A/N: Presented here without comment, because THREE YEARS.
Sorry. I suck.
(Thank you, thank you, thank you for those of you who have continued to read this work and leave amazing words of encouragement in the reviews. I see them. I treasure them. They are the reason this got written at all. I love you.)
I own nothing, except my own shame at my horrific procrastination.
Chapter Thirteen:
Part of Getting Older is the World Getting Colder
Naruto
He'd never had someone teach him how to do this.
Shitty fact of the world: ninja dealt with death. A lot of death. Naruto hadn't had decent clothes growing up (two pairs of moth-eaten pants and three T-shirts with holes in the sleeves—he didn't just wear the orange jumpsuit because of it's bitching color). But Naruto had gotten a new funeral robe every year, standard-issue, provided by the Village to all of its inhabitants, and didn't that just encapsulate how entirely batshit it was to be shinobi?
So Naruto: trained to deal with death. But he'd never had someone show him how to do this—how to mourn for someone he'd tucked close, someone he'd considered dear, one of the precious people he'd somehow tricked into seeing his awesomeness and smiling at the sight of him. His precious people had always seemed immortal to him, because how could they ever possibly die when Naruto would be there to defend them, always, with every breath, every bone, every bit of power in his body?
He'd been sad about the Third. Upset about his parents. But he was gutted about Jiraya. Gutted and grieving and confused about how this could have happened, how he could have let this happen, how Jiraya-Sensei could have died so far away and all alone. Naruto should have been there. Not the most rational of thought processes, and Naruto knew that, but still. He should have.
"I don't know how to do this," he admitted to Iruka-Sensei, because it was okay to do that. People took advantage of broken things, but Iruka-Sensei would never.
Iruka-Sensei breathed out deep, brown eyes red from his own bout of crying, and said, "Nobody knows how to do this. Not really."
They were sitting on top of the Hokage Heads, because it was their place. Leaf Village glowed beneath their dangling feet, an ocean of light and color, the smells of food stalls and soft yellow flowers carrying on the evening wind. It should have felt warm and familiar and safe, but it didn't, and Naruto wasn't sure it ever would again, that anything could be right in the world anymore if Jiraya-Sensei wasn't there, too.
"I should have saved him."
"Naruto." Iruka-Sensei put a heavy hand on his shoulder, showed sternness in the fold of his brow. "From three hundred miles away?"
"Making sense is something that boring people do," Naruto insisted, and ground the heel of his hand against his eyes. He wasn't even crying anymore. Maybe the tears had gone when his insides had been gored out. "I save people. That's my thing."
"It is," Iruka-Sensei agreed. "And you do. Of course you do. But you can't save everybody, Naruto."
"Bullshit."
Naruto watched Iruka-Sensei physically restrain himself from correcting his language. It was always amazing, watching him reel back that bitching temper all for the love of Naruto, warm and familiar, and it made the hole in Naruto's gut ache even more, go raw around the edges.
"It's never a lesson I wanted you to learn. And never one that I thought you would learn well, when the time finally came," Iruka-Sensei said. "But it's a part of growing up. Understanding that some people will leave you, will have to leave you. But it doesn't mean that they wanted to go, or that you let them down for failing to stop it. Alright?"
"Not alright." Naruto hunched inside his jacket. "That—that fucking sucks, Sensei. You know?"
Iruka-Sensei sighed. Stared out at across the lights of Leaf Village and said, "You're right. It really fucking does."
Naruto honked, a painful sound that got stuck halfway up his nose.
"You-," he howled with laughter in spite of everything. "You can't just say that, Iruka-Sensei! My ears! My innocent, impressionable—"
"You told Sasuke to 'eat an entire bag of dicks' when you were five, Naruto. I was there. I remember. First day of school, baby-faced first-years, and just—bag of dicks."
"—ears!" Naruto finished, laughing so hard that he nearly tipped off of the Nindaime's head, so hard that his tear ducts rediscovered themselves and started producing moisture again. "I am but a tiny child, lost and alone in this world—"
"Naruto," Iruka-Sensei murmured, because 'tears of laughter' had turned into 'totally unattractive sobbing', Naruto's lungs heaving and sawing and starving for air that he couldn't quite seem to catch.
"—counting on the grown-ups to show me how to get home," he finished. "I…I don't want to be a grown-up, Iruka-Sensei."
