Title: maelstroms in your mind
Author: pheen
Rating: idk. I can't work out these things. Nothing high, pg-13?
Genre: angst, romance
Word count: 459
Summary: Common sufferings are far stronger than common joys.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Kishimoto, I just borrow them and corrupt them slightly.
Kakashi comes to see him on the third day he's been under surveillance, house arrest, and only stays for a little while.
Sasuke tells himself he doesn't care and then repeats it to the broken shards of the tea cup his sensei drank from.
--
He isn't surprised when Sakura turns up with a smile for her traitor ex-team mate and soft words. She brings him some food she cooked especially and doesn't try to touch him. Thank God. She leaves and promises to visit later. Sasuke thinks he likes her more, now married and pregnant with Lee's child.
--
Surprisingly, or not, Naruto is the last one to come by. He is dirty, tired and bruised when he visits. He grins at Sasuke as if they were genin and not one convicted missing-nin under house arrest and his jounin ex-team mate. He sits on Sasuke's couch and nearly falls asleep as Sasuke tries to dig the words from the crevices he had buried them in a life time ago.
He has no idea how to talk to Uzumaki Naruto, jounin. Kakashi had done all the talking whilst Sasuke answered monosyllabically and painfully. Sakura hadn't really wanted an input from him. How was he to know what the idiot wanted him to say?
Naruto must have felt the flicker of anger from Sasuke, as quick and fine as a whip and looks at him evenly. If I can feel it, he says as if they are talking about replacing old kunais and not his friend's state of mind, the ANBU on the roof probably can too. A warning; don't lose your head. Like it's that easy.
He has no idea that Sasuke doesn't know who he is, because he doesn't know who Naruto is, and he'd always used him as a marker for his progression. This kind of self-doubt is foreign and unwanted and only leaves when Naruto does.
--
It is Kakashi who finds him on the edge of the forest when he decides to gives his ANBU guards the slip. A test of their abilities, he tells himself. A test of their abilities, he tells Kakashi.
He'd test them time and time again if only for the crescent moon of his sensei's eye, testimony of a smile.
--
Kakashi comes every other day if he doesn't have any missions. Sometimes they drink tea and eat what Sakura brings for him and Sasuke still wonders if he will ever see what's under his sensei's mask.
Mostly Kakashi sits and lets Sasuke get close. Under the table, knees touching. Or pressed close; side against side, on his sofa. And sometimes curled up on the bed, Sasuke's fingers curled around Kakashi's green jounin vest, heartbeat a tattoo under his palm.
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