Title: Cold Hands
Series: Naruto
Author: Coyen
Pairing: Sasuke x Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, this writing is merely for entertainment purposes.
Author's Notes: This might be slightly AU, or OOC, I think. Please forgive me, I have limited knowledge of the actual plotline and characters. I just wanted to write this pairing for pleasure. Please enjoy and PLEASE PLEASE review! (---desperate)
Chapter Two: I Hate I love I Hate
Sasuke stopped when he reached the stump in the center of the clearing. He was extra early, it was still dark out; he'd come this early on purpose.
The dark-haired boy squatted down in front of it, staring. He looked self-consciously about him, just for a moment, ensuring privacy, then resettled, assured that no other eyes were watching. Reaching out, slowly, he tenderly touched the edge, fingers feeling the cool wood with a bitter longing. He let his hand ghost out over the surface, memorizing every niche and nook, every smooth curl of the old, dead wood. Eyelashes fluttered down and still over pale cheeks, and his lips parted as a sigh escaped. In his mind rose a flawless image of a golden-haired, vulpine boy with a grin and a dirt-smudged face. He radiated youth and energy and excitement, and something else, something deeply rooted, feline, or feral, wild and wicked and untamed- Sasuke couldn't named it, he wasn't sure he ever would be able to.
Naruto was sitting on the stump before him, suddenly. Sasuke's eyes were open and his parted lips breathless. The mischievous boy in front of him was not the Naruto seen by the rest of the world; no, this was an entirely different being altogether. The boy in front of him was sad, almost. He wore only a tattered pair of shorts, and every rib poked out in obvious hunger. Two thin, tanned arms were wrapped around knees drawn-up, and vulpine, slitted eyes were wide open, blue, so blue, and filled with tears. This Naruto was a child, a mere child, only six or seven, and full of grief and sorrow, sadness and strife. Something about the child before him, crying silently, eyes pleading for his love made Sasuke's heart do a little spin-stop. All of the coldness he kept bottled up in his gut melted away and was replaced by a longing, a deep, passionate, wanton longing to just touch another, to feel, to be comforted and to comfort in turn. Things he couldn't remember ever knowing.
But something held him back. A part of his mind that was so firmly rooted to the shadows of nurtured hate and loathing that it forbid him from being human. It wasn't allowing him to be the person he wanted to be- not until he had his revenge. Not until he had rid himself of this hate deep in his heart.
"I'm sorry." The words fumbled past Sasuke's lips, sounding strange and foreign to his own ears.
The child looked at him again, and this time it was without pleading. It was simply a look of things lost, chances misses, memories forgotten. Things that could have been. Regrets.
"No regrets." The wondrous vision said. "No regrets, no regrets."
Sasuke couldn't move. He felt transfixed, as if a hand had reached inside his body and took hold of his soul, pulling him, pulling him forward. He was hurtling towards nothing.
The golden-haired child reached out to him with thin arms, tanned, scratched skin and nimble little groping fingers. "Please." It choked on its own hoarse sobs. "I want to be loved. I want a mommy. I want a daddy. I don't want to be ignored anymore. I'm sorry for whatever I did wrong, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please…" The tears were streaming down his face, pooling onto the wood, soaking into it and the deep mahogany rings of its long life.
"I-" Sasuke began to say, and the hand holding his soul pulled him forward, catching his breath, forcing him to reach out his own fingers, unfolding clenched fists, stretching towards the child of a shadowed past-
Then it was gone. The sun had begun to rise.
Cold air swirled around him, alone with his ghosts and vanished visions, and Sasuke shivered.
"This time of night and day, this sliver of a moment right between waking and sleeping, the dark of the world and the light of the world- it makes people see strange things."
Sasuke jumped, startled, unable to mask his surprise. Kakashi was standing directly beside him. His hair glinted silver as the sun slowly rose.
"This is twilight's love, Sasuke. The opposite of it. It is a rare moment that gives physical form to the deepest emotions and thoughts of unsuspecting ninja, rendering them vulnerable." Kakashi placed a comforting hand on the dark-haired boy's shoulder as Sasuke struggled to regain his stoic composer. "Don't be frightened or embarrassed."
