The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 13

She Had Words For Him

The trees grew tight together and the leaves had created a barrier to keep him out. The smell of the forest overpowered that of his sweat. He slowed down in his fast pace, searching for an opening in the branches that he could slip through.

He looked behind him to see how close his pursuers had come to him and panicked slightly for a second. They were fast. No, only one of them had caught up to him.

He could hear the man's breath as he came closer and he allowed his eyes to continue to scan for a space large enough for his body to fit.

There was none and he realized that he was trapped. The man came ever closer. That breath, loud with excitement and exhaustion. He could hear a heartbeat pounding and swelling. He thought that perhaps it was his own.

Suddenly a strong hand was around his wrist. He couldn't remember when the man had gotten quite that close.

Then the wrist was pulled and blue eyes scrutinized him and begged him without words to stop this game of tag.

He shook his head in silence. He could not stop running, there was too much he had left to accomplish. What good would he be if he abandoned his goal? What would his family think of him? It was a decision that he had made, there was no going back.

But those eyes never left his and the tugging on his wrist became harder. His heart pounded louder and he thought that maybe he was close to giving in.

The world was disorganized and sketchy. He couldn't keep up and time went quicker than he expected it to.

He was standing on the ground, no longer searching in the branches. The grass was moist with the rain that had fallen only hours ago and the leaves rustled their quiet song in the wind.

But that hand on his wrist remained. Those eyes still pleaded. That beating drum in his head still paced its endless track.

He looked down at the hand and decided that perhaps it was alright to give it what it wanted, if only for a few seconds.

He allowed it to pull him closer into the other man and he felt another hand reach around him to land on his lower back.

"Just come home, Sasuke. That's all I want. That's all I've ever wanted. Please Teme please," a voice that he had heard only recently whispered into his ear. It was a sad sound. A lonely sound. A desperate sound.

And then he decided that this was a dream, and so he gave in to the temptation. He lifted his free arm up and placed it around a stiff shoulder while pushing his wrist and the hand closer into that body that held him tight.

He sighed a break in the silence and rubbed his face on the skin of an exposed neck. He felt a sense of peace. This was what should have happened, he guessed.

He did not want to give up the opportunity that presented itself within this dream. He lifted his head up to the warm ear and whispered back, "Please take me home."

A hurried mouth found his and his entire existence was being tasted with a tongue. It searched and scanned his lips for any imperfections and he knew that he was being memorized.

They were on the ground then, a tan hand tangled in his hair. It hurt, the way it pulled him in closer and commanded him every which way.

He didn't mind. It was a good pain. He wished it was real.

Another hand made its way inside the white shirt he had at one time thought was a good idea to run around in. It caressed his strong stomach muscles and brushed briefly inside his navel. It tickled but he wanted more.

His own fingers pulled back at that yellow hair and he found that it was so much more satisfying than he had expected. The strands slid in between his fingers and he felt the pads of his fingertips threaten to break and cut from their coarseness.

His other hand landed on the one that was now on his stomach. He guided it up and down the skin on his torso and willed it lower.

This was a dream. This was a fantasy. How could he resist?

He urged the hand to explore lower and gasped when it found what he had been wanting it to. The man rubbed his palm over the bulge that had formed in his pants and it was all he could do to refrain from thrusting his hips.

That mouth was on all the bare skin that it could reach and the fire ignited even hotter than he imagined it could. This was so different from when he had been taken within his little prison. It was so different now that he knew who was touching him. It was better this way, there was no mask to keep them apart. Even his own that he wore to protect his emotions and thoughts had fallen away and cracked as it hit the ground.

He closed his eyes and reveled in the feel of those lips over the expanse of his skin.

When he opened them, his body was bare and an old orange jacket was placed underneath of him. Its soft fabric rubbed against the skin on his back and he decided that perhaps this was the way that his first time should have been. With the wet grass and the damp air. The trees hiding them away from the sky. A makeshift bed underneath him. A sweaty blue eyed blonde rival above him.

His eyes took in the curves of the muscle of the man on top of him. The seal drawn on a hard belly. The way the yellow hair fell into a serious face. The way the mouth fell open, admiring the one beneath him.

He suddenly felt self-conscious, being stared at and observed. Then he laughed inside his mind. He had been observed for such a very long time in the waking world and he had already been taken when he looked his worst. What more could he be afraid of the man discovering?

