"I really don't need to be here, you know?"
"Brat," Tsunade sneers at him from the screen, her mouth fading into pixels as it moves. "Seventy percent of your right hand has been eradicated."
"Well, yeah. But it's not like it's gonna heal any faster because I'm in the infirmary."
Tsunade doesn't hit him with the obvious line about if it's gonna heal at all. If she thought it would, she'd say it.
"Oh," Naruto says.
"Cubbie…"
"It's fine," Naruto says. "I'm fine."
Sasuke at last steps through the doorway, as if called by the terrified shock hovering at the edge of Naruto's consciousness. He enters the room ungraciously, face drawn by Naruto's panic and Naruto's pain. Part of which, really, is Sasuke's panic, because Naruto's remembering things that have never happened to him.
Remembers being held down, some sort of padded bench under his shoulder blades, and gagging on the antiseptic stench. Barely enough time to resolve not to scream before he starts screaming. Part of him gone, as he's cut down to a smaller size: his life made smaller, by having a piece of him stolen away to mark out the new limits of his existence. The noise of a bone saw and the same shocky distance from reality that Naruto experiences when he looks at the remains of his hand and is unable to really register them as that.
Sasuke's fingers dig into Naruto's shoulder, grinding against the bone, and he discovers that he was hyperventilating.
"What are you doing?" Tsunade demands.
"Shut up." Sasuke takes a step towards the tablet with the clear intention of shutting it off, but is easily stopped. Just Naruto's hand on his elbow, and he turns his back on the screen.
Previously, when Naruto's been hurt by exorcist magic, it's been backlash from Sasuke, or Sasuke using it against him – Sasuke has been in control of the power, has stood between Naruto and its source. This time it was Naruto who tried and was found wanting, Naruto who failed in the eyes of God.
Sasuke pushes at him until Naruto's lying down again, and then gets on the bed beside him. Even now, with his right arm ending in phantom pain and hellfire ash, Naruto's heart picks up speed as Sasuke moulds himself to his back. Sasuke's hand sneaks under Naruto's shirt, fingers pressed to Naruto's stomach. "Use more," he says.
"I don't have anymore to use."
"I don't – have to be conscious." Sasuke shifts against him, shifts closer. He's terrible at it, sharp-edged and clearly uncomfortable, and Naruto might have a heart attack from how much he loves it. "I'd be less likely to stroke out if I'm not, so you wouldn't have to share, either."
And this time it's Sasuke holding out a hand full of magic. Stingy, reluctant, but he holds it out and lets Naruto take it, breathless at first because what if it burns too, what if it's his soul that'll burn this time – but filtered through Sasuke's mind, the power is neutered.
"Go on," Sasuke says. His fingers are so tense they twitch against Naruto's stomach, but he means it.
Naruto pulls power and more power into himself, forcing it through the cracks in Sasuke's seal and through Sasuke's mind. Sasuke hates it so much he starts panicking, but he's unconscious before he can stop the power transfer.
Naruto's hand does improve, a little. The pain lessens, and half a centimetre of new skin curls over what remains of his thumb. But Kyuubi can't get traction on the burn. Kyuubi's power is a power of this world, can affect this world, and the burn is from Heaven.
Worse, forcing power through the seal, sloppy now and desperate, triggers Sasuke's brain haemorrhage, and so Kyuubi's power must be diverted after all.
So Naruto just lies there, soaked in his own sweat and panting, hugging his own chest to try and keep the air in because he's not getting enough, he's not.
"Cubbie…"
"What? What's the next step here? I – I – "
Tsunade sighs, heavy enough to move the earth. "I'll be there by tonight. In the meantime – try being intimate with him."
"He's unconscious."
"Yes, and if you keep draining him he won't wake up until you're done. Easy now – you're right-handed, Naruto. He might even understand."
Sasuke would understand. From anyone but Naruto, he would understand.
Wake up, he thinks. Wake up.
And Kyuubi's power's not doing him any good, his hand's a mess of dead flesh and nothing he does can fix that, so he pushes the energy into Sasuke.
