The aggressive AC was turned on full blast, making Naruto's eyes water. Between that and the bright overhead lights of the operating room, the blond thought it was a small miracle that he could see at all. The sterile glare bounced off the polished metal surfaces and scrubbed-in personnel, merging with the rhythmic beeping of the monitoring equipment. All of this combined seamlessly with the low hum of the HVAC system, creating a symphony of sounds that Naruto found decidedly unnerving.
He rotated his neck slightly to the right, trying to loosen the muscles that had clenched into a tight knot—a difficult feat to accomplish while also trying to keep the leg he was holding perfectly still.
To his right, Kiba Inuzuka stood with his auburn hair tamed beneath a blue surgical cap, his amber eyes glinting in the cold light. A pair of stainless-steel retractors were clamped securely in his hands as he frowned in concentration, keeping the patient's surgical site open.
There was always a determined air about Kiba when he descended into the operating theatre. While the rigid and unspoken hierarchy was slightly too much for Naruto, Kiba seemed to thrive under these conditions. Perhaps it had something to do with being related to so many vets, but giving Kiba a scalpel and a set of scrubs always seemed to lift his spirits.
The grey hair of Mr. Hatake suddenly swerved into view as the operating table lowered slightly. Naruto had worked with Mr. Hatake before and liked him thoroughly, despite the fact he was both confusingly laid-back and demanding at the same time. Kiba had instantly taken a shine to him after meeting him in the second year and had since occupied himself by finding Mr. Hatake's schedule to 'opportunistically scrub in'—or as Naruto put it: stalk him.
Mr. Hatake had an interesting approach to his operating environment. Today, he was playing an ABBA playlist on the overhead speaker at full blast as he examined the instruments on the scrub table behind him and bantered with an unimpressed-looking anesthetist behind the patient curtain.
Kiba winked at Naruto over the top of his surgical mask, causing the blond to roll his eyes.
"What's crawled up your butt?" Kiba asked in a low whisper, the music of "Super Trouper" filling the air around them.
"Wanna swap?" Naruto asked sarcastically, his shoulders aching. "If I'd known you were luring me in here to do this while you got to assist, I'd have made you buy me lunch!"
Kiba made a 'tsk' noise from behind his mask and turned his attention toward Mr. Hatake, who was inspecting the hip implant that had been unpacked in front of him, nodding his head to the beat of the music.
"You owe me," he said in an undertone, looking back at the retractors.
"Owe you?" Naruto ground out in exasperation as the lyrics of the chorus washed over them (but I won't feel blue, like I always do).
"For what?"
Kiba gave Naruto a 'you know exactly what' glare from over the fabric covering his face and began to hum the chorus.
"The femoral head is out," Mr. Hatake announced, sounding pleased as the music changed to "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" and the scrub nurse shot him a particularly exasperated look. The surgeon's dark eyes sparkled over his mask as he began to sing tunelessly along. Somewhere behind Mr. Hatake, they heard the audible sigh of the anesthetist.
"We'll move on to taking out the damaged bone and preparing the socket for the implant. Kiba, I need you to keep those retractors in place. Naruto, if you feel any strain, tell us immediately."
Naruto tensed his shoulders and did his best to look nonchalant as his arms started to burn. The surgical team peered over the patient's acetabulum, inspecting the site before insertion.
Kiba had a look of devout concentration on his face as Mr. Hatake carefully positioned the implant in the space they had created for it, tapping his thumb to the beat of the music as the synth played from the speaker.
Naruto had to admire Kiba's steadfast focus; he personally found operations quite tedious. The limited range of movement, the hours spent bent over doing one thing, the sterile field, the click and whirr of the machines, and the slightly bored anesthetist sitting behind the curtain by the patient's head, fueled solely by caffeine and playing sudoku. This was not what he pictured doing for the rest of his life.
Kiba leaned a little toward Naruto, lowering his voice so that they would not be overheard.
"So, are your big plans sorted yet?" he asked conspiratorially.
Naruto looked at him blankly as he felt a trickle of sweat slide down his spine.
"Your birthday!" Kiba hissed at him, somehow managing to keep the retractors steady as he glared at his blond-haired friend.
"Oh…OH." Naruto registered, his eyes flicking to where Mr. Hatake was working within the sterile field. "Yeah, I thought we would go to that new bar they've just opened up. I did think about that tabletop place, but I reckon people might get too drunk for that." He had a sudden flashback to Temari hauling a nearly comatose Kankuro out of their bathtub with a disapproving Gaara in tow.
Kiba raised an eyebrow. "So who are you inviting?"
