A/N: Based on Travellin' Soldier by Dixie Chicks. The song really gets me because my father was a soldier, and he has seen so many men die in action. In the song, the soldier dies before he can get home, dispite the letters saying he's coming home.
Two days past eighteen, he was waiting for the bus in his army green...
Naruto shifted his pack and looked around the bus stop where the other local recruits were waiting for the bus. They had another hour before it would arrive. The blonde haired, blue eyed soldier went to the "greasy spoon" attached to the bus station.
Sat down in a booth in a cafe there, gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair...
Now, Sasuke wasn't quite a girl, but he looked very feminine with his lean body, albaster skin, and dark hair and eyes. He wrote down Naruto's order, looking over the poor boy. He was handsome, but it was taboo to be "like that" in the 1970s United States.
He's a little shy so she gives him a smile and he said would you mind sittin' down for a while...
And mind talking to me, I'm feeling a little low...
Sasuke kept his smile on, and was happy to be shown some interest from Naruto.
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, by the way," the soldier intorduced himself as the waiter placed his order of scrambled eggs with hash browns and sausage links.
She said I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go...
"It's a little place not far from here," Sasuke said, and then introduced himself, "I'm Uchiha Sasuke, a pleasure to meet you, Naruto."
Naruto stuck his hand out to the raven, and shook the boy's hand. This Sasuke character was a nice one, albeit cocky, but that's how the teens were in the era of the Vietnam war. Naruto could remember being like that before being drafted for the war.
So they went down and they sat on the pier, he said I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care...
"No, I have no one to be close with, Naruto. What about you, soldier boy," Sasuke asked with a cocky tone.
"Me neithor, Sasuke. Would you mind if..."
I got no one to send a letter to, would you mind if I sent one back here to you...?
"I'd love it, Naruto. I love letters," Sasuke blushed slightly, having given out a guilty pleasure. He enjoyed recieving and writing letters to people, it was a way to convoy emotion without speaking aloud to anyone. No one would know unless you showed the letter to them.
I cried, "Never gonna hold the hand of another guy"...
Knowing Sasuke didn't have anyone special, Naruto pulled the waiter to his side and placed a kiss on his supple lips. They were as soft as rose petals, and as pink as peonys. The waiter didn't fight the army recruit, and kissed him back. They were far away from anyone there on the pier.
Too young for him they told her, Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier...
The hour was up for the two boys, being that they were not quite men yet. Sasuke was only fifteen, and Naruto just eighteen. The blonde was technically a man, but wasn't fully matured, and Sasuke was still growing up, at the in-between stage.
Our love will never end, Waitin' for the soldier to come back again...
The waiter watched as the bus rolled away with his new found love on it. He would be faithful, and wait for the letters, and wait for Naruto to return unhurt. No matter what, nothing would change his mind about the soldier.
"I can only wait for you, Naruto. I'll do just that," Sasuke whispered before going back to the Greasy Spoon that he called his workplace.
Never born to be alone when the letter said, "Soldier's coming home..."
Naruto began to write his first letter when he entered the army camp, and he wrote five during his first week there. He wrote about everything. The food, his fellow recruits, the conditions that they were placed under.
So the letters came from an army camp in California then Vietnam and he told her of his heart...
Sasuke kept each letter in a shoe box under his bedside table, and counted each one. So far the raven boy had forty letters from Naruto, and each one he replied too. No matter how much his brother said it was useless for Sasuke to believe Naruto was coming home, the waiter knew he would. Naruto had promised in his letters that they would be together for life when the soldier got back to the States.
It might be love and all of the things he was so scared of, He said, "When it's getting kinda rough over here...I think of that day sittin' down by the pier..."
Itachi, Sasuke's brother, had read all of the letters himself, and knew what his brother had was true love. Being five years older though, and having served for his country just two years prior and getting out eighteen months later, the man knew what the conditions in Vietnam were like. He knew that the chances of Naruto coming back alive were slim to none. He knew that Sasuke would be devestated by the loss of his first true love.
And I close my eyes and see your pretty smile, Don't worry but I won't be able to write for a while...
The letters stopped at number sixy-six, and it hurt Sasuke. He wrote numerous letters to Naruto in return though to make up for the lack of letters from his love.
Naruto recieved every single one, but they were kept in a bundle with his personal effects that just sat at the army camp. The soldier was out on a mission with other maggots. He wouldn't be able to get them until he returned to camp, and that was still weeks away. "All I wanna do is write to him," Naruto said to one of his buddies, showing the letters that Sasuke had written him in reply before, "And I'll carry him with me because he is my lucky charm." No one questionned the soldier about "him."
One Friday night at a football game, The Lord's Prayer said and the anthem sang...
It had been three weeks now since Naruto had last written Sasuke, and the boy was now back in school and playing with the marching band. He had his piccolo in hand and played his part of the national anthem. The booms and crashes of the bass and percussion players made Sasuke think of the scenes that Naruto had shared in his letters. The bombs going off, missles dropping, and land mines going off with one wrong step.
Naruto gasped out a breath as the bullets ripped through his skin, multiple times they did that. They were littered acrossed his chest, and the rest of his team was down. He was the last one alive.
It was all Naruto could do to take his radio and make contact with base camp. "Team Red One down, I repeat Team Red One down. Tango Echo Alpha Mike. Romeo Echo Delta. Oscar November Echo. Delta Oscar Whiskey November," Naruto repeated the sentence until he was out of breath. A crackle came over the interwave, and then nothing. Helicopters flew over head, and touched down nearby. When they found the blonde, it was too late they thought.
A man said, "Folks, would you bow your heads, For a list of local Vietnam dead..." Crying all alone under the stands, Was a piccolo player in the marching band...And one name was read and nobody really cared...But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair...
First name listed off was Akina Aburame, and the list went on down the line, until the last name, Naruto Uzumaki, was called. Sasuke had escaped from the crowds and hid underneath the bleachers. He sobbed quietly, as not to alert the people above him that he was in need of comforting.
I cried, "Never gonna hold the hand of another guy," Too young for him they told her, Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier, Our love will never end...
The next week, a memorial service was held in Naruto's honor, with all of his friends there. The waiter stopped by to pay his respects, and cried silently as the obituary was read aloud, and eulougy's were said.
"I met Naruto for the first time at the Greasy Spoon where I work. He asked if he could write letters back to me since he thought he had no one else to write too. I agreed, and we became quick friends through the letters. His last letter said this:...
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again, Never more to be alone, When the letter said, "Soldier's coming home..."
I look forward to returning home, to see my friends, to see my house, to see you. I want to eat at the Greasy Spoon. They say I'll be back home after this last mission, they say the war is almost over, and I'll be able to see you. I miss you all so much. I'll be home, and I'll be home soon..."
The story takes place over the span of a year...so in the end, Naruto is nineteen, and Sasuke is sixteen. I'm sorry if you were looking forward to a lemon, but it was not appropriate at all for the song. I may make a story with an alternate ending, and with a lemon, but I needed to write this. I've had a hole in my heart for a long time now. I'm getting good at writing tragedies now because of it. Also, my father is still alive today if anyone was wondering.