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: whew. this is a big one! and it gets a little heavy. Fair warning, friends.
Two is a Crowd
Chapter 19: if not a place to let go
They left the village after that. Tourist season had come to them, and the fruits and festivals weren't enough to make up for the recognition. Naruto's discomfort bubbled up again, but he didn't suppress it, this time. He let it out into the air.
It'd be a strange thing to explain to his younger self, Sasuke supposed, with the way he'd craved attention.
"Yeah, but like," Naruto said, and Sasuke was bothering him with these questions again. With these piercing little comments. They didn't even need the letters anymore. "I only wanted it 'cause I didn't get any. And I didn't really care what kind, so…"
He tilted his head, and Sasuke understood.
"And now?" he prompted.
"I guess I care what kind," Naruto said, "or something. Or it's just too much. I dunno. I know you're uncomfy with it, so—"
"If I'm the reason you're dragging yourself from your admirers, I will take you back to Yugakure and leave you there."
"You're—oh, good fucking luck with that one, asshole," Naruto told him, and he grabbed at Sasuke with every word—
"Am I the reason?" Sasuke challenged, snatching Naruto's finger out of the air.
There was a pause. Sasuke let go, and he could hear Naruto's breath from here.
"Not—no," Naruto said, and it was difficult. It was difficult to admit. They were trying honesty, tense and rigid as it was—like swimming through something solid. "You're—it makes me feel better to use that as a reason, though."
The words were muttered and stifled. Naruto started walking again, and Sasuke was immediately back to his side.
"Because your boundaries are never justified," Sasuke told him. "I understand."
Naruto let out a noise that was somewhere between a huff and groan.
"Man, you suck," he said. "Stop—stop knowing me and stuff."
Sasuke let out a laugh.
"I'll just forget about you, shall I?" he asked, and there was a beam of light that was coming down through the leaves. It hit Naruto's smile. It hit the side of his face.
"Yeah," he said, and it was impossible. "Do that."
Sasuke couldn't even pretend he could.
"Do you want to avoid attention, then?" he asked, sidestepping the subject. "We can aim for the smaller villages."
They might have been so small that even a shelter wouldn't be an option, but some food could be, and there was some stupid level of luxury Sasuke was growing used to. Naruto was dragging him into getting used to, although they still felt…undeserved.
Sasuke pressed his lips together, and Naruto's voice played in his head. His own voice played in his head.
Naruto deserved these luxuries.
It was so much easier to justify it that way.
"No, it's fine, it's just—y'know," he said, stepping over a stone. "Brings up stuff."
The stone tumbled back behind them, stopping against the trunk of a tree.
"I mean like it's—it's so far the other way, right? The attention was so bad before. Like either I was ignored, or I was hated, or I was annoying as fuck. And now I'm—I'm great or whatever. And it's just—like it's always different people, obviously, the people out here aren't the people that hated me when I was little, but…"
"It feels false," Sasuke finished for him, and Naruto nodded. "As if there is something off."
Sasuke knew. He'd felt the same way about peace and quiet. He still felt it, sometimes.
"...Yeah," Naruto said. "Yeah. I know it's—I have to deal with it, though. Like I'm not gonna get anywhere by trying to hide. Right?"
"Sure. It'll wear off in a few years. Just try not to do anything heroic in the meantime, and we'll try to erase your legend from history."
"I'm not a legend—"
"You are," Sasuke corrected. "You are a person and you are an idiot, but the praise you get for ending the war is real, Naruto. You did fight. It's not as if you're lying to them."
"…Kinda feels like I am, though."
"That's because you're blind to your own worth," Sasuke told him, and Naruto laughed in answer.
"Fine," he said. "Say that to yourself once in a while, though."
Sasuke rolled his eyes, but the smile was fighting against his face. They were doing it again. Bouncing their own advice back at each other.
It was so easy to give.
So difficult to take.
"I don't know how I feel about him," Sasuke offered, and Naruto's eyes blinked up at the change in conversation. "Itachi."
He didn't have to say the name, but he put it in the air. It shifted something. It changed something in his chest.
"I—no," he corrected, the thoughts brewing in his head like a storm. "I do. I feel too much. I feel everything, all at once."
His brother. He wanted to be just like his big brother. The one who killed his family. The one that was manipulated into doing so. The one that tortured him. The one that was only a child. The one that had taken Sasuke's childhood, too.
"I think that's okay, though," Naruto said, and there was something settling about the blue of his eyes. The sky never seemed to be able to replicate it. "It's not like—you have to feel one way about somebody, and that's it, right? Who cares? You can hate him one day. You can love him a minute later. That's—relationships aren't easy, like that. They don't have an answer. People don't have an answer. I don't think you gotta solve the way you feel about him. Right?"
Sasuke breathed out.
"It would be easier for my head if I did, I think," he said, and Naruto hummed.
"Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. I dunno."
Naruto paused and kicked his feet against the ground.
"This is what I keep telling myself about Konoha," he explained. "I dunno if it's actually helpful. Like that it's—there's not an answer. And I dunno if they'll ever be. Y'know? That's my home. I don't want to be there anymore, but that was my home. I love it there. I love the people there. I hate how they made me feel. I hate what it—what it did. What it represented. But I wanted to be Hokage, too. I wanted to be the person representing them. It was—really important to me. Really rewarding. Fucking exhausting."
He let out a breath, tired at only the thought. Only the memory.
"I dunno," Naruto said again. "If nothing else it's easier to try to sort through it all when I'm out here away from it all. I felt like I couldn't even think when I was in there. I never had time. Probably why it's all hitting me in the face now, right?"
He looked over at Sasuke with a laugh, lopsided and brilliant as it is. Something in Sasuke's heart swelled. Something in it was just so—understood. Naruto looked at him and saw him. It wasn't new, but it was hitting Sasuke. It was hitting him all at once, over and over again—
Their bond was in the air, and god, Sasuke breathed it in.