Sasuke's fingers twitch against his stomach again, incidentally pulling Naruto closer. "No good," he says. It's not a question.
His words hit the very base of Naruto's neck, his eyelashes moving against the back of Naruto's head.
Then he sits up, away, and Naruto thinks, no and is reaching for him without thought – and then gasping into the pillow, because he's right-handed, he touched Sasuke with the stump and oh god, oh god…
"Idiot," Sasuke mutters. But he comes back, slides his arm around Naruto's waist again, and when Naruto's shirt rides up he discovers that they're skin to skin.
Sasuke sat up to take his shirt off.
"It makes you feel better, right," Sasuke says, so uncomfortable the words almost don't make it past his lips. "I should have, before, but."
But undressed he'd be so fucking defensive he couldn't have let Naruto siphon any power off him.
"Yeah."
"If you feel," Sasuke says. "I'll let it – it'll – I'll feel it too."
Naruto's heart jerks inside his chest.
"It's logical," Sasuke says, tone ill-tempered and sore. "Strengthening the bond. More magic for you, and you'll be more – the closer you're tied to me, the less the light should hurt you. It only makes sense."
"Don't – don't do it because of that."
"Stop me."
Sasuke slides his hand into Naruto's underwear.
"Jesus! Stop."
"Walk away."
Naruto does not walk away, and Naruto does not stop him.
Sasuke's completely open to it now, to the way Naruto's lust pounds and rages. Naruto can feel him start panting, breath and chest moving against the back of Naruto's body, as his fingers tighten around Naruto's cock, thumb flicking repeatedly over the head.
Dizzily, dimly, he's aware that Sasuke's acting on Naruto's desire, not on his own. He does exactly what Kyuubi would do, biting wetly at Naruto's shoulder and neck. Naruto groans, wants so much, moving his hips into Sasuke's hand and incidentally rubbing his arse against Sasuke's body.
Sasuke reaches around him, grabbing his right arm and locking the wrist against the very edge of the bed, so the stump's in the air and can't touch anything even as Naruto's phantom fingers start to twitch.
That hurts, it hurts so bad, and Naruto grinds his hips harder into Sasuke's. Into Sasuke's hips and, very shortly, Sasuke's erection.
Sasuke kisses under his ear, free hand tugging down his trousers, and Naruto wants to turn around, wants to touch him back, but his arm is still trapped and it feels so good just like this.
Sasuke's nails whisper over his erection, across his hip and over his buttocks. Naruto feels his face heat to burning, lightheaded.
Sasuke could be as rough as he wanted. Naruto would still want it, and Naruto will heal.
But Sasuke takes his time. He strokes breath-soft, circle after circle on over-sensitised skin. By the time he finally slips a finger inside, Naruto's desperate for it, every breath thick as a groan.
"Please." He's never been so submissive in his life. Sasuke's going to fuck him and he's dying for it.
Another sharp bite at his nape, and Sasuke's fingers skimming lightly up his ribs, and god, how is that so erotic?
"Sasuke. What're you…? Sasuke, come back. Please."
"Condom."
"I don't care, just –"
"I'm not cleaning you up after."
"Don't ca– Oh. Oh."
He screams into the pillow, gets his mouth full of feathers because cotton was never meant to withstand shifter fangs.
It's only afterwards that he thinks how Tsunade had better have had the sense to end the call.
xxxxx
"Minato, I can handle this on my own."
Like most children, Minato grew up loving, respecting and often resenting his mother. He's right back in that emotional state now, hearing her rough, condescendingly amused voice.
"I'm here for Rock," he says shortly.
The capital is poised on the very edge of war, now that he's taken Sasuke. They cannot afford internal strife on top of that.
"Don't freak out on him," Tsunade tells him. "It's an ugly wound."
"I need a clearer prognosis."
"I don't have one. You've seen the footage, he grabbed the sword, he burned. He pulled enough power from Uchiha to leave Uchiha unconscious, and he still couldn't heal himself, not enough that it matters."
"He should have reinforced the bond."
Tsunade snorts. "That's what I told him. Of course he'd have none of it, but fortunately when Uchiha woke up he had the same idea." She looks away. "It didn't help much."
