18 | death and devotion
{sasuke}
The sky, like an insubstantial bag of mist choking on itself, spilt forth a torrid stream from way high up. The heavens opened up and heavy sheets of rain fell over the city.
The window had been left open and the chill of the streets was creeping and seeping between the light sheets, whipping colour into Sasuke's ears and nose.
He pulled the blankets up over them, it had been a struggle. Naruto held him like he was the door he needed to cling to for life while floating in the Atlantic seascape in the aftermath of a shipwreck.
The hold comforted Sasuke enough to get four good hours of sleep before the risk of blue extremities woke him up.
Four hours did not seem like much but that was more sober sleep at a stretch than he had clocked in since… he couldn't remember since when. Years maybe.
Or the lack of sleep made months seem like years.
Naruto's hands were on Sasuke, holding him down like an anchor as the blond himself was sunk in dreamland. The flutter of Sasuke's heart sped up then subsided.
The weight of him against Sasuke's back felt good, felt right. For the first time in forever Sasuke didn't feel like he'd turn to smoke and dissipate in his sleep.
The tight, desperate hold was a blessing. A true tell of the fact that he hadn't made a mistake. This is where he was wanted, Naruto wanted him right where he was.
Every breath against the back of his head felt like a gift crafted specifically for Sasuke. Every toss and turn of his in the bed shifted the sheets and yet somehow kept a physical connection between them, it was a cooling salve on Sasuke's aching heart.
Thoughts milled about in his mind and emotions sloshed in his chest. No one had ever trusted Sasuke enough to sleep beside him, let alone with him.
The touch of Naruto's nose to the top of Sasuke's head was a tangle of threads squeezing at his heart.
Naruto, do you understand who you are to me?
Do you?
Of course not.
God, what a dilemma, I want him to know but I don't want to scare him away.
But good lord, forgive me, for everything I've done to him, everything I do to him, everything I will do to him.
My love is only capable of destruction.
I can't help but feel I will do again, what I did before.
I can't help feeling that I'm not capable of anything better.
Help me, help me to be better.
Hot tears beaded and fell to the sheets that absorbed them, leaving no trace.
All I could offer him is tears – his and mine.
They are not comforting thoughts and hotter tears burn down Sasuke's cold cheeks.
I told him I love him, in every way I possibly could. But it is not enough, not enough.
I want him to feel me and only me.
To see my…to see my all.
I want him to know how wholly he has occupied every space that felt vacant for so long. That the absence of him used to ache in the empty moments and how he has filled them completely by simply stepping into my life.
The kind of power he's got over me is dangerous.
If he asked me to burn my life to the ground and start anew with him I could only ask whether he had matches on him.
But he never would.
He'd never ask.
Even if he wanted to, even if the choice was between him burning alive and me burning everything else. He wouldn't ask.
I know it because he wouldn't ask me if I was happy at dinner. Instead he took my silence as a personal failing. As if him simply looking at me wasn't blowing wind to wild embers.
What a duplicity, he makes me ask him what I want but he'd rather bite his own tongue and choke on its blood than ask me a simple question.
What's so wrong with you that you have all the reasoning but you don't figure yourself worthy of it? Why Naruto?
Cool air filled his hot mouth as new tears fall forth. The new drops of dew joining the old tracks like a dried up stream of regret resuscitated.
Is it me? Am I the one who caused this? Was I the one who put you in a place that did you such harm you can't afford yourself the simple kindness of being a little selfish?
Am I going to have to be selfish enough for both of us?
Naruto's arms tightened around Sasuke and the hold brought a crashing thought into Sasuke's mind, as it thundered outside and blinding white light flashed through the room before turning it pitch black.
He thinks he's being selfish enough by being with me.
{naruto}
Naruto's nails and fingertips were singing with strains of pain, his fingers and arms were burning in an effort to hold on for dear life. But he couldn't relax his hold; he was in a precarious position. One inch to the left and he'd get skinned alive by the tearing wind and the racing road beneath it.
He grunted and bit his lower lip to keep noises to a minimal, although the manic speed demon at the wheel of the eighteen-wheeler wouldn't be able to hear a thing over the sound of Rihanna blaring loudly as he took a sharp turn too fast.
Muscles screamed with extreme tension in an already worn-out body.
While his hidings spot wasn't ideal, it was effective. Thanks to the blaring headlights right in front of him, he would be easy to miss and if people tried too hard to stare, they'd be seeing spots for days.
He could feel the heat of the machine he was pressed up behind. An added bonus was the fact that if he passed out at least the logs he'd jammed his legs between would give him purchase enough to stay relatively unharmed.
