Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or any of its associated characters!

Summary: COMPLETE. It was always the blue of Naruto's eyes that held him by the throat. SNS, PWP, canonverse, one shot. Sasuke's POV. Written for Sasuke's birthday!

A/N: I made it! Ahhh! I'd been bashing my head against the wall trying to get a different fic ready for today, and I realized I had to switch gears at uh...midnight. Last night. So! This fic is dedicated to everybody that voted yes in that indulgent twitter poll where I basically asked if I should write this - thank you all for the last minute push. I really needed it, and I hope it was worth it!

Happy birthday Sasuke!

Something

It had started in silence.

One look too many. One visit too few. After months of transient stays and unsatisfied letters, Sasuke had ached at the sight of him. Naruto's eyes had echoed in reply—in unison.

Their first time seeing each other in months.

The little changes in Naruto had set Sasuke on fire. Changes that marked the way they'd been apart, because Naruto's hair wouldn't have seemed so obviously longer if Sasuke had been there as it had grown. The bandages on his arm would be familiar as opposed to a reminder—and Sasuke would know that the sight of Naruto's bare forehead had meant he'd been wearing the hat of a Hokage, as opposed to the forgetful idiot Sasuke always automatically assumed he was—

He'd swallowed, and Naruto had been the first to move.

(He tended to be.)

He'd clung to Sasuke like a lifeline, and Sasuke had closed his eyes and breathed. It was like returning home. Like this is where he'd left himself—stuck, here, on Naruto's skin. This was where he'd left the air he could breathe. This is where he'd left the life he wanted to live.

Naruto's grip had loosened, and Sasuke managed to let go just enough to look him in the eyes.

In retrospect, that was what broke him. It was always the blue of Naruto's eyes that held him by the throat.

One kiss had turned to one hundred. One night had turned to four. One fitted sheet had been ripped to the floor, and one hotel had been...compensated.

It had been the start of something.

Everything with Naruto was the start of something.

Sasuke breathed out, staring up at the ceiling. He was early, and he was impatient. Every day was filled with waiting. Letters, promises, rooms, dates, times—Sasuke sought out for a life to live but found himself coming back to what he'd always known. Coming back to what was waiting for him.

It was a simple solace. A small comfort. Sasuke was not alone in this...something. Sasuke couldn't even pretend to be alone at all. No, Sasuke was of a pair. A half. An echo, a shadow, a moon to a sun. It was not a wish, nor a hope, nor a dream—just a truth.

Just their truth.

Sasuke twisted himself in his cold, lonesome sheets.

He wanted his truth now.

He'd done enough waiting. Enough wanting. Enough laying awake at night, unsatisfied. Unfinished. Sleep was nothing in comparison to the ways Naruto could breathe life into him. Naruto wanted him and Sasuke craved him right back—if Sasuke was a man addicted, Naruto was a man obsessed, and so let them be already. Let them live, let them breathe and feel and unravel each other only to carefully patch each other back to themselves again—

…Sasuke would have liked to think he had more patience than this.

He laughed, putting his hand over his eyes. As if he could fool himself into thinking he had his sense when it came to Naruto. He had every second of his life as evidence to the contrary.

But at least he was...close. Coming closer. He felt the chakra before Naruto even entered the building. Sasuke counted the seconds it took for Naruto to scale the stairs—

(He ran.)

Sasuke's eyes opened with the door.

"Hey."

A word. A breath. A sigh of relief, of delight. Sasuke's heart jumped into his throat, but he didn't stand. He stayed, laying, feeling the thrill run through him as Naruto's eyes lingered, stalled, stuck to him—

Sasuke rolled over and stretched, and Naruto was on him.

Sasuke laughed and burned. Sasuke loved this flame, loved Naruto's fingers, hot and aching and teasing his clothes until they were gone and forgotten. His hands felt up Sasuke's skin, clinging and pressed, one bandaged and one bare—whispers of their past and present, branding into him like the memories he'd tried so hard to stifle—

Sasuke's eyes snapped open, and Naruto smiled. He could control every part of him except the way he met Naruto's eyes. He could hide every part of himself except for all Naruto saw—

He caught Naruto in a kiss, and Naruto hitched. He paused and froze, like Sasuke had trapped him in place—and Sasuke laughed out his thrill because Naruto was his. The moment he wanted him. Sasuke could send a letter and Naruto would be there within the hour. Sasuke could show up in Naruto's office and his meetings would be scrapped within the minute. Naruto was his the second he wanted him to be and that second was now. Again. Always.

He wanted to ask for always.

