Author's note: Mr Loverman is the chapter song. Apologies for the impending heartbreak if you haven't felt it up to this point. Only 2 chapters after this, and we will have the story's conclusion. Hope to have you all along!
Xoxo
Catstclaire
Chapter. 6 Mr. Loverman
~During~
"Don't scream. Naruto don't." Sakura told him as she cradled Sasuke's busted head. "Sasuke might hear you. Don't do that to him."
Lee tried to lay a sympathetic hand on his shoulder but Naruto shook it off. If Lee had given any of them proper warning Sasuke wouldn't be half buried under the rubble. Lee was such a dick. He was still mumbling in Naruto's ear some half assed apology about how if he had warned Naruto he would have gotten himself blown up running to save Sasuke, and he did what he thought was right. That was probably the moment Naruto decided to stop speaking to Lee in the very same manner he iced out Sakura. Was it a healthy way to deal with people he cared about? No. All the same Naruto didn't want to hear anything else from Lee.
It was Lee who made Hinata leave. It was Lee's fault Sasuke was hurt. Fuck him.
"Shut the fuck up." Lee did.
Naruto started to rock back and fourth in some form of self soothing he guessed. Any minute now, Naruto told himself. Any minute now Sasuke's eyes were going to pop open.
Shikamaru was carefully pulling back the rubble. They had to take it slow or they'd risk moving Sasuke and injuring him further. All Naruto could do was stare helplessly as Sakura infused the love of his life with glowing green jets of chakra.
Any minute now Sasuke was going to laugh, and sit up, and make a joke about buildings blowing up. Any minute now he wouldn't be an inch away from death.
Sakura was bitting into her lip so ferociously Naruto could make out the beads of blood dripping down her chin, through the ash still wafting around the explosion zone.
Shikamaru was being careful not to lock eyes with her while she worked.
Naruto wanted to scream. He couldn't though. Like Sakura said. He couldn't do that to Sasuke. He had to be brave.
ANY MINUTE NOW Sasuke would kiss him and everything would be fine.
Sasuke didn't like screaming.
Ever since they were kids.
Naruto had seen Sasuke tortured before. He never made so much as a peep as he was stabbed, cut, or even burned. Sasuke said it was painful but bearable. Bearable because it always came to an end. Not once did Naruto recall Sasuke ever screaming.
There was once when they'd been captured- back before Sasuke left them, and Sasuke was being tortured in a room away from them that the guards decided to try a new tactic. They wanted Sasuke to scream.
They had pulled Naruto away from Sakura in their cell, and threw him into the room they were working on Sasuke in. They both had chakra cuffs on, and Sasuke only peered down at him through bloodsoaked lashes briefly.
Naruto was tied up to a pipe in the wall, and they started back on Sasuke. What they were going for didn't work though, because Naruto's presence only made him more defiant. His eyes were focused, and furious as they snapped each of his fingers, then healed them, then snapped them and repeated the process over and over. Sasuke was bloody, and sweat poured down his face. Naruto had been sick twice, emptying his stomach on the cold floor as he watched.
"Please." Naruto begged their captors. Naruto's teenage voice cracked from strain. "Please no more. Not him. Torture me." Naruto would scream for them, that's what they wanted, he was a screamer when he was in pain. He couldn't help it sometimes.
Naruto just knew he couldn't watch them hurt Sasuke anymore.
"No!" Sasuke fought against the chakra cuffs for the first time since Naruto was in the room. "Don't you fuckers touch him!" Sasuke howled.
Their captors were more than happy to move on to Naruto. They were more than happy to make him scream like a stuck pig. Naruto could take the pain the same as Sasuke, he just couldn't control the sounds that escaped him while he was being tortured. Naruto didn't give them the information they wanted and so they kept at it, determined to break one of the boys. Naruto couldn't bear to look at Sasuke so he kept his eyes shut tight.
