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: that kind of month where I ought to have had no update ready to go. Somehow, that's resulted in more? Hope you like it!
Two is a Crowd
Chapter 17: if not a truth
The snow brought them close. The cold brought them closer. They walked through the blizzard, back to being cold and wet. Back to being quiet, thoughtful...obvious. The air was thick with their understanding. The way they knew each other. The silence stretched on, but Sasuke could hear Naruto's thoughts from here. They spoke to him from the curve of his lip. The change in his breath. The colour of his eyes.
The snow thickened, and it tried to hide them. It didn't work. As if it could have.
But the winds roared. Naruto hugged his cloak closer and Sasuke stepped the same. Not close enough, but—Naruto's best attempts at hiding his shivers were still weak to Sasuke. He could see right through them. And as the sun began to set, for a moment, Sasuke steeled himself, ready to begin the fight that would force Naruto to stop and seek shelter, as opposed to grinding his heel into the ice and holding steady—
But Naruto was the first to slow. Maybe he'd learned a lesson from the cold. Or maybe from Sasuke, the last time they were here. Either way, the win came with the relief—he'd rather not speak when his heart was in his mouth. It was all too easy to just spit it onto the floor.
They found shelter from the wind and the worst of it, and Naruto sat where Sasuke's flame was to ignite before it was even lit.
…
The way they understood each other rustled around Sasuke like the wind through the snow. Cold. Potent. Impossible to ignore. Soaking into him no matter how he tried to protect himself. It was in the air. It was all over him.
Naruto pulled his wet clothes from him with a familiar shiver, and Sasuke debated the option of doing the same. He wanted to leave some of his clothes dry. They'd only just barely gotten there, and they were still safe, away in his bag—
"I take it back," Naruto said, flicking some ice from his hand with a wet, wet wave. "We're not going straight to the hot springs. I'm sick of water."
Sasuke sat down with a laugh. His knee didn't bump to Naruto's. It could have. It could still…
"I was wondering when the complaining would start," he deadpanned, and it was Naruto who initiated the touch. He rocked into Sasuke's shoulder, stiff and uneven and stuttered—a transient, attempted motion. It flinched away almost as quickly as it came. There was a knowledge in there, too. Sasuke could see it in the way Naruto held his breath.
"Um," he said, and he was wiping a wet hand through his wet hair. A drop of water fell onto his cheek, hugging along the marks on his skin, reflecting the fire back at itself…coloured with yellows and oranges and…
It fell away, and Sasuke caught himself again.
…
Naruto had caught him, too.
"Um," he said again, and he'd looked away from him now. "I—uh. What was I saying?"
He laughed with a cough and a swallow and a clear of his throat. Nervous motions. The hand was back to his hair, too. Sasuke was back to staring at it. He'd spent all his time thinking and thinking and thinking, and now he had none of his mind left. He was just eyes and a heart. Just a sore chest and a thick throat. Naruto looked at him like someone who understood, and even though Sasuke had known it would come, even though he'd wanted it to—
He hadn't been ready. Not for this.
Not for the look in those eyes.
"I never know," Sasuke told him, and it was a weak, crackling joke. He'd almost forgotten there'd been a question he was meant to answer. Naruto laughed as if he'd almost forgotten, too, and then his breath was directed forward, shifting the curves of Sasuke's flame. Breaking it in two, and building it back up again.
Sasuke swallowed.
Naruto's nerves had spread. Sasuke couldn't shake them.
"Do you care where we go now?" Naruto asked, and he was attempting a conversation. Something light to pull them out of the depths of their feeling. Sasuke couldn't blame him. Their thoughts were heavy, sinking, consuming—exhausting. The distractions pulled them back to comfort, kept them afloat—
"Not particularly," Sasuke told him.
Naruto's smile changed a little. Something in it wanted to laugh. Something in it asked Sasuke to laugh, too.
"You never did," he pointed out, and it was with a glance. It was with a glance that wasn't meant to linger, but it did. It lingered and caught and stuck there, like tree sap to the skin—
"No," he said, and Naruto…stalled. Paused and smiled and looked down at his hand, looked down at his fingers. He was acknowledging something. Sasuke was acknowledging it, too.
