Next to Nothing

Chapter One: Living for...

"Naruto-kun!"

The cry was Lee's usual, forceful voice, and it jarred all other thoughts out of Naruto's head as he straightened to turn toward the sound, jacket halfway on and pants not quite zipped. He was still getting dressed as he had only just finished falling out of bed and getting a pot of water on the stove for instant ramen, but in his defense it was only... what, eleven? It wasn't even noon yet!

Pulling his pants the rest of the way up, Naruto shuffled over to the window and leaned out.

"Lee? What's going on?"

"I apologize to be bringing you ill tidings yet again, but I passed Neji on the way to our team meeting and he reported seeing Sasuke collapsed outside the village again! I would be glad to help you retrieve him, but I am late for..." Lee shouted up, brow furrowed seriously. That was one of the great things about Lee, funny as his looks were. It was easy to read his expression even from a distance.

"Again?" Naruto sighed as he glanced at the clock. Usually Sasuke let him at least eat breakfast before--

"Ah, well. Must be Thursday again," Naruto went on to grumble, shrugging his jacket the rest of the way on. "Thanks anyway, Lee! Don't worry about us, just get going before Gai-sensei makes you do laps on your hands."

Hearing that, Lee saluted with a smile and then was gone fast enough to break the sound barrier.

Sighing, Naruto ran his hand through his hair and turned off his stove, patted his stomach apologetically, and then tied on his headband before heading straight out. Sasuke got extra-grumpy when Naruto left him there to learn his lesson for a few hours, so it was best just to get this over with.

Sasuke decided that it was, indeed, Thursday as he woke to the rather haphazard swaying he'd come to associate with being carried by Naruto. The only thing missing was the distinctive smell of ramen - Sasuke felt no remorse at having apparently interrupted Naruto's breakfast.

This was entirely the moron's fault, after all. If Naruto hadn't dragged him back to Konoha against his will, he wouldn't have to make repeated escape attempts, that damn bracelet wouldn't keep draining his chakra and knocking him out right outside Konoha's walls, and Naruto wouldn't have to keep carrying him back.

Sasuke had no pity.

His first order of business as his chakra slowly returned to him (a result of being back within Konoha's walls) and his grogginess began to fade was to shove roughly at Naruto's chest. His second was to mutter, "Put me down, idiot," and to level Naruto with a rather sleepy glare. It was more cute and less fierce than he would have liked, but since he didn't happen to be in possession of a mirror, he was blissfully unaware of this fact.

The sidelong view of Sasuke's expression almost made all the trouble worth it for Naruto. Almost, but not quite. After, oh, two or three years of this, the novelty of the sleepy and almost sweetly disgruntled look had rather worn off, and today Sasuke had gotten an early enough start that Naruto counted himself as lucky for having had time to get dressed.

"Not a chance. You're coming back to my apartment with me, and then you're going to watch me cook and eat even if I have to tie you to the chair," Naruto quipped back, cheerfully giving Sasuke a jostle hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. "I'll have you know my knots have gotten much better since we were Genin. And after that we're going to have a nice, long talk about this. Of course, you can say no and try to run off but then I'll just call Kakashi-sensei and Sakura-chan and tell them we need to host another intervention. Which sounds better to you?"

Sasuke remembered the last 'intervention.' Being hogtied in the middle of a circle of people, most of whom he didn't even like, all crowded into one room and refusing to let him leave Kakashi's apartment. Sakura's annoyingly comforting expression as she told him that it was unhealthy for him to keep knocking himself out with escape attempts. Naruto loudly informing him that he was sick of dragging Sasuke's 'fat ass' back to the village. Hinata quietly trying to remind Naruto that they were supposed to remain non-confrontational. Shikamaru a bit too seriously pointing out that they could always just cut off Sasuke's legs and fix the problem entirely.

No, thank you.

"I want breakfast," Sasuke said. If he had to pick one of the two, then his choice was going to be an order, not a decision made after being backed into a corner. "Not ramen."

"Fine. You can have some crackers, then," Naruto answered flatly, as ramen was pretty much the extent of his culinary prowess. He shifted Sasuke's weight as he spoke so that it was more evenly distributed in his arms, and then inwardly swore to God that next time this happened, he was slinging Sasuke over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

They made it back to Naruto's apartment still engaged in the traditional argument over whether or not Sasuke was capable of walking there himself; he hadn't been, he never was, but regularly being spotted unconscious on the ground just outside Konoha was bad enough. Being carried back bridal-style by Naruto of all people only added insult to injury.

