La Belle Dame Sans Merci: 21:
"Touché"
This time Naruto wakes he thinks at first there is no one there. This disturbs him on many levels because he has the rather definite impression he made a glaring fool of himself in front of Tsunade and Kakashi about Sasuke, and went to bed with the smell of Sasuke's hair in his nose and the sleep-drool Sasuke hates drying on the Uchiha's neck.
On the other hand Naruto is quite depressingly well aware of the fact Sasuke is not considerate – wouldn't surprise him if the bastard had broken his arm to get free. He seems fine, though, all parts connected and flexible.
What the hell happened, then?
Because he has memories, but if they are valid Sasuke would not have touched him. This means he has no explanation at all regarding why he's lying tiredly in a hospital bed, or why a badly bruised and pretty damn faint Sasuke has apparently snuck out on him.
Which provides a pretty good incentive to open his eyes, actually. Instinct made him save that part, because light storming blinding into pupils long used to darkness is a horrible pain in the ass (frankly i'd rather have some pain in the ass) and sight isn't half as imperative to him as to pure humans.
"Naruto."
A kind voice (a mild voice, a familiar voice). It makes disgust curl scratchy and scorching in his stomach.
"Kakashi-sensei." His voice is dry, mostly from how terribly dehydrated his throat seems to be. Blinking brightness-induced tears away he fixes his gaze on Kakashi (sensei? no, i can't, anymore), forcing uncooperative limbs to support him into a position vaguely reminiscent of sitting.
Kakashi looks him over calmly, evaluating vital stats, and Naruto hates how comforting the check-up is.
"I," he starts, because he has never had an inkling how to keep things in. "Look, um. Sakura-chan showed me something. A hospital file. I need you to tell me if it's true."
Need you to tell me it's false.
"Really?" comes a light, cold voice from the doorway.
Sakura-chan, but he barely notices her because the speaker's here, Sasuke's standing glaring on the doorstep.
and I was bloody terrified of Kakashi, he beat us up and bargained with me, and I was scared he wouldn't agree and then I was even more scared when he did
He doesn't look terrified.
He does look – wrong, though, it dawns on Naruto. There is nothing in his memory of waking from the Tsukiyomi that indicates there should be scabs in Sasuke's face or on his arms, neat scars crowning yellowing bruises that trace the shape of a strangling hand on his throat.
If Sasuke were the kind of person anyone could drag around, the firm grip Sakura-chan has around his wrist would suggest he's less than thrilled about being here.
As if the sullen expression wasn't enough of a clue-in.
Naruto's fingers twitch for contact (need to confirm the alright-ness, need to slap him around for getting himself hurt) around the (oh please dreamed) memory of Sasuke's insides breaking under them, spine snapping audibly apart between crushing digits.
"Naruto!" Sakura-chan exclaims. "You're awake! Er. Obviously." Her grin is broad and sheepish, a kind of determined happiness clinging to it.
"Yeah," he agrees, watching Sasuke shuffle to the bedside chair and sink down into it.
Reaching for him to inspect the inexplicable injuries is instinct, and he must have gotten used to having Sasuke close and kindly, because the world flashes white with denial when Sasuke pointedly evades him.
"What the hell happened?" Naruto grounds out. "You were here before and you weren't – like this. What are those wounds from? Sasuke!"
"That wasn't me," Sasuke says coldly.
"What are you on about? Then–"
…Then his eyes forward to his brain what they have flitted over, soft bruises on Sakura-chan. Bruises like what he'd expect on the person he hugged and clung to when he first woke.
"Oh," he says. And it's accusation and gratitude and a question when he adds: "It was you."
"Yes," she says. "Yes it was."
"What the hell file were you talking about earlier?" Sasuke interrupts. "It was no one's bloody business showing that to you."
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Kakashi reclining lazily at the window, once more engrossed in Icha Icha Paradise and not sparing them any apparent attention.
"Sakura-chan," Naruto says with the kind of calm firmness he has never managed. She has no part in this: he doesn't need her to hear. "Go away."
