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: cheeky 2 AM update? here you go!

Two is a Crowd

Chapter 16: if not a part of you (days...)

The morning was cold again, when Sasuke returned to the falls. Gone was the warmth of last night, uncertain as it had been—Sasuke stood under the sun and the water, drenched in his fear. In his fatigue. It pounded down against his head, with its freezing reminder that there was nowhere left to hide, anymore. Nothing left to discuss.

One topic remained.

The hidden part of him greeted him with a silent, potent gaze.

No warmth there, either.

At least exploring Naruto had been nice. Difficult, yes, a struggle, sure, but he was warm at his core and that echoed in Sasuke's head, too. Even if Sasuke's own emotions had been the anchor tied to his feet—Naruto was one of the less violent topics of conversation, when it came to the thrashing waves of Sasuke's life, but he was out of the shallow, now.

They were in the depths.

"Still need to talk about him?" his other self asked, and it was unsmiling. Unspecific. He spared Sasuke no kindness and Sasuke spared him the same.

No kindness. No reply.

His other self let out a breath, as if it was a laugh. Like a mockery. Like an understanding. Sasuke wanted to spit in its face, but it was only because the knowledge cut too deep.

Sasuke knew this irritation well. The source of it was usually…blonde.

"Is he all that's left?" Sasuke asked, and it was resigned. His other self turned to him, and it was almost as if he was surprised.

"Of me?" That part of him asked, and he was looking at himself. He was looking as if he was going to disappear in front of his own eyes. Maybe he will. Maybe he had already begun to. "Yes. You already know you love Naruto."

He turned to Sasuke with a smile, and it was that knowledge again. Sasuke felt his annoyance spark, under the surface of his skin.

He didn't let it win.

The smile fell away, like a mask breaking. Like a lie being forced to the surface. He let out a sigh, as if he'd been made to relent.

"I'm not saying you don't hate Konoha," his other self offered, and it was an olive branch. The best kindness he could give himself, he supposed. "You do. You're furious with them."

That was not new to him. Not new to either of them, he supposed. He still felt it simmering, low in his stomach. Dulled—yes. An old pain, a known pain, so constant it had become easy to ignore, but it was still made from the hottest of coals.

All it took was a spark.

"But Itachi—"

"It wasn't his fault," Sasuke snapped, and the flames flared up.

"Some things were," his other self pointed out. He was unfazed. Unmoving. Sasuke's anger was going to get the better of him. He felt it stretch, strain—

"He was a child."

"And so were we!" His other self said, and it was him who broke first— "So were we, Sasuke!"

The emotion surprised him. The flash in his eyes. Sasuke stared at himself and recognized the expression, recognized the hurt—

Recognized the way it shuttered closed, after it had revealed too much.

"It doesn't absolve him of what he's done," that Sasuke said, and he wouldn't look at Sasuke, now. "Just because it explains it. Just because it gave us a reason."

"It gave us someone better to blame," Sasuke pointed out, and that Sasuke breathed out.

"It did," he said, the words felt low enough to skim across the water. "It did."

The pause was too long. It unsettled him.

It unsettled him more when he's turned to.

Forced to face himself again.

"Is that enough?" That Sasuke asked, and Sasuke didn't understand.

"Is what enough?"

"Your hatred of Konoha," that Sasuke said. "You live happily alongside it? It protects you enough? No cracks in the walls? No holes in your argument?"

He sounded resigned. He sounds like he knew.

Sasuke resisted the urge to hit himself again.

"What do you want to tell me?" he snapped, and not for the first time, he'd had enough. "Spit it out. You've been demanding to speak, so do it."

"Forgive me," his other self spoke, and it was low, "if I also tend to feel."

He levelled himself with a look. It almost made Sasuke stop. It almost made him feel sorry.

He didn't. But he did stay quiet.

For the first time, his other self slumped. For the first time, it was as if the water had gotten to him, too.

"Aren't you angry at him?" he asked, and it was quiet. Small. Sasuke heard a child speaking in his ears. "I am."

An old, old ache rose in Sasuke's chest.

"I'm angry at Konoha," his other self said, "of course I am. But Itachi—"

He cut himself off. His throat cut him off. The ache in his chest, in Sasuke's, something was ringing in his ears and it was coming from himself, Sasuke stepped back—

"He's not innocent. He wasn't even good, not to us, not after it all, and I want my brother back as much as you do, but he's dead. And I don't even think we were the ones that killed him," he said, and Sasuke's mind was hollow, was faint, was full of memories and nothing else— "He was gone before we found him. He was gone before it started. He tortured us, Sasuke. He tortured us! Why did he do that? Why did he need to?"

"He was trapped," Sasuke tries, and it was hollow, it was hollow, it was so hollow—

"No, he wasn't!" his other self snapped, and it was too loud, it was all too loud— "We were weak! We were nothing! All he needed to do was throw us in a room and lock the door, but instead he took all of his guilt and forced us to take it! We didn't want this! We didn't want to be his judge!"

"I—"

"He forced us to kill him—for what?" his other self said. "For himself! To absolve his own guilt, as payment for what he'd done—what about us, Sasuke? What about our guilt? What about our choices? He didn't even want us to know the truth!"

