A/N: Oh man...I thought I got rid of the angst! My last story was so fluffy...and about Chinese food...but now I have this. Apparently the black cloaked and masked plot bunnies have returned. Or I could blame the weather. It's weird...it's June, so it should be clear, and bright, and dry, and painfully hot (like, it's so hot and bright that it is physically painful to lift your head; you have to stare at the ground), but instead it's been all damp and rainy and overcast. It shouldn't start doing that until monsoon season next month! (I love monsoon season. I was in China for a lot of it last year, but it was cool - entire towns disappeared, our second floor apartment kept flooding, and parking lots turned into little mini-lakes.). The desert is soooo weird. So I blame the weather for this, because it's been overcast, and for some reason when it's overcast all day it makes me really emo. So glad I'm going to Stanford in California, instead of some school in the east (cough - Harvard - cough - take that for wait-listing me!) where it rains all the time...Anyway...Al (JAG) agrees with me that Sasuke is an angsty little emo bitch. This story was supposed to be short, but he insisted on emo ranting for way more words than I intended to give him. Jerk. I got all of Naruto on DVD for graduation, and I'm only up to episode 96, but I'm already so pissed at Sasuke for being an idiot and running off with a snake perv. I'm going to cry so much when I actually see those episodes. Although I still maintain my foolish fangirl faith that eventually Naruto will manage to knock some sense into him and drag his emo ass back to Konoha.

Disclaimer: What could you do to me if I said I did own Naruto? I would have a bunch of kick ass sexy ninjas to back me up! Take that, evil copyright lawyers! ...okay, fine, it's not mine. On the bright sign, I did get to go see Naruto: The Movie on the big screen last week. It was great - some of the lines were soooo cheesy, and Sasuke only had eight lines (we counted), but it was still totally yaoi, and the fangirls behind us were loud and hilarious. So much fun...

Like a Dream

If you knew how many nights
I've been sitting by your bed
Running fingers throug your hair
While you're asleep
Every time I call your name
Or softly whisper in your ear
You turn around to look for me
And no one's there

"Around the Corner of Your Eye" by ATeens

On a narrow bed in the bare room of a cheap inn, a blond boy tossed fitfully in his sleep. His hands fisted in the thin sheets as he turned back and forth, twisting and writhing as though he were trying to escape some horror only he could see; his motions were violent enough that several layers of blankets had been kicked to the ground and a childish black sleeping cap was jammed in the crack between the bed and the wall. Bright blue eyes screwed shut in an expression of misery, and there were tear tracks down the scarred cheeks. As time passed, the young man's thrashing became more pronounced, and occasionally a soft moan escaped his lips.

"Sa-sa-sasuke –" the blond sobbed; in a few more moments he would wake up screaming (and how many nights in a row would that make?).

And then a pale, thin hand reached out and almost tentatively began to stroke the sweat-dampened golden hair, slow strokes as light as spiderwebs brushing against skin.

"Shh, Naruto," a cool voice whispered. "I'm here, and everything's fine. Go back to sleep."

Naruto continued to whimper. Sasuke allowed his free hand to linger a moment on the blonde's pale face before he reached down and clasped his hand. Naruto's fingers tightened around his painfully, but gradually the blond stilled, his breathing slowing and his face slipping into a more peaceful expression, though traces of his sorrow were still evident in his tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes.

Sasuke settled back into the chair beside the bed with a barely perceptible sigh. Untangling his fingers from the blonde's hair for a moment, he reached up to brush strands of raven black hair out of his own eyes. He paused, startled, when he touched his forehead, and instead of feeling the comforting cool metal of his hitai-ate, felt only smooth skin.

Three years, he thought, should be enough to know where his allegiances lie, but he was still sometimes confused when he looked down and saw himself in the strange pale clothes Kabuto handed him, rather than his familiar black and blue; still looked in the mirror and didn't recognize himself without the Konoha leaf across his forehead. It was a reminder, now, of just how ridiculous and foolish it was for him to be standing here, running his fingers through Naruto's hair as he slept.

He remembered missions long ago, when there was still a Team 7, and Kakashi always insisted the two of them share a room, despite Naruto's shouts and his own quiet threats to look himself in Kakashi's bathroom.

He remembered the third time he slept in a room with Naruto, when the other boy woke in the middle of the night screaming and sobbing hysterically; what about Sasuke didn't know and Naruto refused to tell. He remembered offering – because, he said, Naruto would get them all killed if he was half-asleep tomorrow – to sit with him until he fell asleep again, and he did so, holding Naruto's hand and rubbing his back and stroking his hair until the soft sniffles faded and his breath returned to the steady rhythm of sleep, and he woke there the next morning, back stiff from sleeping in a chair, and neither mentioned it again.

But Sasuke remembered. As he remembered the next mission, when it happened again, and the mission after that, until it was almost a routine, one that was permissible only in the cover of night, when showing weakness wasn't so bad; they never talked about it to Kakashi, or Sakura, or even to each other. They would never have admitted it, but every time Naruto started to whimper and moan Sasuke woke up, and every time he felt Sasuke's hand, heard his voice, Naruto felt the poisonous black of his nightmares retreat.

And when Sasuke woke shaking and sweat-soaked from dreams filled with blood and screaming and spinning red eyes that wouldn't look away, he didn't think about how much Naruto would likely mock him, didn't even think about asking permission. He just walked over to the other bed, nudged the dobe with his foot until there was enough room for two, curled up at the foot of the bed and fell asleep, and when Naruto woke up to find him there, it just became another thing they didn't talk about in the daylight. It was strange and it was twisted but as far as Sasuke was concerned it worked.