He felt a hardness rub against his own erection and he lost the focus in his sight. It was delicious. It was inspiring. It was maddening.

He couldn't help himself and he bucked his body into the hips that grinded down into him and he begged the friction to never stop.

The hand that had been on his chest earlier wound itself around his member and moved him in just the way he liked. He thrust into the hand and felt his own body aching to reach out and grab the man to repay such kindness. His hand was slapped away with a force that he hadn't seen coming.

Then the eyes hardened and the breaths became more animalistic. The pace quickened and he couldn't breathe. His neck was bitten as it had been before and he knew that blood was running into the ground from his wound.

"I love you," he said to the dream version of the man he loved. No words were returned. Why had he expected them to be?

The touching became unbearable and he found that he couldn't last any longer. His reached up and pushed that face into his own and kissed the man as hard as he could as he arched his back.

His organism hit him like cold water and his breath was stolen away. As the liquid shot from him, he called that name as he had before and he found himself begging not to wake up yet.

He opened his eyes and then the man was gone. There was no evidence of his presence. He lay there with the remains of his pleasure spread out over his body and drying blood creeping from his neck.

The jacket was gone from underneath him and he felt the cool earth infecting him with a loneliness. He sat up and pulled his knees to his chest as he hadn't done since he was a child and looked up to the trees.

He sighed and rubbed his face with a sweaty hand and scowled from underneath it. There, there was an opening in the leaves at last and now the decision to keep running or not was his to make.

He felt the pressure and the stress of making such a commitment and reminded himself to choose wisely. He did not go back on any of the decisions that he made, after all.

He woke up to stare at the ceiling. His body felt emptier and a darkness settled in his chest. He moved his body to regain some of his consciousness.

His waist was wet and then he remembered his dream. He hadn't had such a thing happen to him since he was an adolescent. Embarrassment swirled in his stomach and he wasn't sure what was to be done now.

The dream had been strange. A combination of things he desired and feared all mixed together in a frustrating bundle his mind had created for him.

The touching had been rough and as he reflected upon it, he found that he didn't mind. What had scared him was the look on his rival's face. It had shown anger and his own frustrations towards Sasuke.

He deserved it, he supposed. He had done so many things to provoke those feelings in the other man and he knew that there was nothing else he could do but display his changes.

The choices that he was presented with at the end of the dream left him worried that he was not truly here to stay. No, he corrected himself. He would not leave again unless he wanted him to. This place was stuck with him until then and not a moment before.

He really had changed, he reminded himself. Years ago he would never had thought such a thing. Years ago, he would be plotting and scheming his escape. Not anymore.

The words he had said into that ear infected his mind like a fever too hot to cure. They were something he had willed his mouth to say so many times over the years. They were a wish that he had pushed to the back of him and had begged not to ever resurface into the world.

He would have loved to hear them. He would have ached to hear Sasuke's mouth form the words. He would have reached out and grabbed him, dragging him all the way back here.

Yes, that it what he would have done. If he was able to predict something that could have happened years ago, then maybe the man did feel some kind of broken apart love for Sasuke. Maybe that was why he had chased and chased until he had had enough.

His mind reminded him of what had happened the night before. Fox, he, had confessed his identity in a roundabout way. He had revealed so much more than he had planned to Sasuke and he had walked away, leaving a deep confusion to overtake him.

He was unsure of what was to come next and he found that he was anxious. He wondered if he should continue to pretend that he didn't know. He wondered if he should come out and demand a confession. He wondered if he should be angry, sad, relieved. He wondered if he should allow the frustration to completely overtake him and break down and cry.

This last part was a large possibility. He had lost control of his emotions over the last month and his cool composer had melted away on the day that he had chosen to come back here.

It didn't matter. He would improvise when he came to it. He would allow his emotions to lead him instead of what he thought would allow his dignity and pride to remain untouched.

For now he needed to clean up the mess that he had made. He rose from the bed and after cleaning himself up with cold water from the bathroom sink, changed into a dark pair of pants he had been given from one of the draws he found. The fabric was soft on the skin of his legs.

What had been left on the sheets was just a small wet mark and he decided that he would clean it up with a damp cloth instead of sending it to the laundry.

When he was finished, he used his senses to find the chakra of either Anbu guard within the apartment. When he found none, he ventured out into the kitchen.

