Cut Out All the Ropes and Let Me Fall

More than one of the human spokespeople are actually shuddering away from Naruto, exhibiting the submissive terror or any prey, when Sasuke opens the door behind them.

God, he smells so good. Kyuubi somersaults through Naruto's abdomen.

He smirks at Naruto, quite brightly, almost a grin. The humans hold no interest for him.

"Are you in agreement with this?" one of them demands, and starts giving a fairly garbled explanation of Naruto's previous input.

Kakashi looks increasingly tired and haughty; Sasuke looks increasingly amused. His haughtiness can't really be improved on.

"If the only way the humans can accept me is when I make myself smaller, if I'm leashed and muzzled, then I'm done," Naruto says, and again the humans fall silent. "It's time to stand up. If you want to cooperate, that's fine. But if you don't, that's also fine."

"BEAST," one of them starts.

"It's war now," Naruto says, grinning Kyuubi's grin at him. The smell of their fear elongates Kyuubi's fangs. "There's nothing holding me back from exterminating them anymore."

Again the humans turn to the exorcists. Kakashi seems prepared to speak, to smooth things over, but it's Sasuke who says, "Fair enough."

"E-excuse me?"

"Shifters have all the characteristics of an excellent servant race. They're clearly superior to humans in that regard."

"That's not the view of the Council," Kakashi drawls.

Sasuke shrugs. "The Council's increasingly irrelevant. But however."

"Let's talk this through," Kakashi sighs. "This way." He herds the agitated humans out, and Sasuke snorts, coming to kneel in front of Naruto.

"How did you hold up?"

God, he's close now, steadying himself with one hand on Naruto's knee. "Fine," Naruto says, and the word's this embarrassing hoarse growl, his throat rasping dry and his mouth full of saliva.

"You've got blood on your fingers," Sasuke points out. "I'm assuming you weren't actually ripping out any human throats before we got here."

Naruto manages a laugh, and this too is hoarse and inhuman, really just a sound of desire. "Bled a little. It's fine, it's already healed."

Sasuke lifts an eyebrow, and for a long breathless moment Naruto dares to hope he'll lean forward and lift Naruto's shirt, too. Unfortunately he gets to his feet, moving towards the kitchen area to rummage through the fridge. It feels a little like he takes Naruto's intestines with him, like he's ripped them out by turning away.

"There should be ramen," Naruto says.

Sasuke scrunches up his nose. "That's insulting."

"That's awesome. Could you maybe put some on for me?"

Sasuke shrugs. "I guess." He turns on a hotplate, chewing thoughtfully on a carrot.

Naruto remains on the couch, partly because his stomach still hurts and tingles, partly because Kyuubi would use any movement as an excuse to throw himself at Sasuke. He needs to call Dad or Kushina anyway, explain where he is and what he's said to those humans.

Dad won't agree with him, so calling Kushina would be the coward's way out. It turns out, though, that she's the one answering Dad's phone, which means he can wander around the flat slurping up ramen and talking to her and ogling Sasuke in relative peace.

"I'm very, very sorry about your mother," Kushina tells him, and he rubs at his eyes until the tears stop burning and believes her. Knows that she means: I'm not sorry she's dead, but I'm so sorry how it happened.

By the time he hangs up he's wandered into one of the empty offices, and looking out through the half-open doorway sees Sasuke still in the kitchen with Kakashi. Whatever they had, it smells disgusting – Sasuke's typical boring old-man food, and Kakashi's frightening culinary experiments.

As far as Naruto can tell, they're flirting outrageously.

The world goes briefly black around him, and it comes to him only gradually that it's because he's squeezed his eyes shut so he won't have to look through the blood red filter of Kyuubi's deranged desire to slay and mate. He's very tired, and everything hurts, and he – goes away without saying anything, collapsing on the double bed in the closest bedroom.

It's not like he didn't know Sasuke didn't choose him.

It's not like that makes it hurt less.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

xxxxx

He's half asleep when Sasuke enters, shooting into a sitting position and blinking desperately against the light from the bedside lamp as Sasuke settles on the bed. Sasuke's eyebrow and the corner of his mouth quirk up.

