Fish Bird
魚鳥
The air was filled with such contempt that it's practically palpable.
Sasuke wondered why Naruto is smiling at him like that, like it was all okay, like the figure to his left wasn't about to spring up and over table and bite him.
"You guys were just leaving, weren't you?" Naruto said cheerfully, abruptly and authoritatively standing up, surveying his friends. His cornflower blue eyes were almost artificially cheerful as he looked back into everyone's cynical expression. But there was something about the genuine twist of his mouth that made everyone soften slightly. A fantastic smile, flirtatious, reassuring and gratifying all at the same time.
The Hyuga girl got up first, blinking her pale eyes and brushing dark hair from around her face. She tapped the feral looking one on the shoulder the one that was giving the death glares. He twitched slightly and blinked: his amber eyes slid narrowed between him and Naruto, not giving an inch.
There was another one leaning back on the far sided chair near the door: he had an expression of lazy dislike clawing up one side of his mouth. But he moved when asked, nodding curtly at Naruto, exiting through the door that the Hyuga girl was holding open for him.
"Kiba," the girl said again. A softly authoritative voice, gentle persuavive tones punctuating it: "you promised you'd walk me home today."
She smiled warmly at Naruto and Kiba glanced back at her, head cocked to one side in a lightly inquisitive expression.
"I did?"
Both Hinata and Naruto nodded, the blond moving to open the door a little wider, "Yeah you did, it's a long walk and it'll get dark soon."
"Well if I promised," Kiba said pompously and threw out his chest. He leapt up from the table (not before giving Sasuke one of the filthiest looks he had ever received - Kiba's was impressive at those)
"Let's go shall we?"
He bounded out the door to join Shikamaru in the hallway, babbling about 'taking-Hinata-back-by-the-long-route-because-it's-so-much-prettier-that-way-and-will-you-please-hurry-up-Maru-you're-like-an-old-man!'
Naruto shook his head as Hinata giggled, it sent a pretty flush over the pale creamy complexion of her face, making her seem suddenly much more vivacious and alluring, but innocently so.
"Thanks…" he murmured quietly as Sasuke watched them, his own eyes narrowed. He didn't know why, but he felt slightly hot as he watched Naruto lean against his kitchen wall. All of his long limber body slanted as he supported his body with one outstretched hand his skeleton on an angle, his mouth was now close to Hinata and they seemed to be having a whispered conversation because she laughed again.
Sasuke didn't know why he wanted to watch the way Naruto's mouth moved, he just… did. He had never seen a mouth quite like it before, wide and tasty and beautifully expressive.
Kiba stuck his head around the door again, not missing the opportunity to throw Sasuke another filthy look, and asked 'If-they're-leaving-this-year-or-next-because-he-wants-to-know-what-the-hell-they-have-to-talk-about-anyway-and-Naruto-will-you-please-stop-taking-up-Hinata's-precious-time?'
Naruto and Hinata exchanged a look, and Naruto suggestively raised his eyebrows and leant forward to kiss Hinata on the cheek. Closing his eyes so his dark disarming lashes fluttered across her skin, then he pulled back again grinning like a fox as a delicate, rosy pink spread across her face. He winked at her as Kiba flared his nostrils (small wisps of fire could according to some witnesses be seen); snapped: "That's not funny!"; and snorted. Grabbing Hinata her by an arm, muttering obscenities under his breath, and gently navigating Hinata out into the hallway.
Naruto followed, still smiling. He paused by the door and gave Sasuke a quick glance over his shoulder as if the dark haired man was an afterthought.
"Do you mind just waiting for a quick second?" he asked, but didn't wait for an answer. The door swung shut.
Sasuke found himself looking at green oak panel work that clashed horribly with the bright orange stripe that lingered messily over the door-frame.
He blinked feeling almost uncomfortable, which is a huge feat for him because he made a habit never to feel uncomfortable: he had trained himself to make other people feel that way.
Vaguely he supposed that Naruto 'and co.' must be outside discussing him.
The feral one had certainly been giving out enough 'I hate you' and 'go die' vibes for him to choke on. He vaguely recognized all of them, although of their names he only had a fuzzy recollection of. Not that it mattered anyway, they're not really important.
Outside the dim noise of Naruto protesting that 'it'll be fine, that everything's fine and that everyone should just relax… yes tomorrow morning is okay, just you know… not too early.'