Nobody cared to look in the back of old, beat-up, country-looking log-moving trucks. At least, that's what he was hoping. He had a long distance to travel. Even though the bark was beginning to chafe he felt a deep numbness winning over his senses, embalming his frayed nerves.
Then his vision swam at the next turn and he had a violent urge to hurl even though he had little to throw up but stomach acids and maybe bile.
Hands, too tan for him to recognise but definitely his, shook with the same jostling motion as his vision did, he was swimming in and out of alertness.
Shit, shit, shit, shit!
He'd thought he'd processed whatever roofies Saso had dosed him with before he snuck – well, stumbled actually – onto the top of the vehicle from a fuel pump rooftop.
His right hand slipped, bruised and cut up at the fingers. Despite being tender and lacerated on the palm, he made a grab at his handhold again. But his hand only tore up even more.
Blood printed the log where he was holding on by the skin of his teeth, it made his grip slippery.
Then his bicep began to give way under the stress of his whole body's weight on the significantly weaker, left arm.
He tried to grip at the same spot his left arm was holding on with desperation, but the wrist made a popping sound and then the rushing flames of excruciating pain.
He ignored it the best he could.
With the tang of blood on his lips, that he'd bitten raw, his ragged nails dragged against the rough, wooden skin of the tree trunk he had been holding onto - the initial punch of pain dimmed just as he slid too far to reach it with another jerky turn of the vehicle.
Cold air slapped him in the face and wormed into his throat, swelling with invisible mass putting up roadblocks in his airways. He swallowed big gulps, trying to make room to force out an exhale but he was filled with more air, quicker than he could gulp it down, his throat convulsed at the misuse.
Mere seconds after his lungs were temporarily disabled he began to arch backwards in the air, flying without wings. His thighs acting as fulcrum as they wrenched in their place like a door hinge in a hurricane. His legs were stuck between logs that had shifted a substantial amount, squeezing his legs into sharp agony. A single jerky turn in the same direction and both his limbs would be severed into two bloody halves.
What a terrible, horrible idea. This was no bonus, this was no perch for the weary, this could be the end.
Naruto didn't have long to regret that decision as he found that the gigantic metal deathtrap under him had turned sharply in the opposite direction than he'd dreaded it would go.
A momentary flare of joy at the thought of being free until he realized his forced position - bending backward, with his legs in a wooden maw - was the only thing keeping him attached to his transport.
The momentary joy was replaced by absolute horror.
When the truck had made the hairpin bend it had spared his legs a messy amputation but it had also completely severed his only tether, tossing the boy off into the merciless wind; condemning him to an intimate embrace with the mountainous route they were traversing too recklessly.
His last moment was an up-close view of the aged tar as he crashed nose-first into a blood-filled, searing kiss of death with the asphalt.
Naruto's eyes opened to darkness and he wondered for a piercing second of pure, unadulterated anxiety if he were actually finally dead.
But the world came alive soon enough.
The soft breaths of a person right beside him accelerate his sublime anxiety into alarm before the clarity in form of an insistent twinge of soreness in his backside reminded him exactly who was sharing the bed with him.
The textured feel and bold spicy smell of the darkness informed him that beside him was a human of his favourite kind…Sasuke. And the material blocking out the rest of the world were his dark tresses.
Naruto untucked his face from the top of the head he was facing down into. No sunlight filtered into the room so it was probably the middle of the night.
"You're awake…" Sasuke's voice drifted up, soft and gruff.
That's when Naruto noticed how tight he was holding Sasuke, he loosened his grip immediately, and Sasuke's hands shot up to grip his wrists, to hold them in place.
They were both facing the same direction. Sasuke instead of having his head on a pillow was lower on the bed, his head resting on one of Naruto's biceps as Naruto held him from behind.
The thought occurred to his lazily awakening mind how they were just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl but the thought evaporated when Sasuke drew one of Naruto's hands to his face to press a kiss to every finger.
Naruto was unaware of the fact that Sasuke had laid there in a calm, deep sleep for the first time in way too many months without the help of something extra.
When Naruto pressed his lips to the back of Sasuke's neck, Sasuke pressed back against Naruto with his whole body.
Hands nowhere as tan as in his dreams started to roam.
Sasuke turned over, slipping over Naruto, his hair fell forwards, dark bangs framing his face like a wreath.
Naruto brushed his fingers against Sasuke's cheek. "You're really pretty, you know that?"
Sasuke frowned. "I will leave right fucking now-"
"No, please don't." Naruto interrupted with a forced chuckle.
"-if you ever call me pretty again."
