Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or any of its associated characters!

Summary: Sasuke has spent three years trying to figure out how to live on his own. Maybe it's time to try something different. WIP. Future SNS, updates once a month. Canonverse. Rating may change!

A/N: normally I have loads to say but I think I've used every word I have in all the writing I've done the past few weeks. Enjoy!

Two is a Crowd

Chapter 7: if not a source of warmth

The next few days were short and calm. Close and confined—there was a distance Sasuke kept around himself that felt like it was closing in, and he didn't know what had changed. He was hot, though. He was flushed. He was embedded with hot water and steam, and Naruto wasn't helping to clear any of that at all with how often he'd dragged them down there. Something about taking advantage of being here. Something about while they were still here. Something about not knowing when they'd come back. If they'd come back.

Sasuke wanted to say that they would. They could. If Naruto so desperately wants to—of course they could. But his tongue held still, and he stayed quiet, instead. Promises were a dangerous thing. They held you to them, even when you had nothing left to give.

Naruto knew better than anyone.

And so Sasuke stayed silent, and Naruto did too. He was still helpful, though. Still loud. Obnoxiously friendly. Vocally incompetent. Sasuke was forced to step in more than once, when Naruto decided that he could run clones all over the town to find a shopkeeper's missing daughter—this village wasn't used to that, Naruto. You'd send them into a panic. Naruto. Naruto. You goddamn moron—

Fine. Sasuke could do it himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And the worst of all was the smiles sent his way. The worst of all was the warmth. This village was north but it was filled with heat, and Sasuke's familiarity with flame was doing nothing to help him. Nothing to save him. He was burning alive here.

He was warm even when he fell asleep, and it was no surprise that he saw flames in the darkness. Orange flames, black smoke, blue sky, red ground. Sasuke looked around, but he couldn't walk.

He didn't mind.

He knew this place.

It smelled like dust. Like charcoal. Sasuke shouldn't have wanted to breathe this deeply, but he did. He didn't feel the movement of his chest. Didn't feel the wind in his mouth. He didn't look around himself, either—he only continued to stare ahead, watching the shadows flicker and move, as if they had something to tell him.

He wondered if he was facing the wrong way.

The shadows flickered again, and a figure sat at his side.

"Hello, Sasuke," his brother greeted him, and Sasuke didn't move. There was a breeze on that side of him—a misting of frost. Sasuke felt the ice along his skin.

"How are your studies coming along?" he asked, and Sasuke shuddered. "You have a test tomorrow."

Something twisted in Sasuke's head, like the shadows had bent at the waist—

"Nervous?" Itachi asked, and Sasuke didn't answer. "That's alright. That's natural, you know."

The shadows hit the floor with their heads. Hard.

"You know what I find?" he asked, and he'd moved closer. Sasuke's body was continuing to freeze. "When I think about it all at once—everything I have to do, I freeze."

Sasuke couldn't feel his face.

"I'm completely overwhelmed," Itachi told him. "But if I take one problem at a time—and forget about all the rest, I can get everything I need to done. Just one problem at a time."

He thought the shadows might have arms, now. Clawing at the floor.

"So, Sasuke," Itachi said, and the shadows sprung back up to stand up straight—

"What would your first problem be?"

Sasuke's frozen hand twitched.

"Walk me through it."

It came alive. It set alight—the pain sprung from Sasuke's fingertips and spread all through him—

"Sasuke."

—Sasuke's voice was silent, but the shadows screamed for him—

"Sasuke."

—all at once, a hundred voices, a thousand voices—

"Sasuke!"

Sasuke heaved in a breath—

"Oi, wake up, asshole!"

Sasuke snapped up and pressed a blade to Naruto's throat.

Naruto didn't even flinch.

"Finally," he said, rolling away from the steel. "Damn. That one got you."

The room settled back into Sasuke's head, and he breathed in a shuddering breath. It didn't smell like smoke. It was cold here, though. It was so cold. It was so much colder than he—

"Where's—" Sasuke said, and his voice was thick, "where's the blanket—"

"You kept kicking it off you," Naruto told him. "And then you kicked mine too. Want it back?"

Sasuke nodded and didn't look up. Naruto's eyes were piercing enough as it was without Sasuke having to face them. He took the blanket as Naruto passed it to him, and flinched when their fingers brushed.

