A/N: Seems most of you think Sasuke's a brat. I have no comment on that. We haven't seen everything Naruto and Sasuke are capable of. Some of it's good. Some of it's bad. We've basically only explored one side of their relationship, and as I'm sure most of you know, sharing yourself with someone entails a whole lot more than just sex.

Shoutout to kanazerosukenaru. My rock. She keeps me grounded, and I greatly value her input and friendship.

Now, I'm not entirely sure, but I believe Itachi makes an appearance chap after next.

15. The Fight

At the end his first full day, Sasuke came to a realization (he was physically weak), a conclusion (even if Madara wasn't currently walking up the mountain to get him, he couldn't continue to exist on the hope that somebody would save him; he had to grow up), and a decision (he would tough this training out for as long as he could). He hated training, hated spending time on anything other than Naruto and his body, but he couldn't make a reasonable argument to abstain from getting stronger.

Naruto did indeed test his speed that day, after they'd warmed up with weapons in the room. This happened out in the forest. Sasuke was made to race against Naruto on a grassy stretch that wound through the trees. The stretch itself was littered with tree stumps or places where trees had been uprooted, and somehow Sasuke knew that Naruto was responsible for this. The stretch, or track as Naruto called it, was 10 kilometers. Sasuke eyed Naruto's long legs, and silently vowed to run like the wind.

They raced three times. Sasuke beat Naruto the first time, both of them going without chakra. He lost the second time, when chakra was used, and the third time, when chakra and weights were used. Naruto also tested his speed in the form of measuring his reaction time and reflexes, which he pronounced excellent. Sasuke was too tired by then to bask in this praise.

Ninjutsu, which was also done in the forest, turned out to be interesting. "At my level, I've attained mastery of the five elemental chakra types," Naruto lectured. He held his palms out casually toward the ground; earth fountained upward toward one hand, while water poured from another. "This isn't uncommon. A Jounin typically has mastery of at least four different types." He turned his hands upward. Fire sprouted from one hand, wind from the other. "I can combine a few elements, if I wish, but that is less common, and usually restricted to Bloodline Limits."

Sasuke sat catching his breath on a tree stump, eyes wide, and listening hard. "How can you do it then?"

"Hard work. Determination." Naruto glanced up toward the clearing behind Sasuke, at where his home stood. "Lots of free time to do nothing but practice and train."

"Oh."

"The Uchiha were typically fire-natured, or fire combined with other elements. What is your nature?"

"Fire. Itachi said I also have an affinity for lightning, but he didn't know how to train me in it."

Naruto nodded, listening to this. The fire and wind stopped dancing in his hands, and he lowered his arms. "Show me your strongest fire jutsu."

"Ah…now?"

"When else?" Naruto asked as he tilted his head to the side. "Aren't we training now?"

"Yes…but, um. I need a while to mold my chakra. I don't use my chakra often…so…I…" His voice trailed away at the frown of disbelief and displeasure he saw on Naruto's face.

Naruto seemed to need a few seconds to get over his shock. "How on earth did your brother consider you trained?" he asked wonderingly.

The remark stung. Not only because it was deserved, but because Sasuke didn't like to hear his brother put down. "He kept me safe enough that I didn't need to use it," he said in loyalty to Itachi.

"A ninja must be able to mold and use his chakra instantly. All right. Begin."

It took Sasuke several moments, during which his embarrassment worked against him, but he finally shot a fireball into the air above Naruto's head. Naruto watched the flames disperse, then remained looking into the air, analyzing.

"Sub par. The heat was mediocre, and the size insignificant. What else?"

Face red, Sasuke struggled not to get defensive. "What do you mean?"

"Your other katon jutsu. I asked only for the strongest. What else can you do?"

Sasuke privately wished the ground would open and give him respite from that blue stare. "Um, nothing? Took me forever to learn that."

A pause. "And the lightning chakra? Can you do anything with that?"

Sasuke shook his head.

"I see. Access your Doujutsu, if you don't mind." When Sasuke had, Naruto bade him stand. "It's well that you have all three tomoes. Watch closely."

Sasuke watched as Naruto slowly accessed and released lightning chakra several times. Naruto then held up a forefinger and shot a single, thin bar of lightning at a large boulder that lay half-buried in the ground. He did that several times, burning a bull's eye target into the hard surface. When he was done, he turned to Sasuke.

"When you can do that, you may come inside." He then walked off, moving uphill and toward his house.