"Right."
When he steps into the infirmary, he does so very quietly. For a wonder, Naruto not only hasn't run off, but is actually in his assigned bed. Curled tight on his side, mangled hand hanging off the edge of the mattress, he sleeps, looking small for once. He keeps trying to turn around, and Sasuke, sitting beside him with a book propped against his knees, keeps preventing him, putting his hand intermittently on Naruto's neck and gentling him.
He must feel some approximation of safe, Minato surmises, because he doesn't seem to have noticed their arrival.
Tsunade steps briskly past him into the light. "Hello, Sasuke."
Sasuke looks up but doesn't speak. Naruto moves in his sleep, clearly pulled towards consciousness, until Sasuke touches his face again, dragging his thumb in circles where Naruto's nose turns into Naruto's forehead.
"Naruto," Minato says. His voice sounds odd in his own ears, unfamiliar. "Naruto."
It's only when Sasuke lifts his hand away that Naruto stirs, sitting up quickly so his entire side is pressed against Sasuke's. "Dad!"
In a single day, it comes to him, he lost both Naruto and Kakashi to Sasuke.
Maybe it's karma. If he'd done the right thing, if he'd saved Sasuke when Sasuke was still saveable, he might not have lost them.
He tries to smile. It doesn't come out right. "You've been very stupid, Naruto."
What would Yui have said, if she'd seen this? Perhaps not much. She loved Naruto, but she could never control him, and so Naruto was often hurt: what Yui, with her human sensibilities, considered seriously hurt.
"I'd like to see the blade," he says.
Sasuke looks at Naruto. There's some silent communication, obvious enough because they're neither of them subtle people, and then the brat holds out his hand.
This is the closest Minato's ever been to an angel blade. It hangs suspended in the air a centimetre or so above Sasuke's palm, absolutely incongruous in the infirmary room.
"Stop," Naruto says sharply.
Minato looks at him in question.
Naruto shrugs, which lets him touch Sasuke more. "You're going to burn." Sasuke's expression corroborates this, and clearly Sasuke wasn't going to issue any warnings.
Minato stops, but turns to Sasuke. "Surely you can control it."
"Surely I can control the fact that you're a filthy beast?"
"Naruto's much closer to it," Minato points out, mildly enough.
"Naruto's mine."
Naruto makes a strange sound like purring.
Minato chooses to ignore this. "Then you're not taking very good care of your property, are you?"
"I'm so glad," Naruto interrupts, "that this random pissing contest is more important to you than I am."
"Enough," Tsunade cuts them off. "Get that thing away, and Naruto, hold out your arm."
Minato would like to explain to Naruto that Sasuke hates him and will keep hating him, but he needs to figure Sasuke out, and so pushing and prodding will have to do. But Naruto doesn't think like that.
Naruto wets his lips when Tsunade takes hold of his wrist, inspecting what little remains of his hand.
A dominant hand, Minato thinks uncharitably while looking past the stump at Sasuke's expressionless face, is much harder to replace than a foot.
"I don't know what to tell you," Tsunade says at last. "I'm hopeful that it'll recover in a few years."
"Right," Naruto says blankly. There's no warning, not even to Sasuke, because there's no thought at all. Naruto says right and it's just blank space between that and Naruto making a blade out of Kyuubi's tail and cutting off the mutilated hand.
It's too fast for pain and in any case too much shock for that. He sits staring at the stump and it bleeds very badly, and he needs energy now at once.
"Not with them here," Sasuke snaps.
"Out!" Naruto roars.
He could withdraw Kyuubi's healing, which is the only thing keeping Sasuke's brain from bleeding. Sasuke couldn't stop him drawing power then. But Sasuke wouldn't shield him, and so Naruto would be drawing power that would burn him from the inside out.
"Out!"
Minato feels unacceptably like a child, being dragged out of the room by his mother. It's not the first and it's not the worst time he's failed to protect his precious people.
"He's too careless with himself," he says tonelessly.
"He trusts himself," is Tsunade's take on it. "Perhaps too much. And I suppose it's that he trusts Uchiha, too."
