Dreams Aren't Real

Part 2

Chapter 3 (8)

Dreams About Anything You Want.

The night that they'd made up, they'd spent a few more moments in their little embrace before Sasuke had insisted they restart training again. Naruto wasn't offended in the least by this want to stop touching and get back to training because his recent insight into Sasuke revealed more to him than he'd thought it would. It wasn't because he liked bossing Naruto around, calling him a moron when he fucked up, or annoying him with distractions…well okay he liked all that too. But Naruto realised that on top of Sasuke's general jerk behaviour, he was really doing all this to help him. He didn't want Naruto to get sick again and he wanted them to be able to spend more time in the dreams together.

So Naruto took it as a good sign when Sasuke wanted to get back to work and had made good progress because his mind was a little clearer after finally being able to talk some things through with Sasuke.

He was making such good progress with relaxing his mind that by the end of that night, he no longer needed to be sitting still and concentrating to keep one small part of his mind calm, but could keep it in the back of his mind most of the time. He noticed the difference it made to his general well being when he woke up that morning, feeling a lot more refreshed than he usually did after such a dream and smiled at his small victory over the genjutsu.

This was more like it!

Of course it was good news that he was getting more of a handle on things now, but it made him wonder why he was really going through all of this. The obvious answer was so that he wouldn't get sick again while he dreamt, but then he could just take the potions for that. And at least taking potions meant he wasn't continually going into a genjutsu every night, probably created by someone who wanted to do him and Sasuke some real harm. Yet the dream held the appeal of spending time with Sasuke which he supposed was the ultimate reason he was going through it. But there was a simpler way to go about that, if only he could get Sasuke to agree to it.

That night Naruto pleaded a night off training. It wasn't like he couldn't talk to Sasuke while they were training, but he wanted a time out. Mastering chakra flow techniques and genjutsu was difficult for him and it often gave him headaches through the day doing this all night.

Sasuke simply shrugged, surprising Naruto by accepting that he needed a night off, and lay down in the grass in the sun as though he felt like he needed a break as well.

Naruto sat down beside him, faced him and watched him relax with his eyes closed, thinking about how to broach the subject in just the right way to negate Sasuke getting pissed again.

"It's rude to stare," Sasuke told him without opening his eyes, like he could feel Naruto's gaze on his face.

"Did you ever think that maybe the reason the dream is still here is because you kept coming back?"

Sasuke didn't react which gave Naruto the impression that yes, Sasuke had thought about that.

"Did you think about leaving it alone for a while to see if they stopped without both of us in the dream?" Naruto persisted.

"I did. I stopped for a week and it was still here when I came back."

"A week's not real long," Naruto pointed out carefully.

Sasuke cracked open a single eye and managed to achieve a one eyed glare. "Just what are you accusing me of?"

Naruto sighed. "I'm not accusing you of anything. But was there a part of you that maybe didn't want the dreams to end?"

Despite still looking a little angry by the direction of the conversation Sasuke replied, "Yeah, I guess there was. I like it here, it's simple and calming. And I thought you might come back, I told you this already."

"I know. But face it Sasuke, this isn't our own little private world of happy fun times. Someone did this to us, I really believe that. I just don't know how safe it might be here for us when whoever did this realises their genjutsu isn't doing what it was supposed to do."

Sasuke sat up suddenly, and not looking at Naruto, held out his hand toward a patch of ground about five metres away. He sat perfectly still for a long time, a look of fierce concentration on his face. And just when Naruto started to wonder just what the hell Sasuke was doing, the ground Sasuke was aiming at broke. Naruto watched wide-eyed as a tree grew out of the ground in fast motion. It grew from a seedling up to a twenty metre tall tree in front of his very eyes. The process had taken all of five minutes and Naruto was stunned. He knew Sasuke could manipulate the environment, but he hadn't known just how much before now.

"I know what I am doing," Sasuke told him, lowering his hand and looking back at Naruto. "I have full control and nothing will hurt us."

Bold statement considering this whole dream wasn't Sasuke's creation no matter how much he could manipulate their surroundings now. Naruto was pretty impressed though.

"Wow," he breathed.

Sasuke smirked and lay back down. After a few moments he patted the grass beside him and Naruto lay next to him, shoulder to shoulder and enjoying the slight contact.

"You know there's an easier way," Naruto continued after a moment. Impressed or not, cosy or not, it would bug him if he didn't at least put the suggestion out there. "We could both take the potions. It might end the dream altogether."

"You don't like it here?" Sasuke asked in an oddly flat voice.

"Don't think that I don't like hanging out with you," Naruto went on as though predicting where Sasuke's thoughts were taking him. "But you know, we have real bodies in the real world. We could meet, you know, in the flesh."

