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: hello, hello, friends! I'm early for once, this month. This chapter was a lot of fun to write - I hope you like it!
Two is a Crowd
Chapter 15: if not a part of you (day eight)
The break was unsuccessful. Sasuke was not relaxed. Naruto wasn't even relaxed. They spent their day in chaos with their thoughts, unwilling to speak them out loud. Unwilling to test them against each other. Letting them out into the world brought too much a reality—too permanent a change.
And since he couldn't seem to spend time with Naruto, the only option left was…himself.
Well.
Part of him, anyway.
"Don't say his name," he greeted, and he received a laughing, withering gaze in reply.
"Fine," he said, with the face of someone who knew too much. "Let's talk about Naruto."
Fuck.
One Sasuke filled with regrets, and the other raised his chin. Sasuke recognized the glint in his eye. He'd seen it in himself.
The look of when he'd caught his enemy out.
"You've noticed something," the reflection said, and Sasuke wasn't going to give into him that easily. He wasn't going to leave, but he wasn't going to make this simple.
That Sasuke tilted his head. He held a stone in his hand—wet, when the rest of him was dry.
"Does he love you?" he asked, but Sasuke was unfazed.
"If he does, he won't admit it."
"Of course not," his other self replied. "He knows you too well."
Sasuke waited for an explanation. He didn't appreciate the smug disbelief that was returned to him.
"That would mean acknowledging a love, wouldn't it?" the other Sasuke said, and he wasn't looking at himself anymore. "Comparing his feelings to yours. Looking at you through a lens of knowing something. It would be impossible to avoid the realization that you loved him too."
He breathed out, up at the sky. His next words were quieter.
"But I suppose Naruto could find a way."
Sasuke let himself breathe, and tucked the thought back into his head.
"He doesn't know he loves me," he tried, and his other self laughed.
"Of course he does, don't be stupid." He still didn't turn back. "Try harder."
…
"He doesn't know I love him."
"Almost."
Sasuke was tired of this game.
"He does," that part of him replied. "A part of him does. Why do you think he's so scared? You know how it works."
He threw the stone up and caught it again.
"Where there is no hope, there is nothing to fear."
He flipped it over in his hands. Sasuke wondered where he found it. Sasuke wondered if it truly existed at all.
"But there's a part of him that knows," the part of him continued. "And the rest of him is terrified. That's my theory, anyway."
"It would explain why he won't look at me," Sasuke muttered, and the reflection let out a breath.
"Mm. I hate that," he said, rocking back on his boulder, as if he, too, could feel the tension— "I miss his eyes. It's only been a few days."
Sasuke stared at himself.
"What?" the other Sasuke asked, leaning forwards again. "I have nothing to hide. I love Naruto. Without restraint." He held out his arms, and Sasuke resisted the urge to flinch. "So could you. Imagine what I would do to him. Imagine what I could do for him."
He stopped to smile at the sky again.
"I would shatter his whole world."
He peered to the side to catch Sasuke's eye.
"You could, too."
…
Sasuke didn't answer.
"We wouldn't even need to do anything," the part of him insisted. "Imagine if you touched him. On purpose. Kindly. I bet he wouldn't even breathe."
No. No, he wouldn't.
Sasuke wouldn't, either.
"I find it difficult to believe you know a truth I don't," Sasuke said, pulling them back.
His own self looked at him.
"About Naruto," Sasuke added, and it was forced. He didn't like any of this. It was excruciatingly uncomfortable. It was being laid bare in front of his worst enemy. The one person who'd hated him the most. He'd never been as cruel to anyone as he had to himself.
"That's the secret," he said, and Sasuke thought he was the most annoying person in the world. "You do already know."
Sasuke's unamusement replied for him.
"You see his fear, don't you?" the part of him asked. "He doesn't flinch when he touches you because he doesn't want to. You've seen what he does when he forgets."
Sasuke…
"But you flinch, too. You see the motion and bury it. You hide it away. You push it into me."
He shifted, and the stone was back in his hand. Sasuke couldn't remember if he'd thrown it.
"Because admitting that you understand why he won't let himself love you means admitting that he loves you. It means knowing you love him. You're just as terrified as he is. And you think hiding your love will mean you don't feel it. It doesn't work that way."
He threw it this time.
It skipped twice, before it sank.
"I'm not here to tell you anything you don't already know," that Sasuke said. "I'm part of you. But the only love you let yourself admit is the one for your brother."
Sasuke's head snapped to him.
"You—"
"I didn't say his name."
…
Sasuke's jaw clenched.
"So what?" he snapped, pulling them backwards again. Pulling them away again. "You think Naruto's fighting a part of himself that knows he loves me?"
"No," that part of him replied. "I think he's fighting a part of himself that knows you do."
Sasuke's mouth shut. His other self wouldn't look at him again.
"It's the most difficult thing, isn't it?" he asks, and it was quiet. "Getting Naruto to admit someone else cares for him. Getting him to admit he could deserve it."
He looked at Sasuke, and Sasuke stared back.
"He could be here longer than we are."
…
The rest of the night was quiet.
It was quiet even when he left. Even when he was wet. He'd beat Naruto to it, today, and it was the first time he'd left the falls before Naruto did since they'd come here.
It gave Sasuke a moment to build his flame.
He got it roaring. He got it strong and hot and stripped his wet clothes for ones that were drier, he let his distraction pull him and watched for flashes of a different blue in the blue of the water. Blue in the midst of the blonde. The yellows and orange and…not enough blue.
The sun set, and Naruto was still within the falls.
Sasuke frowned.