I want him to trust me, Minato can't actually bring himself to say. Naruto has made the correct assessment that Minato isn't trustworthy. His priorities aren't compatible with Naruto's, and he can't even deliver on the things he does prioritise.
He let Yui die, and has never trusted himself again after that. Naruto, who did forgive him that, will never forgive him for the Sasuke mess.
Perhaps, then, Naruto's right to trust Sasuke more. Sasuke after all is incredibly damaged, but he's not broken. Minato is.
When they go back in, Sasuke's slumped boneless against Naruto. He visibly hates his helplessness, twitching with fury, but Naruto's drained him well. Naruto's sitting upright, clearly in serious pain but smiling like victory. There's a hand now, still more energy than flesh but clearly on its way to materialise.
"A day or two, right?" he says.
"That'd be my estimate," Tsunade agrees.
"Recklessness like this," Minato starts. But what is there to say? It was the right call. Even if it hadn't been, there wasn't much hand left to lose.
"Why are you even here?" Naruto asks.
"I need to deal with Rock."
"That's my thing!" Naruto erupts.
"Well then," Minato says, with another glance at Sasuke slumped limply and starting a nosebleed. Life would be so much simpler if they could keep him semi-comatose, a human battery who didn't complicate matters or get in the way. "Perhaps we should bring in our people and lay out some plans."
Naruto bristles, his left hand tightening on Sasuke's shoulder. "What, so you can show me off healed and in charge of him?"
"Current rumour is he crippled you for life for daring to touch him. If you expect that to impress Rock, I seriously question your judgement."
Naruto glances down at Sasuke, another silent exchange. "Fine. Bring them in."
Sasuke's a proud little thing, Minato thinks, but that very pride might make him not care how a shifter sees him.
Naruto leans over and licks up his nosebleed.
By the time the meeting is set up, Sasuke's propped against the headboard and clean, if no more energetic. It's another twenty minutes before he regains his energy, kicking the blanket of his feet and adopting a far more alert and defensive position. Still he doesn't move away, and doesn't speak. In fact, whereas Naruto's an animated part of the discussions, Sasuke to all appearances tunes them out completely, even going so far as picking up a volume on blessings. Minato recognises it as one of the books Shikamaru dug out of some long-forgotten storage but couldn't read.
"That's completely ridiculous!" Naruto declares. "You can't just march in somewhere and expect people to follow you because of something you say you'll do in future. Like, if you're good, we might save your lives? Way to get ourselves resented!"
"Look," Asuma says, in a far more reasonable tone. "We don't even know if it'll be possible for us to exorcise their demons. Better get them onboard now, and the promise of safety will keep them in line. If they do fuck with us, and to some extent I'm sure they will, then we'll have a perfect excuse if we can't deliver."
"That's not how you treat your people, and we can!" Naruto counters any doubtful looks by wiggling his right hand. "Look? I'm perfectly fine, I'll be as good as new by tomorrow. And this was for actually grabbing an angel blade. If Sasuke's just exorcising, I'll be fine. I was when he did on the way here."
That's not what Minato heard, but as long as Naruto survives without permanent damage, it's good enough. Not ideal, but good enough.
"We'll do one of the human settlements first," Naruto continues. "Tone down hostilities with them, and it'll be proof to Rock. Then I'll have time to build some better shields, too, so I can be more involved with Rock."
"We'd be in a better negotiating position if we'd delivered proof," Hayate agrees. "They'll grow increasingly desperate. The longer we negotiate before we swoop in, the better terms we could get."
"No," Naruto says. "What the hell. We are not leaving our people prey to demons when we can help them!"
"Of course not for long enough that they'll be a depleted resource, but looking at it logically –"
"That's beneath us."
The heated discussion moves back and forth. Minato is, right now, more interested in seeing Naruto's take on it than in steering it. In any case he suspects it won't matter, because – "Yes," Sasuke says at last, tonelessly. "I will."
He will do what Naruto says.
Minato's surprised, and relived, that Naruto's grin is take charge and arrogant rather than grateful: that they're playing this as Sasuke obeying him, rather than as Sasuke indulging him.
