Author's Note: These are series of drabbles written for the Stages of Love comm on livejournal. Each series consists of five one hundred word drabbles. Each series will be posted by pairing/challenge. Couples will vary. Het, yaoi, and friendship. I like many pairings, and I expect that if I continue to write these, that will show. Raiting may go up for later series.
Feedback is always welcome.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and I make no money off of this.
Chapter Warnings: Sasuke/Naruto, friendship or light shounen ai. Nothing explicit. Some language.
Gravity
It wasn't attraction.
Attraction is something else. It's something soft, something pretty and comfortable. I don't know... gentle. I guess. Or maybe I just don't know what it is.
But when Naruto looked at me with red in his eyes, he was none of those things. When he punched me in the face, it wasn't tender or romantic. He meant it when he called me a coward and said he didn't know me.
It was a rivalry, but that wasn't right either.
It was something I needed. It was a fucking force of nature.
It wasn't attraction. It was gravity.
Polarity
Every part of me hurt as I fell to my knees beside him. The mud felt good against my knees. The rain was almost a relief on my skin.
In the end, I couldn't do it. I had thought I would be able to. But after everything, I couldn't quite make myself end it. I'd broken whatever bond was between us, I'm sure. But I couldn't kill him. I wanted the power, but not at that cost.
My forehead-protector lay scratched and battered nearby. He'd pulled his punch first.
I touched his face before I left. He was so cold.
Chemistry
I suppose that it's natural to forget sometimes that he'd have grown up too. When I saw him, older, taller, more assured than he ever was when we were young, I remembered all at once.
Just seeing him, I could hardly breathe. I could hardly see. It hurt so much. I felt so much.
I needed to be better than him. I needed to have grown more. If he was as strong as me, then the last three years would have been for nothing.
I could tell as I met his determined stare and matched it, he felt the same.
Sympathy
He and I, we were too alike in some ways, so different in others. I'm amazed neither of us killed the other just to prove a point. I'm amazed neither of us let ourselves be killed for the same reason.
It was always the way with us. Like the last time, we both fought past the point our bodies could endure. When Orochimaru would have killed him, I surprised even myself when I found the strength to stop him.
We had fought each other, hurt each other, each struggling to better the other... and in the end, we bled together.
Inevitability
Naruto healed well. A week after the war ended there wasn't a scratch on him, let alone a scar. I was still in bed.
He visited me. I couldn't imagine why. I had surrendered after that last fight - not much choice in the matter - and a trial pended my recovery. I wasn't exactly the most popular person in the world just then. Sakura came as well, less often. I don't think she liked the seals painted over my eyes.
But Naruto visited, and talked casually.
Eventually, he asked, "Will you stay?"
"I don't plan on leaving." And I meant it.
