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: sorry about missing last month friends! If you saw on tumblr, you know I got married and got way too busy with the wedding - and then when I came back, I apparently decided I needed to spend all of my time rewriting this chapter, instead of going on to the next :P So here it is! Thanks for waiting!


Two is a Crowd

Chapter 20: if not something familiar

It wasn't a solution. Not a perfect one—but the hair was just enough to delight the both of them into forgetting whatever they were meant to be ruminating on. It was so jarring. It was so ridiculous. Even with all the new glances it got their way—between Sasuke's eyes, and Naruto's scars—Sasuke couldn't bring himself to care.

The sight of Naruto was just too stupid.

"Fuck you," Naruto told him, but he'd been letting Sasuke touch him. The tension was there, but the tears had relented—Naruto was moving through something, and it was working. It felt like an explosion in Sasuke's head. It was working. They were learning to live together. They were getting better.

It was working.

It made any backslide feel like nothing at all. Any progress was monumental in Sasuke's mind. Any progress in comparison to all he'd managed on his own, over so many years, this was—impossible. Incredible.

Something close to perfect.

He looked at Naruto, at the world felt…

He'd felt it before. For a moment—like a taste that had been left on his tongue, lying on his back in the Valley of the End. But that had only been a raindrop.

This was a storm.

With flashes of thunder, too, and not all of being wet was comfortable—Sasuke was coming to recognize himself in the mirror again. It was tinged with humour along its edges, sure, but the sights were returning to him. Naruto still laughed at him first thing in the morning, and it was difficult to find the annoyance he'd misplaced. Everywhere he checked, he only found warmth.

They played with the idea of leaving. Bounced it off of each other, testing to see if it would stick. But this kind of sparse, scattered town was…calming. It had what was needed, and so little more. It never seemed to take more than it needed. Sasuke…appreciated something in that. He appreciated the way it left so much room for the wind.

Sasuke found himself standing in it, and only breathing.

He'd badgered Naruto about money again, too, but Naruto only stayed quiet and smiling—an annoying trait he'd gained in his maturity. That kind of peaceful—passiveness. It was enough to make Sasuke's throat swell shut.

Annoying.

And there was a voice in Sasuke's head that kept asking to leave—not because it wanted to, but because that was what was done. Someone would be on their trail. The money would run out. He would be recognized. He would be unwanted.

Sasuke kept reaching for reasons to go, but his hand slipped through them. Transient, rice paper excuses. Broken at a touch. He couldn't seem to strengthen them. And Naruto was giving him nothing to work with, so Sasuke soothed his restless mind in other ways—like out in the fields, following behind Naruto's boisterous voice and offers to help. Farming was a slow process. Methodical. There was something soothing about finding the strength in his body again. Naruto did all the talking for them, anyway. Sasuke could simply do the work.

It was only a few days until the old man's wife recovered from her cold, anyway, and they're not needed anymore—but Sasuke had made short work of the fields, and Naruto revealed his capacity for secrecy once again by making a dozen clones of himself to do…everything else. He even set up a little food stall. Since when was he trusted with any sort of construction?

Sasuke felt the smile as Naruto received his praise, but froze when it was turned on to him. They were thanked with food and food and food again, and it was held out to him.

She was holding it out to him.

Sasuke couldn't move.

"Aw, looks amazing!" Naruto declared, practically bowing into the basket. "Are you sure?! There's only the two of us, y'know—"

"There's only the two of us," the old man pointed out. "And I'd wager the rest of my field that you have a healthier appetite."

He laughed and turned around, and the basket was hooked on Sasuke's hand. It fell right into his palm.

Naruto huffed out a breath and shook his head.

"Some people are so nice," he commented, and Sasuke—

Sasuke held this basket.

"You okay?" Naruto asked, and Sasuke didn't know.

He didn't answer.

Naruto took the basket from him.

"Thank you," Sasuke said, and it needed a clear of his throat. A flinch away. He—he was thinking too much. Feeling too much. Naruto's smile changed a little, but it didn't dim any.

"Yeah. I know," Naruto sighed. "C'mon. Let's pack this all up."

