke pieces. It's cute. Anyway, plz review? I think my favorite part is the "okay" from Sasuke, it's so friggen huggable.