"Stop," Sasuke said, and he was drowning. "Stop—"

"No," that Sasuke said, and he faced him. "No, you'll stand there, and you'll hear me. You've crushed me for this long and now you demand my patience? You ask for restraint? I'm angry, Sasuke! I'm angry, and you'll hear me!"

"Love and anger?" Sasuke said, and it was almost hysterical. His head was faint, dim, somewhere far away— "That's what you are?"

"The wrong love," his other self said, and it was a snap. "The wrong anger. You don't want to love Naruto. You don't want to hate Itachi."

"I don't hate him," Sasuke protested, and it sounded pathetic. It sounded like he was seven. He was seven, and he was crying, and he was asking Itachi why—he was asking Itachi why— "I don't—"

Something in him broke. Something in him punched through a crack, crashed through a dam, Sasuke looked at himself and he was growing fainter, lighter—

"No," the part of him said, and they stared at each other. Transient and blurred and Sasuke could feel the sting in his eyes, the lump in his throat, the ache in his heart, the shake of his hands— "We don't."

Sasuke couldn't even be angry. He was trying. God, he was trying—

"It could have been different," that Sasuke told him. "It could have been—imagine if he'd told us. Imagine if he'd taken us with him. Imagine if he'd used a genjutsu, or killed the Hokage, or run away with us, or tried anything else—"

"He was thirteen," Sasuke offered weakly, and his other self dropped his hand.

"He was thirteen," that Sasuke agreed, and it was a sigh. "And we love him. But we're so angry at him. He hurt us so much."

Sasuke glared at the water. It didn't even have the kindness to ripple.

"I hate that he did this," he said, and it echoed. "I hate that he made me kill him. I hate that he made me want to. I hate that he—"

Sasuke's voice broke.

The rest of him followed.

He felt it, that time. The way he breathed when he came out. The way the grief hit him all at once, crashing with the falls against his head. His head was broken and clear, and the water was so cold it hurt, but Sasuke sat under it with his eyes screwed shut, letting it pound the tears away from his face.

The other part of him was gone.

It was just him, now.

By the time he stood, Naruto was already wading in the water.

His hand flinched back.

"You looked like you were in pain," he offered in explanation, and Sasuke shakily stepped his way along the edge. Naruto followed him and met him by the campfire, something stilted and stopped in his throat—

Sasuke looked at him, and Naruto wanted to tell him something.

Whatever Sasuke looked like must have stopped him in his tracks.

"C'mon," Naruto said, and his fingers were a pull. An anchor. Sasuke felt his mind clutch to them like a raft in the sea— "let's get you dry."

Sasuke spent three days in bed. Naruto needed them in the waterfall, but Sasuke knew he no longer did. He'd burst through the wall that had kept him contained, kept him careful, kept him safe, and now he was shattered and broken and left to gather sinking bricks to build makeshift dams. Half the time they hit him. Half the time, he forgot how to swim.

The second day, Naruto tried to stay. Sasuke picked up just enough of his mind to press every pressure point of Naruto's he knew, the coward. The idiot. What was he, worried? Scared? He thought Sasuke was going to run again? He was picking his excuses not to enter? Had he finished? No? Then what did he think he was doing? Pathetic—

And Naruto knew exactly what he was doing. He barely rose to Sasuke's bait at all. He only smiled, soft and affectionate.

At least that gave Sasuke's mind something kinder to linger on, that day.

Naruto returned from his third day exhausted. He collapsed in the dirt, somewhere past Sasuke's feet. He didn't even bother to say hello. He didn't even bother to change his clothes.

It took Sasuke two more minutes for him to realize Naruto thought he was asleep.

He knew, because Naruto was letting him see him cry.

And Sasuke didn't know what it was. He didn't know what had finally broken Naruto down, too, but he knew the feeling, and he knew exactly what it would take.

He sat up, and Naruto flinched. Sasuke pulled his wet clothes off his body and replaced it with the blanket he'd been using, set up a flame, grew it until it was hot—

He didn't relent until Naruto was warm and dry. His heart was in his throat again. It was pounding at his fingertips. Naruto stared at him, and his eyes were wide, and his eyes were blue, and his eyes were unrelenting.

They were still scared. Sasuke could still see the fear.

He looked away.

And Sasuke was still surprised, somehow, when Naruto didn't enter the waterfall the next day. He stared at Naruto for a little too long. His eyes lingered on their own. Naruto noticed.

The smile played at his lips.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said, deliberately misinterpreting him. "Just 'cause you finished accepting yourself faster than me doesn't mean you won or anything, bastard."

Sasuke felt the warmth settle back into his chest. In his face. In his lips. Naruto was making him want to laugh again.

"Is that not what that means?" he asked, and Naruto pretended the question made him mad. He argued closer. Got angry faster. He burst into Sasuke's personal space and Sasuke met him there, words on words, breath on breath—

Naruto said something, but Sasuke didn't hear it.

The smile slowly, slowly fell from Naruto's face.