Sasuke says nothing, but the way he and Naruto have eyes only for each other is apparently agreement enough, for she leaves almost at once.
"It was too my business," Naruto claims.
"Was not," Sasuke snaps. "Whatever happened between Kakashi and me is between Kakashi and me. It's no concern of yours."
"Is too! You were twelve. That's illegal!"
"Whereas working as Orochimaru's personal murderer for three years is perfectly legal, you mean? Laws don't matter anymore than any other arbitrarily decided nonsense rules."
"Oh, of course," Naruto says with a horrible kind of flippancy. His heart is beating triple time. "Stupid me. Obviously executing criminals is every bit as bad as tricking a child so you can rape him!"
Sasuke sits abruptly upright, stark and white as he sneers between bloodless lips, fingers gripping the armrests, "I was not a child, I was not tricked, and I most certainly was not raped!"
"Boys," Kakashi cautions with mild disinterest, gaze never leaving his book. "Continued screaming will alert Tsunade."
"You're not going to say anything of consequence, are you," Naruto realizes, his stomach, thick with venom, doing uncoordinated back-flips as he turns to look at the untouchable man. "No, forget it – there's nothing you could say to justify this."
(no matter how terribly i want there to be. oh, prove me wrong)
But he knows that's not going to happen. When has Kakashi ever proved a dark suspicion wrong?
(it isn't fair – you made us trust)
His vision swims with terror at his own lack of honest surprise (i wanted to be better than this).
Kakashi shrugs, grins weakly to himself before closing his book.
"I agree that it was a bad thing to do. Doesn't mean I see any reason I owe you penance or explanations."
(sasuke owns my conscience)
Naruto splutters.
Sasuke nods thoughtfully. "Leave us alone."
"I'm really not supposed to."
"Nor were you supposed to sleep with me."
"Touché."
Only the two of us, in the end.
"Leave well enough alone," Sasuke orders him, looking rather like a sullen beat-up child. "I realize this might be beyond your limited mental horizon, but some things are more complicated than you think!"
"Oh, try me," Naruto demands.
"Fine," Sasuke answers the challenge. "It was a simple business exchange. He gave me what I wanted, I gave him what he wanted."
The world moves slower now, slow with dread. "So, instead of abuse, you're saying it was an act of – of prostitution? You let him fuck you in exchange for teaching you the Chidori?"
"Yes. For the record I also slept with him four times during our recent mission in Country of Water."
A few minutes later Naruto discovers that the beddings have ripped between his fingers and that his hands are a study in red and white. White because he's fisting them so hard, red because some kind of seals are flaming across his skin.
"If Kyuubi snaps free I'll kill you," Sasuke informs him dispassionately.
"Why?" His eyes are glossy. How embarrassing. Like he really needs to offer Sasuke the opportunity to belt him another one.
Like Sasuke can do anything that matters after this.
"Why would you –do that? He hurt you."
"At least he never lied about it," Sasuke snaps sharply. "Maybe it's because he never had it, but he didn't break anyone's trust. And maybe it's because he never had the opportunity, but he didn't fail to recognize who's me and who isn't either!"
"Can't you see I had to believe it was you?" Naruto yells at him, because Sasuke has to believe him and nothing's fair or safe anymore. "Or I'd go mad!"
"You've been mad for quite some time already," Sasuke remarks caustically. "Honestly, that was the worst nightmare your mind could produce? Killing me in the, The Valley at the End."
"You know that!" Naruto roars. Is this some kind of test? What the hell are you doing, Sasuke? Giving me a Tsukiyomi and acting like this, you distrustful little shit.
"Oh really now?" There's a bit of fire there at last, of the old childish rivalry and hated caring, but muted down almost into nothingness with a miniscule shake of his head. "I'd call it delusions of grandeur, myself." He stares at Naruto, eyes unaccustomedly open. "If killing me is the worst nightmare you can imagine, why give it such a sterling try half a week ago?"
And Naruto's blood abruptly runs cold, seals burning with renewed fervor against suddenly-clammy skin.