The warmth got to them both. The kindness. He saw it in Naruto's sad little smile as he sealed away the fruit. Jars of jam and pickled vegetables. Things that would keep. He was thinking again. He'd been quiet for too long.

"Imagine growing up with them," Naruto said, after Sasuke's stared at him for half of the afternoon. "I don't—like not as parents. I just mean—imagine if they'd been in Konoha. You know?"

He heaved in a breath and shook his head, but Sasuke did know. It was that simple sort of kindness. Sasuke wondered if he'd found it before, and he only hadn't known. He didn't know if he'd have recognized it.

"Ninja villages are different, I suppose," Sasuke said softly, and it made Naruto's shoulders fall. It wasn't only those that had been around them.

It had been them, too.

"Yeah. Yeah, they are. Um." Naruto looked away, staring somewhere into the sky in his silence. "I think I'm gonna write to Sakura. I just gotta—hang on."

He went to find their paper. Sasuke watched him. Naruto wrote with a furrowed brow and a frown, but his hand didn't relent. It was a different sort of letter to the ones they'd been writing. Something more—troubled. A stream of thought. Sasuke followed the motion and followed the trail—eyeing the paper and pen and wondering what thoughts would spill out of him, too. Who he would spill them to.

Who would care to read.

…Karin, maybe. Juugo would. Suigetsu would look for things to laugh at. Sakura would be curious enough, and Kakashi—

Sasuke's breath grew thicker. Twisted, right in his throat. He hadn't even realized he would have wanted a reply. What would he even say? What would he even want to read in return?

Sasuke's discomfort gave him no answers. He wasn't sure there were any, anymore, in this mess of a life he'd made for himself. In the mess of a life that had been made for him.

He looked to his side, and Naruto continued to scribble.

Not all messes were bad, he supposed.

He moved closer to lean over Naruto's shoulder. He'd be kicked to the side if there was anything not meant for him to see—and Sasuke would never listen to that, anyway, because anything Naruto didn't mean for him to know was something he immediately had to.

But no protest came, and so—Sasuke simply read as he wrote. Naruto didn't falter. He was full of questions about the village, questions about things he'd begun when he'd been there. Sasuke put his hand on the table and unabashedly read along. It was getting dangerously close to work Naruto wasn't supposed to be doing—out here away from it all—but Sasuke understood..

Naruto was seeing the way things could be.

He was always good at that.

Naruto's palm smudged the paper as he went. He was holding it down with the side of his hand, trying to stop it from slipping. Sasuke leaned forward, and placed two fingers to the corner.

Naruto blinked.

"Thanks," he said, looking up at Sasuke twice. Sasuke leaned back against the desk and didn't reply. The back of Naruto's pen tapped his hand as it moved. Poked the underside of his arm. Naruto leaned, and bumped against his shoulder, ever so slightly.

Sasuke would almost believe he was doing it on accident, if not for the way his writing would stutter—stopping right in the middle—over and over again. The pause was too damning.

It wasn't right to say it didn't come naturally to them. It did. It always had. It had just been a lifetime of forcing themselves to live otherwise. Ninjas trying to undo their training. It was damn near impossible, but then…

Naruto's pen tapped him again, and his writing had slowed. He was signing off in apologies, as if only then realizing that Sakura would be the one who had to decipher the chaos he'd written. He asked her thirty questions about herself and glanced up, slightly, when he added that he missed her. That there were things out here it would have been nice for her to see. Sasuke wasn't offended by the thought. It was Naruto. If it was up to him, he'd have every person that had ever been kind to him by his side for the rest of his life.

Why he'd gone for Sasuke, above all of those people was…

Sasuke breathed out, and Naruto signed his name. He bit his lip and tapped his pen.

"Um," he said. "D'you wanna add anything?"

He looked up. And Sasuke wasn't sure he meant him to write anything. What he was looking for, most likely, was a point Naruto had missed. Something to be scribbled in the margins, crossed out, rewritten, redone—

What he got, instead, was his pen taken from him.

"Oh," Naruto said, and he leaned to the side as Sasuke bent. He flinched forward to hold the page for him, looking over at Sasuke three times in a row—

There was a lot more he could say. A lot more that he could say. But Sasuke was full of imperfections, and Sakura ought to be well-acquainted with them by now.

