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Title: Floodgates
Chapter: 11/26

Chapter 11

"Hmph."

It was about the tenth time the overly made-up woman had made that noise in the last five minutes. Naruto tipped back on his heels then fell forward to his toes with a double-step like he was a human rocking chair. He did this repeatedly, hoping to annoy her as much as she was annoying him, but it hadn't yet produced a noticeable result.

She patently ignored him, her red-shine nails flicking the side of the paper with irritating regularity. The scroll had been thin, only one sheet in fact, and it had taken the woman no more than two minutes to read it. It was taking ten times that long for her to stew over its contents.

"I can come back later, Lady Higuchi," Naruto offered politely.

A dark-eyed imperious look was his answer.

Naruto returned to his rocking chair impression.

He didn't know how long he'd been stuck here, but it felt just short of forever and most of that was wasted waiting for a reply. He'd already arrived in town later than planned and in the misty darkness of the city he could hardly tell the exact hour. The lantern lights were always lit.

The woman flicked the edge of the paper again, hard enough to rip it. She made an ugly frown.

Her hand dropped to her lap and Naruto's attention sharpened.

"Sasami-chan," The Lady Higuchi commanded in a flat voice. "Bring us the pen."

It took all his willpower for Naruto not to snort at the royal "we". A small girl with an elaborately painted face and two neat buns on the sides of her head dashed out of the room and returned in moments with not only pen, but paper also. After handing the items to her mistress, she knelt on the floor and offered her back to the woman as a writing desk since the "lady" could apparently not be bothered to rise from her chaise lounge to the table not two meters away.

Naruto reaffirmed his commitment at being a free agent.

The woman took her sweet time in writing her reply, as if people weren't waiting on her. Naruto began counting the time off in his head, but at about twelve minutes, he gave up.

After the sun had blown up and the planet ceased to exist, the woman was finally finished and handed the paper over.

Naruto bowed politely, backed up to the exit slowly for decency's sake and bowed again in the open doorway. As soon as the door closed, he ran as though he could catch the world in his back draft and turn back time.

--

Fifteen minutes later, he was back at the place he'd found Sasuke that first time and hoped it wasn't too late.

He'd worked as quickly as he could, securing the scroll someplace safe, putting on the proper wards, and washing himself up so that he didn't stink too much.

Once he entered the club and encountered its unique aroma, he realized it could hardly have mattered.

He'd checked the time before he'd left his room and seen he was already an hour later than he'd intended. If Sasuke had even received the message, which Naruto doubted he had, he probably wouldn't wait so long.

It wasn't fair and it was worse because it wasn't right to start with and Naruto was pushing people out of the way, pushing them on top of each other, trying to get a clear view of anything.

It was too late. An hour was too long, way too long by half. He slouched his back and sighed. Then he headed back the way he'd come and took full, sane stock of the situation. He'd only sent that message on some stupid impulse that never should have been followed anyway. It was better this way; he knew that.

And now he would go home.

He flicked his eyes abstractedly over the crowd as he left. He saw blondes and brunettes, long hair, short hair, a man with pink hair and five earrings, a man with no hair and a tattoo on his shoulder, and a man with pale porcelain skin and blue-black hair leaning on the wall by the bathroom. Naruto stopped. Then he pinched his eyes to clear his vision and carefully walked over.

He moved slowly at first as if dazed, but quickly increased his pace and went back to pushing people out of the way. It didn't take much longer before he was standing right in front of Sasuke.

Sasuke, who had gotten his message.

Sasuke, who answered his message.

Sasuke, who waited for more than an hour.

Sasuke, who looked at him with those eyes that didn't see, yet knew.

"So," the blind man said. "It was you who wanted to hire me."

Not exactly true; it had just been the only way Naruto could think of to attempt contacting him.

But none of that mattered, not when Sasuke was here when he shouldn't be. Naruto was so shocked and relieved and grateful that he reached his hands forward and met Sasuke's mouth with his own like it was the air he needed to breathe, the water he needed to live. Sasuke responded instantly, opening up and digging his fingers into Naruto's waist as if they belonged there. Naruto curved into him and slid one of his hands down the thinly covered chest, the taut stomach, to the bare skin behind tight pants, burning to the touch. Somehow he'd forgotten how hot Sasuke was, physically, literally, and the feel of his skin nearly scorched Naruto's hand.

It had to be the fire, the fire of the Uchiha that consumed them.

Naruto released Sasuke's mouth with a pop, the sound lost in the drumbeat of music. He scowled, angry with himself and Sasuke and the world, and flipped the man around, pressing his chest into the wall so Naruto didn't have to see him. Naruto covered Sasuke's body with his own and latched his mouth to the dark seals on the pale neck, just where shoulder curved in. His hand slid back down below Sasuke's waist, far beneath the tight band of his pants. He bit down at the exact moment that he squeezed and suddenly Sasuke was gripping the wall for balance. He arched back in a way that surprised Naruto so much that he almost missed enjoying it.

And Naruto kept on biting, sucking, squeezing, tugging, and listening to the sounds Sasuke made like music far better than the loud thrumming noise in the distance.

In the overcrowded room, there was nothing but them.

Naruto staved it off as long as he could but he wanted it done, needed the release as much as Sasuke did.

Everything converged into a pinpoint, sharp and white and black and sweet and only reluctantly did everything eventually come back into focus.

They were barely keeping each other upright, braced as they were against the wall. Naruto breathed heavily into Sasuke's ear.

He hadn't needed to be touched to find his release.

The bite in Sasuke's neck was eased with a few swipes of Naruto's tongue and a long cooling breath.

Then the blond pulled his hand free and placed it shakily on the wall.