Naruto stares at him in mute appeal, mute demand.

Sasuke makes a gesture towards his stomach. "You don't look great."

"I told you, I'm fine." This time Naruto lifts his shirt, exposing the design burnt into his flesh and deeper, into his soul. The lines of it, which glow when Sasuke exorcises, have faded now, just white scratches against tan skin. The bleeding has long since stopped. Naruto can still smell a hint of scorched flesh, but Sasuke's human nose won't catch that.

Sasuke stares into his eyes for a long moment, then pokes him in the stomach. The seal heats briefly under his finger, but Naruto hardly notices because all of him heats up.

Distracted, a little desperate, he hears himself burp.

Sasuke makes a face as though caught between amusement and disgust. The smell of regurgitated beef flavouring fills the air.

After a horrible, red-faced second Naruto laughs, rubbing at the back of his head before reaching for one of the complementary mints left on the bedside table.

"I figured you'd be vegan," Sasuke remarks.

"Not like there's any beef in beef flavoured ramen," Naruto points out. Sasuke assumes things about him – Sasuke thinks about him, Sasuke cares enough to draw conclusions about him…!

Sasuke snorts, deciding on amusement. "Fair point."

Naruto curls up, towards Sasuke. "Why would you think I'm all anti-meat?"

Sasuke shrugs. "Seems like you. Feeling sorry for animals, wanting to save the environment, all that."

"I was," Naruto discloses, "for, um, a week maybe? But I had to eat all these beans and shit instead, and they made me fart like crazy, like constantly. Also Kyuubi hates not getting meat. I've got more important stuff to fight with him about."

Sasuke lifts an eyebrow, pulling up a pillow and making himself comfortable. "Like if you're going to jump me?"

"Are you," Naruto swallows, licks his lips. "Are you flirting with me?"

"If you have to ask, then no."

Naruto makes a flailing gesture at the cruel unfairness of this, not quite coincidentally edging closer to Sasuke. "I thought," he bites his lip, looks up at Sasuke almost shyly, legs pressed to his chest so his erection won't be too obvious. "I thought maybe you fancied Kakashi."

It's so strange to be able to say this, without Sasuke getting upset in the least. "In different circumstances, I might have." His face shifts, looks suddenly more like the old Sasuke. "But I'm with you, aren't I?"

"Yes." Naruto almost can't get the word out, he means it too much for his conviction to fit into the single syllable. "Yes. You're with me."

Kyuubi's tail curls quickly around Sasuke's wrist, but gently this time, or as gently as Kyuubi's capable of. It seeps into his skin, inside his arm, and tickles against Uriel's light.

He can fucking see Sasuke's pupils expand.

Naruto reaches for him, letting his fingers brush lightly, clumsily against the edge of Sasuke's jaw. Kyuubi roars in his ears, but Naruto ruthlessly kicks him into the cage.

He stops.

It would take so little. He could tilt his head, lean an inch closer. There's every indication that Sasuke would let him, Sasuke's whole face a challenge waiting to be met.

Which makes no sense, because Sasuke's never been one to get close to people lightly, for all he's a teenager and no longer has any sexual trauma holding him back…

Sasuke's mouth quirks again, not quite a smirk, not quite a sneer. "Is this one of these things were you only want it if I do it for the right reasons? Because then you don't really want it at all."

Naruto all but growls. "Oh, I fucking want it. But I don't – "

"If you really want something," Sasuke tells him, "then you want it no matter what. There's nothing could keep you from it."

"What have you ever really wanted?" Because what Sasuke says is true, cuttingly true, Sasuke might be talking about Naruto's bond craving as easily as about his own quest for his magic, but this Sasuke has only existed a few days. He doesn't remember, surely he doesn't…

"Power. Freedom. Revenge."

"Sasuke!"

Sasuke's mouth forms a strange, rather sour shape. "Itachi's not as good as he thinks he is. I remember things when I dream. When I – I remember some things."

