Author's note: I have absolutely no idea what this is. Proceed at your own risk.

Warnings: Naruto's pov; canon divergent right after the war; established slash; time skips; references to past traumatic events; some sort of fluff?

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.

Yeah, no idea what this is, so you know, not sure whether I should hope you like it ...

Each One Has Its Story

Arm

When Tsunade unwrapped the bandages, her brown eyes professional and critical, Naruto leant forwards, studying the reddish looking skin with the multitude of black threads peeking above the flesh. The both of them had required the use of both chakra healing and stitches in order to put their arms into a state that resembled something else than exploded nubs. Which was what had happened, of course, but it made Tsunade irritated whenever Naruto pointed that out, so now he just kept his mouth shut.

With only a week after the ending of the war the hospital was still flooded with patients and Tsunade along with the other medic nin were constantly flying from one room to the other one, attending to this patient, helping another, saving that one …

"When will the threads be removed?" he asked curiously, bending even closer towards the arm.

Sasuke arched an eyebrow at him, but remained quiet, letting Tsunade manhandle his arm in every direction she could think of. It was odd to see Sasuke's usual pale skin looking so red around the elbow now; the black threads making the reddish hue look almost furious. They stuck out starkly and Naruto tried to count them, but had to give up when he lost count after twelve stitches.

"They will dissolve on their own, just like yours," Tsunade muttered, touching the area around the stitches gingerly. "Doesn't seem like you're developing an infection."

"Hn."

"Will it leave a scar?" Naruto questioned, idly poking at his own bandages, though his attention remained on Sasuke's arm.

"You know, I liked you better when you were unconscious," she muttered and started wrapping a fresh set of bandages around Sasuke's arm. "Less obnoxious questions."

"I'm just curious!" Naruto whined.

"You two blew up your own arms, what do you think?" she sighed exasperatedly and shook her head at him. "Yes, it's most likely going to leave quite the scar."

"Don't care," Sasuke muttered, lowering his arm when she was finished.

She threw the bandages a speculative look, before shifting her gaze towards Naruto's bandaged arm. "I've been thinking," she started slowly. "I'll have to do research, of course, because this isn't something I practice daily, but I think I have a way to give you an arm again."

"The First Hokage?" Sasuke asked sceptically, clearly catching on quicker than Naruto did.

"What's with the First Hokage?"

"I could try to use his cells to create a new arm for the both of you," she explained. "Not sure how quickly I'll be able to do that, but it should work. Would you like that?"

"It'll be useful," Naruto mused aloud. He probably would be able to get used to being one armed if need be, but if he could get a new one … Why not?

"Don't bother," Sasuke muttered disinterestedly. "I'm not interested in getting a new one."

"Why not?" Naruto asked bemused. "Wouldn't that be easier for you too?"

"Don't need two hands to kick your arse," Sasuke retorted dryly.

"BASTARD, YOU - "

"BRAT, THIS IS A DAMN HOSPITAL! KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN!"

The threads did dissolve on their own, leaving nothing but pinkish, red lined flesh behind. The skin smoothed over eventually, with only some faint white lines in the centre a reminder of the scars that had settled in.

Tsunade did such a good job that it almost looked like Sasuke had been born with just one arm instead of having lost one during their battle. The skin looked smooth with not even a trace of scar tissue raising the surface. If one didn't know what had happened, one would be hard-pressed to even notice the faint scars, only visible when the light hit them just right.

"What are you looking at?" Sasuke asked passively, leaning back against the tree.

It was the first time in months that Sasuke had deemed them worthy of his presence again and Naruto had instantly dragged him to the park, eager to catch up with his best friend. This was one of those rare moments where Sasuke had removed his cloak and had rolled up his sleeves, letting the sunlight dapple over his pale skin.

"Nothing, just … You sure you don't want a new arm?" Naruto rubbed his own bandaged one; the limb still feeling slightly foreign even after two months.

He kept it wrapped up at all times, only taking it off underneath the shower. Tsunade had assured him that the bandages were no longer necessary, now that time had proven his body wouldn't reject the foreign limb, but something in Naruto kept him from getting rid of them.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Why actually? And don't use the excuse of kicking my arse," Naruto huffed.