It hadn't mattered where they went. It didn't matter where they would go.
The thought settled into the air, and Sasuke breathed it in.
It left them warm and together in an orange flickering cave. It left them protecting their flame from squalls of snow. Sasuke chakra built it and Naruto's sustained it, and their hands may as well have been on top of each other with the way they mixed. They may as well have been one.
It left them here.
…
For once, Sasuke didn't try to be the last to fall asleep.
In the light of the morning, they returned to the Land of Hot Water. The snow bowed its head to the heat and humidity—the white to the blues and browns and greens. Sasuke felt something return to him with the familiar ground. Some weight in his shoulders drop, some breath in his chest loosen. Naruto's trudge through snow had been slow and shivering, and it hadn't been any easier to ignore the second time. Sasuke had wanted to stop and heat them up with every step. The discomfort was too much. The discomfort had been enough. Naruto's discomfort—Sasuke was sick of it. Sasuke was sick of being its cause.
But every time the thought had almost won, Naruto had started to laugh again. Sasuke's excuses were hollow. Naruto saw through them. Naruto saw through them with affection, and happiness, and something that sparkled in his eyes. Like the way the sun hit slow, steady waves along the ocean.
Glittering.
And since pushing the issue was a declaration Sasuke didn't know how to word or handle or even feel properly yet—Sasuke relented. Unwillingly, stubbornly, but he relented. It was a good thing, in the end, he supposed.
It brought them here quicker.
"I changed my mind again," Naruto told him, and he was looking over where the steam rose. Sasuke snorted and knew he would. This water was warm. This water was clean. Sasuke would try to enjoy it, the way he hadn't been able to before…
…
He looked at the back of Naruto's neck, and the doubts returned to him. The unease. He understood it, now.
…
He didn't know what to do with that understanding.
And in his moments of quiet, the rest returned to him, too—thoughts of Itachi, thoughts of Konoha, thoughts of what he'd known then and what he knew now. His anger was complicated and thick. Mixed together in heavy, viscous mud—Sasuke's feet were stuck in it, sinking deeper as he trudged forward. Trudged back. He knew what it was, and he knew it was there, but trying to free himself from it all…
He breathed out, and Naruto had slowed. Naruto'd caught him in thought and waited for him to return—unspeaking, but looking at him. Checking on him. Sasuke met the concern with the raise of an eyebrow, and that was enough for Naruto, apparently.
Not enough to make him walk anything less than side by side, but enough.
They were greeted by the same man, at the inn. The same tired look, the same age to his hands. Knowledge to his eyes. He seemed to laugh when he saw them, already grabbing out a key—
"Good to see you're still alive," he commented, sliding it towards them. "Same room?"
"Yeah, I—we—huh?" Naruto asked—
"Please," Sasuke said, taking it. Naruto followed his lead and paid, smiling through his confusion. The man was teasing them, in his own dark sort of way. He hadn't known why they were travelling through to the Land of Lightning, after all.
And he'd have to have been a fool not to look them up, after they'd left. Perhaps he hadn't, though. He wasn't nearly stiff enough in Sasuke's presence.
Naruto led the way with a bounce in his step. He was already throwing his things on the floor, already stripping down. He couldn't wait to be warm, he was shouting—he was going to be warm and clean and blah, blah, blah. His excitement was contagious. Something freed itself in Sasuke's chest. Something unlocked and untied and just…
He was so tight. So restrained. Sasuke found himself just—breathing, a hundred times a day. Trying to breathe free, trying to let his shoulders fall. That kind of relief was so foreign to him. That kind of relaxation. But he was throwing out the way he'd lived his life until now, or he was trying to—that diligence, that restraint, that hatred, that anger and that nothing, nothing, nothing else—
A path full of failures. Sasuke may as well have been stuck in the ground with how little progress he'd made. That life was ingrained into him, but it was wrong. It fit him like a glove fit a wing—like a fish fit a puddle. It had been tight. Twisted. Suffocating.
