Title: Fall

Pairing(s): SasuNaru
Warning(s): Shounen-ai/sorta-fluff, and mentions of violence/blood
Genre(s): General… introspective/musing/romance sorta thing (?)
Rating: PG-13-ish (You tell me…?)
Summary: The routine is this: words, then action – a sort of incantation and dance. So, what, if anything, happens when they change the steps?

A/N: Written as a gift for densuiken for the Naruto Wishlist community on livejournal. Notes are at the end.

Fall

It was routine.

The heavy gray sky was typical of an early fall afternoon. Memories of red and orange danced in the high branches of the trees, where on a nicer afternoon the sun might have fallen between the dying leaves like shifting, crooked shafts of gold. Fall did make for a wonderful contrast of shadow and light, after all – even if it was so regularly interrupted by stormy weather.

It suited the mission, though, when the world was shades of gray and blue.

Darkness was obviously a force they had mastered long ago, and they used it to their advantage. If a team could carry out a mission in the dark and be back by morning, it was somehow less likely that they would leave marks – physical or not. (It was harder, though not impossible, to cast shadows in the blackness.) But more than that – sunny weather simply wasn't killing weather; Sasuke knew that, and he knew many others who would agree. In fact, he knew one particular other who had seen firsthand how the weather made a point of saving its worst for days that were violent in more ways than one.

Rain fit the objective, now: an ambush carried out in the wet cold of these thin woods. There was nothing kitsch about the situation – no glossing over the bloody certainty with illusions of a perfect sunset. They were shinobi, after all; life wasn't picturesque, and often, the reality that faced them was what, in an hour or so, would cover the floor in a grimy mixture of rain and blood. Life wasn't easy, but even inside moments such as those – small liquid eternities before the kill, where they sometimes had to remind themselves to put away all kinder memories – delusions could sometimes win out. Because even if it was nothing extraordinary in terms of what they, as shinobi, dealt with on a daily basis, there was still something of the darkly fascinating, the tragically romantic, in lives that ended when the sun went down, in the terrible thrill of the first kill that was still sometimes like a fall from high places.

None of that changed the fact that the mission was routine… the watch routine, and the weather. The look he was receiving, however, was not.

Normally, he would have been able to read it immediately. It was Naruto, after all; how much could the overly expressive eyes really hide?

…Probably a lot, if he gave the kid as much credit as he deserved by this point in life.

But he couldn't place the look, and that was what was at once unnerving and infuriating about it.

Sighing, he thought that if he had known admitting what he had would have made the idiot so concerned about him so much, he would never have said anything at all.

"You know," announced the figure that flopped suddenly down on the branch next to him, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say there was something going on between you two."

Ino removed her mask with a soft clicking sound, her eyes glinting brightly, teasingly.

"You'd be surprised how much you betray by being careful, Sasuke-kun," she chirped.

He chose not to dignify her with a response, and suddenly had the childish urge to push her off the branch just to see what she would do – whether she would right herself immediately or whether she would fall into the nearest puddle and splash mud onto that little nose of hers.

"I think," she continued, staring knowingly off into the distance, "it must always be like that, when you're distracted and you don't want to be, or you can't afford to be."

Sasuke sighed, knowing now that she would never go away if he didn't say something. Wearily, he asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Of course," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken at all, "I don't really blame him, given his target. You've been the source of many a girl's distraction, after all."

"I don't see what this has to do with anything."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, you know. You can't pretend not to, because it's not like you're particularly discreet when you drop your guard. In this case, though… I know he wasn't much to look at, when we were younger, but now…"

"Ino…"

"What, you think I'm so vain that I can't comment on beauty where I see it? Or am I not allowed?"

The uncooperative look he offered her seemed to suggest that she wasn't.

"I'm just saying… Man, if Naruto were a girl, you two would have some good-looking kids."

Completely deadpan, Sasuke answered, "Thank you, Ino, that's very helpful."

The woman flashed him a ridiculous smile that almost turned sheepish before she leapt from the branch to the muddy, leaf-covered ground, muttering something about going to check on their target. She shook her head as she donned her mask once again, and Sasuke thought, even though she had been very useful on several missions thus far (mind control was always a fun device, wasn't it?) perhaps having her on his squad was more trouble than it was worth.