He didn't understand why he was left alone. He concentrated harder. There. He found them just outside a window. Outside of the front door. There were three of them. The fox was not present.

Perhaps he was avoiding Sasuke. Perhaps he wouldn't be back.

He let his head fall onto his hands as they sat on the table, waiting for something to fill them. He allowed his breaths to deepen and he listened to the sounds they made as they entered and exited his body.

He sat there and waited for a distraction. When it came he was relieved for the silence to be interrupted within his head.

He lifted his head and then replaced it. It was her again. He had missed her, but not enough to want her company at the moment. She was not what he had expected and he felt the disappointment spread throughout him like a slow killing disease.

She had entered without knocking, and he wasn't the least bit surprised that she didn't. She had always assumed that she was welcome within his life. She had always felt entitled to his company. It didn't matter. Perhaps she would distract him.

Her small delicate smile was right where it was intended to be. Her small face lit up with the upturn of her lips and she was easily one of the prettiest women he had known. Prettiest yes, most beautiful, no.

But that didn't matter either. She stood in front of him at the table and held her place until he gave her his full attention.

She brushed a few care free strands of pale pink hair behind her ear and placed what was in her hands on the table after deciding that Sasuke would not help her with them.

"Good morning, Sasuke-Kun. I brought you some groceries before I leave on my mission. I thought you'd want something healthier than instant foods." She closed one eye as she often did when she thought that she was being cute. He hated the way she knew that she was beautiful.

"I have food here. Someone stocked my kitchen before I got here." He was cold to her. He reminded himself that he had changed over his time here and that he had decided to be a different person from then on, but he couldn't in that moment.

The emotions he had been feeling since the night before were just too overwhelming for him to pretend that he wasn't jealous of her. To pretend that he didn't know that he had been lied to. To pretend that the only thing on his mind wasn't that man behind the fox mask.

She still held that small smile and raised her chin a bit higher so that the sun would catch her high cheekbones and illuminate her softly arched lips.

"Oh, it's for this afternoon. I thought we could have lunch together, just you and me. I brought ingredients to cook for you."

It was true that he had wanted her kindness and he had wanted to be adored, but he found that she was not named first on his list of priorities that he had drawn within his head.

He was reminded of the mock argument between the fox and him. His head was constantly a battlefield and never rested in its assaults on his sanity. More than one time over the last years it had been broken down with the overabundance of attacks. His mind was raging a war with itself over the items on that list.

She would be half way down it if it were to be written on paper. Yes someday, but not today.

"I have plans for this afternoon," he said.

Her face didn't fall as he thought that it would.

"Oh come now, Sasuke-Kun. You know that I know you can't leave your apartment without permission and I was just in to see Tsunade-Sama and she didn't say anything about you leaving today."

He was always the one to know the reply to ever comment.

"Yes permission from Tsunade or one of my guards. I could have asked one of them. Besides, plans do not always mean going out," he said it with a serious face to express that he was annoyed. He wondered since when his business of activities had become hers?

"Then what is it that you have planned that you can't have lunch with me?" She pulled a chair opposite of him and sat down, placing her hands on her lap.

"I'm waiting for someone," he said.

She sighed a huffing sound and looked off from his face for a few seconds before returning them to scan his scowl.

"You can't just sit around waiting on someone to come back into your life, you have to move on and find something else to do."

He almost laughed at her. He wondered if she had truly evaluated her words before she allowed them to slip out of that little pink mouth of hers.

"Perhaps you should follow your own advice, Sakura." His mouth was a flat line and he allowed his eyes to study her as if offering a challenge. As if daring her to deny it after she processed her own statement. As if urging her to admit that he was right and that she was wrong. He did love it when she praised him after all.

Then her face finally did fall and he watched her eyes catch on to her unpainted fingernails. Her hands had always looked so elegant, even now, but they had gone through many years of training. Had healed many wounds. Had broken down many walls with one skilled clenched fist.

Her voice came out quieter than it had and he saw the sadness spill across her pale leaf colored eyes.

"You're right. I have waited and waited, just as many of us have, and it's true that I need to move on at some point. But I just wanted to try one last time. I just wanted to show you that it's still possible for you and I to have a stronger bond, to maybe be better friends, and ultimately to be together. I just can't let go of my feelings without trying again. I thought it might be different now that you don't have anywhere else to be or anything to distract you."