Naruto thought about it a second as Sasuke settled himself comfortably on his lower abdomen, careful about placing his weight on any sensitive bits. "I've got to consider investing in some handcuffs."
"Mmm," Sasuke smiled, and leaned down to drape himself over the blond, taking each tan hand in his own. "Now you're talking..."
"Maybe some lip gloss for those pretty-" Naruto's tease was interrupted by a gasping giggle.
Sasuke quickly moved to hold both tan hands in one of his hand as he mercilessly attacked all the little spots he could remember.
"No! Stop!" Naruto squirmed and twisted, he was horrified and chuckling all at once. Flopping about in desperation to get away from under Sasuke just as much as he had clung to the man when he first woke up. "I'll do anything you want! As many handcuffs as it takes! Please… you… you asshole! I'm begging here, let me go! No! Not there! Stop! I can't breathe! Anything but this!"
Sasuke was good at keeping Naruto down though, as much as the blond tried to buck and writhe out from under him, the older one held steadfast. "Anything, you say?"
"ANYTHING! JUST PLEASE STOP!" Naruto yelled through his breathless tittering.
Sasuke paused, letting his free hand slide down between them. "Anything at all?"
"I'd rather you make me feel pain than ticklish." Naruto confirmed.
"Hmm… Tempting, but right now I just want you."
"You already have me."
Sasuke's hand dipped low, taking Naruto's length in his hand, stroking it a few times and feeling it respond immediately. "I want more of you."
"I don't know if there's anything left to give." Naruto whispered as Sasuke's eyes narrowed on him like a hawk looking at prey.
The intense gaze was followed by a wave of full body goosebumps Naruto displayed as a reaction to Sasuke's looks and words. "Mmm, you're so susceptible to me..."
"...you are the infectious one."
"We both know this is your sensitivity. I'm barely doing anything."
"That's true. All you have to do is stay...and all kinds of things happen."
Sasuke paused at that, inches above Naruto's face, an approving sound leaving him. "How convincing."
The blond stayed, unmoving, curious to see what Sasuke would do.
So Sasuke pressed down into Naruto's face with his own, plundering his mouth with his tongue, like a pirate in search for treasure in the hot fleshy cavity even as he stroked Naruto's dick.
A long appreciative moan left Naruto as his toes curled when Sasuke got friendly with the sensitive tip.
Naruto tugged away from Sasuke mouth only a few degrees and spoke against those parted pink lips. "I should hope so."
"Last time I checked, you were the one suggesting separation." Sasuke kissed him again, sucking at the bottom lip so that Naruto was free to make sounds.
"I know, I'm quite the fool for you," Naruto admitted. "Logic, word, numbers and plans doesn't matter to me so much in the face of you and your life."
Sasuke pulled back from Naruto, sitting up with his back straight, and looked down at him. "You filthy romantic."
"That makes you my filthy romance." Naruto returned immediately with a naughty grin.
Sasuke got off the bed.
"Hey!" Naruto frowned from the bed, where he lay with a hard-on, as he watched Sasuke's pert little butt disappear into the bathroom. "Where do you think you're going? Come back and fulfill our filthy promises!"
Sasuke returned to the room and re-occupied his previous spot, the bottle of lube brandished in his hands. "If you don't shut up I will gag you with the bottle."
The thick pulsing heat under him reminded Sasuke what he wanted, so he grasped it again, and stroked a few times, before drizzling some lube onto his fingers.
"Sasuke, I...I'm already loose...enough."
Sasuke smirked. "I'm sure you are."
Naruto pouted at him. "That's completely your fault."
"I know." Sasuke shifted his weight so his knees supported him fully then he locked lips with Naruto again as he slipped a finger into himself, working it over until he could slip another finger in.
"Sasuke? What are you doing?" Naruto strained to look behind Sasuke.
Sasuke grunted softly at the unbelievable feel of the stretch. Worming a third finger in was starting to burn. "I want you in me, Naruto, now."
"Fuck." Naruto, reached behind Sasuke and his body temperature jumped.
He heated up to such an extent his cheeks and chest dusted with a flush of such a gorgeous red that the urge to bite him shivered through Sasuke. When Naruto added his own fingers to the fray in Sasuke's slippery entrance, he had no choice but to give in.
Naruto grunted, hardening at the feel of teeth clamping onto his shoulder, his voice a breathy plea. "Oh shhhit, ohh fuuuck, Sas'ke, I..."
Sasuke's mouth traveled sideways adding a new print of love marks, as he settled himself in the anticipated position.
He paused long enough for blue eyes to connect with his and then he pushed down, feeling the head breech him.