Sasuke rolled his eyes. Out of habit he bit the tip of his tongue between his teeth, it gave him an angry look reflected in the straight line of his mouth. He pulled his shoulders unnervingly straight and took a seat in one of the kitchen chairs.
The front door swung shut with a snap, and after half a moment's pause the door to the kitchen opened again, and Naruto ambled through, an easy distant smile on his face as he looked at Sasuke.
There was more than half the room between them as Naruto stopped. And yet it felt like several miles, as slight chill descended. He tossed his head to the side slightly, so that choppy golden trails of hair moved out of his eyes and gathered about his forehead.
Naruto licked his lips, looked down at his feet, and then up again at Sasuke and shrugged his shoulders as if at a loss for what to say.
He blinked, meeting Sasuke's interrogating glare head on.
For a moment Sasuke wondered if Naruto's eyes had always been that blue or if his memory had not done justice to the depth of colour that was contained within those irises.
"So, I guess you're hungry, yeah?" Naruto asked after the uncomfortable silence has swelled and dropped. The rhythm of nothingness seemed to pulse between them: Sasuke could feel it throbbing in his fingertips, and started to tap them across the table top.
Slowly, his eyes not moving from Naruto's, Sasuke Uchiha nodded.
Naruto turned around to the sink, presenting all of his broad wide back to dark young man's analytic gaze.
"You know," he continued, absolutely determined to keep the conversation flowing, "I made you breakfast earlier. I came up to tell you but I think you were asleep because you didn't answer. Mind you," he adds - laughing suddenly as he saw his reflection in the soapy water of the basin: fuzzy and distorted - "you always used to ignore everything I said when we were younger, so I don't know why I'd expect you to listen to me now."
Sasuke didn't say anything in return, and where Sasuke couldn't see him, Naruto pulled a face: not quite of annoyance, but of hard, gritting determination. This was harder than he had thought it was going to be.
But he will do this: he won't be cowed in any form or manner.
"Mind you," he pressed forwards, "I don't suppose you've moved since you got here yesterday evening. I didn't hear you get up anyway. Sleeping off the sedative I suppose."
He glanced over his shoulder at this, steam rising and swirling around his neck as he raised the lid off the stew pot.
Sasuke's gaze slipped from the high point on Naruto's shoulder. Smoky black eyes refusing to meet his own, the flushed petulant mouth is drawn down into a slight curve.
"They said it might take a couple of days to wear off," he said, turning back to the pot again.
"Is that all they said?"
Naruto blinked, his heart suddenly thumping deafeningly loudly in his ears. Hi fingertips halted mid-stretch for the wooden ladle.
It's the first time Sasuke's spoken to him for years.
And this is really the first time they've been in the same room together, with both of them conscious, coherent and able to partake in the conversation. Those times… those dreadful times in the hospital don't count. Not the ones where Sasuke had been lying strapped down to the bed, intubated and sedated.
For some reason, Naruto felt like crying; wrestled down a lump, which formed fast and spontaneously in his throat. He blinked furiously, teeth grating and bruising against the soft flesh of his lower lip.
It's not so much the coldness of the voice, riddled with anger: he was used to that. It was that the voice has changed so much that got to him. It's lower. Richer, somehow, like cold creamy coffee mixed with strong alcohol: so that it burns, searing hard and fast down your oesophagus.
He let his fingers fumble for a moment in mid-air, his hand curling over nothing. He briefly brougth it over his heart before leaning forwards again to begin dishing out the ramen. He used that easy false smile again as he turned round again, pushing chopsticks and a steaming bowl of noodles towards Sasuke, and took the seat opposite. Careful to draw the chair far out from under the table.
Sasuke looked at the bowl but didn't touch it.
There was an expression on his face which seemed to say: When the hell did you learn how to cook.
He looked expectantly up at Naruto again: he was not going to do anything until he got what he wanted.
Naruto ran the tip of his flexible tongue over his teeth, slouching slightly in the chair and rocking backwards. The leg maked a squeaking noise against the floor tiles. Sasuke's lip curled slightly at the sound in what Naruto assumed was annoyance.
"Well, yeah but, you already know the rest don't you? So, there's no point in me repeating it to you like a parrot when you know exactly what I am going to say."
