A/N: oh my gosh, I'm so sorry for the long wait! This chapter was so difficult for me to write, y'all have no odea, I think I rewrote it like 4 different times, ugh!

Safe Travels

It was only after Hinata had slumped, sated and tired, onto his sweaty chest that Sasuke noticed Naruto watching them from just outside Hinata's bedroom door. Sasuke didn't react to the blond's presence, having expected something very similar to this to happen sooner than the two days it had been since Naruto's shadow clone had so abruptly brought him home. Instead, he locked eyes with his closest friend, calmly taking in the other man's strange expression while he stroked Hinata's back, breaking the stare to arch his neck so that his lover could better kiss and nibble his throat. She sighed and wiggled her hips, a sign that she was ready for him to continue.

He rolled them over, now fully ignoring his friend as he began pumping into Hinata, her soft moans urging him to go faster, harder. He obliged her as best he could while being considerate of her stomach and doing his best to make sure she did not notice her first love avidly watching them from just inside the darkened hallway.

She was beautiful like this, Sasuke thought, not for the first time. It irritated him that Naruto was seeing her in this state, but he pushed it to the back of his mind; he was very close, and he wanted to feel her come around him one more time before he lost it. That goal in mind, he flattened his hips against hers, his muscled lower abdomen rubbing firmly against her sensitive clit with his every movement. She didn't last long, coming with a satisfied sigh and smiling when he did the same moments later. A smile tugged at his lips as he watched her eyes grow heavy and felt the hands stroking his back grow still. She was asleep. He kissed her mouth tenderly before lifting himself off of her, tucking her blanket around her so that she wouldn't get cold.

He sat on the edge of the futon for a time, gathering the emotional energy he would need for this latest confrontation with his friend, acutely aware of how very tired he was of fighting. And yet, he would fight all his life and probably die that way too. He accepted this fact and did not stop to ponder it much though it pained him greatly. This time with Hinata, and the coming times with their child, would be his shelter against the bleakness of his life. Sighing heavily, he rose, dragging his pants on as he did, and faced Naruto.

They stared at each other hard for long moments, Naruto's anger, jealousy, and betrayal washing over Sasuke like a tidal wave. He stood firm against it, as he did all things that tried to cut him down, and endured. Naruto cut his eyes away with a sigh and made his way down the hall, Sasuke not far behind him.

The Uchiha rested a hip against the arm of the couch and watched Naruto pace around the small space, agitation written into his very being. He waited.

"I only came to get my stuff, ya know. But then...I heard her, and when I saw her on top of you, I -" Naruto broke off, a blush staining his cheeks dark red. Sasuke was silent, waiting.

"It's just not fair, ya know? She's the only person who never put me down or treated me like dirt. She's always believed in me, and when I finally have everything that I ever wanted, you take it from me," Naruto said, finally turning to face Sasuke, the pain in his eyes doing little to ease the guilt clawing at Sasuke's throat. Naruto swallowed hard and clenched his fists against what he was feeling, willing his hands not to shake.

"I just - I don't...you could have had any girl you wanted in the village, you still can, so why did you have to have the only one who ever saw me?" Naruto finished, his voice a pained whisper by the time he was done speaking. The room, usually airy and spacious, was stifling, and Sasuke took in a deep breath to stave off the urge he felt to bolt. He hated feeling like this; like he was wrong for loving her, like he had stolen something, like he was unworthy, as if that feeling hadn't dogged his every step as a child. To deal with it now, with this man who was as a brother to him, left a sour taste in his mouth.

"You didn't spare her a glance for a long time, Naruto, or else you would have known she was with me," Sasuke heard himself saying. Naruto's head snapped up, surprise written on his every feature. For some reason, this angered him, the emotion coming fast and hot and loosening the iron grip he kept on his mouth. He continued.

"If you paid her the slightest bit of attention, you would have sensed my chakra lingering in hers after she returned from a long mission or noted my scent on her clothes and skin after she'd been in the forest for several hours. You would have noticed that she no longer stuttered as much and that she could use fire and lightning style attacks, some of which only an Uchiha could have taught her, and how many of those were wandering around?" Sasuke was aware that his voice was getting louder and louder with each word that passed through his lips, but he couldn't stop. The years that he had spent in Hinata's arms and between her thighs had engrained a certain possessiveness in him, and though he would always feel like he owed Naruto his very soul, he could not bring himself to relinquish her without first proving a point. And so he continued.