"I like your flesh here," Sasuke stated dismissively. "The real world is…complicated."

"It doesn't have to be," Naruto told him.

"Not everything can be solved with blind optimism," Sasuke told him. "Just be content with what you have."

"What, a dream version of you in a world I'm not sure is safe to be in?"

"We've been over this. I'm as real as you are."

"But we're not really here together are we? If I could have you in the real world I wouldn't need the dream world."

"You don't really have me in the dream world anyway," Sasuke replied and Naruto could definitely hear the smirk in his voice.

"You're so perverted, I didn't mean it like that!"

Sasuke rolled over and leaned over Naruto, bracing himself up with his hands. "So tell me, just what would you do if we met up in real life after all of this? Because considering how embarrassed you were when you found out I was real after all, I doubt very much you could even look me in the eye on the outside anymore. Out there we fight, in here we can talk and relax. So just what is in this for me?"

Naruto looked up into the dark eyes above him and although Sasuke's tone was most definitely teasing, his eyes seemed to searching Naruto's own for a real answer to that question. In the real world Sasuke was so lost, so angry, so burdened. It was hard to suggest anything he could have that would be better than what he had here.

The thought made Naruto so sad that he reached up and slid his fingers across Sasuke's cheek and whisper, "Anything you want."

Sasuke kissed him then. And what was strange was that Naruto expected him to. Predicting Sasuke's behaviour was impossible at the best of times, but all Naruto had to think about was what he most wanted in this moment and Sasuke had gone ahead and done it.

In a far away corner of his mind, Naruto realised that Sasuke hadn't answered his question. He also realised that Sasuke had probably never intended to. But instead of starting an argument, Naruto didn't feel like pushing it at the moment. Sasuke's lips were moving languidly against his, he could feel Sasuke's warm body pressed up against him, and he was enjoying the feel of Sasuke's skin as he ran his hands up Sasuke's sides before curling them around the back of his neck.

They hadn't kissed like this in a long time and Naruto had to wonder why he'd been so embarrassed about it. It had felt right the first time and now that he knew it was really Sasuke, the feeling hadn't changed. Actually now he was feeling that rightness a lot more acutely than before.

Sasuke might have manipulated the situation a little the first time around, but only to assure himself of how much Naruto really cared about him, so it was impossible to be angry at him about it. Especially when he felt one of Sasuke's hands slip beneath the fabric of his pants.

He wondered if Sasuke would feel the same in the real world. Would his skin feel the same, would he taste the same, smell the same or would it be different? Would it be better?

The he stopped thinking entirely as he felt Sasuke curl his fingers around his hardness making his breath hitch and Sasuke to smile into the kiss.

"At the moment I think I have what I want."


Naruto woke up the next morning feeling groggy and let's face it, a little bit sticky.

"Gross."

The stickiness was the least of his worries though and it was more the tiredness that really worried him. It would seem that he could keep part of his mind calm and focussed up until the point Sasuke stuck his tongue down his throat. Among other things.

Well it certainly seemed as though sex was a sure-fire way to break his calm which didn't bode well for future encounters. Of course that's if he bothered mentioning this little fact to Sasuke.

But after a few moments of staring at his ceiling he knew he should mention it. If he didn't, he'd slip back into old bad habits and he knew he'd have to tell Sasuke tonight while his brain was still thinking clearly enough to know it was a good idea. Besides, he doubted that meant their relationship would change all that much. Last night had been a bit special. Last night they'd made up for a lot of lost time. He doubted there were going to be too many more all night fuck sessions in store for him if Sasuke insisted they got back to training anyway.

One moment he was opening his eyes out onto the lush field of green grass and red flowers and the next he was grabbed, had his back pushed up against the newly formed tree and had a tongue invade his mouth.

Naruto moaned, he couldn't help it. What a way to begin your dream, with your hands pinned against rough tree bark, a persistent and unrelenting tongue down your throat, a warm body pressed up against you, sliding against you, and making you go from sleepy to horny in about two seconds flat. It would have taken his breath away if Sasuke hadn't forcefully managed it first.

So perhaps thinking Sasuke would want to get back to training had been a little, well, optimistic wasn't really the right word since this wasn't exactly a bad thing that was happening now, far from it. But he sure hadn't expected to pick up just where they'd left off last night either.

Sasuke released his mouth so he could trail his lips over his jaw and down his neck and Naruto figured he'd have to speak now or he wouldn't have the willpower to later. Actually with what Sasuke was doing he didn't really have a lot of willpower now.

