Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to Naruto. Words in bold were said by Albert Camus.
Author's Note:
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I don't believe in happy endings, but I do believe in happy travels, because ultimately, you die at a very young age, or you live long enough to watch your friends die. It's a mean thing, life.-George Clooney
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Do not walk behind me, I may not lead.
He looked around at the assembled shinobi; people he had known them all his life, could not imagine life without their rough-edged ways, without their occasionally morbid jokes or the way they cajoled (half-forced) you down to the bar on the nights when the red, red blood and the myriad of targets' faces became too much.
He can't (doesn't want to) imagine never seeing any of them ever again. Doesn't want to remember that if (when—when it war, it was always when) he would be the one that would confirm it on paper, would deliver those papers to the deceased person's family and would have to see their faces drain of color and their eyes shine before the tears welled over.
But he meets the onyx eyes that are by the door. Knows that he worked too hard to get to where he was, knows that he won't have all of the sacrifices made be for nothing. And the eyes, familiar as his own in the mirror in the morning, reminded him that every person in the room had much the same though process, knew that they would sacrifice a great deal (not nearly as much as he had, no. He'd given up trust and love and yes, even some freedom for all of this) just to keep this village alive.
But despite all of this, no one had ever told Naruto that being Hokage could be quite so difficult. He wonders if he would have chosen the same path if they had.
Do not walk ahead of me, I may not follow.
Sasuke suggested leaving once. Naruto had whipped his head around so fast that Sasuke half-expected to hear the breaking of bones.
"You already left once, remember?"
Sasuke can't forget. He can feel phantom pains sometimes. In between his shoulder blades especially, where the gruesome wings had emerged before.
"I didn't mean as traitors." As accustomed to flames as he is, especially ones that spark from his lips, he hadn't thought that the word could burn in his mouth and throat. He was wrong.
"That's what we would be if we left now, Sasuke." Naruto hardly ever uses his name. It's something he reserves for when he's serious. "The village needs us."
Sasuke doesn't know how to explain what he sees. He and Naruto have lived together for years—he had long ago lost track, though he doubts Naruto has. The blonde has always had a good head for dates. But recently (ever since the war has been taking the lives of the people that they've come to care about and there's hardly any of them left and it brings physical pain to remember trying to keep their crumbling world together. Like trying to keep watercupped in your hands or catch smoke.) Naruto sleeps less and less. He tries, Sasuke knows this. He recognizes the signs.
Smudges beneath bloodshot eyes that are so red now that sometimes Sasuke is startled when he sees them because he feels like he's looking into Itachi's eyes—terribly darkbright red the color of the red morning sun—and despite hours spent in the sun, Naruto is pale beneath the natural brown of his skin. He drinks more coffee than he eats ramen now, something that is a cause for concern.
Sasuke isn't entirely sure whether Naruto remembers what happens when he wakes from the few hours of sleep he does get (Naruto wakes up screaming and his voice gets a little more hoarse everyday, despite the hot liquids and the tea with honey and lemon that Sasuke makes because he remembers his mother doing the same for him when he was ill).
Sasuke has seen enough people break. Whether it was from torture or madness (neither apply to Naruto. They both do) Sasuke still knows what it looks like and it's slowly happening to Naruto because too many people are leaving and the fragile spidersilks of sanity often depend on those people and they can't come back.
"There's nothing left for us here." Sasuke says. He doesn't remember thinking the words before saying them.
"There's hope left here." Naruto protests hotly and Sasuke is dimly grateful for that, grateful for the spark of life that seemed to have all but disappeared these past months.
"Where?" Sasuke demands. "If it's there, why have you been so…" He doesn't want to say depressed because that's not entirely it. There's so much more to it all.
But Naruto, so accustomed to Sasuke's thoughts, knows what he means to say. "Just because it's hard to find…"
It's a feeble protest and they both know it.
"There's more hope away from here." Sasuke tells him, not that it really needs telling.
Naruto looks away from him, shoves his hands in his pockets and moves across the room to pull on his sandals. "I'll be back later." He says.
It's late that night, the moon nearing the center of the sky and its silver light spilling across the floor and blankets, when Naruto crawls in beside him. He doesn't offer an explanation and Sasuke doesn't ask for one. They both knew it would be their final night in Konoha because they wouldn't leave like thieves in the comfort of shadows, but as honest, willing exiles in the harsh light of day.
They owed the village that much.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.
They're standing at the border of Fire Country. It isn't that they haven't left their homeland before, but they had never left it for good. Even Sasuke, when he'd betrayed the village, had had some vague notion in the back of his mind to return. But now, they knew there was no coming back. Not to a land that had become a place of ghosts.
They packed very little. The few clothes they owned that had no designs. No Uchiha fan, no bright orange flames licking the edges of a black coat. Their headbands are at the very bottom of their packs along with their dog tags. The have only two pictures with them, folded with their headbands. The one of Team 7 and the other one taken at a long line of tables that their friends had pushed together for the celebratory dinner when Naruto made Hokage.
Neither remembers making the conscious decision, but their feet are turning them away from the last sight of ghost-home. They've no idea what to do—who would take in two renegade fighters (killers, assassins, but not murderers. No, not murderers) with no other skills save war and espionage, but when one has lived through hell, there is little else that can stop them.
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A/N: Dear god, where on earth did this come from? I was going to make it a cheerful friendship piece and then this comes out…weird.