"So—uh. I didn't answer your question, did I?" Naruto asked, and he was turning his laugh away. He was looking out into the trees, as if they would give him his answer. They were off the beaten path again. They were out in the wilderness, private and alone and it didn't feel that different, really. Even with the way the crowds had been thickening. Even as the eyes had started to focus on them, instead of sliding by—
Sasuke's singular focus was rearing its ugly head again. Once something was deemed important enough, everything else becomes second. Third. Last. The world was behind Naruto's head and Sasuke didn't care about it at all. It was blurred. It might as well have been gone completely.
"Let's camp out here tonight," Naruto offered, and Sasuke's selfish eyes wouldn't tear themselves away. "Just like—out here. We can walk a bit longer, though."
Sasuke inclined his head, and the wind blew through Naruto's hair. It was getting too messy to manage, he thought. Naruto needed a brush. Naruto needed a haircut.
…
Sasuke still needed one, too.
He breathed, and felt the change in the air. Felt his thoughts shifting with the clouds across the sun. Naruto, Itachi, Konoha, Naruto, Itachi, Konoha, Naruto, Madara, Itachi, Orochimaru, Konoha. He was enveloped in them.
Naruto was, too.
"I miss Jiraiya," Naruto said, and it was sudden. Sad. "This isn't—I don't really have a reason to be saying this. I just—think it. Sometimes."
Naruto's sadness was always quiet, Sasuke thought. Always so contained. Sasuke's grief was angry and screaming, but Naruto's—
Naruto's was silent and bitter.
"Kinda messed up, huh?" he asked, and Sasuke stood close to hear him. "How much we've lost. There's people who only know a couple people who've died. There's people who haven't killed anybody before."
"Don't act as if you wouldn't be the first to offer to take their place," Sasuke told him, "in any circumstance."
Naruto laughed, and it was offended. The protest didn't follow, though. He was learning his lesson. He was learning the way Sasuke knows him.
He looked back, over his shoulder, and something in Sasuke's head…cleared, a little.
"You don't think it means something that I'm mad about it?" he asked. "Isn't that kind of shitty? To be mad at other people who had life better than me?"
"I think it's the most human you've been for some time," Sasuke told him, and Naruto doubled back to punch him in the shoulder. "If you could continue to be a little bit worse on occasion, the rest of us would greatly appreciate it."
"Fuck you," Naruto said, but he was lingering. He was smiling, and he was staying close.
"Another example, yes," Sasuke deadpanned, and it made Naruto laugh. It was almost like cheating, Sasuke thought, how easy it was to make Naruto laugh. It was too easy. So simple to cause the bursts of happiness Sasuke had no business being a part of.
But there was no one else here, and Naruto's smile still held strong.
It grew wider, too, the longer he looked at him.
"You're—" Naruto started, but he cut himself off. He shook his head and looksed away, and found the path that wasn't a path at all—but Naruto had decided it was the way they're going, and so they're braving the brush and the dirt. Low to the ground, slow and unaffected. Sasuke kept looking for places to go—goals to have in mind—but then, all he keeps landing on was…
…
"You feel a pressure to be perfect," Sasuke said, and he was pulling at the threads of Naruto again. "You don't even let yourself grieve."
Naruto opened his mouth—
"Not out loud," Sasuke corrected. "Not visibly."
He still wanted to protest, but Sasuke had him by the throat.
"We weren't supposed to show emotion," Naruto pointed out. "I didn't—I never really agreed with that stuff, but it's not like it didn't…get to me."
"But you show emotion for everyone else," Sasuke argued, and he had him there. Naruto groaned about it and everything.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did that one already," Naruto told him, but the smile had returned to his face. Too easy. Too easy, still. "It's getting warm out here, huh?"
"We were used to the cold," Sasuke pointed out, but Naruto was right. The light was streaming in through the trees. It was only midday, and they could still walk for some time, with nowhere to go—Naruto seemed to have the same hesitancy as him. They paused every few steps. They doubled back and looked at each other and forgot where they were supposed to be going. They may have been moving backwards right now, for all Sasuke knew. For all Sasuke cared.
"I kind of want to take a nap," Naruto said, and he was squinting through the sun. "Just like—lay down here. That okay?"
Sasuke dropped their things on the ground in answer. They had food from the village—fruits that would keep, packaged riceballs, things like that. Sasuke tossed an apple to Naruto, and he caught it on instinct.
They cut slices with a kunai. Naruto took three and Sasuke took one—Naruto prompted him seven more times before he took another. He wasn't particularly hungry. It was just the offer that…got to him.
There was a gentle lean to their shoulders. Not a close press—Naruto's weight was still his own, but there was something purposeful there. A choice. They had both made it.
Sasuke breathed out, and knew they'd both made it.
"You don't seem tired," Naruto said, and it was with a squint and a smile. "The sun isn't getting to you?"
"I think this goes against how I typically live," Sasuke told him, and it was an honesty that made Naruto sit up straighter.
"Yeah, I—randomly resting and stuff, I guess, yeah." He laughed a little. "Remember when we were kids? I kept trying to get us to stop whenever we were going anywhere? Kakashi'd get so annoyed..."
The nostalgia was a gentle, warm hum.
"I do remember."
"Guess I've always wanted to rest all the time," Naruto laughed. "You were annoyed too."
"I was," he agreed, and Naruto laughed at him. "I was. You were always hungry."
"Yeah! That—I wasn't lying about that, I really was," he insisted, and Sasuke hadn't thought that he had. "Hungrier than everybody else all the time. I dunno if that was—just not really having food, or Kurama, or whatever…"
Sasuke looked over at him. Naruto fiddled with the bandages on his hand.
"Kakashi brought me food though," he said, looking over at him. "Did you know? He'd bring me vegetables and stuff. Trying to make me eat healthy."