This would come as no surprise to her. But it…maybe…would come as intended.

'Thank you, and I'm sorry.'


They wrote to Iruka, as well. Sasuke's hawk could carry more than one letter, although Sasuke did still Naruto's hand after the tenth page. It took him nearly a week to write all that he wanted to—with Sasuke's quiet mutterings that if Naruto continued writing forever, the letter would never be sent. Naruto laughed at him, and Sasuke read over his shoulder until he grew restless. Found himself wandering. Not far, but just—just to the fields. The old couple recognized him. Welcomed him.

Sasuke found himself helping them, again.

They paid him in goods. Sasuke knew better than to refuse, although his voice still didn't allow him to accept. But the movement was—good for him. The fatigue was good for him. He'd pushed himself to his limits before, and this wasn't nearly close to him, but it was a…familiarity. Without the pain. Without the blood. An exertion that came with growth, instead. Growth and new life.

There was something satisfying in that.

Sasuke returned to their room drenched in sweat, and Naruto greeted him with smile that grew into a beam.

"You're all muddy again," Naruto told him, and Sasuke snorted.

"And you're still at the desk. Are you rewriting again?"

"I wanted to add more!" Naruto insisted. "I wrote small—still ten pages! Look."

Naruto gleefully flipped through them, and he wasn't wrong. That writing was small. Brutally so.

"You are ridiculous," Sasuke told him, and Naruto cheerfully ignored him. He was finished, though—apparently. Sasuke took him at his word, and snatched the letter from him, adding his own—few words. A thank you for joining them (which he should have sent sooner). A thank you on Naruto's behalf. A thank you on his own. He considered, for a moment, telling Iruka where to meet them, if he'd want to—

But he didn't know which way they would go.

Sasuke tapped the pen to the page.

Future thoughts. Perhaps. Likely just a fleeting one. Iruka would come for an emergency, sure—at Sasuke's behest, but on Naruto's behalf. Sasuke didn't really feel it was his…place to ask again.

Perhaps it was, though.

Sasuke didn't feel he knew, anymore. Sasuke didn't feel ready to decide that he did. He was a fool in many ways, but the teachings that had taught him these lessons were brutal.

He didn't intend to go through them a second time. He didn't intend to make anyone else teach him.

He folded the letter, and they had two envelopes, now. They didn't send them—yet. Naruto wanted to wait. Sasuke warned that one more rewrite and Sasuke would send his own letters—with none of Naruto's warmth or happy ramblings. Naruto laughed at the declaration.

He never believed Sasuke's threats anymore.

Damn.

And in the afternoon air, they took a different route through the farms. A busier one. It was no festival—no tourist town—but this land was filled with food. It only made sense that some of it would be offered to be eaten. Even…

"Wait," Naruto said, and he'd screeched to a halt, "is that a ramen stand?!"

Sasuke's wrist was unceremoniously snatched from him. Ripped straight into a stool. He couldn't have said no if he'd wanted to—and he didn't want to, not for a second, Sasuke sat in his stool and felt his head fill with the knowledge that if Naruto hadn't pulled them in, Sasuke would have.

There was just no other choice.

The food wasn't as good as Ichiraku's, Naruto whispered to him. They were only a few bites in, but—Teuchi always knew how to make ramen extra good. Extra yummy. That was why Naruto ate so many bowls.

"Sure it is," Sasuke told him, and Naruto spun around on his chair.

"It is! His is the best!"

"I'm not arguing that."

"And it wasn't—y'know how people put like, warmth and stuff into food? I think that's what he does. Y'know? He was just—good like that."

"Like the farmers," Sasuke muttered, and it was offhand—but it made Naruto stop, just for a second.

"Oh. Yeah. I guess you're right, huh?" His voice drifted off, somewhere. Sasuke eyed him and tried to follow the trail. Demanded, in a gaze, that Naruto show him the way.

Naruto let out a small, sighing laugh.

"Maybe I don't give people enough credit," he told Sasuke. "I don't know. It's so easy to just think of the bad stuff."