Naruto's mouth quivers, he's not sure if it's about to grin or bawl. He cups his hand around the back of Sasuke's head, fingers tangling in his hair, and presses his mouth to Sasuke's, sliding his tongue between Sasuke's parted lips. Sasuke's teeth rasp against his tongue, a long uncertain moment, until Sasuke angles his head, deepening the kiss.

Naruto groans in relief and desire, straddling Sasuke's thighs and winding his arms around him. Finally, finally, back where he belongs.

Sasuke's hands settle on his sides, just above his hips.

Naruto tugs at his hair, making Sasuke tilt his head back and give Naruto room to suck his throat. His tails feather over Sasuke's arms, teasing along his legs, and Sasuke's flesh heats quickly under his touch.

He snorts at Sasuke, trying to get air and repress the insane urge to insist how he's wanted this, how he's needed this, lived for this, since he was five, how there could never be anyone else. "Is this really something you should be doing with a member of the servant race?"

Sasuke smirks at him, stroking up his thighs. "That just means it doesn't count."

For a fleeting, horrible second Naruto wonders if Sasuke might actually see it that way. Like Sasuke's the white man and Naruto's some black woman in a colonised country, there to be used and discarded. Someone who doesn't count, weightless in Sasuke's world.

Naruto abruptly tugs at him, and with the bond so diminished Sasuke's almost as weak as a human. It doesn't even take a second to have him spread out on his back, Naruto kneeling between his legs. "That's only if you do the fucking, isn't it?" He grins a grin midway between teasing and ugly. "What if you get all sullied…"

Sasuke smirks back at him rather patiently. "I've been chosen for elevation by the Lord God. Nothing in this world can sully me." His face hardens. "Anyway this is my body, it's mine to do with what I wish. And you're mine too, to do whatever I want with. Aren't you?"

"Yes," Naruto mumbles. "God, Sasuke…"

He makes short work of Sasuke's shirt, ripping it off like the worst kind of shifter cliché, rubbing his face all over Sasuke's torso. He's too caught up for the handprint over Sasuke's heart to give him more than a momentary pause.

Sasuke gives him a breathy sound not entirely different from a laugh, and it's all a little bit like a heart attack. Then Sasuke shifts, locking his legs around Naruto's hips and using the leverage to get Naruto where he wants him. His hand sinks into Naruto's sweatpants, curling around his dick.

Naruto's movements, never smooth, turn into more of a rutting. Sasuke grins up at him, flushed and breathing rather hard. He spits in his other hand and pushes that one too into Naruto's trousers, leaning up to kiss along Naruto's jaw, under his ear.

Naruto comes embarrassingly quickly, which is nothing new.

Sasuke smirks up at him, freeing one hand and giving it a thoughtful lick. Naruto groans, desperately aroused despite just having climaxed, and skids down the bed, tugging down Sasuke's jeans. This Sasuke, so much the same and yet clearly more trusting – or perhaps just more arrogant – doesn't protest Naruto opening his mouth around him. His fingers dig into the mattress, his hips shifting impatiently as Naruto sucks. No finesse, no technique, just this alacrity, this ardour.

He leans back just before Sasuke comes, letting Sasuke's ejaculation hit his face. He licks his lips, catching droplets.

Sasuke gives him an incredibly weird face. Not displeased, though. "You're crazy."

"I like being marked," Naruto mumbles, falling down to lie with his face pressed to Sasuke's shoulder. "I'm yours."

"How very humble."

Naruto shrugs, letting his hand creep over Sasuke's stomach, until he's embracing him. "You're mine, too. It equals out."

"You're not coming on my face, if that's what you're asking."

He laughs a little, unbearably fond. There's so much lost, so much of their life just wiped away, and yet so much regained, so much that they could never have had any other way. "I know."

Sasuke sits up, refastening his jeans and cleaning his hands on his ruined shirt. When he stands, Naruto clings to his belt loop, still sprawled across the bed. "Don't leave me." He tries to say it playfully.

He remembers, with startling and awful clarity, a turning point when he was twelve. It was a few months after he'd been sent to boarding school, and he'd tried to return a hundred times already. This night was different.