"I did know," Sasuke told him. "He tried to make me go with him."
Naruto blinked.
"Really? To—see me?"
"Mm," Sasuke said. "I helped him shop once."
"...Really?"
"He blackmailed me into it," Sasuke told him, and Naruto's delight visibly surpassed his surprise. "I enjoyed it, though. I was never going to tell you. I told Kakashi I'd kill him if he did."
Naruto's laughter broke free, and he rocked with the force of it. Sasuke's smile simmered and settled, landing somewhere smaller. Somewhere sadder. The echoes of Sasuke's happy memories came with a caveat, now. He couldn't remember them without thinking of the ways they'd been lost.
"How old was he when he got us?" Naruto asked. "I don't even know. I can't imagine trying to deal with us every day right now, the way I am."
Sasuke didn't know either, but it was a ridiculous thought. In another life, maybe. In a different village. With a different upbringing. The two of them, getting their own teams, having to confront the reality of caring for those as stupid as they'd been…
Kakashi had seemed so old, when they'd met him. He hadn't been. He really hadn't been, had he?
"I'm angry with him, too," Sasuke offered, and it brought Naruto's eyes back to him. "Not as angry as I should be. I don't know. He…knew. He knew."
It was bitter. It tasted bitter, in the back of his throat—somewhere he couldn't reach. Somewhere he couldn't get to. There was nothing to settle something that was simply the truth. It didn't pierce, the way his other memories did. It just…filled his mouth.
"Yeah," Naruto said, and it was a breath. "Yeah, I'm—I could probably be mad at him, too. I mean, he never told me about my parents, either. I was desperate to know them. Know anything about them. He had to know that."
Naruto rubbed at the dirt on the ground. Too dry for anything to grow, in this sun…
"But Jiraiya didn't say anything either, if I'm gonna start getting pissed at people," he said. "I had to find that out in the middle of a fight. It's always in the middle of a fucking fight."
He let out an exhausted laugh and ran a hand through his hair. The sun was harsher on them, now.
"But Kakashi—I don't know. I kind of see us. Wasn't he kind of raised like us? In it all?"
Naruto turned his blue to him, and Sasuke nodded. There was an anger in him that was just…dull. No different than another. No matter how the sparks should have lit, they just stayed low, and maybe that was it.
Kakashi had lost everyone he loved, once. Sasuke remembered when he'd told him.
It had rung too true.
"I dunno. Maybe it's just 'cause he was nice to me," Naruto joked, and Sasuke gave that to him, too.
"That could be it," he said, sitting up. His shoulder bumped to Naruto's—his knee, too. The apple core was between their feet. "You're too kind to people who've been kind to you."
"Yeah, well, you're never nice to me, so that means whatever I give you has to be deserved," Naruto said, and he was pushing into his space. Grinning at him. Upside down, with Naruto's head on Sasuke's shoulder. "Right?"
Sasuke narrowed his eyes.
"Or are you nice to me?" Naruto challenged, unmoving. "Are you kinda nice all the time?"
"I'm never nice," Sasuke said, and Naruto yelled in victory.
"Then you deserve it!" he said, sitting up and spinning around. Not even an inch between them— "Gotcha, fucker."
He put his hand on Sasuke's thigh. Sasuke didn't even know if he noticed—Sasuke didn't think that he did—
Sasuke's hand fell on top of it.
Naruto tore himself back. It was as if he'd been burned. It was as if there'd been a chidori in Sasuke's hand. Naruto's eyes were wide and scared, some sort of words stuck in his open mouth—
Sasuke stayed frozen.
…
"Shit," Naruto said, and there was two feet of space between them. Easily. Easily. "Shit, wait, let me—we can go back. Sorry, let me go back—"
Naruto put his hand down and grabbed at Sasuke's. Sasuke let him, awkward and stiff and uneven—Naruto put Sasuke's hand on his own, and Sasuke…
…
"Let go," he prompted, and it sounded like a question. It sounded tight, like his still-held breath. This was unnatural and terrifying and Sasuke's head was ringing with alarm, but Naruto jerked his hand away and that was it, now. Too late, too late, too late.
Sasuke forced his hand to relax. Naruto…didn't.
It was the motion that broke him. It was like a cough. Like a sneeze. Sasuke's hand fell loose and Naruto made a noise and slapped his bandaged hand to his mouth.
"Sorry," he said, muffled and straining. "Sorry, you can—"
Naruto turned his hand over, and it was warm. It was euphoric. Naruto stared at it as if he'd never seen anything before, and Sasuke kept his pressure light. Transient. Naruto's bandaged hand was still over his mouth, and it was meant to stifle something. It couldn't stifle everything. If he needed this to be fleeting—
A tear fell onto the back of Sasuke's hand.
And Sasuke watched, with some alarm, as Naruto remained silent. There was no hiding in this—the tears fell over his hand, not underneath, and Naruto's body twitched and lurched, but he held himself soundless—as if he was a prisoner. As if he was afraid at what could burst out of him. It was only when their hands became unmistakably wet, and Naruto could no longer stifle the shaking, that he loosened his grip.
"S-sorry," he said, and his voice came in pieces. "Sorry, I don't know—I can't—"
Sasuke's pressure grew heavier. Not as a force, but as a reminder. Naruto had yet to pull away, but Sasuke had initiated this. Sasuke was here. This was a choice. A mistake, maybe, but one he was making.
"I'm—"
The words stopped coming. The tears didn't. Naruto blinked fast and looked up and tried to calm his broken, shallow breaths—but each glance back down only brought a new wave. Something was being released from Naruto, Sasuke realized. Something that had been building. This was the dam, he thought. This was the river breaking through.
"Sor—ry," Naruto said again, as if it was a mantra. As if the only thing that could break through his panic was some sort of concern for someone else. "Sorry. Sorry. I don't know—I don't know how—"
"You don't need to know," Sasuke told him. "Just breathe."