Sasuke glared at him; his face is utterly deadpan. His features seemed to become a mask of irritation and heady dislike; it's only the glittering of his dark smoky eyes that reminded Naruto that he was in fact a living and breathing being.
The blonde youth found himself exhaling impatiently through tensed nostrils.
"God," he muttered, "you are just so… obstinate… do you know that? I think I liked you better when you were upstairs sleeping."
Sasuke didn't reply. He didn't have to. His face screamed his unrelenting willpower: 'Don't like it? Then get in line to bite me,' it said.
Growling in his throat Naruto clicked his jaw, one hand raking through his messy tangled stands of hair, ruffling them forwards and backwards, giving him that distinctly bedridden look.
For some reason the sudden slight change in appearance struck Sasuke like a physical blow. He realized for the first time that Naruto is older. And along with that comes the sexual awareness. His eyes skimmed across the stubborn jaw line that's flexing as his mouth poutede slightly, those blue eyes half lidded for a moment in thought before they opened wider. For a brief second, Sasuke found himself wondering how often he looked like that, and… who made him look like that.
"They told me… well, they told me a lot of things I don't understand, because a lot of it didn't make sense. But they told me that they couldn't do anything further for you… and that there were these." He pointed here to both of his wrists, and then to the centre of his chest: "And- and that they tried to remove them… but it… it nearly killed you… and that was when you wouldn't stop screaming…."
His voice trailed off, because he couldn't keep eye contact any longer, and his gaze fell to the table top as he contemplated the painful churning of his stomach that seemed to be turning cartwheels and somersaults at the memory.
There was a silence, and slowly Sasuke reached out across the table - determinedly not looking at Naruto as he did it - and took the bowl of ramen, he silently broke the chopsticks apart, and tentatively took a bite.
By the small fact that he didn't expel the contents right back out of his mouth again like projectile vomit, is as a compliment that his food is in Sasuke's opinion at least adequate.
It's a thank you… of sorts.
Naruto continued to talk.
"Sakura likes it when I make that for her too, and she's always careful about how much ramen she eats because she goes on and on about how it's going to make her fat, or something ridiculous like that. I remember I made it the first time at her apartment on her new cooker."
He laughed here easily for the first time, closing his eyes, a secret dimple revealing itself in his left cheek.
"It was so awful she threw contents of the bowl at me and accused me of trying to poison her. But don't worry: I've sorted it out now. I made that today only because Kiba wanted it, well that and to shut him up because he wouldn't stop yapping on about you."
Sasuke let himself look up at Naruto as he spoke, glad to see that he wasn't looking at him as he prattled on and on about nothing.
Sasuke wasn't really listening to the content, part of him was basking in the feeling the warm words were giving him. Part of him was puzzled, part of him didn't understand why.
With all the reasoning in the world it was only the logical conclusion that this should not be happening. It simply did not make sense to be this open with a person who had, well… proven themselves to be beneath deserving this attention from anyone. Even less the person he had screwed over and left as good as dead all those years ago.
But then the words caught, and Sasuke stopped eating, the feeling suddenly becoming bitter, then hot, and then livid.
"I mean, I understand why they'd think that," Naruto was saying, looking at the fruit bowl and rearranging the apples, "but like I said, you really aren't that much of a threat if you can't use chakra. I mean I doubt you could take out a twelve-year-old like you are now, which is a laugh really seeing as you left of some ridiculous mission to get stronger anyway, and imagine, you end up back here again weaker then you were before."
He stopped; a word half formed on his tongue as he caught Sasuke's expression.
The violent explosion inside those dark, intoxicating inky irises washed over him like a thunderstorm. The look jars in his mind, and he felt like the hunted facing the predator again as fear rooted him to the spot. His hands clenched the rim of the chair very tightly and his heart beat frantically in his chest as Sasuke stood up, in a violent and swift movement.
How is he so tall?
He towered over Naruto as he picked up the ramen bowl… and hurtled it at him.
Naruto had barely enough time cover his face with his arms and hands before the hot soup and noodles burnt into his skin and soaked into his clothes. His body seemed to drip adrenaline and his insides felt slightly frenetic, as he lowered his arms from his face a fraction, only to see Sasuke glaring down at him with such hostile intent that Naruto has no doubt that Sasuke would have killed him then and there if he could.