He let the words echo in his ears and he suddenly became highly irritated. He couldn't understand why she would still attempt something that he had been telling her all along wouldn't work.

"Sakura, what makes you think that it would be different when from the beginning there was nothing more than teamwork that was between us?" he asked her.

Her face became a slight shade of pink and her eyes produced that wet look they had always done when she had become upset.

"Why do you reject me so? All I ever wanted was for you to give me a chance, and all you ever did was reject me? What is so wrong with me that you won't even try?" Her voice had become louder and higher pitched than before and the water finally fell from those eyes.

He saw the devastation and the confusion on her face and thought of himself. He was very good at doing that, wasn't he? He thought about his own confusion and reminded himself that he could be rejected in a matter of minutes later on when he got the chance to address things with his rival.

He allowed her devastation to become an imitation and foretelling of his own. It passed through him like a chill and brought bumps to rest on the surface of his skin. The wave made him unpleasantly tingle and he found that he could identify with her emotions.

He could be cast aside just as easily as he had dismissed her. He feared it. He would give anything to prevent it, but it was possible and it was something that she was feeling now. It was something that she had felt for years, he knew.

He let out a breath and reached out his hands across the table to urge her to place hers in his. It was not a gesture he would have normally done, but he decided that it might have possibly offered her some sort of comfort in all of this. He would be kind to her. This could happen to him sooner than he would like it too.

She looked at him for a few seconds to determine if it was a trick of some kind. He supposed that she had decided that it was safe when he made the effort to soften his face.

She placed her small hands within his and he rubbed the pads of his thumbs over the knuckle bones on which they rested upon.

It was something that he had seen his mother do to his brother once when he had come home from an especially hard mission and again when Itachi had had a small disagreement with his lover. He had been young and didn't understand how it could ever have a calming effect but as he tried it out now, he saw that it did just that to Sakura.

Her body had become less tense and she relaxed in his grip. He could tell that she was anticipating a change of mind from him. He would disappoint her again as he had done so many times before.

"Sakura-Chan. I think this is something that we really needed to talk about sooner than now, and I'm sorry that I wasn't able to offer it to you until today. You have to understand that since the beginning, even when we were kids, I haven't been able to love anyone because I had already decided who I wanted to be with. It wasn't an outward decision, it was subconscious, I think." He let his voice settle in her ears and he looked at her to see if she would open her mouth.

The water from her eyes had stopped when his hands touched her fingers, but the look on her face remained unchanged. Her mouth stayed tightly closed and so he took it as a cue to continue.

"I don't know how to say this any other way, but I don't think I could ever love you even if that hadn't been so. You aren't what I'm looking for in this life and I don't believe I'm truly what you want either. I think you were attracted to me because of my family name, my appearance, and my skills. I don't believe that my personality had any part in it, because I don't know how it could. I was unkind to you. And I think you held on to that infatuation all this time and named it love because maybe you thought I would change or I would become someone different."

He paused and waited. Nothing happened. She tilted her head downward and brought her eyebrows closer together what could have been disappointment and anger. He had expected an outburst. A loud sob at the mention of his distaste for her when involving romance. But no words left her mouth yet.

"I haven't changed, well I have recently, but not in the way that you had probably expected me to. I am sorry to upset you, but I think it's something that you need to hear because I've been telling you for years and in not so nice ways. Each time I have, it's like you ignore me because it's not something that you want to hear. I don't love you. I don't love you because I am already in love and because your personality is not something that I want in partner. You're beautiful and you're intelligent and you are talented at what you do, but it's not enough for me. I know that I am selfish and I am cruel in saying it, but it's the truth."

He watched the pure rage and dizzying anger rise in her and he watched her move her head to look away from him in a jerking motion. He knew that her adrenaline had ignited and he could almost hear the thumping of her heart. She pulled her hands away back across the table and crossed her arms over her chest as if to create a barrier between him and her vital organs. Her voice was loud and it was filled with the intent to be hateful.

"And what's so great about him? Huh? You've said so many times before what an idiot he is! He's dumb and he's too impulsive. He's way too loud and he never shuts up. How is it that you can love someone like him but not me? And even beyond that, you tried to kill him. You drove your hand through his chest! You fought him every chance you got and when you were still with us, you treated him horribly. You tried to sever the messed up bond you had with him. What's so wonderful about him that he's suddenly so important to you? Why don't I matter?"