Sasuke finally managed to stand, face back into its usual mask, and brushed his master's hand off. His voice was low and soft and bitter. "I'm not scared."
Kakashi's expression was unreadable as he looked at his student. He wondered who, or what, Sasuke had been reaching towards before the sun had risen and the trance of the waking-sleeping hour had been broken. Those weird and wonderful visions that appeared to people were only visible by those people, even in the case of a ninja with the sharingan eye. All he knew was that Sasuke had been so deeply, emotionally moved by it, that the young man hadn't realized Kakashi was present until the older man spoke.
"Um… ano… sensei? Sasuke?" Sakura had just come down the path, and was watching worriedly.
Kakashi smiled. "Come on now, Sakura, you're early too." The sun had finally risen enough to douse the whole clearing in bright sunlight.
Sasuke refused to look anywhere but at an invisible speck of something on his sandal, even when Kakashi and Sakura both gathered around him. Sakura was still staring at Sasuke in mild curiosity.
"Now." Kakashi said happily. "Assuming that you are both well equipped with everything you might possibly need for the retreat, we will be off."
"I'm all ready." Sakura said eagerly, finally looking from Sasuke to her sensei.
Sasuke said nothing, but lightly rested a hand on the various objects saddled to his hips and back- a blanket, cans of food, a money pouch.
Kakashi nodded happily. "Good. I'm gonna have to ask you to cover your eyes, however- you don't need to know how I got you there or back."
Sakura looked suspicious at this, but did as she was told, copying Sasuke in pulling the hitae-ate headband down to cover her eyes.
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The first thing that Sasuke noticed upon entering the 'cave', with all his senses alert and sharpened due to loss of vision, was the incredibly strong, foul stench. It seemed to overpower everything else, it so thick that there seemed to be no air, just this lurid stink that drowned you in a sea of corpses.
"OMIGOD! THIS PLACE SMELLS SO BAD!" Was the very first thing that Sakura blurted carelessly out. Sasuke could just see her covering up her nose and face with her knobby white hands, handicapping herself even further. She disgusts me, she is so weak- the bitter, frozen side of him hissed.
"O~kay." Kakashi said from somewhere nearby in a sing-song voice. "You can remove your headbands now."
It took only moments for Sasuke's eyes to adjust to the dimness of the cave. He pushed his headband back up into place and looked around. They were at the entrance, so a trickle of light was still slipping in. But Sasuke knew that the further in they went, that light would be totally lost, and the three of them would be immersed in dark.
"O~kay, I'm off." Kakashi said with a smile and a wave, then disappeared.
……Or, maybe, the two of them would be in the dark.
While Sakura stared around her, sputtering and protesting, Sasuke began to set out across the slippery stones deeper into the heart of the cavern. "Let's go."
Sakura looked back and forth between the entrance and the retreating back of her crush, before giving up in an anguished wail of frustration and running (slipping, getting back up) after Sasuke.
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"This will be a safe place to rest." Sasuke said out loud more for Sakura's benefit than anything else. They climbed up on a ledge high above the first large opening in the cave. It was high up, and gave the two a good view of the space below, the stalactites, the skeletons of people once trapped inside, the place the entered in through and the dark tunnel leading deeper into the belly of the earth. The ledge had a small fire ring, an old bowl, and a few human-esque bones scattered about, signs that it had once been used by the lepers quarantined here. It still smelled like vomit and piss. Sakura had been pinching her nose with two fingers since they started out, and she certainly didn't stop now.
"This is so gross." She whined. "For a retreat, not romantic at all."
Sasuke ignored her. He unraveled the first cloth sack on his back frame, extracting a pouch of dried fruits. He pushed the old twigs piled up against the wall back into the fire ring and used a small spell and small amount of chakra to light a fire. He set the pan into the flames and empties the fruit into it. He poured water in, then a thick powder, and stirred.
Sakura was instantly at his side. "Wow, are you making dinner, Sasuke? This feels good, so warm.." She held her hand sup to the flames, sighing exaggeratedly. Sasuke thought detachedly that Sakura would certainly die on this mission if she was by herself.
He didn't know if that was a good thing or not- would Kakashi-sensei fail him if he returned to find Sasuke eating the pink-haired corpse's share of food?