Naruto's kisses moved down his chest, and Sasuke twisted his hand through blonde hair and melted. Naruto's mouth was hot and insistent—it told him everything he wanted and god Sasuke listened. He trembled. He thanked the day this something had started and begged it to continue, begged Naruto to continue, bit down so he wouldn't say it out loud—

Naruto heard him anyway.

The fingers pushed into him with the same heat as the tongue. The same intention, the same familiarity—Naruto was an expert in getting under Sasuke's skin. In rearing him up, in snapping him to react, in pulling him into the clouds and leaving him floating—Sasuke didn't know how he'd expected their bodies to be any different. He was lost to this touch. To this something. The feeling thumped around his heart like a bruise, making him ache, making him yearn—

He reached out, and Naruto gave him a clone to hold onto. Sasuke breathed out and Naruto gave him another—Naruto between his legs, Naruto underneath him, Naruto on his neck, in his mouth, in his hands, in his—

Sasuke shuddered and gave in. Naruto's kisses were incessant and layered, overlapping all over his body. Sasuke didn't know what he'd done to deserve them, but a Naruto pressed his nose to Sasuke's cheek, and Sasuke was whole. Another breathed out his name, and Sasuke was perfect. He felt the smiles as Sasuke's voice cracked, and Sasuke breathed in and obeyed them. Arched and let Naruto love him, with his smiles and his hands and his happiness like his own—sex with Naruto was never about Naruto, no matter Sasuke's focus and intent. No matter how he tried. Naruto was single-minded and Sasuke was weak, weak, weak—

Naruto's clones disappeared.

Sasuke smiled.

Good.

Let him break Naruto too. Let him snap his focus out from under him. Let him be the one to demand everything and get it—

Naruto grabbed him by the waist and twisted him around, entering him again in slow, purposeful ecstasy. It took two thrusts to find their rhythm, three more to find it faster. Faster. Faster, harder, deep enough to hit Sasuke exactly where Naruto knew to hit—Naruto ground him into the mattress and Sasuke dissolved underneath him, gasping in the dust and fabric, aching for Naruto to push and pull and want him. Love him. Love him as desperately and pathetically as Sasuke did—frozen when they were apart, alive when they were together—

Sasuke could never cum silently. He tried. He tried. But Naruto's hand pressed onto his back and Sasuke arched into a pleasure that had him so lost he couldn't help but gasp, to arch, to cry and breathe and hold on, cling to anything that let him, let Naruto push him into place and push right back against him—

The room came back to him, and Sasuke...breathed. Breathed. Breathed. Breathed. Naruto's mouth pressed to his back and Sasuke let his breath shake him. Let it chill him. Sasuke's skin was made to react to him. His eyes stayed closed as Naruto pulled back. Pulled out. Sasuke was undone and aching. He was soaked in his love. Drenched in it. He lied in it like the sheets twisted around him, and let his love leave him.

"Fuck," Naruto breathed out, collapsing. Sasuke hid his satisfaction with his pillow, watching Naruto breathe heavier than any fight had ever made him. It was a wicked satisfaction that had Sasuke scanning him, smiling, as if he hadn't been the one trembling with desire a moment ago—

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, asshole," Naruto muttered, groaning as he stood. "Stay there."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, but obeyed. He'd never been one to indulge in laziness. Not once, in any other occasion in his life, could he remember giving into the urge. And yet, when it came to Naruto…

"Here," Naruto said, holding out the paper towels. "I've got the spare sheets, hang on—"

Sasuke forced himself to stand. Naruto was already pulling the sheets from the bed—readying them for a wash. Something else, maybe. Naruto was awfully quick about changing them, setting the machine to start as early as he could—

Hm. They only had the single set of spares, then.

Sasuke sat back down and breathed out, letting his body...relax. Feeling all of the sensations he usually dulled. Pain and discomfort were a given in the life of a ninja. And bodies were only worth listening to if they had something efficient to say—like a muscle's tenderness, a possible injury, and the echo of Naruto on him and in him wasn't any of those things—

And yet Sasuke let himself feel it anyway.

Sasuke swallowed, and his throat felt thick.

"Hey," Naruto said, flopping down next to him.

Sasuke eyed him, feeling the smile on his face.

"Hello," he said. "Can I help you?"

Naruto's grin widened.

"I can help myself just fine, thanks."

Sasuke flicked the tip of his nose.

"Oi!"

"Moron," Sasuke sighed. "You were late."

"I was five minutes early!" Naruto protested—

"You were late."