"Ah, Sasuke," he began. He'd meant his voice to sound like he was trying to interrupt what Sasuke was doing, but it came out as a breathy sort of sigh which Sasuke obviously took to be a sign of encouragement rather than a call to attention. Sasuke ground his hips against him and Naruto decided their little talk could wait till later after all.


He knew these dreams weren't normal, but why the hell did he have to feel sweaty in them? In the caves it hadn't been so bad because it had been so cold being able to warm up had been a relief and although it wasn't exactly hot here, the sun was warm and after the exercise, his skin felt sweaty and hot. He lay down underneath Sasuke's new tree and let the cool breeze waft over his skin and closed his eyes. He knew that if he didn't find that little bit of calm in his head his body would feel terrible tomorrow.

Sasuke sat next to him, back against the tree, eyes closed apparently doing the same thing. The only contact between them was Naruto's arm slung over his leg and Sasuke's hand resting on top of that. Sasuke's skin felt hot and damp under his arm as well, but it didn't bother him in the slightest. He couldn't imagine liking the feel of the sweaty skin of anyone else he knew. But there was just something about Sasuke that made Naruto believe he could lick every inch of his skin and revel in the taste even when he was covered in sweat.

Naruto screwed up his nose and wondered what the fuck was wrong with him.

"I can't keep my focus here when we do this," Naruto said wanting to stop his mind from wandering too much.

"Me neither," Sasuke admitted. "I don't fail as badly as you, but it is difficult to remain composed when your legs are wrapped around me and you're moaning my name."

Naruto felt his blush fire up in force and he squeezed his eyes shut tighter.

"You don't need to say things like that, I was there you know."

"Well I'm glad we've established that it was you after all."

"Teme!"

"But I'm hoping that eventually you'll get used to it and get over your embarrassment sooner this way. Don't get me wrong, I like when you blush so much even your ears go red, but I get the impression you still hold back a bit from me and it's annoying."

"Hold back?" Naruto asked, his eyes snapping open in surprise to see Sasuke gazing down at him. "I just let you fuck me up against a tree and you think I'm holding back?"

Naruto had expected him to smile at the reminder but Sasuke's expression didn't change. "I know that happened because you 'let me'. But I don't like that you think that way. You aren't supposed to 'let me' you're supposed to want it to."

"Of course I do! I wouldn't do it if I didn't want to!"

"Not like before."

Naruto frowned for a moment not really understanding what Sasuke was getting at, at first. Then he got up onto his knees and straddled Sasuke's legs just like he had in the cave that first time and eased himself into his lap. It was a bold move for him, but considering what they'd been doing these past two nights, he wasn't about to feel awkward about it now.

"For someone who is so monumentally self assured normally, you have a lot insecurity when it comes to real feelings."

Sasuke had looked shocked, but pleased when Naruto had sat on him, but after hearing what Naruto had to say, he didn't look half as happy.

"Bite me, dobe."

So Naruto did. He had expressed a desire to taste every inch of Sasuke before so it wasn't much to lean in and bite down on Sasuke's neck. His skin was still warm and tasted mildly salty from sweat, but Naruto licked, sucked and bit all the way up that pale smooth neck till he found Sasuke's lips. He sucked in Sasuke's bottom lip, biting it a little before letting it go and plunging his tongue into that inviting mouth.

Sasuke grabbed a hold of his hips, his fingers digging in almost painfully, but not encouraging Naruto to move against him or really do anything other than what he was doing right now. Usually by this point Sasuke, control freak, would have taken over and Naruto would be minutes away from feeling Sasuke inside him. So he drew back a little in concern to meet dark eyes looking back at him silently, aroused most definitely, but something else in there too. He didn't look scared exactly, but perhaps a little overwhelmed.

"What's wrong?"

"Do you really care about me?"

"Of course I do. Haven't we talked about this before?"

Apparently Naruto's brief show of willingness had done a lot more to ease Sasuke's insecurities than he imagined it would. You could tell Sasuke something, but there was always a little part of him that never believed it until you proved to him that you meant it. He was like that with everything even when it came to fighting. But this time he really looked like he wanted to believe it. However, there was that underlying neurosis with trust that Sasuke always, probably very rightly, had that prevented him from accepting people at their word alone.

"Paranoid fuck," Naruto accused seeing the look. He was beginning to get really good at figuring Sasuke out despite how many times Sasuke liked to call him stupid. "What will it take for you to believe me?"

"I believe you," Sasuke said, still unsmiling. "Doesn't mean I want to though."

"Complications huh? Isn't this what you wanted though?"

"Since when do I ever get what I want?"