Sasuke sat slumped in a chair at Naruto's rather rickety kitchen table, his legs still feeling as unsteady as the old piece of furniture looked. "I hate you," he muttered more sullenly than was common for him, already out of better insults.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Naruto dismissed as he started the water boiling again, grumbling quietly to himself and doing a fair impression of Sasuke's sullen expression as he went through the contents of his cupboard. He didn't know why he tried so hard when Sasuke didn't appreciate any of it. He wasn't even sure why he cared so much, only that he didn't know how to stop. Sasuke had become an irremovable, irreplaceable part of him long before this whole mess started, back before Naruto could even properly remember.

Silence settled over the room as Naruto busied himself with cooking while Sasuke recuperated from having his chakra drained. It didn't take Naruto very long to finish making breakfast, at any rate, as most of what he prepared had the word 'instant' somewhere on the packaging.

When he was done, a plate was shoved in front of Sasuke, Naruto not quite meeting his eyes as the blond retreated quickly. It was a plate of slightly sloppily-made instant curry, accompanied by heated, pre-packaged rice.

"Don't complain if it tastes bad, okay?" he asserted loudly, injecting his usual energy into his voice as he brought his cup of instant ramen over to the table, sat down, and dug in. All without quite managing to look at Sasuke even once.

Sasuke's only response was a dark glare that Naruto probably didn't manage to catch, anyway. The blond was in one of those indefinable moods that made Sasuke more uncomfortable than he was, well, comfortable with. He could take annoying Naruto, he could take emotional Naruto, he could even sort of take I'm-quite-possibly-getting-stronger-than-you Naruto when he had to. But he couldn't take this Naruto.

Naruto jumped into everything he did with no reservations. No one made him uncomfortable, no one intimidated him enough to make him avoid eye contact. What was worse was that Sasuke knew he wasn't intimidating Naruto. Intimidating Naruto would have been rather nice, actually, especially after having just taken a forced ride in his arms. But this was something else, something that made Sasuke unsettled, made his stomach churn with guilt and other things that he couldn't quite put a name to.

He didn't have time to feel guilty. He had a mission, a purpose, and this was just one more way in which Naruto had managed to get in the way of that.

"It's horrible," he said bluntly as he ate, if for no other reason than to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them.

"Then try to escape after breakfast next time," Naruto sniped back a little tiredly. It was all he could manage. He barely knew what to say to Sasuke anymore, after all this time had passed. Back then, back during the fight at the Valley of the End, Naruto had been so certain that as long as he won and as long as he brought Sasuke back to the village, everything would be okay. It had been so much easier then. There was a hurdle he could overcome. A clear goal. Something he could achieve and then his life could go back to being everything it had been before. With Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei and exams and missions and promotions and someday, becoming Hokage and showing the world what he was made of.

Nothing had happened the way it was supposed to.

After he'd brought Sasuke back to the village, nothing had gone back to normal. It had only gotten worse. There had been weeks spiraling into months of meetings with the council of elders and Tsunade. Fighting with them day after day for Sasuke's freedom. Civilian status wasn't good enough. Stripping Sasuke of everything he had spent his whole life working for and forcing him to live a life he wasn't even interested in was stupid, even in Naruto's eyes. So he'd fought them, and Sakura had fought them, and Kakashi had backed the two of them. After a few months, they'd managed to get the sentence worked down to a simple chakra ward that would prevent Sasuke from leaving the village again.

But once the fight against the elders had ended, the fight against Sasuke had begun. Sasuke had fought Naruto every step of the way, trying to escape week after week for that extra few feet he managed to get. Then there was all that hate, all the bickering and arguing and--

No one really smiled anymore, and no matter how much Naruto tried to smile to make up for it, things didn't feel any less wrong.

By now, Naruto was simply tired. Wordlessly, fathomlessly tired. It felt as though there would be no end to this, and try as he might, Naruto couldn't think of a single thing he could do to make things right again.

He had dragged Sasuke back to the village, but he had lost him all the same. And there was so little Naruto wouldn't give to have the stupid Genin team smiling and scowling in his bedside photograph back again.

"It would have been after breakfast if you got up at a normal time," Sasuke shot back.

He watched Naruto's changing expressions - indicating that the other was as deep in thought as he ever got - and felt that uncomfortable feeling again. "You said you wanted to talk, so talk. I have a feeling I'm not going to get out of here until you have."