He'd spoken to Sasuke, and something had been wrong. There hadn't been any bruises on him, or no more than usual, but for the first time Sasuke had sounded beaten. In retrospect, Naruto connects it with the jenga evening when Sasuke first invited Orochimaru's touch, when Sasuke's world was finally so empty that he'd look to even Orochimaru to fill it.

So Naruto had to get back.

Obviously Dad had beefed up the school's security, and every other time he'd tried to escape, Naruto had been caught.

Correction: had let himself be caught. The alternative had been killing the guards, people who were just doing their job, loyal shifters, some of whom he'd known his whole life. He wasn't strong enough to escape them without doing them permanent damage, and always before that had stopped him, he'd screamed and fought but these had been a child's tantrums. Ultimately, he'd let himself be returned to the dorm, to spend another night trying to find a better way, a plan that didn't hinge on sacrificing someone.

But the balance had shifted. Sasuke couldn't wait.

The guards, of course, were under orders not to hurt Naruto. They could rough him up, they could restrain him and sedate him, but they weren't allowed to cause him serious injury.

Naruto killed them all. He begged them to stop coming after him, to let him leave them alive, but they wouldn't, and so they died.

He sliced open their stomachs, pulled out long sticky ropes of intestine. He twisted their heads off. He ran them over with their own car.

Six of them died, and he almost, almost made it to Sasuke, before Asuma grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and Naruto was sedated before his feet even left the floor. He was so close he could see Orochimaru's building, so close he could smell Sasuke – people always told him this was impossible, but Naruto was always sure he could, had been from the start – and it was all in vain.

He tried, afterwards, to regret what he'd done, but the only thing he was able to regret with sincerity was letting himself get caught. He'd have killed Asuma too, if he could, and he wouldn't have been able to regret that either.

In the present Sasuke lifts an eyebrow. "I'm going to brush my teeth." He tugs loose easily, obviously never doubting his ability to do so. He glances at Naruto over his shoulder, "If you want me to come back, clean up the bed."

Naruto sticks his tongue out, alive again, rescued from despair. While Sasuke's gone, he kicks the sperm-stained blanket under the bed, and finds a bathroom to clean up in. Then he sits in the bed, antsy and over-eager, hunched over as though in growing pains, something hot and aching inside his bones, until finally – Sasuke in the doorway, and Naruto's world regains its equilibrium.

Sasuke's changed to flannel trousers and a tshirt, and is frowning at his phone. "Do I know a Sakura? She seems to think I go to school with her."

"Mmh, yeah, we've all been in the same class since kindergarten. She's Ibiki Mornio's granddaughter."

"Hn. Convenient."

"Yeah," Naruto breathes, edging sideways to make room for Sasuke on the bed. The city was expecting two exorcists, and so has prepared a two-bedroom suite. Convenient, indeed. It's feasible for one of them to sleep on the couch, but the beds are easily large enough for two, and Sasuke doesn't seem tempted to share with Kakashi.

He sits down on the bed, writing something on his phone.

Naruto stretches, wiggling like a seal under the duvet. "That stuff you said before. You can't mean that. You were joking."

"Hm?"

"About us being a servant race."

Sasuke lifts a quizzical eyebrow. "It's the law of man and God."

Naruto sits up abruptly, duvet pooling in his lap. "Then it's time we change the law! I keep telling you, society is the work of man. If something's wrong, it's up to us to change it!"

Sasuke tilts his head, ostensibly in question. It's been called a bird-like gesture, but Naruto thinks now that it's the gesture of a hawk, of a predator bird. It looks more like Sasuke's old way of tilting his head, from before Orochimaru cultivated it into a softer, more submissive gesture. "An obedient dog is treated well. A dog that turns on its master is put down. Why would it be desirable for that to change?"

"I'm not a fucking dog!"

"Of course not!"

"I am a shifter."

"You're different. You're – mine." Sasuke's perfect composure cracks open, and Naruto thinks how that was the first thing Sasuke knew, that Naruto belongs to him.

"I'm yours," Naruto agrees. "That's not – I'm not your fucking dog."