It made Naruto pause.

It made Sasuke want to swear.

"You're cold as hell," Naruto told him, and Sasuke stared down at the floor. "I only woke up a bit ago and your blanket was already off."

…

"It felt warm as I was falling asleep," Sasuke protested, and Naruto huffed.

"Yeah, that's probably why you kicked it off," Naruto said, and he hadn't gone back to his futon yet. He was sitting in front of Sasuke's, instead. "Wanna go down to the hot springs?"

Sasuke raised his head.

"What?" Naruto asked. "We're here, you're cold as hell, I'm awake now. You gonna fall back asleep?"

Sasuke's eye twitched at the last question, and it made Naruto's humourless smile widen. He was already getting up.

Always in motion. Always, always…

"Fine," Sasuke grumbled, taking the outstretched hand Naruto gave him. He was unsteady on his feet and still feeling the prickling of an arm that wasn't there anymore. He hadn't had those phantom pains in many months, but…

…

Sasuke focused on the boards under his feet, and not falling down the stairs. The inn provided them with towels and showers, and Naruto stripped with the ease of a man that was used to this. Sasuke wasn't sure he'd ever been used to anything at all.

"Is this meant to be open right now?" he asked, looking at the darkness around them.

"Is it not?" Naruto asked, wrapping the towel around his waist. "If there was a sign, I didn't read it."

"What a surprise," Sasuke mumbled, and Naruto laughed as he walked away. The towel hung low on his hips, imitating Sasuke's body in the way it threatened to collapse.

Strange. This nightmare had been so draining. It shook him so deeply. He'd had so much worse than this. Was this all it took to damage him now?

Had he grown so used to this?

Already?

It was an old fear come back to haunt him, and he breathed it in with the steam, rising above the rocks. The water had settled onto them—settled and cooled, sparking at the bottoms of his feet. Naruto hurried through it all, dancing past his panicked breaths, but Sasuke took it. Sasuke let the cold start from the ground up—maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to keep heading north.

This warmth was too comforting. It pulled him down too far. Settled him down too low. Amidst all the reminders of the world he was part of—this relaxation wasn't right.

But Naruto jumped in, and Sasuke was taking too long.

"Relax, asshole," Naruto sighed, closing his eyes as Sasuke entered the water. "I know you're not gonna sleep, but you might as well get some rest."

Hot. Hot, hot, hot on the frozen bottoms of his feet—

"Seems like a waste of time to try something that isn't going to happen," Sasuke muttered.

"Sakura says it works," Naruto replied, as Sasuke's hips took the heat. "You can trick your body into kind of sleeping and still feel better after. Even if it doesn't actually happen."

"Going to your doctor for insomnia, are you?" Sasuke asked, and Naruto opened his eyes to give him a lazy, lopsided smile.

His eyes pierced right through the fog.

"Had a lot on my mind," he said vaguely, and Sasuke didn't want to breathe anymore. It felt too much like relief.

Water hit him in the nose, and Sasuke flinched back.

"That was a joke," Naruto said, rippling the water with his indignation. "Most people laugh at them."

"Try being funny, then," Sasuke muttered, sinking into the water, and Naruto laughed out his offense.

Sasuke hid half of his face under water. His nose, too. He could hold his breath for longer than this.

"You wanna talk about it yet?" Naruto asked, blue and blue and blue and blue. There wasn't supposed to be this much colour this deep into the night. "It's not like I don't know."

Sasuke looked at him, but didn't lift his head.

Naruto laughed and looked up, and the night fell between them. It was silent and loud and the tips of Sasuke's ears were still out in the cold, and so he hid them, too—

The warmth wasn't where he was meant to be. He knew that. He'd always known that.

…

It was difficult to leave, though. Once it had you enveloped.

"Can I ask you something stupid?" Naruto asked, and he was still talking to the sky.

Sasuke came up for air.

"Are you capable of anything else?" he asked, and Naruto's laugh rocked him backwards. His shoulders are broad and muscled—wet against the rock. Shining against the rock. Naruto glowed in the dark, and Sasuke had yet to figure out how. "Go on."

Naruto ran a hand through his hair. The water left it lying flat.

