When Sasuke returns, the settlement is hushed. Most of Rock knows better, now, than to hiss at him. He walks stiffly, almost staggering, rather living up to that childhood nickname: scarecrow prince. Small and angular and dressed in black, he's reminiscent of nothing so much as a baby crow, not quite ready to leave the nest but pushed out now after all. That too is something Orochimaru called him: tobenai tenshi.

Most of Rock knows better. Naruto struggles desperately to get to his feet as some traitor arsehole tries to wipe Sasuke, his outline momentarily blurring. These are strong shifters, and many shifters, and Sasuke's so exhausted, he actually makes the sign of the cross to reinforce his will when eradicating his attacker.

"Enough," Shino says. "The demons are gone. He's served us well in this." He reaches down to pull Naruto to his feet and then keeps hold of his hand, shakes it. "Let's speak more later, you and I. Madoka, secure the perimeter. Asahi, show our guests to their accommodations."

"Kiba," Naruto says. "Take some of the guys and help them out. We want everyone safe too."

Kiba nods, and Shino makes no objection. They've got this, and finally, finally, he can grab hold of Sasuke, fall into him.

"Stand up," Sasuke says in his ear, in that inhuman voice that stings and sizzles.

Even afterwards, when they're in a locked room and Naruto collapses on the bed, Sasuke remains quite inhuman.

"What the hell were you doing?" Naruto demands, voice slurring with past-injury exhaustion.

Sasuke lifts an eyebrow. "Exorcising."

"No, before that. You were – so strange."

Sasuke makes a far more human and rather uncomfortable face. "I told you I know how to sub."

"Never do that again. That's not who you are. That's not who we are!"

Sasuke shrugs. "It worked, didn't it."

"You didn't need to do that. I could have got them to come around on my own."

"You need time for that," Sasuke tells him. "Now you have it."

"He's right," Shikamaru interjects. "Let them find out what your partnership is really like after they've agreed to merge. Like how we'll check for involuntary human mates and beastmad guards after, when they can't back out anymore."

It'll take some adjusting, integrating Rock, but they're on the right track now. Shino said, You've acted in good faith. I'd like to do the same.

Sasuke shares a look with Temari, and she briskly grabs Shikamaru's arm, closing the door behind them.

Naruto's lost the ability to blink, can't miss the possibility of an expression dawning on Sasuke's face. Because reasonably this means – but it can't mean – but Sasuke takes off his clothes. He does this quickly and efficiently, with nothing showy about it. Leaves the clothes on the floor and lies down on his stomach next to Naruto.

"You can go ahead."

"What are you doing?" Naruto's voice comes more breathless than he'd like, around the memory of, You got what you needed. Don't touch me again. "Mixed signals, seriously, look it up."

Sasuke slants a look at him over his shoulder, eyes slitted with what might be tiredness or crankiness. Definitely not with lust.

He's scrawny and pale, a different sort of pale from Sakura's, tinting gold rather than pink. Naruto rests a hand on his shoulder blade, tracing the ridge where the wings attach.

"You'll regain your energy and heal. By proxy so will I."

"Mmh. Or we could sleep," Naruto says, leaning over to kiss the edge of Sasuke's shoulder. "This hot and cold thing is getting insane."

"This is no place to be vulnerable."

He traces the long line of Sasuke's spine, up over his neck and into his hair. Down across the slope of his back, to the very edge of his arse. "You really don't like it here."

"They killed an exorcist."

"You knew her?"

Sasuke makes an impatient sound. "Exorcists are a valuable resource. They're not to be wasted, especially in a way that strengthens demons." He pushes his fringe out of his face, and when it falls back Naruto takes over, fingering it behind his ear. "The only way to avoid them eating you when they kill you is to go nova, and they didn't even give her time to do that. It's ridiculous. They must have realised she'd be no good – any exorcist who couldn't even wipe a few shifters would be worthless against this kind of demon infestation."

Naruto sighs, resting his face against the back of Sasuke's shoulder. "They did the best they could."

"If you get them in line, they'll be useful. If not, I'm cleansing them."