"I know." Iruka-Sensei's hand was still there, so warm and close on his shoulder, keeping Naruto grounded while every atom in his body tried to blast itself apart. "I know, Naruto. But it's okay. Nobody knows how to do that, either."
##
But it turned out that another part of this 'growing up' bullshit was learning how to broom aside personal tragedy when something bigger was at stake.
"We've interpreted the message left by Jiraya on the Lord Toad's back," Tsunade said. She looked wrecked, eyes red and wild, hands shaking, thumbnail chewed to bits, shoulders rocked forward the tiniest bit like she had a hole inside of her, too.
But she was there in her office, speaking to the clan heads of the village in a strong, steady voice. Holding court behind her desk like the biggest badass Naruto had ever seen, and he was totally going to hug her after this, even if it scandalized the other ninja and got Naruto's head put through the nearest wall.
"The Intelligence Division worked all night to crack the cipher," Tsunade continued. "They delivered Jiraya's final message at just past sunrise. It's a warning: Pein of the Akatsuki is headed for the Leaf Village."
Ino's pretty-faced father said, "Pein?"
Neji's blank-faced uncle followed up with, "Coming here?"
And Naruto said, "That ginger emo-ninja with the sweet face piercings?"
Kakashi snorted once, and then horse-collared him from behind, singing out, "Little ninjas should be seen and not heard."
"Bah. This little ninja doesn't do the quiet-thing, Kakashi-Sensei."
"Ninja, Naruto. It's in the name."
"Oh, you mean all those classes on stealth and secrets and 'be soft and silent like the evening wind', or whatever? Yeah. I slept through those."
Kiba's mom, the lady with the hair and teeth who fueled fear-boners throughout the village, raised her lip a little at Kakashi. "This kid for fucking real?"
Kakashi beamed behind his mask and said, "I adore him," all the while attempting to suffocate Naruto into silence.
"I do wonder why the boy is here," Neji's uncle added, all delicate grace and constipated expression, because he never really knew how to react around Naruto. Probably because he was torn between loving Naruto for the way Neji looked at him and wanting to bury him six feet deep for the way Hinata looked at him. "This seems an adult matter, Lady Hokage."
"We've known for months that the Akatsuki are collecting Jinchuuriki," Tsunade said. "If Pein is coming here, then he's coming for Naruto. And Naruto deserves a say-so in his own future, Lord Hyuuga, whatever you might think about his age."
"You're totally getting that hug, Granny," Naruto wheezed around Kakashi-Sensei's stupid bicep pressed against his windpipe. "A hug full of love and affection—it's happening."
With serene certainty, Tsunade said, "I will shove my sake bottle up your ass, brat."
"Meh. 'I'm coming to collect your ass, Naruto'. 'I'm going to kick your ass, Naruto'. 'I'm going to waste perfectly good booze by sticking it up your ass, Naruto'. This is some obsessive shit with my ass. You grumpy ninja need to get your thirst under control."
Kakashi-Sensei released a high-pitched, entirely inappropriate sound and then tried manfully to pretend that he hadn't.
"We'll ready the forces and bolster the gates," Shikamaru's dad said, ignoring Naruto entirely, because 'not giving a single shit' was the other bloodline limit passed down the Nara family tree. "But we need to decide what we're going about internal threats before the external ones arrive."
Kakashi-Sensei went very still behind Naruto, and so Naruto squawked, "What? What does that mean, 'internal threats'?"
"The Uchiha boy," Neji's uncle agreed, stroking his chin with thoughtful fingers, and Naruto went very still, too. "Yes. It's a problem."
"I thought we bound the brat's chakra and sealed his eyes," Kiba's mom said.
Carefully, Tsunade said, "We did. But we have intelligence that the boy might have had something to do with Jiraya's death. That he might have been passing information to the enemy."
Naruto slumped a little in Kakashi-Sensei's grip. Kakashi-Sensei held him upright, the arm around his throat going from suffocating to supportive.
"You're certain?" Ino's dad asked.
Tsunade shook her head. "We're not. It's speculation at this point. We're not sure of anything yet."
"But we don't have time to figure it out," Kiba's mom snapped. "If you think that the brat might have had something to do with any of this, then we need to take him out before 'cluster' officially becomes 'clusterfuck'."