"Did you ever look up?" he asked, and he still didn't look at Sasuke. "When you were away. Did you ever—"

He cut himself off with a wipe of his mouth, and it was uncomfortable. Full of regret and embarrassment and then it was cleared of anything but a smile. Naruto laughed at himself and laughed it off, and Sasuke heard what he knew was coming.

"Never mind."

He splashed the water out with his feet and Sasuke wanted to send it hurling back at him.

"Did I ever look up at the night sky and wonder if you were looking at the same one?" Sasuke asked, and Naruto's body tensed, all at once.

"Don't answer that," Naruto grumbled. "Asshole."

Sasuke stared him down until Naruto broke and looked back. His smile faltered into something genuine again, and Sasuke felt that satisfaction settle deep into his stomach.

…

It was warm, too.

"Asshole," Naruto said again, and it was a sigh. It was a sigh and a squirm and a sit up straight, because Sasuke's eyes had done something to bring the tension back to his frame again. Maybe it was the chakra that had come to them.

Maybe it wasn't.

Sasuke let his eyes fade, and watched the way the night sky ripples underneath them, instead.

"I spoke to Itachi," he told the water, and it rippled in response. "Or, well. He spoke to me."

Some dark, stupid, twisted version of him that phased in and out of Sasuke's head.

"What'd he say?" Naruto asked quietly, and Sasuke let himself breathe.

"Nothing worth remembering," he said, and the water rippled again.

Naruto's eyes didn't leave him. That brutal, continual gaze.

"Pieces of memory," he said, the heat of the water finally getting to him. His head was full of steam. His lungs were just the same. The darkness was settling into him with the promise of a night that would drag him into sleep—especially if he continued to fight against it. "Nothing that made any sense."

"Yeah," Naruto said, and Sasuke knew he understood. "Dreams are like that, I guess."

Sasuke didn't answer. Sasuke was so tired again. One easy, easy nightmare, and he was exhausted. It was the luxury again. It was the comfort. He grew used to it in a heartbeat, and then he was stuck again. Addicted to it. Craving it. Desperate for it again—

This was why having Naruto here had been so dangerous. This was why he was supposed to do this on his own. With nothing. No one. No comfort to settle into. No warmth to relax in, no company to—

"Aren't you hot?" Sasuke asked, and it surprised them both with how it snapped. Naruto stared at him, but Sasuke didn't meet his eye.

"S'it getting to you?" Naruto asked, and the thin veil of humour did little to mask the way he was studying him.

Sasuke didn't answer. He didn't need to.

The water rippled around them both as Naruto sat up.

"Yeah," he said, "I was just thinking we'd been here a while."

"Have you been trying to avoid that?" Sasuke asked quietly, and Naruto made a small noise.

"Yeah, kind of," he said, like he expected Sasuke to have known already. Maybe he ought to have. "I mean, it's good for me. I get to see lots of places. If I was on my own, I'd never get anywhere. I'd still be helping that old man build his house."

Sasuke's lips twitched.

"What do you even know about building houses, anyway?"

A small laugh sounded from the back of Naruto's throat.

"Nothing," he said, "that's why I'd still be there."

Sasuke pressed his lips together, but the amusement made it to them anyway. Naruto was so stupid. So earnest. So unendingly helpful, even when he had no help to offer. Sasuke didn't know what part of him had come to admire that.

Perhaps Naruto's intelligence was contagious.

"Wanna head out tomorrow?" Naruto asked, and Sasuke felt the sigh in his heart.

"And where would we go?" he asked.

All that waited for them was bad memories. Frost to the north—the Land of Lightning barely a step past that. Sound waited for them west, and going back down through the Land of Hot Water just landed them back in Fire again. They were trapped on all sides, and Sasuke was the one to walk them into the cage. He didn't know why he was bothering with being surprised that the door had swung shut.

"Frost," Naruto said, and Sasuke was ready to shake his head. "You like the cold, don't you?"

"That's too close to Kumo," Sasuke said, and the water rippled again. "We'd be on the border within two nights."

"Yeah, but they like me," Naruto told him, and Sasuke let out an exhausted breath. As if it was that easy. Naruto always made it sound so easy.