Naruto wanted to shrug but was prevented from doing so by the limb he was holding.
"Just the usual."
"I see, and does the usual involve a certain 'co-president' of mine?"
Naruto lowered his blue eyes to inspect the floor of the operating room as if asking for mental fortitude before raising them again to look his friend in the face.
"I wouldn't dream of it without asking your permission, Lord Inuzuka."
Kiba gave a low snort and turned back to look toward Mr. Hatake, who seemed to be finishing up on the wound site.
"You can't not invite him now," his tone was playful, Naruto thought, a slightly imperious look on his face as he withdrew the retractors on instruction.
"Temari is coming and Kankaro is playing, so you can bet Gaara will turn up too. Those siblings always turn up in threes. It'll look weird if you don't invite Sasuke, and I don't want you to piss him off just before we get into campaigning season."
"Oh, please, you gave me the ninth-degree last week for dropping off those campaign leaflets."
"Oh yeah, because it took you all night long to drop off those pamphlets."
"I told you, nothing happened."
"Nothing happened?" Kiba asked, turning his head to look at the blond incredulously, his amber eyes bright. "How long have I known you?"
Naruto made an 'ugh' sound and rolled his eyes at the ceiling again. If it hadn't been for the sterile field and wanting to impress Mr. Hatake, he was sure his friend would have kneed him in the crotch by now.
They finished the rest of the surgery in silence, Naruto frowning in Kiba's direction every now and again as the wound was sutured closed. As he put the limb down and finally flexed his shoulders in relief, he heard Mr. Hatake congratulate both of them on a job 'well done.'
Kiba puffed out his chest and pursued the surgeon to the coffee room. Naruto knew Kiba was seeking out an audit opportunity and gave an exasperated sigh. He helped the consultant anesthetist roll the patient onto a movable trolley and then ripped off his mask and gloves to run his arms under the cool water of the faucets.
Fifteen minutes later, as Naruto was nursing his sore back outside the OR, Kiba bounced out of the break room holding two plastic cups. He thrust one under the blond's nose, who politely took the cup of piping hot instant coffee and immediately regretted his life choices as he took a sip.
It tasted like sweet mud.
"He's happy for me to help out with the hip audit," Kiba said enthusiastically, gulping down the scalding hot drink in one go—apparently, his insides were coated with Teflon. "I did ask about you, but I didn't think you would be too keen to take it on."
Naruto grimaced; surgery audits were not his thing. He was happy to help Kiba out on his pursuit of world domination, but he'd take an RTA any day of the week over quality improvement work in hip fractures, even if his patients might be seeing a future Kiba later down the line.
"He also told me to call him Kakashi," Kiba said brightly, running to hold the lift doors open before they slid shut and ascended ten levels.
"So, when are you taking him out to dinner?" Naruto quipped coquettishly, chucking the rest of the unpalatable coffee in the nearest bin.
"I was hoping to ask you for some pointers actually," his friend retorted, glaring at him with folded arms as the lift began to ascend. "I was waiting for your book to come out, 'Flirting with Sasuke Uchiha in Ten Syllables or Less and Distracting Him from the Campaign Trail'."
"I don't know what you mean," Naruto responded, pretending to be interested in the lift operating panel.
"Have you asked him out yet?" Kiba asked bluntly, taking advantage of the fact that they were currently in the lift alone.
"What?" Naruto was so startled by this question he malfunctioned and choked on his own tongue.
Kiba watched coolly as Naruto turned an interesting shade of red as they exited the lift together.
"Well, answer the question. Have you? You've wined and dined and—" here he gave Naruto's crotch a nasty look, "Do you not have the common decency to ask him out?"
"For the last time, I told you, we didn't do anything," Naruto hissed, making for the nearest water fountain.
"So, what am I to imagine? That you just sat and cuddled all night?"
"I'd rather you didn't imagine anything, Kiba, you creep."
The image of Sasuke rigid on the floor, breathing heavily, suddenly flashed through Naruto's mind. Whatever this was with Sasuke—and the blond genuinely did not know—he was not a person to be played around with.
Kiba waited impatiently by the water fountain for his friend to finish, tapping his foot against the hard-polished floor.
"We just watched some movies and played some games," Naruto said, standing up while eyeing his friend up and down.
"So, are you inviting him to your party or what?"
The blond closed his eyes for a moment, knowing there was no escape from the situation.
"I may have already done so."
A look spasmed across Kiba's handsome features. Naruto could vaguely make out the imprint across his forehead from the surgical cap he had previously been wearing as Kiba swung on his heel, his eyes glinting manically.