He'd done all he could to mold himself into it. He'd broken himself into pieces, just hoping he'd be able to fit. And now he was just—
Just left with them. Left with the pieces, trying to start again. They were jagged and his hands were scarred—he didn't know how they fit together, or which way they were meant to be. He didn't even know if he had all of them, anymore. But they were broken, now. There was no point not trying to fix them. Either they'd stay broken, or he'd find a way, and more and more he thought—he hoped—
Naruto looked back at him, and he saw the pieces. He'd seen every edge. Cut himself along them. The breaks in Sasuke had made Naruto bleed, and he still smiled like Sasuke had done nothing but love him and be loved in return. Like nothing around them had ever hurt. Naruto looked at him and Sasuke just—felt like he could believe it. He just felt like it could be true. He just wanted to make it so.
They had the hot springs to themselves again, this time—a comfort. Very much not a comfort. Sasuke would take any day without a stranger, but this—to be together here, alone, after the days they spent in the falls, acknowledging a love they hadn't known how to…
…
It was intimate. It was too intimate.
All at once, Naruto realized it, too.
He was already naked. Sasuke was still undressing. Naruto's eyes went wide and his voice cut off and he turned away, as if his heart was hammering. They were to rinse themselves before they enter the water. Naruto knew as well as anyone.
…
He wouldn't look at him.
He wouldn't look at Sasuke.
It was enough to make Sasuke want to be bold. He dreamed about it, for a moment. He dreamed of a Sasuke who would snap Naruto around to face him. A touch of his arm. A brush by him. Something purposeful and intent, some sort of reminder, some sort of knowledge, knowledge, that knowledge again—
Sasuke walked by, and nothing touched Naruto but the wind.
He wasn't sure whether to call himself a coward. He should, he supposed. The love was there. They had proven it to each other. They had proven it to themselves. And yes, maybe there was the small, nagging doubt that he didn't absolutely, undeniably know what Naruto had witnessed in the falls. What Naruto had come to understand. If he was wrong? If he was mistaken? If it was a hope, not a truth, and if Sasuke came to know—
No.
That was a disservice to himself. That was a disservice to them both.
And so—here they were. Stepping down on stones. Sitting in a public bath. Warm and growing warmer. Just them. Just them, and this love.
The water had the decency to hide Naruto's body from him. It had the arrogance to enhance it, too. Naruto's skin grew slick and wet, challenging the sun in the way it glistened. Echoing the light back at the sky, back at the water—Naruto was a shimmering reflection, a promise of heat and silk and soft, soft, soft skin. The water just stopped along his chest, lapped at the curves of his muscles and stuck in drips along his chin and ears and hair and shoulders and chest and neck and mouth and Naruto's tongue darted out to catch one, he shook his head to free them, he breathed out a sigh and fell back against the rocks and Sasuke thought that his body had finally come to—know him. Naruto's body had grown into him, had grown to show who he was, and it was so hard to…see. Something like that.
Sasuke tore his gaze away and stared at the rocks. Pretended his throat wasn't dry. Pretended he wasn't stiff, again. He was so practiced in burying this. He was so ready to do it again. Naruto was the same, wasn't he?
He wouldn't even look at him.
He wouldn't even break this silence.
…
Sasuke wanted to slam his head into the rocks. He didn't, but he did sink down—he let the heat envelop him, let it come together over his head and surround him completely. Naruto was right—there was something about this. There was something about being in clean water. About being stifled in warmth and coming out—renewed. Refreshed. Sasuke wasn't sure he'd been able to feel it before, but today was a day about trying.
That was what he told himself, anyway.
He lifted out with a breath and pushed his hair back as he hit the air. It was still shorter than it had been. He'll have to cut it again, soon. Naruto will have to do the same—his was nearly past his shoulders. It must have been driving him crazy by now.
Naruto's eyes darted up from wherever on Sasuke's body they had been, and he breathed in an uncomfortable breath.
"What?" he asked, as if Sasuke had been the only one staring. As if Sasuke was the only one full of this heat.
"Are you planning on cutting your hair?" Sasuke asked, innocent. He had his excuse standing ready to defend him before Naruto had even opened his mouth.
Practiced.
Naruto laughed and leaned back. The water dripped along his neck.
"Is it that bad?" he teased, with his uneven smile and his blue eyes. "I guess I should, huh?"
His head fell to face Sasuke, but Sasuke only gave him a shrug.
