Sasuke was in the hallway. In fact, he was in front of the elevator before he could even think, "….why the hell am I in the hallway?" Sasuke swore he had never waited so long for an elevator in his entire life. Stairs. Stairs were SO much faster. So he took them. Two at a time, in fact. Thank you mother, for these long legs.
There was a pause at the top of the stairwell, where the door opened onto the roof. Sasuke's hand stayed over the knob. And stayed….and stayed. Probably for a good five minutes, actually. Sweat could have actually been running down the kid's forehead. In fact, France could have been conquered in the eons that his hand hovered over that doorknob.
"What am I doing?"
He straightened up and narrowed his eyebrows, throwing the door open.
Whoosh. Cold air bombarded him directly. It was dark by this hour, but the sky was crystal clear, calling for crisp, freezing air. Gee. Good thing he hadn't thought to put on a jacket at all. Now he could experience the wonder of mid-November against his bare skin. Well, his blood was pumping enough right now for a momentary ignorance.
The roof was quiet. Sasuke's eyes darted around. It wasn't the boy's first time on the roof. He had come up here before, but not by himself. Sasuke knew that if he wanted to find Naruto, this is usually where he would be. Had the kid really been up here for three days though?
The dark haired boy started carefully around the roof. It wasn't that large of an area, and it didn't take him long to find his objective crouched on the raised edge of the roof.
Sasuke stood rigid. For once (or maybe twice) in his life, he wasn't sure what to feel. Usually, he could capture indifference. He took a deep breath. He should be….? Relieved? Angry? Scared? Ouch. His heart was actually pounding hard.
Of course it was just from the run up the stairs. Of course.
"Idiot." he called. "What do you want?"
Naruto turned.
That smile. It confused and killed. Sasuke took a step towards him.
"Come off the-" he didn't finish the sentence before Naruto launched himself off the edge. Right off the edge. Off the roof. Ten stories. This was not happening.
Everything was frozen. His arms, his legs, his heart. His eyes searched the spot where the blonde had stood just seconds ago.
Before he'd jumped off the roof.
"…Naruto?" it was barely a whisper. This wasn't…real?
Obviously Sasuke's legs could stretch the distance between his former spot and the edge of the roof in one huge leap. He almost toppled over the short wall himself as his abdomen slammed into it, forcing a yell out of his lungs.
"Naruto!" he took in a huge breath. "Damn you Naruto!" he called over the edge, into the darkness. Nothing around him made sense. A hand went to his face. "What….what…" he muttered.
"What, what?" a voice repeated, directly behind him. "Did you drop something?"
……
Oh HELL no.
Naruto then saw the most frightening face on a human being he had ever seen in his 18 years on this earth. In that moment, standing now face to face with Sasuke Uchiha, he feared for his very life. He trembled down to his very marrow.
Finally, Sasuke had decided on an emotion, and he rode that emotion for all that it was worth. Pure, unadulterated rage.
"Look, Sasuke-" Naruto began, before he was grabbed around his middle and hoisted unceremoniously across the taller boy's shoulder.
"I will kill you myself." Sasuke practically growled. Naruto panicked. He regretted everything he had ever done forever in that one moment.
"Sasuke, Sasuke, don't! I'm sorry, sorry! Sorry! Okay please don't throw me off the roof, Sasuke!" his babbling fell on deaf ears. Naruto dared open his eyes to realize that he wasn't being hurled to his death, but rather carried swiftly down the stairs, and back to his dorm room.
Sasuke didn't bother turning any of the lights on. He kicked the door closed. Naruto was set on the living room floor. The blonde stood there, bewildered but relieved.
Naruto sighed, with a faint smile. "I really thought you were gonna-"
Sasuke could not have hit him more violently had he swung a chair at his face. He threw his fist directly into Naruto's eye, punching him harder than maybe he deserved, but just as hard as Sasuke felt he had always wanted to. He was left standing there, rubbing his knuckle.
Naruto was on the floor, rolling about slightly, clutching his face. "owwwwowowow….damnit Sasuke you jerk….." he muttered almost incoherently.
Sasuke stormed into the kitchen, opened the freezer, slammed it, and stormed back into the living room. He threw a package of frozen peas at Naruto.
"OW! Freaking…ow…" the boy cried as it hit him in the elbow.
"Put that on your face!" Sasuke commanded. Geeze. He had barely had time to bask in the satisfaction that is totally wailing on his roommate before he'd turned around and taken care of him.