"I'm surprised," Tsunade says later, when it's only the four of them left, "that you were so open to having the sword examined."
Sasuke's eyes stay cool, and he shrugs. "Examination won't make it any less ineffable."
He takes something from – either from his pocket or from thin air – something which turns out to be a rosary, with enough beads to wrap it twice around Naruto's neck in an extremely tacky necklace. The beads glow a soft white-gold, and Naruto's grimace indicates that they're uncomfortable but not painful.
"Get used to it," Sasuke says.
"Mmh. Dad – Orochimaru called."
"Did he indeed. What did he say?"
Surprisingly it's Sasuke who says, "I didn't pick up."
"Has he sent any messages?"
"None that I've read. Temari's human stole my phone, if you're planning to look."
"I believe I shall." It will be pointless: Orochimaru will have written Sasuke in the language of God, unreadable to non-exorcists.
"Didn't you?" Naruto asks, when Dad has left. "Only I thought you did check some messages."
"Those were from Kimimarou."
"Ah," Naruto says uncertainly.
Sasuke shrugs. It's still very new that this doesn't hurt. "Orochimaru's pushed him too hard. He's going to go nova soon."
That's how an exorcist ends: channelling so much angelfire that it burns anything human away, self-cremating. That's how they all end up, sooner or later, in a grave in the sky.
Kimimarou is magnificent, a crusader prodigy of immeasurable power. Kimimarou is pitiful, pushed to the brink by experiment after failed experiment to extend the nova limit, and grateful for it, grateful to martyr himself for Orochimaru's cause.
Naruto picks at the spine of Sasuke's book, reduced almost to inane questions about it. Reduced to saying anything, so Sasuke won't bring up leaving, or worse, just go away. "This is…uh. Blessings? Maybe?"
Sasuke gives him a rather sardonic look. "I'm going to bless you."
"Hmm?"
"Sit still," Sasuke mutters. Naruto can feel himself fidgeting, tense and bemused, but it doesn't seem to matter. Sasuke starts chanting, not quite singing, and one of the rosary beads light up.
"You're not gonna do all of them?"
Of course he is. When the first bead has attained a steady shine, Sasuke stops rambling Latin. "We'll start with one set of Ave Maria. Then you should be ready for a Pater Noster."
They've made it through maybe seventy percent of the rosary when they reach the end of their energy. Naruto's skin is stinging now where the beads touch, and Sasuke looks about ready to drop, or at the very least start another heavy nosebleed.
"Tomorrow?" Naruto suggests. Regenerating his hand eats most of his power, and Sasuke's been drained several times today.
"Hn."
Naruto collapses on his side, digging his face into the pillow with gusto.
Sasuke slips off the bed.
"Stay." The word hangs awkwardly in the air, unable to bridge the distance between plea and command.
"I don't want to."
"Right."
Sasuke stands still just beside the bed, eyebrow up. "You're not going to fight me on it?"
"You know everything I could say," Naruto admits, in a smaller voice than he'd like. "The energy will recover better if we're closer together. Obviously I want you here. If someone tries to bother us, Kyuubi will chase them off. If – if he calls again, I can hang up on him."
"Don't touch me in my sleep," Sasuke says gruffly, climbing into the bed beside him.
Naruto doesn't touch him in his sleep, but Kyuubi of course does. Hand finally stable enough for any of his energy to be diverted from it, he reaches eagerly for Sasuke. Unexpectedly – emotionally unexpectedly, though not intellectually because of course Orochimaru will have conditioned him – Sasuke in his sleep responds to this as something natural, curling tight and familiar under Naruto's arm.
This means that when Sasuke wakes up shaky and gasping from a nightmare in the small hours of the morning and Naruto has the ridiculous urge to take him in his arms, Sasuke's already in his arms. "Talk to me," Naruto says. Kyuubi's tails wind around Sasuke's legs, a gloving comfort blanket of semi-demonic energy.
Sasuke blinks, once, twice, and then is entirely calm, mechanical rather. "I dreamt Orochimaru called me and I went to him."
"Why?"