"Her teammates noticed. Did you know that Team 8 had nearly captured me on at least six different occasions, all because I was distracted by her? The Inuzuka and the Aburame are intimately acquainted with the smell of me on her and in her. They know exactly what I smell like with her on my skin," Sasuke shakes his head, not missing the flash of surprise on Naruto's face at this information.

"You aren't the only one who knows what it means to be loyal to your teammate, loser. Maybe they didn't know at first, but it's been years now that Hinata and I have been lovers, and you're just now finding out. You say you didn't know what love was, but that's a lie. You've seen it, and you knew how she felt about you, I know you did. You just wanted to keep her as backup in case I came back and married Sakura," the guilty flash in Naruto's eyes at his words did little to soothe his anger, but Sasuke took a deep breath, determined to get everything he'd been thinking for years off his chest.

"I don't deserve her, but," the sudden softness of his voice caused Naruto to look up at his dearest friend, surprised when he saw that Sasuke had abandoned his perch on the couch to stand less than a foot away.

"You don't deserve her either," Sasuke finished, and Naruto could see the truth of that reflected in both their eyes. Naruto let his eyes travel doen until their were glaring at what remained of Sasuke's right arm, a growing knot in his throat making it hard to speak or swallow. This was the most that his friend had ever spoken in one sitting, save the first fight at the Valley of the End, and the emotion, the depth of the feelings behind Sasuke's every word, stunned him, almost more than the words themselves.

When he had gone into sage mode and seen for himself the chakras of his two most precious people mingling and creating a new life within Hinata's womb, he had been floored beyond all imagining. She was two months along at that point, having delayed telling him about her pregnancy for several weeks, no doubt utterly fretful of his reaction, and the being inside her was impossibly small to his untrained eyes. There had been no time to marvel at that; his disbelief at what his senses were showing him too great to allow room for any other emotion. That lasted only until he woke her to get the truth, and when she co firmed his suspicions with a small nod of her head, he'd had to leave the village and level a small portion of the surrounding forest, so great was his anger.

He stayed out there for two weeks, and when he returned, he was not surprised to learn via village gossip that Hinata had holed up in Neji's small apartment just outside the Hyuuga compound. A pang of guilt had assaulted him at this point because he knew he had not been quiet while laying waste to the trees, and plenty of gossiping ninja must have heard his angry tirades against her and Sasuke and their combined betrayal of his trust. Her father had little choice but to disown her, and the entire Hyuuga clan had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since.

At a loss for what to do since Neji, Kiba, and Shino took turns denying him access to her, Naruto returned to her apartment and waited. He did his best to keep the space clean, sweeping and mopping everyday with a furious devotion that worried his agemates when they dropped by to draw him out. He refused. Many times, his thoughts would turn to Sasuke, pondering the hows and the whys, thinking that he'd like to rip his other arm off and beat him with it, and maybe then his eyes would stop burning and his stomach would settle. Maybe if he beat him to death with it, his hands would stop shaking and the aching, yearning void in his chest would close. Maybe.

But most times his thoughts were on Hinata. He knew her, knew her well enough to know she wouldn't sleep with a man she didn't love wholeheartedly. That knowledge tormented him. She was so beautiful, and even still he wanted her so badly his knees would tremble at the mere thought of having her, but she had given herself to another. To Sasuke, his eternal rival, his best friend, his brother. How could he be with her without perpetually wondering if she was comparing him to the Uchiha? Their every interaction, every touch, every kiss, would be stained by the ex avenger's shadow. He didn't know if he could stand it, not with her.

And yet, he stayed.

She returned to her apartment in her third month of pregnancy, slipping in the door with a bag of groceries in hand as if she'd only stepped out an hour ago. He was in the middle of dusting the shelves, a dirty bandana covering his sunny hair, and a dirt smudge on his left cheek. She fidgeted when his gaze fell on her, shyly poking her fingers together and whispering that she had the ingredients for ramen if he wanted to eat. Tears welling in his eyes, he had practically run to her, scooping her up in a tight hug and laughing as he informed her that he was starved.