Sasuke was soon left alone, shocked to realize that he'd be expected to practice and master this basic use of lightning element right then and there. Without supervision. He felt…bereft. Naruto never left him alone, ever.

Glancing at the late afternoon sun, he got down to work.

-oOo-

Naruto cooked dinner, ate, read, cleaned his home, read some more, and was just sitting down to a midnight snack when Sasuke trudged wearily into the kitchen. Naruto paused expectantly with a bottle of Barbican halfway to his lips. He raised one brow.

Sasuke pointed a shaking finger at the wood covering the kitchen window and aimed a thin bar of lightning at it. He etched a single word in a wobbly, untidy scrawl: success.

Naruto smiled as he pushed a plate of food across the table toward him.

Later, in bed, he rolled over Sasuke and nuzzled the boy's neck. Those lean legs wrapped tiredly around him, and the arms were trembling with fatigue, but Sasuke managed to stay awake through a slow, lazy, very sleepy round of sex. "You did well today," Naruto murmured in praise as he entered him. "But next time have a care; you could have set the house on fire just now."

Sasuke's nails dug into the flexing muscles of his ass, and Naruto emptied himself with a warm rush, deep inside that grasping hole. He was always happy to reward the boy for a task well done, and said so. He snuggled against Sasuke's back afterward, while Sasuke felt sleep elude him in contemplation of that comment. He fell asleep shortly before four.

If Sasuke expected to sleep late the following morning, he was gravely mistaken. After an hour of death-like slumber, Naruto roused him with a boisterous shout of "Rise and shine! The day is wasting." The covers were snatched away from his bare ass, and the entire mattress tipped sideways until he fell off it. Naruto, at discovering that Sasuke was falling back asleep even after this rough treatment, scooped him up and carried him outside to the lake. He threw him in.

Sasuke surfaced on a screaming curse of frozen outrage, but Naruto was already mounting the stairs to the veranda and re-entering his bedroom. "Breakfast in ten!" the blond called.

And of course the orange tracksuit was waiting for him, somehow cleaned and ready in so short a time.

He'd noticed the change in Naruto. The spring in his step, the increased energy, the more frequent smiles. It was as if training was some kind of drug to Naruto, something he'd been jonesing for and hadn't gotten in years. Sasuke finished his breakfast in fuming silence.

Washing his dishes afterward, Sasuke paused with one hand on the hot water tap. Was he wrong to feel like Naruto didn't love him anymore? Not three days ago the man had been attached to his side. Naruto had needed him more than he needed air. Now it was all about training.

He shut off the water, stored his bowl, and wondered what would be on the agenda today.

-oOo-

He found out once he was in the training room. "Your weakest areas are Taijutsu and Ninjutsu. We will not be doing Genjutsu, sadly, as that is one area I'm lacking in offensively. Your days will henceforth be spent in sparring and Ninjutsu. Now, if you have no questions-"

"I miss you."

Naruto cut off, frowning quizzically. "I'm sorry?"

"I said I miss you," Sasuke said quietly. "The way you used to look at me and touch me. I know it's only been a couple of days since we started down here, but…I really miss you."

"What…" Naruto took a few steps toward him, blinking in confusion. "I haven't stopped touching you, have I?"

"Yes. A few days ago, you couldn't even let me go to the bathroom without being there with me. Yesterday you left me in the forest for hours on my own."

"But…the training is necessary. You need it."

Those blue eyes were almost forlorn in their inability to understand, and this realization frightened Sasuke; it meant that he was alone in feeling the way he did. Which should have been obvious, when he thought about it. If Naruto felt any aversion to this training schedule, he wouldn't be implementing it. Sasuke sighed. "I know. But I need you too, Naruto."

Naruto looked around the training room in puzzlement. Looked back at Sasuke. "Do you want to-?"

Sasuke recoiled immediately. "No." He detested the way Naruto only touched him now in order to sway his mind about training. "I hate being manipulated like that."

"Manipulated-!" Naruto's mouth fell open.

Sasuke cringed inwardly, knowing some line in their relationship had been crossed, but forced himself to swallow and shrug it off. He was only saying what he felt, after all. "Let's just get on with today's lesson."

Naruto seemed unwilling to let it go, but he eventually closed his mouth. If the stiff way he walked to the wall of bladed weapons was any indication, he too was aware of the line that had been crossed.

