~Warning/Disclaimer~
Naruto and all it's slashy characters don't belong to me. Sad, isn't it? I could make them do all sorts of things….eh…Um. Anyhoo. Second chapter! No love, yet, but…*grin* it should hold a few kicks.
Enjoy! Rinse, Lather, Review!
Out from Inside
( ch. two)
Go after him.
Sasuke didn't hesitate as he bounded through the shattered window into nothing. The regret in the Hokage's words seemed endless. His heart thundered shamefully, his mind looping around the single thought as he plummeted.
Go after him. Go after Naruto. Naruto.
He landed in a deep crouch and sprang off before the impact even registered. Ahead of him—so far ahead—he could see Naruto—the stranger, the supposed assassin, the one in brown—flashing across the rooftops like heat lightning.
Sasuke told himself that he was chasing Naruto—his mind wrapped around the name like a shroud—because the Hokage needed him. That the woman needed to do something for Naruto—
He wouldn't have returned if something hadn't gone wrong, the wicked thought struck him. He wouldn't have come back.
Guilt gnawed with jagged teeth and he forced himself to run faster. It wasn't true. He didn't know why Naruto had left—
(liar)
—but he wasn't going to let him get away again and cause so much problems. Not this time. Not again. It was easy to tell himself this, to force everything aside and run as fast as he could after the fleeting shape. He had the brief impressions of people glancing up as he sped by too fast to be seen, of skittering paper in the wind he caused, the more alert Anbu watching him sharply.
They, at least, knew he chased someone.
He's so much faster than before flashed through his head as he skimmed the length of interconnected wires. He was gaining. It was all he could focus on, the shape of Naruto, the flashes of fighting him in the hallways—
How could I not know it was him?!
—the blurred memories of the first year without him ached through his heart without conscious recognition. The memory of sky blue eyes in fierce joy, determination. The cracks in the mask that he could see because of his own masks—everything that he had pushed away and denied and tried so hard to forget slammed through his mind and sped him on.
He was no longer aware of the motions his body went through, the placement of the feet and the precise reactions of the muscles to keep his balance and keep his speed as high as possible. His focus was Naruto. Catching Naruto. Finding him and asking him and quite possibly hitting him for every moment of pain that Sasuke had endured for the sake of the bastard.
The world blurred by. The cloaked Naruto leading the way at breakneck speed, careless and panicked. Sasuke knew the other was aware of him, of his closing speed, and ran all the more faster.
Seconds passed and the outer wall surrounding the village loomed suddenly, almost unexpectedly. Sasuke was still several leaps behind, just out of reach. He saw Naruto poised for a moment on the upper edge of the wall, impossibly high, before he sprang up and disappeared over the structure.
Half a heartbeat was all it took before Sasuke darted up the wall and followed him over, leaping off with all his strength into the dense branches and forest growth.
Catch him. Find him. Talk to him and—
Brown and green and shafted sunlight swirled into one muddy impression. He felt the bite of the bark on his palms as he swung, leapt and fell his way through the forest. His only advantage was that he was gaining ground—he still had to catch the damn runaway.
—and do something, Sasuke thought. Leaves and twigs tore at his skin and hair, leaving fine scratches in as he passed, but he ignored it, leapt ahead and felt the muscles of his legs burn, his chest tight with the strain of breathing.
There was a flash of brown just ahead of him, almost within reach. The crack of a branch and a rip as something tore, and a muffled explosive breath—On instinct Sasuke gathered shuriken and guessed at the next step, and flung the metal pieces.
The next slim branch Naruto planted his foot on cracked, half-sheared and gave out beneath him. The blond twisted, trying to catch his balance, his inertia carrying him forward and down.
Sasuke dove onto him from behind before his hands could grasp a purchase, and sent them both hurtling towards the ground.
He heard a chilling snarl and Naruto twisted in his arms, kicking and scratching. Grunting, Sasuke endured a painful blow to the temple as the blond threw his head back. His mask cracked under the pressure. He laced his fingers together around the torso, trying to pin the arms and avoid the deadly kicks, the ground and trees flashing in turns.
Naruto screeched like a cat and it was all Sasuke could do to hold on, to get his feet under him—
They slammed into the ground with a bone-jarring thud. The breath left his body as a foot kicked him in the stomach. —how can he recover so fast—was the single thought as he curled around the pain. Fuck.
