Pain.
Everywhere there was…pain. So much agony, everywhere. Everywhere. He didn't even know if he was still being hurt or not. He tried to block the pain out the way he'd learned years before, but he couldn't. There was no where to go. There was nothing else to focus his mind on. Just…blackness. Pain and blackness.
Eventually, slowly, slowly, the pain faded away, and all that was left was the blackness. He began to feel more comfortable as his nerves stopped reacting. He felt very light and vaguely warm. He wasn't sure how long this numbness lasted. It was blissful, really. No thought, no sensation, no dreams, no nothing. Just…existence…in its simplest form.
But all good things must come to an end.
Feeling began prickling in different parts of his body at random intervals, mostly in his right hand. His hand would grow warmer and stay that way for a while, then the heat would leave. Occasionally there was heat on his chest or forehead, but that would leave as well.
And then there was noise.
Noise was new. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard anything. He lacked both the desire and the strength to try modifying the noise into actual words, but it was enough to just listen to something for a while. The noise was kind of nice noise—not too loud and not too much, and it was familiar, somehow.
"…Sasuke…"
What?
Sasuke…That was his name, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. Or, it had been at one point. Who was saying his name? Couldn't they just leave him alone? He was tired, still, so tired. And he didn't want to think. He couldn't quite remember why he didn't want to think, what it was that he didn't want to dwell on, but he was sure that it was something important. Something important…but unpleasant. Numbness was so much better, of that he was sure. Numbness was better than everything.
There was some more noise. The noise faded away after an immeasurable amount of time. There was total blackness for a while. Eventually, the noise came back again. There was more heat in his right hand. A thin trail of warmth ran up the inside of his elbow. Heat was absently rubbed into his left shoulder. The noise kept going.
…Perhaps…there was something…even better…than numbness. Perhaps…this was better.
"…Sasuke…"
Sasuke. Sasuke? Oh, yes. Sasuke. That was him.
"Please…Sasu…wake…"
What?
"…Come on, Sasuke…"
Come on…what?
"…up, already."
Speak in full sentences, would you? I can't understand you.
"Jesus, Teme, wake the fuck up already!"
Okay, I take it back. Fragments were better.
There was more noise. Random dabs of heat were doled out along his left arm, a brush of warmth across his stomach, and one more swiped across his forehead. The noise kept going for a while. There was silence after a while, but there was still heat enclosing his right hand. The noise picked up again, briefly.
Then, "…See you tomor…suke." Another silence, very short. "…Sweet dreams."
…Dreams. What were those, again? He couldn't remember.
Blackness and noise began switching off and on. The intervals between the two seemed extremely irregular—he spent years in blackness and two moments with noise. Or sometimes, one hundred hours with noise and only a beat of blackness. Increased heat only touched him when there was noise, and he came to associate one with the other. Eventually, the noise morphed more and more frequently into sounds he could understand, and his own name was murmured incredibly often.
The blackness was as pleasantly numb as ever, and the noise and warmth were very—almost unnaturally—comforting. He was…happy.
And then he noticed something…rather odd. ...Extremely odd.
He was conscious.
Well, not really. He couldn't make his body do anything, nor did he want his body to do anything. He didn't have full thoughts. But he found he could tell exactly what was going on around him. He could feel minute sensations, including a soft brush of air on his face and the smooth coolness of…maybe fabric?...beneath his body. He had no memory of where he was or how he'd gotten there, but he now had control over two—no, three—of his senses: smell, feeling, and hearing. He strained his ears for sounds, but there were none at the moment. A feeling of overwhelming exhaustion suddenly swept over him, and he could not fight it. He drifted into total blackness again.
But then…the blackness receded. The noise returned after a while. This time, he could recognize almost all of the sounds.
"Well, I'm back again," a voice—a very familiar voice—said clearly. He tried to place the voice. He knew it. Just…who was it?
There was a quiet click—maybe a door shutting? There was soft creaking as someone walked across protesting floorboards. Air whooshed over his face as someone stopped— and sat down?—near him.
"Guess what, Sasuke?" the voice said with an obvious pout in its tone.
Oh, who was it? It was someone important, he was sure. Someone…very…important. But who?
"Tsunade-baa-chan was all mad at me again today," the voice continued. "She said I was coughing yesterday, so I shouldn't come visit. Can you believe that? I thought the matter was settled the first time she chewed me out over coming to see you. Annoying hag. She knows I'd come to see you anyway."
