A/N: Hey there guys. I'm still alive after all, so it would seem. So, I don't have much to say about this piece. It wasn't pre-meditated in any form – actually, it was very spur of the moment. I was watching Shippuden, and between Sasuke being a cryptic asshole and Team Kakashi being complete dumbasses, the perpetually devious part of my brain went, "Naruto finds Sasuke when they split up, and…. SURPRISE BUTTSECKS." This is basically that one thought stretched out into a slightly more serious and angsty two-shot. (At least, that's the plan.) Please enjoy and remember – if I owned Naruto, it would not have taken twenty episodes to chase Deidara through a ravine with strange ninja trees that apparently root at both ends and grow horizontally.

"Sasuke…" I've missed the sound of my name falling from your cherry lips. Your blonde hair juts out around your face, just like it always did, framing your unmarred Konoha headband and your crisp blue eyes. You have a hero's eyes. You always have, but I now possess the self-awareness to admit that you are indeed the hero of this story. My path is not of righteousness; it is of revenge and power, and nothing more. I can acknowledge this about myself, so I suppose that means I've grown.

But you've grown too. I can see it in those hero eyes. You're not a headstrong scaredy-cat loser anymore – you're stronger. You had to be in order to find me here. That fact alone still astonishes me, and as much as I lie to you, over and over, I won't lie to myself.

I missed you.

"Sasuke…" You say it again, softer this time. I realise that I had been speaking to you while my mind did circles around itself. You see? Lies. They spill so easily from the mouth of a viper. I hate you. You mean nothing to me. I can see the hurt knitting itself in your eyebrows and pulling at the lines of your face. You're shocked – and as much as you've grown, there are still some things you just don't understand.

But I can't resist the urge to touch you any longer. Foolish though I know this will be, I reach out and brush a stray lock of hair out of your face. "You loser," I whisper. I won't smile. No, that would make this feel too much like we were friends, and as much as I wish things could have worked out differently between us, we will never again be friends.

You make a strange little choking noise, one that I can almost identify as a sob, and throw yourself at me. At first, I'm not sure whether you intend to hug me or punch me – and I don't think you really know either. But then we come together and there's no hesitation in your embrace. Your head lies soundly against my shoulder and your fingers dig into my back, clutching my shirt tightly as your own shoulders tremble characteristically, betraying that intense emotion that you're trying so desperately to hold back. Is it love or hate? Or perhaps both.

I won't hug you back. Instead I'll caress your cheek gently, lift your face to mine and observe what I see in those crystal eyes. What would you do if I put a kunai through your stomach right now? What colours and emotions would I see swirling through those glittering orbs if I were to suddenly plunge a blade through your heart? Perhaps I have become a bit like the real snake in this dank, oppressive hovel. A scientific curiosity for the morbid and obscene. But I don't want to kill you. Not here anyways.

Those eyes glisten as your face inches closer to mine, this time of your own accord. I notice the faintest puckering of lips, and even without the sharingan, your intentions are clear as day. I fantasized about those lips once. We had kissed once before, but that was a joke. At the ripe age of twelve, however; you had been my first, and I had wondered – bordered on obsessed over – what it would be like to really kiss you. I had wanted it so badly… But times had changed, and what we could have had then was only a mirage now, a mirage you would never acknowledge as such.

I won't kiss you. My hand is on your throat. As you make one final stretch for my mouth, I twist – not hard enough to hurt you, but forceful enough to make a point. Over and up. And now your hands grip me tighter as I mark your skin, drawing elaborate murals of purple and red with sharp teeth and an unapologetic tongue.

You whimper. May you remember this, for this will be the first and last time.