Slowly, too sinisterly to be elegant but smoothly, Sasuke leant so his face was close to Naruto's, those arching quixotic eyes seemed to burn into his skull seeing right through to the other side.
Naruto could feel the tickling hot rivulets of Sasuke's breath colliding with the soft skin of his temple and forehead.
For a brief second as Naruto looked up, he found himself thinking how beautiful Sasuke was when he was angry: he always thought so.
Skin like molten marble radiating rage that was reflected in pitiless eyes, eyes he could never quite decide the colour of. They're so much more angular than his; thick lashes like the dark wings of a raven, feathered and branched. The expression like that of a wild animal… like a panther, rippling muscles flexing, white teeth bared, ready to leap and strike with all the precision and merciless violence of a wild cat.
Sasuke's lip drew back in a savage snarl as he hissed down at Naruto, who reacted as if he had been struck.
"Fuck off."
Naruto felt the clang of the door in his ribcage as Sasuke slammed the door behind him and listened to the ascent of his footsteps. A full two minutes after Sasuke has disappeared upstairs, that Naruto feels his body relax out of its tensed position.
Slowly, mind a bit numb to what has just happened, he lowered his arms which have been hovering around his chest. The sockets in his shoulders ached.
Absently he picked a noodle from his hair and the bridge of his nose, looking down at the floor at the broken blue china that lay scattered around the legs of the table and chair.
Sakura had done this too, Naruto admitted.
"But at least," he said out loud no nobody in particular - there where a good deal of kitchen utensils that could be listening - "at least she said 'sorry'."
It was a two-floor apartment, with only six rooms and that's including the entrance hallway. So really it shouldn't be that easy to avoid someone inside the walls of it. Quite the opposite in fact, at least, Naruto imagined that to be the case.
He was of course wrong.
Sasuke Uchiha was more stubborn than he had initially given him credit for: since the disaster with the ramen he had taken to 'his' bedroom and not stepped a foot outside it.
They hadn't spoken, hadn't walked past each other - hell they hadn't even made eye contact since.
Not for want of trying though. Naruto had stood outside the door, calling in, (because he knew Sasuke was in there: he couldn't really go anywhere else at present.)
He wanted to say sorry but the arrogant prick wouldn't answer him. Yesterday he had shouted himself hoarse, although why he had been shouting he was unsure: he knew that Sasuke could hear like a bat. He stood with hands on hips in the hallway, tapping his feet irritably and asked Sasuke if he could come in (into his own bedroom in his house) to apologize. Although why he was trying to apologize was beyond him.
No reply, no nasty sarcastic demeaning comment.
Nothing.
Being ignored filled Naruto with such a rage he eventually he slammed out of his apartment and walked around the outside of the building, glaring at Sasuke's window; noting it was slightly open, curtain fluttering in a gentle breeze.
'Don't do it' the little voice in his head said that sounded a lot like Shikamaru.
He did of course, do it.
Fuming, and ignoring the bemused looks from passers-by, he climbed up the wall. If that was necessary for them to start talking again, he would just have prize the window open, jump into the room and beat the crap out of Sasuke.
What had actually happened was that Sasuke waited until Naruto's finger tips were clinging onto the sill for support… before slamming the window shut on them.
The screaming could be heard on the other side of Konoha.
Naruto spent the rest of the day with his hands in a bowl of ice water, each finger supported by an individual splint just so he wouldn't keep knocking them on everything and anything. Hinata fussed over him, adding ice periodically to the water to keep his burning joints cool as they healed.
Kiba was too angry to notice this, fuming anyway in the corner like a kettle having been denied his request to go "Rip-Sasuke's-Head-from-his-Shoulders-It-Will-ONLY-TAKE-A-MINUTE." By Shikamaru who had strong armed and man-handled him into a chair, threatening to call Shino if he did not behave himself.
In truth Naruto believed Shikamaru was inclined to this idea as well, although he seemed disapproving: he had been aiming fearsomely dark looks at the ceiling whenever he thought the blond wasn't looking.
It had been a long day.
That evening Naruto had sat in the kitchen alone after the others had gone back, his eyes fixed on the clock. The minutes ticked and the hands chimed the hour, but Sasuke didn't come down for food. Snarling to himself about Stubborn Jackasses, Naruto had irritably tipped his food unceremoniously onto a tray, (rice balls this time,) swearing creatively all the way up the stairs. He kicked on Sasuke's door, once, twice, three times.