Though mild, it was their first disagreement. And it was the first time the word hate had been used in relation to anything they did. Voiced and discarded so quickly that there wasn't time to really dwell on it, it was nevertheless the seed from which grew everything else that happened over the next few days, and fertilized by the many things not being said between them.

Naruto instructed Sasuke to use his Sharingan at all times now, in order to speed his progress along. Half the day was spent learning and strengthening Ninjutsu, half the day on Taijutsu. Sharingan definitely helped, especially with the way Sasuke was naturally analytical himself, but one had to have the skills to implement what was copied and perceived, a fact Sasuke learned the hard way.

Sasuke grew more sullen as the training wore on. Naruto noticed this, as well as how the less Sasuke spoke, the more he improved. He didn't like the boy's sulking, or the comment he'd made, but if it meant an increase in results, then it was a fair trade off. The boy's safety came first. Still, sometimes he'd catch Sasuke looking at him, and that black stare was almost accusatory. How did he come to be vilified in the boy's mind so quickly? Couldn't Sasuke see that all he wanted was what was best for him?

The most momentous things usually happened in the shortest periods of time. A week ago, Naruto and Sasuke would have both sworn in blood that nothing on Earth could come between them, not after the level of intimacy they'd shared. They would have gone to their graves believing their love could stand the test of time, death, and all eternity. Forever and ever. And maybe that was true, for external forces. Neither of them had the experience to know that the strongest substances could often be destroyed by themselves, or that the most seamless bonds could be unraveled from within.

They each internalized the disagreement and subsequent escalating tension in their own way. Naruto felt Sasuke needed to realize that the danger he was in was very real and that it took precedence over their personal preferences. Didn't the boy think he'd rather be making love to him all day and night?

Sasuke felt that Naruto had made promises to never leave his side, had asserted that he couldn't bear to live without him, and now all of that was changing. He'd wanted a hero, had gotten a hero, but now the gilding was wearing off to show nothing but an ordinary man who was extraordinarily driven.

Aware as they were of each moment of their silent dispute, the time during which it intensified seemed very long, but was in fact only a couple of more days. Sasuke dug in his heels, determined to succeed to the point where training could be set aside entirely. Naruto grimly resolved to bring about the same result for the same reasons, but also so that he could go about showing Sasuke that their love could be about more than just their physical unions. They could be intimate in any number of ways, Naruto was thinking. Training was just one of them, if Sasuke would stop being rebellious and spoiled long enough to see that.

-oOo-

For the next two days, Sasuke displayed a level of commitment and concentration that lived up to the name Uchiha and Naruto's high expectations. He mastered hand seals and Ninjutsu quickly, Taijutsu admirably, and practiced for as long as Naruto dictated…but these noteworthy accomplishments came at the price of their budding verbal communications. They were back to silence more often than not, and the silence, it must be said, spoke far more than their words ever had, or ever could.

Their withdrawal into their respective selves was so abrupt, yet so tragic, that it couldn't have been voiced even if they'd wanted to. They each mourned in their own way, and used their grief to hurl themselves with greater tenacity into their self-imposed missions regarding the training. Naruto -older, wiser, and not nearly as competitive as Sasuke was proving to be- regretted the loss of their connection keenly. Weakened by this, he at one point stood back to say, "We can stop. If this is really too much for you, we can-"

Sasuke answered by unleashing a fireball that reduced a dozen trees to instant ash. "I'm not weak. I can go on. Bring it."

Naruto had grit his teeth at the automatic insult Sasuke took, and considered kicking the boy's ass off the mountain. The little bastard could bloody well go back to his brother…who Naruto now understood had likely labored under the boy's attitude on several occasions. But then he firmed his own flagging desire to see this done, and continued with the lesson.

He learned things about Sasuke. Chief among them was that so long as the boy got what he wanted, he was a perfectly meek and happy little mouse. Refuse him something though, or prevent him from having what he wanted, and the sullen, moody character Naruto had first thought Sasuke to be came out to rear its ugly head.

But then the same could be said for him, he thought. How did everything get so twisted? Where was the beauty of their relationship?

The deeper you go, the more you know, Sasuke thought as he went sailing through the air. He landed with a thud against the padded wall of the training room.

"No," Naruto corrected. "Don't just fall. A ninja uses every move to his advantage; use your chakra to re-direct the momentum of your fall and come at me. Again."

"If you'd let me use Sharingan, I could just doge the goddamn move-"

"And how many times do I have to tell you that you're supposed to be building your skills in order to implement what you copied with Sharingan? Without Sharingan?"