Naruto wasn't sure how long it went on for. He just knew that when it was over Kakashi had come to the rescue and was wrapping him up in a blanket, and carrying him off somewhere. Naruto had hoped Kakashi would find them, and save them like he always did he just hoped it would be before what just happened to them. Perhaps that should have been Naruto's first clue as to the actual life of a shinobi, but even still after that incident Naruto kept going. He kept reaching for the moon and the title of Kage, still not understanding what he was asking for.
Kakashi had sat him up against the side of a building where Sakura and Sasuke were already resting.
Sasuke asked Kakashi since Naruto had his eyes closed and had still yet to speak. "Is he okay?"
"He will be." Kakashi said like he was willing it to be true.
Naruto was catatonic at that point and he heard strips of bandages being ripped open, and water as it was boiled.
"Naruto." Sakura spoke in his ear softly. "I need to see, i need to clean up your wounds."
"I'm fine." He mumbled after having found the strength to lie. He curled into his blanket further. Then he felt a pair of hands on him and he jerked away.
"Just me." Sasuke soothed. "Sorry. It's just me."
Naruto was angry at himself then. Why was it that Sasuke could endure that same torture and walk it off without having been much effected by it. Why was Naruto so much weaker?
Sasuke hadn't screamed and all Naruto could do was scream.
Then Sasuke's hands were smoothing around at his shoulders, and trying to work open the blanket. Naruto's grip on it was iron clad.
"How did you do it?" He asked voice small, and confidence even smaller.
"Do what?" Sasuke asked still tugging gently at his arms.
"You didn't scream once. You're unbreakable." Naruto accused.
Then Sasuke smirked at him in that signature way of his. "Is that what you, think?"
Sakura was either ignoring their conversation or doing a damn good job of pretending not to hear them. She was still peeling packages of bandages open.
Kakashi was sending Pakkun off probably to report back to the 5th.
Naruto winced when he turned over slightly. There was a rather large wound on his side where he'd been used as a target for shuriken.
"It's what i saw." Naruto admitted.
Sasuke met his eyes. "Just between you and me-" his voice got lower as he leaned down to whisper in Naruto's ear. "i was on the edge of breaking the second you started screaming."
Naruto let go of the blanket and Sasuke peeled it off him carefully. He sat beside Naruto in the dirt as Sakura began to work on him. The pain was excruciating now that the wounds weren't fresh. The need to scream out was bubbling deep in his throat as he twitched and thrashed against Kakashi holding him down. Naruto's hand slung around seeking purchase, and he felt Sasuke pull it into his own. Their fingers intertwining, and Naruto was still panting from the pain, but somehow the warmth in Sasuke's hand helped dull the pain just a bit.
"Just don't scream." He thought he heard Sasuke say before he passed out. "I couldn't bare it again. Don't scream."
Any second now Naruto chanted as the memory faded out. Any second Sasuke was going to jump up from out under the rocks and debris and they'd head back home and- only he didn't. Lee had to help him carry Sasuke to the nearest hospital.
Sakura got to a point where she was to chakra drained to do anything more.
It took 3 days for Sasuke to wake up.
Like a good solider Naruto didn't scream at any point in those 3 days. Out loud at least. In his head for 3 days however he screamed on an endless, ceaseless loop of misery.
.
.
.
~After~
Leaving Konoha might have been the cowards way out but Naruto would have to have been a fool to keep living that hell.
It had almost been an entire year since he left Konoha.
Sakura wrote letters that Naruto read, but didn't reply to. Then every few weeks Pakkun would pop up out of nowhere to check on him. To ensure he was 'Still breathing.' Sometimes he would stick around for a day or so before Naruto would threaten him with a kunai, if he didn't scram.
Naruto didn't want company especially in the few beginning months of his travels. The start of his traveling he hadn't really had a very good plan, on account of leaving the village as quickly as he had. There were places Sasuke talked about that he wanted to go, and so he had. Except the land of tea. Sasuke seemed to have really liked that one, and it was one Naruto didn't want to go to immediately.