Sasuke wanted to laugh.

"You're telling me."

Naruto did. With a bite of his lip and a bit of surprise, but the smile returned to his face as he looked back at Sasuke. He still waited for a reply, though.

"Maybe," Sasuke agreed, but he wasn't talking about Naruto. Naruto looked over at him, as if he understood.

"I don't know how to accept kindness," Sasuke told him, speaking into the steam still rising from the bowl. "I don't know what to do with it."

"Yeah," Naruto replied. "Yeah, me either."

They paid and they stood, and they walked until the sun went down—in between fields and rice paddies, with the trees and forests looming in the distance, small and far away, like the problems Sasuke was meant to be considering. Like Naruto's hair. And his hairline.

"I'm not actually balding, am I?" he asked the mirror one day, and Sasuke laughed first thing in the morning.

Naruto wrung his hands and directed his worry all around the room, but what did it matter? What did it matter?

"All the things you've lost," Sasuke said, and he had laid back on Naruto's pillow. It made the room fill with the smell of him. "And it's your hair that's gotten to you."

"Hey—things get to me! One time Ichiraku's closed for a weekend and it was the worst two days of my life," Naruto told him, and Sasuke laughed again. Naruto couldn't even keep a straight face through his lie.

He made a small, stifled little laugh, and sat down beside Sasuke. He still held his knees to keep them from drifting. Sasuke wished they would.

"Are we running out of money yet?" Sasuke asked, and Naruto grinned.

"I'd never tell ya," he said, and Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Is this your way of asking to go?"

"No," Sasuke told him. "I don't know. I don't have a plan anymore. Have you grown restless?"

"Mm, not yet, I don't think," Naruto said. "There's a lot of room around here. I dunno."

Naruto hugged his knees tighter, and gave Sasuke a glance.

"We could go on a walk or something though?" Naruto pointed out, and Sasuke didn't laugh at him. Really. He didn't.

"Again," he said instead, and Naruto let go of his knees to kick Sasuke over.

Sasuke couldn't quite hold the laugh in, that time.


They sent off two letters, and Sakura's reply returned to them first. In the first hour of the morning after the next—coming to them through the glassless window of their small, straw-roofed inn. Sasuke was still watching the place, waiting for his restlessness to return to him. Studying the wood on the walls, the people in the fields, expecting a feeling that…didn't seem to be coming. He was starting to wonder if it had ever been something earnest at all, ever been honest or true or even coming from him at all, or if it had only ever been…a necessity.

Sasuke had never felt safe unless he was moving. Travelling. Training. Something. Anything.

He breathed out, and the sound of Naruto's page flip was interrupted by his laugh. He attempted to catch the photo as it fell, but his hand was full, and so it was Sasuke that snatched it out of the air—

An entire group, all squashed into one. It didn't exactly look comfortable.

It took Sasuke a…moment to recognize them all. He wasn't used to them older. He wasn't used to them smiling.

"Look," Naruto told him. "This bit's for you!"

He thrust the letter into his hand before Sasuke was done with the photo. There was an ache of memory somewhere in the faces he only partially recognized—vague familiarities and simplicity, if only in hindsight. If someone had tried to tell Sasuke his life had been simple as a child, he would have lost his mind—

But then, look at what the rest of it had been.

Sasuke sighed, and thumbed at the page. Sakura was all business, in this first half. This was still to Naruto—reporting on the village, on the things that were going well, on the things that weren't. Her plans aligned with Naruto's, she said, and above all—

'Don't worry,' she wrote. 'We've got this. Don't worry.'

Sasuke didn't expect it to make him breathe easier, too, but it did. What a strange sensation—having belief in people.

…He always knew Naruto was a contagion. They'd spent too much time together.

He flipped the page, and his name was at the bottom. His eyes darted straight to it.

'Sasuke—you're welcome. And I know. Bring Naruto back to us once in a while, okay? We'll meet you halfway.'

