All the Stars and Spaces In-between
Summary: I'd been chasing you so long, I guess I just didn't know what it meant to have you… So I let you go, and I let you go, and I let you go… because it felt familiar. You were like a shooting star, falling across the horizon… a streak of hope in sight, but always just out of reach.
Pairings: Naruto/Sasuke; minor Naruto/Hinata, Sasuke/Sakura; mention of other pairings.
Warnings: Canon Divergent; Post-War, Blank Period, Boruto Era fic.; Language, Suggestive Themes
Disclaimer: Naruto, the characters, and referenced canon events belong to Kishimoto.
All the pain is undone,
As the fear, it dies.
And the wars I fought were worth the scars
For the shimmer of the gold across your eyes.
-Ursine Vulpine & Annaca (Many Are the Stars I See, But in My Eye No Star Like Thee)
Chapter 1: Sun & Moon
The first time Sasuke wakes the florescent lights, the hum and beeping of machinery, the scent of sterilizer, and the stir of voices and movement around him is overwhelming, dizzying. The pain hits him swiftly: sharp and stabbing behind his eyes; a deep, raw ache in his arm that steals his breath away; and burning sensations where he's sure cuts and bruises blossom in hues of red, violet, blue, and green across his body. His limbs tense as the pain unfurls, thunders through him to his bones.
He hears his name called in soft tones, slowly recognizes the questions they ask. Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes? Can you tell me where you feel the most pain?
One of his eyes is still swollen shut; he blinks blearily with the other, squints into the brightness of the room, dimmed only faintly by hues of pink that lean over him, a shimmer of green surrounding a palm that hovers over the other half of his face. Everything is a blur. His head throbs. He clenches his eyes shut and breathes a pained breath out his nose, through gritted teeth.
He hears his name again, laced in concern.
"Where's Naruto?"
His own voice is a croak, a rasp; his throat is dry and burning. He is a mixture of discomfort, distress, urgency.
There's a pause, a sigh, a shuffle of movement.
"He's here. In the bed across from y—. Don't you dare try to get out of that bed again, Naruto Uzumaki, or so help me!"
Sasuke turns his head to his left instinctively, ignores the pain that reverberates through him as he does and peers through the ebony lashes of the eye that will open. When the sky blue he seeks meets his gaze with a grin—vibrant and bright despite the fog he sees—he feels every part of his body relax, disarm. His breath shudders when he breathes in.
When Sasuke wakes again it is with a jolt. His body strains to reach, to wrench on whatever threads—of life, of hope, of—anything he can muster, to bring him back. He can't go—can't die.
What have I done?
The pain greets him swiftly, envelopes him as his limbs chase from dream into waking. The panic and desperation lingers, seeps into the night around him as he opens his eyes; his vision is still blurry, making everything appear faded where sharp, vivid lines should be. Lightheaded, he tries to sit up on his forearms, tilts to his left side—fuck, fuck, there's nothing there and it hurts—and falls back onto the bed at an angle.
He clenches his eyes shut, tries again, raises himself up as far as he can with his neck and shoulders before a hand settles gently on his chest, presses him back into the bed carefully.
"Hey, hey, stop. It's okay, you're alright."
His voice is hushed, rough around the edges, but warm, familiar. Sasuke knows him by the flush of chakra against his skin—would know him anywhere—before he opens his eyes.
Naruto. He's here. Here and alive. Alive. Alive.
It's dark; the only lights in the room are the machines, the bright fluorescents streaming in around the door from the hall, and the light of the moon shining in through the window. In a room blurred at the edges, bright blue eyes—practically glistening in the light of the moon—draw him in, stand out as vividly as always; they watch him carefully, warily. A tanned hand remains against Sasuke's chest, the heat of his palm soaking through the thin fabric.
"Naruto?"
"I'm here."
Sasuke watches him silently with a mismatched gaze, muscles still strained to sit up, to reach. If he could muster the strength to grasp for an arm, a shoulder, his shirt—pull him forward, toward him, against him—he would. He pleads with his body. Move. Give him anything. Anything. Anything to make him stay.
Something of this must show in his expression because Naruto's palm presses a bit more insistently against his chest. "I'm here," he repeats in a whisper, as if to say I'm not going anywhere.
Sasuke nods faintly, allows his head to fall back onto his pillow, lifts his right hand to rest on top of the hand still pressed against his chest, holds on.
The next time Sasuke wakes, the sun is just starting to break above the walls of Konohagakure. He opens his eyes to find Naruto asleep at his bedside, head resting on his left arm on the side of his bed. Sasuke is not surprised to feel the ache in his limbs where his body is angled toward the blonde, despite his injuries, despite the throbbing, raw sensations that reverberate through him with each miniscule shift in this position.
He has always been susceptible to this pull, the gravity of him. Has always—even when unknowing, unwilling—orbited him.
His vision still blurs at the edges, but the dizziness and unsteadiness he had felt each time he awoke before has abated. He tries to gauge the time between the Valley of the End and now by the number of bandages he can recall on his friend each time he had seen him before, a stark contrast to the deep hues of his sun-kissed skin. He recalls them strewn across his face, along his neck, his throat, dipping below clothing where he could not account for damages he'd done. Only a few remain.
A week then, perhaps two or so, if he accounts for how depleted their chakras had been, how he had not even felt the presence of the Kyuubi when they laid themselves bare to each other, bleeding with each other on that harsh stone.
The most obvious injury that remains is wrapped in such a way that the bandages extend up to peak out from beneath the collar of Naruto's shirt and trail down from his shoulder and his collar bone until they are visible again where they are wrapped in fraying layers around what remains of his right arm. The same arm that once held the marking of the sun, the opposite to his moon, the symbols that connected them in more than just comradery and friendship, but tied them together—body and soul—across lifetimes.
Guilt sinks in, heavy and hot like lead in his gut, his lungs; it weighs him down until he feels his body practically quake under the weight of it. He thinks, if he could not succeed in his mission to sever all ties he held in this world, of course it would end like this, in an absence, a haunting, a permanent reminder of all he could have lost, of everything Naruto would have sacrificed for him.
And yet, here he remains, a beacon at his side. And yet, Sasuke still cannot resist how he captivates, draws him in even while unconscious.
The sun has begun to rise above the roofs of Konoha and filter into the room. It falls across the crown of Naruto's golden locks, caresses his face with warmth. For a moment, Sasuke is reminded of how the orange rays of the setting sun had cast shadows across Naruto's battered and broken face at the Valley of the End, of how striking, mesmerizing he had appeared even then.
He feels his Sharingan activate without his intent, and the shift and strain in his chakra causes Naruto to stir. Blue eyes blink up at him blearily, a shimmer of gold reflecting in his azure hues. Sasuke feels as if his lungs are suddenly to tight. He blinks quickly, deactivates his kekkei genkai.
Naruto shakes his head, as if to clear his mind of sleep, lifts his head slightly to look up at him more directly. "Sasuke?"
A small smile curves the corners of the Uchiha's lips, and he hums a response, adds softly: "Usuratonkachi."
A/N: Well, this story began as an attempt to see what I could do to participate in #snsmonth2023. This was for day 1 (Soulmates/Modern AU) and 2 (Possessive/Stay with Me). This is a story I've wanted to write for years. So, here's to finally putting it into words on paper.