Tsunade breathed deep. "You'd kill the boy for something we can't prove yet?"
Quietly, Neji's uncle said, "It's not a pleasant thought, Tsunade. We're not the Council, with their unrelenting belief in black and white. We're the heads of our own clans, and none of us have forgotten that the Uchiha would have once stood beside us at these meetings. That boy's legacy is one of sorrow and bloodshed, and prior to his defection, he'd done nothing to deserve it. But if the boy is truly against us, if there's even a suspicion that he would whisper our secrets to those trying to do us harm…" Neji's uncle let his hand rise and fall. "Lady Hokage. It's a risk we cannot take when such a dangerous enemy is scratching at our walls."
Naruto kept very still and counted the inhales entering his lungs, in and out until he and Kakashi-Sensei were breathing in unison, every exhale sounding like Sasuke's name.
"Naruto," Tsunade said. "Kakashi. Anything to add?"
Naruto shook and shook, vibrating in place, because he had too much to add but also nothing to say. Defending Sasuke was second-nature. Having his back was instinct, bred into Naruto's very bones by missions and blood and late nights around the fire, sharing first watch in silence until Naruto finally managed to annoy Sasuke into talking to him.
Sasuke was one of his precious people. But Sasuke was also the reason why one of his precious people was gone, gone forever, never coming back, and Naruto felt like he'd been tossed headfirst into an ocean riptide, and now he didn't know which way was up, which way would keep him from drowning.
"Uchiha was a clan of the Leaf Village once," Tsunade finally said into Naruto's silence. "As such, we'll keep this a clan issue. No need to involve the Council and their, as you say, 'belief in black and white'. Clan Heads, I ask that you take an hour. Sixty minutes to think—on Pein, and the Village, and the Uchiha boy. At the end of that sixty minutes, return to my office, and we'll take a vote."
It was a kindness. Tsunade ensuring that Sasuke got a fair vote from the Clan Heads instead of swift judgment from the Council, in spite of everything Sasuke had done. But it wasn't for Sasuke, not really. This kindness was for Naruto, and maybe a little bit for Tsunade, too. Because Tsunade understood about teammates, about how they branded themselves into your being and how that mark couldn't be erased, no matter what they did. She understood that Sasuke was burned deep into Naruto's bones, alongside Kakashi-Sensei and Sakura and Sai, unshakeable, just like Tsunade would always walk with 'Orochimaru' burned beneath her skin.
Sasuke was Naruto's teammate, no matter what he'd done or what he might do in the future, and Tsunade remembered that even as she sat there with wild red eyes and bloody lips from biting back Jiraya's name, and Naruto loved her so fiercely in that moment that it made him feel weak and small.
He did give her that hug, as the Clan Heads filed out to start the sixty minutes. There were zero sake bottles involved.
"Thanks, Granny," he breathed.
She squeezed him tight enough to crack his ribs and whispered, warm and close, "Get the fuck out of my tower, brat. Take your sixty minutes—you're voting, too."
##
It was impossible to shake Kakashi-Sensei. Naruto knew this, after years and years of trying and failing to ditch his teacher (whenever Naruto tried to dodge him, Kakashi-Sensei just appeared at his ending point before Naruto could get there, eye-smiling like a total dick as he ruffled Naruto's hair and ignored his squawks of outrage).
And so, with this knowledge in mind, Naruto wheeled around as Kakashi-Sensei followed him out of the tower and said, "Take your porn somewhere else for a little while, Sensei."
Kakashi-Sensei gave him the blankest look in his arsenal. "Is my entirely wholesome commitment to literature somehow offensive to you, student-mine?"
"Wholesome, my in-demand ass. Pervy Sage used to yell out the filth he was writing while he was training me because watching me face-plant was his favorite thing—I know how much he liked the words 'throbbing member', Sensei." It ground like glass against his ribcage, mentioning Jiraya's name, the memories still too real and vibrant. Naruto hadn't had time to gild them in loving memory yet, to transition them from 'annoying shit my Sensei did' to 'this is will stay with me—I won't forget this'. "Just. Take it somewhere else for a little while, okay?"
Kakashi-Sensei sniffed and said, "I suppose I can find a nice tavern willing to appreciate my literary prowess."