"They'll be part of us. A good part. A strong part."

He plays with Sasuke's hair, kissing his neck. There's no pretending his cock's not already engorged. "You could ride me."

"No."

"Mmh. Why not, though? It'd be really hot. I mean, if you were serious about…"

"Don't like it."

"Okay," Naruto says. Thinks how it's a convenient position when someone as short as Sasuke is getting fucked by someone massively taller, which is most people, and how it's such an exposed position. Your face, your body, your dick, all visible. But it's condescending and stupid to reduce all of Sasuke's sexual preferences to conjectures about what Orochimaru has and hasn't liked to do with him.

Sasuke tilts his head to look at him again. "What?"

"You said not to touch you. You didn't want…"

Sasuke sighs, resting his head on his arms. "I'm half asleep. I won't have to feel it much."

"Yeah, that's not really turning me on."

Sasuke shifts until his elbow is poking quite sharply at Naruto's dick. "Uh huh."

"I'm not some kind of animal in heat. Just because I get hard just thinking about you doesn't mean –"

"I want the seal more open before we return to the capital. So I want you biting. That'll end in fucking anyway."

Naruto makes a soft sound, not quite a sigh. Breathes into Sasuke's pores. "I want you to want it."

"This is what you can have," Sasuke says with finality, eyelids descending. "Take it or leave it."

Naruto rests his forehead against Sasuke's shoulder blades. "We both know I'm not leaving."

Sasuke grunts, then falls silent. Not asleep, but not really awake either. Naruto might have joined him after all, only he's healed enough now for Kyuubi to pay attention again, and the sight of Sasuke stretched out naked for him has Kyuubi exploding with want. Naruto pushes that down, draws on the incantations Sasuke left inside him to suppress the violent urge to pounce.

With Sasuke pliant for once, Naruto can take his time. He nuzzles down Sasuke's spine, dragging his hands up and down his sides. There's a lot of bone just under the skin, which is so soft, the kind of softness that Naruto, who's never touched silk, thinks of as silky. Orochimaru has obviously been careful not to leave scars, though some of the bones are a bit off, have been broken bad and healed wrong.

Kyuubi purrs, a low humming vibrating in Naruto's throat. He kisses Sasuke's neck and shoulders, sensitive places, his hands kneading Sasuke's thighs, rubbing along the edge of his buttocks. For a long, long time in this strange room, in broad daylight that lets him see everything, he strokes softly over Sasuke's back and arse and thighs and tells himself that this is trust: the closest to trust that Sasuke can come.

He's licking behind Sasuke's ear, smirking about tracing his name again and again across the small of Sasuke's back, when Kyuubi starts pushing out tails. They slither over Sasuke's skin, teasing underneath it. Kyuubi purrs even louder: the only part he doesn't like is Sasuke's left foot. The place where, about halfway down his shin, Sasuke's leg just ends. The metal pole stuck to the stump in no way resembles a human limb, and really just emphasizes the impression of loss, of something missing. It makes Kyuubi hiss and spit, and the holy writing on it doesn't help.

Distracted, he's let one of the tails slip up over Sasuke's arse. He can't find the motivation now to stop it sliding inside.

Sasuke sighs, not objecting, and Naruto reaches for the tin of weapons grease stashed under the bed. It's thick and greasy on his fingers, which he guesses means it's good. Also fitting, because Sasuke's beauty is the beauty of a really good blade.

He rubs a slick fingertip over the cleft of Sasuke's arse. Hasn't ever actually done this before, but it's hardly rocket science. Watching it slip inside, feeling how fucking tight Sasuke is around it – he palms himself before he forgets, slathering grease over his dick. Shit, that's hot.

Sasuke looks at him over his shoulder, eyes almost but not entirely closed. "Okay?" Naruto breathes, pushing in another finger.

"Mmh."

Last time Sasuke decided to have sex with him, he locked him in the cage and let out Kyuubi. That he didn't this time can be either very good or very bad.

I know what this is now, he said on the roof, and unfortunately did not mean that he knew Naruto loves him.

