Inspired Chapter 1: I'll Wait, a naruto fanfic

A/N: Hello everyone! So this is one of many firsts for me this is my first time writing anything in many many years… this is my first time posting under this penname. It is my first time writing something Naruto and it's my first time writing in this style. I am also trying something new here.

So this is a first in a series of One Shot Stories. Each chapter will be a different storyline and different pairings… (maybe ;) ) and each one will include the song that inspired it. Because music is so versatile the feeling in the story will be different.. but, dear reader, this depends on you.

Here's where you come in! I have a coupe chapters planned… but if this goes how I would like it to, I would love your input/suggestions. Im respectfully begging for your song and pairing comments. If you hear a song and it makes you feel something (happy, sad, thoughtful… sexy) and you have a couple in mind, let me know! That is my (hopefully) unique basis with this series.

I'll be including the song details with each chapter and it is suggested you listen while reading. See if it stirs you too!

Thank you for reading! Please follow and leave comments!

P.S. This particular chapter, though I am sure it will be fairly obvious through reading, I purposely did not name anyone.

Song: The Night We Met
Artist: Lord Huron

He waited…

Three years of chasing and searching. Of disappointment and let downs. Time spent angry and hurt and confused. Time spent apart. Time spent ostracized because of what can't even be described as an unpopular opinion because of the unrelenting, all consuming belief that everyone else was wrong; because they were… and they weren't. But that part didn't matter… he waited… for him.

A sort of impatient, righteous, loud, overbearing… obnoxious kind of waited, but waited nonetheless. After everything he had said, done and put him through… he still waited. He could have, and probably should have let him go. Let him fall and let him deal with the consequences… alone. But promises were made and oaths were sworn and the outcome was this brilliant, beautiful and annoying burst of sunshine when at the time, darkness was so much easier. Darkness was empty. Darkness didn't feel.

It wasn't until much later did the realization hit of how much he wanted sunshine, craved it even. After he returned, the darkness that he desired so much for its emptiness and emotional void was suddenly suffocating and all consuming. He felt everything. He felt every single pair of eyes that stared at him like a caged animal; like they were waiting too, but for something else entirely. He felt as dirty as they saw him, as though everything that had happened since he left was stained on his skin; a tattoo he couldn't remove; a cursed mark.

Even those that had been close once (or as close as he would have let them) kept him at arm's length. Some, even further. To some level he knew and understood, somethings could not be forgiven and certainly never forgotten. He had vowed to pay his debt, but for a long time he felt like he was trying to bail water out of a fishing net. Had it not been for the undeserved warmth of the sun, he would have surely been laid to waste long ago. If not his body then from the pieces of his mind that had been long since been picked away.

He loved him…

It was all too much at first… for a long time… he believed him and trusted him implicitly. But he was too bright and honest and fair and… good. It was too much for him all at once. Though in hindsight, he supposed it wasn't really all at once or all so sudden. Throughout the years, even before he left there was this unspoken need for the other. Innocent as children, just a simple need to belong and to be understood. As they grew, so did the need; as teenagers the more complex needs of structure and familiarity and stability. They pushed each other and challenged each other and ignited fires deep in their minds. These fires burned and raged and brought to light needs that neither dared to speak.

Neither dared, until they did. Until in a moment of weakness and fear it couldn't be contained any longer. Until his sun spoke it into existence. Until it could no longer be ignored. It created something he hadn't had before, something he'd given up on, something that at time was more painful than the emptiness; it created hope, and try as he may to drown it, as much as he wanted to calm this feeling… it grew. And it scared him.

He knew fear… intimately. But this was different. This was a fear born from tasting happiness and freedom. Fear in knowing how quickly and easily this sweet and delicate thing could be destroyed, the soul crushing devastation that would follow. The shell that would left cracked and broken… hollow. There would be no coming back. There would be nothing left after a fall like that from soaring so high.

So I waited…

He knew he was stalling. He made ridiculous excuses… the most ridiculous being "It's not the right time, Dobe." The response always being, "There is no right time, Teme." The right time? As though there would be some perfect moment when the stars would align with the planets and the moon and sun would shine together in the sky to signal the universes blessing of their union. There was no such thing, and he knew it, as 'the right time'. All they had was time itself. Good times, bad times, embarrassing and low times. They had time to talk, time to think… they took time to walk and time to breathe. There were times they laughed so hard that it hurt as much as the times they fought. Before he knew it, time slipped away. Five more years had gone by.