The first place he went after he threw the proverbial Hokage robes in Kakashi's face for the second time, was Suna.
Naruto was welcomed into Gaara's village with all the pomp and circumstance of a celebrity. Gaara had been surprised to find Naruto when he came to Suna. Kakashi of course had already told the Kazekage of Sasuke's death, and Naruto knew Gaara wasn't sure what he was even doing there after having lost Sasuke. To be fair Naruto hadn't known why he'd gone there either.
Naruto was only in Suna for 2 months. In which time he had taken Gaara into his bed.
Naruto had started drinking heavily again when he left Konoha. There was a night in Suna where he'd been drunk and bared everything to Gaara. How he felt about Sasuke's death, how he blamed himself, how he gave up on being the one to succeed Kakashi, how he didn't know if he'd ever speak to Sakura again, or how he was afraid he'd never want to go home again.
Gaara had only nodded listening along. Then he threw back the rest of his drink, and placed a gentle hand on Naruto's thigh. That was the moment Naruto understood why exactly he came to Suna.
It was so he could be close to someone again. His body had been crying out for Sasuke ever since he died, and there wasn't anything Naruto could do about it. But. He knew the first person he slept with post Sasuke couldn't be some nameless stranger in a bar. He needed someone familiar, someone that wouldn't gossip, someone he called his friend. Like Hinata. Gaara checked all those boxes.
Naruto had guessed a long time ago that Gaara might be interested in him sexually. His eyes always lingered on Naruto a little to long to be anything other than desire.
Naruto wondered after that first time he fucked Gaara if it would have mattered really which of his friends he took to bed. Would Hinata, have just as easily fit the bill?
Probably he decided.
But Hinata was married now. So it was fine that it was Gaara. Anyone Naruto was ever with would just be a stand in, now. Like he had been for Hinata when she couldn't have Shino.
When they decided to sleep together Gaara had turned on some music. It was a sad song, and Naruto tried to hide how much the song effected him.
"Fuck- i'm sorry- i" Naruto felt like a real bastard. Here he was fucking himself into Gaara in the Kazekage's own bed, and all he could think of was Sasuke and how much he wanted to be with him, and only him. It was why he was the one fucking Gaara, Naruto would never let another fuck him so long as he lived.
Gaara took his face in both of his hands. "It's okay if you cry. You miss him. You're still grieving. It's okay." Gaara's voice was breathy, and they were both on the verge of coming. "I want to help you, however you need." Naruto hid his face in Gaara's shoulder but the smell was all wrong it was to beachy, and spicy it wasn't Sasuke's smell. Naruto still recalled Sasuke's smell still, even though it had faded from his hoodie already. He buried himself in Gaara deeper, faster, partly wanting it to be over already.
The medallion around Naruto's throat was making that noise it always did when it stuck to the sweat between Naruto and Sasuke when they had sex. A soft squelching, almost tinkling. Naruto hadn't taken it off since Sasuke had put it on him, right before he was killed. Naruto kept circling back to Sasuke's face when he put the medallion on him with his promise of marriage. He seemed happy, excited like he couldn't wait to get back to Konoha and make it official. He was so beautiful in that moment. His teeth had been bright and shiny, his eyes dark and alluring.
Sasuke Uchiha was an entirely sensual being without ever having tried to be. People were attracted to him like magnets, but since Sasuke came home he only ever gave himself to Naruto. Neither of them had been each other's firsts but Naruto had been Sasuke's last. Naruto wondered what Sasuke would say if he knew Naruto hadn't be able to say the same for him. Sasuke wouldn't be Naruto's last, and God it hurt to know that, but part of Naruto knew it was the healthy thing to do. Sasuke probably would have teased him either way Naruto decided. If there was a heaven Sasuke would be there waiting with some little quip for either scenario. 'Well done Dead-last, you spent 50 years as a monk.' He'd probably pretend to clap. 'Who was better in bed me or Gaara?' Then he'd stop Naruto before he could answer, because Sasuke already knew he was better.