"It makes no difference to me," Sasuke said, and Naruto continued to look at him.
The downside, he supposed, in speaking with someone as experienced as him. It was easy for Naruto to see through the cracks.
"I did like it for a bit," he said, pulling at it. "It's been annoying me more recently. I dunno."
He sighed and looked back at the sky. It was still blue and bright. There was too much light in the sky for all Sasuke wanted to say.
"Maybe I should just cut it real short," he said. "Make it take ages to grow all the way back."
He laughed and looked over at Sasuke.
Sasuke let his eyebrow raise.
"What?" Naruto said, because he knew the look too well. "We could both do it! You wanna keep going for a million haircuts or something?"
Sasuke snorted and conceded the point. It slid into his head quietly, alongside the way Naruto had gently pointed out that Sasuke's hair did, in fact, need to be cut. Nothing Sasuke hadn't already known, but…
Sasuke was waiting for the dread. The bile. The thick in his throat and pain in his chest. The fatigue still stayed strong, but this reaction was…dulled. Lessened. Maybe being forced to look at himself for days at a time had settled something in his head. Made him come to terms with something. Something other than all he'd repressed, anyway.
"You'd look good with short hair," Naruto offered, and it was jarring enough to bring Sasuke back, all at once.
"What?" he asked, bewildered—
"Not like—it'd just—you—y'know, you always hide your eyes or whatever," he said quickly, "and you wouldn't be able to."
"That sounds like a reason for me not to do it," Sasuke told him, leaning back. The heat was getting to him, now. He was just breathing in steam.
Naruto let out a soft laugh, and it cut through.
"I dunno," he said, and his hand was wet in his hair. "I feel like hanging out with me kinda gives you away. Doesn't it?"
Sasuke gave the thought a…moment.
"I suppose," he admitted finally, rolling it around in his head. Anyone who would know the sight of him would know enough to know the sight of Naruto. And if they didn't—well, they certainly wouldn't be a threat. It felt like a foolish thing to do, to expose himself in that way, but then…
"Anyway," Naruto said, and he was shifting. The water was shifting with him. It rippled around his chest… "It—that wasn't even—just a dumb idea. I dunno."
He slid back and closed his eyes. Sasuke felt the protest in his throat, but it didn't make it out of his mouth. The sun was starting to falter, and the halo was back behind Naruto's head. It painted him in pinks, in oranges, in yellows. It hugged his body and lit up his skin. Sasuke stared at the way the water droplets glistened and counted the seconds until Naruto's eyes opened again. Just a…moment. Just a silent, quiet second. Just to let him…bring the chakra to his eyes…
Naruto's eyes opened. Sasuke hadn't looked away quick enough.
The silence was as thick as the steam.
"Um," Naruto said, and Sasuke felt hopeless. Sasuke felt helpless. Sasuke felt a pang in his heart and it sounded like Naruto's laugh. He wanted to lean back and fall back and force Naruto to be the one to pull him from the water. Sasuke was filled with a million little desires and every one of his instincts told him to disregard them. Every one of his instincts had them dead and buried before Sasuke could even have the sense of mind to know they were there. He'd been trying to listen to himself, he'd been trying to listen to that part of him, but he'd spent a lifetime becoming an expert in stuffing his fingers in his ears. It was infuriating.
Sasuke directed his sighs to the sky, and the clouds passed over his head. Soon to be the stars. Sasuke wondered if the darkness would help.
"S'weird that it—that there aren't a lot of people here," Naruto offered, and Sasuke was listening. He let his head lean to show him so. "Isn't it?"
"I try not to count my blessings," Sasuke deadpanned, tired. Naruto laughed at him, and then he was sitting up. He was blue and he was yellow and he was bathed in the setting sun, and he was sitting up, looking at Sasuke. All intent and happy. Bubbly and energetic and optimistic and laughing. Looking at Sasuke, and laughing.
"You hate this enough as it is," Naruto teased, "if there was another guy in here, you'd probably explode."
"I wouldn't need to," Sasuke pointed out. "You've felt my advantage in water before."
Naruto had forgotten, apparently, from the way that he laughed.
"You—fucker, don't you dare," Naruto said, pulling his knees up. "Don't even."
