AN: Inspired by an exchange between moonsavocados and alabasterink on Tumblr. I swear this became linguistic gymnastics at a few points. This was an unexpected departure from my usual kind of fic but I loved sinking into this. I have to admit, I didn't know where this was going to lead me or what I would find at the end. This would not have been nearly as developed nor fully realized without gabzilla-z's wonderful help and neverland300690's inspiring fic, A Place in the Sun (which everyone definitely, definitely, definitely should read! You can find it in my favourites list). I'd love to know what you all think of this! Hope you enjoy :)

It's one of the deadest hours of the night when Naruto comes into his apartment, back from a mission, covered in grime and sweat and exhaustion and craving nothing more than Hinata's warm body next to his and the comfort of his bed.

He showers, throws on some boxers, and drags himself to his room. His heart lightens considerably and his mind quiets down when he sees the familiar drape of indigo hair across his pillows and the beautiful curves of her body covered by his sheets. He's exhausted, about to literally collapse, but he stands in the doorway of his room for just a moment, drinking in the sight of her.

After all these months her presence still takes his breath away.

She surprises him too, but... not in a way he expects. It unsettles him, in fact, and it has nothing to do with her and everything to do with himself.

Hinata teases him sometimes, how he's always holding her somehow, touching her whenever they're together. Naruto always laughs and jokes that it's because he's making up for lost time but how could he also tell her that he's really anchoring himself to her, that her skin beneath his hands and her warmth and life assure him that she's not a dream, not a promise that will disappear when he blinks?

She surprises him, when he sometimes comes home and his mind is in a thousand other places and he doesn't remember for a moment why the light is on, why the smell of home-cooked food rises from his kitchen, why there is humming warming the tiny walls of his apartment. He forgets this new reality that is technically his present because he is always reminding him of his past. And his past has always told him that he's never been enough. That his future, while surrounded by friends, was still to expect a cold and dark apartment at the end of the night, to expect him as his only midnight companion, to set the table for only one.

Naruto had never been enough of a human to the villagers, for all that he kept the demon in his belly and lost his family in the process to protect them. He'd never been enough to hold his team together, to keep Sasuke from abandoning them, to keep Sakura safe and happy, to make Kakashi proud. He'd never been strong enough, fast enough, clever enough to keep those he cares about from dying for him.

You are helpless, is what he whispers to him, and Naruto can't even deny it. For all his strength, for all that he holds the power of a natural disaster in the palm of his hand and in the depths of his gut, he fell short when Hinata needed him most. When she almost died. When he thought she had died and the memory is so painful, so poisonous that he actually clutches his chest right there in the darkness of the doorway and for a moment he can't even breathe.

He is right. And he somehow always is.

Hinata shifts in her sleep and Naruto freezes like he's been caught. Her eyes slowly open and the moonlight from his window lights her like a dream but what touches him most is how much trust and familiarity she has with him, to be so relaxed in her sleep that she did not wake up immediately when he came home.

"Naruto?" Hinata's voice is scratchy, low, and a bit slurred from sleep.

He doesn't answer immediately, only takes those three steps- and sometimes they feel like nothing and sometimes they feel like canyons he barely makes across- and settles on the bed by her in an instant. His hand reaches out to smooth over her cheek and cradle her face.

"Hey," he whispers.

She smiles slowly, breathtakingly, and the way she looks at him warms him to his bones and he knows he is finally home.

Her hand comes up to hold his. She turns her head. Presses a kiss to his palm.

"Welcome back. How was your mission?" she asks.

"Long," he answers. "Boring, without you."

Her smile grows a little bigger, the colour in her cheeks a little darker. She lifts the sheets up and beckons. He doesn't need to be told twice and slides in right next to her, reaching to trail his hand over her body for a comfortable place to settle and for the pleasure of refamiliarizing himself with that which he missed. He feels her sigh fan across his collarbones, her hand wrapping around his waist until her fingers dangle by his spine and he wastes no time tangling their legs together.

He gathers her close, closer, until every part of her is pressed against him. He breathes her hair in deeply, closes his eyes, and feels for her heartbeat beating against his own.

"Naruto?" Hinata asks, her voice as soft and quiet as a whisper. He knows the question she is asking.

And he never has an answer for her, because he doesn't quite have one for himself. All he does is bury his head in her hair and hold onto her like a lifeline. Her hands tremble as they smooth over his back again and again and he doesn't want to ask why.