But that was a long long time ago, and things were different now. There were no more missions; there was no more Team 7. There was only Sasuke, who was a traitor, and Naruto, who trained with Ero-Sennin and whispered Sasuke's name in his sleep. And Sasuke shouldn't have cared, he shouldn't, because three years before he made a choice about was important and what was not, and he had resolved to cut out everything that wasn't important and held him back from what was, and Naruto was at the top of that list.

Sasuke remembered when Naruto had been the only person aside from his brother who could make him feel anything, even if it was hate and anger. He remembered when fighting Naruto was one of the hardest, most intense things he could ever hope to do, when he couldn't even pretend to be cool and bored because of the sweat and blood and pain and the gasps and screams and just the pure fury scorching him when he heard that taunting voice.

Sasuke remembered his first months at Sound, when he couldn't make it through a night uninterrupted by the familiar nightmares, and how, half asleep, he would get up to cross the room to Naruto's bed so he could sleep with him. His room at Sound held only his own bed, of course, and so he spent many nights, those first months, sitting in his bed sharpening his kunai, rereading his jutsu scrolls, and pretending he wasn't crying.

But that was a long long time ago, and things were different now. He had walked away. He had made the choices an avenger had to make, and that meant that things like sun-gold hair against his fingertips and late-night offers of comfort were supposed to be relegated to the past, along with other childish things. He wasn't supposed to feel anything anymore, especially not for loudmouthed ramen-loving dobes who cried over teammates that ran away. He was supposed to be able to kill Naruto without a second thought.

That had been his intention, the first time this had happened. It had just been an accident, finding Naruto; Orochimaru sent him out of Sound on a mission, he didn't even remember anymore what it been, because it was far more important that on his way back, he passed through a village and saw, walking down the street, a familiar burst of orange and gold.

He spent the day following the blond, just out of sight, as he went in and out of shops, dragged his teacher out of bars, ate dinner, and finally gave up on his teacher and returned to his room at the local inn.

When Sasuke slipped into the room through the window late that night, it was with every intention of killing the blond while he was asleep and helpless. He stood over the bed and unsheathed his sword, lowering it to rest just above the boy's throat, and then he stood there, silent and motionless, as he contemplated that he was on the verge of finally severing the last bond to tie him to a world outside his revenge.

And as he stood, Naruto began writhing in his sleep, and tears were streaming down his face, and for a moment it was just as it had been once long ago, when they were still innocent and Sasuke could still comfort him when he had nightmares.

And then Naruto had moaned his name, and Sasuke realized the blonde's nightmares were about him, and though he tried to raise his sword again to finish what he'd started, he couldn't, he just couldn't. Without really being conscious of his actions, Sasuke had re-sheathed his sword and reached out with a barely trembling hand to brush blond hair off a damp forehead, and as Naruto quieted beneath him, he had continued, unable to stop himself from running his fingers through silky gold spikes over and over again. Until the pale morning light broke through the small window, and he realized where he was, and what he was doing, and fled.

He had sworn it would never happen again, that the next time he saw Naruto, he would kill him. But somehow he wasn't surprised a month later when he once again found himself crouched beside a bed holding Naruto's hand through nightmares about his own betrayal, or a few weeks later, when it happened again, until it was almost a routine, almost like old times, although he wondered how Naruto would react if he found Sasuke curled up at the foot of his bed after one of his own bad dreams.

So now he sat in the chair beside Naruto's bed and held his hand and ran his fingers through his hair as he slept silently, and wondered for the thousandth time what he was doing here and why he was doing this, because it made no sense. Because he was a traitor, and Konoha was behind him, and Naruto should have been someone he knew before he killed and didn't miss at all.

But that wasn't the case, and maybe it never would be; maybe he would never be strong enough to cut everything that tied him to this boy, maybe Naruto would never let him do that, maybe the past was the future and the future was the past and he'd always be here, running fingers through Naruto's hair, maybe nothing would ever change between the two of them, no matter how much he wished it would.

Sometimes he wished the blond would wake up and find him sitting there instead of just sleeping there so peacefully, as if he hadn't just been thrashing and sobbing and about to wake up screaming. And if that happened, he didn't know what he would do, if he would kill him or kiss him or burst into tears and beg Naruto to forgive him for being so weak.

When Sasuke looked out of the window of Naruto's room, the sky was stained pale pink, and the sun was glowing sullenly just below the horizon. Glancing back at the bed, he saw that Naruto was starting to stir, twitching and mumbling nonsense softly to himself, just on the edge of waking.

Carefully, so as not to wake him faster, Sasuke disentwined his fingers from the other boy's, letting Naruto's hand fall against the plain sheets. He smoothed his hair a final time before withdrawing his other hand, and wearily stood, stretching the kinks from his back without making a sound. He turned to escape out the window once again, but then he paused, staring at the blond. It felt too abrupt, leaving like this, even if he wasn't supposed to be here at all; he almost, irrationally, wanted to say goodbye…

Naruto woke up to a cool breeze blowing across his face; glaring around him blearily for the source, he saw that the window by the bed was gaping open, which was strange, because he thought it had been closed the night before. Staggering out of bed to shut it, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and made a face; his hair was tangled and dark with dried sweat, his eyes were swollen and reddened, and there were obvious tearstains down his cheeks.

Shivering, he tried to remember what he might have dreamed about the night before for him to wake up looking like this, and came up with dim fragments of a three-year-old nightmare – black and red and fangs and wings and begging and pleading and dismissal and falling falling falling down forever.

And underneath all that, the barely there memory of a hand running slowly through his hair, and the lingering tingle of lips brushing against his own.

A/N: reviews re greatly appreciated, of course. You already knew that.