The lump in Sasuke's throat seized, all at once. He had to drop the letter. He had to turn away. He flexed his hand and controlled his breathing and felt his chest tighten and twist—forgiveness. Sasuke didn't know what to do with this forgiveness. He was drowning in it. He could barely breathe past the ache—

Naruto put a hand on his arm, and Sasuke's face was wet. He was quiet—at least his tears had that mercy on him—but the photo had shaken something loose in him, and the words broke it free completely. She made it sound so simple. Like they could simply meet. Like no grudges would be held. Like Sasuke's hadn't crossed the line of unforgivable, irredeemable—and the quiet acceptance of permanency did nothing to help the way Naruto's hand was searing its print onto his skin. Sasuke hadn't even touched the thought. This had all been so temporary. This had never been a forever, only a for now. Even if the hope had bubbled in him, it had been unspoken and buried and protected from every side. Something about it being seen by someone other than themselves—something about it being accepted, without question, just easily, just obviously—

"We should send her a picture or something," Naruto laughed, and it sounded thick. His eyes were red. "Maybe out in the field."

Sasuke felt his lips twitch.

"We'll have to find a camera."

Naruto's teary grin widened.

"I bet they have one somewhere around here," he said. "C'mon."

His hand slid down Sasuke's arm, and it paused. For a moment filled with fear, it paused—

Naruto let go.

"Sorry," he snapped quickly, as if it was the breath he inhaled. "No, sorry, I—"

He made a fist and bit his lip. He'd frozen all at once, with all of his breath still stuck in his chest.

"Moron," Sasuke said quietly, and he took Naruto by the wrist.

It was enough to thaw him. It was enough to have them moving again.

It wasn't really a romantic gesture. It wasn't even particularly intimate. There was a…comfort in it, though. Sasuke's grip was loose. More of a prompt than a command. Naruto's wrist stayed warm and his arm stayed relaxed. He could have broken free if he wanted to.

He didn't.

Sasuke let go, nonetheless.

Naruto let out a small, breathy laugh. It sounded a bit like a sigh. They fell back to side by side, and Naruto ran his bandaged hand through his hair. It wasn't the one that Sasuke had almost held.

"Thanks," he said, and it was soft. His smile stayed firm—that kind that was filled with acknowledgement. Something like apology—with a laugh along its edges.

Sasuke found the sadness, but struggled to see the humour.

"She'll see our new hair," Sasuke commented, and Naruto blinked back at him.

"Huh—what?"

"Sakura," Sasuke told him. "Are you going to warn her we look ridiculous?"

Naruto stared at him for a moment, before the slow smile spread across his face.

"Oh, fuck," he said, tripping over a differently tinged kind of laugh. "No, I—I completely forgot she didn't know. She's gonna—"

He slapped a hand over his smile, but not well enough to hide the way he bit his lip. Sasuke knew this look very well.

The look of an idiot, who was about to do something very, very foolish.

"She's gonna die laughing," Naruto said, and there was no way they were backing down now.. "She's gonna kill me and die laughing."

"What a way to go," Sasuke deadpanned, and Naruto was immediately laughing again.

"Easy for you to—yours looks way better now! I dunno why it's growing in so much faster than mine—"

"Because you're balding?" Sasuke offered, and Naruto rounded on him.

"I will kick your ass," Naruto threatened, blocking Sasuke's path. Attempting to. Sasuke simply continued to walk leaning forwards—

"I welcome the attempt," he told him, and Naruto froze as the words breezed past his face. Sasuke stepped around him, and Naruto—

Naruto took another three seconds to wake up. His face was flushed and red, and he was so steeped in his fluster that he completely missed Sasuke's mutual, heart-pounding panic. These insane little urges. His self-control was too worn to contain them. It took so little to snap a frayed cord.

"You—I'm gonna kick your ass," Naruto said again, and it was a mutter. It sounded utterly defeated. Naruto even kicked the ground as he caught up to him.

Such a familiar, pouting motion. Sasuke's heart felt—overwhelmingly warm.

"Mhm," he hummed, turning onto the main road. The stands here—they were mostly food. Sasuke's hopes weren't particularly high. While there were some people passing through—they were far more likely to come from neighbouring towns, seeking fresher foods to take back with them. It was far from a tourist town. It was one of the things Sasuke…

"Damn," Naruto muttered, as they reached the end of the street. Nothing but delicious smells and baskets of food. It was a miracle there even was the small inn they'd found to stay at—even that, Sasuke was starting to assume, had been made for a visitor who had ended up stuck overnight, not planning to stay.