Her words bit him. Left his insides to bleed. Cut his ears split open. He didn't want to be mean, he reminded himself that he was trying to be kind and calm.

"Are you really interested, or are you just trying to pick at the reasons you think I shouldn't be in love with him?"

"I really want to know. I want to know how someone like you could choose a person like him over me. And I want to know how your feelings for him can be so different than they were a year or two ago, how can you hate someone but suddenly love them? It doesn't make sense and even though I think he's not good enough for you, what makes you think that you're good enough for him? All he's ever done was try to catch up to you and you've always pushed him away."

He pulled his own hands back now from where his arms had stretched them to land and placed them on the edge of the table, gripping it as if it were a lifeline.

"You can't hate someone without loving them and vice versa. It wasn't suddenly. I told you before that it was always there. It was that way from the beginning, I just didn't recognize it at first and then later I tried to ignore it. I could list for you all the reasons that I love him, but it wouldn't make you feel any better. I just want you to understand that it's not a new feeling and that I didn't want to hurt him. Not ever. I. Just. I just had things that I had to accomplish and he wouldn't allow me to do them without getting in my way. You will never get that it was something I had to do."

Another pause. Another slight silence as he thought of what to say next.

"I haven't acted upon any of this before because I couldn't allow it to distract me from my purpose. I have accomplished everything that I set out to do and so there was nothing else left to do before I die, but to return and let him keep that promise he made to you and maybe somehow show him how I feel. After I got here, I decided that I wasn't ready for death and that I needed to see him, to hear him, to know how he felt about me. A rejection, returned feelings, hatred, anything. I've just decided right now that I need him. I need him."

The water returned. Perhaps it was not what she wanted to hear. Maybe it was. He didn't know. It didn't matter. He was reminded that he could be in her place eventually.

"He is not better than you. He is just better for me. My list of qualities and characteristics that I find appealing in him is long, but I love his determination as he followed me although I wouldn't back down, his ability to find the smallest light within any dark moment or thing, and the look he gets when he accomplishes something. When they kept me where they did, I decided that I wasn't ready to die because I wasn't ready to pass up another chance of being by his side again. I have messed up, I know, and I have caused everyone so much pain, but I am truly sorry. I don't regret doing the outline of the things that I've done, but I do regret having to hurt anyone in the process. Like I said before, he was in my way, but I think that I mostly targeted him first because I wanted to erase him. I didn't want him dead and I didn't really want him to hurt, but I wanted to be able to forget about him. I was so wrong and now although I have apologized so many times, I don't know if I'm able to fix it. Like you, I just want to try."

He was done. He would allow her to think anything that she wanted to. There was nothing else that he could do but tell her in a more detailed and complex way that he didn't love her because of her personality and that he did love him because of his. He wanted her to know that he understood his mistakes and that this whole entire situation was because he wanted to fix it.

If she did not believe him, then he supposed there was nothing else that he could do.

He watched her attempt at a grimace become much more loosened and less angry. It became more of a solemn look and portrayed the sadness she must have been feeling. He was sorry. He was sorry because he could understand her anger and her hurt.

But she was a sophisticated woman. She was an intelligent woman. She was a very close friend of her blonde teammate and it was very possible that she was still that man's love interest. She would not allow her outburst from earlier to reveal the childishness that she still secretly harbored within her heart. She changed her demeanor and returned back into that well skilled medical nin that she was.

He watched her wipe the trailing tears from her face with a straightened finger and heard her inhale the water from her nose back into her head with a small sniffle. She let out a breath and placed a hand against the bone that signified the connection of her neck and chest, an attempt to comfort herself.

"That promise was never for me. It was always for himself. Keeping it was always the only thing that he thought about, even after the years when I had given up hope myself. He wanted you back, and he wanted you for himself." Her voice was small. It was as if she was reflecting on something.

He didn't say anything. He couldn't. He wasn't ready yet. Wasn't ready to hear what she had to say.