Sasuke's smile widened. He deliberately didn't reply.
"Fucker," Naruto said again, and then he laughed. "You would. You'd spark some poor guy just coming in—"
He cut himself off in a laugh, and Sasuke felt the smile playing at his lips. He hid it in the water, sinking low down.
Naruto sat up straighter, shifting the water around him. He still had his feet pulled to him. Acting like Sasuke was a shark to be monitored.
…
Good.
Good.
Naruto's smile stretched wider.
"I'll kick your ass," he warned, because he was reading something in Sasuke's half-hidden face. "Don't even try."
But he was sitting up straighter. His fingers were still, his eyes fully open. Sasuke pretended to float on his back.
His toe did the trick.
"Ah! You dick!"
Naruto's flinch turned into a launch, and then they were both underwater. The rocks were low enough to stand, so it wasn't for long—and Naruto greeted him with a shove and a shove and a shove again, and Sasuke let himself be pushed back, back, back, back—
His back hit a wall, and Naruto trapped him there.
"You absolute—" Naruto said, and he was so wet, so wet, "dickhead."
His hand was holding Sasuke's wrist. His bandages had him by the shoulder. The heat of the hot springs became nothing at all, and Naruto realized it all at once—
He flinched back.
Sasuke didn't even have to shock him.
And there was a pause, before Naruto moved again. Like a realization, after the first—an acknowledgement, maybe, that the flinch hadn't been necessary. Wanted.
Sasuke certainly had made no motions to move.
Naruto breathed in, as if to say something, but his throat was strained and not enough. Sasuke knew. Sasuke felt the same.
The water splashed as Naruto stepped back.
"Sorry," Naruto offered, finally. It was low and it was quiet, and it skimmed along the ripples they had created.
The sun was going down.
Sasuke wondered which part of this Naruto felt he needed to apologize for.
The nice thing, Sasuke thought, about being here, was that the wet ended. They could dry after they left the baths—and dry fully, with their clothes and their bodies and their hair and their bags. Their beds weren't wet. There was no mud seeped into them. It was a luxury Sasuke had grown accustomed to quickly. Too quickly. Quickly enough to unsettle himself.
Nothing new there, he supposed.
But he acknowledged it, like all the other new things in his head he was trying to greet as opposed to destroy. His instinct was still to kill on sight, but—some things were revivable. Sasuke did feel some level of…renewal.
The morning sun shone, and Naruto blinked at him. He'd caught him watching again.
…
But Sasuke was growing bolder. These were the things—the impulses he was trying not to…hurt. These urges. They'd been rewarding him, recently, with the way Naruto's smile changed. Like Sasuke could become a reminder of something, if he let himself.
Naruto's face flushed, and he didn't look at Sasuke. Sasuke walked to stand beside him. Naruto barely even dared to breathe. Sasuke's heart hammered in his chest.
Pathetic, weren't they?
Pathetic, like this. All the ways they were power incarnate—experts in their fields, Naruto was a hero among men and this—
This was the thing that terrified them.
This was the thing that had them frozen. Unsure. They didn't even know how to stand beside each other. They didn't even know how to touch each other. They could barely stand to speak, with the thick uncertainty between them. And Naruto was bold and unthinking, but not when it came to himself. Not when it came to something good for himself.
And so it fell on Sasuke.
…
If only Sasuke knew any, any better.
"Breakfast?" he prompted, and Naruto gave a quick, jerking nod. Sasuke wasn't even sure if he fully heard the word before he agreed to it. He saw the way Naruto's shoulders fell, out of the corner of his eye, as Sasuke turned away. As if something had taken away the tension. Was it relief?
No.
No, it was disappointment.
…
Sasuke felt his lips thin.
Missed opportunities. Sasuke felt them a thousand times a day. Sasuke felt them when it was too late. Sasuke felt them, felt them, felt them. He wished he could see them coming, but this—
He was a novice, at this. He was untrained. Unknowing. He was stumbling in the dark and Naruto had always been blind. It helped to know, it did, but it still wasn't enough. It didn't tell them what to do. It didn't tell him what to say. How to start. How to move forward. How to stop being so fucking scared.