The dark haired man smirked, proof that that was exactly what he had been intending on saying, before he sobered up and shrugged. "Just don't see the need for one. This is part of me."

Of course the arm was a part of him, but even Naruto wasn't dense enough not to understand there was a deeper meaning underlying Sasuke's response. What exactly that meaning was, Naruto couldn't say for certain. As he touched his bandages again before shuffling closer to Sasuke, clinging onto the man's shoulder, he thought he understood an inkling at least.

Eyes

There were tiny, almost impossible to spot scars surrounding Sasuke's eyes. They hid in the outer corner of his eyes, unnoticeable to the naked eye.

Naruto only noticed them one morning when they were lying in bed and a rare happenstance saw him awake before Sasuke was. It didn't happen often that he woke up before the other man and he took that time to study him quietly, drinking in the sight without being concerned about being caught. Sasuke could grumble quite a bit if he caught Naruto staring for too long, as if it was a crime to stare at one's boyfriend!

Naruto silently huffed and shuffled closer, using the daylight creeping through the gap in the curtains to look at the sleeping man next to him. Sasuke was on his back; the blanket having shifted down towards their hips, leaving their chests bare. His functioning arm was right underneath Naruto and the blond man was careful when shifting closer, unwilling to break the moment and wake him up. His other arm laid next to his side; a muscle twitching for a couple of seconds in reaction to whatever Sasuke was dreaming about. Some strands of his black hair covered his face partly, hiding his right eye from view. Naruto carefully brushed them aside, marvelling how Sasuke still remained asleep even with the daylight falling directly onto his face now.

He must be more tired than Naruto had thought and he spent a moment feeling smugly proud about that, remembering what they had done last night to bring Sasuke into such a tired state. The way Sasuke had looked like, trembling and completely at Naruto's mercy as he had tongued the centre of Sasuke's –

I will throw up if you keep thinking about that, Kurama rumbled; one eye opening in warning.

"You don't eat, what's there to throw up?" Naruto shot back.

Continue that sickening thought process and you'll find out, Kurama warned darkly.

"Look, after eight months you'd think you would have got use- "

I will rip your tongue out through your teeth, the demon fox said calmly.

"How would that even work?" Naruto wondered. If his tongue was behind his teeth, that would make it hard to reach it, no?

Get lost, it's too early to deal with your nonsense already.

"Too early?" Naruto grinned. "Aw, is someone feeling his old age?"

He was unceremoniously kicked out their shared mental space. That was fine, it wasn't as if he had been planning on holding a whole tea party with the cranky bastard anyways.

Focusing his attention back on Sasuke, it was only now that he noticed for the first time a single thin line running from the outer corner of his eye, which halted right underneath the edge of his eyebrow.

Befuddled Naruto leant closer, intent on inspecting the line further. Had it always been there? It couldn't be a wrinkle, it was too smooth, too thin for that. It didn't even leave a groove behind; if Naruto hadn't been leaning so closely, he might never have noticed it.

"What are you doing?"

Sasuke's sleepy voice broke him out of his staring and he smiled sheepishly, shoving himself backwards before Sasuke might decide to kick him away. In a relationship or not, Sasuke could quite possibly be even crankier than Kurama in the mornings and an aggrieved Sasuke had a mean kick.

"Nothing, really. Just admiring your face," Naruto grinned, making dark eyes roll.

Sasuke hid his yawn behind his hand before rubbing over his eyes, as if to remove the remains of sleep.

"Noticed some kind of scar next to your eye," Naruto said, because he couldn't contain his curiosity. "How did you get that?"

"What, this?" Sasuke's fingertip lightly touched the corner of his eye.

"Hm, that one."

Sasuke sat up and rolled his shoulder, running a hand through his hair to bring it into a semi orderly fashion. "They had to operate on me in order to transfer Itachi's eyes," he replied calmly, as if it was every day that he mentioned replacing his eyes with those of his brother.

"Oh." Naruto fell quiet, uncertain how to proceed.