"It's not my place to tell you why that was, but it was never for me. They said that you were different, the guards, Tsunade. I didn't believe them. I mean, it's not like you were so perfect before, I just didn't expect you to be so much more emotional. I didn't expect you to be more sensitive and I didn't expect you to only be that way because of Naruto-Kun. I thought maybe since I heard that you had changed, that maybe it would be for me instead. I was wrong, and I know that that should be ok. I'm upset now, but I know that you can't help how you feel. Kakashi Sensei always told us that, you weren't here to hear it, but maybe it would have helped you a lot sooner than now. Maybe it was just an infatuation, but I still feel it, and I guess if you love someone than you want them to be happy. At the moment, I'm angry and I want you to be rejected just like me, but I know that's a lie. I do want you to be happy. Whether you deserve it or not, is not something I'm going to think about because I just want you to be, even if it's not with me."

He closed his eyes. In the darkness he could feel the appreciation he had for her. He could feel the admiration of her rationality. He could remember the reasons that he had missed her before. When he opened them again, he gave a small smile to her in a way to express his gratitude.

"Sakura, you have always been kind to me."

Then she smiled that half satisfied smile she was able to use so well when she was hiding her discontentment. He watched her form the words with her pink lips, now swollen from her rage and because she had cried.

"Sasuke. We looked and looked for you and he chased you like crazy. When you finally get the chance to confront him, it might not turn out the way you hope it will. Some of the damage that you've caused is in-repairable. I just think that you should remember that he never gave up until he had to and even when you rejected him and pushed him away, it made him just want to be even closer to you. Friendships work that way sometimes."

It pleased him. He'd be lying to himself if he claimed that it didn't. It really did. It pleased him that he had had such an effect on the other man. It pleased him that he was able to remember the sensations that he had pushed to the back of his mind of how the man's voice held so much need. She was right, it could possibly not happen the way his heart wished it would, but he did feel comfort from her admittance.

He needed to know why the man had stopped. It was a nagging feeling that made him itch.

"Why then? Why did he stop looking for me?"

"He just had to. It's something that you'll have to ask him. I don't really know, he just said that he had to. He was the only one leading the search, so everyone else stopped as well. I think sometimes that after a while we only looked for you for his sake. It was pathetic towards the end." He could see her watching his ink well eyes and knew that she wanted to tell him so much more than what she was allowed to.

"Why was it pathetic?" He asked.

"It just was. We would search and search for you when we weren't on other missions and he would beg her to make it an official mission so that we could spend more time away from Konoha looking. It was almost like he was obsessed. He'd wander off for days from the village, without telling any of us and he would swear up and down that he had seen you, but we all knew it was his mind telling him things. He wasn't crazy or anything, he just. He just wanted to find you so bad that I think he thought the dreams he was having at night were what really happened when he was awake. I don't think he could tell the difference. I guess he was fine in everything else, just not when he went looking."

She rested her forehead on a hand held up by an elbow and looked at the table, in thought as she continued.

"He wouldn't let any of us even so much as suggest that you were a lost cause either. We weren't allowed to say anything like that we didn't think you were coming back or that we wouldn't be able to find you. He'd get so mad and say that he knew that you'd come to your senses someday and that he wouldn't give up on any of his friends. Kakashi stopped going with us because he couldn't stand when he had to tell Naruto that it was time to go home. He just couldn't lie to him anymore. he used to say that we would find you next time, that we would convince you next we saw you. It was a lie because even, he himself, didn't think it was true."

He rested his chin on his entangled hands that he had propped up on the table. It was something he hadn't done since he had been in the academy. He contemplated her words and he felt his heart create a crack along the surface. He could not imagine the person he loved ever having been so defeated. He could not take the thought of the pain he must have made that man feel when he had returned home empty handed without Sasuke.

He felt his eyes sting. No, he would not cry in front of her. Perhaps she would appreciate the new tenderness that he had developed, but he did not want to say all of the reasons he should not be forgiven out loud.

Instead he found that he couldn't move his mouth anymore at all. He sat there in his deemed thinking position and looked at her as if he could study the way she had thought he had once belonged to her. It was a mute effort, but it didn't matter. He could still pretend to himself that he was thinking on it. He needed anything to drown out the din that had sounded of in his head.

Several minutes passed by them as they sat at the wooden table in the kitchen, each within their own mind until she spoke. The sound pushed him out of his thoughts and caused him to intake a large inhalation as if he had just come back to life.

"I think I should go. You have plans anyway, don't you?" She stood to leave and gestured to the bag of forgotten groceries that had been pushed to one side of the table away from their conversation, to remind him that they needed to be put away.