It was with a sigh that they packed up. It felt like time. It felt as if they'd stayed for long enough, anyway—perhaps too long—and that they ought to go.

It was the first time leaving felt so…forced, in that way. The gentlest force Sasuke had likely felt in some time, but forced nonetheless. They said their gratitudes to the old lady who ran the inn, and their goodbyes to the farmers who had had them on their fields. Sasuke found himself looking back, and Naruto's smile was just a little bit sad.

"Let's go back there," Naruto said, as the open fields became tall, twisted trees again. "In a little bit. I'll wanna—I'll wanna show people some pictures of it. Of like—all the farms and stuff."

He paused, as if unsatisfied by the explanation. There was nothing special in a farm. Nothing particularly unique. It would be nothing Naruto's vast and varied friends hadn't seen before.

But Sasuke nodded, because he understood.

They quickened their pace in the evening light, and travelled until the soft pinks and yellows became dull and grey. Sasuke lit his flame and Naruto flipped through his storage seals until Sasuke turned to make the choice for him. They had an abundance of ingredients, now. Enough that Sasuke had been turning them over and over, filtering them through memories that he'd never viewed through such an innocent lens. He had recipes in his head. He'd never thought about them before. Sasuke's knowledge of cooking had been reserved to an open flame, but these deserved more than that. Sasuke almost felt—an interest. He couldn't find his listlessness anymore. He couldn't find his apathy. It almost felt like he was alive.

He made something savory and sour, and Naruto visibly struggled not to eat it all himself. Sasuke lost two portions on purpose, and Naruto's apologies bounced off of him as if they were nothing. It was impossible to feel the hunger through this satisfaction.

Sasuke fell asleep first, again, that night. He only realized it the next day, when he woke to the feeling of Naruto's breath on his neck.

He'd rolled in the night. He must have. He'd never have...laid down here.

Sasuke's certainty remained stubbornly out of reach. He reached for it, but his hand was swatted away—and it was with a lump in his throat and a pain in his chest that he realized that it was his own hope that had blocked him.

His stupid, stubborn hope.

Sasuke breathed in, and it hurt. He pushed himself free of Naruto's grip, and it hurt even more. The motion woke Naruto up, but not soon enough to give Sasuke an answer—and it was both a relief and an extension of the torture. He would have thought he'd be over this by now. He had his answers, didn't he? They'd all but said it out loud. And yet…

Sasuke wrestled with his dissatisfaction, and tucked it away as something selfish and greedy. He'll revisit it in the night—once Naruto was asleep, or away, and wouldn't read the anguish on his face.

Sasuke was not yet strong enough to give him an answer to…this.

Naruto was distracted, anyway, with the finding of a new path. He bounced forward, but spun around, as if checking that Sasuke would truly follow him.

"That's a bigger town," he said, pointing ahead. "Right?"

"Well, it has a sign," Sasuke agreed. Not many of them did. "We're getting close to where we started."

"We—really?" Naruto asked. "I haven't been paying attention. We're not close to Konoha—are we? Wait, are we?"

"Likely depends on your definition of close," Sasuke muttered, and Naruto's eyes grew sharper. He was doing it again. He was memorizing the lines of Sasuke's face.

"Too close?" he asked, and Sasuke almost wanted to laugh at him.

"We're not anywhere close," Sasuke told him. "We're just—travelling a similar path. That's all."

Naruto let out a dissatisfied huff and turned back around—following the way the sign pointed.

"I'm gonna have to check a map or something," he remarked, more to himself than to anyone else. "I usually just travel on instinct or following chakra trails or whatever."

"And when you needed to make it to a village?" Sasuke prompted.

Naruto tilted his smile to face him.

"That's what I had a team for."

Sasuke snorted and rolled his eyes, and the bustle returned around them. Sasuke reached for hair that wasn't there, and felt curious eyes turn on him, over and over again. Naruto got the stares, too.

At least they were avoiding the suspicion. So far.