…

He flinched back. Sasuke felt a tired, familiar ache at the motion. He'd never bothered to listen to it, before. It came from a part of him he hadn't wanted to understand.

Naruto seemed to pause, too, as if realizing what he'd done.

Sasuke let it slide. Their muscle memory led them to separate. It was built into them, this resistance. This control. It won't be easy to overcome.

Sasuke couldn't even look up.

They took another day before the waterfall was done with them. Before they were done with it. Sasuke stood underneath it for peace in his chaotic mind, a whim to make sure there was nothing left under the surface—

If some part of him had stayed repressed, it didn't reveal itself. The night sky greeted him, stars seen through leaves—blue eyes through blue water.

Sasuke didn't appreciate being caught, but Naruto only squashed his tired face into his tired hand.

"I guess I had two, didn't I?" he muttered, and then he walked under the waterfall, too. He didn't have three. He seemed a bit surprised when Sasuke mentioned it wasn't as if the part of him had stuck to a single topic of conversation, anyway.

He supposed Naruto's had.

By the time the morning returned, they were wet again. By the time the morning returned, they were sick of it. They packed their wet clothes into their wet bags and made plans for moving slowly—it was important they dry, fully, before diving back into the snow. And with their stopping along the way, Sasuke wondered if Naruto wanted to socialize, but Naruto—

"I just keep thinking about that hot springs place," he said, and it was a laugh. It was a lean back, it was a roll of his shoulders, it was an admittance of the tension in him and an ask for help to relieve it— "Think we can go back?"

Sasuke found the smile back on his face. It was almost every time Naruto talked, now. It barely even felt foreign anymore.

"Who's going to stop you?" he asked. "Me?"

Naruto laughed at him, as if the thought was ridiculous. Sasuke smiled, too, as if in agreement. The memory of their argument played in his head, and Sasuke knew his debts ran deeper than money. He knew Naruto would never ask them to be repaid. Sasuke had no easy way of making money in secret, and his hands were sick of being drenched in secrets anyway—

So Naruto will pay for them again. And Sasuke…

…

Sasuke will have to find another currency to trade in.

They left Kumo the same way they came. Quietly, with little fanfare. They were still being watched. They were still not alone. They returned to a world of snow, and the guards fell back, fell away.

Sasuke breathed a little easier.

Naruto did, too.

"S'weird," he remarked, and he was stretching out his shoulders. "I'm still not used to that."

Sasuke looked over at him. Naruto took in a breath, as if considering an urge to quell his thought.

"I had guards around when I was Hokage," he said. "Never liked it."

Naruto shrugged. Sasuke watched him for a moment more. Naruto let him, and he didn't look back, but he did smile.

"I'm not thinking about going back, if that's what you're wondering," he said, and if Sasuke hadn't been before, he was now. "Or did you want me to?"

He was teasing him. Goading him. Naruto looked over with a grin and a glint in his eye, and Sasuke was most disgruntled about the fact that it was working.

Naruto's grin widened.

"Fuck you," Sasuke told him, and it broke his smile into a laugh. The cold wind blew past them both, and the snow was beginning to fall—they needed to be on their way, soon, to try to find some shelter. It was the logical thought. The logical motion. Sasuke still didn't manage to feel it. Sasuke barely felt the cold at all. There was a warmth at his side, and a warmth that led the way.

Sasuke followed close behind.

As if he had a choice. Naruto's glance back was constant. They were slow into the snow. Lost in their thoughts and in each other, unspeaking but constantly trying to. Constantly on the edge. Naruto smiled at Sasuke thirty times in as many seconds and for the first time in living memory, Sasuke tripped over his own feet.

He was distracted. They both were. Naruto didn't even think to use this as the mechanism to ruin Sasuke's life and pride—he laughed, of course he did, but it was with little more than a motion to pull him to his side. A motion to right him again. Naruto's hand lingered, and Sasuke…

…

Naruto let go, but it was slow. It wasn't a flinch, it was a test. It was a paused, unwilling release. Naruto looked at him and breathed in, but let his hand drop. Sasuke felt his heartbeat in his throat and wondered if it was insane to simply grab it back. It was cold, wasn't it? Naruto was warm. It was only the weather, it was only their survival—

His feelings stayed stuck there, behind his tongue. It was one thing to know them. It was another to voice them. And Naruto must be somewhere similar, from how silent he'd become—if Sasuke had any room to dislodge his voice, he'd be saying something, too. Asking why—why the silence, why the peace, why leave Sasuke unbothered now, after all this time? Had he learned to finally let things go unnoticed, uncommented on, unspoken about?

No.

Naruto's eyes did enough talking for the both of them. His smile was worse. His smile said too much. Sasuke read the nuances and knew them, memorized them, looked at the world and used Naruto as his lens. The bite of his lips was brutal. The breath was even more so.

It sounded like a laugh.

It sounded like I love you.

The sound thundered in Sasuke's ears, and he listened.

Oh, he listened.

A/N: Aaand we're out of the falls! This was the bit of the fic that made me want to write it. I hope I did it justice!

Thanks for being here, friends.

Until next time,

- Kinomi