Naruto looked up, and his eyes were desperate.
"It's okay," Sasuke told him. He didn't know what he was doing either. He didn't know how to hold this hand. He was holding two fingers instead of one—upside down while Sasuke was right side up. Somewhere in the tears and panic there was something new and perfect and desperately warm, and the only fraying thread of hope Sasuke could cling to was the fact that Naruto hadn't pulled away. Naruto had returned, and stubbornly stayed, and so that must have been some sort of acceptance. Somewhere, in him—somewhere, within this panic, this visceral rejection the both of them were fighting—
Naruto nodded. His breath was still held.
"Breathe."
Naruto nodded again.
"Breathe, Naruto."
It came out in a noise. Harsh and explosive, sucked in almost immediately. But another came next, and whether they were breaths or sobs—at least the motion had returned to him. That was enough. In this moment, that was enough.
He did sleep eventually. His tears exhausted him in the afternoon sun, and he remained along Sasuke's side when he finally collapsed. Gently, slightly, on top of him, too. Naruto's tears covered them both, and Sasuke lingered with them. Let them dry without wiping them away. Which part of Naruto's instincts had begun to fight against him, Sasuke didn't know, but he could guess. He had his own, and they didn't nearly reject selfishness the way Naruto's did. Naruto had built himself on giving without receipt. Working without payment. It was fundamental to him. The idea of receiving, without giving in return—
It went against his very sense of self. And yet, he deserved it. And yet, Sasuke wanted it. And yet, Sasuke all but asked for it—and was he not giving something in return, even if he was receiving?
Sasuke hoped he knew. He hoped. He hoped that was it.
Fuck.
It was so unnatural to have this much hope.
He stayed awake in the sun, but had his hand occupied, and so there was not much else to do but think while Naruto slept. He thought about Naruto, mostly, but his thoughts drifted to Kakashi. About Sakura. The way they had been. Their stupidity as children. Their innocence. There was an appreciation there that Sasuke was surprised to find. Not of what they'd done for him, but for Naruto—
For all Sasuke had condemned Konoha, they had yet to come demanding Naruto's return. Sasuke didn't doubt those closest to Naruto had a hand in that.
Especially after Sakura's letter.
And when Naruto woke, it was with a hesitance. It was with a quiet. He inhaled and blinked and saw his hand—unmoved, from underneath Sasuke's. Still sitting with the back on Sasuke's thigh. It made him breathe, but he still couldn't seem to find his words.
It was alright.
Sasuke couldn't find them either.
In the evening light, they started their journey again. In their newfound freedom, Sasuke supposed it didn't really matter when they rested or when they woke. They had no path to follow. No rules, no necessities. Naruto looked to Sasuke and Sasuke looked to Naruto and they seemed to be wandering for no reason at all. Walking just to walk. Being out here just to be together.
The thought clung to the inside of Sasuke's head.
…He didn't give it as wide a berth as he once would have.
"Um," Naruto said, by the time the moon was high in the sky. "Sorry. About all that."
Sasuke wasn't owed an apology. He looked at Naruto and told him so.
"No, but—I—okay," Naruto said, running a hand through his hair. "I mean. It was—it was kind of an overreaction. Um. Wasn't it?"
"I broke a mirror after seeing my own reflection," Sasuke pointed out, and Naruto—well, it gave him pause. Not long enough, because it was justified, because it was Sasuke and not Naruto—
"That—you had a reason for that, though," he said, and all Sasuke had to do was open his mouth. "Wait! Wait, no, I don't—I take it back, I take it back, don't say it!"
Sasuke dutifully closed his mouth. There was a satisfaction to his face, though. A victory. Naruto saw it right away.
"Fuck you," Naruto told him, and Sasuke felt the laugh in his throat. "Fine. Okay. We both—react to stuff. Sometimes."
Acceptable, Sasuke supposed. It was a step, anyway.
"But that, I—I. Yeah. I don't know. I didn't expect it. Maybe I should've. Maybe I'm more tired than I thought. Um."
He ran a hand through his hair, and it got stuck. Sasuke wondered, vaguely, if he'd even seen a brush in the bag of Naruto's things.
"Just felt—a lot. I keep feeling a lot." Naruto laughed, and it was still tired. He was heavy with the weight of what they'd been through. They both were.
"I know," Sasuke offered, and it was more than just this. He tried to tell Naruto, when he looked over at him—he knew. He understood. He understood it all.
Naruto seemed to breathe a little deeper.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you do."
They spent three days getting dirty again. There was no water and no luxury, but Sasuke still felt indulgent. Their proximity hadn't improved—Sasuke's hands stayed unheld, no matter the way Naruto stared at them—but they were talking. They were together. Something about the air was easier. They didn't need the letters, and they didn't need the night.
It was strange.
Sasuke felt a freedom in his chest. He didn't know what stopped him from feeling it long ago.
They came upon a new town—smaller, sparse—more farmland than houses—but with enough to host them for an evening or two. Naruto unfolded the futon and there was only a double. Just one. Just one, for two people.
"Um," Naruto said, looking down at it. "I can ask for…?"
He looked to Sasuke for permission.
Sasuke didn't give it to him.
"You can," he offered, and he stepped around the futon. Naruto stared at him and he was fighting his fear again. Sasuke flicked a finger against Naruto's wrist, and Naruto let go.
The futon fell to the floor.
"What's the difference?" he asked, and Naruto's smile was shaky. He couldn't bring himself to lie.
He gestured, vaguely, at the floor. Sasuke sat down, but not on the futon.
"We can," he said again, and it was an offer. It was a deference, too, because Sasuke's hair was longer now, and there was a mirror in the bathroom, and maybe it was best if one of their heads remained…relatively clear. He'd done okay so far. He had. But his hair was still longer now.