He waited and waited before taking that next step. Peering around every corner for whatever was coming for him. Waiting for the crash and the letdown. Waiting for the darkness that would take away this newfound light. But after five years of nothing but time and healing, he was ready. He was ready for what was next. The hope had settled and overcame the fear… and the light of it was so… intoxicating and heady and pure. He gave in to the hope and the light and the love. He could breathe finally after suffocating for so long. Like finally taking a full breath for the first time since he left so many years before.

It was bliss...

Until it wasn't.

It began with three little red dots… so small, almost lost in the snow white contrast of the tissue. So small, but just seeing them made his throat tingle and his chest tighten. But after calming himself he rationalized with himself that this was nothing... allergies at most. Nothing to worry about. But the paranoia had already settled, despite a rooted refusal to let anything shatter this seemingly fragile peace he had finally achieved in his life. Three little red dots evolved. Over time the three little dot became a splatter of crimson life on his pillow case after a coughing fit that woke him from sleep. That splatter turned into a near constant metallic coating in his mouth. He grew pale and little by little, hardly noticed by anyone other than his sun, his strength started to leave him his muscles waning. Until finally he had to go see her and find out what exactly was going on.

His sun aside, she was the other great force in his life… though at times misguided, she too never truly gave up believing in a brighter road for him. This beautiful vibrate cherry blossom of a human that grew tall and strong and grounded when everything else seemed like it was floating away. He knew she would be delicate but firm and tell him exactly what he needed to do. It was her time finally to take her turn to fix him. Fix him so he wouldn't have to tell. She was more than confident but her telling eyes showing concern, not liking the secret. But she would play along for the time being, because it was him… happy or not, she would always have a soft spot for him. She would play along until she couldn't…

"We got your tests back…"

This little nagging voice picked at him that she paused for way too long… as though searching for the best words to deliver a death sentence…. Because he knew at that moment, that's exactly what this was… a death sentence. And she could see in his eyes. She knew he knew. She sniffed lightly clinging to what courage she had to stay strong and continue.

"I'm so sorry… if you want help telling –"

"No… That's not necessary... Just – tell me what it is…"

It's like a stain…

That's exactly what it was… it must have started years ago, before he returned. Back when all he had was time. When the mark was removed. It seems there had been a contingency. A vengeance clause in case things didn't turn out as planned. A very slow onslaught of decay. If he were to defect… by his choice or someone else's, it triggered his own death clock. But it was clever in the way that the hours didn't chime… there was no hint that the hours had passed until it was too late and you couldn't turn back the hands. Time was up… looking at the images on the lighted panel all he could see was the stain that had spread over… everything. It was in him, entangled in everything and it was starting to tighten its grip.

And there it was… the downfall he feared so much. The monster under the bed, that he spent so much time, wasted so much time, running from… it had been inside him from the beginning. Why had he waited? All that time he could have had with his sun, willingly forfeited… as he waited. As he waited for fear to subside and waited for the fucking right time that truly never existed. And now… now that it was here… his bliss. His happiness… his sun. His time was gone and it was leaving fast.

It was sad… heart wrenching. It was painful... mostly mentally by this time since after several weeks his body felt very little. But his mind, which seemed to have been saved for last, clung to everything. His eyes started getting cloudy and his vision was blurred and he was confined to bed within days of telling his secret. There were tears. Big, sloppy, ugly tears that fell and fell until they thought they would drown. But his sun… his beautiful, loving sun promised he would never leave. He stayed. Through anger and screaming and tears. He stayed and held him and loved him and soothed him, while a war raged within him; claiming him.

When it was almost time he pulled his sun close and rested his head on his chest to feel his heartbeat. He felt at peace. A strange kind of acceptance had settled eventually, reluctantly. It was this night as the held onto each other fending off what they no longer could. His sun spoke gently about their younger selves, taking them back to carefree days when they used to run everywhere… racing each other.

"You're running too far ahead of me… I can't catch up…"

"This… this is no race… p-please take your time… and don't worry… it's my turn now… I'll wait up ahead."

His eyes were so tired…. His fingers losing their grip…

"I'll wait…"

Lyrics

I am not the only traveler
Who has not repaid his debt
I've been searching for a trail to follow again
Take me back to the night we met

And then I can tell myself
What the hell I'm supposed to do
And then I can tell myself
Not to ride along with you

I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you
Oh, take me back to the night we met

When the night was full of terrors
And your eyes were filled with tears
When you had not touched me yet
Oh, take me back to the night we met

I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you
Take me back to the night we met

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Ben Schneider