They spent a day on the surface. In practiced conversations, badly hidden gazes and stuttered little flinches. They reached for the same fruit and Naruto acted as if he was stung. Sasuke wasn't far off. It was funny, thinking back—Naruto had been full of easy, accidental touches, before. He'd barely noticed them. Sasuke had—Sasuke always had, but Naruto?
No. Rarely. And he hadn't flinched like this.
He hadn't known, then.
Sasuke felt the thought with a sigh.
"I'm sorry," Naruto whispered, in the evenings, when they laid in their futons and stared at the ceiling. The crickets sang to them, outside. They were muffled by the wood and the paper. Sasuke was slowly growing used to that sort of containment, again.
"So many apologies," Sasuke deadpanned back to him, as if it was an answer. It was an acceptance, but it wasn't an answer. It wasn't a question, either, because Sasuke wasn't ready for that kind of truth. Not right now. Not yet.
There was that thought again. Not yet, not yet, not yet.
…
Sasuke was sick of himself.
He sat up and stood up and paced to the window. The outside and the calm. Naruto sprung up in answer, but not to his feet—and Sasuke was reminded, right now, of the way he'd been so quick to wake, every single time Sasuke moved out of bed.
Expecting him to leave.
Was Naruto still?
He turned with a steady gaze, and studied him. Naruto studied him back. No, he wasn't panicked. He was serious, and he was careful, but he wasn't panicked.
"I'm thinking," Sasuke told him, before Naruto could worry himself into thinking that everything was his fault again. "Let me think."
Naruto blinked, but stayed silent. He was tired and dim. The lights did him no favours. The shadows only accentuated the worry on his face. Naruto was starting to struggle with something again, and it sent the pain right back to Sasuke's chest again.
…
He kicked his futon closer, and sat back down.
He said nothing.
Naruto stayed sitting up.
…
…
…
"Go to sleep, moron," Sasuke muttered, finally, because the tension was pressing him so flat he was about to fall through the floor. They weren't even close enough to touch. They were barely close enough to feel the heat of each other. And so what if this wasn't accidental? So what if this was—of all that they'd done—this was on purpose, this was full of intent, this was obvious and without excuse—
So what?
Sasuke laid down, and Naruto…finally settled next to him. The blankets shifted without a word. Naruto didn't face him, but he didn't face away.
He stared at the ceiling, and didn't sleep.
Sasuke let out a silent breath.
Small steps, he supposed. Small, pathetic little steps.
He got quite tired of himself. More tired of himself than he did of Naruto. At least Naruto was trying. Frozen, sure, stiff as a brick, but a Naruto in deep thought was a Naruto who was quite possibly trying the hardest he'd ever had. Sasuke knew full well how hard it was for him to think.
He snorted at his own joke, but gave nothing to Naruto's curious eye. He only shrugged. It was a week, now, that they'd stayed here in the inn, and even the old man was starting to lower his guard around them. He met Sasuke almost as if he was a friend. Naruto certainly met him as the same. There were wrinkles around his eyes and whether they were from smiling, Sasuke didn't know, but they smiled when they saw him, and the motion held onto something in Sasuke. It held that something still.
Simple trust. Easy faith. It struck like a bell against the knowledge that this used to be a ninja village. It chimed in his head, and Sasuke found himself seeking, searching for the familiarity. The reminders. The pain. The weapons and the sadness and the hidden bodies and silent languages. The masks. The chakra. The traps. The defenses. Sasuke knew what those villages felt like. He knew them like the back of his hand. But this place…
There was a calm, here. A different sort of quiet. The alarm in Sasuke's head that blared with each moment of peace was false, here. It was forcing it to settle. Not a lot, but enough to let him rest. Sometimes. Some of the time. Others…
He breathed out, and Naruto's eyes were blue in the dark.
Sasuke blinked.
"Did I wake you?" he asked, and the words were built from faint surprise.
"Mm," Naruto hummed, and he was still half asleep. "You keep sighing. Shifting around a bunch."
The futons were still where they had left them. Still where Sasuke had kicked his, exhausted and frustrated as he had been. They had yet to move them back to where they had been. And a tent had been close quarters, but a tent was not a bed, was not a blanket, was not a ceiling and a roof and a room with two bodies lying side by side. Naruto wasn't used to this. Sasuke wasn't, either.