"Don't be stupid! You're a person."

"Every shifter is."

Sasuke shrugs, as though this is of comparatively little importance. "I'm not suggesting any cullings. I'm simply pointing out that one exorcist is worth the entire human population."

"An exorcist like Orochimaru?" Naruto snaps. "Like your fucked up family? Jesus, Sasuke, you've killed your fair share of exorcists!"

"They needed killing."

"Yes," Naruto agrees, though the word cuts. "They did. That's my point."

"I judged them, I killed them. A human doesn't have that right."

"Sasuke, fucking don't. People have value. Yes, fine, exorcists are better at fighting demons, sure. That is not the only value a person can have!"

"Every other value they can generate is contingent on the value exclusive to exorcists. How long would the world last, if exorcists stop performing their duties? The most generous assumption ever made is ten days! Exorcists fight and die every day. If they stop, life will cease to exist. It's not even just that every living creature will die, their souls will be devoured. Torn apart, barred from any afterlife except the agony of sustaining the evil that killed them. Tell me again how a non-exorcist could ever be of equal value."

"It's not by choice that we don't help! We do the best we can. We weren't – I don't know why we weren't chosen!" The things he could have done, if he'd been a child of God…

Sasuke saves the world. That's Sasuke's destiny, his privilege and his burden. Naruto's busy changing it, making it something worth saving. He tries to explain this to Sasuke, whose expression softens and then sharpens again but all differently, in interest not attack.

"We're never going to see eye to eye on this," he says, but it's not a challenge, right now.

"The world can be better," Naruto says. They're sitting close now, hunched towards each other. His cheek almost brushes Sasuke's. "We can do better."

"Look, I'm not going to start any random purges, but if people don't toe the line, they need to be taught their place."

"We all need to work together. To be a team. Common goals, common rules. There has to be a system in place to prevent exorcists abusing their power, too. The kind of shit Orochimaru got up to – that can't be allowed. He'd need to be sealed or something. That way he could still be useful, but he couldn't hurt anyone. Exorcists and non-exorcists need to collaborate to make things work."

"It sounds a whole lot like you think exorcists need to start giving away their power for free."

"Being a team is give and take!"

"And I see what the exorcists would give. I don't see what anyone else can offer, except what they already do, as servant races."

"How can you not realise that that's a bloody disgusting way to look at people!"

"It's not like I demand any great sacrifices from anyone. I don't even need to be paid to exorcise. But I'm not taking orders from people who can't contribute."

"What kind of world do you want?" Naruto demands, fingers scratching against the cotton of Sasuke's tshirt, itching to fist in it. "Because we're going to make the best world we can. Make it something worthwhile, something really fucking worth saving. So people want to save it. Not to get power, or in exchange for anything, but just because it's the right thing to do."

"God, you're so stupid." But he says it rather kindly, as if Naruto's stupidity is something revolutionary and wonderful. "I'm going to die for them, you know. All of us, every exorcist, sooner or later we all die for humanity. Not just the humanity you want to think about – not just the good people, the ones who contribute or make inventions or art or take care of each other. But all the dregs too, criminals and terrorists and selfish, small-minded people who never helped anyone. They'll get to live, because I die."

Naruto inches forward that last finger's width, pressing a kiss to Sasuke's mouth. "I love you." His fingers curl softly in the hollow of Sasuke's clavicle. "We're going to do this together. We belong together."

"Even if I'm this terrible racist dictator? Even if you have to choose between me and your pack?"

Naruto swallows, not quite inadvertently drawing Sasuke's bottom lip into his mouth. "If I had to choose, I'd pick you. If it's you or the rest of the world, humanity can burn. But I don't! If you'd just behave like a decent person for fucking once…!"

Sasuke makes an impatient gesture. "What are you doing to do, try and enslave exorcists? They'll never cede power voluntarily."

"I'd prefer if it didn't come to that, but if they won't listen, we might have to deal with a conflict."

Sasuke sighs. Naruto bites on his lip, but he doesn't move away. "Itachi alone could exterminate every shifter in the world."

