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

Summary: Sasuke has spent three years trying to figure out how to live on his own. Maybe it's time to try something different. WIP. Future SNS, updates once a month. Canonverse. Rating may change!

A/N: naruto's birthday! the boy! the lad! this one's for him!

Day 10 prompt - touches!

sunflowers for the skeptical

Chapter 10: a bed of excuses

Something between them changes. Something between them shifts. Maybe it's always been moving, or maybe it's never gone anywhere at all—but Sasuke knows it, now. Hears it, now.

Feels it, now.

They find excuses to spar. To bicker, to tease, to use their voices to call until the rest of their bodies follow. Sasuke's spent two weeks thinking up insults to make Naruto spin around and Naruto bites right back until they're wrestling, again. Fighting again. Sasuke is bruised and breathing and on the ground, and the best part of his day is when Naruto lazily offers a hand to his side.

Like it isn't even a thought. Sasuke takes it, and they don't look at each other. Sasuke takes it, and has to let go. Sasuke takes it and Naruto heaves him to his feet. Sasuke takes it, and pulls Naruto down with him.

Naruto's face hits the mud, and the air between them sparks. The air between them shakes. Naruto yells in Sasuke's face and grabs at his clothes and Sasuke is exhausted. Sasuke can barely move. Sasuke can't stop himself. He can't stop asking for this.

They scramble back into a fight.

And it isn't helped by the way they sleep. The way Sasuke sleeps. He sleeps well, now, of all things. Too well. He can't rely on his shallow rest, his constant nightmares—Sasuke sleeps through the goddamn night and wakes when Naruto does, and it's infuriating. He's not awake for the warmth he's gotten addicted to. He's not awake for it at all.

And the summer is almost over. The fall colours threaten the trees, threaten their garden. The air's growing cold, and all the blankets in the world couldn't give Sasuke what he's asking for. All the warm food. All the warm drinks.

He makes tea anyway. He makes it all the time. Naruto reaches past him and bumps his wrist to Sasuke's elbow. Sasuke turns to the stove and squeezes his chest to Naruto's back—their kitchen is too small. It isn't small enough. Naruto laughs, and Sasuke feels his breath on his face.

Warm. It's all too warm.

The goosebumps break out over Sasuke's skin, and Sasuke moves somewhere, anywhere, to distract from them. Naruto's making ramen again. Sasuke is here to help him. Sasuke doesn't know how he became the man for the job, but he's here, and his attention's on the cutting board.

Naruto peers over his shoulder, and Sasuke is frozen stiff. He doesn't know how to thaw.

"That's probably good," he says, because he's obsessed again. He's determined again. The ramen was good, but not good enough, and Naruto's been sending off letter after letter lamenting his results. Teuchi insists it must be good. Naruto insists it isn't his yet.

And so their kitchen is dirty everyday. It reminds Sasuke of the way Naruto used to leave his scrolls out, open and all over the floor, as if he couldn't be done with any of them. The way he'd stay in the same training ground that day, that night, the next day—barely a break for water. Barely a break for food. He'd done the same thing in their garden, too—with his clones and the dirt and the shovels and half-built fence strewn across the yard. Naruto has a very specific set of standards of perfection. He throws himself at them with everything he has.

Of course, it involves him creating utter chaos in the interim. Sasuke knows. Sasuke used to be the target he threw at.

"Who are you planning on feeding this to?" Sasuke asks, lifting the cutting board. Naruto helps him scrape the vegetables into the pot, and Sasuke thinks there's at least two steps of space he isn't using. "This'll be three days of ramen straight."

"Rookie numbers," Naruto tells him, and Sasuke makes a show of stabbing the knife into the cutting board. It only makes Naruto laugh.

"Okay, okay, okay," he says, as Sasuke shakes his hair out of his face. He leans back against the counter, his feet stretched out against the tile. It forces Naruto out of the space. It forces Naruto to take the space back.

"We'll make something different tomorrow," Naruto says, stepping on Sasuke's feet. "How's that?"

"Oh, we will, will we?" Sasuke asks, and Naruto's smile stretches to one side.

"I mean, you can, if you want," he says, and Sasuke flicks a fist into his side. Naruto yelps and laughs and trots away over to the fridge, and Sasuke's glare has never been more obvious. Sasuke's glare has never been more soft.

Naruto opens and closes the fridge. He looks over at Sasuke. His smile is sheepish. His eyes are pleading.