He twists his fingers, fascinated by watching them move inside. Pulls them out at last, and tugs at Sasuke's legs, urging him to spread them. Leans over Sasuke on his hands and knees, positioning his dick against Sasuke's stretched entrance, and it looks… Sasuke teased him in very factual tones about being small, but it looks grotesquely big now.

If it hurts, he'll – scream probably, because with this much archangel radiance still lingering just under Sasuke's skin and ready to break through, his dick will probably burn up if it displeases.

He leans up a little, opening his mouth around Sasuke's shoulder, letting his fangs sink into the seal at the same time his erection sinks into Sasuke's body.

xxxxx

"Good faith," are Naruto's first words as he swaggers back to the negotiation table. All eyes are on him immediately, Temari's too, and she thinks: he should be more pleased. Sasuke's intentions were not subtle, and from how energised Naruto is, Sasuke didn't change his mind.

Luckily they're down to formalities. "You must know," she says, an hour or two in, when Naruto's still far more strained than he should be, "that nothing short of an exorcism can handle this level of demon infestation. The Crusader Council certainly had no intention of sending you aid, and you couldn't possibly afford the indulgences they'd charge for a crusader. The only way out of this would be if you could convince the humans to intervene with the exorcists for you, but you're at war with the humans. This was your only possibly means of survival. Naruto risked himself for this. Nothing else could have saved you."

Shino isn't stupid, but these words couldn't have been spoken before he saw Naruto suffering, erupting in blood and curses and vanquishing light on that ratty carpet.

Everyone in the settlement will have seen the sky, which is blue, purely blue, for the first time in years.

"Yet," Shino says, "you didn't negotiate for this in advance. We didn't ask for your interference in this manner."

"No," Naruto breaks in. "We didn't ask for anything in return. Because this is what we do. This is what pack is. Having each other's backs. Like you said – good faith."

Hands are shaken. Papers are signed. There will be more details to hammer out, and she imagines they'll require hammering with some force, but today there will be celebration. War games, and the kind of partying that happens in war zones, the almost desperate joviality.

She corners Naruto outside as fast as she can. Won't have much time until someone else needs his attention. "What's up with you?"

A muscle moves in his jaw. "I'm – ashamed, I guess. I didn't, I wasn't in good faith with Sasuke."

"Have that out with him on your own time."

"Yeah," Naruto says, visibly startled to hear that everyone else's lives don't revolve around Sasuke Uchiha, who anyway couldn't have been any clearer about meaning to fuck Naruto. "Thanks."

xxxxx

When Naruto finally staggers back into their room, Sasuke's sitting up in bed, watching something on Naruto's laptop.

Naruto kicks off his shoes, collapsing on the bed next to him. "Hey." He nuzzles a little, drunkenly, against Sasuke's leg. "I wasn't sure you'd be awake."

"Hoping to take advantage of me in my sleep?"

"No." He sits up a little, taking off his jumper. "I don't like when you don't… when you're just there. Like, resigned to it."

His drunkenness might actually be infecting Sasuke through the bond, because his swat at Naruto's head turns into tugging lightly at his hair. "Good."

"So," Naruto says, quickly so he can't second guess himself, "about before –"

"That's fine. I said you could. I meant it."

"Mmh." That's true, Naruto knows it's true. But it's true because getting Sasuke to agree to sex as a means to an end – saving Naruto from a matesick death, fixing his hand, cracking the seal further open – has never been the issue. He crawls up next to Sasuke, getting under the duvet with him. "What're you watching?"

"Documentary." The paused screen shows Roman soldiers.

"Cool." He rests his head against Sasuke's shoulder. Sees up close that he kept the love bites this time, Naruto's possession written in teeth marks and bruises across his neck. Just at the edge of Sasuke's neckline, there's a hint of the seal. It really is a lot more open now, writhing and alive just under his skin.

Naruto's jaw aches at the sight, and his dick. He rests a little more heavily against Sasuke, rubbing his face against Sasuke's arm and breathing him in.