When it was over and they were lying there Gaara was staring at Sasuke's necklace. He gave Naruto a brave smile, but Naruto could tell. Gaara hadn't minded spreading his legs for Naruto as he grieved Sasuke, yet for some reason the look in Gaara's eyes while he looked at the medallion told Naruto. He hadn't realized he would be sharing Naruto with a ghost. Most people Naruto expected wouldn't be holding on as tightly to Sasuke's memory as he was by this point. It had been months since he'd been gone, and yet somewhere back in Konoha Sasuke's kunai were still laid out on a table waiting for him, as if he was still coming home to them. Naruto was still wearing the heavey burden of Sasuke's medallion, he probably always would.
In the beginning Gaara had probably thought he could step into Sasuke's place, convince Naruto to make Suna his home or something. But after weeks of sex where Naruto pictured someone else, Gaara slowly let go of those hopes.
"You should go home, Naruto." Gaara had shared a final breakfast, and fuck with him. During which he explained all the reasons Naruto needed to go back to Konoha. He cared about Naruto, he knew that, and it was because he cared that he wanted him in Konoha. "You shouldn't travel alone, it's dangerous."
Sasuke had though, for a long time he traveled alone. Part of why he decided to travel was probably because of that. Naruto wanted to get in Sasuke's head. Wanted to see the things he saw. He wanted to share some sort of experiences with Sasuke even if they weren't necessarily with him. It was sick. His every thought revolved around him.
"I can handle myself." Naruto told Gaara in parting. He pulled the scarf Hinata made him years ago tighter around himself, and left Suna. He felt lighter, and heavier at the same time. He was glad to have made a healthy step in his post Sasuke life, but at the same time he couldn't stop feeling like he had betrayed Sasuke.
...
Naruto spent the next months drinking, and fucking nameless faceless men in the bars he went to. Sometimes he used a jutsu to alter his appearance for anonymity. Every time though after his dalliance with Gaara, he always slept with someone with dark black hair. He found it was easier to pretend that way. That it was Sasuke he was with, and not some stranger.
He never let them touch Sasuke's necklace.
Pakkun had showed up a day or so before with news. Sakura was pregnant. She and Shikamaru were about to be parents. They wanted Naruto to come back, and meet the kid when he was born. They wanted Naruto to be the godfather. Naruto just shrugged at the Nin dog and tossed Itachi's kunai his way, then Naruto was alone again.
He tried to put it out of his mind. Sakura, and her baby. Naruto didn't want things to keep happening, for things to change. He wanted things to stay exactly the same way. It wasn't rational, that want. He only wanted to keep things as is for Sasuke's sake. A small voice in his head would scream when something new happened. About how this would confuse or surprise Sasuke if he came back. But he wasn't. He was never coming back.
Naruto was just still struggling greatly to accept it. His liver was paying the price.
It was probably out of missing Sakura in that moment, but also of having missed Hinata for years that he sought her out.
Naruto found himself in a town of non importance. There were little shops lining the main street made of wood, and moss roofs. Kids ran through the streets, causing mayhem, and Naruto smiled. This was a place he could see Hinata settling in. One where life was was easy.
Naruto had double checked the address he had for Hinata. Even so when he set foot in the shop that was supposed to be hers, he almost turned and walked right back out.
Hinata Hyuga was a girl that liked purple, and dango, and watching the sunset from the village docks. She never struck Naruto as the type to ever think of getting a tattoo let alone buy a shop that did them...
Naruto was pulling the door back open to leave when an older gentleman behind the counter called out to him. "Something we can do for you, young man?" He was burly, and his facial hair went passed his shoulders.
"No- I don't think so. I was looking for someone but there's no way she's here." Naruto peered around the room. Taking in the dark tinted windows, and displays of artwork that lined the walls. Someone in the back made a yelp of pain. "I'll just-"
"Who's it you're looking for," the man asked looking him over. "you look familiar to me. Have we met?"
