7

Naruto rubbed his tired eyes and put the pen down. He picked up the scroll, looked at it in the lamplight, frowned at the wording, and crumpled it up, tossing it into the trash. It was the fifth failed attempt at writing a message to the Raikage. Everytime he put his pen down to the paper, his emotions spilled out instead of what he should have been writing, and the whole thing became a plea for the negotiations to stop transpiring. Naruto knew it was a good move on Gaara's part, working to reunite all five countries. But still so many people were set in the old ways that all these resistance factions had spawned in the south, but the majority of them were in the north, in the Cloud Country, where every citizen felt they had been wronged in the Great War and sought to hate the other four countries. It was like they just wanted to hold onto that hate, and Naruto couldn't understand why. It was almost like the way Sasuke held onto that hatred for his brother all those years before…

"Stop if it starts to hurt," a voice cut into his thoughts. Naruto blinked and looked up at the Anbu standing slouched against the closed door of his office. He knew instantly who it was.

"What are you still doing here, Sasuke?" he sighed, rubbing his eyes.

The other man came over to the desk. "I took the kids out for ice cream."

"You're going to make them fat that way," the blond sighed, then grinned. "How come you never take me out for ice cream, huh?"

"Stop grinning; you look like an idiot," Sasuke scowled from behind his mask.

"To you, I always look like an idiot," Naruto yawned, covering his mouth half-heartedly with one hand. "Did you talk to them about your mission?"

"Yes," he answered. Naruto gave him a sideways glance at the short response.

"Are you pissed off at me, or something?" he asked. "You shouldn't be, 'cause I asked if you wanted to do this, I didn't tell you you had to—"

"We had a good talk," Sasuke cut him off in an oddly peaceful voice. Somehow, Naruto was more wary of that voice than his usual pissed off one.

"Oh?" he prompted guardedly.

"Do you trust me, Naruto?"

"What?" he blinked. "Where the hell did that come from?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you!" Naruto said a little impatiently. "After all this time, I think we're a little past the questioning phase of our relationship, don't you?"

"Relationship, huh?" Sasuke said in a noncommittal tone and Naruto bit his lip. He hadn't meant to use the word 'relationship' because that word usually implied romantic love of some sort, and he knew there wasn't any of that here.

"Well, I mean, you know," he tried nervously to recover. "All those years we've worked together and hung out together and stuff," his hand waved in a clockwise motion to indicate the accumulation of such years. "It's a long time. What else would you call it, then?" he finished rather defensively.

"I told my kids I love them today," he said.

Naruto stumbled. "You…did?" He recovered, pulling his shield quickly back into place. "Did you mean it, though?"

"I did," he nodded. "It felt like I did. I said it a lot too." He finally pulled off his mask, his eyes unfocused and clouded. "I told them I loved them and they said they loved me too. Can you believe that?" He looked dazedly at Naruto. "My kids love me."

"I told you they did," Naruto snorted, trying to keep his defenses firmly locked in place. But the fact that Sasuke's other face was finally showing was making his knees weak and his stomach fluttery, and little flashing lights were going off in his mind but he didn't quite understand them because all the signals were coming out jumbled on the other end. "But that's good! Yeah, I mean, it's good that your kids taught you how it feels, right?" Sasuke was staring at him. "Right?" Those intense eyes were really making him uneasy. "Sasuke…?"

"We've known each other since we were kids, right Naruto?" Sasuke ignored him.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, feeling suddenly like he was about to be swept away.

"When we were little, we played together. When we got older, we went to school together."

"I'm not following you…"

"Just listen. When we got assigned to teams, we fought together, right? And when I left you came after me. You came after me for years—"

"Only because you were being stupid and not thinking about anything except getting to Itachi—"

"I said, just listen. So, you chased me. You chased me for about seven years. And I finally came back. You helped me return to Konoha, find a job, start a family, and you're still helping me now, today."