"I need somewhere to clear my head," Sasuke muttered, closing his eyes. "Somewhere where I can…think. Straight."

He heard it as Naruto shifted. Heard the water splashed against the rocks—felt it as the waves hit him. The fatigue was rising within him, but Sasuke refused to bow just yet.

He opened his eyes, and Naruto greeted them in full, moonlight blue.

"I dunno about—anywhere else," Naruto said, looking down. "There was a…place in Kumo, though. Sort of."

The water shook through his reflection, and Sasuke watched the stars dance behind his head.

"What sort of place?"

"Um. Y'know the Island Turtle?" he asked, and Sasuke…nodded. He did. It was a vacant, blurry part of his life. Chaos that he revisited in short, resentful bursts, but it was not exactly easy to be rid of. Not with these photographic eyes, anyway, and their burning, bloody permanency.

"I went there for training," Naruto said. "On the island—it's a waterfall that's there."

"Training," Sasuke repeated, and Naruto let out a breath.

"Not like—it's like a—you meditate under the falls," Naruto said, breaking his reflection with a sweep of his hand, "and it lets you go into your mind and the falls become like—like a reflection of a part of yourself."

Naruto shifted.

Sasuke leaned back and stared at the sky. He didn't reply, but he did…

"You trying to see if you can find the memory or something?" Naruto asked, letting out a laugh. "I think you mostly just got ones to do with you."

Sasuke gave him a look, and the moonlight touched the slant of Naruto's smile.

"What were you doing in Kumo, anyway?" he asked, and it was low. "Months ago."

"Meeting with Darui," Naruto told him. "He's the Raikage now. I've been over there a couple times since—well, they invited me for the whole ceremony when he took over for A. It was kind of a big deal for the—y'know, the whole relations thing."

"The whole relations thing," Sasuke repeated. "How did you ever have any skill in diplomacy?"

"I dunno," Naruto answered, and there's something different in his voice. "But I think I might still have it."

Sasuke looked up.

Naruto's smile widened.

"You're insane," Sasuke said, and Naruto switched the rock he was leaning against for one much harder to avoid—

"Yeah, so?" Naruto said. "The only way to go is north."

"We'll hit a wall," Sasuke insisted, "I promise you."

"Do you?" Naruto challenged, and Sasuke met his eye.

…

…

He looked away. Fine. Yes. Naruto could likely convince them. Convince them like he convinced everyone else—although Naruto's memories chimed like a bell in Sasuke's head, and there were several that Sasuke. Did not want to touch.

They had something to say, though. They had something to remind him of.

"I—" he strained out, and the bell chimed louder.

"I can do it," Naruto insisted, and Sasuke didn't answer him. "And Darui owes me one after the whole—'cause there was an attack during the ceremony, so I stayed for a bit to help with all that."

…

"And you've," Sasuke said, staring at him, "left that detail out because…"

"That—that's what I meant!" Naruto protested. "It was a big deal for the relations thing. I said that!"

"Fucking hell," Sasuke sighed out, and Naruto laughed.

"They've stabilized since then, don't worry," he said, as if that's what Sasuke was swearing about. "Everybody was all weird after the war. You know how it is."

Sasuke rubbed a knuckle to his temple. He did. He wasn't sure he appreciated the ease with which it was worded, but—this was Naruto he was attempting to deal with.

He leaned his heavy head to the side, but didn't let Naruto escape his gaze.

"Am I yet to reach those letters?" Sasuke asked, and Naruto—

"Uh," he said, scratching just under his ear. "I dunno if I ever actually wrote about that bit. 'Cause I had to write up so much for the paperwork—it ended up being a whole report. I only really wrote the letters to you about stuff I needed to—needed to vent about. Did I write that…?

Sasuke blinked at him, and Naruto stared blankly into the water, as if his letters were about to emerge out from under the depths.

"I dunno," he finally settled on, looking back up. "Let me see the one you're on and I can tell you."

"No."

Naruto threw his hands in the air.

They did end up leaving the next morning. Sasuke's head was heavy with sleep and memory, but his feet ached to move—and Naruto had felt it before he had. There was a gratefulness there, somewhere under the fog in his head. Sasuke was fairly sure Naruto felt that, too.