Turning his head just enough so Naruto could see his face, Sasuke licked his lips and swallowed back the saliva that had pooled in his mouth with a visible bob of his throat. Despite what had just happened, he appeared relatively calm.

"So then," he asked breathless yet flat. "What are we?"

Naruto tried to slow his runaway heartbeat. He pulled back so Sasuke could turn all the way around to face him. As always, Sasuke's sightless eyes almost, but not quite, looked back.

Naruto's mouth dropped open and he took a breath.

"We're us."

And Sasuke smirked with a strangely satisfied air, which wavered up gradually into that curve that was not yet, but maybe wanted to be, a smile.

--

Naruto barely managed to dodge the lightning strike and the backlash landed him on his butt painfully.

"Hey, that's cheating!" He yelled childishly while rubbing his injured backside. There was just as much fog in the training fields as there was in the city and Naruto felt that gave an unfair advantage to the one of them who couldn't see to start with.

"There is no cheating in war," Sasuke replied. He stood scarcely visible on the opposite side of the field, bored and unconcerned, having barely moved the whole fight and certainly not breaking a sweat.

Naruto was drenched.

And tired.

Sasuke shook his head disapprovingly. "You've gotten lazy. What do you expect to accomplish like that?"

"I'm not lazy!" Naruto pushed himself to his feet.

"You're rusty." It wasn't a concession really, merely a different phrasing.

Naruto, however, considered it the better option of the two. "Just give me a little time. Then I'll be wiping the floor with you just like before."

"That's an interesting alternate history you wrote there."

Naruto scowled.

"Scowling won't change history."

Naruto stopped and his expression turned curious, his irritation taking a backseat. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Know what I'm doing, what my face looks like."

Sasuke shrugged noncommittally. "You were scowling, weren't you?"

"Yeah, but," Naruto hedged awkwardly, "You can't see, can you?"

Any humor that might have existed vanished from Sasuke's face. "No. I can't see."

Naruto took a few steps forward, twisting his head to look at Sasuke from a different angle. "O.K. Then how do you do it?"

The pale face smoothed out. "What else would you have been doing?"

Naruto pouted. "Lots of things. I could have been strategizing my next move. I could have been wincing in pain 'cause you hit me really hard." Sasuke snorted. "Or I could've been smiling because I'm happy to be here with you."

The very edges of Sasuke's eyes pinched in, the solitary sign that the last statement affected him any way.

That little admission made Naruto grin from ear to ear, more than a little smug.

"Stop smiling," Sasuke commanded. "There's no reason for you to be so proud of yourself, Usuratonkachi."

"See?!" Naruto shouted, pointing a rude accusing finger at his friend. "How do you know what someone's doing if you can't see them?"

Sasuke closed the distance, making the air go thick between them.

"Not 'someone' Naruto. You."

Sasuke stared at him for a long couple of seconds before turning away, a triumphant smirk on his face.

And Naruto flushed pink all the way down his neck.

--

Without a fan the room was overly warm, but neither man seemed to mind much. They were already overheated and sweaty from their recent activities to take much notice.

Naruto had stayed longer than he'd intended, but nothing had gone as he'd intended if he ever knew what that was. There was fear on both sides of the equation and both equaled to him not wanting to go. But he could come up with no more excuses. He'd have to leave, and soon.

He hadn't yet told Sasuke.

The messy blonde head rested on the pale chest, slowly rising and falling with the gentle rhythm of Sasuke's breathing. A tan hand lay flat and dark on the finely muscled and scarred stomach. Naruto stared at it and the crumpled sheet beyond.

The fingers idly stroking his hair lulled Naruto into a sense of security he could little afford, but he closed his eyes anyway.

As he leaned into the soothing touch at his head, Naruto heard the sound of a page being flipped.

Lazily, he opened his eyes and glanced over. Sasuke's left hand was slowly moving over the page, his fingertips decoding the little dots and telling him a story. He was still stroking Naruto's hair, his two hands working independently, as if connected to different sides of Sasuke's brain. Naruto reached over and ran his fingers alongside Sasuke's and felt the texture but couldn't differentiate between the letters.

He pulled his hand back and set it down beside his face. "I don't know how you do that. I'm not sure I could."

"Of course not," Sasuke said blandly, with just a hint of teasing in his tone. "It takes work."

Naruto frowned like he was going to retort, but his face smoothed out and he asked instead, "What are you reading?"

"Poetry."

Naruto leaned into the pale chest and his breath whispered over Sasuke's skin when he spoke. "Read me one."

Sasuke's hand stopped and Naruto watched as the fingertips delicately made their way back to the beginning of the page. He watched them move over the raised words as Sasuke recited.

"For holding spring, a castle's walls
would be no use at all:
the flowers would still fall, and all the birds
would fly into the clouds." (1)

Naruto's eyes drifted shut and he smiled gently. "That's pretty." Sasuke's hand moved to the back of Naruto's neck and massaged it gently. The blonde hummed appreciatively under his breath and settled his head more comfortably on the other man's chest.

"Read me another."

Though Naruto could not see it, Sasuke made that almost smile as he turned a couple pages before once again beginning to read.

And Naruto dropped off to sleep with the low melodic sound of Sasuke's voice in his ear.

"If the voice of the Nightingale
Did not sound . . ."(2)

--

When Naruto woke up, Sasuke was gone.

But on the sheets - rumpled and still slightly warm from Sasuke's fevered skin - rested the book of poetry, closed and clean and perfect like an invitation.

1. by Tachibana no Aritsura, from "Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing : The Wakan Roei Shu" edited and translated by J. Thomas Rimer and Jonathan Chaves, (Columbia University Press,1997)

2. (con't)
How could I know
That spring has come
To this mountain village of unmelted snow?

by Nakatsukasa, also from "The Wakan Roei Shu"