Sasuke wasn't giving Naruto the opportunity to vent at him. He really, really wasn't. Because he didn't care about Naruto, and even if he was willing to admit to some small, tiny, miniscule portion of himself that cared just slightly about the blond, even that barely-present part of him certainly didn't care about Naruto's feelings, of all things. If there were feelings somewhere in that empty head.

So, he wasn't giving Naruto a chance to yell at him, if that was what he needed, if that would make things feel normal again. He just wanted to get the hell out of Naruto's apartment already. It smelled funny.

"You're not going to stop even if we talk, are you?" Naruto asked, voice rather subdued still. He hadn't quite managed to eat any of his ramen yet. Mostly he was staring at the contents, prodding absently at a partially dehydrated pea.

"It's really just... my own wishful thinking, isn't it? By now we're just having the same conversations over and over again. And... My questions are still all the same. I still don't understand anything. I--"

Naruto's eyes suddenly widened at the words that he had almost blurted out without thinking.

I'm not someone who can save you, am I?

He had been about to... give up. On everything he had spent all this time working for, on everything he believed in and wanted and needed and--

He had been a breath away from giving up on Sasuke.

Swallowing, Naruto frowned and took a very large bite of ramen, slurping the noodles down.

Sasuke stared at Naruto, feeling as if he was missing a very important part of the conversation. "Look at me!" he said sharply, startled as the words left his mouth. But he couldn't stand it. Naruto had never been unable to look at him. It wasn't in his nature.

It made Sasuke feel... wrong. And he couldn't feel wrong. He needed his convictions. He needed Naruto yelling at him, pushing him, providing him with competition, if he couldn't go elsewhere for training.

Naruto both held him back and pushed him forward, and as long as Konoha was still his only option, Sasuke needed him.

Startled into compliance, Naruto immediately met Sasuke's gaze with wide eyes, not quite comprehending what had the other boy so unsettled.

"What...?" he asked, voice a little bit scratchy as he gripped his chopsticks tightly in one hand, trying desperately to find his center again. Sasuke couldn't... see him like this. Sasuke already thought so little of him.

"I..." Sasuke trailed off, trying to find a way to phrase his thoughts that wouldn't result in a complete and total loss of dignity. But his impatience got the better of him and it all came out in a jumbled mess. "This isn't how it works. You drag me back and you yell at me, maybe we fight, and then it's over until next time. You're messing it up. Goddammit, Naruto, do you have to mess everything up?"

"I mess everything up?" Naruto demanded, finding himself making an effort to get angry. Because he didn't want Sasuke to see him as emotional as he felt. He didn't want Sasuke to realize that he had almost given up, because Sasuke had lost enough people and Naruto had always promised himself to never become one of them.

"Am I the one stupidly making myself pass out at least twice a week? Just you wait, Sasuke! One of these mornings I'm going to go out there, strip you naked, and dress you in Sakura's uniform!" Naruto went on to threaten, puffing his chest out a little as he crossed his arms. "And then depending on how my day is going, I might consider carrying you back before the whole village takes pictures for posterity."

Sasuke snorted, going back to his food. "Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" he mumbled, allowing the words to pass his lips only because things were starting to feel normal again, and he knew they would bother Naruto.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto demanded, pounding his fist against the table, feeling a familiar and almost comfortable rush of anger at the back of his neck.

Sasuke shrugged nonchalantly, now seemingly fully involved in eating. "Mm... I don't know, what do you think it means, moron?" he asked, not bothering to look up. Baiting Naruto was his main source of entertainment, most days. There wasn't all that much he could do anymore; he had to find some way to pass the time.

"I think it means you're really itching to get into Sakura-chan's wardrobe, so you're trying to make sure I make good on that promise as soon as possible," Naruto snapped back, rather angrily shoveling down his own breakfast as he spoke. "What do you think, Sasuke? How about pink blouses on Tuesdays and green spandex on Thursdays? Fuzzy Eyebrows always has a spare."

Sasuke felt his own eyebrow twitch. "I'm sorry, I made the mistake of assuming you were capable of understanding what I was saying. I'll explain it more bluntly, so that your feeble brain can comprehend it. You want to get me naked so you can bend over and take it. Sorry, I don't like men."

Rather unwillingly, Naruto felt himself get quite warm, cheeks flushing pink at Sasuke's suggestion and the mental image it summoned to mind. He choked slightly on his ramen and had to push himself away from the table, coughing rather violently. By the time he could breathe again, he probably should have had some sort of comeback or proper denial of Sasuke's accusation.