Otherwise, it was a perfectly good thing.
By now, his odd mixture in the pan was boiling and smelling sweet, even if not strong enough to drive away the stench of the cave. After a few more moments, the two ninja pulled out spoons and ate it, Sasuke chewing in silence while Sakura rambled on and on. He figured he'd pass this test easily if he just tolerated Sakura to the point where she could talk and he didn't have to say anything.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't be so easy, as he was to quickly learn.
The first few days went fine; Sasuke cooked all the meals, built the fires, kept an eye out for anything suspicious or living (highly unlikely) and Sakura rambled on happily with two fingers pinching her nose shut and a nasal voice.
And then, on the fourth day, the idiot tripped and fell.
Into a deep crack in the cavern floor.
Sasuke took a few moments to listen (with great pleasure) to her high-pitched cries of fear and pain fading as she fell before taking the initiative. He easily leapt down, straightening his body till he fell faster and he caught up with her, grabbed one flailing arm, threw shuriken, into the wall and held on tight while landing on the protruding weapons. As she dangled limp from fainting of fear, he threw more and more shuriken up, making a kind of ladder, and climbed back out.
The next few days were annoying, as Sakura proceeded to apologize profusely and thank him with the same amount of gushing enthusiasm at every opportunity / waking moment. He eventually told her to shut up, gave the girl a biting Uchiha brand glare, and left it at that.
The seventh day, Sakura wandered off when Sasuke was sleeping, and gotten lost.
After two days of searching, Sakura told him through her blubbering that she thought she'd heard a kitten meowing piteously for help. She then proceeded to eat and drink hers, and Sasuke's, portions of food and water for at least five days in the span of two hours.
By the time the end of the second week was approaching, Sasuke wanted to jump off a cliff. No, better yet, feed Sakura into a paper shredder, bit by wretched bit.
"Sasuke… do you hate me?"
Sasuke looked up, brow creased, at the sudden question after almost an hour of walking in silence.
"No."
The girl's face looked relieved for a moment, then she seemed to think about his answer for a few seconds, and change her mind about something. "Then… why do you ignore me, or tell me to shut up?"
Sasuke walked quietly for a few minutes, then said softly, "Because you're annoying." He could hear a brief faltering in the pattern of footsteps on rock behind him. "I don't along with people like you."
Sakura's voice had an edge of panic to it when she blurted out the next few words. "Then… then who do you get along with?"
Sasuke didn't hesitate either in his answer. "People who are honest. Who wear their emotions on their coatsleeve. Who I can trust. Who are strong, both inside and out." A smiling Naruto rose unbidden to his mind's eye. "Who bring warmth and light to dark places…"
He cut himself off when he realized what he had said, and vowed to remain silent for the rest of the day in order to further prevent himself from saying anything else equally as stupid. His words seemed to have also shut Sakura up, who was probably just a little shocked that Sasuke had an inner poet of sorts, even though Sasuke would never actually admit to that.
Later that day, when Sasuke judged the sun was setting outside, they buckled down for the last night in the cavern. They were nearly into the belly of the earth now; there was no light whatsoever- in fact, the air seemed to suck the light from their fire up before it could reach more than three or four feet. After a small, carefully proportioned supper of what food remained, the two curled up for bed, each on opposite sides of the fire, with their backs to it for warmth, facing outward to awake at any sound of enemies.
Sasuke waited for the sound of Sakura's breathing to become even and regular, then relaxed when he knew that she was asleep, and allowed himself to think. The boy curled up under his thin blanket, and sighed. He wondered what Naruto was doing now. Probably eating ramen, or dreaming or becoming the next Hokage. Such a silly dream. Sasuke smiled anyway, he couldn't help himself. Ambitions like those were cute.
When he had his eyes closed like this, now, he could almost imagine Naruto there, in front of him, grinning like a fox and laughing even though the boy felt lonely inside. His gaze traveled from that gold-blond hair, reflecting the firelight, seeming to burn like an archangel's- to that unblemished skin, tanned from days spent outside vandalizing statues and street-shops, and imagined it felt soft, like velvet or silk. He saw Naruto's hands, flung palm-up in oblivious slumber, fingers long and thin and nimble- he imagined their touch, on his cheek, his neck, his shoulders, his chest- and blushing, even lower. He knew that they'd be warm. He knew that they'd bring heat to cold places, hold him in warmth at night.