"Because he called," Sasuke says impatiently. "Because he told me to."
Naruto draws in a deep breath. His voice is still a night-time voice, thicker and lower than in daylight hours. "I wouldn't let that happen."
"How would you stop me?" It's a real question, a factual question.
"I'll restrain you if I have to."
"You'd just burn."
"I could trigger your stroke. Keep Kyuubi's healing at a minimum. Drain your energy while you were bleeding out."
Sasuke nods, visibly calmer. He lies down again without another word, Kyuubi's tails still wrapped around his legs, which are pulled tight against his body. His forehead rests heavily against Naruto's ribs.
In the morning Sasuke rolls away from him, sharp elbows and sleepy scowl.
Naruto mumbles protest, instinctive claws shredding Sasuke's shirt as he tries to keep him. It could be so simple.
"You got enough yesterday," Sasuke tells him.
Naruto remembers. Stop me, Sasuke said, and touched him, took him. He swallows. "About that. I, um. I told you not to."
"And I told you not to touch me in my sleep."
"I…" He pulls at a loose thread on the pillowcase, shredding that too.
"You knew it was all right really."
Naruto knows that it was not, but he did it anyway, because he had to.
Sasuke discards the ruined shirt with a frown, digging through a cabinet for a replacement.
"Hey," Naruto tries, scrambling up into a sitting position. "Remember when we used to have sleepovers in the tree house."
"Hn," Sasuke says tonelessly, tugging on a hoodie with frayed cuffs that someone must have left behind.
"When we –"
"It doesn't matter."
"Why? Look, it's a good memory, right, it's…"
Sasuke looks at him as if he's wondering what Naruto's playing at. "Good memories are as useless as bad ones."
"That's not true."
"Believe what you like."
"I will," Naruto says. "You will too, just you wait!"
xxxxx
"I didn't steal it," Shikamaru says, holding out Sasuke's broken phone.
Sasuke shrugs. "Hn." He accepts the phone without further comment and puts it away in his pocket.
"Why do you do that?" Shikamaru asks, sitting down with a sigh that touches on a huff and reaching over Sasuke's plate for the milk. "Dismiss me."
"Don't flatter yourself. It's nothing personal."
"Mmh, I know. It's more along the lines of, humans are insignificant, could be killed instantly. Which is silly. Any human could kill an exorcist, too. Killing isn't difficult."
Sasuke inspects a number of cereal packages, searching for one that's not made predominantly of sugar. "They'd do so at their peril."
Across the table, Naruto's talking loudly with his mouth full and gesticulating with his right hand. Its outlines are still a little fuzzy, more energy than solid flesh, but it's a matter of hours. It's a reminder that the days when Sasuke could be killed easily are gone.
Any human who touched him before that would have been given to the demons, to have their soul torn apart and devoured.
Shikamaru acknowledges this with a shrug. "Anyway, it's a waste."
Sasuke ignores him. People do that, now. It should be restful, Shikamaru resented teachers and relatives always picking away at him, but it's – such a waste. He stopped being a person in his own right when Temari took possession of him, became simply an extension of her. A wart, if you will.
He sighs around his sandwich. What do you do when the bigots are right? Some people really are worth more than others.
Sasuke doesn't need to say it, any more than Minato or Temari have needed to. Even Kakashi, who at least pretends sometimes not to dismiss him outright, has this condescending air about him. That in itself is fine. The soreness is about how they're right.
If Shikamaru somehow contrived to control the entire energy arsenal of the human world, he might exterminate a few hundred demons before turning the planet into a radioactive crisp. Mist Town would have been cleansed at the expense of the entire continent as a liveable space. Using anything but exorcist magic, you have to overkill, because if it's not enough energy to disintegrate the demon, the demon will suck it in and use it against you.
Ino, whom Shikamaru understands is considered a worthless exorcist, so weak she barely counts, easily defeats a dozen demons, with little to no surrounding damage.
Sure, Kakashi said once. It's not impossible to work with humans. You and I could made decisions together about how to approach a demon infestation. You could even make the cleanse plan. But I'd still always be the one who had to carry it out.