"Killing isn't hard," Naruto argues. "I could kill you."

He pushes Sasuke back against the headboard, lays a claw softly against his throat.

Sasuke stretches, baring his throat and his teeth. "Then you'd die too."

"I might decide it's worth it."

"And what would Itachi do to you then? Your soul would be devoured before you had time to die. He'd give the entire shifter race to the demons."

Naruto sits back on his heels, suddenly terrified to have to continue this conversation. But Sasuke can't be lied to anymore. "I think you're kind of misunderstanding Itachi."

"No. You don't get it."

"Look, Itachi's – "

"I told you, I remember things when I dream. I know Itachi." He gives this strange, bitter smile. "I remember loving him."

"Sasuke…"

Sasuke bites his lip, but doesn't allow himself more than a moment of hesitation. "He's my brother, right? Not…"

"Not?"

"I don't know, the way he touched me wasn't…"

Sasuke claws at the seal, and something shifts. Sasuke's fingers on his shoulder might be symbolic, but Uriel tears at the seal from the inside, forces the ruptures in it to widen.

The incredulous, indescribable thrill must show on Naruto's face, because Sasuke frowns at him. "I liked it better when I knew you couldn't lie to me."

Naruto takes his hand and squeezes.

The way Itachi touched Sasuke, just before Sasuke supposedly lost all memory – well, it's not how Naruto would ever touch Konohamaru, but then he and Kono have never been as close as Itachi and Sasuke. It's a greedy kind of touch.

"He thinks," Sasuke starts. "He's wrong. Now that I'm not all tangled up in it, I get him more." He snorts. "He adores me, that's his problem."

In the scene of Sasuke's slightly fuzzy memory, Sasuke's on the floor, unable to move much. Itachi's cradling him.

Itachi tells him, You speak to me in my head. It used to only be Lucifael, then it was God. But now your voice is drowning them out… Are you a saint? A witch?

I'm a person! Sasuke snaps. His mouth tastes burnt. What you hear are your own delusions.

Itachi again makes the sign of the cross on Sasuke's face, first with his finger, then with his mouth. The burnt taste intensifies. You speak to me. In my dreams, in my soul, you speak to me.

If I ever tell you I forgive you, you can be sure it's not me.

His head explodes: light, pain, emptiness.

"Loving someone," Naruto says, with a terrible weight in his chest, "that's not how. It's not about hurting them."

"Really? Because I remember you eating my heart out of my chest."

Naruto sags, as if axed. The world is darkness and ashes. "When I – raped you."

Sasuke frowns. "No? Did I tell you that?"

"It's not like you had to."

"Naruto, I was a willing participant. I'm the one who let Kyuubi out. I'm the one who didn't immolate you."

Naruto makes a wide, rage-wild gesture, before his hand falls, suddenly as though cut off. "You wanted it more than you wanted me dead, but that's – that's not enough, that's wrong…"

"Get over yourself. It's not that simple. When it's human on human, maybe, but you're not human. You'll never be human."

"Would you want me if I were?"

He's collapsed onto his hands and knees, head hanging close to Sasuke's chest.

Sasuke puts a thoughtful, proprietary finger on his cheek, pressing against the whisker scars. "You'd have to be more of a kept wife."

Naruto laughs a terrible, hoarse laugh that scrapes him raw on the inside. "I don't think I'd be very good at that."

"Hn. Probably not." His hand travels up Naruto's face, tangling in Kyuubi's ear.

Naruto presses his face to the beat of Sasuke's heart. "You remember me."

"Some of you."

Naruto nods, rubbing his face against Sasuke's ribs. "I have to learn to exorcise again. This hard stand against the humans, we've got to be united. So I have to be able to exorcise, so we can leave all this stupid internal strife behind."

"You're unclean."

"Nothing in this world can sully Uriel. Not even being channelled through me." He curls even closer, slipping his arms around Sasuke's middle. "You were making a sacred sword for me."

"Really?"

"Mmh."

"Hmm."

"We're gonna do this," Naruto says. "Together. We can do better, and we will."