Words had started up with them again. After Naruto's offer to stop, and Sasuke's refusal, plenty of words had been exchanged. But they were the wrong words.

The morning had begun with a critique on Sasuke's strength. Naruto had instructed him to wear weights at all times. Sasuke dutifully got up now, set his stance, and attacked again, but he longed to curse Naruto out. There was a fire of resentment, grief, and fear in his gut that kept him warm.

He didn't want to lose Naruto, while almost positive that he was doing just that. So he attacked. Again. And again.

It was true that the deeper you went with someone, the more you knew about them. This was something he'd learned during his months of visiting Naruto. It could even be said that the deeper you went with someone the more you knew about yourself…but that didn't really apply here. Sasuke had thought he had himself all figured out, only to realize that he knew next to nothing about himself. What he could do, yes. More or less, he knew his abilities. But he didn't know his true self, and had virtually no self-image thanks to his limited interactions with people. He sort of saw himself the way Itachi did, as someone who needed to be protected and taken care of, but then again he liked his independence too.

Maybe who he was, was just someone who loved Naruto. That's what he'd come to think, anyway. Since coming to the mountain, he didn't have much of a self-image outside of what he could do to make Naruto happy, and what Naruto thought of him. And now that image was being tarnished. Naruto treated him like a whiny child, and he was helpless not to believe this about himself, while simultaneously hoping it wasn't true, and knowing that he was neither whiny nor a child.

So confusing. He didn't know anything anymore, except how much he hurt.

He knew Naruto, or thought he did. Naruto adored him. Cherished him. Put him on a pedestal. Naruto used to think he was fascinating and wonderful and beautiful.

But then he'd learned that Naruto was powerful. Dangerous. Powerful and dangerous enough for Madara to try several times to get him, or to get what Naruto contained. Powerful and dangerous enough so that Sasuke's entire clan had been obliterated in the crossfire of Madara's attempt to get the Vessel.

And now, when he thought he could go no deeper, when he thought he'd peeled away all the layers there were to Naruto, Sasuke learned that Naruto could be hard. Sharp. Impatient. Implacable.

Insensitive.

These things, along with his resentment about the training, blew away his previous impressions and hero worship. He never would have believed that the man who'd kissed his tears of passion away with gentle lips, could plow a fist into his stomach and expect him to block it. Could dodge the strongest kick he could land and shout at him for not trying harder.

Worse, when training or practice would be over, a part of the night used to be spent soothing his aches and pains and making him forget the harsh words. It had been good. Needed even. But then it had changed. Sasuke, always so attuned to Naruto, felt clearly the way the touches became designed to mollify him, and placate him from rebellious thoughts against training. They weren't designed to give him pleasure so much as drug him with thoughts other than any he might be having against going into the room below.

They hadn't touched at all the previous night.

Even so, even hurt and angry as he was, he was willing to go on, to do as Naruto asked. He'd do anything for Naruto, even though now he hurt inside and out over how different things were.

He'd lasted longer than two days. He'd lasted four now, but as he was told to get up once more, he suddenly thought that enough was enough; Naruto wouldn't stop until he felt Sasuke was at his level or near it, and that was an impossible goal. Sasuke could train until he was Naruto's age, and still it wouldn't be enough. He intuited this clearly just then.

Sasuke did not set his stance again. As much as he loved Naruto, he had his limits. He stood, hands down, and looked at Naruto calmly from beneath his sweaty hair. If the offer to stop was still on the table, he'd take it and work at forgetting how bad things had gotten. It wasn't just the grueling sparring sessions, either. Sasuke could deal with that, if he really had to. It was more. He was grieving the loss of the deep connection he'd had with Naruto. The touches. The looks. The sex. It was gone, all gone, in a few days of this hateful room, and he just couldn't take it anymore. It was all he could do not to cry in frustration and heartache. And Naruto, who he'd thought knew him so well, seemed oblivious to his pain. This estrangement was killing him.

-oOo-

"I'm done," he said quietly when Naruto frowned at him.

Naruto was sick to death of this attitude. "Done? We've barely begun practice." He dropped back into a crouch. "Again."

"No."

"You can rest tonight. Now, do it ag-"

Sasuke folded his arms in a pose reminiscent of his first day on the mountain. Seeing it, Naruto straightened up, finally at the end of his patience. "You want to rest now? Fine. I warn you though, we'll make up the time tonight. It'll mean less time spent sleeping, and I know how much you like that. Twenty minutes. Then we go again." Naruto turned his back.