But he didn't.

"I-- I--" he sputtered, eyes open so wide it seemed they might fall clear out of their sockets. "M-me neither, dammit, Sasuke! Who wants your stupid pale ass, anyway? You might be pretty girly, but girls like Sakura-chan are much more my type!"

"She would be your type," Sasuke said, setting down his chopsticks. "Let me know if she ever grows breasts." He silently apologized to Sakura as he stood, feeling rather victorious, all things considered.

"...I'm telling her you said that," Naruto grumbled, rubbing his cheek self-consciously with the back of his hand. He was intent on getting the last word, even if it resulted in Sasuke's bloody murder at Sakura's hands.

Sasuke felt a brief, but substantial chill run through his body before he shrugged it off. "Whatever," he muttered, glad that his legs were apparently able to hold him again as he made his way to the door.

"You're coming to the meeting, right?" Naruto reminded Sasuke as he watched him go, knowing there was really no stopping him at this point. Like Sasuke had said, this was how things went. After they argued for a while, it was over until next time. Naruto wished they had more substantial things than that to say to one another, but...

It was how it was.

"Kakashi-sensei wants us to meet outside his place at four-ish."

Sasuke stopped in the doorway, trying to subtly stretch to work out a bit of the stiffness lingering in his limbs after passing out. If Naruto noticed, he'd tell Sakura, and then Sasuke would get another lecture about just what this could be doing to his body.

"I'll be there." He had nothing better to do, besides training and occasionally sending Naruto outside Konoha for his unconscious body. No missions outside the village, which meant he was stuck with kid stuff while Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi-sensei were able to venture out on the more difficult assignments. It was infuriating, really, but one side effect was that he was secretly eager to do pretty much anything that could manage to occupy his time.

"See you there, then," Naruto sighed with a little shrug, stubbornly hiding his inward pleasure to hear that Sasuke planned on being there. The team just didn't feel the same without him, as stupid and insufferable as he was.

A few hours later, Sasuke made his way toward Kakashi's apartment, ignoring the occasional looks he received from villagers. He'd found out fairly quickly years ago, once being released from the hospital after Naruto had forcibly dragged him back, that his abandonment of the village and intended destination upon said abandonment had managed to get out and become public knowledge.

Luckily, he couldn't care less. He was used to the attention, and anything that even somewhat diminished his fan club was a good thing, in his opinion. He walked casually as he neared Kakashi's apartment - or as casually as a slightly paranoid, uptight avenger wearing a chakra-draining bracelet ever walked.

"Tomato-boy!" an energetic, rather buoyant voice called out from behind him just as he turned a corner, followed shortly by the quick, shuffling footsteps of someone wearing pants that were too long trying to catch up with him. It was the strange hermit who lived on the outskirts of town, who sometimes rescued Sasuke when Naruto was busy or out on a mission. He also hung around Kakashi an awful lot, and the word on the street was that he was more than a little touched in the head. For some reason, he had taken an unfortunate liking to Sasuke.

Today, he was as much of a sight to see as usual. He was dressed in Kakashi's clothing, because he claimed that it was the most comfortable, but he was rather thinner than Kakashi so the pants were constantly slipping down. His shoulder-length black hair was surprisingly only slightly tangled, though beyond that the style of it was a complete loss. It looked as though the last time he'd gotten his hair trimmed, it had been done by errant kunai thrown by enemy nin, so jagged and haphazard was the cut.

And he seemed to have begged one of Naruto's spare jackets from him, so he was also garbed in bright orange and seemed to be reveling in it. To top it all off, he wore the positively worst pair of sunglasses known to mankind.

"Tomato-boy, how are you?" the hermit asked Sasuke once he had caught up. He grinned for a moment, then blinked, then frowned, then smiled again as he tilted his head to one side and regarded Sasuke again.

"Oh! Tomato-boy! I didn't see you there! How are you today?"

Sasuke took a slow, calming breath. Despite the man's apparent similarity to Naruto - Sasuke was firmly of the belief that he was actually Naruto's older self, crazy, senile, and with dyed hair, come back from the future to torment him because really, one Naruto ruining his life just wasn't enough - Sasuke's method of dealing with the hermit was very different from his method of dealing with Naruto. It could best be summarized as 'ignore it and maybe it will go away.' Or, more accurately, 'ignore it and maybe something else will catch its attention, leading it to wander off a cliff.'