There was a pause. "I'm still pissed at you, by the way," the voice informed sullenly. "As soon as you come around, I'm kicking your ass, you got that? I could be training now! Or at least getting some sleep or something. You're wasting so much of my time!"
The voice paused again. This pause was much longer. He felt something subtle change in the air—he didn't know what it was, but now, everything seemed more energized. Each breath seemed to fill his lungs with something much stronger than oxygen.
"Sasuke," the voice whispered, the tone totally different from a few moments before. The word was little more than a breath, a group of syllables uttered so reverently and with such perfect sweetness, the name sounded like a prayer.
Then he knew. Somehow, that did it.
Naruto!
There was a slight sound as Naruto shifted in his chair, and suddenly, the younger boy was very close. He could feel the other boy's body heat hovering above his face. And even though he shouldn't have, he felt his heart speed up, nervousness and excitement swirling in unfamiliar patterns inside of him.
Naruto stayed an inch's distance away for what seemed like hours, overwhelming body heat radiating like the sun. He picked up the very slight scent of Naruto's skin, something that smelled fresh and warm, like grass in a sunny field. He breathed in each of Naruto's exhalations, the air so charged that it was almost electric.
Suddenly, he was aware of Naruto's warm nose brushing his, then lightly skimming his right cheekbone. He felt a surge of an unknown emotion clogging in his chest, making the area above his left lung ache with steady throbs.
There was another exhalation, and the soft breath seemed to caress his mouth—the same mouth that, now that he thought about it, was feeling extremely heavy and extremely sensitive at the moment, each oral nerve straining for a trace of Naruto's touch.
And then…he felt it. Naruto's lips dropped the remaining hair's-width onto his, and his body was flooded with an indescribable heat like he had never known.
The area above his left lung throbbed again, so strongly it was actually painful—the first sensation of pain he had felt since…he couldn't remember when. But he was sure he'd never felt a pain like this one before. It wasn't the impersonal, harsh pain of physical injury—this pain was much more precise, much sharper, and white-hot. This pain was beautiful, and it effectively pierced that throbbing area in his chest. He felt like he was bleeding, but the fluid pulsing from the throbbing area wasn't blood—the liquid was thinner, lighter, and much more potent.
Tears, maybe. Tears of the heart.
And then Naruto pulled away, softly, their lips seeming to stick together for a moment. He didn't bother trying to dissect the event that had just occurred—this was clearly just an alternative to the blackness he'd been drifting through up until recently. He was just as incoherent as he'd always been, and obviously hallucinating. Hallucinating…and suddenly…very, very tired.
The all-consuming blackness welled up again, insistently dissolving his senses. As his frayed threads of consciousness pulled away yet again, he was vaguely aware of another noise. The sound of tears—real ones, that is. Were they his? He didn't think so. Naruto's, then.
Since when did Naruto cry?
…He was too tired to think about it.
Just before the blackness was fully complete, he felt a warm hand lace its fingers into his cool ones. They squeezed, hard—desperately.
As the last of his awareness left him, he summoned the last recesses of his strength, and did the one thing that he could think of.
He squeezed back.
Oh, Naruto...
Sasuke opened his eyes.
He immediately regretted the action, for the moment he did so, blinding sunlight pierced his retinas like daggers. After a moment, Sasuke opened his eyes again, much more cautiously this time.
He was…He didn't know where the hell he was.
He was in some sort of…ward. He was lying on his back and felt extremely disinclined to move, so he could only appraise his surroundings from the corners of his eyes. The room he was in was very nearly empty, very clean, and very bright. The walls were off-white, the ceiling was slightly cracked, and several windows flooded the small space with sunrays.
Sasuke blinked a few times, trying to remember how he'd gotten here. He remembered…a fight, very vaguely. He remembered incredible amounts of pain. He remembered…swimming through a seemingly endless sea of blackness. Sasuke searched his memory, but there wasn't much else he could recall. He faintly remembered someone speaking while he drifted through the blackness, but he couldn't remember any of what they had said. And—
Sasuke's thought processes stopped abruptly as he was hit by a sudden recollection of…a very bizarre, incredibly humiliating dream. He couldn't remember many of the details, but of one thing he was certain—Uzumaki Naruto, his friend/rival and ally/enemy—had kissed him.