'Tavern' was code for 'bullshit'—Naruto knew that too, after all these years. Kakashi-Sensei was going to the memorial stone, to stare at Obito's name and offer preemptive apologies for the death of his remaining family member, the one Kakashi-Sensei was supposed to protect.
But Naruto didn't call him on it, because Kakashi-Sensei wasn't calling Naruto on where he was obviously headed.
"Maybe find Sakura first," Naruto said. "We can't keep her out of the loop. She's Team 7; she deserves to know, at least."
"Okay," Kakashi-Sensei said. "Okay, Naruto."
Naruto waited for a half a second longer, just in case Kakashi-Sensei had a message for Naruto to carry. Something he wanted Naruto to say or do. And it looked like Kakashi-Sensei was trying to think of something, but in the end he just sighed a little, head twitching minutely to one side.
Naruto swallowed hard and nodded. Took to the rooftops and ran fast, because he needed to have a conversation, and sixty minutes was not enough but it was all he had left.
##
Despite the fact that Naruto had, indeed, slept through every single one of Iruka-Sensei's lessons on stealth, he still knew how to sneak when he had to. Because ANBU were a perpetual pain in Naruto's ass, and while he preferred 'tornado' to 'tiptoe', he also felt like Granny Tsunade might make good on that sake bottle promise if he started a fight that weakened valuable shinobi right before the Pein attack.
And so, Naruto crept inside Sasuke's house undetected, or (more likely) at least with enough lack of rage that the ANBU decided to politely ignore his presence.
"So, it's you, now," Sasuke said, utterly flat and colorless, leaning against a moldering wall like he was part of it, like he'd already resigned himself to decay. His filmy, sightless eyes, surrounded by such pretty swirls of ink, fixed directly on Naruto even though he couldn't see him, and didn't that just prove Naruto's point about brands and bonds and never being able to shake them? "Kakashi and Sakura were already here, making all kinds of noise. I figured you were next."
Naruto brain wheeled crazily between 'Sasuke' and 'Jiraya'. His vision flashed red and then blue again, his breathing labored by the conflict crowding up his throat. Just to be safe, he anchored himself to the opposite wall with claws that he didn't remember popping.
"They want to kill you," Naruto ground out. "They want to kill you, Sasuke."
"The Council?" Sasuke asked, and he sounded like the entire idea of death was boring.
"The Clan Heads. Granny Tsunade's giving them an hour, and then they'll vote."
"Because I'm a traitor. And now, even worse, I'm the traitor that's killed a legendary Sannin." Sasuke's head tipped to one side. "Well. Two legendary Sannin, if we're counting Orochimaru."
"Is it true? Did you help kill Pervy Sage, Sasuke?"
"Do you have any reason to believe I wouldn't?"
"This isn't…it's not a fucking joke, Sasuke. It's not some stupid riddle or a guessing game or whatever sneaky bullshit the snake taught you. They're voting on your execution, and they're going to vote yes, because Pein is on his way to wreck the village."
"And I'm a risk that they can't afford. Someone who might help Pein from the inside."
"Would you?"
"And again: do you have any reason to believe I wouldn't?"
"Yes. No. I don't know!"
"Ah, is this the part where you try to believe that I'm still a good person? I was wondering when we'd get there."
"Leaf Village is your home, Sasuke."
"Leaf Village killed my home. My family."
"Then I'm your home. Me and Sakura and Kakashi-Sensei."
"You tried to be. You got closer than I ever thought you could."
It was delivered so quietly, so matter-of-factly, after years of denying it entirely, that Naruto felt the knees go out from under him.
"Then, why-?" he whispered, but Sasuke cut him off.
"It wasn't enough. Or, at least, it wasn't the same. You could be my new home, but that doesn't mean the old one never existed. The Leaf still left me with a compound of empty houses and the blood of my one remaining family member on my hands. Am I supposed to just forget that, Naruto? Forget Itachi, after everything he did for me?"
Naruto's throat worked, up and down. "I don't know."
Sasuke nodded. "And that's why I had to leave. I couldn't have the new home without forgetting the old. And I can't forget, not ever."
"But you said that we came close."
"Closer than I thought you could."
"What the fuck, Sasuke—you're admitting this now? Years of 'no Naruto, our bond was a lie, let me slut my way around the countryside to prove how much I never cared', and now you're all about the group hug?"