Sometimes, he's afraid of what she might answer. Which is irrational, because he knows her, trusts her, loves her like he's never loved anyone else in his life, but he is there, in the back of his mind. He reminds him that there are parts of him still too broken and too ugly for anyone else to want to handle.

Naruto doesn't know if his love is enough for her to want to stay and that is all he has to offer.

So he holds her as close as he can and drifts uneasily off into sleep to the gentle soothing circles she rubs into his back. He holds her close to prove to him that this is his reality, this is his validation, this is his reason for being.

He just smiles, as real as anything in this dreamscape, and gestures before commenting, "Not even in your dreams."

It's true. Naruto never realizes how hollow the emptiness in his mind ached until Hinaya came to colour his dreams. It's always been himself… and him.

He has always been there, for as long as Naruto knew in the beginning that the only one he could count on was himself. He came like an answer and a wish come true when he was young, alone, and crying, as low and lonely as he'd ever felt in his life. He became his first friend, the one voice who promised him his only real shot at the truth. He was the best companion he's ever had, because he was the only companion he's ever had. His only friend.

Naruto's dream ripples and he is twelve again, sitting on the swing set at the Academy, and clutching his stomach after another missed lunch. His third, that week. No more groceries at home and broomsticks waving in his face kept his cupboards empty.

"You should take a bento box, they won't miss just one," he suggests. He stands next to him, his hand rocking the swing gently back and forth like a lullaby. "You're hungry, and you know it isn't right for them to deny you what they're selling everyone else. Go on. Take it."

The bento box is suddenly right there in front of him, delicious and enticing, and Naruto's mouth waters and his stomach growls. But more than his hunger, he thinks he is right. When the shopkeepers drove him out yet again, the neverending routine, Naruto was hungrier and angrier than he'd ever felt, angry and frustrated enough to contemplate for one delirious second setting fire to the building to teach them a lesson.

One second, but that is all he needs.

He smiles and nods in satisfaction. He raises an arm and the dream burns. Naruto can hear people screaming, crying. The heat of the flames scorches him, drives him up from the swings before he is turning and running as far as he can. But he is always there and Naruto knows he will always be there.

Naruto doesn't even know when he became a voice he hated to love. Because those thoughts, the thoughts of burning, of scowling, of letting loose words meant to cut, of inadequacy, of shame, they don't come from nowhere. Naruto knows, because he refuses to lie even to himself, that they have always from from him first.

That is why he has never questioned why he sounds so much like himself rather than the other demon residing in his body.

Naruto runs to blank space, to endless white plains that ring falsely in his ears. He feels his gut churn, a deep unease creeping through his veins. He steps forward, onward, to anywhere but here, and as he walks the ground shifts and becomes clearer, like fog dissipating, and what he sees makes him physically sick.

His parents stare up at him, their eyes blank and lifeless. Kushina's long red hair wraps around them both like a noose. Jiraiya does not see him. His eyes are shut tight and a ghost of a smile still lingers on his lips but his unnatural stillness is what makes Naruto recoil because he was a man always so full of life and boisterous energy that his silence feels wrong. Neji is the worst, still covered in bloodstains and the cursed seal still vivid on his forehead, a reminder of the changes Naruto promised he'd make in the Hyuuga clan. Promises and promises he always fears he cannot fulfill.

He is standing there in front of him, and it's like looking into a distorted mirror. He gestures to the dead in the ground and echoes to him what he already knows: "Not even in your dreams."

Not even in his dreams could Naruto save them. Not even here, where anything is possible, is he enough.

He cannot stand him anymore. He wants him out, out of his head and gone forever, that voice that reminds him of burning fire, of false justice, of echoing loneliness, of utter helplessness, of all the parts he tries fiercely to believe he is above. That is he more than.

"Then I'll go," he promises. He turns around and starts to walk away, his image becoming fainter and fainter. As he walks, the ground darkens, obscuring the bodies of those Naruto loves and could not save until two endless black chasms open up on either side of him.

Naruto stares after him and despite himself, panic bubbles up within his chest. The plea spills out of him in a rush like a dam bursting open, "Wait! No, come back!"

The only thing worse than his voice is the utter silence of abandonment that threatens to yawn before him, the abyss surrounding him that he knows can and will swallow him whole and is infinitely more terrifying than his voice. His presence seems to keep it at bay... and yet also echo the darkness within.