Oh God.
Uchiha Sasuke did not blush. Members of the Uchiha clan in general did not blush. It was not a part of their genetic makeup. But as Sasuke remembered the inexplicable rush of heat his dream-self felt when Naruto's lips (Naruto's silken, tender lips) had touched his, Sasuke came dangerously close to contradicting his own DNA.
Naruto kissed him. How…debauched. How completely and utterly absurd. How totally and thoroughly revolting. How…how…
…How he wished that it had been real.
In a moment, all of the twisted, inappropriate thoughts Sasuke had recently begun to harbor for his teammate—and ruthlessly suppressed—came flooding back. Every dazzling smile that made his heart skip a beat, every casual touch that made his breathing halt—each memory shoved itself into the forefront of Sasuke's brain. This violent mental process, combined with the nearly overwhelming brightness of the sunlight, made Sasuke's head reel a little.
Sasuke shut his eyes again. He took in a deep breath and held it.
Jesus, Uchiha, he berated himself. Calm the hell down.
After a long moment, Sasuke's speeding heart beat slowed down to something resembling normal. He exhaled cautiously, then opened his eyes again.
The room had stopped spinning. That was good.
However…Sasuke was suddenly aware of a weight on his chest. It didn't make breathing much harder than usual, but there was definitely something there. He took another deep breath and gritted his teeth. Using an alarming amount of effort, Sasuke managed to wriggle into a sitting position, with his back braced against the headboard of his bed. The action made his whole body hurt and his vision swim. Impatiently, he closed his eyes yet again and waited for the dizzy spell to pass.
When Sasuke reopened his eyes, he discovered three things. First of all, his vision was clear. Much more importantly, a sleeping Uzumaki Naruto had his head resting on Sasuke's—bare—chest, and he was holding Sasuke's hand.
In the small, objective corner of Sasuke's mind that didn't freeze in shock, he realized that he was probably too young to have a heart attack. However, that was the only plausible explanation he came up with to describe what he was feeling at that moment.
He swallowed, forcing his pulse to slow down to a relatively normal speed. Now. Dissect the situation calmly, Uchiha.
Okay.
What the…hell…was Naruto doing here? And with his head on Sasuke's—and holding Sasuke's—why—
Sasuke stopped there. He was starting to feel dizzy again.
Battling back much-too-distracting thoughts, Sasuke wiggled a little in place, hoping to nudge Naruto awake.
No response.
"Dobe," Sasuke said. "Hey, Dobe, wake up."
Nothing.
Sasuke sighed. Naruto was even stubborn in his sleep—Sasuke should have known. Now what?
Sasuke hesitated. "Na-Naruto," he forced out a moment later. The name tasted strange on his tongue. He said it so infrequently—opting instead for "duh, stupid," "be quiet, Dobe," or, his favorite, "Oi, move your elbow"—that actually calling Naruto by name felt very weird.
Naruto mumbled something incoherent and rubbed his face against Sasuke's chest.
Sasuke swallowed.
He cleared his throat.
He took a deep breath.
"Naruto!" he said sharply.
Naruto's eyebrows twitched downward. He sighed heavily, blowing a path of warmth across Sasuke's collarbone. Naruto fidgeted a few times, mumbled something else, fluttered his eyelashes, then finally blinked open his eyes.
In the sun-bleached room, Naruto's eyes were two flashes of beautiful color—large and electric blue and perfect.
Sasuke hoped the sudden jolt of his heart wasn't audible through his chest.
Naruto blinked several more times before yawning widely. He stretched his arms out and rolled his shoulders, and when he relaxed, he dropped his right hand on Sasuke's stomach and his left absently against Sasuke's shoulder.
Sasuke swallowed again.
"Hey," he said softly.
Naruto's eyes snapped open. He sat up ramrod straight, tuffs of blonde hair sticking everywhere at once. His eyes were enormous wide and instantly glassy, overflowing with a million different shades of blue.
"Sa…Sa…"
Naruto's voice was breathless and thick with so many emotions, Sasuke's ears felt heavy. The gloss in Naruto's eyes intensified, and then he was crying, silent tears drenching his lower lashes and gliding down his cheekbones.
Before Sasuke realized what was happening, Naruto's hand came up and cupped his cheek, the blonde's fingers very warm against his face. Sasuke felt something tighten in his chest as Naruto's face began to contort, the younger boy's jaw locking as he fought back more tears.
