Naruto, Naruto/Sasuke, first kiss.
Primus
Is not a kiss the very autograph of love?
~Henry Finck
A kiss, when all is said, what is it?
A rosy dot placed on the "i" in loving;
'Tis a secret told to the mouth instead of to the ear.
~Edmond Rostand
Technically, Sasuke is thirteen when he's given his first kiss.
'Given' might be a generous term; it's a complete accident when some boy knocks Naruto into him - their lips meet, and they break away gagging. They don't speak of it again.
Sometimes, though, Sasuke remembers: he remembers that both their mouths were a little open, and that just for a moment, he could feel Naruto's breath, forced out in shock, flow into him.
He dreams about it sometimes, and when he wakes he's disgusted with himself; how can he hope to control his body, his eyes, if he can't control his mind?
In Konoha, his lips would be dry afterwards; he would lick them briefly, unconsciously, before turning over to go back to sleep.
These days, he gets a glass of water.
That might be the first kiss, that moment when they breathed into one another for the first time. Or, it might be this:
It's late afternoon, an hour after training has finished and both Sakura and Kakashi have gone home, but the two boys still want to spar; so they head out to Practice Field 9 and spend several minutes trying not to show the strain, shouting insults in the usual manner of fourteen year-old boys, except that these boys have weapons to back up the accompanying threats.
It ends with Naruto being pinned, of course; Sasuke straddles his waist, ankles trapped under Naruto's thighs, a kunai to the carotid artery. They're only meant to aim for the jugular in practice, but the solitude and fading light blurs such lines. Naruto's chest heaves as if to throw Sasuke off, and at this distance Sasuke can see his throat move with convulsive swallows. Both of them are breathing hard from a combination of exertion and adrenaline.
"Oi, bastard," says Naruto at last, "let me up." So Sasuke does, cautiously moving the blade away from the exposed throat; next to the tan skin, Sasuke's hand looks ghostly pale. He moves to get up, but his ankles are still trapped. He rolls his eyes and hits Naruto lightly in the thigh.
"Let go, idiot," he says, scowling - but Naruto doesn't. The wide-eyed stare is unnerving, and he wonders for a moment whether he should have moved the kunai. "What?" he snaps, on edge, and Naruto still doesn't answer. The flush of exertion is still peculiarly strong across his cheeks; now, with the eyes and the slightly open mouth it looks more like embarrassment. He still hasn't let go of Sasuke's legs.
With a disgusted huff, Sasuke pushes his torso up, trying to force Naruto to disengage; obviously, Naruto is just being stupid as usual. It's weird, but when is Naruto ever normal? But moving to brace his palms either side of Naruto's head to lever himself up leaves him vulnerable; just as his hands are about to make contact with the ground, Naruto strikes, rolling them over so that Sasuke is now on his back in the short grass, underneath which the ground feels particularly hard. He grunts slightly as the wind is knocked out of him, leaving him struggling to breathe for a moment.
Naruto's still staring at him.
"What the hell, idiot?" he shouts as soon as he's got his breath back. Naruto wets his lips nervously, hands holding his shoulders down with a surprising amount of force. He can feel the texture of skin through his t-shirt.
"S-shut up, bastard," he says, and it's shaky and his cheeks are still red and shit, is that what he thinks it is?
This is the point where he should start shouting about how Naruto's a complete pervert who should get the fuck off him right now - but he can't. It's like his brain's fogged up; he barely think, let alone form coherent phrases.
Naruto kisses him.
It's dry and close-mouthed, but the desire behind it is a palpable force. It stuns him, makes his limbs lax with shock. He can't understand it - why didn't he know about this, why is Naruto doing this now, why is Naruto doing this at all? A hand - broad palm and calloused fingers - comes up to clumsily caress his cheek, rough and tender - and that's when Sasuke comes to his senses and gets a leg up to ram his knee into Naruto's stomach. Naruto wheezes and collapses on top of him, only to be heaved off as Sasuke scrambles desperately to his feet and puts at least three feet of distance between himself and Naruto's prone form.
Naruto's looking up at him, sprawled in a way that must be uncomfortable but doesn't seem to bother him. It's getting dark now, but in the half-light Sasuke can still see the rise and fall of his chest beneath the ridiculous orange jumpsuit, and the fact that he's still flushed.
Naruto's still looking at him.
Sasuke flees. He runs from the training ground without looking back, and he doesn't stop until he's in his apartment with his back to the door, and he can't get his heart to stop pounding.
It's raining.
He's wounded on his stomach, his arm, his shoulder, his back and probably a load of other places too, he's tired, he's out of weapons, Naruto has a kunai to his throat and it's raining.
He tilts his head up slightly to catch the water on his face, hoping to wash away some of the blood in his eyes. Naruto digs the kunai in a little more. They're alone on a mountainside; their battle has taken them to the middle of nowhere.
"Just do it," he says, monotone. Naruto just frowns harder. "I want you to do it." I've been hoping you'd do it, no-one else-
"No," says Naruto, and Sasuke hisses and pushes his throat closer to the blade.
"Do it!" he snaps. "What are you waiting for, idiot?" But Naruto still doesn't move, and shit, he isn't going to do it, is he?
"Do it!" he shouts. "This is revenge, right?
Naruto's hand shakes, but he still doesn't move to slit Sasuke's throat like he should, like he must want to. Sasuke draws in a ragged breath.
"Why won't you do it?" He doesn't mean to say it like that - quiet and helpless and like he's begging - and he wants to shut his mouth and do something, anything to make Naruto draw that kunai across his throat or stab him or just end this. "Why won't you kill me?" he croaks out, hating how pathetic he sounds, how pathetic he's become.
He sees Naruto swallow. And he says:
"That's not what I came here for." The words are hopelessly inadequate, but Naruto takes the kunai away from his throat and stares at him for a moment, eyes painfully bright and blue, and then he mouths something, which can't be what Sasuke thinks it is -
Love
- except it is, and Naruto drops to his knees to pull Sasuke to him, clutches him tight enough to bruise and all the time he's whispering in Sasuke's ear IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou-
He puts their faces together, and maybe it's the emotion or maybe it's the bloodloss, but Sasuke can't fight anymore - doesn't want to fight. He doesn't want to kill Naruto, and for the first time in nearly six years he feels human again. He doesn't want to kill Naruto - he understands it now.
Then Naruto kisses him once, just once on the brow, feather-light, and Sasuke thinks that maybe this - this - is the first.
FINIS