Sasuke's face was slowly reddening in color, heat rushing to his cheeks. The firelight made Naruto even more gorgeous than the sunlight, and when the vulpine boy was suddenly there, beside Sasuke, stretched out on his side on that thin blanket and sleeping so peacefully, the vision reversed the flow of heat from Sasuke's face to his body, burning all the way down, making his spine shiver. He kept his eyes tightly closed, afraid that this nighttime vision would fade, desperate to keep it alive.
Naruto's sleeping face was different from his waking one. It wasn't twisted in glee or a façade or happiness to cover up for the loneliness and bitterness- it was relaxed, settled, smiling just slightly. The boy's lashes looked like ashes on his cheeks, delicate and fine. His skin seemed to glow, and radiate warmth- the whole expanse of it, bared to the night. Paired with the blond hair illuminated to gold with the flames, the sleeping boy looked like a faerie creature, something unreal. The thin body was beautiful, with just enough muscle tone to look less childish than adult. Sasuke's face burned, but not in shame that Naruto was a boy, but in something else- the feelings that were oblivious to gender- love.
This surreal vision lingered, and Sasuke knew that as soon as he opened his eyes, it would be gone- so he didn't dare to wake yup. In his dream his reached out, slowly, afraid that the sleeping boy would be made of glass, and would shatter at the slightest touch- and let his fingertips rest as light as air on one golden cheek. He could feel Naruto's hot breath, exhaled in oblivious slumber, ghost over his palm, and he shivered automatically. His fingertips traveled across the cheek and down to the neck, trailing across the smooth chest. He had been right. Naruto's skin felt like velvet.
Sasuke's unoccupied hand slowly snaked its way down, underneath his blanket. His breath was coming ragged now, his eyes squeezed shut in a physical and mental effort to keep this Adonis, this impossible vision, alive. His face was red, and beads of sweat had begun to break out across his own pale skin, forming like drops of dew. The hand that wasn't touching this lovely vision was touching himself, slowly, stroking, imaging Naruto as the owner, imaging the golden-haired boy closer, and closer, pressing kisses to his forehead. The hand moved faster, then faster, harder, scratching gently with nails, kneading, moving up and down, up and down. He was panting now, breathing heavily, making soft little moans, mewling almost like a kitten. He imagined Naruto to be there, arms around him, pressing in close, holding him, and their hands were one. Sasuke gasped into his blanket, surrounded by a blinding golden glow and a heat that filled every part of his body. His hips lifted into the air, thrusting at nothingness, and the imaginary Naruto was crying out his name, so he cried out the other's.
The sounds caught in his throat and became warbled, murmured, as he sighed, hand falling away, belly plastered with something thick and hot. His eyes opened, and focused blearily onto the cave wall before him, barely illuminated by firelight. Shame filled his being, shame at what he'd done, what he'd thought, what he'd felt. He managed to push himself up, just slightly, and reached for the cloth in bag to clean himself off with, face red with the afterglow and lingering image of Naruto, back arched in ecstasy, face pink in shameless pleasure-
"S- Sasuke………"
He froze, and turned around to face over the smoldering fire, so slowly that one blink felt like a lifetime of waves on the shore.
Sakura, red-faced, was staring at him with eyes wide as saucers, lips parted in breathless shock, expression the epitome of horror.
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The morning that Kakashi came to collect his pupils after their two weeks of isolation was a very awkward one indeed. They waited, backs to each other, in utterly complete silence, no one moving or speaking. Everything was packed up and neat, and all emotions were effectively hidden.
Kakashi didn't say anything, dying of curiosity inside to know what had happened, and asked them to cover their eyes before leading the two out of the cavern and back into daylight.
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Fin
To be continued soon in chapter three!
Please, PLEASE review! I want to know what you think! I hope Sasuke didn't disgust anyone, that was really a very poignant moment for his character development in the fic, where he recognizes how Naruto makes his body feel. I hope you all liked!! And no flames from Sakura-lovers please, flames make me sad. ;_;
The more reviews, the faster the chapters come out, and the more fanservice I include ne!
^_^