At any rate, as she strode away, he was glad he didn't have to deal with two pairs of questioning blue eyes – even if those he was truly interested in kept flitting away whenever he attempted to seek them out.

Those eyes, though, were different from Ino's – which, while sharp and certainly bright with wit or determination, held little of the depth of the other's.

Glimmering, flickering, splashes of color and light, like the sky being reflected in puddles… but not like the puddles that now grew to small lakes on the squelching muddy ground – interrupted puddles, pelted by thick unrelenting rain. Blue sky and fluffy white clouds would shimmer there tomorrow, when the storm stopped.

Halfhearted irritation prodded at him, bade him turn and properly regard the quiet, dejectedly mellow figure watching the mud bleed into and mar those scraps of reflected heaven – the figure that, even on a day as gray as this, was all the shades of a sunny afternoon.

He didn't wear the mask of a ruthless killer well, that one – and though he was damn good at taking up the role, he kept his heart far too close to battle for most people's comfort (and that included Sasuke's). To most shinobi, killing was a business – and it had to remain as much, lest their sanity be fritted away with what was left of their humanity.

It was just business.

And the wise kept their hearts locked somewhere far away.

Of course, on occasion, that was what had helped Naruto to survive – the heart that was big enough to hold the entire world doubling as the force that gave the shinobi in him such killer instincts.

That, among many other things, was what made him a damn walking oxymoron… with the emphasis on moron, Sasuke thought, even though he knew Naruto wasn't as stupid as he sometimes pretended to be.

He wore an even better mask than Sasuke, at times.

Warrior and something of an altruist. Successor to legend, and loud-mouthed idiot. Rival, and friend.

He was selectively brilliant, always heartfelt, and so deeply involved in everything, every life he touched, Sasuke had to wonder why he never seemed more exhausted. Or at least disillusioned. But he stuck to his ideals and chased after his goals – having broken most rules and made up his own along the way.

Sasuke smirked.

It was because that was his way.

The silly, perhaps childish dogma of 'I'll never give up, or go back on my word' had become an exhausting method to existence that he made look easy. Of course, he had been doing it all his life.

That was why it was at once unsettling and comforting to watch his mask fall.

Sasuke thought back to the night before, and when he finally met Naruto's eyes, he knew that he was doing the same.

- Incantation and Dance -

The room was candlelit, of all things.

Outside, the world was dark blue and black, the courtyard lit by the moon only where trees and the overhanging roof didn't obscure the bright white orb. Naruto had already felt like something of a ghost, wandering that abandoned place, so when he came across the one open doorway – the one lit doorway – he was more relieved than surprised.

The door had been open, so he had gone in. He immediately spotted the person he'd been looking for – and in the next instant, he wished he hadn't.

All Sasuke was doing was sitting there on the floor, wearing a black robe that left his skin looking more unnaturally pale than usual, surrounded by a half-arc of candles. But it was somehow clear that it was a very private moment, and that he shouldn't have disturbed it.

He tried to wonder why he hadn't simply given up at the gate and gone home. But he had something to say to the dark-haired figure seated on the polished wood floor, and he knew he was far too stubborn to pass up the opportunity – and hardly forward thinking enough to second-guess himself about it.

Surety, however, was something that not even the master of falsely cheerful spirits could retain forever.

So even as Naruto felt the ghosts of hundreds slowly seeping about the room, their presence so poignant and thick and dark that he found himself short on air, choking on it, tears stinging at his eyes… even as he slowly stepped back, shivering, one foot already out of the door… Naruto was grateful when Sasuke turned his head marginally, something like acknowledgement present in the way he slowly brushed back the bangs that fell into his face at the movement.

"What do you want?"

Abruptly, the haunted sensation was gone, the heavy air vanishing from the room. But it still left his insides quivering, and he sighed shakily and wished that Sasuke would look at him so he could be sure that the dark figure arranged so carefully on the floor was indeed his friend and not another shadow.

At the moment, he needed to see eyes he knew.

"Hey. Idiot."

He blinked, realizing that he had missed the sudden turn of the other's head. "What?"

Why do I answer to that…?

"I asked you if you needed something," Sasuke deadpanned.