"Better than stealing your blankets," Sasuke offered, and Naruto huffed out a groan.
"That was one night," he insisted, but it had worked. Naruto was a little more awake, and the room was a little bit lighter.
Naruto looked back at him, and there was a smile on his face. He was bathed in moonlight. Glowing a soft silver. His hair was messy. His eyes were warm. His smile was familiar in a way that it wouldn't be to anyone else—soft and close-mouthed, tender and intimate and heart-wrenching.
…
Sasuke wanted to lay down again.
"Anything you wanna talk about?" Naruto offered, and it was…something. A reaction to something Sasuke had been doing, at least. Sasuke felt something in his chest release. Unlock. He did…want to talk. Not that he knew how, but…they were alone. There were no traps in this room. No one to listen to them. The night was quiet, and Naruto's eyes were blue. They were patient, and they were blue.
"Yes," Sasuke told him. "No."
It made Naruto laugh, and he rolled over again. At least he'd stopped being stiff at the thought of Sasuke somewhere close to him—if only during nights like these.
"Yeah, okay. I get that," he said, and the night paused with them. Naruto shifted, again, and then he sighed. "Y'know I had to talk about how mad I am at Konoha the first time? At the falls?"
Sasuke let his head roll. The sight of Naruto caught him by the throat again.
"Yeah," Naruto said, without needing a reply. "I dunno. I accepted it, but I—I don't think I've really—"
He breathed in and then out again.
"I haven't been able to—do. Anything. I don't know. Everything just—kept going." Naruto's tongue darted out between his lips, and something tightened in his face. "I was a ninja. I had to find you. I had to fix things. As soon as the war was done, I went straight into being Hokage and that—I don't know. I just—I never had time for any of it. I couldn't do anything with any of it. I just…found all this anger. I almost hated them. I almost hated Konoha."
He spoke to the ceiling as if it was the night sky. And maybe it was—for them. For now.
"I almost hated Itachi."
Naruto's head jerked to the side. Sasuke twisted his lips, and reconsidered the thought.
"I don't know," he said. "I did, for a while. I hated him. Like he wanted me to. Or I tried, anyway. But I don't…"
He trailed off. He could feel Naruto's eyes on him. They were as bright as the moonlight.
"I don't know what to do anymore. With this anger."
"Yeah," Naruto said, and it was a breath. "Yeah."
The night paused with them. With the quiet and the calm outside. Sasuke wondered if there were busier months, in this inn, when the voices would seep in through the walls…
"You could take it out on me," Naruto offered, and Sasuke rolled over enough to punch him in the arm. And Naruto laughed, as if the idea was a joke, but there was a truth in his eyes, and Sasuke knew it would be there. Naruto always said these things. These insane, perfect things.
"And then what?" Sasuke asked, as if his hand hadn't craved to linger where it'd hit. "Your anger simmers and builds and we simply hope mine isn't enough to boil it over?"
"I think that'd be the plan, yeah," Naruto said, and Sasuke wanted to hit him again. It made Naruto's smile widen.
"Don't look at me like that," he said. "I know that it's—" he rolled over, onto his back. He'd been sleeping on his stomach, most days. "I know that the way things were for me—wasn't great.. I know I needed to come with you. Here, I mean—away from Konoha. I needed that."
Sasuke immediately blinked more awake. That might have been the first time Naruto had acknowledged this might've been good for him.
Naruto's lopsided smile stretched a little more.
"Don't let it get to your head," he said, but Sasuke already had. "Ass. I—"
"You needed out," Sasuke interrupted, and Naruto's head turned to him. "I knew as soon as I saw you."
Naruto wet his lips, but said nothing. There was something stuck in his throat again. Stuck in his eyes again.
"I'm sorry I didn't see sooner."
Naruto inhaled. He sat up, too, as if the apology had caused his discomfort—
"You don't have to—"
"I do," Sasuke snapped. "You're worth an apology, Naruto."
Naruto looked back, and his mouth was half-open. He was ready to protest again.
Sasuke stared him down, and dared him to try.
Naruto broke into a smile again.