Sasuke shrugged, loose and unbothered. "Eleventh hour and all that. They're going to kill me soon anyway, like you said. There's no point in denying it now."
"You don't care that they're going to kill you?"
"You do?" Sasuke blinked those sightless eyes at him, like even without his eyes he could still see that Naruto was an idiot. "You think I killed your precious Pervy Sage. That's got to be enough to finally push someone away—even you."
"I am the clingiest barnacle," Naruto agreed, automatic, even as the core of him rattled upon its foundations.
Sasuke shrugged again. "Well. Then you'll be used to it, at least, when they come for me. You've been watching me leave for years."
##
Kakashi-Sensei was waiting outside of Sasuke's house when Naruto left. Showing up at Naruto's end point, like always.
"Dick," Naruto said, raspy and rough and fond.
Kakashi-Sensei closed his book. "Seven minutes until the vote. We'd better get back."
"Okay." They took to the treetops together. As they ran, Naruto said, "Iruka-Sensei said that it's okay to let some people go. That it's part of growing up and all that shit. That it's not letting them down, because some people have to leave."
"Iruka-Sensei is very smart."
"Bah—stop messing with his reports, then. But is he right?"
"It's so incredibly cute that you consider me a grown-up."
"Oh. Ha. Yeah, that's fair."
They were quiet for a while, until they hit the ground in front of the tower.
"But it's cold, isn't it?" Naruto asked, before they walked in, arms wrapped around himself. "Even though Iruka-Sensei said it all nice. It's still cold, that idea."
Kakashi-Sensei shrugged. "I may not be a grown-up myself, but I can tell you that they world they inhabit is a colder one."
"And how do you survive it?"
"Survive it? You're just so cute, student-mine, not noticing this shit." Kakashi-Sensei reached out to ruffle his hair. "Your Sensei froze to death years ago."
##
"The votes are in," Tsunade said, so quiet, and Naruto had to give her credit. Her eyes never left his, not once. They never wavered or looked away. "And tallied."
Naruto held his breath, even though he knew how this had gone.
"It was unanimous," Tsunade said. "A unanimous decision, in favor of putting Sasuke Uchiha to death."
Unanimous. The room murmured a little in shock, eyes sliding his way, because they'd expected Kakashi-Sensei to be practical, but not Naruto. Never Naruto, who was too loud and too childish and dreamed too big and warm to understand the cold decisions of adults.
They looked at him now with something like pride, or at least approval. Neji's uncle even touched him on the shoulder, a gesture of support that Naruto might have killed for once. They murmured words like 'impressive' and 'a credit to you, Kakashi' and started making plans in the same breath, about how they would do it, who would do it, and when.
Naruto felt frozen down to his bones and sick with it, like the hole Jiraya had left behind had been filled with icicle and vomit. And this was what it meant to be an adult, apparently, to cauterize your feelings and fill your hurts with cold.
This couldn't have been what Iruka-Sensei meant, when he talked about growing up.
Naruto breathed and stared at the black ink on his finger that he'd used to cast his vote, to sign Sasuke's death warrant, and thought: Nope.
##
He didn't bother tip-toeing this time. Just kicked in the door of Sasuke's house and blew his way inside, knocking down one dust-covered light fixture and then an entire wall.
Unfazed, Sasuke asked, "They sent you to do it? I thought that they might, for the symmetry."
Naruto's grin was a fierce, ferocious thing—he could feel it stretching his cheeks, fox-wide. "Shut the fuck up. Let's go."
"What, they don't want blood in the house?" Sasuke looked around, even though he couldn't see it. "Pointless; there's plenty here already. But okay—there's a garden out back if the Clan Heads are feeling particular."
"I said shut up, you absolute human dumpster fire. Come here."
Sasuke did, all calm acceptance and dignified resignation. The look on his face, when Naruto grabbed at his face and broke the seals around his eyes, was funny as shit. Naruto laughed and laughed, until tears were in his eyes again.
"What-?" Sasuke scrambled for footing. For dignity. His eyes fluttered rapidly, squinting and watering as they readjusted to seeing light after weeks of going without, mouth flopping open like a goddamn fish, and Naruto laughed so hard he started wheezing. "What are you-?"
"Go. Before Pein gets here. Before the Clan Heads come to kill you—Shikamaru's dad was going to do it, and I never, ever want to see those shadows actually kill someone. Fucking nightmare fuel."