Naruto was scrambling away.
Desperation lent him speed and he slithered forward, scrabbling at the foot closest to him. Quick as a snake the other heel whapped him around the cheek, the Anbu mask hurtling into the bushes in several pieces. Sasuke didn't let go, ignored the blood in his mouth and yanked the other boy back.
"Stop running away!" he half-shrieked. "Damn it, Naruto!"
Apparently his words held some effect for the runaway, because instead of trying to escape, Naruto rounded back, bent at the hips, and started swinging fists at Sasuke's vulnerable face.
Sasuke took the first blow high on his extended arm, wincing, and scrambled to block the next. Harried breathing, shrill and high, was all the sound he heard. With his left hand he grabbed the wrist of the nearest arm—Naruto's right—and pulled the other off balance.
Somehow—he wouldn't remember how later on—he ended up straddled over the twisting bucking body, fighting to keep sharp nails from his face and ignoring the bruises forming from the knees smacking into the middle of his back.
"Nah—" his teeth clicked together on the tip of his tongue, sharp sweet pain lancing through his skull as Naruto managed to chuck him on the chin. The wrist he held was pulled away; he countered, pulling back, and Naruto deftly switched their positions in the blink of an eye.
Sasuke found himself on his back, the point of a kunai at his throat and a furious animal looking out through Naruto's eyes.
His eyes, his mind focused. His eyes…
One was blue…the other a glaring crimson color, the color of blood and rage.
"Stop chasing me," the blond hissed. "Alright? Stop chasing me!"
Sasuke couldn't seem to pull his gaze from the discolored eye, even when the golden locks slipped free and covered it. He focused on the face, on the anger and the pain and the slight trembling that he could feel in the edge of the blade. He pulled in a breath, locking eyes, and forced himself to sound calm as winded as he was.
"Wha-What happened to you?"
Bitterness—an expression he had never seen the other reveal—flashed through the face. Naruto stared at him, hard and cold around the eyes and spat "What do you care?"
It made him angry and he wasn't sure why. It was automatic. Eyes narrowed and in a brief second Sasuke slapped the hand with the kunai away from his throat, twisted up a leg and kicked the blond away from him. He rolled to his belly and pushed himself up to his knees. Naruto hadn't gone far, and he glared at him. Hair clung to his face, his bruised and bleeding forehead.
"What do I care?" he echoed, spitting blood. Naruto crouched opposite of him and scowled. "What do I care?! The fuck if I know! Damn you, dobe, you could always do this! Always!" he yelled. "What the fuck did I do to deserve this! Always you with your attitude, and getting to my head and making me do stupid things—god damn you!"
Naruto stared at him without expression for nearly ten seconds. The forest echoed with Sasuke's impromptu shouting, and absurdly, he fought down a blush.
Then, true to the unpredictable nature, Naruto delicately raised one hand to his mouth and snorted back a laugh.
He's…laughing at me!? Sasuke thought indignantly and scowled. It hadn't taken very long for the confused sensation he had felt as Naruto's teammate to come rushing back. "What—" he whispered in that deadly quiet voice he had worked hard to perfect. "—is so funny?"
"Y-you…you just…" Naruto snickered. "You swore!! You never swear! And you're a mess and—" he cackled, the rest of his words breaking up. He laughed hard and fell back against a tree for support, body shaking.
In the end, Sasuke could only stare at him, confusion and the exertion throbbing through the bruises. Absently, he pressed a palm to the wound on his temple and sighed. "…it's not funny," he replied after a while. It wasn't funny when you left. It wasn't funny when we couldn't find you and I got so messed up and everything was wrong—
"Here," Naruto said, grinning, a touch of sadness in his visible blue eye and threw a square of pale green fabric at him. "You're bleeding pretty bad."
"Thanks," Sasuke said dryly, and plucked the cloth out of the air. He folded it one handed and touched it to his scrape. Then he opened eyes he didn't remember closing and regarded the other coolly. The blond didn't seem to be inclined to leave; he had pulled out a second piece of fabric and was dabbing at some scrapes on his arm, and studiously avoiding Sasuke's direction.
He watched the blond in his strange outfit, in his strange older body. He could see signs of the old Naruto, the hair and the eyes (both red and blue), and the grin. Instead of the mask he was familiar with, the forced happiness, he saw careful blankness and a weary strain of someone with too much to bear.