"Uh—lemmie—"

Naruto darted into a store. It took him four visits before he found the right one, catching up to Sasuke, who had simply taken the route of…reading the signs. There was a camera that would print the photo itself with the right film, and that would suit them best, Sasuke thought—

"Ooh, that one's big," Naruto said, peering at it.

"Expensive," Sasuke countered. "You'll have to continually buy film."

"Only if we use it all up first," Naruto pointed out, "and then it's obviously worth it, right? If we're using it."

Naruto snatched it out of his hand and didn't wait for an answer. Sasuke held the sigh in his throat and wanted to shake his head, but he settled for scanning the back of Naruto's happy neck for a while, first. These useless little purchases. Mundane little niceties.

Naruto stood at the counter and received the explanation as to how to use the camera three times. It was the girl's carefully controlled polite countenance that had Sasuke finally taking pity on her.

He flipped the back open, replaced the film, and swatted Naruto's curiosities back until the first sheet was printed—dark little plastic, not meant to be used. This was what she was trying to explain to him.

"There," he said, handing the camera to Naruto, and idiot grinned far too wide.

"Say hi!" he said, and Sasuke was blinded. His surprise turned into a scowl, but it was already too late.

"You're not sending that to anyone," he warned, and Naruto waved him off.

"Nah, that one's just for me," he said, uncaring of the fingerprints and smudges as he pocketed it. "We should—we'll get one of both of us for people. Hang on—"

He shoved the camera into Sasuke's hand and threw an arm over his shoulder. There was a perfectly good person at the counter that could have taken their photo.

Sasuke pressed the button, and the camera flashed.

"Awesome," Naruto said, as the camera printed. Sasuke shifted on his feet,

"I might have missed," he muttered, before he raises his voice a little. "Is there a way to—print more than one copy?"

Less photos taken would be—better. Right? But the girl shook her head.

"Not with only the camera," she told him. "But I can print more for you if you bring the picture in."

Sasuke nodded and muttered his thank you, and Naruto almost walked into the door on his way out. He was refusing to turn his smile anywhere except for the slowly developing photo.

"We look so stupid," he announced, delighted. Sasuke huffed out a breath.

"You can let them know you've rubbed off on me," he said. "I suppose we can—take a photo of the photo."

"Or we can just take more," Naruto said, rolling his eyes. "You're gonna have to be in all of them. Sorry!"

He wasn't. Sasuke snapped another photo of Naruto out of spite. Naruto yelped and tried to grab the camera, but it kept the control firmly in his hand, and Sasuke wasn't about to let that go so easily.

"Why d'we need so many anyway?" Naruto asked, relenting. "Are you gonna write a letter?"

"No," Sasuke lied, "but you're going to write thirty-thousand."

The floodgates had been opened, and even though Naruto protested—Sasuke knew better. He'd been the one on the original receiving end, after all.

Sasuke's photo developed, and it was with some sad resignation that he saw that he did successfully capture them both. He'd have to get better at accidentally missing himself, and just happening to aim at Naruto. Although—if that was the case—Naruto would likely force them to waste all of their film until he got a photo he was satisfied with anyway.

They diverted their path to find somewhere to stay—Naruto splurged on a room that was actually several—with its own kitchen, and seating, and closet, and fireplace. It was a room for a much longer stay, and Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the thought, but kept it to himself. Naruto demanded nine more photos—although Sasuke suspected he wasn't counting—and Sasuke kept the worst one for himself. He cut half of his own face off. Naruto declared he was keeping one for himself too, and spent the night updating his storage scroll—Sasuke gave his messenger hawk a night off, and some gentle, small affections. They didn't tend to like being stroked for very long, but they did enjoy some sort of piece of Sasuke's attention. She was no different.

"Okay," Naruto announced. "Sakura, Kakashi, Iruka, Sai, Yamato, Killer B, Gaara—that's all I got. I think. For now. I might need more."

Sasuke snorted and stole a copy for himself—one of the ones he'd rejected. It had too much of himself. He was only planning on writing on the back, anyway.

"You may need to find a courier ninja," he warned, and Naruto waved him off.

"I haven't even finished writing the first one yet!"