He did. However, what he needed was the answer to a somewhat delicate question, and even Naruto had more tact than to ask him about it with no preamble.

So instead, feeling rather lame, he scratched the back of his head and asked, "So… What's this?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Sort of a memorial."

Naruto paused for a moment, knowing he was going to get his answer sooner than he had anticipated. "So you did…"

"…Yeah."

There was another long pause.

"Is that why you were gone for so long after your team came back?"

No, he really just got lost on the way back… Stupid question, damn it…

Sasuke, however, didn't seem to think it was a very stupid question. Eyes trained on the far wall, he answered, "I needed time to think."

Unstable rage, empty, quiet reflection, then rage again, and rash action, if nothing was solved (though everything had been, this time – so he wasn't sure yet if he needed that): for Sasuke, that was the cycle.

He'd come home from his most recent mission so late because he had spent several days in forested country, thinking – but not planning, because what was there left to plan? Eventually, though, he knew he had to return home, because he didn't much care to be labeled a missing-nin again. Just this evening, he'd wandered back into Konoha and made his way subconsciously to the old place. It had been abandoned for years – like a haunted house, a dead museum. But as he looked upon the façade of what had once been a home (it would never be one again, he knew, because even if he had chosen to stay there, a house didn't make a home), he felt an odd desire stir – the desire to see lights in the windows.

But he couldn't bring himself to enter the house with Itachi's blood still staining his clothes.

It would have been like sacrilege – though he knew the house had seen worse.

So he had gone back to his apartment to change and gathered a few things – calmly, eerily so, and feeling more than a little as if he were going to a funeral.

When he remembered the other person in the room, Sasuke turned to him and offered, somewhat randomly, "Now, I'm the last."

That had been his thought as he had lit the candles.

Though there really no words, Naruto tried to fill the silence.

"…Are you… okay?"

Wow, I'm on a roll today… Of course he's not.

Sasuke offered him a strange look before he said, "If you mean, am I as unstable as the first time I tried to kill the bastard, then the answer is probably no. I've had time, but not really enough to process it – which means, if you were wondering whether I'll be okay for the mission tomorrow, the answer is probably yes."

"Mission?"

"Yeah. I remembered... Obviously you didn't."

Naruto was quiet again, absently scratching the back of his neck.

"The others were actually worried about you, you know."

Derisively, Sasuke answered, "I doubt that."

"Anyway," Naruto muttered, "you shouldn't have gone off like that, even if everyone knew exactly where you were going. Tsunade-baachan's pissed, by the way."

"I think it's been pretty well established that I don't care what the old woman thinks."

The blond glared for a moment, ineffectually, before he asked crossed his arms over his chest and asked, "Does insanity run in your family or something?"

Sasuke glared at him and wanted to argue the point… but couldn't say anything, because at that point, he couldn't truthfully say whether his sanity was completely intact. So he turned away.

The room was still, stale with the smoke and dull light from the candles, for a long moment.

"I know you probably think I'm too stubborn to see why you couldn't ask for help," Naruto began, his voice low. "I i do /i get it, but…"

Based on his tone, he was either close to tears, or he was about to beat the Uchiha senseless. Somehow, Sasuke didn't think it was the latter – especially the blond planted himself on the floor next to him and threw both arms around his neck.

Sasuke felt more than a bit ridiculous – the embrace being more like a death-grip than anything else. (Hadn't he told Naruto not to touch him, at one point?) And it was awkward as hell, but somehow he knew he had to return some of that laughable comfort, because the idiot was upset and somehow (though he knew how) it was all his fault. Again.

Still… in a perverse sort of way… it felt like forgiveness.

Wrapping one hand hesitantly – not gently, because the last surviving Uchiha wasn't soft or gentle – around Naruto's wrist, Sasuke sighed. It didn't take any measure of brilliance for him to realize why the blond was doing this now.

When he had left Konoha years ago, he had left Naruto alive for many reasons – most of which he could barely explain to himself, let alone to the blond. But, predictably, Naruto had been so bent on helping his former comrade that he had all but welcomed him back with open arms.