"I knew it," he said accusatorily, a twitch working its way under his left eye. "I knew you'd already done something like that!"
Naruto tried to shrug his shoulders innocently. "Well, as you pointed out, it would have been weird not to invite him."
"I can only pray that this infatuation lasts as long as the student president role," Kiba said, crossing himself dramatically with his eyes closed. "That this isn't going to turn into another 'it's not you, it's me' scenario, or I'm going to have to keep you locked in the kitchen closet."
"First of all," Naruto said hotly, looking about them conspiratorially as if an ex-lover was about to jump out of the bushes at him as they crossed the busy main road outside the hospital, "I will not fit in that cupboard, and what do you mean 'infatuation'? We are just…friends."
"Oh, jump up my ass," Kiba snapped, punching his friend hard on the shoulder. "Just friends," he gave a derisive snort. "If I mooned over Shikamaru the way you moon over Sasuke, he'd have taken out a sexual harassment case on me by now—after, of course, Temari had finished with me."
He turned a corner, and Naruto looked around vaguely confused.
"Where are we going, Kib?" he asked, jogging to catch up with his friend.
"Guys," said Kiba after a moment's pause as he pushed the button for the Pelican Crossing. "Need to file some paperwork at The Spit."
A brief silence lapsed between them as they watched the traffic meander past. Naruto opened his mouth, clearly contemplating saying something, and then shut it again.
"Out with it," Kiba said after the fourth time this occurred.
"Do…you think he would say…yes if I hypothetically…maybe…possibly…asked him out?"
He gave Kiba a cautious look from beneath his feathery blond lashes, looking for his approval while simultaneously expecting to be struck on the head by some makeshift weapon at any moment. The auburn-haired man was staring defeatedly into the road as if he was considering walking into oncoming traffic.
"Please just ask him out and get it over with," his friend said, turning to glare at him. "For my cardiovascular health, I implore you; please."
Naruto gave Kiba one of his infectious grins as they crossed the road heading towards the towering monstrosity of the Shard.
"Just try and be sensitive, Naruto," Kiba said after a moment's contemplation. He turned to look at his friend, his amber eyes creased in a little concern.
"I don't—" Naruto began, not quite knowing what he wanted to say. He wanted to say, 'It's not like that, Kiba. He's different,' but he realized he didn't have the words to articulate how he felt about Sasuke. To be honest, he didn't quite know himself. He just knew the more time he spent with Sasuke, the more time he wanted to spend with Sasuke.
True, Kiba had been furious with him the next day (what else was new?) after he had arrived home from placement in a set of borrowed clothes; he knew full well how bad it had looked. But he hadn't lied either. Rumors that he and Sasuke had had a 'thing' would be far less damaging to the dark-haired man than the truth—whatever that was. Naruto was happy to take the brunt for that, an easygoing blond having a fling with one of the university's most notoriously available bachelors.
And besides, despite Kiba's protests, nothing had happened between himself and Uchiha. But that wasn't to say that he was against something happening. He remembered again the vision of Sasuke's hand, long fingers intertwined in his t-shirt as he had slept. The rhythmic breathing of his chest as he had fallen asleep next to Naruto and the strange chaste intimacy of it, the memory tangled in his mind with the smell of sweet citrus.
"I'll just ask him out for coffee or something," Naruto said diplomatically, then noticed how Kiba was busy rolling his eyes at this suggestion. "What? What's wrong with that?"
"Ask him out for coffee?" Kiba retorted in tones that indicated he thought either Naruto was mad, extremely stupid, or both. "He's not that kind of guy."
"Oh, because you'd know?" Naruto jibed.
"Apparently more than you."
"Okay, so what's your suggestion then?"
"Find out what he likes doing, for fuck's sake. Coffee," Kiba snorted as if Naruto had suggested a parlance with the devil. "Just try and make a good impression."
Sasuke pulled the jacket back on and examined his reflection again in the hallway mirror. Gaara stood staring at him impassively, his lime green eyes raking over Sasuke's lithe form as he turned, surveying himself almost agitatedly in the mirror.
"You look fine," the redhead said impatiently.
Sasuke jerked his head up as if pulled suddenly out of a reverie. "Do you think so?" he asked a little awkwardly, looking down at his leather shoes and cigarette jeans.
Gaara looked as if it cost him a great deal to restrain himself from rolling his eyes. "I'm sure Naruto won't have any objections to you choosing the slightly lighter black jacket."