There's nothing Shikamaru can say about that. Worse, there's nothing he can do about it.
Naruto isn't principally opposed to listening to humans, but when push comes to show and emotions are running high you need to be able to force him to listen. Sasuke… Well, Shikamaru's planning to find out.
He takes another bite, watching Sakura sit down on Sasuke's other side and Sasuke conspicuously not react
"Hey," she says, very softly.
It's another few minutes before she looks for a long time at Naruto's hand. It's almost finished, a perfectly workable hand though covered by a thinning layer of orange energy. A few hours a most, Sasuke estimates.
"His hand," Sakura says at last, with an obvious effort to be toneless. "Were you – defending yourself?"
"No."
"Sasuke…"
"I don't have to explain myself to you."
"No. But shouldn't you want to?"
Sasuke doesn't have to answer, because Temari appears next to Shikamaru, and leans over in interest. "I would like to hear why he started screaming like a spitted piglet."
Sasuke shrugs. "Ask him."
"I did," Temari says. "He said he tried to learn to exorcise. Said he might have to pace himself."
"Exorcise," Sakura repeats.
Shikamaru's glad she does, so there's an excuse to dwell on it. The idea that it's possible to become an exorcist, that the world is anything but a Calvinist nightmare with the exorcists as the elect – if anyone would try to live that mad dream, of course it would be Naruto.
He remembers that fairy tale volume, that edgy retelling or whatever that hit the top lists last year: There are special people in this world. I've known that since I was very small. They are the people who attract everyone else's eyes. They are the people who start and stop wars, who found religions, who rule nations. Who become school dance queens and valedictorians and student council presidents. Yes, there are special people in this world. I am not one of them. If I hadn't already known that, I would hate you for proving it to me.
It had made Ino cry until she almost hyperventilated. Because Ino does know, Ino has known since she was very small, that there are special people in this world, and recently she has been forced to understand that she is not one of them and never will be. She's not a crusader. She doesn't matter.
She wants so badly to be special, wants it so very badly, and she will never have it.
"But that's impossible," Sakura says. "Right?"
"I'd like to learn myself," Shikamaru says mildly. He'd like even to be able to read the exorcist books he finally found. "Well, I suppose my scholarly dedication doesn't extend so far that I'd be prepared to start sacrificing my limbs."
"I'm sorry," Sakura says abruptly. She seems genuinely ashamed. "For suggesting that you'd done that to him. Only, yesterday – it looked like you might have had to defend yourself. Upstairs, when he was so… intense."
Temari snorts. "If I were fending off a lustful assault, it's not his hand I'd burn off."
Sasuke looks past them at Naruto's hand, which was all over him yesterday, just before Naruto burnt himself. It's an uncomfortable, a rather horrifying thought, but being intimate with Naruto has been far and away the most sexually gratifying experience of Sasuke's life. Orochimaru knows how to touch him, how to make it pleasurable when he wants it to be, and he wouldn't have slept with Kakashi if he hadn't got anything out of it, but it's very different to experience desire from the inside. To look at someone and want, rather than to want because you're being touched in a way that makes you want.
It's like… Sasuke, this isn't healthy. It's like sex is what you settle for. Like a replacement, for things you believe you can't have.
That was when he stopped talking to Sakura in any meaningful way, because that's not a thought he can have.
Is this really something you want? Kakashi's voice, long ago when Kakashi still pretended he was more concerned about what Sasuke wanted than with what he himself wanted.
Why would I let him take this away from me as well?
And anyway Sasuke had wanted, then, to be worth something to Kakashi.
Sasuke's fucked a lot of people, because it doesn't matter anymore, it doesn't mean anything, with Neji or Kimimarou or anyone really.
Across the table Naruto laughs again, rubbing at the back of his head and only wincing a little because he used his right hand. And Naruto's desire curls tight inside Sasuke, an infestation that never quite disappears.
If he touched Naruto now – if he let Naruto bite him, let Naruto inside him…
Naruto looks back at him, wide-eyed and flushed, and for a stupid second Sasuke thinks Naruto's going to bend him over the table and that Sasuke might let him.