Sasuke pushed away the thought that he saw that look in the mirror sometimes. He pushed away the confusion and the struggle to understand and cope with the very thing he had wished would happen, with Naruto, because the blond was never easy to figure out. He watched him for a few minutes and began to drown under the weight of the silence around them.
I was going to ask him questions, he mused. So he mustered up the courage and cleared his throat. "…Is that why you came back?"
Naruto blinked up at him, distracted and on guard all at once. "Huh?"
"That." Sasuke motioned with his free hand. "Your eye. The Hokage saw that too—is that why you came back?" He watched the muscles in the jaw clench.
"Kinda."
"What'd you do?"
"I'd rather not talk about it, thank you," Naruto snapped, turning his face away. "Why don't you just butt out, asshole, and leave me alone—"
"Fuck you," Sasuke said simply.
"You'll need a bath first," Naruto muttered. "God," he spat, and scrubbed a dirty hand through his hair. "I can't believe this. I should be gone, not sitting here talking to you."
Sasuke raised a brow and waited.
"I mean—" Naruto scowled and somehow made it look…childish. "I didn't want to come back," he said sullenly. "I didn't want to see anyone and if…if I hadn't been so stupid about—about this—" he gestured to his face, "I wouldn't have to be here at all."
Ouch. "You hate us that much?" Sasuke asked in a dead voice. "All of us?"
Do you hate me, Naruto?
The blond gave him a disbelieving look with as much irritation in that empty alien mask as he could show. "I wouldn't exactly call it hate."
To Sasuke's surprise the other reached beneath that strange brown cloak and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Naruto tapped one out, produced a lighter in the other hand and fired up. He grinned around the slim white stick and inhaled.
"Look," he said when he noticed Sasuke's ill-concealed surprise. "It's just I'm not…I'm not that kid you knew five years ago, Sasuke. So whatever you're thinking, just forget it, okay?"
Instead of answering, Sasuke pulled the now-sticky fabric from his head and inspected it. Then he turned it over, and pressed the cleaner side to his head. Forget that you've changed? Not possible.
Naruto smoked for a bit, inhaling and exhaling blue-white smoke and watching him with cautious gleaming eyes. The red one was glinting from beneath the golden hair. He made sitting in the middle of a forest after an exhausting chase-and-fight look normal.
Sasuke felt the corner of his mouth twitch. "It doesn't matter," he said softly. "Are you coming back or what?" Are you coming back so I can ask you where you went? Why you left—if it was my fault?
"…Sure," Naruto said easily, stubbing out the embers on a patch of bare earth. Something dark flickered through his eyes, something that had Sasuke's instincts flaring. He calculated the intent hidden behind the words and nodded, looking relieved.
Naruto stood and strode the few steps towards Sasuke. After a second, he extended a grimy hand and waited.
Sasuke took it, feeling a flash of something—annoyance, hurt, a flutter of something he didn't know—and curled his fingers tight. Felt the strength in the hand as he was pulled to his feet. They stood chest to chest, the smaller blond looking up to meet his emotionless gaze with one of his own.
"Lead the way," Naruto said, grinning disarmingly.
Sasuke allowed himself to smile, and then in a blur of speed too fast for even Naruto to follow, struck the joint between shoulder and neck with the edge of his hand. He witnessed a brief flare of anger, of startled hurt, before the eyes glazed, and Naruto crumpled like paper.
"Sorry," Sasuke whispered as he caught the body in his arms. "But you're not leaving again."
~@~
Naruto was dimly aware of a jolting pressure jabbing into the softer parts of his belly, of the scrape of the wind and the spicy taste of chakra in his senses. Of the cinnamon and earth scent of Sasuke…but that thought got thrown out of his head. There was no way Sasuke would be anywhere near him, right?
…not leaving…you're not leaving…whispered through his head. The pressure on his stomach jounced him, sickeningly, and the sensation of falling assaulted him. He tried to crack open his eyes, saw nothing but a dirt-smeared white…thing. His arms were useless, he realized, when he tried to bring one up to touch his head, his aching shoulder.
…not leaving again...Naruto gagged on trying to inhale, and the vertigo made him close his eyes. It took him five minutes of in-and-out moments of consciousness before he put the pieces together.