He stood after her and nodded his head. He reached his hand out towards the door to suggest that he would see her out.

When she replaced her shoes just inside his door and her hand fell awkwardly positioned on the door knob, he remembered to invite her back.

"You can come back sometime, if you want to." He was still not very good at this polite thing.

After she agreed, he watched her walk across the wooden porch and past the other doors that belonged to his neighbors. He briefly wondered what they thought about having the last Uchiha living next to them. He wondered what they thought when they heard loud voices and fights coming from his apartment. He thought about what they would say about what ever words would be exchanged later on with him. It wasn't important. Their opinion was not needed and thus did not matter to him.

He decided that after all he had learned from her and after all of the fears that had surfaced in him, it would not do to over think them without the man in question present. He decided that he would not touch these issues within his mind until he could talk about them.

He made his way to the couch and tried to find interest in the television. It didn't work.

He picked a scroll from the shelf. It was something he had already read.

He scanned the titles of the Make Out Paradise that was in plain sight. He had read them as well. Sound had offered him a lot of free time when he wasn't training and there had been an awful lot of the series' fans there. He had found them interesting, he would attempt to read one again.

It was no use. The romantic tendencies only reminded himself of the changes in his attitude and the more erotic scenes left his head dizzy with the memory of his touch. It became too much as he thought of the confusing violent need satisfying dream he had had the night before.

The novel was forgotten and he decided to lay his back flat against the length of the couch. His eyes closed as he tried to remember the sound of the voice that begged. The fingers that had caressed. The hands that had squeezed and stroked. Those eyes that hadn't ever left his.

He then thought about what it had been like to have someone inside him. Then he allowed the information to finally sink into him. The man that he was in love with, had been inside him, had brought him pleasure, and more importantly had allowed Sasuke to be any sort of intimate with him at all.

Perhaps it was only, as he had thought when the fox was just a fox, a means of release. But the possibility that it wasn't, made his stomach tighten and the anticipation worsen.

Yes, he had been inside him. His rival, his closest friend, his idiot, had taken him and he had taken him with so much need and desire that the combination would have been too delicious to comprehend had Sasuke gotten to see the look on the man's face.

He allowed himself to grow hard at the memory of the wall against his back, the hardness placed against his entrance, the ragged and uneven breaths at his neck.

He opened his eyes and moved one slender hand down the surface of his stomach until it was able to slide under the waist of his sweat pants. He took a deeper breath when his fingertips brushed against the soft and thick hairs he found there.

He immersed his whole hand below his waist and wrapped it around the hardness that had begun to twitch and leak.

He touched the tip first and spread the wetness over it. A fingertip glided over the length, spreading it over the smooth skin.

He could feel his veins threatening to burst from the skin and he could swear that he felt the blood pump through them as all of it exited his brain and traveled there.

It felt good. He teased himself this way and imagined that it was his rival doing this to him. He pictured tan fingers tracing his every outline. Blue eyes watching him move slightly at the sensation. A pouty mouth begging Sasuke for a kiss.

He rubbed the length with his open palm from base to tip and took in the feel of skin touching such a sensitive place.

He couldn't help himself any longer. He pushed the waist of his trousers a small way down his thighs and decided to grasp his member with a firm grip. It ached to be touched. He imagined a tan set of fingers were holding him.

He thought about a bright smile emerging at the sight of Sasuke's naked form, laid out and begging to be kissed with that loud mouth. He remembered the hurt and agonizing need in the other man as he had entered him and held him against that wall and it sent a deep want throughout his chest and clouded his mind in a fog.

He wondered what it would be like to have his best friend touch him with the tenderness he had always shown towards Sasuke and the cool professional demeanor that he had presented as the fox. He wondered how the mixture would settle and show itself to him in a situation such as this. He wondered how it would come out as the man stared down at Sasuke's pale face.

It would be enticing. It would produce so much desire in him. It would bring Sasuke to his knees.

He took a sharp intake of breath as he began to move his hand up and down his erection in a slow pace. The sensation heated up his body and made a pink blush spread across his bare chest, making it look like small flowers had bloomed there.

He started out the pace with a slow rhythm as he used his imagination and the memory of his dream to pretend that he was not doing this to himself. After he got a good mental picture of what he wanted to happen, he picked it up and began to breathe harder.