Sasuke joined them for a little bit downstairs, doing a smouldering wallflower routine. Maybe that's what he kept the hickeys for.

"You saw, right?" Naruto mumbles. "When I was fighting."

"Yes."

Just semi-playful matches, no harm done. But he'd been high, so much energy suddenly it seemed impossible to hold back like he needed to. He touches a careful fingertip to the visible edge of the seal. "It's really going."

"Yes," Sasuke says again, darkly happy. He shifts, not pushing Naruto away. "You could use the tails more."

"Hmm, yeah."

"You can make them solid now, right? Just keep them immaterial to get them where you want them without getting blocked, and then solidify once you're in."

"That'd be vicious."

"Exactly."

"Like a gladiator," Naruto mumbles, and at Sasuke's snort adds, "What? Are you not entertained?"

"Incredibly," Sasuke says dryly. He's still right there though, with Naruto all over him, so Naruto must not be doing too badly. "You should've been a comedian."

"The Comedian, maybe," Naruto mutters. "If I let Kyuubi out."

"As long as you've outgrown Superman."

"You're one to talk, Batman!"

"Batman's…manly."

"Uh huh. Batman's a grown man who lives in his parents' basement, where he plays dress up and has his butler build him expensive toys."

Sasuke must indeed be a little drunk, because he snickers. "Whereas Superman is a sophisticated critique of the human race?"

"Uh. Well. Kill Bill has awesome dialogue but yeah… not really? I'm never getting over the gay kryptonite."

Sasuke lifts an eyebrow, smirking a bit. Not unfriendly. "Weren't you into girls until – all this?"

"I guess. I don't know? Kind of." Sasuke snorts at him, and Naruto snuggles even closer. "I liked them in theory? I just never wanted anyone but you."

"You'd better keep it that way."

"Yeah, like there was ever any doubt about that." He stretches, getting Sasuke to move his arm, rest it around Naruto's shoulders so Naruto can press his head tight, tight against Sasuke's chest. "When I was away. I know you thought it was better or whatever, but it wasn't. We should never be apart. If you ever try to pull some shit like that again, I'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth. And anyway I wasn't away from you. I woke up and I thought about you, I brushed my teeth and I thought about you, I went to school and I hung out with people and I tried to come back and it was all just about you, until I went to sleep thinking about you, and then I dreamt about you and then I woke up and I still thought about you."

"You care about other things," Sasuke says. His voice stays composed but he's obviously upset, angel light shining under his skin, brighter than the bedside lamp. "You love other people."

"Yeah, I do. I'm – glad I do, I want to. But next to you, it just… doesn't matter enough. It can't compare."

"You said, before, that you didn't know if you'd have even been attracted to me without the bond."

Naruto shrugs, crumpling Sasuke's shirt in his fingers. "We were, like, eleven when Dad had me shipped off to boarding school, so… I was drawn to you, but, I didn't think about it in those terms? And then, when I was there – I don't know, it didn't seem important? I just had to have you back."

"You're such a stalker."

"Mmh." He shifts some more, tangling their legs together and eventually pushing play. It's a pretty good documentary about Julius Caesar warring his way through Europe. "I always used to like Asterix and Obelix, you know? I got really upset whenever anyone said how the Romans won in reality. But now I think… I mean Asterix and Obelix is about just one person being super awesome and making all the difference. Which is cool, yeah. But the Romans were about so many people banding together, that they were strong because they united." He laughs a little, into Sasuke's chest. "Maybe that's growing up."

"That's just a cheap pretence. Some people are worth more than others. That's the way of the world."

"Look, like, Caesar might've got all the glory, but he's nothing without his legions. Thousands of just normal people."

"Not anyone could've led them the way he did. Anyway those are just humans. You can send a million of them to try and ward off a demon infestation, it's pointless. Or you send one crusader, and the demons are gone."

"People should matter."

"You can't have it both ways."

"Hmm?"

"You can't say that only I matter and then say everyone matters."

"Jesus," Naruto mutters, biting lightly at Sasuke's ribs through the shirt. "I'm the insecure stalker here, all right? At least you've – you've said. How you were with other people. Because you wanted to. And anyway you'd let me die if that's what you needed to be free of the seal."