Naruto rubbed the back of his head with an open palm. "No- i doubt it." He hated when people recognized him, and he was just fine to not be recognized as one of Konoha's elite then. Naruto shrugged and was going to leave again, but he heard something that made him pause.
Laughter. Like the tinkling of a bell. Naruto followed it.
"Hey!" The man yelled at him when he walked right passed the desk to where people were being tattooed. "You can't go back there, it's only customers!"
The giggling picked up. Then Naruto was in front of a stall with a long red curtain. He threw it back, and smiled.
Hinata.
...
It was strange in the best way to Naruto to see Hinata after all that time. That after everything they had both been through in their lives they were able to pick back up with each other so easily. It was easy with Hinata, she understood him, and he understood her. The other Konoha 12 except for Sasuke of course, never got Naruto the way Hinata did. She was patient with Naruto in ways others wouldn't be. She never called him stupid when others did growing up. She had liked Naruto from the get go. Some of the friends Naruto made on the way to being the leaf's 'hero' Naruto knew only began to care about him due to his status. Because he was strong. Hinata was never bound to such shallowness. She was kind and gentle.
Which was why he was still trying to wrap his head around how her life turned out. She married a guy after she left the village. (Shino's stand in) She had 2 kids now it turned out. At some point she had a drastic shift in her fashion choices much like Lee. Hinata had both of her arms, and legs covered in ink. The detailing was so great you couldn't see her skin through those areas. The tattoos were butterflies, moths, bugs- things Naruto quite thought Shino would have appreciated. Her eyes were smudged with Kohl, and she had a serious cigarette addiction. Which Naruto didn't mind. He missed the smell of cigarettes if he was being honest. Anytime he was in a bar where someone was drinking he found himself lingering for as long as he could, just to get a whiff of that familiar smell that he attributed to Sasuke.
She had lit up as soon as she finished with her client, and motioned for Naruto to follow her. The shop she and her husband owned had an apartment over top it and it's where her family lived. Her husband was out with the kids in the village running errands apparently. Naruto looked at the family photos as they made their way through her house, and out onto the terrace that overlooked the village.
They sat side by side in a pair of blue chairs that reclined and rocked.
"It's good to see you." She smiled up at him in that shy way of hers. "How have you been?"
"I've been better." He admitted.
She nodded. "I'm sorry I didn't come." Naruto raised a brow at her. "To Sasuke's funeral- i'm an asshole."
"No, you aren't."
"I am. I should have come. My husband could have watched the kids for a few days." She flicked the end of the cigarette and ash fell. "He was important to you first of all, second of all he was one of us." One of the Konoha 12 she didn't say, because she hadn't needed to. "I was to chicken to come, and face you i think. I could have been there for you, how you were for me after Shino."
Naruto laughed. "No you couldn't." She was married now.
"No. I couldn't." She agreed. "I'm still an asshole though. The others were there, Sakura told me Lee even showed up."
Naruto grit his teeth. "Yeah." He pulled the cigarette she was smoking out of her fingers and took a long drag. "Got anything stronger?"
She pulled the cigarette back from him with a look of disappointment. "Tell me you aren't drinking again."
Naruto didn't answer.
"Well i'm not about to keep supporting that habit. Especially after you and Sasuke worked so hard to kick the booze."
"Sakura still likes to chat doesn't she?" He asked sourly. He hadn't realized how well informed Hinata stayed over the last few years they hadn't been in each other's lives. She shrugged.
"About Lee-" Hinata started and eyed him warily like she expected he might jump off the terrace and make a run for the nearest town over. "You're not still holding onto what happened when i left right?"
Naruto sighed. "No." Naruto recalled when Hinata left the village and why, he grimaced. "Yes. Sometimes-" He leaned back in his chair and watched the people below as they walked the streets. "It's not just that, Lee and i, welI i don't think we've been on the same page since the war. It's alot of things, lots of things added together. We just don't get along anymore. Lee got so gung ho and righteous about serving the village and everything when the war ended and i was still..."