Naruto gasped, his mouth was open and his eyelids having fallen half closed. Hands flying up to hold onto Sasuke's waist.
For someone so quiet, Sasuke had a filthy mouth in bed and every word was like another shot of something addictive through Naruto's system. And for someone so hard and sharp on the outside, Sasuke was so soft and warm and oh god on the inside.
Naruto's eyes were wide, his gaze lingered on every bruise he'd left on pale hips. They made Sasuke look well worn out.
Dark hair spread everywhere as he lay there.
Dark gaze accounted for everything they shared.
Dark mind did the math and dared, "You wanna tell me why I woke up in a death grip?"
Naruto shook his head. "Oh, you joke but..."
Sasuke turned to face him, not even wincing in pain at the matching discomfort he obviously felt in his backside. "You were dying?"
Naruto sighed heavily and closed his eyes like preparing himself. "Yeah."
"What happened?"
"I fell off a truck."
Sasuke frowned at him. "What were you doing on a truck?"
Naruto cracked a smile. It was complete bravado. "Escaping."
Sasuke clucked his tongue. "Of course. In your mind, you're James Bond's blond, peyote gargling twin, aren't you?"
Naruto chuckled, pulling at Sasuke who resisted until Naruto finally yanked him hard enough to topple Sasuke into his arms. "Actually, it was a memory."
Sasuke struggled to pull away from the roughhousing and focus on the narrative but Naruto kept his face pressed to his shoulder, holding him in a reluctant embrace. "Naruto!"
"Yes?" Naruto was trying very hard to keep Sasuke's head tucked under his chin as his voice betrayed none of the hard kicking and sharp elbow jabs they traded.
Sasuke huffed, bared his teeth at a specific spot he'd filed away as sensitive and Naruto bucked under him, letting him go.
"Fuck! Goddamn Sasuke, you play dirty!" Only half of it was a whine as he let go to rub at his neck.
Sasuke sprang away so he could look at Naruto's face. "Lucky for you, innit?" He threw back in the low tone he knew would set fire to Naruto's body.
"Haha." Naruto's smile was too stretched out and the hint of teeth promised that payback would be his.
"Are you done fussing? Because I'm still waiting on that memory you were supposed to tell me about." Sasuke insisted, satisfied that he would be able to look at that face, reading every change for a clue as to how much was true and how much Naruto was fringing on the truth to not alarm him.
Naruto sighed heavily, pouting until he realised Sasuke would not relent, sighing again at the realization that he had no choice but to share. "After I found myself in the boot of an abandoned car in hell for cars on earth-"
"Yeah, yeah." Sasuke cut Naruto off, trying to hurry him along. "Exactly where you left of."
But Naruto resisted, he squinted his at Sasuke. "Somehow I feel like you're only keeping me alive to learn my story and then write a biography, only to kill me so your book becomes a bestseller."
Sasuke blinked at him for a couple of moments then scoffed. "Only you would think up bullshit like that. Guess what, idiot, I love you. And I want to fucking know what the fuck happened to turn you so stupid."
The scathing tone with which Sasuke had called Naruto an idiot this time brooked no argument so Naruto surrendered to his fate at last. "I couldn't stay in the same city. I knew I was running from something. Because the writing on me actually said 'Run from Fox Fire'."
Sasuke expelled a breath. "Fucking of course. Why the hell do you do that?"
"You'd have asked more questions."
"Damn right!" Sasuke rubbed his face. "You absolute moron."
"Hey! I'm not telling you anything if you keep calling me names!"
"I'm going to keep calling you names until you give me a reason to stop."
"Oh yeah?" Naruto at up as well and pushed close to Sasuke, getting in his face. "Like what?"
"Like finishing the damn story!" Sasuke pushed Naruto's face back. "And you're going to tell me everything, from the start."
"Okay, okay." Naruto sighed, pouted then continued. "I needed to get the hell out of dodge. Even though Hidan had officially handed me over to Kakuzu, he would be the one on my scent like a bloodthirsty hound. Because I'd seen his face."
"I've never seen Kakuzu." Sasuke stated, but the question was obvious.
"You wouldn't have, the man was high up and always covered his face. Even if he passed you on the street, he wasn't particularly tall or short, or fat or thin. You'd just walk right by him."
"How'd he cover his face?"
"Just, with a normal mask, all I remember are the greenest jade eyes I've ever seen. I never met the man more than once a month. He was so calm I figured he was high at all times. You tell him there's a zombie apocalypse outside and he'd asks how many of those sons-of-bitches I could take on. I've never known anything to rile the man up."