In reality, the citizens of Konoha would never forgive Sasuke for his abandonment – of course, he couldn't expect them to. And anyway, he had no way of asking them whether they could even understand, let alone accept. The idea was laughable. And yet, for all Sasuke was convinced that nobody ever would be able to, Naruto insisted upon trying to understand.

Perhaps, in a way, that was because nobody had ever done as much for him.

Amusing, in some twisted sense of the word – though perhaps tragic was a better one – that their friendship had been founded on dysfunctional childhoods and bouts of insanity and chance.

Stupid though he may have felt trying to clarify himself at this point, but knowing that if he didn't say it now, it would never be said, he answered Naruto's earlier question. "If madness doesn't run in my family, then independence does. I tried severing all the ties, the first time… It didn't work, but… I guess you get comfortable being alone, in certain situations. So I what else could I do but go alone?"

He might have said that his ties to the village – and the unexpected strength he had drawn from them – had been some of the very things that had enabled him to go after his brother rather than simply go home, which would have been the easy thing to do. But admitting to Naruto that a moron of his caliber could have given him strength at all was practically an unthinkable thing.

"You could have died," he heard, muffled, from the blond head burrowed against his shoulder.

After a beat, he answered dismissively, "That's hardly news. And everyone dies eventually."

"Don't tell me 'it's just a question of how,' or I'll kick you ass."

Sasuke laughed outright. "As if you could."

He startling himself when he realized that he was leaning into the warm presence against his back – one both calming and comforting – and for the life of him, he couldn't remember when he had relaxed into it. He quieted rather abruptly, then, glaring at the floor in front of them and wondering why it should have had an effect on him at all.

Tightening his grip on Naruto's wrist – thought it might be reassuring – he answered,

"Who wants to live forever, anyway?"

"Let someone else in, and you probably wouldn't have to ask yourself that question so often."

That remark caught Sasuke off guard for some reason – the sudden sharpness of the speaker, or his random insightfulness that seemed so oddly out of place.

"And who would you have me let in, hm?"

"…Do you really have to ask that question?"

"Hn. It's not a question of whether I have to; it's a question of whether or not I even want it answered."

There was a strangled sound – a low half-growl that sent dull vibrations through both of them – before Naruto retorted, "You're so damn stubborn."

"Pot calling the kettle black."

Another beat. "I hate that saying."

"Probably because in this case, it's true." But it was only a half-truth, because they both knew themselves to be stubborn to the point of insanity. He hesitated, biting the inside of his lip as if to keep from speaking, before he said, "Sometimes, though… I think that if we weren't so alike…"

Why it bothered him so much to admit it, he could only wonder.

"…What do you think, Sasuke?"

He didn't answer, and instead started to move out of the other's embrace. Apparently Naruto thought that meant he was going to leave, because the blond tightened his grip, barely, briefly, like a shock of false panic tightens the heart. But at any rate, Sasuke had reached back and taken one of Naruto's arms, using it as an anchor of sorts as he twisted somewhat awkwardly in the somewhat unyielding circle of limbs.

And somehow, when he had managed to twist all the way around, they found themselves with their foreheads pressed together, their noses practically touching.

"…We'd get along a lot better," Sasuke muttered, finally, by way of answer.

Neither of them met the other's eyes, both looking down at the floor. Sasuke tipped his head slightly so that their noses did touch before pulling his head back so he could watch Naruto's face. Even when he tried to brush some of the unruly bangs away, though, the idiot was looking down, and there wasn't anything he could do about meeting his eyes.

Whether it was for the shock-value or whether he simply wanted to make it seem as if he hadn't been trying to do something pointless, his hand stopped mid-gesture and finally came to rest on the other's cheek. Naruto tightened his grip on Sasuke's arms, as if he expected him to do something strange. But all Sasuke did was run his thumb over one of the markings there. For an individual he had once come very close to killing, Naruto didn't seem to mind leaving himself open to whatever it was Sasuke was trying to do.

Indeed, as he traced his fingers slowly over the marks, Sasuke tried to ask himself what it was he thought he was doing.

It didn't work – but an honest attempt was an honest attempt, wasn't it?

Naruto brought his hands from Sasuke's forearms to his shoulders and higher, so that one thumb slipped under the collar of his traditional garb. Sasuke slid one hand to the back of the Naruto's head, entangled it here.