"No," Naruto said, and his brow was furrowed. "No, it's—this is good. This is good. Um. Right? You—don't mind?"
Sasuke wanted to laugh. It was distant and it was small, but he did feel it in his chest.
"Do you think I mind," he asked, and it was quiet, "Naruto?"
Naruto broke into a shaky laugh.
"But if it's too much, say so," Sasuke told him. "Don't exhaust yourself."
"But that's what I do," Naruto teased, and he kicked at Sasuke's knee. Sasuke caught his foot—bare, dirty—and considered pulling it out from under him. Naruto could tell. There was something in his smile that changed.
Sasuke let go and rolled the futon up. Rolled over and laid his head on it. Nights like these, he missed his studies—he wanted a book. He wanted a scroll. He wanted something to occupy himself, a lie to focus on. He couldn't pretend he didn't notice Naruto's stare.
It took an age, but he did finally accept the invitation to rest.
It wasn't a shared bed. But it was a shared pillow.
The sun greeted them with the rest of the village the next day. Naruto was just as quiet as the air around them. Less peaceful. More complex. It was farm country, and the rice fields were vast. Filled with water. It was the season for harvest, and there was no room to be concerned about travellers when there was work to be done. Sasuke had appreciation for that. It was almost like something he understood.
The village was small and sparse. The houses few and far in between. It was large enough for comforts—an inn, three shops, food stands in between the farmland. They passed a hair dresser and Sasuke spared it a glance, but said nothing, too busy letting Naruto's silence permeate the air. He was pretending not to stare at Sasuke's hand.
It was on the wrong side to hold.
And Sasuke considered, for a moment, indulging the thought. The fantasy. Switching side in an obvious motion—a clear invitation. If he had any inkling that Naruto might accept—without the consequence of a full breakdown—it might have seemed a more desirable option. As it stood…
Sasuke breathed out, and Naruto's eyes rose. He was catching on to the change in Sasuke's head. The way his thoughts…conflicted.
Affectionate touch.
It was so wrong.
It was so wrong to them both.
Sasuke flexed his fingers and tried to reason it through, but the points still stood too strong. It was an indulgence, the same as the rest, and without Naruto actively asking, Sasuke's justifications…crumbled. Such a selfish desire. Such an egotistical demand. Sasuke could not ask for more than Naruto can give.
Sasuke could not ask for anything at all.
…
Naruto was staring at him again.
It was as if he could read his thoughts. As if he knew just by the change in his breath—when Sasuke started to slide backwards again. It was that voice that's returned. The voice of his former reason.
"Was it alright, then?" he forced himself to ask, and his voice stayed steady. The air was bright and clear. No clouds in the sky. No shade. No dark.
Sasuke had nothing to hide behind, and he was very, very aware.
"What—oh. Or, uh. What—-d'you mean?"
Sasuke looked over at him, and that was enough. He was grateful for that, at least.
"Sorry," Naruto said, and it was almost immediate. "Yeah, no, I—it was. It really—I don't want you to think—"
Naruto heaved in a breath and let it all out. The force of it stopped him moving, at all once.
"I don't know—what I'm doing," he said, and he was lost. It was the first time Sasuke had seen it so clearly on his face. "I really don't—I don't know—like I do, I really do, and it wasn't bad, I promise, I'm just—I don't know what happened to me. I just—freak out. I'm still—"
He looked at Sasuke, and he was panicking. His fear was back and it was building in him, like there was a limit on Sasuke's time and patience and if Naruto didsn't meet them—
Then what?
What would happen?
Something inevitable, Naruto?
"I'm not going anywhere," Sasuke told him, and Naruto seemed taken aback. He seemed surprised. The undercurrent of his fear was so loud. Had Naruto really thought Sasuke couldn't hear it?
"I—I know," Naruto said, but there was a difference between knowing something, and believing it. (The thought settled into Sasuke a little more deeply than intended._
"It's too late," Sasuke continued, as if he hadn't heard. "It's your turn. Decide you've had enough of me, or don't. But you don't need to decide today. Or tomorrow. Or a year from now."
The sun shined hot above them. The light was returning to Naruto's face, too.
"I already picked that though," he said, and it was with an affection. A slow, heart-wrenching smile. Something understanding and all-knowing in Naruto's blue eyes—Sasuke could not bear, could not bear to meet them. "I picked that a long time ago."
Sasuke didn't answer.
He didn't think he could.
They shared the futon as a pillow that night.
And a cloak along their legs.
Four nights passed. Two with the futon rolled against the wall, and two more with it coming undone. By the time night fell, it had unrolled completely, and Sasuke returned to the room to find Naruto staring at it.
There were pillows tucked away in the bathroom closet. Sasuke could have returned for them. Sasuke could have even looked up as he'd done so.
He'd yet to. He hadn't avoided the place, but he'd yet to meet his own eye. And it was possible that was worse—without the details of his own face, the peripheral of his reflection had been a constant haunt. Like a ghost in the corner of his eye.
"Why am I like this?" Naruto asked, and it was quiet. His brow was furrowed in a frustrated exhaustion, and when he lifted the hand that was left unbandaged—
It was shaking.
Just along the edges, Sasuke could pick out the tremble.
Naruto met his eye, and the frustration was growing. It was almost an anger. It was almost an anger at himself.
"You want my thoughts?" Sasuke asked him, and Naruto opened his mouth, gesturing around himself as if searching for anything, anything else to help him.
There wasn't, Sasuke supposed. There was only them.
Sasuke sighed and sat down. The futon was soft. Sasuke only allowed himself the corner.
"If I had to guess?" he said, and he was speaking to the walls, now. Something about that made it easier. "You're attempting to tear down one of the fundamental pillars of your sense of self."
"Which…is….?"
"You have no requirement for affection," Sasuke guessed. It wasn't a loose guess. "No need for it. There's a possibility that it cannot even be felt towards you. It's no fault of Konoha if their hate was only a result of something intrinsic in you."