"Naruto," Sasuke sighs, and Naruto—

"I'm so close though!" he insists, and he's bouncing up and down with the words. "Come on, even you said the last time—"

"I said that was it," Sasuke points out.

"It wasn't! But it was—"

"Close enough."

"No!"

Naruto shoves him, and Sasuke grabs him by the wrist. Sasuke snaps him forward, and Naruto goes tight. Naruto goes ready. Naruto's eyes have changed, and his stance has too—

…

The ramen boils away on the stove.

Naruto's grin loosens, and Sasuke lets go. He throws Naruto's hand back at him with a roll of his eyes and a turn back around. They've already sparred today. Sasuke's already aching at the memory. Sasuke's already sighing at the thought.

He eyes the brown of the countertop, and counts the grains in the cutting board. He ought to unwedge this knife, anyway, if nothing else. His tea is almost ready…

He hears the soft noise of Naruto's breath, and turns to face it.

Naruto looks at him with something to say.

…

The ramen continues to cook.

"—sorry," Naruto finally strains out, moving past him. "Um. Lost my thought."

He's lying. Sasuke looks at him and tells him so. Naruto doesn't meet his eye, and knows.

Naruto has something to say, and it won't break out of him. Sasuke understands. He feels it in his own chest. His own throat. Something builds up in him, and Sasuke has something to say, too.

If only he knew what the words would be.

Naruto looks up, and Sasuke looks away.

Unspoken, electric air. Unspoken, electric words. They fill Sasuke's mouth like a cup of tea. He drinks them down together.

"This is almost done," Naruto says, and Sasuke doesn't know what measurement he's going by today. It still has some time, Sasuke knows. Even if he hadn't stolen the letters Naruto left around their apartment, he would've picked that up by now. But Naruto kept trying to lose them, and Sasuke had finally figured out a place to store—paperwork. Letters. Naruto's work for Konoha—records of things that they had to keep record of. Something intensely, alarmingly mundane. It was so simple. It was so wrong. Sasuke questioned his priorities a hundred times a day. He kept trying to find what would upset them. He kept trying to find what would ruin them completely.

"We can spar soon, if you want," Naruto offers, and Sasuke tilts his head.

Naruto is as unsatisfied as he is.

"We already did," Sasuke points out.

"Never stopped us before," Naruto says, with a flick of his blue eyes. As if they don't make Sasuke's heart jump in his chest. Those insistent, unabating eyes—

"It will be dark soon," Sasuke adds, and Naruto huffs out a breath.

"You can just say no, dickhead," he says, and he's turning back to his stove.

"I could," Sasuke agrees, and here is another button he loves to press. He leans back against the counter, and feels the smile on his face. "If I wanted to."

Naruto squints at him.

Sasuke takes a sip of his tea, and walks away.

…

Naruto runs after him.

And the ramen is overcooked. A little bit. A little too much. Naruto grumbles and grumbles and grumbles again, and Sasuke relents and reminds him they have enough ingredients for more. For tomorrow. For breakfast and dinner and whatever else Naruto's sunshine head wants.

Naruto's eyebrows raise, but the grin comes back to his face.

Sasuke lets him have his shower first. He was ruthless with pinning Naruto in the dirt, today. Ruthless with letting him return the favour. It's the way they move together, the way they move against each other, the way they breathe—hot and heavy and lingering. Sasuke doesn't even fight well, he just fights desperately—he just fights close, he just fights tight—

Naruto takes the first shower, and Sasuke sits on the floor and stares at the wood. Calms his head. Calms his blood. There's too much heat in his body, still. Even the winter coming to the world won't help this flame.

…

Sasuke wishes it would snow.

He doesn't look at the blue tile today. He doesn't let his eyes rise when Naruto changes in front of him, strips in front of him. There's an intimacy to them tonight that's driving Sasuke wild, and Sasuke is afraid of what his hand wants. What his throat wants. What his mouth wants.

Naruto looks over at him, and Sasuke doesn't look back.

His hair is still wet against the pillow. Naruto's is, too. Sasuke feels the bed grow damp—just a touch. Just enough. It helps him stay awake. It helps him keep his head.

Just a few more minutes.

Just a few more breaths.

If Naruto falls first, Sasuke is safe. If Naruto falls first, Sasuke can open his eyes and breathe in—breathe out. He can relax, he can ache, he can hurt and sigh as much as his heart demands of him. As much as his body desires of him. Naruto will roll to lean against him, and Sasuke will wait.

Until Naruto falls asleep, Sasuke will wait.

