Disclaimer: No legal claim to Naruto, not making profit through this.
Basics: PG13/T, General/Romance/Angst, Canon, 6/100
Warnings: boy x boy love, profanity
Word count: 356
Theme: up a lazy river with me (914)

Author's note: 1000!theme challenge from Mint Pizza Queen. Organized into 10 fics, 100 ch each. They're loosely related, held together by an umbrella theme of life and love.

Author's note 2: For nates who inflated my ego to ghastly proportions. But it did "inspire me to get off my butt and write the other 95 drabbles due".

Thank you nates. 94 left.

x. up a lazy river with me

Sasuke sat in the shade. But even under the canopy of the old tree, Sasuke wasn't veiled in the complete shadow that he would have preferred. Pale skin was dappled with the gold that filtered through; sunshine that was unasked for, but sunshine that he would let stay.

And as the early summer sun declined from its meridian, Sasuke realized he'd been watching Naruto swim in the river for longer that Sasuke would like to admit.

But Naruto was no longer paddling around like some idiot puppy, and rather lay quite still floating in the glittering water, and Sasuke wondered if the moron had fallen asleep.

Sasuke watched a moment longer before standing up and wading slowly through the river, shorts t-shirt and all, until he was wet to his stomach, standing in front of his floating lover.

And as Sasuke had thought, the moron really was asleep. Eyelids were closed over the brilliant blue eyes and the bare chest rose and fell with gentle movement. Sasuke studied the sleeping face for another moment.

They said people looked younger when they slept.

Sasuke decided his lover didn't.

Naruto looked like… Naruto.

The longer Sasuke looked, the more an uncomfortable feeling crept up in his chest. The way Naruto lay so motionlessly in the water, the way he's unconscious and you're watching, the way the river was lazily moving the still frame away from where Sasuke was standing, the way he's floating away from you.

Sasuke didn't like the way the old dull ache pressed at him.

Sasuke didn't like the way he remembered things he didn't want to remember.

So Sasuke waded forward and the water rose to his chest. So Sasuke slid arms under the motionless body, intending carrying his sleeping idiot to shore and back to a little apartment in Konohagakure.

He intended to

but Naruto woke up and accused him bastard-are-you-trying-to-drown-me? as Sasuke half-expected his idiot would.

Naruto half-heartedly pounded at Sasuke's t-shirt-covered chest and asked confusedly in his sleep-roughened voice: the-fuck-are-you-doing? why-the-hell-are-you-carrying-me?

Sasuke half-smiled

and told him, Because this is what I should have done.