"Trying to survive?" Hinata supplied to him.
"Yeah."
"I remember." She looked at him sadly. They were to young to be this tired Naruto thought. "But we both made it out of it all back then, yeah?" She put one hand on top of his gently, friendly, and Naruto wove their fingers together boldly. He missed her.
"How did you do it?" Naruto didn't even need to say exactly what he meant. She knew. She just knew that when he asked that he meant to say 'How on earth did you continue to go on after Shino died? How did you wake up everyday without the love of your life by your side? How did you stop yourself from wanting to die right along with him?'
Her pale eyes tracked a gathering of birds that were soaring passed. "Same way you have." Parts of her hair floated up into the wind as it picked up. "We just have to keep going, you know? I was probably as suicidal as you were after the war-"
"What?!" Naruto couldn't contain the shock. How- wh-" Hinata had been his rock. She never seemed to falter once while they were carrying on. How had he not realized? She had seemed like she was handling everything so well.
"I didn't want you to know, i was struggling that badly. I'm not sure we would have made it if you'd known. We probably would have imploded on each other with all that misery. And-" She turned to face him with the most serious look he had ever seen on her face. "Naruto, do you think i'm a slut?"
"I'm sorry-" He looked around like she was joking and someone was going to start laughing. "what?"
"Do you think i'm a slut?"
Naruto blushed because he had never really considered what Hinata's other conquests were or who. She could have been screwing an entire battalion of guys while they were together and Naruto wouldn't have cared. He didn't like slut shamers.
"No." he finally decided on.
"I've only ever been with 3 men in my life." Only 3? If anyone was a slut, it was Naruto. His body count was 5x that by now. "Shino. You. Then my husband." She continued on with the fierceness Naruto had always admired in her "I needed you, as much as you needed me. I wouldn't have slept with you out of pity alone. It was also from self interest. I know the way people talk about it, they say i stopped you from killing yourself by sharing a bed, but I don't think that's true. You wouldn't have to come to that regardless of me holding your hand or not. You're a fighter. Through and through. No matter what happens you fight like hell to keep going. I'm not saying you don't have your weak moments but at the end of the day you aren't staying down for the count are you? You know that all though right? I slept with you for you, but also for me."
Of course Naruto did. He knew he was Shino's stand in. The one Hinata pretended was him when they had sex. "Yeah."
"What i'm trying to tell you is that sometimes especially in the beginning we can't see the good stuff that's around the corner waiting for us. If Shino never died-" Naruto pulled his hand from hers. He didn't come there for this. For Hinata to give him some sort of horrible pep talk about his future. Frankly he didn't want a damn future so why talk about it. "Naruto. I know you don't want to hear it, I wouldn't have wanted to hear it for a long time after Shino. It's true though if Shino never died I wouldn't be where i am. I wouldn't have my kids, i never would have been with you or met my husband. There are good things after, i swear, if you'll only let them happen. You don't have to die with Sasuke. Just like I didn't have to die with Shino."
Hinata crossed her hands behind her head for a moment then leaned over Naruto.
"Cut lee some slack will you?" She wrapped the scarf she made him even tighter around his neck so it was covering Sasuke's necklace. "He just misses his team. No one ever really gave him straight answers on what happened to Neji or Tenten and he just takes it out on everyone around him. Lee's your friend even if you guys don't see eye to eye anymore us Konoha 12- Konoha 5 i guess now have to stick together."
"He made you leave." Naruto said. That was the second greatest slight Lee had done to Naruto. Lee had sought out Hinata, and told her to go. To leave the village and Naruto.
"No he didn't. I chose to go. Lee just made it clear why I couldn't stay." She sighed. "He knew it was the only way you and i could ever move on- or heal. Lee isn't the bad guy."
.
.
.
To be continued...