He stops. Turns. Comes back. Crouches down and places a hand on his shoulder, his grip firm. Unyielding.

"Don't worry," he whispers, and Naruto hates that in even this, he is not strong enough to let him go. He is smiling. He already knows this. "I will never leave you."

Naruto wakes up with a violent start, covered in a cold sweat, and gasping as if he is drowning.

He reaches for Hinata before he can even think, desperate to feel her warmth in place of this chill in his veins and as his breathing gradually eases out, as his thundering heart slowly stops trying to jump out of his chest, he realizes that she is awake and cradling him back. That she had reached for him the moment he needed her.

Naruto stares at her with wide eyes, his mind still jumping from his nightmares and her lavender eyes, almost silver in this night, look back at him sadly. He knows that she'd shoulder his demons in an instant if she could.

Neji swims to the front of his mind in a horrifyingly visceral and clear moment and Naruto violently jerks his hand away from her. He can't bear to look at her, to touch her, not with Neji's eyes and blood still as clear as the day he died.

Naruto shakily swings his legs out of the bed, scrubbing his face furiously with his hands.

"I'll be right back," he assures her and he winces at how hoarse his voice sounds, how it's low and rough and so like him that Naruto needs to run far away from her so she'd never be close enough to meet him.

He has one reason for her to stay but countless more that could drive her to leave. He is terrified of himself. He is terrified of him.

Naruto walks out of the bedroom and doesn't allow himself to look back. He pauses at the bathroom for a moment before jumping out the open kitchen window. The streets are silent and still and he steps forward, onward, to anywhere but here.

His feet eventually lead him to an all too familiar place, an all too familiar swing. He hesitates but sits down, the creak of the seat an old and gentle lullaby. The moon shines bright but he is in shadows beneath the tree, in a dark so quiet that he thinks if he stays still, he will cease to exist. He is still there, always.

Naruto knows there is no outrunning him. So tonight, tonight maybe he'll stop trying.

Hinata is still in bed, her eyes trained on the doorway that remains empty, her hands curling in the space beside her that is still warm.

He does not come right back, does not come back at all, but she expects this. She saw the panic and the shame in the curl of his head away from her, in the way he jerked his hand back from her as if he'd been shocked, in his inability to look at her.

That does not stop the momentary rise of fear and needle sharp sensation of loss from poking her heart full of holes, trying to empty it. She is no stranger to abandonment. She is no stranger to pain. Confidence and self-worth are friends she gains only later in life, sprouting from seeds of rejection and inadequacy planted so early on that it's all she knows and remembers. They were - and still are - intimate friends. They are always there, in the darker corners of her heart, and they visit from time to time as if reminding her where she's come from and how far she still has to go.

Hinata takes a deep breath and embraces his pillow, hugging it close. She breathes in his scent and waits for her heart to settle, for her moment to pass. She knows the routine by now and has learned not to fight it. She has learned not to run from it either and that she still does not know if she should consider a victory or a defeat.

Though perhaps it was never meant to be a battle. Perhaps it was always meant to be more a conversation.

That does not still the tremour in her hands and the ache behind her eyes as she squeezes them tight, feeling so much more like a lost girl than a capable woman and kunoichi.

Hinata allows herself this moment of vulnerability. Then she sits up. Sets the pillow down. And then she's jumping out the window in the next breath, the cool night air weaving through her long hair and wrapping around her bare legs. The darkness of the hour presses down on her but she is undeterred.

She walks with purpose, as she has learned to do in all the times and years where the only things that were expected from her was disappointment and failure. But it was never an easy thing, learning how to walk with and not run from her faults, which always threatened to cripple her if she would only succumb.

She never knew where to find the strength in her until she met Naruto, Naruto who always rose back up when knocked flat on the ground, shot with barbs of spite and contempt, of misunderstanding and cruelty. He did not deserve that. And she took courage from that, because when all was said and done, she did not deserve that either.

They were alone, starved of love. Children that lived in a world full of hate.

Hinata knows. Knows of that shadow that lurks behind his eyes, of the weight that burdens his mind. She saw him long ago, when they were both young and hurting.

She's always been able to recognize a kindred soul. She took comfort knowing that even in her darkest hour, she was not truly alone.

It takes her a few tries but she eventually finds him sitting on the swing set meant for one. In the dark, the bright gold of his hair looks fainter, duller and though she can't see his face, she can imagine his expression. For all that he's a man of eighteen now, he looks so much more like how she remembers him when they were twelve and worlds apart. But that's ok because as she walks towards him, her bare feet silent in the grass, she feels a little small and a little lost too.