"No," he protests, obviously clutching at straws. "But that – didn't happen! It – I wouldn't! Oh god oh hell oh god, did I – ohmigod, Sasuke, did I–"
"I don't know," Sasuke says shortly. Elaborates impatiently, after Naruto has stared despair at him for some time, "It's all a little blurry around the edges, and I am sure you understand if I am something less than eager to reminisce!"
"What – what did happen, then? Tell me what was nightmare and what wasn't."
"You turned up in the border-country and we had a fight."
"What – does that mean, exactly?" And his voice is gravel and the world is a far away horror, and he can't connect through the dizzying, sickening possibility of what he might have done.
Sasuke shrugs, face tight. "I was stupid. Made a mistake. You beat me up. You vi – you beat me up. I awarded you a Tsukiyomi, which you should be damn grateful for because it puts me one step closer to blindness." He smiles, and it is vicious, malicious (breaking). "Heh, I guess I broke you after all, in The Valley at the End. It's why you aren't trustable anymore, and no one can go back or forward from breaking." We both know that.
"You could have stopped me," Naruto says. "Hindered me, at least! Why the hell did you let me?"
Sasuke's face is thoughtful and innocent, with not a whisper of red or gold to the eyes. He looks exceptionally mundane.
"Would you believe," he muses, and yes, Naruto must have done something that far outstrips his ability to describe for Sasuke to retain this dream-like quality as he continues, "that I actually trusted you? That I really thought you'd never mean to hurt me."
And with the words Naruto is adrift in a sea of horror, and he never learned to swim and drowning has to be better than this.
It wasn't Sasuke who turned, this time.
(it was i)
"Sasuke," he tries, and it comes out a hoarse croak, some kind of damning prayer.
"I'm leaving."
Okay, Naruto decides somewhere far away where everything is muted. Okay, he tries to say, but he's disconnected, trapped inside his own actions, and could there be anything worse or more ironical or befitting?
Iruka-sensei bursts in several minutes later, cheerful anxiety radiating from his person.
"Naruto!" he beams, doing a rather credibly imitation of Gai-sensei as he bounces up to the bedside and plops down on the chair Sasuke recently evacuated. "How are you feeling? You look rather pale, though I suppose that's the least one might expect. Honestly, fighting with Sasuke again…!" The admonishment might be real, but the mother-hen-like clucking that accompanies it sort of invalidates its potential as a serious reprimand.
"I didn't," Naruto protests, like he has a million times before. Except it's not a shout, just a listless whisper.
Except this time he's not lying.
"Of course you did," Iruka-sensei argues sternly. "You both came back horribly beat up, I was worried sick, thank god Jiraiya-sama handled the matter. Still, thank heaven, it turned out alright. I know you didn't mean anything bad. How about it, are you well enough for a ramen dinner? My treat."
"We didn't fight," Naruto insists softly, "and it turned out anything but," and he's choking, "anything but alright."
(shit, and i accused kakashi of being a backstabbing asshole?)
(…it would have been a betrayal and naruto isn't ever going to allow that, isn't ever going to be a traitor.
there isn't a worse thing in the world)
(than me oh god oh hell oh shit than me)
"Naruto…"
He looks up at Iruka-sensei quite suddenly, can't keep staring at his own seal-stained hands anymore and see the reason for those seals superimposed over them, blind for how he knows Iruka-sensei needs to be sheltered.
If, against odds, Iruka-sensei actually understands – well, he's going to hate me, but comprehension has to be worth more than an occasional junk food dinner and a practiced smile of instructive encouragement.
"Are there things that can't be forgiven?" he asks, gritting out the words.
"Wha?" His teacher is obviously flabbergasted. "What do you mean?"
"I meant what I said. Are there things that are so bad they can't be forgiven?"
"I don't think so, Naruto. Forgiveness is hard, but it's never impossible."
And that shouldn't make it worse. Iruka-sensei doesn't think – more often than not that means Sasuke does know. Because Iruka-sensei doesn't think you leave the village, doesn't think you can love someone you also quite like to see in pain when he's hurt you. Doesn't think you can need attention any way it's possible to get it.