He spoke quietly, rubbing his fingers together and examining the palm of his hand. Was it a nervous habit? Sasuke had thought he'd destroyed those in himself.
"But it's not. There's nothing in you that merits hate," Sasuke said. "And if someone shows you affection…it's your last wall of protection from what was done to you, and it's breaking. I'm breaking it."
He closed his hand in a fist, and opened it again.
"So you're—you're ruining me, huh?" Naruto asked, and it was with the best attempt for a laugh Naruto could manage. He was reaching for it—the smile. The jokes. He was reaching for his best defense, an instinct he'd honed and trained—but Sasuke had hit him too hard.
Sasuke looked back, and Naruto's expression crumbled.
"Sorry," he said, and there he'd gone. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I—"
Sasuke stood, and Naruto doubled back against the wall. He'd turned and he was crying, and Sasuke didn't touch him, but he did stand. He made himself unavoidable.
Not a touch. Only a presence.
"Fuck," Naruto stuttered out, and the base of his palm was pressed to his face. He was forcing himself to step back every time he flinched away. His teeth were gritted and his fists were tight and he reached for Sasuke, grabbed him around the wrist, held him there, holds him there, held him there—
"Naruto," Sasuke called, but Naruto was breathing faster. He was staring at Sasuke's hand, and he was breathing faster.
"Naruto," he tried again, but the breaths were shallow and quick, Naruto's eyes were wet but vacant, glazed over, pained, wide, unseeing but seeing too much—
Sasuke snapped his wrist free, but caught Naruto's arm before it could fall. The rest of his body almost went with him. Naruto stumbled and tripped and Sasuke at least slowed the blow before he collapsed, curled up on the floor, breathing too fast, too much, too quickly—
He ended up on the futon, that night.
Sasuke slept beside him, on the floor.
And it was an apology that attempted to come from him, when they woke. Sasuke's sleep was intermittent and interrupted—a panic attack was nothing new, but it hardly acted as a sedative. He had his moments of collapse, but that's all he allowed himself.
"Don't say it," he snapped, as Naruto's mouth opened. It had taken him a moment to realize where they were in the morning light. As least the sun was returning, now.
Naruto forced the apology back in with a breath. He laughed at being so easily read, but even that still shook along its edges. Fear always lingered. Sasuke knew better than anyone.
It was so potent. It stained everything it would touch. Sunk into the floor like blood.
"Okay," Naruto finally said, and it was a whisper. "But I've gotta stop doing this."
He let out another uneven laugh and looked at his hands. Twisted his fingers with each other, as if they'd reveal an answer to him. Some sort of solution.
"Perhaps you can take my advice," Sasuke offered, "and stop diving in headfirst."
"It's a hand," Naruto protested, and Sasuke took his own and used it to shove Naruto back into the futon.
"Oi!" Naruto yelped, "oi, oi, you—"
He smacked Sasuke away. Sasuke stayed sitting up, now.
"Still all there?" Sasuke asked, and Naruto…there it was. He'd caught up, now.
"You—okay," he said, and it was with a hesitation. Begrudgement. "That's—sure, but that's not—that's not exactly—affectionate. Or whatever. That's the word you—you used."
It was. It wasn't the right one, but the right one spoken aloud right now would likely do enough to kill them both.
"Is it not?" Sasuke asked, leaning back.
Naruto…looked at him.
Sasuke kicked him in the knee.
Naruto's lips twitched.
Sasuke put his foot down. It rested against the edge of the futon. Not on top.
Naruto looked at it and breathed in deep. There was something sighing in him. Sasuke watched it with a tilt of his head.
He sat up, and Sasuke watched, with some trepidation, as Naruto raised a hand to hover over his. He was not unwilling to crash himself against a wall until it broke. He was just not sure he wanted to use Naruto's body as the battering ram.
Naruto's hand made a fist, and it thumped down onto the back of Sasuke's hand. He kept it there for another second, before he pulled it back.
His lips were thin. They were threatening to shake.
They weren't. But the threat remained.
"Fuck," Naruto breathed out, and it was frustrated. Sasuke almost wanted to smile. There was that hint of anger that Sasuke wanted to ignite like a spark—that justified inferno. Naruto lived through the hatred and came out the other side, and now he had to heal his own scars? Now he had to find they were still open? Still bleeding?
It wasn't fair.
None of it was.
Sasuke took the cloak they'd used as a blanket and tossed it over the palm of his hand. He lifted it up, flat, but went no further.
Naruto steadied himself with a breath, and laid his own hand flat, too.
It wasn't an affectionate touch. Not completely. Their hands were awkward and flexed, and the cloak was thick enough to stop any heat from transferring between them. Sasuke didn't move, but Naruto found a gentle, frustrated rhythm to tap the palm of his hand against the fabric that covered Sasuke's.
"This is fine," he said, tapping. Tap, tap, tap, tap. "Why is this fine?"
"It's not real enough," Sasuke offered, and Naruto let out a strained noise.
"But I touched you before this," Naruto insisted. "After the waterfall, too. Didn't I?"
"You did," Sasuke told him, and Naruto rocked back and forth with his thin lips and furrowed brow. "I imagine it wasn't real enough then, either."
Naruto's breath released.
"So what, I finally—finally figure it out, and—accept it, and now I freak out every time it happens?"
"Not every time," Sasuke offered, and he pulled his hand out from under the blanket to flick Naruto, gently, on the cheek.
Naruto didn't even flinch.
Naruto barely even breathed.
"Pain helps. Fuck this," he said, and he stood up into a furious pace. Sasuke felt something hot and sick in his stomach, too. Something twisting up tight. Something that tastes like acid and fire.