One: Sasuke had neatly disabled with one blow; he had severely underestimated the Uchiha. Two: he was being carried over the shoulder like—like a woman—which explained the shoulder digging into his stomach and the strange upside down world that made him feel queasy. He didn't dare look around for the fear of rejecting what little lunch he had left.
Well, fuck, he thought.
Naruto didn't know if he wanted to throw a fit and run off anyway, or just let the bastard carry him back to Tsunade, back to Konoha…to everyone…and just pretend he didn't want to be here anyway.
After a moment he closed his eyes and decided that he'd play this one out and run away later. Life couldn't get much worse anyway…and plus, he had Sasuke to torment.
You've changed, Sasuke, he thought briefly. I guess we've all changed…
~@~
The tea was ice-cold by the time the Anbu returned, but the current Hokage didn't seem to notice. She raised a brow as he appeared in the window, a lump of brown thrown of his shoulders. His face was composed but bloody, his arm secured over the legs across his chest, and he looked a bit ruffled.
"You didn't kill him, did you?"
Uchiha hopped to the floor, a mild flash of irritation on his face. "No," he said shortly.
Jiraiya fought back a smile and crossed his arms. "Kicked you in the face, did he?" He nodded when the young man didn't answer. "Thought so—vicious little shit when he doesn't want to be caught, isn't he?"
Sasuke glared and dropped Naruto unceremoniously onto the tatami in front of the Hokage. The blond hit the floor with a thud and a mumble of pain. "Will there be anything else, Hokage-sama?"
Tsunade smiled faintly. "No, thank you Uchiha," she said, glancing at his face. "Are you alright? You look—"
"I'm fine," the Anbu replied coolly.
She watched him turn neatly on his heel and move towards a corner. Sighing, she cursed for having to deal with stubborn immaturity, for having to deal with children, and tugged on her kimono. Then she frowned down at the prone Naruto and noticed he was quietly rubbing at his shoulder and scowling.
"Naruto?" she said softly. "Can you sit up?"
A moment of silence, then a soft curse. "Yeah."
She folded her hands in her lap, waiting, as the blond pushed himself up and watched her with both red and blue eyes. There wasn't any anger, just a frustrated helpless glint behind his eyes. Naruto rubbed at his shoulder gingerly, the area where Uchiha had most likely struck the nerve to incapacitate the runaway, and finally sighed.
"Alright, hag," he said wearily. "What do you want?"
"What happened to you, brat?"
Naruto's face went still, gaze inward as he hesitated. "Are you talking about when I left or when my eye went red?"
"Your eye, Naruto. We can discuss the reasons for your absence later. Right now, the color of your eye is more important."
"…can I…can I smoke?"
Since when does he smoke? she thought, and frowned. From the corner of her eye she caught Jiraiya's slight nod. "It's not a problem," she said to him.
Naruto dug beneath his cloak and pulled out a crumpled paper pack, sliding one cigarette free. He mouthed it and produced a lighter, flicking the flame and inhaling. His hands shook slightly, she noticed, but Naruto either disregarded it or didn't notice at all.
She glanced at Jiraiya questioningly.
"He smokes when he's nervous," Jiraiya replied.
"Do not," Naruto muttered, avoiding her amused look. "Anyway," he started again, exhaling a puff of smoke. "About five weeks ago we stayed in this little place in the mountains to the east. Snowy something. There were six families and about a dozen children. Small, close, that kind of thing. Stayed there for a few days and helped them get ready for the winter." He shuddered suddenly, fingers grasping the cigarette and inhaled again. "Me and Jiraiya went to train and when we started back down the path…there was smoke and I could…I could smell the blood."
For a moment there was nothing but silence grating through the room. Even Uchiha, who pretended to ignore them, had his attention focused on listening.
"Then Tomoko—one of the little girls; she was five, maybe six. She's walking on the path and she's all cut up and—and we're too far away and there's about five men that were running through the village and they were killing people and—and they killed her, right there on the path. Right there."
The cigarette was burning closer to his fingers but Naruto didn't seem to notice. His eyes had gone a horribly empty color, his face pale under his tan.