"Could you forgive Kyuubi?"
Iruka-sensei's kindly expression of accustomed worry freezes, the reaching hand falling down into his lap.
"Kyuubi isn't human, Naruto," he says. "It's a demon god. It operates beyond the boundaries of forgiveness."
Naruto gives him a blank look of slowly crumbling hope.
"That's just a fancier way of saying there is stuff you can't forgive after all." He's learned something from living with Sasuke, after all.
"Not really," Iruka-sensei says. "It's like… if you or I killed a child that'd be evil, right? But if a wolf did it, it wouldn't be. Not because it hurt the child or the parents any less, but because the wolf doesn't understand about right and wrong. It's just about instinct and survival. It can't help it. And it's the same thing with the Fox Demon of the Nine Tails. It wasn't immoral of it to destroy our village but amoral, because it can never comprehend moral."
Of course, ironically, this makes it perfectly alright for Sasuke to act like a murderous jerk, because let's face it, the Uchiha is more predator than humane.
(can't you see it's wrong to treat other people like they're just toys, tools?
…no. i don't, and i'm not interested in trying)
"But," Naruto goes on, weak with fear, "if – if Kyuubi had been human? If it had been a human doing it?"
Iruka-sensei is perplexed and uncomfortable. "I… I like to think there are reasons for human acts. That there are explanations, if not excuses. That no one is entirely responsible for their destiny. But maybe, no. I don't think I'm a good enough man to forgive that. I wish I were, but… Why are you asking? Naruto, you know you and Kyuubi are separate entitles, that you don't have to feel bad about anything it's done."
"It didn't do this," Naruto confesses, slumped in on himself. If Iruka-sensei can't forgive… (and i have never entirely forgiven sasuke for valley at the end, i know that, and this is no better). "I did."
"Is this about what happened with Sasuke?"
Naruto nods, shakes his head, bites his lip. Admits the horrible secret: "He wasn't fighting back."
"What are you saying? But…"
Naruto won't look at him (can't, really).
"But – but he'd hit you with a Tsukiyomi! That's fighting back. I mean, I know you came in unhurt, but wasn't that because of…Kyuubi?"
Naruto shakes his head as best as he's able with his fronthead pressed to his knees. "There wasn't much for it to heal. Couple bruises at most."
"But then… why? Why would you continue to hurt him if he didn't…?" Iruka-sensei sounds bewildered, at a loss, wistful denial shattering.
"I was angry. I had to make sure he was only mine!"
"Naruto…" Care, despite the shock, and – disgust. "That's sick."
"Don't you think I know that?" he yells, muted against his legs. "See these seals all over me? They're because Jiraiya half erased the original one, and… and we – snapped."
"Hey," Iruka-sensei says. "Hey, Naruto, shhhh, it's okay, shhh, it's gonna be alright."
Except it's not.
xxxxx
"Sasuke."
Oh great, Sakura's been waiting for him.
"What? No, forget it, whatever it is, I'm not in the mood."
Could her smile be any more condescending?
"I just thought you might want to get that check on your spine out of the way so you can rest."
That check on your spine – what an innocent way of putting it. Like his spine wasn't broken clean off, crunched apart by Naruto's chakra-laden hands.
"I'm sick and tired of resting, and no one is to touch me."
"I'm glad to see you shook off that non-feeling depression, at least," she says with a weak parody of a grin.
Sasuke punches the wall, only mildly embarrassed when he forgets to check the blow and his hands ends up on the far side of it.
"Fucking Naruto!"
"Yes," she says mildly, "that's what you usually do about now, isn't it?"
Alright, that plan to make her not be shit-scared of him that seemed like such a good idea when he first conducted it?
Worked a little too well, as it turns out.
"Shut up," he sneers, retrieving his wayward limb.
"Sasuke-kun," she calls after him. "Where are you going?"
He isn't sure why he pauses, taut with snapping patience, and announces, "I am going to go to the training yard, conjure a dozen clones and kill them in creative ways."