Sasuke's far stiffer now. "Don't talk about Kakashi."

"See? You knew exactly who I meant!"

Sasuke turns away from him.

"Sasuke…"

"Fuck off." Sasuke pushes him off violently, and there's still enough archangel in him that it doesn't matter how Naruto tries to hold on. He rolls across the bed, sits back up to find Sasuke still leaning against the headboard but pulled tensely in on himself, long legs drawn up around him like those of a spider. He's breathing harder than he should be, chest heaving.

Naruto kneels in front of him, understanding that Sasuke can't be touched right now.

"He had very limited choices," Sasuke says, in this distant adult voice that's a lie. "If he didn't bring me here, you'd die. Or it would be the shifters kidnapping me, and no exorcist could've stood by for that. And it's not – I'm not dead. I'm not being tortured. I understand that he did the only sensible thing." He wipes at his face like a child, with his knuckles. Wipes like he's been crying, though he hasn't. "He should've fucking well talked to me. I… I understand why he didn't, it'd just be a lie – it would just be him cajoling for my blessing, when we both knew he'd do it no matter what I said. But he'd just explain it away with some bullshit about how I shouldn't have to make those choices, be responsible for this, it's such fucking bullshit, fuck him, he never gave me any choice. He – he never fucking even tried to keep me. He sure as hell never wanted me enough to take me for himself."

It has to be all right now for Naruto to put his palms on top of Sasuke's knees.

"You wouldn't have done it," Sasuke says. "You'd have chosen me. Even if you were shunned, even if you lost everything else. You'd never have given me away."

"Not for anything."

Sasuke breathes out a long shaky breath, leaning back against the headboard. "I thought you'd be more jealous."

"I don't actually want you to look at me and feel destroyed because I betrayed you."

"I am not destroyed because some arsehole I was in love with when I was a kid didn't like me back," Sasuke snaps.

"Good," Naruto says, taking Sasuke's hand after all. Sasuke hits him across the mouth, a smarting brush of fingers across Naruto's lips, and Naruto makes a wounded sound that means he wants more, leaning his face against Sasuke's vicious kneecaps.

Sasuke sighs again, which means he can breathe now so that's good.

Naruto's head too is echoing and aching with bleedover shock, his muscles hurting from phantom tension. Sasuke knives him in the head with despair and rage and how fucking destroyed he feels, but he doesn't make him leave.

"I hate how conflicted I feel about him," he tells Sasuke. "I always thought he was like this big brother we kind of shared. Itachi was always just yours, but Kakashi was mine too. Or, he didn't like me at first. Didn't like Mum. But then after she died, he sort of adopted me as his extra little brother too, you know?"

"Nobody liked your mother," Sasuke says blankly.

"She was a fuck of a lot better at being a mum than your mother."

Which doesn't really mean anything, and Sasuke doesn't bother addressing it. Unlike Kakashi, Mikoto's an old wound, deep but scarred over. "I meant she wasn't suitable."

"You're not suitable."

"Yes, I am."

"Okay, yeah, sort of."

"Tch. Like there's anyone else you could've got more magic out of." He cracks a grin. "Aside from the pending civil war, I'm perfect."

Naruto gives a shaky laugh, insinuating himself between Sasuke's legs and resting his head under Sasuke's chin. "Aside from that minor detail. And also maybe if you hadn't slept with my fake big brother."

"Given all the inappropriate people I've slept with, you're lucky I don't have aids."

"Heh, yeah. And I guess I should say our fake big brother. Is that… is that kind of why you did? Because he was, you know, part of your family, when you still…" When you still had one, he doesn't want to say. "And he was the closest you could get to that now."

Sasuke frowns at him, Naruto can feel it without even looking up. "Are you suggesting I have a thing for Itachi?"

"No! Ewww. God, no." He's still all third-degree burn sore on the inside from Sasuke's upset, and thoughts of Mum's death always leave him torn and tarred.