Sasuke's eyebrows had steadily risen. "Sounds like you admire the man."
"Don't get the wrong idea. I didn't run after him and yell 'senpai, notice me'. And while I kind of did admire him, it was for a reason separate from who he is. It's just that... the man knew how to fight, okay? And he enjoyed it, a lot. I had very little in the way of role models growing up, okay?"
Sasuke shifted closer, his eyes carefully focused on Naruto's face. Naruto on the other hand tried his best not to look at him. "Is that something you find admirable? Ability to fight?"
"No, see..." Naruto sat up, something within him seemingly activated by the question. A fire lit up within him. "Everyone has their own reasons for learning to fight. Some people want to protect and some people just want to watch the world burn. They like to see the hope bleed out of the people they pick on, he was like that, Kakuzu liked to watch the helplessness in others, watch them panic and freeze up when he showed off his body mods, but the mask never came off."
Naruto shook his head, the lines on his face seemed to deepen, as if remembering aged him, as though the situation was more personal than he was letting on. Sasuke took a hand in his and Naruto held on tight.
"Kakuzu liked fighting because he was sure no one could win against him. He didn't care about whether the person was a good match for him, he liked playing and winning and being a bully for his own entertainment. I admired his strength because... I thought..." Naruto's eyes flickered to Sasuke. "I thought if I was as strong as him I'd be able to protect what's important to me...my freedom, my parents, my friends - what few I'd made."
"And you were running from Hidan..."
"Hidan doesn't think twice about killing. Sometimes he's admitted to having regretted killing but that doesn't seem to stop him from killing indiscriminately. It's like he does it for sport."
Sasuke's face blanched, his nails cutting crescent moon creases on the palms. "Fucking god. And I just handed you over to him on a silver platter."
"Forget that, it's in the past now." Naruto frowned. Tan hands gripped pale fists and slipped a forced them open.
"Don't you see thought?" Sasuke grabbed Naruto's bicep hard. "Every single thing about the past affects the future, there's no escaping it."
"Don't say that..." The close quarters gave Sasuke a clear view of the underlying brittleness to Naruto's voice.
Sasuke took a breath, he didn't want to hurt Naruto in any way, but Naruto needed to understand. "That's how life is, whether a success story or a tragedy, it all makes more sense in retrospect. You become the culmination of your experiences, good and bad."
Naruto paused for so long it felt like the human version of the blue screen of death.
Then he blinked a few times and looked away and pressed on. "Nagato was putting pressure on Hidan, starting to ask questions. Nagato wasn't a fan of killing, but he saw it as a necessary evil."
"Killing isn't a necessary evil, it is the exact opposite."
Naruto looked back at Sasuke with a puzzled look. "A… necessary good?"
"An unnecessary evil, you turd."
"Hey! Stop calling me names! It's fucking mean! I don't call you a nosy bastard every time you ask me uncomfortable questions!"
"I can't help that you're a dumbass." Sasuke supplied simply, a small smile slipping onto his face at Naruto's break from morosity to complain about this.
"Hey! You know what, you damn bastard? If you're gonna be like that I'm not telling you any more. I can take my sob story and go somewhere else."
"So you fell off a truck?" Sasuke raised his voice slightly, to be heard over Naruto's grumbling. His attempt to interrupt the beginings of furious monologue was met with a cold blue steel stare.
"It was the same truck I snuck onto. Halfway to the border, I felt the effects of whatever they'd used to knock me out, returning. The only reason I didn't actually fall off the drunk and off the side of a cliff was because my oversized jacket got stuck between logs. But I wasn't wearing that jacket in my dream. There, happy now?"
Sasuke was massaging at his temple. "Not really, Naru, no."
Naruto reached out, pulling the hand away to kiss at it before pressed another kiss to Sasuke's head. "Why didn't you tell me you have a headache? Are you coming down with a cold? I can give you a painkiller, y'know."
Blue eyes sought out black and Naruto grabbed Sasuke by the face again,his cheeks pressed in and lips pouted out. "Why are your eyes red? Are you going to cry?!"
"No!" Sasuke barked out, squirming out of Naruto's grip.
"Then... were you crying, before...?"
"Shut up."
"Sasuke."
"I'm just tired, idiot. I woke up freezing my balls off. Why is that damn window open?"
Naruto got up to close the window then slipped back into bed, unconvinced as he was, he let it slip. "Okay, let's try and sleep then."
Instead, of bombarding Sasuke with questions Naruto pulled the man closer and held him. His mind was working even as his tired body pulled at him to rest, his cheek pressed softly to dark mussed up hair.