"I'm done training…period." Sasuke braced himself the way he did whenever Naruto came at him.

Naruto turned around and took in Sasuke's grim mouth. "Is that right. You're not ready to take on Akatsuki, Sasuke."

"Who says I plan on taking them on?"

"Oh? You plan on running for the rest of your life?"

"I plan on living my life the way I have been. If I run into them, so be it, but I doubt that will happen."

"I see." Naruto cocked his head, his own hair dripping into his eyes. "If your brother were training you, would you quit?"

Sasuke twisted his mouth. "That's different. Itachi would rip me a new ass hole if I bucked him. As much as training with you sucks, you'd never do that."

So he thinks training with me sucks. "I could," Naruto said after he'd swallowed his hurt at the comment. "If it meant waking you up to the reality of your situation, I'd do it happily. Would you like that?" His face was twisted into a parody of concern.

Sasuke felt something in him snap at the shock of Naruto's assertion that he could deliberately hurt him, and do it happily. Those eyes were blue ice, and Sasuke couldn't look away. He was cold all over now, the fire gone and replaced with a quaking sense of terror; things were more wrong between them than he'd thought. He wet his lips. "Here's the reality of my situation: Nobody's looking for me. Madara doesn't even know I exist. Itachi's too slippery to be caught. Period. If he ever got caught, it'd be deliberate, and he's not going to get caught because he's not stupid. Neither am I. I may not be able to do what you do, but I'm not useless."

"You're weak," Naruto snorted. "And you assume too much about your precious brother. You need to-"

Sasuke's shoulders hunched upward at hearing he was weak. He wasn't weak, he just wasn't some machine like Naruto. He said as much. "Not everyone can do what you can. You're a…a Kage. And a… a Sage, and a Jinchuuriki," Sasuke was getting worked up, realizing just how unfair Naruto was being to him. "No one can keep up with all that-"

"Who told you about me?" The low, deadly hiss of Naruto's voice cut neatly through Sasuke's rising tantrum.

"The Hokage," Sasuke muttered. "The night she came here. The night we…" Made love. Oh God, Naruto, just make all this crap between us go away and take me to bed. Please.

Naruto's lips thinned to non-existence. He stared hard at Sasuke, trying to see if the boy had a different opinion of him now, but that was pointless. Sasuke had known about him all this time and had never been closer to him. Still, he'd be having a word with that high and mighty bitch Tsunade at his earliest convenience. "How much did she tell you?"

"Everything. Especially about how I basically lost my family and am currently on the run because Madara wanted the Vessel. Which is you-" he flinched and backed away several steps when Naruto advanced on him.

Naruto stopped at seeing the hint of red beneath the black hair; Sasuke was afraid of him.

His own culpability in Sasuke's lifestyle could be debated…and he had secretly debated it since learning the boy's history in full. "You…what happened to you wasn't my fault. I didn't even know Madara was in the village when it happened. I didn't know anything about the Uchiha slaughter until months after it was done, so don't you ever. Ever! Think of blaming me for that again, is that clear?"

Sasuke swallowed. Naruto had never taken that tone with him. "I'm not training with you anymore."

Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose. "Your childishness about training is getting on my nerves. I would highly recommend you don't anger me like that again if you know what's good for you. I don't want us to fight. You have to train. Your skills might do against an ordinary enemy, but not Akatsuki. You do understand that, right? Or has all sense left you?" He was trying desperately hard to hold on to his temper. He hadn't felt this close to losing control since his own early days on the mountain.

Sasuke felt a great ball of something akin to hate settle in his chest at being insulted, threatened and ridiculed all in the same breath. He drew himself to his full height. "Childishness, huh? You weren't saying that when you were fucking me. Then, you considered me adult enough to have, but now that I'm not doing everything you want –and by the way I was going along with your fucking insane training- now I'm all of a sudden too childish. Well you know what? My brother trained me well enough, and I've never had any complaints from him."

It seemed that what was unsaid was finally being said. Naruto waded in eagerly. "If you felt I was out of line by touching you, you could have refused. I seem to recall someone begging me-"

"I never begged!"

"-to be touched. You led me by the hand, in fact."

"You barged into my house and took me!"