They never talked about the baby or its father, and the only times he left her side was when Neji would show up to escort her to her baby appointments (having been coldly brushed off by the prodigy when he tried to go with her after they made up. Despite what people thought, he did know how to pick his battles) and at night when she settled down to sleep. The nights were nothing short of torture; listening to her toss and turn, Kurama's mocking laugh echoing in his ears as the fox heightened his sense of smell so that he could taste her arousal heavy in the air, the way all the blood in his body seemed to flow directly into his cock while he listened to her desperate moans as she tried to relieve herself, and finally the breaktaking jealousy that consumed him when he heard her broken moan Sasuke's name when her orgasm overwhelmed her. Many were the nights that found him outside her open bedroom, his grip on the doorway so tight he could faintly hear the wood splintering, his eyes hungry, so hungry, as they took in her nearly nude figure, committing every inch of her to memory, willing her to let him scratch her incessant itch for her.

In the fourth month, she quietly asked him to find Sasuke for her. It was not in him to refuse her anything, and so shadow clones, and birds holding scrolls with shadow clones in them, set out, scouring the lands in search of the last Uchiha. And Naruto found him because it was also not in him to fail at such a task, and the tiny part of him that never quite believed that Sasuke was capable of sexual attraction began to swell up, increasingly sure of its coming vindication.

But that was crushed just as soon as he saw the way Sasuke looked at Hinata. Such a small, insignificant once over. Anyone else would have dismissed it, but Naruto had long ago become adept at deciphering Sasuke's every movement, and so he clearly saw the longing, the jealousy, the tenderness held within that quick glance, and he knew without a doubt that Sasuke loved her fiercely. Glancing down at her, he'd seen the same emotions reflected in her eyes. This was a battle that he would not win, Naruto realized, closing his eyes against the pain that engulfed his heart. He took to the forest once more to calm himself and gain perspective, and when he thought he was once again in control, he returned to Hinata's apartment to gather his few belongings and lick his wounds in the shitty hole he'd called home for so much of his life.

He'd expected the apartment to be silent save for their breathing, but he was wrong. Nimbly slipping through the kitchen window, his ears had pricked at a breathy moan filtering down the hallway. Heart in his throat, he followed the sound silently and was greeted by the glorious vision of a completely nude Hinata riding his friend. He hadn't be able to take his eyes off of them, her especially. She was so gorgeous, so confident in the way she rode the Uchiha and drew needy whines from deep within his throat. It amazed him how easily Sasuke capitulated to her, letting her set the pace, surrendering himself to her completely and seeming to revel in it as she worked her hips over him, head thrown back and eyes closed as she breathlessly told Sasuke how good he felt in her, how she felt so empty without him filling her. A strangled groan was his reply to her words, and Naruto couldn't fault him for that; he probably would have been sobbing if she was working him like she was Sasuke.

Naruto wasn't sure how long he watched them unnoticed, but he eventually felt eyes boring into his face. He looked up and barely stifled the gasp that threatened to leap from his throat when he met Sasuke's dark eyes. He expected anger, at the very least irritation, but Sasuke merely looked tired and horny, more concerned with letting Hinata have her way with him than he was with the blond voyueor. Still, Naruto was surprised when Sasuke flipped them over and continued as if he wasn't there, watching his every flexing muscle as he drove into Hinata with increasing intensity, her heels digging into the small of his back and urging him on. A large part of him knew he should look away, honestly he had to be giving off serious pervert vibes, but he found himself unable to even blink let alone move. He wanted to watch Hinata come again, and he wanted to watch Sasuke come, too, he would later admit to himself and only himself. So he did, and there was a beauty to the way they clung to one another and in the care Sasuke showed for his unborn child. He could hear them gently kissing for a while, and he noted that Hinata would not relinquish her hols on Sasuke until she fell asleep, only then was the dark haired man able to exit her body and quickly cover her before he sat hunched over the edge of the futon.

Naruto shook his head, bringing himself back to the present moment. Sasuke was watching him with those same tired eyes, wariness having replaced any other emotion. He swallowed thickly, unhappiness coloring his voice when he finally spoke.

"I don't want to give her up, but it's her choice. She wants you, and I'll support that, but," and here he stared Sasuke down so that his brother would know he was serious, "I'll always be there, and if you mess this up, I'm not giving you the chance to make it up to her." For a moment, the exhaustion that was ever present in Sasuke's eyes was replaced with a rage that Naruto hadn't seen since before Itachi died, but it was quickly snuffed out and replaced by acceptance and determination.

"You'll die waiting then, loser," Sasuke said, a tentative smile touching his lips and a hopeful light kindling in his black eyes. Naruto, seeing the statement for the olive branch and promise that it was, accepted it with his own toothy grin and drew Sasuke in for a hug against the other man's protests. Tears burned his eyes when he felt Sasuke return the hug, and they held each other tightly for a long, long time.