Then he was kissing him.

Of course, at this point he knew he didn't know what he was doing. Just that, after days of pushing everything from him and keeping his mind so carefully blank when it wasn't mourning the last familiar loss he would make, he needed physical contact – he needed to be overwhelmed. And for whatever reason, he couldn't have this idiot close enough.

When they pulled apart, Sasuke still couldn't see Naruto's eyes – but this time it was because the blond still had them screwed shut. Abruptly, though, his expression of bemusement because one of amusement as he smiled – that ridiculously wide, shut-eyed, trademark Naruto grin.

"And they call me number one at surprising people."

Sasuke hesitated, not quite sure what to say to that. He thought it might help if the blond would look at him, though, and had the impatient urge to demand that he do it.

Interesting, then, that what exactly Naruto felt was clouded even to himself as he finally started into the gray eyes across from him, and that Sasuke still didn't know whether he should speak – although, he did know for certain that one should never say 'I love you' because it feels like the right thing to do – the correct thing to do. (And even in this case, he knew it probably never would be the right thing. It didn't suit them.)

But, lord, Sasuke thought, i wouldn't that be a surprise…

"So… Was that surprised in a good way?"

"Hm… I haven't decided yet."

"You haven't-" He cut himself off, shook his head before looking up again. Then he smirked, took Naruto's face with both hands, and kissed him again – deeply.

When it melted from hard and fierce to something else that required actual emotional involvement – something almost like passion, if either of them could admit it was that – Sasuke reluctantly pulled away and saw, under the blatant need, a more pained expression.

For some reason it reminded him of an expression he had seen during their fight at the Valley of the End. So, somewhat roughly (though perhaps more so than he had meant) he asked, "What?"

And for one usually so unable to keep his mouth shut, Naruto stayed remarkably silent. As difficult as it was, Sasuke had to keep looking at him through his silence, because, despite bravado, he genuinely wanted to know what the blond would say, what he would think.

"It's cold," was what he eventually decided.

What he might have meant by that was… he almost wished for more of this – contact saved for dark, candle-lit places that no one else would ever think to watch.

And anyway, Sasuke knew that wasn't the real problem.

Confusion, loss, fear, uncertainty, any and all possible combinations thereof… those were the problems.

The world said that sometimes, you couldn't make it on your own. They had shattered the world and proved it wrong – because in the end of things, they were always alone. But it was still nice to have the comfort – even if only for the moment – in this one other person over all, to have the best of both solitude and company

It wasn't star-crushing or even vaguely incredible – if anything, it was natural, almost liquidly so… as their dysfunctional relationship always was. He wasn't even sure if either of them had gotten what they wanted – but that was how it went with them, apparently no matter the situation.

Falling was easy. But even after all this time, they hadn't landed.

Notes:

First attempt at shounen-ai, second Naruto fanfic… so be nice. (And it's actually the first one-shot I've ever written that STAYED a one-shot!XD) This was written as a gift for densuiken over at livejournal, for a gift exchange thing… but I thought I'd share it here. I wouldn't have written it without joining the community, and though I was a bit nervous about it at first, I'm glad I did join, because it was fun to write. I don't think there is any more… because it's a one-shot. However, I've been thinking up a few more scene ideas that might fit here, but I'm not sure if I (can) write them. Eh, you tell me if you'd like to see more.

So, as for the timeline… Yeah… I'm assuming that Sasuke comes back to Konoha, that Tsunade doesn't execute him or anything (which was a possibility pointed out by a friend of mine, actually, and made me quite sad when I realized that it's somewhat feasible… ehehe…), and that he's able to eventually kill Itachi. Fanfic clichés, I know…. So just blame the pretty mental images.

I really have no idea, other than that, what timeframe this takes place in (ambiguousness abounds…) – but I'm assuming that by this point, certain people are in ANBU, and they're probably 20-something… Yeah. Make of it what you will – especially since I'm an English major and I know well that a writer's original intention often matter not at all when it comes to people's interpretations….

And many thanks to my two lovely betas, randomsome1 and sakramentti666. (Livejournal is a wonderful thing…) This story… well, it didn't suck utterly before they got it, but they helped me improve it a whole lot.

Thanks for reading!

-SZ