"Well I'm sitting on your lap after already having sex with you once, telling you I care about you. I could put a ring on your finger, but I think that already happened earlier and I-"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and unceremoniously dumped Naruto off his lap by toppling him sideways. Naruto fell onto the ground grinning and noticed that Sasuke was smiling faintly at the joke too.

"Ah ha! Got you to smile! You know I'm telling you the truth. For just once will you accept that something has happened to you that doesn't suck so badly?"

"I'll see how well you suck later. Right now we ought to get back to training. You can't rest properly if we spent another night like last night here."

It was weird for Sasuke to suggest training over sex, but he knew Naruto couldn't concentrate if that's all they did and Naruto appreciated him taking the temptation away for now.


Sasuke was weird in a lot of ways. It was almost like he set himself up to fail on purpose just to prove a point sometimes. He'd doggedly pursued their previous intimate relationship with each other only to get cold feet as soon as physical became not enough and he started to wonder what his friend's motives behind it really were. It was like he had failed at failing to get Naruto back only to set along a path of failing to prove that Naruto was only doing it because that's what Sasuke wanted him to do. It was a good way to sum Sasuke up pretty well, that he failed at failing.

But Naruto had managed to prove to him that everything that had happened to them before in the caves, on the beach and in the forest had not been a result of Naruto wanting some insubstantial version of him rather than the real thing, that he cared about him and meant what he said, repeatedly, and Naruto was feeling very pleased with himself. Sasuke seemed in a better mood too and the rest of the night they spent training Naruto's brain to wake himself up on command.

Time and time again though, Naruto couldn't do it. This was further into genjutsu territory than anything previous and Naruto just couldn't wrap his head around it.

But instead of calling him a moron and telling him how badly he was doing, Sasuke, while still enjoying feeling superior and smiling at Naruto's lack of skill occasionally, was being a lot more patient than usual with him.

After a few thoughtful moments regarding his hopeless student, Sasuke ordered him to stand up and close his eyes. Naruto did so while Sasuke walked slowly around him as though he could see an answer to the problem the more he gazed at him.

"I've been advising you to disrupt your chakra like you would in a genjutsu, but you don't know how to do that. Well, that's not true, you do, you just don't realise that you do."

He felt Sasuke move up behind him and felt Sasuke reach around to trail feather light touches with his fingers down Naruto's belly. Naruto's breath hitched a little at the touch and he squeezed his eyes closed.

"Stop that," Sasuke reprimanded him softly into his ear. "You're resisting."

"You surprised me teme, you know what happens when I get surprised I…"

Naruto's eyes flew open in realisation just as Sasuke said, "Exactly. You may be the only ninja in history to use shock to break out of a genjutsu, but if it works it works."

Naruto was elated for about five seconds before he realised something important. "That's not as easy as it sounds," Naruto told him. "Sure it might work every time that I fall off something or the first few times that you touched me, but that doesn't work anymore and I don't think there's going to be a handy ledge to fall off every time I want to wake up."

"The why isn't important, it's the how. I want you to try and remember that feeling you had just before you woke up, that split second of shock. I want you to feel it again without the outside stimulus to help you achieve it. That way you can jolt yourself awake on your own, whenever you need to."

It might sound easy when Sasuke said it, but Naruto had his doubts. Especially because Sasuke was a comforting presence pressed up against his back, hand now pressed against Naruto's belly, thumb stroking lazily against the waistband of his pants and was sucking on his earlobe.

"Sasuke, you want me to shock myself awake or do you want to make me horny?"

Sasuke chuckled and stepped back. "Sorry." He didn't sound like he meant it.

But now with distractions out of the way, Naruto remembered back to all those little times when he'd been forced awake previously. Considering most of those were because Sasuke had touched him, it didn't help his level of focus much. So instead he tried to remember the feeling of falling. That unpleasant sensation of having nothing solid around you while gravity grabbed you harshly and pulled you down against your will, and just before you hit the ground, that inevitable impact and heart stopping moment when you…

Naruto's eyes flew open in his dark room in Konoha. After a few moments he made himself breathe again before grinning widely.

He'd done it! It had been easy once he had the secret.

The side effect now was that he was too excited to get back to sleep. So he sat up and gazed out of the window to look at the surrounding buildings lit up by dim moonlight. The sight always used to sooth him in the past. But doing so now wasn't really helping. His heart had slowed again after the rush of adrenaline and he was definitely feeling sleepy again after spending half of tonight and all of last night, ah, not concentrating properly, but something was obviously still bothering him.

It had been so easy to pull that off, too easy really. He never picked things up so easily and here Sasuke had managed to teach him something Jiraiya, a master ninja, had not been able to teach him with any great success in two years of intense training. Sasuke had done it in one night just by figuring him out.