"Who said anything about Naruto?" Sasuke hissed, glaring at his friend's reflection in the mirror. The redhead simply folded his arms and leaned against the banister, looking at Sasuke critically.
"It's absolutely not obvious," Gaara said sarcastically, tapping his fingers on the wooden structure.
"What's not obvious?" Sasuke countered, running his hands under the collar of the wool jacket so it stood upright against his neck.
Gaara propped one elbow on the balustrade and rested his head against his hand. "Don't make me say it," he said softly, his expression somewhere between amusement and annoyance.
Sasuke moved away from the mirror and subconsciously ran a hand through his hair, trying to flatten the back again. His redheaded friend gave a little huff and then laughed, walking towards the front door in his long leather boots.
"What exactly is so funny?" Sasuke hissed as he wrenched the front door open and reached for the keys in his pocket, careful to check that Cat was not in her usual lurking place behind the pew, ready to hurl herself into the hedge at the slightest provocation.
Gaara reached into his pocket as he stepped out into the front garden and withdrew a cigarette. The Uchiha frowned at him. Gaara was not in the habit of smoking regularly, only producing an eye-wateringly expensive packet of cigarettes when they went out and brandishing a light towards Sasuke after he was appreciably inebriated.
The dark-haired man smelled the familiar scent of menthol and tobacco and frowned at Gaara.
"You didn't answer my question."
"Do I have to?" Gaara asked after taking a draw, walking down to the garden gate and holding the corrugated iron open for his friend. "I thought it was pretty obvious."
Sasuke swung the gate closed with a louder-than-needed 'clang,' which made his insides jolt around his body as the soundwaves traveled up his arm.
"Keep your secrets," Sasuke said, sticking his hands in his pockets and immediately wondering if he should have gone with the other jacket.
Gaara sent him a sidelong look; again, Sasuke had the impression of arguing with a marble statue and rolled his eyes.
"Will you just spit it out?" he asked between gritted teeth as they walked down the road to the tube together.
The sides of Gaara's mouth twitched as if he was genuinely amused by the question, and he took a long drag.
"You like him," he said simply after a moment's pause, cigarette held delicately between forefinger and thumb.
For a moment, Sasuke didn't say anything, his tongue caught awkwardly in his throat. He snuck a look at Gaara from under his thick lashes. The redhead looked as usual as if he had idly wandered off some dark gothic romance photoshoot. He was wearing a mesh shirt beneath the suede jacket he had thrifted from a charity shop with Sasuke some months before. The dark eyeliner around his startling green eyes was immaculate tonight; a stark contrast against his ivory skin.
"He's an agreeable guy," Sasuke said after a moment's consideration, rummaging around in his back pocket so he could tap his card on the barrier gate.
Gaara snorted, extinguishing his cigarette on the top of a nearby dustbin and following Sasuke through the barrier.
"And you let every agreeable person sleep over, do you?"
Sasuke spun around, almost tripping up the stairs to the platform.
"What? – Who?! – that's none of your…" His voice trailed off hopelessly. As long as Shikamaru dated Temari, there was no real hope of keeping whatever his relationship was with Naruto a secret from Gaara. There was only so much psychological torture one individual could take, he supposed.
"We just watched a film together," he said defensively, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks as Gaara gave him a very knowing look.
"Yeah, uhuh. Sure. Okay," Gaara said pleasantly, as if they were discussing the weather, lodging his hands into the bottom of his coat jacket and staring at Sasuke impassively. "You just watched a friendly film as friendly friends being friendly."
"Yes," Sasuke snapped, feeling the tips of his ears begin to heat up.
Gaara looked over his head at the tube departure board and then back to Sasuke again, the tip of his tongue tapping on his front teeth.
"You're a terrible liar for a would-be lawyer."
Sasuke had to resist the mad temptation to push Gaara off the platform as the train came screeching into view. He settled instead on giving his friend a filthy look as they boarded the train and elected to stand at the end of the carriage near the interconnecting doors.
He could not tell Gaara about Madara; the shame had embedded itself too deeply into Sasuke's psyche for him to be comfortable repeating that exchange to someone else. He had had a few texts and phone calls from Itachi but had neglected to mention the matter further. Sending a half-arsed application form to the company and leaving it at that. Madara could not complain that he had not bothered, and if he was not offered a position (and why would he be with such a weak application?), it left him some room to breathe. It had, after all, been a neat solution.
He thought glumly for a moment about his parents and what they would have said if they had still been alive. The memory of his father's face in his mind was dimming slightly as he tried to recall his facial features with in-depth clarity, and a twinge of pain knotted in his chest. He remained silent for a while, contemplating the reaction his parents would have had to his perfunctory application form and painfully pushed the thought to the side. It would do him no good. They were not around to advise him, and thinking about them now would only cause more hurt.