In other words, it most closely resembled his method of dealing with girls.

"Fine," Sasuke murmured, never pausing his steps.

"Wonderful, wonderful! Oh! I think I remembered something!" The hermit sounded extremely proud of himself as he patted himself down. "I brought you a snack!" Tugging on Sasuke's sleeve, the he gave Sasuke the most pitiful look until the other stopped long enough for the hermit to deposit today's presents into his hands.

Today's presents appeared to be an assortment of wrapped candies, a few only slightly bruised cherry tomatoes, a cookie carefully folded inside a napkin, and a handful of ketchup packets.

"Kakashi tells me you're a growing boy, and growing boys need lots of snacks! Or--" A troubled frown crossed the hermit's expression briefly as he went into deep thought.

"...I think so, anyway. My mommy might have told me once. Maybe. Did she...?"

Sasuke sighed, staring down at the items now occupying his hands. He'd throw away the ketchup and cookie later. "...Thank you," he mumbled reluctantly.

He didn't know what was with this guy. Why he was so fixated on Sasuke, why he felt the need to give him 'presents' on a regular basis. And Kakashi-sensei remained tight-lipped about the entire thing, seemingly as amused by this as he was by all of Sasuke's various misfortunes.

"I have to go now," Sasuke explained, backing away slowly. "I have a meeting with Kakashi-sensei and my team."

"Kakashi's going to be late!" the hermit sang with a very bright, beaming grin. "I know so, I know so! I left him just now so he's going to be late because I made him help me look for the ketchup and now he has to get ready. Can we talk a little longer, Tomato-boy? I, um... I forgot where I was going so I don't have anywhere to be."

Now Kakashi was actually getting in on the present collection? Just perfect.

"If I'm late, he'll actually be there on time." It was one definite thing Sasuke had learned about Kakashi, over the years. "And how many times do I have to tell you? It's Sasuke, not Tomato-boy."

"Names like that aren't important," the hermit attested with a loose shrug as he happily inspected his jacket sleeves, glancing between them and Sasuke's always-unhappy expression. It was true, now that the hermit got to thinking about it. Maybe. His memory came and went quicker than the wind in tornado season, but he was pretty sure that he didn't remember a single time he'd ever seen Sasuke happy.

Except.

Well.

That had been a long time ago.

"You'll always be Tomato-boy to me! It's cute and it suits you," the hermit went on to insist, now peering into his sleeves. "What about me, Tomato-boy? Do you have a name for me? Kakashi says I'm like a stray dog but I prefer cats, so maybe I'm a stray cat. But strays ought to have names from their people, and you're one of my people, so!"

Sasuke glanced in the direction he was supposed to be going, obviously eager to leave. "Kakashi-sensei won't tell me your name," he said, lifting a hand to rub wearily at his temples. "Mostly I call you 'that crazy guy who follows me around.' Do you want that to be your name?" He supposed it suited the man about as much as 'Tomato-boy' suited Sasuke, which was more than he would like.

"That's kind of long, isn't it?" the hermit asked, sounding concerned. "Won't your mouth get tired from saying it? But if that's what you like, it's what you like! I don't mind it at all. Maybe I can be 'that crazy guy' for short. That one's pretty popular with the other villagers too."

A small, amused smile began to twist Sasuke's lips, and the realization left him feeling a bit dirty. "...I should go. Meeting with Kakashi-sensei," he said again, assuming the hermit had already forgotten. "Thank you for the, ah, things."

"Oh, right! And hey, I found my post-it!" Proudly, the hermit produced the lime green post-it note that had been hiding in the cuff of his sleeve somehow and squinted at the scrawled writing. "Buy... flowers... Oh! I haven't done that yet today, have I..." The hermit sounded as though he was talking primarily to himself at this point, rubbing the back of his neck. "Now where did I put my money...? Hm..."

He abruptly remembered that Sasuke was still there and looked up again, positively aglow that Sasuke had managed a smile today. The hermit would have to go home and mark his calendar! He patted his pockets until he found a pen and added that memo to his post-it under 'buy flowers'.

Mark calendar. Sasuke smiled today!

"Okay! Bye now! Say hi to everybody for me!"

"Right. Crazy hermit says 'hi.' Got it." Sasuke quickly made his escape, wondering what it said about him when he was actually eager to find himself in Naruto and Sakura's company.