Naruto was impressed. He wondered how easy training over the past few years might have been if Sasuke was still around to help him and encourage him. And it depressed him more than a little that he would never know the answer to that question.

He knew now what was really bothering him. He'd gone from happy sunlit field and being held by someone he loved, to waking up in the cold darkness of his own bedroom where he was alone once more. It might have had something to do with being a little overtired right now, but he wondered if that's why he'd hated to wake up before when things had gone so wrong. He felt so secure and relaxed with Sasuke, his near constant dream companion versus a world of relative loneliness, hardship and hate. No wonder he'd never wanted to leave the dream before. And no wonder Sasuke had kept coming back to it as well.

He wasn't so naive this time though, he knew the dreams were bad for him, no matter how much training he did to alleviate the danger. There was a middle ground here that Sasuke refused to explore with him, but Naruto was adamant this time, Sasuke wasn't going to distract him, he wasn't going to talk his way around it, Naruto needed to confront him for both their sakes.

Naruto eventually got back into the dream, but it was early morning when he managed it and he knew he wouldn't have long before he'd have to leave again.

Sasuke was still here though, leaning up against the tree, and he even grinned when he saw him. Naruto almost lost his nerve right then about confronting him, not wanting Sasuke to lose those easy smiles he'd managed to cultivate from the normally so emotionless face.

But he took a deep breath and walked over to Sasuke, intent to first revel in his accomplishment then having a pointed talk with his teacher.

But it was like Sasuke knew how best to test his resolve by being like a normal happy person. He actually hugged him. Sasuke didn't hug. The closest Sasuke got to hugging was when they were pressed up against each other and naked. But Sasuke seemed proud of him, and relieved too, now that Naruto had mastered the two most important lessons for keeping his dream self out of trouble. Sasuke did slightly ruin the happy moment hug though by smacking the back of his head after releasing him.

"You kept me waiting long enough, dobe."

Okay good, Sasuke being a jerk was easier to pick a fight with anyway. Well there was no use working up to it, he might as well blurt it out before he lost his nerve.

"You don't want to return to the village yet, fine. But I want to see you. Not here, in the real world."

The smile dripped off Sasuke's face to be replaced by a frown. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because I said no."

He'd expected obstinate refusal, but it still made him angry anyway.

"And just because you say no, I don't get a say?"

"That's right."

"That's not fair!"

"What brought all this on anyway?"

"You know I've been trying to talk to you about this for a while, it's not a sudden thing no matter how much you try and ignore it! Sasuke I want to see the real you."

"You are seeing the real me."

"Yeah I get it, you can be yourself here more than you can out there. I get the difference being in here makes, but we can fix that, that's what you don't understand. You've done so much you think you can never go back, but you can. I want to help you!"

Sasuke just rolled his eyes and turned his head away. "Moron, it doesn't work like that."

Naruto grabbed Sasuke's chin and forced him to look back at him. "Make believe shouldn't be enough for you. You wanted me to be here with you because I wanted to be, now I want to be out there with you and you say no like it would be so strange."

"I'm not the same out there. You know that."

"You're talking like you're two different people, you aren't, you're only pretending to be. I'm not talking about coming back to the village or facing the world's evils together, I'm just talking about seeing each other in real life. How can that be so hard?"

Sasuke stepped back to dislodge Naruto's hold on him. "It is. It's not happening so you'd better accept that."

It was like throwing feathers at a brick wall hoping to topple it over. It was infuriating! Naruto glared at Sasuke for a long time before realising something very important.

Sasuke had been so fixated on finding out how Naruto felt about him, it hadn't occurred once to Naruto to find out how exactly Sasuke felt about him. He got hints that he cared, a lot of hints really, but nothing had been flat out said to make him believe Sasuke loved him back.

Naruto woke up suddenly in the morning light. He turned over in bed to stare out the window and just lay there for a while. Here he was, tired, cold and alone. Again. It was a feeling he figured he'd never get used to.

TBC


Soooo, Sasuke, obstinate bastard, is dead set against meeting up in the real world. Poor Naruto. I think they're arguing as much as fucking at the moment but I always like that sort of dynamic so it makes sense to me. But you have to wonder how many times Sasuke will have to say no before Naruto gets sick of it and leaves him altogether. Hmmm, I wonder.

Oh and just wondering…I had two good opportunities to include some smut scenes here but I figure than when it gets to this point, unless something special is going to happen within the scene that it tends to flow better without it. But I wonder if I am in the minority here with this…But don't worry this doesn't mean the fic will be smut free either :)