And Sasuke was grateful for the cold, too—it did do something to his head. Something about the way it stung. Something about the way the wind bit at his cheeks, the way the snow stuck in his hair, stuck in his clothes, stuck in his throat. They'd left warmth and comfort for something much more familiar, and yet...

"I'm good," Naruto insisted, when Sasuke stopped to wait for him again. He was yelling over the blizzard—moving right into Sasuke's personal space to hear the reply. "I dunno how the hell you know where you're going, but this shit's on you!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and led the way again, but he moved quicker. There was no rest in this snow. There was no waiting. Maybe if the blizzard had relented, and the cold stayed under their feet—maybe, but they'd trekked right into a whirlwind, and it was fierce. Even Sasuke was cold. Naruto was colder. Sasuke saw the shivers even as he tried to hide them. His breath hid his lips and blurred his face, and something in Sasuke saw blue through the white, and he hated it. He had never minded the cold, but he hated it.

He pulled Naruto into the first shelter he saw. A hole in the rock, deep enough to be dry on the inside—drier than the two of them, anyway. Sasuke lit three flames and Naruto shook as he pulled the clothes off of him. They were slick and sticking, like a second skin, once Naruto peeled back the layers. Sasuke flinched as Naruto turned to face him.

"Do you want me to—"

"No," Sasuke snapped, turning away. "Focus on not dying first."

"I'm not dying," Naruto laughed, with the humour of someone who's been far closer. "And you—okay, but I almost fell on my face and I'm the one with two arms."

"You also have the unfortunate experience of being you," Sasuke shot back, and Naruto's cloak slapped uselessly on the wall behind Sasuke's head. Naruto gave him a glare, but it told him to laugh.

Sasuke almost did.

Naruto took what he could get and turned away, giving Sasuke some sort of false privacy as he occupied himself with vaguely attempting to hang his soaking clothes. Attempting to dry them. A useful job for Naruto's wind, maybe, but there was already plenty of that inside this cave. Sasuke lamented, quietly, the fact that he'd escaped being hot and naked to only to become cold and naked.

Naruto's eyes twitched to him, but he quickly jerked his head away. He pulled Sasuke's clothes out of the scroll they're both using for storage—something Sasuke never learned. Something he ought to have. Naruto barely needed one hand and a second of chakra.

He didn't thank Naruto as he picked up the dry clothes. He didn't thank Naruto as he took Sasuke's wet ones. He was preoccupied with his eyes on Naruto's back, his eyes on his shoulders. Naruto had yet to put a shirt on. He was wet, like in the hot springs—waiting to dry.

Something in Sasuke quickened and flared, and he looked away. There was that panic again. That fluster. Embarrassment, maybe, at taking so long to pull on clothes. Naruto didn't seem to mind. Naruto would never let him know if he had. Sasuke grabbed a shirt and accepted the fact that it was going to be wet.

Anything to cover himself up.

There was no wood to sustain the flames, but there was still plenty of Sasuke, and Naruto turned as soon as he felt the chakra flare. It was not as if it was particularly new for them. The nights have had plenty of need for Sasuke's flame, and Naruto's clones had made quick work of supplies. But this flame needed to be bigger. It needed to be hotter. The harsh cold burst their way and Naruto brought his own wind up in answer—

He gave it to Sasuke's flame, and Sasuke breathed in a feeling he didn't know when he'd last felt. It was familiar, though. Like an old friend. Like an old room. Like an old bed.

His flame grew hot. Hotter. Sasuke had come out for the cold and the truth, but all he'd managed to get was heat, again.

"Whew," Naruto breathed out, and something in Sasuke untwisted. "That's better."

Sasuke gave him a look. Naruto didn't seem to understand.

"What?" he asked. "I could've kept going."

"You have the brain of an ant," Sasuke told him, and Naruto laughed.

"Fuck off. Are you still cold?" he said. "I feel like I'm never going to dry off."

"You might do better with a shirt," Sasuke offered. He could feel the heat off of Naruto's skin.

"I don't want to get it wet!" Naruto insisted. "I don't have that many changes of clothes."

"So sit here and die, then," Sasuke muttered, and Naruto laughed. His skin was raised and on edge. A touch of his hand would soothe it, Sasuke thought. He stared at the flame instead. He stared at the flame instead.