The touch comes with wet hair, of course. It's colder than normal. Quieter than normal. Sasuke doesn't question the weight or the sound—he only lets himself go. Lets himself relent.

Sasuke breathes out, and forgets himself.

He leans into the touch. He tightens his hand around Naruto's waist, leans his face against the top of his head. He can smell Naruto's shampoo. It's the same one he's begun to use.

This is okay. Surely, this…

Naruto breathes in.

Sasuke's eyes snap open.

The room comes to him all at once. The realization. The cold in his blood, the panic in his ears—

Naruto had yet to snore.

Sasuke jerks back, and Naruto sits up.

"Sorry," Naruto says, and he's frantic. He's holding his hands up, he's holding his eyes wide— "I'm sorry, I th—since we sleep like that, I thought we—I—"

He opens and closes his mouth. Sasuke doesn't reply. Sasuke can't reply. Naruto's ready to litter the bed with excuses, and Sasuke just doesn't want them anymore.

Something in Naruto's eyes changes, and Sasuke knows that look.

Fear.

Potent, quiet fear.

"Um," he says, and Sasuke says nothing. "I won't…do it again?"

Sasuke says nothing.

"I mean, I don't—I don't think I can control what I do when I'm asleep," Naruto says, and his voice is faster, now, "but we can—I mean, we could use two beds, I guess, I think we could—"

Under the moonlight, Sasuke snaps.

He snatches Naruto's hand out of his lap, and holds it tight. He says nothing. Everything. Nothing.

But he glares. He breathes and he panics and he glares, because doesn't Naruto know? Doesn't he already know? Did Sasuke's presence not tell him? The bed? The house? The life together?

Did it tell him nothing?

He lets Naruto's hand go—

And then he's tackled. With all the force of a thousand suns, Naruto tackles him to the bed. Sasuke feels the laugh against his neck and feels Naruto's arms tighten, tighten, tighten—

He holds him back. He clutches him back. He closes his eyes and breathes Naruto in, feels the stinging in his eyes, feels the pounding in his heart—

"Sorry," Naruto breathes out again, and Sasuke hears it in his ear. "I didn't know how to—"

Sasuke understands. Sasuke feels it, too. Sasuke feels it all over them, in the air around them, coating their skin, bathing them like the light of the moon—

Pressing him down, like Naruto's weight.

Sasuke turns, and Naruto's breath is on his lips.

Sasuke turns, and it stops.

Sasuke turns, and he takes it away.

It's once and then again. It's an accident and then on purpose. It's a question and then an answer, a hot, heavy, blood-red answer—

In the heat of their desperation, the kiss comes alive.

Naruto's weight comes down. Naruto's weight drops down, Sasuke rises to meet it with all he has, every spar, every touch, every pin to the ground and hand to their feet—it spirals in Sasuke's head. It tumbles with them both—

Naruto catches him by the clothes and shows the moon his skin. Takes away his own. They're awake and they're together. They're tangled and touching and finding the pieces of themselves they've yet to know, yet to memorize, Naruto's tongue is hot in his mouth and the press of his hips is hotter—

It overwhelms him. It overwhelms him twice, and they doesn't even come to sex. They can't. They can't even make it past the idea. The implication. The promise—Sasuke's legs spread and Naruto's cock presses to his, presses him forward, Naruto runs a hand up the underside of Sasuke's thigh and moans into his mouth—it's the way their bodies stick together. The way they're slick, the way they're hot, the naked skin, the naked love, they're back and forth and back and forth and up and down and again and again and again and ah—

Sasuke doesn't even know who cums first.

It's ecstasy, though. Hot, spurting, pulsing ecstasy. Sasuke's lonely nights with himself laugh in his head, because they're nothing. They're a drop of rain and Naruto is a storm, they're a snowflake and Naruto is a blizzard, they're a flake of ash and Naruto is a roaring, billowing flame—

Naruto collapses with a breath, and he's laughing against Sasuke's skin. He's returned to this place—returned to this weight, Sasuke closes his eyes and feels him like a blanket. Like the sun, the way it envelopes him, the way it warms him. Naruto's arms are tight and sturdy. Unyielding. Sasuke feels his breath against his neck, feels its depth, feels it growing deeper. Naruto's weight is sinking. His body is relaxing. Sasuke smiles and lets him.

Sasuke smiles, and brings the chakra to his eyes.

A/N: took me all day! hope you all liked it. good night/morning/afternoon friends!

- Kinomi