'A junction light malfunctioned, and a lorry hit the front of the car. I was cut out of the wreckage. I don't remember, but I guess some part of me remembered it. I wasn't much more than a baby.'
Naruto's voice floated through his head. He recalled the blond's face as he had said it, the peculiar scars etched into his handsome face illuminated by the kitchen downlights as they had both sat on the floor.
They were both orphans, and yet Naruto seemed to bear the cross of losing his parents much more ably than Sasuke did.
The train swayed and screeched on the tracks. Sasuke watched as Gaara very calmly inserted both forefingers into his ears, scrunching up his eyes. The butterflies in Sasuke's stomach had not shifted; he felt both euphoric and somewhat perturbed by his own eagerness to see Naruto tonight. He did not, as a general rule, like social events. More often than not, they made him excessively tired, overstimulated, and grumpy as a result. But he could not deny the fact that he was excited to see Naruto again.
The train shuddered to a halt on the platform, braking hard, which made all of the passengers' stagger forwards. They stepped out onto the concrete floor and made their way up through the maze of corridors and escalators to the ground level, making meaningless and bickering small talk on their way up.
The night air was cool, and the hum of London traffic surged loudly over the tarmac roads as buses and taxis jostled to beat one another to the lights. Gaara pulled out his phone and opened Google Maps, searching for the postcode.
"I think it's down here," he said presently, walking off in the opposite direction from which they had been standing, dragging Sasuke down a cobbled side road. For a moment, they walked in silence as Gaara read the directions, muttering to himself as they passed beneath street lamps. Presently, they stopped before a building with rectangular black doors, and Gaara seemed to blink in recognition and jumped up the stone steps.
Inside, the interior of the bar was loud, blue neon lights illuminating corner booths and metal bar stools lit by industrial clusters of lights. The entire bar had a slightly warehouse vibe to it as Sasuke took off his jacket and folded it over his arms, staring up at the grey plastered ceiling.
Sasuke could already hear the commotion from over in one of the corners, and sure enough, as they began to walk towards the table, a large group of people suddenly materialized into view. In the centre, Sasuke could make out Naruto's golden blond hair like a beacon, even in the dim lighting.
He stood for a moment awkwardly as Temari got up from her spot next to Shikamaru and embraced Gaara and then enfolded him. Then she held him at arm's length for a moment as if inspecting a child to see how much they had grown in the last week. Sensing that some prompt intervention was likely needed, Shikamaru leaned forward and slapped Naruto on the shoulder.
The blond looked up quickly at the touch, his impossibly blue eyes scanning the room and immediately meeting Sasuke with a look that could not be mistaken for anything other than elation.
"Hey!" he said, pushing his way forwards out of the crowd of people and making his way towards Gaara and Sasuke, "You made it, I'm so glad."
Sasuke opened his mouth and then shut it again, suddenly unsure of what to say. He was acutely aware of Gaara's eyes boring into the side of his head like green lasers as his mind urgently searched to articulate itself.
"Hey, um, yeah. Of course," Sasuke said, internally wincing as the words left his mouth.
Naruto seemed not to register the awkward utterance that had tumbled out of Sasuke's larynx but was regarding the dark-haired man with a wide grin on his face, his impossibly cornflower blue eyes glittering in the neon lights. For a moment, it seemed like the wider world ebbed away, leaving just the two of them standing together looking at each other. This illusion was shattered, however, as Gaara loudly cleared his throat and said, "Let me buy you a birthday drink, Naruto."
The blond turned around, blinking as if he had momentarily forgotten where he was and what he was meant to be doing. He put his hands behind his head and grinned at Gaara.
"Don't think you have to!" he said over the din of the music blaring out from the speakers.
"Name your poison."
And so, the evening proceeded.
Sasuke was a little drunk and was trying to work out if he was the one accidentally following Naruto around or if Naruto was following him. Regardless of whom he tried to talk to, he somehow always ended up bumping into Naruto, standing shoulder to shoulder. Every time he looked at Naruto, the blond's eyes seemed to light up. Naruto's arm a few times came to rest on Sasuke's scapula as he was talking to someone else, as if it was its habitual resting place, and Sasuke did not find himself pulling away. The contact felt… warm... nice even.
There was a good mix of people at the bar, some Sasuke knew from around campus and some he had never met before. He was introduced to a giant named Jugo, whom Kiba introduced as a 'violent vegetarian,' and another overly friendly man with slightly damp skin called Suigetsu, who eyed Sasuke curiously with deep lavender-coloured eyes.