"Ye..s," Naruto felt queasy. "Sasuke, I'm not sure I understand…"

"You love me," his blank look disappeared. His dark amber eyes became as sharp as glass, piercing into Naruto, pinning him into his chair, making him immobile. "You did all those things because you love me. Maybe not at first, but eventually, right? You fell in love with me. You grew to love me. You saw the signs and acknowledged them. Am I right?"

"…" Naruto really didn't want to answer. In fact, he physically couldn't; that intense stare was making him helpless. His skin was crawling. He was sweating. He wished Sasuke would just stop staring and—

"I know you're worried about Gaara," Sasuke jumped tracks again and Naruto was left behind, stunned. "I know you care about him, and you're afraid that something will happen that will be beyond your ability to control or do anything about. I understand that, but…" And Sasuke did something that Naruto would probably see in his dreams for weeks afterward: he leaned over across the desk and lifted a hand to the back of the blonde's head, tugging him across the tabletop to meet halfway, their foreheads joining together with and abrupt but soft jolt. Naruto's hat slid off of his hair and hit the carpeted floor with a muffled clunk. The black and yellow strands of hair merged and mixed together to become a starkly contrasting but beautifully simple tangle. Sasuke's forehead was cool. Naruto's entire face was hot-flushed and sweaty. He could feel Sasuke's breath on his cheek. Naruto was almost positively going to suffer from a heart attack soon if something didn't intervene and save him.

"Sasuke…" he gulped, wanting to say this, wanting to save himself because he felt like he was drowning. Sasuke's presence was right there and his scent was invading Naruto's mind, making everything hazy and confusing (moreso than it already was).

"Naruto, I'll do everything in my power to make this situation right again," Sasuke swore. "I'll do everything I can to stop the factions, to get both the Kazekage and the Raikage here into this village where you can protect them both." He smiled softly and Naruto's heart did stop. "You never want anyone in any pain, but the one who's in the most pain is you. You worry about everyone else, Naruto. And I'll worry about you."

And somewhere in the breathless protests that tried to come out of him, Naruto whimpered Sasuke's name. There was a sudden and brief warmth that passed between them and for an instant, Naruto's breath became Sasuke's and Sasuke's breath became Naruto's. Sasuke kissed him. Then he released Naruto and stood, fixed the raven mask back over his face, turned, and left the office. Naruto stayed that way for a few more moments, then crumpled back down across his desk and lay there, stunned, weak, and helpless.

"Sasuke, you bastard… What the hell are you playing at?"

The fourth figure approached in the darkness. The three waiting at the gate snapped into attention—he might have been younger than the three other Anbu, but after this mission, he was going to become their superior. Rumors had already began circulating; his natural talent and his ever-increasing drive to complete and succeed any task he was given were elevating him quickly in rank. If this Class-A escort mission went through flawlessly, Uchiha Sasuke would be promoted to First Captain of the Anbu force.

Kigeki Haiyu saluted the shorter man as he approached, "Evening, Captain."

"Oh, shut up," the Uchiha snapped, but there wasn't the usual fire in his voice.

"You alright, Sasuke?" Kigeki Chikai lifted the stylized wolf mask to study him more closely. "You sound beat."

"It's nothing," he shook his head. "Let's just get going."

"Are you sure you just don't want to wait until morning?" Mako Naori spoke up. "We don't mind, do we guys?"

"It's fine, I said," Sasuke shook his head again. "I just want to go, pick up the dignitaries, and get home."

"He'll miss his kids," Haiyu said only half-jokingly.

"I'm sure you'd miss your kids too, if you had any," Jun pulled her mask back down (even after her marriage, everyone still called her Jun) and turned toward the gates.

"Is that a hint?" Haiyu fell instantly into step beside her. His grin was audible, even through his mask.

"Nice try," Jun nudged him.

Sasuke and Naori fell in right behind the first two and they made their way out of the large wooden city gates, the quarter moon slipping behind a thin stream of clouds and pitching the night into absolute blackness. A few moments later, when the clouds blew by and light returned to the world below once more, the four Anbu were nowhere in sight.