"That's fucked up," Naruto said, and his hand is in his hair. "That's really—"
Naruto cut himself off, and it was a good thing, because Sasuke never would. His chin was raised and his mouth was silent, this train of thought was Naruto's and it was right. It was right. It was right.
"That's not okay," Naruto said, and he was back to searching Sasuke's face. If he wanted disagreement, he was going to be disappointed. "That—you fucking smug asshole, don't look at me like that. Don't—"
Naruto dropped to his knees on the futon and shoved both hands into Sasuke's shoulders. Sasuke caught himself with an elbow. Naruto grabbed the fabric of his shirt and shook it. Once, and again, and again.
"Fuck you," Naruto said, "I—"
He twists the shirt into his fists and ducked down. Sasuke stayed, knocked back and held there.
"You know," he said, and it was so stiff, it felt frozen. "You know, right?"
It was barely a whisper.
It felt like a scream.
And Naruto didn't look up. Naruto didn't even meet his eye, but he stayed over Sasuke—he held him there, he held him down, he held him like the sky held the stars, the way it was all around them, the way they broke and burned and still the sky stayed strong—
"I'd like to think I do," Sasuke replied, and it was so raw it felt like scraping a kunai over his skin. Poised and ready to make a new cut; there was the steel, but the handle—
The handle was in Naruto's hand.
"You know," Naruto said, and it was a breath of relief. It was something else, too, but Sasuke didn't want to touch that piece yet— "Good. Good. You should—you should know—fuck—"
Naruto doubled back, angry at crying again, furious at his tears—
"How come you're fine with this?" Naruto asked, and he was turning on Sasuke. "How come I'm the only one that's—"
"You're not," Sasuke told him, and Naruto didn't believe it. "I think I'm going to be hit…later."
That was the thing about his emotions. He repressed them so well. So perfectly. Until the worst possible time they could come barrelling up to the surface.
He was sure this would be…the same.
"You better fucking not be holding it together 'cause of me," Naruto threatened, pointing at him, and Sasuke—
"I'm fairly sure that part of my brain is too busy being preoccupied with the mirror," he said, and it was enough to snap Naruto back to him.
"Oh," he said, and it was like he'd completely forgotten he was meant to be panicking. "I can get rid of it. I can move it, I mean, let me—"
"No," Sasuke said, and it was a breath. "No, it's…fine."
It wasn't. But it wasn't ever going to be if he lived his life avoiding himself.
(He'd tried that already. Half of his life.)
"I can't stop thinking about it," he admitted. It was as if he was in danger. As if the mirror was the ninja, back in the Land of Lightning, following them to and from the waterfall—a constant in Sasuke's mind, something to check, something to monitor, something to be aware of.
A threat.
Sasuke couldn't relax. Not completely.
Sasuke stood, and Naruto became so alarmed he immediately ran behind him. He didn't stop Sasuke, and for that he was glad—if they were getting everything out, everything into the open, if they were throwing it all into the air so they could pick up the pieces later—
Then this was Sasuke's turn.
He stood steady, on the bathroom tile, and met his own eyes.
The frustrated, tired eyes of an Uchiha look back.
It was Itachi. It was his mother, too, if Sasuke really wanted to go down that path. With more facial hair, it'd have been his father. Sasuke was built from blood on the floor and he splattered it all around him. It was no different now. He looked at himself, and he saw blood.
"Look. Here on my face," Sasuke said, and he used his nail to press a sharp path along his nose. Curving along his eyes. The way the shadows fell. "It's like him."
"Sas—"
"Just there," Sasuke said, and he pressed harder. "Right there."
He broke skin.
Naruto snatched his hand away, but the blood bubbled up along the line. Sasuke stared himself in the face and thought it fit. Blood on his face. It wasn't the first time.
"It's not there, Sasuke," Naruto said, and he didn't let go. He was holding on tighter than he should have been. Sasuke knew from the whites of their hands, but he couldn't feel the difference.
"I can see them," he said, studying himself. "I always can."
"D'you see yourself, though?" Naruto asked, and he was trying to hide his alarm. "Look harder. Look for yourself."
It was so hard. It was so hard.
"Your chin's different," Naruto prompted, and there were a million itches along Sasuke's skin. "The shape of your eyes, too. You could wear Itachi's hair and clothes and I'd still know it was you, and I'm an idiot. Look harder, Sasuke."
He wanted to ruin himself. There was just a desperate urge to—destroy whatever made him look like this. He was feeling it all over again. Controlling it, because Sasuke was nothing without his control, but it was furious, it was searing, it was corkscrewing up from his stomach into his throat—
"I don't want to see myself, either," he said, and that—
That's what it was.
He didn't want to see Itachi.
He didn't want to see himself.
What was left, then?
An Uchiha. A walking reminder of the dead.
"Then look at me."
Sasuke obeyed. He never turned on the light in the room. He only realized with the way Naruto's blue pierced through the dark.
"Every time you hate looking at yourself, look at me. And I'll look at you instead," Naruto said. "Okay?"
Sasuke almost wanted to smile.
"That's not sustainable," Sasuke pointed out, and Naruto—
"I don't care," he insisted. "I'll be here."
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It was so insane that Sasuke felt himself thaw. Some sort of fog was clearing. Naruto was scrambling around it, fan in each hand, waving the mists away.
Except he could not be, because his hands were still occupied.
"I want to shake you," he admitted, and it was nothing new. Naruto had even read it in the letters. "I want to grab you and shake you and force you to realize there's better lives than this."
"Sasuke—"
"I know you chose this," he said. "You're going to say you chose this, but you should never have. You should never ha—"
"If I was gonna listen to that I would've listened fifteen years ago," Naruto said, and it was louder. "And I didn't, because if I wanna be by your side, I'm gonna be, and that's it."
Sasuke wanted to scream.
"Listen to yourself," he said, and it was building. "Listen to yourself."