Gaara bumped into his back as Sasuke finished the last of his bottle of Asahi beer and turned to nod towards his friend.
"I think Kankuro's band is going to play soon," Gaara said, leaning forward towards Sasuke's ear to make himself heard over the hubbub of the surrounding people.
Sasuke nodded, putting the bottle down on the bar and turning to look towards the area where they would be performing. It had been a few months since Gaara had last dragged him to one of Kankuro's performances. Kankuro had a PhD in Astrophysics from Imperial College London and was currently doing post-doc research in Extra-Galactic Astronomy… whatever that meant.
"I can assure you," Gaara said flatly, as if reading Sasuke's mind, "they have not gotten better since you last saw them."
"I never said…" Sasuke began, then had to look at his feet to stop himself from smiling.
"Personally, I think Naruto was very charitable letting them 'play' at his birthday gathering. I certainly wouldn't have. Ah." He raised his forehead as the blond suddenly seemed to materialize out of thin air next to Sasuke's right shoulder.
"How are you two doing?" the blond asked, addressing Gaara but looking intently at Sasuke, who felt his ears begin to heat up again. He wished he had another bottle of beer in his hands to distract himself.
"We're fine," Gaara answered easily, his lime-green eyes very slowly making their way from his friend's dark features to the blond's. There was that very irritating look on his face again.
"But I wouldn't advise listening to Kankuro's band sober."
Naruto laughed at this and either purposefully or subconsciously put his hand on the top of Sasuke's back. Trying to avoid Gaara's laser vision, Sasuke cleared his throat and turned to Naruto, his jaw firm and a little stubborn, resolute in not showing any emotion in front of his red-haired friend.
"Want to do a round of shots?" he asked.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Gaara's amused expression.
"If you can handle it, Uchiha," Naruto said, his hand behind his head in its usual easy-going position.
There was a twanging sound from the stage further off to the left of the band tuning up their instruments. Gaara shook his head, knocking down the shot as if it was water, and excused himself to check that there would not be another performance of 'Dick's Diagrams,' muttering that 'no one needed to hear that again' as he confidently parted the crowd to get to his brother.
Sasuke turned to Naruto, shot glass still in hand, looking at the blond intently. Those deep blue eyes were locked on him very hungrily, and it registered somewhere in the back of Sasuke's slightly muddled brain from the alcohol that it was quite unusual for Naruto to be spending so much time with him when there was easily a throng of forty-plus people for him to mingle with.
He could see Kiba standing with Lee over in a corner, chatting to the girl he had only recently found out was related to Neji Hyuuga, and a few feet away from them, Sai had his arms around Ino, who was laughing into his shoulder.
Sasuke licked the salt from the back of his hand, never breaking eye contact with Naruto as he did so. For a moment, his mind strayed back to the box of chocolates as his vision dipped to the blond's mouth. An uncomfortable hot twinge of something ran through his abdomen at the memory.
He winced as the tequila hit the back of his throat and hastily put the lime in his mouth. Naruto, as if unperturbed by the 40% ABV, leaned forward as the noise from the stage behind them suddenly began to radiate a cacophony of very raucous musical noises.
He put his finger against Sasuke's tragus, his mouth a few inches from Sasuke's neck, causing his flesh to erupt into goosebumps.
"There was something I wanted to ask you, Sasuke," Naruto said, his hot breath ghosting against the Uchiha's skin. Sasuke felt his body prickle in response. Every atom of his body was acutely aware of every molecule, proton, and electron of Naruto's existence.
He tilted his head to examine the blond, opening his mouth and staring at him in return, thinking again about the taste of chocolate on his tongue when he felt the phone in his pocket vibrate.
He paused, looking awkwardly down and withdrawing his mobile from his pocket. The word 'Itachi' floated up on the screen, and he frowned.
He looked back at Naruto, who was standing patiently waiting for him, and said, "Do you mind if I take this?"
The blond smiled and pointed towards the back of the bar where there was a courtyard. Slightly reluctantly, Sasuke headed off, elbowing his way through a throng of people to finally feel the cool night air slide over his skin as he stepped outside.
He leaned back against a brick wall next to a healthy box hedge and picked up the call.
"Hey."
"Hey," his brother's voice sounded a little distant as if he was calling from somewhere with a bad signal. "Sorry, am I interrupting anything?"
"No, no, I'm just out."
"Oh," he could hear his brother sound a little surprised, and not without good reason. Sasuke was usually avoidant of large social gatherings and had never courted them himself unless under duress.