"Asshole," Naruto laughed, but he stood. Naruto's shadow danced all over the walls of the cave, echoing off of Sasuke's flame. Sasuke watched the way it moved, even as it returned to sit beside him.

"Regretting your choices yet?" Sasuke asked, and he could hear the stretch of Naruto's smile.

"As if. Takes a lot more than this," Naruto said, stretching and sighing. "You gonna hold the fire all night?"

"Unless you have a better idea."

"I dunno," Naruto offered, and the wind howled at them from the outside. "We could set my cloak on fire."

Sasuke's head snapped to him, and Naruto immediately started laughing.

"I'm kidding!" he insisted. "Don't look at me like—fucking hell, Sasuke."

Sasuke didn't respond, and Naruto continued to laugh at him. Something about the look on his face. Something about messing with Sasuke's head. Some stupid things never changed their stupid ways, Sasuke supposed.

"We should have had better supplies than this," Sasuke said, an expert in bringing the mood down.

"Eh," Naruto answered, an expert in not caring. "I've had worse."

Sasuke gave him a glance, and the light of his flame licked at the shadows of Naruto's face.

Naruto didn't look away. He only smiled wider. There was a teasing knowledge and a firm acknowledgement in everything he said. Everything he did. Every time he looked at Sasuke, it was with the eyes of a man that knew him, inside and out. Sasuke couldn't do anything to change that. Sasuke couldn't do anything to want to.

His sharingan glowed in the dark, but Naruto had grown used to the sight. Used to the flicker. He didn't even flinch as Sasuke's chakra leaked to his eyes.

"What is your plan if we are forced to turn back?" Sasuke asked and Naruto sat up straighter.

"What, for the cold?" he said. "Rely on you."

Sasuke let his head lean to the side.

"Only one of us may be denied," he pointed out, and Naruto scoffed.

"Fuck off with that," he said. "That's not how we work."

Naruto's chakra flared up, as if to emphasize the fact. As if to remind him. Sasuke looked down at his hand, and felt the way their chakra fit together. Mixed. Melded. Warped and folded and touched to each out, tentative flicks and long, lingering touches.

Sasuke stared into his flame.

"And if we can't get in, whatever," Naruto insisted, and Sasuke had forgotten they were supposed to be talking. "We go back. Easy."

Naruto breathed out and stretched out his feet. His chakra echoed the movement—Sasuke felt in his his hand, felt it shift against him—

"We can go back through the Land of Fire," Naruto continued. "Like all the way back, go along the other border we haven't gone at all. Y'know?"

Right. Just pass right through. Sasuke eyed him, bemused.

"That's a change in your tune," he muttered, doubtful.

Naruto blinked.

"About what?"

"Konoha," Sasuke said, "and returning there. You intend to pass it by?"

Naruto's face broke into a laugh, and he ducked his head. He gave the question a second, though. More thought than Sasuke thought the denial would take.

"Well, I mean," he said, and Sasuke steadied his flame as another gust of snow came in towards them. "Now that I know Sakura will kick my ass the second I show up…"

Sasuke bit down on the laugh. It stayed steady in his throat, but Naruto still looked over at him, as if he heard the urge.

"I dunno," he said, keeping his eyes on Sasuke's face. "I'm not—it's not like any of the stuff has like—gone away. It still messes with me. It's all still in my head."

Sasuke could understand that.

"I just have to—figure out when I'm not thinking right," Naruto said. "I dunno. I don't think I'm that great at it, though."

Sasuke let out a breath through his nose, and Naruto shot him a smile. Their similarities filled the room, as per usual. Sasuke barely felt the need to state them. Naruto didn't seem to need to at all.

"Let's hope your waterfall can do something about it," Sasuke offered, and Naruto laughed.

"Yeah," he said, leaning in closer to the warmth of Sasuke's flame. "Yeah. Maybe it might."

A/N: That's it for now! I totally planned this well with arguably the biggest part of this fic happening during snsmonth. Look. at me go. Using my brain. Who could have predicted this (me. I could have)

Anyway, today's a busy busy day, so I've gotta run! I hope your lives are a bit more peaceful than mine :) See you soon with hopefully more!

Bye for now,

- Kinomi