Sasuke sat down on the couch and put a hand to his face once more. He felt the blood and adrenaline still racing through his body and took a deep, quiet breath. After a moment of quiet whining, Naruto was silent on the floor. The blonde sat up.
"Why did you hit me!" he shouted. It was obvious that he was angry about what had just occurred.
"Because I felt like it." Sasuke replied. Well, it wasn't a lie.
"You know, I don't go around burning down buildings just 'cause I feel like it." Naruto wasn't sure he'd used the greatest comparison, but whatever.
"Apparently you go around jumping off them."
That shut the whiner up. For a minute anyway.
"You know, I would never actually kill myself." he said. Naruto thought this would be obvious. He was only now really starting to wonder why Sasuke had ever come onto the roof in the first place.
"I know." Sasuke responded, rubbing his temple. He really hoped that Naruto hadn't hardly put one half and one half together.
"Didn't seem like it when you were freaking out after you thought I'd jumped off the roof."
That was definitely grounds for a tackling. Sasuke pinned Naruto in a matter of seconds.
"I was doing what?" he asked through clenched teeth as he pressed Naruto's wrists firmly to the carpet. Even in the dark Sasuke could see a dark ring already enveloping Naruto's left eye.
Naruto simply stared him down angrily. "What's wrong with you?" he asked. "Its okay to act like you care about something, you know."
"I don't!" Sasuke was practically nose to nose with the other boy. "No one even called! No one even noticed that you were missing! No one cares about you, Naruto!"
Naruto fell silent. Sasuke hoisted himself off the blonde and turned his back on him. He covered his mouth in distaste. He wasn't entirely sure himself why he always said such terrible things to Naruto. A moment of silence passed and Sasuke glanced over his shoulder. His anger welled up again at the sight of his roommates face.
"Damn you Naruto, stop smiling!" he demanded. The freak smiled with tears in his eyes even!
Naruto sniffed. "Why? You're just jealous cause you have nothing to smile about." he pointed out. Sasuke swiveled around.
"Neither do you! No one even likes you! Why can't you just accept that and go on feeling sorry for yourself like a normal person?" Sasuke poked him hard in the shoulder to emphasize his point. "Don't you hate being so alone? No one really wants to know what you think, or what you feel like. You hide behind that stupid smile like nothing is wrong." he never even realized for a moment what was coming out of his mouth, or that Naruto simply watched him rant intently. "Doesn't that bother you?"
Naruto stared at him for just a second. His face broke out into a grin. "Not really." he replied, as upbeat as ever. Sasuke gritted his teeth and grabbed hold of the boy's collar, pulling him up close to his face.
"I said, stop smiling." he demanded. Geeze for even just a minute if he'd wipe that damn smile off his face.
Naruto did stop smiling. He made no move to wriggle from Sasuke's grasp. Man, he felt brave today. Sasuke could kill him at any moment. But there was something more important than that.
"Does it hurt, Sasuke?" he asked, making contact with those dark, unemotional eyes. "All the things you said, you feel them too, right?" he whispered. He reached up and took Sasuke's hand, dislodging it from his shirt. "You put on that same, cold, angry face everyday. Doesn't that bother you?" Naruto was surprised at his own tact just now, actually. He waited to get his face bashed in.
Sasuke shook his hand free and gave Naruto a push. He had almost gone into pouty "ugh, you were actually right for a change" mode. Naruto pulled himself off the ground.
"Come on, stand up. I've got the solution." he proceeded to crack his knuckles.
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me. You're going to deck me in the face so you can feel better." His voice was drowning in sarcasm.
"Although that would be far more awesome than I could possibly imagine," Naruto considered, "there is already one person tragically suffering from a black eye in this house." He stretched his arms above his head.
Sasuke didn't move. It really looked like the kind of thing he himself would do before he dished out a beating.
"Get up." Naruto reminded him, as if Sasuke had forgotten. He waited patiently, arms folded across his chest.
Once Sasuke assessed that Naruto was probably harmless, he slowly got to his feet. "If this is another of your stupid ideas, you are sleeping outside tonight." he threatened.
"I'm not a dog, you know." Naruto retorted. He took hold of Sasuke's shoulders and redirected him to the middle of the living room. "You stand here." he commanded. Naruto stood directly in front of him only a few feet away.
Sasuke was so….so so confused. He went over a few options in his head of what Naruto could possibly be up to, and all of them involved violence of one sort or the other.
Naruto took a deep breath. "Sasuke, when is the last time you hugged someone?"
Ohhhhh no no no.