He tingled all over. The pleasure swept through him and an unsettled feeling in his stomach formed. It would not be resolved until he hit his climax. It felt unbearable. It felt like something hungry, always wanting more.

He would give it more. He touched faster. He twisted his hand in a small circle over it and reached his other hand to down further to hold that soft pouch of nerves below his member. He rubbed the sensitive skin that he found there with a careful pad of his thumb. He moved it also in a small circle and made a hissing sound as the air left his clenched jaw.

He contemplated what it would be like to have the man he craved to be between his legs at this moment. In his mind he saw a head of yellow hair as a hot mouth wrapped around him. he remembered that kiss on the inside of his thigh that he had received the second time that he had been taken, and imagined those lips on the head of his cock.

He thought about a wet tongue licking patterns into his skin and his loins began to burn. He thrust his hips in the air and into his closed hand. This movement felt good and he didn't know how he would be able to stop himself from continuing.

It didn't matter. he was alone. The man hadn't returned. He didn't care what the guards thought of him if they had been watching. It all didn't matter, it felt too good to stop.

He kept up this movement and squeezed himself harder. He grinded his teeth. He closed his eyes and saw a hand in his hair. His ears could swear they heard his name being called into the air around him as it had on the first night that the mysterious man had spoken it aloud.

He wanted to be called on over and over again. He remembered how the cock inside him had tensed and became as ridged as possible before it had released its seed inside him. It made him dizzy. He couldn't hold it in.

He came into his hands with a final thrust held his hips into the air where they had stopped. He allowed himself to feel the effects of his release and tried to slow his breaths.

He thought about how the fox had patiently cleaned him up and applied some sort of balm on his skin to sooth the stinging. He thought about how gentle that gesture had been.

He let his hips fall back down to the couch cushion and laid still, listening to the sound that his heart made.

After a few seconds of the afterglow, he slowly pulled his pants up over his waist. the mess he had made didn't bother him. He assumed that he would be alone for the rest of the day and so there was no one to be clean for.

He lay a flat hand against his soft stomach and thought about how he would speak to his fox the next time that he saw him.

He could be furious, as everyone would expect of him, or he could act differently and display the changes in his personality that he had adopted as he had sat in that chair of his.

He wasn't sure which would be more beneficial, which would be less humiliating should his feeling be not returned.

He didn't know and it scared him. It frightened him so badly that the hand he hadn't laid on his stomach shook in small increments as he moved it to rest upon his forehead. He was not used to being unsure of things and being unable to make a decision.

There was nothing that he could even pull up to grasp in order to make an assumption. There was no way that he could know what would be the best appropriate reaction to how ever the confrontation would go.

He supposed it didn't matter right now. He cleared his mind, tried to meditate. When the static in his brain calmed itself, he felt his body become heavier. He allowed his mind to drift off into his stress induced exhaustion and the lightness he still felt from his orgasm.

He kept his eyes closed and allowed himself to remember what it was like to sleep next to someone on a mission so that he did not feel as alone as he was.

Dear Readers,

I know that I have conditioned you all to receiving updates from me within a few days of each other and I apologize that this one has been considered late. I promise you that I have not abandoned this story as many writers tend to do after a few chapters. I have come home from school for the holidays and so my days have been filled with housework and spending time with my family. This means that I have been preoccupied and am too exhausted to write. I am sorry for this. My fiancé does not agree with me on my Naruto-Sasuke love theory and so my fanfiction involvement has been kept a dirty secret. We live together and I spend every moment that I can with him, meaning that it's quite hard to get any creative writing done with him around. I promise that I will finish this story as quickly as I can and I do hope that you are all enjoying what has happened so far. This chapter is not the best, I am aware and I apologize for that too. I wanted to reveal some of the reasons that Naruto may or may not be acting the way that he is and some readers may not approve of the way it is shown through conversation. Sasuke's words may seem out of character for him, but remember, he has changed from his time in captivity and has decided to become a different person in order to prove something to Naruto and those around him. In January after the holidays have passed, I should go back to doing things in my regular fashion. I am also working on a new project that I hope you will all give a look as well. I will not post it until this one is finished in order to assure you that this one will in fact be completed. I love receiving reviews from you and I hope to see some more. I wish you all a happy holiday, no matter what it might be, and you will all let me know if anything particularly interesting happens to you

With all of my fanfiction love,

Nicky (Littlepurplestars)