"Well, I hope you're having a good time. I just wanted to say congratulations. I was going to say it in person, but it looks like work is going to hold me up for another few days."
"Congratulations?" Sasuke asked, tilting his head to the side and looking down at his free hand in confusion. "Congratulations for what?"
"You know, for the internship," Itachi said after a moment's pause.
Internship? For a moment, Sasuke's mind probed around wildly for an explanation, and then he felt his stomach drop.
"What?" he said sharply, sucking air into his lungs as the sides of his vision became a little hazy.
"Oh…" Itachi's voice sounded like it was underwater; whether or not this was from the reception, Sasuke was unsure.
"Madara texted me saying that you managed to win a place despite stiff competition."
Sasuke could feel his heart beat loudly in his ears, his mind spinning, recollecting the application form and the lackadaisical manner in which he had filled it in.
"No…" he said quietly, leaning back against the wall for support, his lims turning to water. The sides of his vision were becoming difficult to see as if the corners of the universe were pressing in on him.
"Sasuke?" Itachi said; there was concern in his voice on the other end of the line. "Are you okay?"
Sasuke's hand shook as he held the receiver to his ear. The idea of working in a firm which had previously been split between his father and Madara was, on paper, not a bad thing. But the idea of being closely monitored by Madara for months and months made Sasuke's heart beat erratically inside his chest as cold sweat gathered on his forehead.
"Yeah," he said weakly, "yeah, that's great news."
Madara had threatened to tell Itachi once, warned Sasuke that he would tell him the truth about their parents' death. Sasuke hadn't been able to bear the thought of losing the last remaining member of his family due to his own arrogance and stupidity.
He stared down at his long fingers and again had a vision of a piano lid being shut on them. He winced as if his bones had recreated the pain all over again and felt the hot white slide of panic run up and down his spine.
"We can celebrate when I get back if you'd like?"
Sasuke sucked in breath, telling himself to calm down and not give in to the crashing waves of dread that were currently surrounding him.
"Yeah," he said in what he hoped was a normal voice. "Yeah, sounds great."
There was a pause and a sound of static.
"You don't have to take it, Sasuke, you know that, don't you?"
There was concern now in his brother's voice, but this only egged on the feeling of terror in Sasuke more. Madara would not accept Sasuke withdrawing from the internship program, not without consequences, and who knew what strings he had pulled to get his nephew accepted onto the program in the first place. In his mind, he heard the discordant keys of a piano and felt his heart skid pitter-patter in his chest as if it was trying to escape.
"We'll… we'll celebrate when you get back," Sasuke said, closing his eyes and willing the world to stop spinning.
"Okay." Itachi's voice sounded placated at this, "We can go out somewhere, my treat. Bring Naruto too if you want."
Naruto… Naruto… Naruto…
He had been waiting to ask Sasuke something, hadn't he?
"I should go," Sasuke said, trying to stop his voice from sounding strangled as he articulated the words. There was a buzzing noise in his ears now and a feeling of nausea in the pit of his stomach.
"I'll see you soon," Itachi's voice sounded as if it was truly underwater now.
"Be safe."
The call ended.
Everything in Sasuke's world seemed to spin, terror and panic climbing all over him and seeming to drag him down into the depths of the earth. What the fuck? Why was this happening? Why was Madara so determined to keep Sasuke under his thumb? He felt bile rise in the back of his throat and willed himself to remain calm. It wasn't working very well.
"Hey."
Sasuke looked up to see Naruto approaching him with his deep blue eyes and smiling mouth. He held his breath, hoping to keep the panic down, digging his nails into the palm of his hands.
He could barely make out what the blond was saying in amongst the siren of panic ringing from wall to wall inside his own brain. Naruto looked about them as if to doubly make sure if they were alone, his neck was a little flushed Sasuke noticed, his arm hovering anxiously behind his head.
"Sasuke, do you mind if I ask you something?"
The dark-haired man pressed his lips together and nodded, trying desperately to hold onto the façade that everything was normal, that his world wasn't wildly spinning as if it was about to shatter into pieces.
A high-pitched whistling seemed to scream between Sasuke's ears as Naruto opened his mouth the words which were completely lost on the dark-haired man. The blond seemed to be staring very intently at his face, but Sasuke had almost no recognition of any of the syllables he was uttering, lost in a sea of his own panic.
After a moment, deciding that Naruto might as well be speaking Navajo to him, he said, cutting the blond off: "I'm sorry, I need to go."