"They killed everyone for no reason," Naruto whispered with a voice growing cold and hateful. "So I killed them. I hunted each one down and I ripped out their throats and burned them and cut them apart—"
Jiraiya cleared his throat. The sound seemed to startle Naruto, who jumped slightly with his eyes flickering to the white-haired sennin.
"And that's it," he said after a second and dropped the butt into the half-empty teacup. "When I was…back in my head, my eyes were like this."
Tsunade smiled thinly, fiercely, and reached forward to wrap her hands around Naruto's wrists. "Good," she said tightly. "I'm glad such evil men were killed. I'm sorry you had to endure such a thing but I'm glad they're dead."
Naruto's crooked smile didn't reach his eyes. "You and me both."
"Unfortunately," her grip on his arms tightened and she dreaded what she had to say next. "I can't tell you what it means, or how to fix it. It might be psychological, it might be an effect of the seal—I don't know. It'll take some time," she watched his face carefully, the way his eyes darkened and grew relieved at the same time.
"I have to stay here, don't I?" he stated.
"Yes. Do I have your word that you won't leave until we discover the reason, Naruto?"
He shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
"Your word, Uzumaki Naruto!" Tsunade replied sternly.
Naruto paused and eyed her appraisingly, a smile twitching at his mouth. "My word?" he said finally, and spit into his hand. "I swear I won't leave unless you know about it. Will that do?" He held out his hand.
"It will," Tsunade said grimly, spitting in her own palm. She grasped his and squeezed. "…welcome home, Naruto."
"It's great to be back," Naruto said dryly.
~@~
Sasuke stumbled into the hallway of the small house a few hours after the moon had risen. He dropped a plain wooden replacement mask to the small table near the door, and locked the door behind him. The room wavered and blurred around him as he thought, This has to be a dream and tried not to trip over the carpet.
"Sasuke?" a whisper of sound.
He looked up, rubbing a hand across his eyes to clear them. "Sorry. Did I wake you?"
A heavily pregnant Sakura stood there, a robe thrown over her sleeping kimono. Her arms were bent on her hips and if he hadn't noticed the twitching eyebrow, he wouldn't have known she was angry.
"Where have you been?" she asked quietly. "Some of the Anbu mentioned you went running out of the village today, chasing some assassin or something."
Sasuke blinked at her. "Did they?" he mused.
The pink-haired young woman sighed. "You were drinking again. I thought you were done with drinking, Sasuke!"
"Today…today was a bad day," he replied, leaning against the door. "Go back to bed, Sakura. Don't want to wake up Lee."
"Sasuke," she said, exasperated. "You can't just drink whenever you have a bad day—"
I can when it's over Naruto, he thought inwardly. "Sakura," he whispered tiredly. "Just go to bed and we'll speak in the morning. Please." He pushed off the door and walked slowly, determinedly, down the hall towards his small room.
Sakura grazed his arm in passing, giving him a worried look. "Sasuke, are you okay?"
"Yes," he replied. "I will be."
He knew she watched him close the door behind him, and he knew that she heard him drop his armor to the floor carelessly. His head spun sickeningly, the alcohol burning in his system.
Sasuke dropped onto the single bed. He exhaled into the pillow and carefully turned his head. He could hear Sakura's murmur to Lee and the squeak of their bed. Lucky they have each other, he thought. Lucky they put up with my problems…
…lucky…He sighed bitterly. Naruto. Welcome home, Naruto…even if you hate me.
~@~
High in the Hokage's tower, in a small room adjacent to the chambers of the Hokage, Naruto stood at the window, staring out at the moon. The room was his until he decided he wanted to leave, or to perhaps rent out a place down in the village—but he refused to think of the idea.
"I'm home," he whispered with a bitter taste in his mouth, sweet and sour and thrilling. "…so what do I do now?"
~TBC~
~a/n – Do you have questions…you do, don't you….Otay, to clear things up, Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, they're all about 18. Yes, Sakura's pregnant. No, she's not with Sasuke. Make sense? No? Well…you'll just have to wait.
Another question I got from someone—Why is Naruto so scared of Sasuke!? …Instincts, technically. Naruto has been living close to the edge of his instincts, and sometimes, beyond, so he reacts instantly before his 'common sense' takes over. Sasuke, on the other hand, represents everything Naruto left behind (and he's afraid of going back. Pore Naruto.)
Okay, anything else I'll make known later, so…I hope you like!! Are we lathered up yet?