"Because I guess I would have," Sasuke says, with that relentless honesty Naruto has missed and is now suddenly afraid of.

"What."

Sasuke makes a broken kind of face, shaped like a smile but it isn't one, it isn't. "I'd have done it. If it meant he still wanted me, if it had made him keep me, I'd have fucked Itachi too."

It's more of a challenge than a confession: a pragmatic truth that Sasuke, who has such a devastatingly practical view of sex, isn't ashamed of anymore.

"That's so fucked up."

"I fucked you," Sasuke snaps. "You're not even human."

Naruto snorts at him. "Like that's a problem for you. I bet you've never been with a human."

"Well, not by choice," Sasuke says eventually, the smile a little less of a caricature.

Naruto stiffens. "Um. There are…all these rumours about Orochimaru lending you out." It's not quite a question.

"They're exaggerated. There were a very few very high-up humans." Sasuke snorts. "Well, also he liked to watch me perform with Kimimarou."

Naruto makes a mental note to strangle Kimimarou.

Sasuke manages to chuckle at him. "It's not like he had much of a choice." He yawns, shifting around into a more comfortable position. His metal foot is icy against Naruto's thigh, and Naruto starts rubbing it to get it warmed up. Sparks fly under his hand: the seal really is cracking, letting in the burning light of Heaven, but it means more power for Naruto too, more resilience. "He loves Orochimaru."

Naruto stills, fingers curled loosely around the prosthesis. "Yeah, I don't… get that." A pause, but he knows: "You do, though."

Sasuke looks away, but in the end has never spared himself. His voice comes bitter, sarcasm drowned out by self-hatred. "Isn't that what you always hear from domestic abuse victims? But you see it's true." His throat moves when he swallows. He's not looking away anymore, and seems so young suddenly, so unendurably human. "It wasn't only horrible. He can be… At least he wanted me. Sometimes he was…" But Sasuke has no words for what he was, when he wasn't horrible.

Orochimaru taught him things, made him unarguably stronger. Orochimaru sometimes touched him gently, in a way that could be mistaken for love or even kindness. Orochimaru said all the things no one else ever has, how Sasuke matters and is loved and will be cared for. How Orochimaru chose him and will never give him up.

"I'm gonna bawl," Naruto admits, and earns another thick-voiced, tired chuckle. He leans up, rests his forehead square against the seal. He's hated it, hates it still, but this alone Sasuke will never forgive Orochimaru, never overlook.

"Idiot," Sasuke mumbles.

"Your idiot," Naruto says glibly, pulling at Sasuke's arm: suggesting they lie down. "Fool for love. Very romantic."

"Tch." But he puts the laptop away and lets himself be tugged down. He turns in Naruto's arms, pale and grumpy and lovely. One of the tails comes out and wraps itself tightly around Sasuke's calf. Naruto almost can't breathe, because it's not him doing the wrapping. Sasuke reaching into his mind, Sasuke moving his tail, curling it around himself… it's too much. He understands now that it's all right. Sasuke's thrown all of it at him, the deepest, darkest shame, unspeakable until this moment – how Kakashi never loved him enough for it to matter, how Orochimaru wasn't always horrible – and it changes nothing. Naruto's love isn't the kind that can change. Sasuke breathes out thickly, almost a sigh, letting Naruto's hand slip inside his shirt and settle on the small of his back. "I know you put it off for now, but when you do discover the jailed mates and the beastmad soldiers. It'd be a waste to turn them all over to the humans."

"Mmh. The mates, that's – they'll never stay voluntarily."

"No shit. You're breaking them in wrong. But the beastmads. They could be effective against the humans."

"They're also effective against civilians. And other shifters. Even if we kept them locked up in between, the question is how to get them to attack the right people. We could maybe train them."

"Maybe seal them."

"You think that'd – huh. I figured more, training like with police dogs. This scent is what you attack. If they get too volatile, we'll have to rein them in."

"Seal would be easier, less supervision. If you design it right you can wipe them from a distance."

He falls asleep like that, tangled up warm and close with Sasuke and planning how best to utilise a berserker suicide squad.