That was long enough, he thought. After yesterday, and the fatigue in both of them—this was long enough. He knew Naruto well enough to know that the idiot would bash his body into a wall to break it, with complete disregard of how broken it would leave him in return.
Sasuke walked across water, and wrenched Naruto out by the hand.
Naruto yelped and fell in. Sasuke pulled him up and let go.
"Idiot," he greeted, as Naruto scrambled his chakra into submission. "You missed dinner."
Naruto shook the water and the waterfall from him, blinking up at Sasuke after a…minute.
Sasuke's lips twitched.
There was something familiar, here. Different, but familiar. It made Naruto smile, too, and something in Sasuke breathed out at the way the tension eased. Putting a name to the tension in Naruto's face hadn't helped the twist in his stomach. Fear didn't suit his features at all.
His own words tumbled in his head and he felt Naruto's eyes on his back. He was tired, but he was dry, and he had something in him he didn't have yesterday. Some sort of…stubbornness. Some sort of will to—push.
He brought Naruto his clothes.
Naruto froze, halfway through pulling them off. Sasuke felt the scoff in his mouth. Some sort of laugh. Was it so different? Naruto was fine in the hot springs. Fine everywhere else. There was no room for privacy when they travelled together. But there was an idea in Naruto's head and Sasuke was reaching for it, now. He was goading it into revealing itself. He could see it in Naruto's eyes. He could see it in his fear.
"Give me those," he said, nodding to Naruto's drenched clothes, as if this motion was innocent. Naruto obeyed without a word, an ultimate betrayal—as if his silence would hide him. As if his passiveness didn't scream an alarm.
"Get warm," he said, and he flared the flame as he stepped away. He could see the goosebumps on Naruto's skin. He'd been close enough to touch them.
He'd been close enough to know the way they'd flinch away.
"Thanks," Naruto said, and he tripped over the word. He tripped and didn't look up—he occupied himself with his clothes, and Sasuke occupied himself with his flame, and he thought about how easy it would have been for them to have fallen into this. To have fooled each other with this. To have breathed in this thick silence and pretended it didn't drag them down, pretended it wasn't water in their lungs, pretended it didn't drown them—
They could have lived like this.
Lived like this for the rest of their lives—distant, even when they were side by side. Unspeaking their truths. Burying their emotions. And Sasuke would have willingly participated, willingly pushed for it, willingly coated himself in this forced loneliness. An isolation of their own making. Sasuke had experience in that.
Naruto should never have.
He looked up through the flame, but the blue of Naruto's eyes didn't meet him. That beautiful, silent blue.
"I don't regret it," Sasuke said, and Naruto's head jerked up. "Bringing you with me. If you don't already know."
He gave Naruto a look, as if he ought to—a roll of his eyes and huff of his breath. He was defensive, he knew.
Naruto knew, too.
"I mean," he said, but the smile betrayed him, "there's still time."
Sasuke met his eye.
Naruto ducked his head down again. The water dripped from his hair.
…
"Thanks," he said softly, and it was quiet. Touched. Naruto looked down at the floor and let his thoughts overwhelm him again. Sasuke used the excuse of fixing the flame to stand and then sit again—this time, at Naruto's feet.
The flame circled the empty log ahead of them. Sasuke's former seat. Sasuke sat on the dirt, and used Naruto's leg to rest his back instead.
Naruto breathed in, but he didn't move away.
Good. Good. Sasuke felt himself breathe and pretended the greatest warmth was ahead of him, not behind him. He didn't pretend very well.
For once, he didn't pretend very well at all.
"I missed you," Naruto said, and it was so quiet Sasuke almost thought he dreamt it. "...I guess you already know."
Sasuke did. Sasuke did.
"Which time?" he asked instead, and Naruto breathed out as if it was a laugh. Sasuke felt himself smiling, too.
…
"I missed you, too."
He spoke to the wind. He spoke to the flame. He felt Naruto tense, behind him, and the thought returned to him. Quietly, calmly. It was not unexpected, but it was a confirmation—
Naruto was comfortable with his own emotions. But Sasuke's were…a different sort of beast.
"Yeah, right," Naruto laughed, and his knee bumped to Sasuke's shoulder. "I think you just got desperate. Or bored."
Sasuke looked up. Naruto shot him a grin, but it didn't hold.
Sasuke's gaze did.
"C'mon," Naruto said, looking away. "I'm pretty entertaining."
Sasuke indulged him with a hum.
"Do you know why I never replied to your letters?"
Naruto's mouth opened and closed. He hadn't expected this one.
"You—yeah, I mean—I think so. Um."
He looked down at his hands. He distinctly avoided the curve of Sasuke's shoulder.
"I couldn't," Sasuke told him, and Naruto grew quiet. "I tried."
"I…yeah. Yeah, I…remember."
Sasuke did show him. Naruto had felt it. But there was a reality in saying it out loud.
A permanence.
"I couldn't," Sasuke said again. "I would have come back to Konoha."
Naruto blinked.
"You—no, you wouldn't've."
"I think I would have," Sasuke said, and it was honest. "I think I would have hated myself for it."
"Hated me for it, you mean," Naruto muttered, and Sasuke wanted to laugh.
"No, you moron. I've tried that."
They met each other's eye, and for the first time that night, Naruto…didn't break.
He searched, instead. He looked into Sasuke's eyes, and Sasuke looked at him, and let him.
He wondered what he found.
He hoped it was the truth.
A/N: That's it for now! More to come :) Thanks for being here, friends. I hope you're excited for where this is going!
Until next time,
- Kinomi