For a moment, those blue eyes Sasuke thought registered a look of deep hurt, but only for a fleeting second. So fast, in fact, Sasuke was not quite sure if he had entirely made it up. He would find an explanation later; at the moment, he just… he just needed space.
As he walked past Naruto, he saw the blond raise his hand as if about to reach out to touch him again but thought better of it.
He walked to collect his coat, his head spinning. Gaara was nowhere to be seen as the noisy lyrics of a cat that was both dead and alive rose tumultuously above the noise of the throng of people who were clustered around the stage. Knowing his friend, he was likely either backstage by now or right at the front of the crowd, seemingly unaffected by the throbbing of the stage speakers, Sasuke made the decision to leave him be.
He would text him later; right now, he just needed to go.
Coat in hand, he made his way towards the exit, but a hand reached out to grab his elbow, and he spun around, startled. Sasuke would have thought it impossible that this night could have possibly become any worse, but he was, of course, proved wrong.
Hidan stood there grinning at him, tall, handsome, with dark mean eyes illuminated in the neon glow, that familiar predatory smirk on his face as he regarded Sasuke like a snake about to strike.
Fuck this night, Sasuke thought savagely, staring Hidan down and feeling resentment course through every fibre of his being. This was the last place on earth he had wanted to run into his abusive ex.
"Sasuke," Hidan greeted, his voice dripping with malicious intent. "You seem a bit out of sorts."
Sasuke opened his mouth, his mind clouded and panicked, a tumult of confusion. He remembered vividly the last time he had seen Hidan, as he had extricated himself from his flat. The bruises on his wrists and ankles from the dubious and not quite consensual intimate acts they had engaged in. It had been years, and yet there he was, still handsome as the day he had met him and standing with his head tilted to the side, regarding Sasuke as if he was a particularly tasty specimen of prey that had stumbled across his path.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Hidan gave a small amused snort, holding onto Sasuke's elbow tighter.
"I work at the hospital, idiot." He said, jerking his thumb behind them to indicate the enormous tertiary centre that stood a few blocks away from the bar.
Perhaps it was the distress from Itachi's message and the alcohol rendering him almost helpless, but he seemed unable to move away from Hidan as the man encroached on his personal space. His body shook as the memories of Hidan's abusive touch came flooding back. He was trapped in the moment, unable to break free.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked as the distance between them descended to millimetres. There was a malevolent pleasure in Hidan's eyes at the way Sasuke's body seemed to yield under pressure.
"You just look like you need some comfort."
Sasuke took a step back, and Hidan's gaze shifted past him, and a sinister glint appeared in his eyes. Sasuke turned slightly, following Hidan's line of sight, and caught a glimpse of Naruto Uzumaki standing a few paces behind him, a look of confusion on his face.
Without thinking, Sasuke turned and reached towards Naruto. There was an undeniable expression of hurt on the blond's face that he seemed to quickly mask with both surprise and uncertainty as Sasuke reached for his hand.
"Naruto and I were just leaving," the Uchiha said to Hidan defiantly, whose eyes lazily ran over the blond with some arrogant amusement.
A lazy smile twitched at the corner of Hidan's mouth. "Is that so? Did I mention your university was sponsoring our project? I guess I'll see you around."
Sasuke glowered at Hidan, aware of the heat rising from the blond's warm body, acutely conscious of the way Naruto was staring at him and saying nothing.
Hidan didn't bother to acknowledge Naruto further as Sasuke moved them both out the exit of the bar, his eyes following Sasuke's every movement as he went. Sasuke was acutely aware that adrenaline was dictating his body with no plan and no foresight.
Outside of the bar, Sasuke dropped Naruto's hand like a hot potato, looking about anxiously as if a suspicious Hidan had followed them out.
The blond looked at him. Even in the dim lighting, he was breathtakingly handsome, Sasuke thought. His blond choppy hair fell into those impossibly blue eyes, the scars on his cheeks illuminated by the street lamps.
"Look, I'm really – " Sasuke began, not knowing where to start. He felt trapped in this quagmire of emotions and lies.
"It's… it's okay," Naruto said after a moment. There was a peculiar countenance on his face that Sasuke did not recognize. "If you need me to be your pretend boyfriend, I can do that."
Sasuke opened his mouth and shut it again, dimly aware he could see Hidan leave the establishment with a group of other men standing outside lighting cigarettes.
He reached for Naruto's hand again, sure of the gaze that was following them.
Naruto turned around, his expression curiously blank as he regarded them.
"Okay," the blond said, turning to Sasuke with a strange expression in his eyes. "Let's go back to mine then."