"Okay, but—it's not you that I—you had good reason," he insisted, with that same sacrificial kindness he always defaulted to— "It's not like I expected you to come back or something. I hoped you would, but I wasn't gonna be mad at you for not. After—y'know."
"I regret to inform you," Sasuke said, drawling and tired and low, "that your empathy doesn't change what you deserve. No matter who you extend it to."
Naruto pressed his lips together and stared at him. Sasuke raised an eyebrow and didn't deign him with movement.
"You're a dick, you know that?" Naruto asked, and Sasuke felt the smile on his face.
"Imagine what my waterfall was like."
Naruto let out a laugh and finally fell back into bed. Sasuke felt the wind on his face and the shift of his blankets—he'd fallen closer, this time. Sasuke thought it must have been by accident.
"Just you being a dick to yourself," Naruto said, with a sleep-laden, easy laugh. He'd rolled over to face Sasuke again. "What else is new?"
"I'm not the topic of conversation," Sasuke insisted, but Naruto's eyes only lit up.
"You were supposed to be," Naruto told him. "You finished the letters yet?"
Sasuke…didn't reply.
Naruto's head lifted from the pillow.
"Wait," he said, "are you?"
Sasuke shifted.
"I'm not finished with them," he said, and Naruto was sitting up again.
"You finished! You didn't tell me you—"
"I'm not," Sasuke insisted. "I'm reading them again."
Naruto let out a disbelieving laugh and fell back down again. The pillows kicked up some sort of dust, only visible in the streaks of the moonlight.
"Come on," he groaned. "There's nothing in there I couldn't tell you."
"Really?" Sasuke said. "Tell me, then."
Naruto's mouth snapped shut.
"Mhm," Sasuke hummed, leaning back. Naruto's last few letters had been full of frustration. Full of exhaustion. Full of the things he would never say to Sasuke's face because they came something close to blaming him. They came something close to asking for help. They came something close to knowing that he asked for this and hating that he'd asked for this, knowing he had everything he'd wanted and hating that he'd wanted it at all—
"Well, you—" Naruto strained out. "It's not like you don't know already. I was—I wasn't—okay, writing those. And I don't even know how much you coming back would've helped me, 'cause I was—"
He heaved out a breath, and there he went, sitting up again. Naruto could never be still, even in conversation. Even close to sleep.
"Was," Sasuke repeated, and Naruto's hand got stuck in his hair.
"Well, yeah," he said. "I'm better now. I dunno. Being gone. Dunno how I'm gonna go back."
Sasuke sealed his mouth…shut.
…
…
Naruto broke the silence with a laugh.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm not gonna," he breathed out, rubbing at his face. "Not like I was, anyway. Not that—way. I—I dunno. I'd have to—I think I'm actually letting go of it all. Being out here. With you."
Naruto's hand fell away, and Sasuke turned away before the ache could write itself all over his face. He reached into his bag, instead—tucked away and hidden, stuffed where Naruto would have never found it.
He tossed Naruto's headband back onto his chest.
Naruto let out a shout.
"Hey!" he yelled, spinning back to him. "Really?"
Sasuke said nothing. Naruto turned his smile to his lap, biting his lip.
"Aw, this—" he turned it over in his hands, letting out a small, sighing laugh. "Y'know why I even like this thing so much? Iruka gave it to me. That's it. That's why. It's never been about the village. Not that I—I didn't like being a ninja, or anything. I liked feeling important, 'cause of it. Um."
He rubbed his thumb over the village's symbol.
"Sorry," he said, not looking up. "I'm rambling now. Thanks for giving it back."
Sasuke gave him a small shrug.
"You knew I would," he said, and he heard Naruto's soft laugh as Sasuke pulled his bag back to him. The letters were still tucked away, here. Sasuke had gone back to their beginning. He'd gone back to where he could have done differently.
"Which one is that?" Naruto asked, and it was with a shuffle of his hip. He ended up half in Sasuke's futon, the blankets between them, wrapped around each other. Sasuke let the letter fall on his knee, where he could easily read it. Where Naruto could, too.
Their shoulders pressed together.
Naruto realized, but he didn't flinch away.
A/N: there we go - a long one for you all. I think the chapter just needed it. I hope you thought so too.
Until next time,
- Kinomi