"Oh my God," Naruto gasped, staring in Sasuke's eyes. "S-Sasuke! You're…you're okay!"
Sasuke glanced away, wanting to alleviate the pressure in his chest that would just not go away.
"I'm fine," Sasuke told the floor. "But, Naruto…What…happened?"
Silence.
Sasuke glanced back to Naruto. The boy's face was curiously blank, but there was something dark and ominous floating just behind his eyes, darkening the color.
Sasuke didn't like it.
"Whatever. I'll ask Sakura."
It took Sasuke a moment to realize that the voice that had spoken was his. He was a little—okay, very—surprised at his uncharacteristic pardon, but once he glimpsed the total relief in Naruto's eyes, Sasuke knew that it was worth it.
But there was something else bothering Sasuke. Something that couldn't be pardoned or left unexplained. Something that he definitely couldn't ask Sakura about.
Something that Sasuke both wanted and didn't want to know the answer to.
"Um, Naruto…" Sasuke began, dropping his eyes to his bandaged chest and feeling a bizarre heat in his cheeks.
Sasuke saw Naruto lean forward from the corner of his eye.
"Yes, Sasuke?" Naruto asked immediately, unconsciously placing a hand on the inside of Sasuke's elbow. The sensitive skin there broke out in goose bumps beneath Naruto's fingertips.
"I'm going to ask you something, and you're going to give me a yes or no answer," Sasuke stated. "You're not going to say anything besides 'yes' or 'no' when I ask my question. If I hear anything other than 'yes' or 'no,' I'll beat you into next week."
Sasuke raised his eyes to Naruto's face, making sure the foreboding threat was taken fully seriously.
"I don't even want to hear you clear your throat," Sasuke warned.
Naruto nodded vehemently, his eyes wide and expectant.
Sasuke promptly dropped his eyes back down to his chest, that absurd heat flaring up in his face again.
"…Right," he got out eventually. "…Did I just have the weirdest dream ever, or did you kiss me?"
Naruto jolted.
It really was a jolt. It certainly wasn't a tremble, or even a jump. No, it was a definite jolt. Naruto gave a sort of full-body twitch, with every muscle from his temples to his Achilles Tendon clenching and unclenching in rapid succession.
After Naruto's body once again became motionless, there was a moment of perfect stillness. Naruto's face was perfectly expressionless, giving away nothing—he could have felt anything from disgust to delight. Sasuke could hear his own pulse thumping erratically in his ears.
And then Naruto's face flooded with color.
He didn't answer.
"…Naruto?" Sasuke prompted after a moment.
Naruto's head dropped, his blonde bangs falling forward and hiding his eyes.
Silence.
"Hey, Naruto," Sasuke repeated.
Naruto's blush was so red, it looked painful. As Sasuke watched, the harsh color raked its ugly fingers down Naruto's tanned neck.
After another few long moments of silence, Sasuke felt his already-stressed patience burn out completely.
"Hey, Dobe!" he snapped. "I asked you a question! Yes or no!"
Naruto's head flicked up suddenly, his face painted with humiliation and his eyes wet from unshed tears.
"Yes!" he shouted, every sinew of his body screaming torment. "Yes, I did it, okay? I'm sorry! I just—" Naruto's voice broke.
Without another word, and almost before Sasuke's eyes could process the movement, Naruto was bolting—half-way to the door before Sasuke could blink.
An alien surge of panic flooded Sasuke's chest like water through a shattered dam.
"Wait!" Sasuke yelled reflexively, flinging his arm out toward his best friend in some pathetic illusion of contact.
Sasuke didn't know what did it, but some part of the unnamed desperation in his voice must have resonated, because Naruto froze with his hand on the doorknob as if physically barred from moving. He whipped his head around, his face flushed and miserable, his eyes glassy and tortured and so achingly beautiful, it hurt to look at them.
Sasuke's thoughts sputtered.
"Uhm…could you just—…just…wait a minute," Sasuke requested brokenly. Naruto remained motionless by the door, staring at Sasuke with that same anguished expression on his face, staring with those eyes that fractured Sasuke's thought patterns with just one look.
"Come over here," Sasuke said.