Sasuke smiled, and studied the photo once more as he took one of the pens that Naruto had scattered around the room. It still looked like them. That was the strange part. Stupid and uneven and Naruto had grabbed him too tight and made Sasuke trip and fall into him—his eyes were exposed and his face looked uneven, but it all still just looked like…him. It was all so familiar. Sasuke kept expecting it to revert back into something he recognized in a…different way.

Instead, it just—it looked like it could have been taken a decade ago. Almost two decades. They were getting old, weren't they…

He turned the photo over, and addressed it to Karin. He didn't know if his team had stayed together. He didn't know if he hoped they would, but he did—he did find a small, subtle hope that they did better than they had when they were together. When they had met. They'd been a group of ninjas shaped by molds that had gone wrong—fallen irregular, cracked down the sides, melted in the middle. Contorted. That part of Sasuke's life was a blur of anguish and rage and screaming and blood, but there were…moments that he remembered. Some good ones.

Some bad ones.

He uncapped the pen, and Karin got her apology.

She ought to have long ago.

The photo would give her something to laugh at. Something to gawk over. He didn't have many words, so it was appreciated—he tucked it in an envelope, and shifted it to the side.

They'd reply to Sakura, first. She would be expecting it—although, Naruto was still working on it. Sasuke could hear him scribbling away from here. He didn't really have a reply prepared, but he went to stand by him anyway.

Naruto gave him a quick, happy glance as a hello.

"We should've been taking pictures this whole time," he told him. "I suck at describing stuff."

Sasuke sat down so he could read over his shoulder.

"We stayed in that inn in the village before," he said, pointing at the line, and Naruto immediately groaned.

"Damn it," he said, scribbling it out and writing something illegible in the margins. Sasuke took his pen and helped it out.

"This says village," he wrote, pointing to the mess of a word Naruto had drawn, and Naruto shoved his shoulder into him.

"Oh, fuck you," he said, and Sasuke kept his smile firmly to himself. He had a few other corrections to make, though. Naruto huffed, but accepted them. Stayed close as Sasuke leaned closer. Naruto laughed as they finished the letter and threw it at Sasuke, declaring that it was his turn to write and Naruto's turn to criticize, but Sasuke hadn't thought of what to write, yet.

The photo fell out from the letter, and Naruto snatched it out of the air.

"You're going to get fingerprints all over it," Sasuke warned, but Naruto waved him off.

"We should get a frame or something," Naruto said. "For the ones we have."

Sasuke snorted.

"And immortalize this look?" he asked. "Where would we keep it?"

Naruto shrugged, but it was with a dreamy little grin.

"I dunno," he said, looking somewhere away from them both. "If we got a house or something."

Sasuke eyed him. Naruto shrugged again.

"We wouldn't have to stay there," he pointed out. "It could be like a—an inn on the way. One of the villages we go through a lot. Right? Then we'd always have somewhere to stay."

"Are you sure you're not running out of money?" Sasuke prompted, and Naruto punched him in the arm. Sasuke let him. Sasuke let him linger.

Naruto grew as serious as it did soft.

"Um," he said, because his thoughts were drifting. "I've been—you'd tell me if any of this is too much, right?"

He looked up, and he might have been talking about the touch. He might have been talking about much more.

"Have I ever given you any indication that I would sacrifice myself to spare your feelings?" Sasuke deadpanned, but Naruto—

"Yeah. Yeah, you totally—" Naruto let out a disbelieving laugh. "You don't think you'd do that? I spent half my life trying to get you to share your burdens with me."

"It wasn't half your life," Sasuke muttered, but Naruto was grinning. "And that's—different."

"It's not," Naruto told him. "It's really not."

Naruto's smile softened, and the muffle of the crowd outside blurred in Sasuke's ears. For a moment, there was just a whistle. For a moment, there was nothing else.

"No," Sasuke said, and it was involuntary. "No, this is not too much."

In fact, it was barely enough. He didn't know where to start, but there was an ache in him that knew exactly where it wanted to be. It was this ringing in his ears. It was this whistle in his head.

It sounded like the wind.


A/N: hope you liked it!

- Kinomi