Naruto laughed out his disbelief, and Sasuke huffed out a breath, as if he didn't know Naruto was right. Naruto had been early, Sasuke had been earlier. That was the problem with Naruto—he'd known it, from the moment he met him.

The second he indulged himself, that was it.

He'd lost.

Naruto sighed and rolled closer, and Sasuke did what he could not to close his eyes and breathe in the intimacy. These nights together were...decadent. Perfect. Enough to steal Sasuke's mind away and have him thinking of this every second they were apart. Naruto was warm and beside him, and Sasuke was...

"I...haven't told anyone," Naruto said, staring up at the ceiling. "Is that weird?"

"Haven't told them what?"

"About...us," Naruto said, turning towards him. "Y'know. That we're…"

Naruto's voice trailed off, and Sasuke felt like a dagger that had found a neck.

"That we're what?" he asked, bare and exposed but not alone. Not the only one. And Sasuke had a blueprint of Naruto's buttons in his head, his fingerprints imprinted from all the times he'd pressed them— "Fucking?"

"It—oh, come on, it's not just—"

Naruto stopped in a breath, but Sasuke had already won.

"Oh?" he asked, fire on the tip of his tongue. "What else is there?"

Naruto breathed in and said nothing. His throat strained with the silence, Sasuke saw it from the way his mouth opened and closed, elusive words that wouldn't let themselves be heard—

Sasuke sat up.

"What else is there?" he asked, his voice like a wire. Like a trap, set and ready—Naruto was frozen, but Sasuke was fire. Sasuke burned, Sasuke wanted to snap and spark and sear himself into Naruto the way Naruto so easily seared into him—

"Everything," Naruto whispered, and Sasuke tightened his grip. He pressed his hands to Naruto's waist and pulled, and felt, and wanted, asked, asked, asked—

"What would you tell them?"

Naruto looked up. Naruto swallowed. Naruto stared at him and breathed and let out a small, stuttered, "I—"

He didn't finish, but he didn't look away. He didn't blink. And Sasuke didn't reply, but he understood—he brought his chakra to his eyes, let Naruto look into them—

Ache. Ache and yearning and Sasuke gasped out as he felt it twofold, Naruto's love echoing in his head like an explosion. The pain when he was gone, the relief when he was back—the spark when they saw each other, the wildfire when they touched—

If they tried to explain it to someone, what would they say?

What could they say?

Words weren't enough.

Sasuke let out a trembling breath and faded back into his own head, staring into the bluest, bluest sky. Naruto looked back with all the fear of someone made bare, but he should have known better. He should have known—

"Usuratonkachi," Sasuke whispered, and their lips were together again. It was a soft, stupid perfection, as if they had been carved to fit each other. Impossible, but what other explanation was there? What could explain the touch of Naruto's fingers to Sasuke's neck? The weight of their hips, shifted and perfect—the press of their foreheads, warm and intentional…

People didn't fit like this.

Not like them.

He breathed out and broke the kiss, feeling...heavy. Weak. Trembling. Naruto's emotions still thundered in his head, whipped up into a storm Sasuke wanted to untangle one raindrop at a time. Needed to untangle. Sasuke knew but he wanted to know. He wanted Naruto to know. He wanted—

He wanted Naruto to tell him.

He swallowed, and he felt Naruto breathe in.

"I'd tell them I love you," Naruto said, and Sasuke's eyes snapped open. "That's what I'd say."

Sasuke could have laughed. Sasuke could have cried. He felt like he did both, all at once, hearing a truth he'd known but never heard—an answer he'd been searching for, asking for, let sit and settle because Naruto had shown him in every single other way and so what was the point in one more? What was just one more? Something?

Everything.

Sasuke swallowed and breathed, collapsing with the weight of all he felt. Raindrops on his tongue, in his eyes—fire just the same. He was cold and hot and Naruto caught him as if he was going to fall—maybe he was—

Maybe he had.

"Terrible."

"Wh—terrible?!"

"Terrible," Sasuke told him, hiding his face in Naruto's neck. "You need much more practice."

"I need—for saying I love you?!"

"That was even worse."

"Sasuke—"

"Practice it again."

Naruto paused, and Sasuke knew he was catching on.

"I...love you."

Sasuke breathed out, but didn't move.

"Better. Try it again."

Naruto's laugh rang through the room.

"Oi, asshole," he said, bumping their bodies together. "I love you."

Sasuke's smile widened.

"Again."

A/N: There it is! I'm off to go stare at all the incredible art and fics that have been posted today, I'm so happy I could post something too! I hope you all liked it!

Until next time,

- Kinomi