By some miracle, Naruto obeyed, though he seemed to shrink exponentially with every step he took toward Sasuke's cot. He stopped about a foot away, looking down at his feet with such a look of dejection and shame on his face, Sasuke couldn't take it anymore.
With a rapid blur of movement, Sasuke reached out, seized the front of Naruto's shirt, and yanked the younger boy toward him.
In a reflexive attempt to regain his abruptly lost balance, Naruto took a large step forward…which left him sprawled across Sasuke's lap. Sasuke hissed in a pained breath at the almost staggering blow to his injured midsection, but he made no move to get Naruto off of him.
After a moment of strained silence, Naruto shifted positions—he pulled back so he was no longer lying across Sasuke stomach, but instead was kneeling at Sasuke side, leaving the two boys at eyelevel.
Naruto drew in a somewhat shaky breath before swallowing and speaking.
"Sa-Sasuke," he said, his voice very quiet and severely humble. "I—I'm so sorry. I…don't' know what to say. I'm just…really, really sorry. I promise I'll never do it again. Just, please don't…hate me."
The last two words were spoken so quietly, Sasuke could barely hear them. But when he did, a flash of anger flared in a black knot in his gut.
He reached out and firmly grasped Naruto's shoulder with one hand and the blonde's with the other. Naruto's eyes were darkened with a sadness so complete, Sasuke could barely comprehend it.
Sasuke tilted Naruto's chin up, forcing the blonde to look into his eyes.
"I…will never…hate you, Naruto," Sasuke said haltingly, his voice not seeming to function properly. "There isn't…a thing on this earth…that you could do to me…to make me hate you…Remember that."
Naruto's eyes were wide and heartbreakingly vulnerable.
"So…" Naruto began quietly, tilting his face down a fraction of and inch, staring up at Sasuke embarrassedly through thick blonde eyelashes. "You're not…mad at me?"
Naruto sounded so innocent just then—like a child. Sasuke's expression softened into something dangerously close to a smile.
"No," he assured. "I'm not mad at you."
Relief—and even happiness—visibly flooded Naruto's eyes, rinsing the dark stains from his beautiful eyes.
Sasuke hesitated.
"Actually, I was kind of wondering…" He stopped.
Naruto blinked curiously. "Yes, Sasuke?"
And there it was again—that ridiculous warmth in Sasuke's cheeks that was not a blush.
"Well…" Sasuke stopped again.
"What is it, Sasuke?" Naruto was really curious now, his head cocked to the side like a lovely golden bird.
Oh, out with it, Uchiha.
Sasuke suddenly gifted the other boy with a lopsided half-smirk, the aloof effect of which was greatly diluted by the remaining heat in Sasuke's face.
"Are you quite certain you'll never kiss me again? Because, you know, I'm not sure I would mind."
Naruto's face turned so red so quickly, it couldn't have been healthy.
"W-What?" he stuttered, blue eyes round and luminous.
Sasuke trailed the hand still holding Naruto's chin up to rest against the younger boy's tanned cheek. Sasuke leaned upwards until he was only two inches from Naruto's face. He allowed his eyes to drift to Naruto's mouth, remembering the astounding zing he felt when that mouth touched his.
"Kiss me," Sasuke murmured.
Sasuke both heard and felt Naruto's sharp intake of breath that followed. Slowly, slowly, so slowly, Sasuke wasn't sure if he was actually moving, Naruto let a hand drift down to cup Sasuke's pale neck, leaving his thumb brush feather-light against the base of Sasuke's earlobe. Sasuke's pulse sped up enough to force his breath to come faster. Naruto pulled so, so gently on Sasuke neck to tilt the older boy's head back a little more. Sasuke followed the unspoken direction as Naruto brought their faces a hair's width apart.
"Okay," Naruto breathed across Sasuke's lips, replying to the request/order that Sasuke couldn't remember he'd given.
And then the distance was gone, and Naruto's mouth was against Sasuke's. The heat Sasuke had experienced when Naruto kissed him while he lay in a coma was nothing compared to this. This—flame—Sasuke felt in his blood was almost too intense to handle. It made that bruised area above his left lung clench and swell in its fiery grip. A faint corner of Sasuke's mind wondered if the heat would sear his bones apart, if he was such a lightweight as to kick the bucket from just one kiss.
One amazing kiss.
Well, Sasuke thought hazily. If you've got to die, then this is definitely the way to go.