"Why would you-?"
"You're so annoying when you talk that I tune you out sometimes, Sasuke, and then I have to play back what you said, after, to actually take in your bastardly words. Know what you gave me when I asked if you'd helped kill Pervy Sage? A lot of questions. An extra dose of emo tragedy-babble. Know what I didn't hear? Anything like a confession."
Sasuke squinted up at Naruto. "That's stupid. You—you're always so stupid. I could have been lying. I could be manipulating you right now, preying on that goddamn bleeding heart of yours."
"Yeah, you could," Naruto agreed. He could hear ANBU coming, drawn by the burst of power that Naruto must have given off when he'd broken Sasuke's seals. "And if you actually did have something to do with Pervy Sage's death, then I don't want to hear it, bastard. We don't have time for me to kick your ass right now—you need to go."
"And if I go? Pein is at your gates, or he will be soon. What's to stop me from joining up with him? From taking out my vengeance on the Leaf?"
"You could. But you won't. Because Sakura and Kakashi-Sensei and I—we'll all be here. Fighting and protecting, and maybe the Village isn't your home, but we're the closest thing you have and we're in the Village, so."
"You're not my home. You're—"
"No take-backs!" Naruto caroled, bright and obnoxious and right in Sasuke's stymied face. "You said it, I heard it, and I'm definitely going to tell Sakura so we can laugh at your hidden squishiness forever and ever. You need to take care of things, because you can't forget your old home, you said. But you can't destroy the Village because you know Team 7 will protect it, and I don't think you want to keep knocking your houses down like that Sasuke—not after Itachi."
"You—fuck you."
"Yeah, yeah, rage and torment. Find a different tune, for real." Naruto flapped a hand, still grinning so hard it hurt. "Better go. You've got plots to make, about how you're going to make things right without taking it out on the Village."
"You're telling me to leave."
"I know. Super weird, right? After everything?" Naruto kicked his feet and hummed at the ceiling. "But Iruka-Sensei told me that sometimes people leave you, sometimes they have to leave you, even if you know they didn't want to. And I know that, Sasuke. I always have, even if you never did—the difference between 'I want to' and 'I have to'."
ANBU was almost on them. Naruto had left some shadow clones to distract them, but ANBU was a corps of badasses and wouldn't be distracted for long.
"Iruka-Sensei said that it isn't always letting someone down to let them go. He was talking about Pervy Sage, talking about sacrifice making me a grown-up, or some shit."
"Exactly. He wasn't talking about me, about this. You moron."
"Well, that's the thing. Iruka-Sensei is so smart. The smartest. But I've always swallowed his lessons a little differently, right? I've never been normal." Naruto shook his head. "And I don't want to be a normal grown-up, either. Not when it means two of my precious people dead when I could have stopped it."
"I won't stop." Sasuke was settling back into himself, smudging away the last of the ink around his eyes, smoothing out his expression. "Naruto. I won't."
Naruto shrugged. "I guess we'll see."
Sasuke stared for a moment, blank and uncomprehending, just like always. And then he turned, ready to launch himself upward, away from the house.
"Sasuke," Naruto said, before he could make the jump.
Sasuke turned. The tiniest bit, but he always turned when Naruto said his name, and wasn't that something?
"Come home soon. Okay, you bastard? We'll leave the lights on for you."
The frown flickered across Sasuke's face, minute cracks in the mask he was trying to reassemble. Not a lot, but enough to keep Naruto from crumbling to the floor when Sasuke jumped, when he disappeared. Again.
They wouldn't be proud of him anymore. Any admiration he'd earned from the Clan Heads, any praise they'd whispered about his practicalities—all of that would be gone. They'd rage, chastise, call him a child, a stupid child who couldn't understand the weight that adults were required to carry.
Naruto didn't care. Couldn't care. His stomach still hurt, still felt hollowed out and bloody from the loss of Jiraya—letting Sasuke go hadn't fixed that.
But the icicles were gone. He was warm—Naruto was so perfectly, purely warm.
##
A/N: I didn't have much more planned for this story-just two more chapters to round things out and bring a more cohesive ending. I'll do my best to get them written. Until then, Happy Reading! (Next Chapter, Sasuke POV: TFW you become a black hole of emotional confusion for real).