"Oh, come on, you're over-stressed from the healing and, what is it now, just shy of three weeks pregnant? Not gonna happen."
Why is he still here?
He wouldn't be, if the light weren't so dizzying, his limbs not so molten lead-y, heavy with feverish aches.
(if he could allow himself to think beyond the blinding, glaring event etched into his memory with mercilessly sharp lines)
"And how exactly are you planning to prevent it?"
"I was hoping by appealing to your sense."
"I'm not going to stay in the hospital another night."
"I suppose you'll heal just as well outside it," she grudgingly agrees. "Where are you going, then?"
Not home, that's for certain. No matter, he can sleep in a tree or something.
"I thought as much," Sakura sighs. "Come on. You can stay at my house."
"I am not in the mood to humor your parents." Fair warning – he owes her that, at least. Will give it to her, whether he owes it or not.
"They'll stay out of the way. Come on now."
Her place is no better or worse than any other, and if she is willing to risk her parents' necks, fine by him.
"Wait here a minute, would you?" she asks outside the door, slipping inside to warn off her parents.
"We're having a sleepover," she tells her mom. "She's not feeling too well, so I figured I could just bring her some food after dinner."
"Of course," her mother beams, apparently relieved it is only a matter of a female friend, nothing threatening. "I heard from your father that she was such a well-behaved little thing, too."
"Er," Sakura says. "Right."
Sasuke has fulfilled her request with unusual obedience, looking half asleep as he stares listlessly at her mother's prize flowerbeds.
He continues to look a sleepwalker as she directs him up the stairs and into her room, eyes half-lidded and dull, steps labored.
Of course, four days is not a very long time to recover from multiple physical traumas of the gravest severity and personal tragedy.
He's obviously not going to eat and would probably fall asleep while washing off. Shrugging, she nods at the bed.
"Thanks," he mutters, kicking off his shoes and immediately slumping.
She had not expected a person making his living off murder, betrayal and prostitution to look innocent in his sleep, but he does. Reminds her forcibly of the boy she loved, when she was a silly honest little girl alight with first love.
She shakes her head, not entirely in bitterness, and leaves the room to have dinner and a shower.
When she returns, an hour later or thereabout, he is fast asleep, curled on his side and showing little more than a mop of dark hair over the edge of the coverlet.
There is also, she notes with considerably less fondness, a snake lying curled on the floor beside the bed. Maybe twice her size, scales glowing a dim gray-green in the shadowy room, all sinuous movement and the whisper of rough skin on linoleum as it stretches it neck towards her.
"Oh, god. Oh, shit."
At least it doesn't appear aggressive, lying back down with a hiss after, as it appears, having conducted a brief inspection of her person.
Alright, so logically Sasuke must have summoned it as a guardian and it's letting her through either because he trusts her (in which case very flattering) or because it doesn't consider her a threat (in which case very humiliating).
After the Forest of Death three years ago she is wary around reptiles and inches past it slowly, studying her sleeping companion for a few tender, exasperated moments before crawling into bed next to him. He's really gay, after all, despite weird words and a kiss in the hospital, so it can hardly count as an assault upon either one's virtue.
"S'k'ra?" Sasuke mutters with sleepy incoherence into the pillow as she slips below the coverlet, brushing lightly against his back.
"Yeah," she whispers back, and he either nods or just curls up more comfortably, asleep again before he ever quite woke up.
She's never lain quite this close to anyone, not with unfamiliar scents tickling her nose (she identifies blood, dried sweat and the sterile smell of hospital soap, but knows they aren't all) and the hot arc of a spine cutting into her side. It's not a large bed at all, but Sasuke's a blessedly calm sleeper, silent and still and with his back discreetly turned.
It is only hours later that his presence truly disturbs her, when she wakes up to the relentless pressure of trained assassin's hands on her throat. Her eyes blink open wide and teary in darkness lit only by the muted redness of the spinning Sharingan, the white figure kneeling over her.
xxxxxxxxxx