"After your own brother was sick of your whining bullshit! He kicked you out gladly enough and is likely happy you're gone. I can't say as I blame him, either."

Sasuke tightened his arms around himself. "My brother would never abandon me."

"Well you've certainly abandoned him, haven't you? A stupid move, considering how much you relied on him."

Sasuke blinked back tears. Was this what Naruto really thought of him? That he was stupid? That his brother had wanted to get rid of him? He lowered his head, letting his hair hide his face completely.

Naruto felt a smidgen of remorse, but also felt he needed to drive his point home now, while they were getting everything out into the open. "I'm sorry that training doesn't agree with you, Sasuke, but it's not something that can be set aside just because you don't like it. As for your brother, I've no doubt he did train you as best he could, but Itachi isn't military. He's not a ninja. He likely taught you what back-alley skills he was able to pick up between selling himself and looking after you. His intelligence kept you safe these many years, not his fighting skills, which, if yours are anything to go by, are just as deplorable. I'd hardly credit him as being able to accurately judge anyone's skills."

Naruto turned away, and ran a hand through his hair. He heard no reply from Sasuke and thought that maybe this argument had been good in its way. It was time the boy learned. Sasuke had never had a parent, and consequently had no discipline. He regretted stooping to the same childish behavior by insulting the boy, but that could be attributed to his own grief and anger over their situation.

No. He had to do better. His feelings for Sasuke made seeing anything else clearly almost impossible, but this fight should never have happened. As the adult, it fell to him to set an example. Konohamaru had been the same, belligerent to the end. The only thing that had worked with that kid was to lead by example. Now, while they were getting things off their chests, he would sit Sasuke down, and they would talk this whole mess out. He turned around again to begin afresh, a smile on his face to soften the angry words that had been said between them.

Sasuke's face was white, his nostrils flared. A closer look showed him to be trembling violently. Naruto could see that the boy's eyes were very wide, wide enough to show beneath his hair. He stretched out a hand toward him in real concern this time. "Sasuke-?"

"Don't you ever talk about my brother like that!" Sasuke screamed. "I'm sick of you insulting him, that's all you ever do! You don't know shit about my brother, so don't you ever talk about him!"

Naruto was taken aback; he'd all but forgotten mentioning Itachi's name. Never had he seen such rage from Sasuke. He blinked at the boy's wild face. "I only meant…"

"Shut up! You don't know him, or what he's done for me, so just shut your fucking mouth!"

Naruto felt his own ire come roaring back. "I do know him. I know everything about him from what you told me-"

Sasuke dropped his arms and took a step toward Naruto, who noted the fists and clenched teeth with interest and sudden watchfulness. He re-thought what he was going to say, realizing at long last just how bad things had gotten.

He felt his old symptoms of anxiety settle in his gut. It pained him the way Sasuke had just spoken to him, and to know that he'd spoken harshly to Sasuke in turn. Which was unforgivable, Sasuke was absolutely right. Naruto didn't want this. Training was over, Sasuke was right about that too; the price for it was too high. They would sit down and talk this out, as he'd planned, and put this whole thing behind them. Sasuke's inexplicable fury frightened him; he hadn't thought the boy could be pushed to such a point, and to know he'd done it left Naruto shaken. He just wanted to forget he'd ever said the wrong thing and go back to the way they were. He would protect Sasuke, as the boy wished, and make sure he was safe. Nothing was worth the raging animosity he saw on Sasuke's face now, or the words they'd exchanged. It turned his stomach just remembering how they'd spoken to each other. Nothing was worth the loss of their bond, something he suddenly missed desperately.

"I…" Naruto tried again. "All right. We won't train if you don't want to. I didn't mean to anger you. I was only speaking the truth. Don't forget, I fought your brother too, and while powerful, he's not as strong as you think, Sasuke. I guess he means a lot to you?"

The ass just didn't get it, Sasuke thought wrathfully. Naruto just kept putting Itachi down. He stalked to him and leaned up into his face. "Itachi is ten times the man you are. He means everything to me," he bit out. He then ran across the room and stopped beneath the metal ladder hanging from the circular hole in the ceiling. He looked back at Naruto over one shoulder, and realized he didn't know the guy at all. Not at all. The man had just insulted the dearest thing in life to him on top of everything else, and Sasuke suddenly couldn't stand the sight of him. "I hate you," he said clearly. He jumped up and caught the bottom-most rung on the ladder, then climbed swiftly out of sight.

Naruto stood rooted in place.