"Hinata?" His voice is so soft she would've missed it if she was not paying attention, but she has always been able to see him.

"Hey," she replies softly, and when she finally comes to a stop in front of him, he still will not meet her eyes. She reaches for him, hesitant but resolute. Her fingers are shaking but when her hands smooth over his shoulders, he's already reaching back for her, seizing her around the middle and bringing her close to stand in between his legs, his head on her chest. Listening to her heartbeat.

Hinata doesn't say anything more, just runs her hands through his hair and down his bare back again and again. She traces messages on his skin and hopes that they will sink in and take root. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Naruto sighs deeply, his shoulders tense, but he feels her message, knows what she is saying in this silence and slowly allows himself to unwind around her. He feels her heart race and her fingers shake and his hands hold on to her a little tighter, wondering about that question he doesn't have the courage to ask.

Hinata wraps her arms around his shoulders and curls down onto him, resting her head against the crook in his shoulder, and pressing herself to him closer. She fits around him until she can't tell where she ends and he begins.

"You didn't have to come," Naruto murmurs, and she feels his voice more than she hears it, feels the plea and the relief that rumbles in his chest. "I'm ok. I'll be ok."

And still he can't help but show her an out, despite the fact that he fears losing her more than anything because her love still snags on the hooks of his mind. She is the first to love him seemingly without rhyme or reason. She was the first to say "I love you" and mean it, completely, unreservedly, knowing exactly what she was saying and implying when she declared it for all the world to hear. She is the first that made him feel like he is enough.

He never imagined though, that such a love would be as terrifying as it was exhilarating, that it would make him feel like flying and hiding at the same time.

Who could love someone like him? Who would stay for someone like him? Someone who had him still in his mind, even after all these years, reminding him that if he wanted to be appreciated, acknowledged, respected, he had to earn it, that nothing in life came free especially to someone who started at rock bottom and, in a way, is still there.

Hinata cups his cheek in her hand and turns his face so he sees her. His eyes hide nothing from her and her face falls open like a book she wants him to read.

"Did you know?" she quietly confides. "My demons are the same as yours."

Her hand trembles so minutely that if she was not holding it to his skin, he would've missed it. But he doesn't and he reaches up to clasp her hand, her answer to his questions and fears, tangling their fingers together.

He's always thought of him like a battle that needed to be won, because life taught him over and over to fight on. But that isn't quite right is it? Hinata doesn't say anything but she doesn't need to. She speaks just as clearly, just as eloquently with her every touch, her every look, her every gesture. They've never needed words to understand each other. He learns something every time he touches her.

He learns from her now that he isn't alone, has never been alone. That perhaps he wasn't something to be fought, but to be embraced. A conversation and reminder in what it means to be human.

Naruto presses his forehead against hers and he's not surprised this time when Hinata meets him halfway in a slow and deep kiss. He tastes love on her tongue and trust on her lips. She is warm and alive and beautiful in his arms and the dark doesn't seem so oppressive anymore because what has the dark ever done but given the sun a place to shine?

Hinata slowly, reluctantly draws back but only just enough so that they're still sharing the same space, the same breath. Naruto shifts her until she is sitting down on his lap, her arms around his shoulders and his around her waist like interlocked rings. With her, it's comfortable, even peaceful, this silence and this darkness. When she looks at him, he realizes that it's never been with anything less than all the love and understanding that she's always had for him and it fills him to the brim. She makes him feel whole.

Naruto doesn't know how long they sit there on the swing, wrapped up in each other, but as time passes he slowly feels the chill of the early hour on the bare skin of his back and legs and realizes that she's only slightly better off dressed in her underwear and an oversized shirt of his.

"Cold?" he asks, rubbing his hands along her arms as he feels goosebumps rise on her skin.

"A little," Hinata admits. "You must be colder though."

"Not with you to keep me warm," he teases and her smile against his cheek and her quiet laughter is the most beautiful thing to him. "Ready?"

She stands up and he feels the loss of her warmth immediately, already missing her even though she is less than a step away. She offers a hand and he takes it, standing effortlessly from the swing. He doesn't let her go and she is holding on just as tight.

"To home?"

They walk side by side, footsteps falling like a conversation between them. Their shadows, like dark ghosts, follow their steps but the path is wide enough for them all to walk together.

"To home."