He knew that Uchiha were prone to blindness if they used their Sharingan too often and there had been moments when he wondered why he had never actually seen a blind Uchiha member before back when they had still been numerous and alive. Guess the mystery was solved.

"Sounded risky," he chose to say in the end.

Sasuke shrugged, almost blasé. "Turning blind was riskier and I needed them in order to become stronger," he said and this time a cynical smile graced his lips. "Don't think that was what nii-san had in mind when he told me to become stronger."

"I don't think he would have minded," Naruto said softly, remembering the older Uchiha brother and how in the end he had done everything in his power to protect his little brother, thoroughly misguided as his acts might have been at times.

There was no denying Itachi had loved Sasuke, though.

"No, I don't think he would have," Sasuke said after a pause and looked away for a moment. When he turned his head back to Naruto, he had one eyebrow arched. "You up for breakfast or are you going to stare some more?"

Naruto grinned, shooting forwards to steal a quick kiss even when their morning breath has Sasuke scowling and swatting his arm. "The sight is pretty nice, not going to lie," Naruto replied impishly.

As a reward he got a pillow in his face.

Knee

Naruto thought that perhaps he was so fascinated by the scars on Sasuke's body because he himself didn't have them. Aside from his bandaged lower arm, there was nothing to even hint that he ever got badly hurt. Whether he fell, scraped himself, got stabbed, burnt, sliced, or cut by vicious cat claws, nothing ever remained behind of those incidents. The wounds would heal and close up in less than a couple of days, usually within just a few hours even.

That had to be why Sasuke's scars roused his interest, he decided, tracing the jagged line he discovered on Sasuke's left knee. It was right below his knee cap, slightly pink but it looked old enough that whatever had caused the scar must have happened years ago.

"Got that one when I was out hunting boars with nii-san," Sasuke mumbled, lying with his arm across his eyes.

"You fell down or something?" Naruto inquired and sat up, watching with some satisfaction how Sasuke lowered his arm; dark eyes drawn towards his naked chest.

"Hm, didn't see a tree root on time and tripped over it." Sasuke frowned. "Smashed my knee pretty badly against a rock." He snorted then, amused. "I was bleeding pretty heavily to the point that Itachi was slightly freaking out, I think. He kept denying it, of course, but he wouldn't put me down all the way back to our house."

"Bet your mum didn't expect you to come back like that."

"No, no, she didn't." Sasuke laughed softly. "She made Itachi put me down on the couch and called for our family medic nin immediately. In the end it looked worse than it actually was, but it did leave me with a scar."

Like the others littered across his body. The thin scars around his eyes; the scar on his knee; the thicker scar tissue marring his chest from where Madara had stabbed him during the war. There was an uneven scar right underneath his left hipbone when a shinobi at one of Orochimaru's hideouts had tried to ambush him. Thin dots on his shoulder blade where Haku had hit him with his needles. Even the calluses on his fingers could be considered scars: proof of his identity as a shinobi, wielding kunai, shuriken and a katana for years now.

Each scar had its own story, its own memory tied to it, whether funny, good or bad. Naruto liked tracing them, listening to the stories they told.

"What are you smiling for?" Sasuke asked, but his suspicious tone was weakened by his own smile tugging at the corners of his kiss bruised lips.

"Just happy," Naruto said lightly and crawled up, coming to lie on top of Sasuke; his legs bracketed by the older man's. He folded his hands on top of Sasuke's chest; his fingers resting against the slightly raised scar he found there. He pressed a kiss against it before peering up at Sasuke. "Tell me more?"

Sasuke quirked an eyebrow, visibly amused, but acquiesced, resting his arm across Naruto's back, tracing scars that would never find their place there. Naruto's skin was smooth, unblemished save for his bandaged arm. He would never be able to point at a scar and tell its origin story.

Sasuke's body hid a fair amount of scars, both visible and invisible, thin and thick, raised and smooth, telling stories of everything the man had been through.

Naruto couldn't wait to hear them all.

The End

AN2: I don't know, I have no clue what this is. I leave you to be the judge of it.

Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.

I hope to see you all back in my future stories (which should be at least a smidgen less weird). Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!

Cuddles

Melissa

P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.