"I know what I'm saying—"
"But you won't let anyone else say it!" Sasuke said, and it was loud. It was too loud, it was rising, it was building up— "Listen to yourself—what do you think you deserve? Nothing? Your instincts think you deserve nothing? I deserve everything, but you! You deserve—"
"It's not that I—"
"Look at yourself. Look at you. I hate looking at myself, but I know what I see, even if it's wrong—you can't see yourself at all!"
"Sasuke—"
"You deserve to be loved, Naruto! You've earned it a thousand times over! And I—"
Sasuke stumbled. His head went light and dizzy, Naruto let go and Sasuke fell back—
"Wait, shit—"
Naruto grabbed onto something, but it was too late. They tumbled to the crowd together in a painful, messy crash. Disoriented, breathing heavy—Naruto's eyes were wide and searching, and Sasuke's were starting to burn, burn, burn.
Another part of him set alight.
"You okay?" Naruto asked, and it was a million questions at once. And the answer was a resounding no, but in so many ways, wasn't it a yes?
Wasn't it a yes, now?
"I think," he said, and he was staring up at the ceiling, "it's hitting me."
…
"Oh," Naruto said, and the words sat him up. Pushed him back. Sasuke wanted to rip up every tile in this room. Claw the wallpaper from the walls.
"Convince me not to burn down your village," he said, speaking to the ceiling. "Because I—"
He cut himself off. Any more and the flame would come. It was coming out in anger. It was coming out in fury. If there was only one person in the world worthy of love, it was Naruto, and so the village that had convinced him he was not deserved only to burn—
"None of those people exist anymore," Naruto said. "Nobody that hurt me. Not in the same way."
"They're still alive."
"Some of them, yeah, but they're different. We all are. Sasuke."
Sasuke glared at him. His face was wet.
"You're so mad," Naruto said, and it was as if he was surprised. "You don't have to be mad at them for me. Be mad at them for you."
Sasuke was going to blow this place to the ground.
"Listen to yourself," he said, and it was a growl.
"I can be mad at them for me!" Naruto insisted. "Let me—I'll decide. If I—if I change my mind, and I wanna blow everything up, you'll be the first to know. Okay?"
It would never happen. Sasuke knew it would never happen, but it was something close to a promise, and he knew very well the way Naruto was with those.
"Fine," he said, and the storm settled down. "...Fine."
"Okay," Naruto breathed out, and he plopped himself on the floor beside Sasuke. Sasuke stared at the ceiling, swollen and bruised with emotion. He was soaked through. Damp. Holding all this water. He needed a way to wring himself out. Squeeze it all…free.
Naruto shifted, at his side, accompanied by an unmistakable sniffle.
Sasuke's head rolled to the side.
"Sorry," Naruto said, and his face was full of tears. "Just—y'know. You said I was worth being—um."
He swallowed and sniffed and ducked his head under his hand. The tears had returned to him. Maybe they'd never left.
"You are," Sasuke told him, and it broke Naruto down a little bit more.
He reached for Sasuke. It was slow. It was vulnerable. They'd been through enough to know where places like these tended to leave them. But Naruto reached with two fingers, and Sasuke met him with the same.
It wasn't a full hand.
It felt like a promise all the same.
In the light of the next morning, they woke up side by side. Under the same blanket. Separate pillows, separate sides, but the futon was in use, and both of them survived it.
They were okay.
Yesterday had broken, and they were still okay.
A haze lifted with the blankets. As if it were the weight from their shoulders, backs, ankles, wrists—although the chains weren't gone, Sasuke knew they weren't gone, but—
He felt a lightness in his chest. It balanced on a point, somewhere in the way Naruto looked at him. Somewhere in the way he didn't look away.
The fear.
It was the fear that was missing.
And Sasuke rose with the breath, walking to the open window and the morning air. Naruto rested the tilt of his head against the sill and smiled as if there was something to laugh about. He seemed to taste it too. The relief.
"Let's cut off our hair," Sasuke suggested, and Naruto's peaceful morning was startled.
"Wh—now? Like—cut each others'?" he asked, and Sasuke shook his head. "Or is there somebody that does that around here?"
So Naruto hadn't noticed. Sasuke didn't even know whether to feel the surprise.
He kept his smile to himself and turned on his heel. Naruto was immediately behind him.
He didn't really have a plan. Naruto asked him what it was, the hairdresser did the same, and Sasuke's only guiding word was "short". He wanted it gone. He wanted to be freed of it. He wanted to start again from the beginning—set it all back to grow anew.
"How short?" the hairdresser asked, and Sasuke didn't have an answer.
Naruto took a different chair. They caught each other's eyes in the mirror, and Sasuke wondered if sitting in the chair behind Sasuke's head had been a request, or a demand. Naruto's eyes caught his, and they held him there.
They give him somewhere to stare. Somewhere to rest.
They held out an offer, and Sasuke knew better than not to take it.
He held the gaze until he couldn't anymore. And when his head was washed and cleaned, cut short and short and shorter again, Naruto took one look at him and burst into laughter. Sasuke looked ridiculous. Naruto looked ridiculous. The two of them barely even looked like themselves—
"Where the hell'd it all go?" Naruto said, gawking as if he wasn't cut just as short—
"Since when are you balding?" he shot back, and Naruto yelped out a laugh.
"Oi," Naruto said, and he was back. He was back in Sasuke's face. He was almost himself again. "Fuck you."
It was so bad. Sasuke caught a glance of them in the mirror, and he could see his whole face. His rinnegan in full view. He looked terrible, and Naruto looked terrible, and he just—
He couldn't stop smiling.
Naruto's hands were in his hair. He was the one who initiated the touch.
And when Sasuke reached back, Naruto didn't flinch away.
A/N: sometimes these chapters just keep going! this was not meant to take me this long, but here we are - hope it was worth the wait! thank you for all the very, very kind words - hope you're staying well, friends.
- Kinomi