He yelled, "Your stupid food is outside your stupid door!"
Like a child he then slammed off into his own bedroom to fume.
Sometime later he had been lying on his bed reading a comic when he heard Sasuke's bedroom door open – only a fraction at first, then slightly more, before it swung open and someone stepped lightly into the hallway.
Naruto didn't need to strain his ears for the sounds; the fox gave him better hearing than most. His fingers paused in turning the page of his comic book. He was tempted, sorely tempted to rip open his own door and go charging down the corridor and call Sasuke several… unrepeatable names. But he shouldn't, and he resisted the urge, however powerful it may have been.
The door clicked shut again and Naruto let out a long exhale, unaware that he had been holding his breath. He rolled off the bed, landing expertly on his feet and tossing his comic somewhere on the floor.
He found himself sitting by the side of the bed, head propped back against the side of the mattress, humming absently.
There was a picture in a frame propped up on the windowsill that his eyes fell on, light stippling across it from underneath the blinds.
They had taken it on his eighteenth, which would explain why it's slightly lopsided, having being set up on self-timer with a not-so-sober Kiba.
Strictly speaking, it had been a hula-hula-dancing Kiba with sake still dripping from his hair.
Naruto found himself staring at it for a moment. He recalled clearly how Sakura had dragged him back to her apartment after he was no longer in a fit state to walk, and he had fallen curled up against her.
He still felt a little numb when he thought about her. She had been gone for three weeks, and he had been finding it hard to sleep recently. Although that might be for a number of reasons as Shikamaru aptly kept pointing out such as 'stress, anxiety, or simply (and his favourite one) stupidity'.
Kiba suggested, a little more -or less- helpfully, Naruto didn't quite know, that he is of course sexually frustrated.
He did miss Sakura. He missed her a lot like a hole in his chest.
He'd known her since throughout his childhood, and it was weird to not get up in the mornings to run out the door and find her waiting for him. And it was weird to not then be bashed over the head for either being late or looking like he's just rolled out of bed (technically he had done just that but she didn't need to know about the little details).
He liked it best when he could turn over in the middle of the night to find her sleeping, forehead pressed against the turn of his shoulder, thumb close to her mouth. He had caught her sucking it a few times although she never admitted to it. (But it's so cute!) Oddly enough thinking about it now, he even missed it her kicking him out of bed and then telling him to make her breakfast with an impish grin on her face, as she rolled snugly underneath the covers again. Not minding if he fell with his legs up in the air and his head on the floor.
What Naruto liked about being with Sakura is that he was completely comfortable around her. With Sakura there was never a feeling that the world might collapse in like a black hole; no pretending he has to be someone else. With Sakura he never had the feeling of being alone.
He'd never… it's not a…he would die for her in a heartbeat. She's Sakura, she was beautiful. He'd always known that.
He had once asked Iruka what it meant to be in love, his brown-haired senior had looked contemplatively into his bowl of ramen as they ate at Ichiraku together.
"Love is complex." He had said, "Love is a lot of different things to different people. But a relationship should ideally be a place of safety where you aren't afraid to be yourself and where you support each other to become better people."
Naruto and Sakura were not always so close. He thought she had despised him at one point, prior to Sasuke leaving. But then a lot of things were different before Sasuke left.
A lot of things have changed.
Naruto let himself slip further down onto the floor.
Things were confusing now. There was an uncomfortable hole of guilt in the pit of his stomach.
He really shouldn't be worried about it. When they were kids and he and Sasuke would blow up at each other about once a week, often more, Kakashi-sensei would just look at them nonchalantly whilst they tried to punch each other's brains out and turn a page of his book. Until things got bloody that was. Then he was legally required to step in.
Naruto found himself grinning at that distant memory… in his mind's eye he could see himself and Sasuke yelling at each other from opposite ends of the room until they were both hoarse:
"I hate you!"
"Well… I hate you more!"
Naruto laughed, drawing his knee's up to his chest and resting his chin snugly on his caps. He knew how to deal with that Sasuke. Try to knock him for six, end up on his back, blood in his mouth and staring up into gloating grey eyes… 'til one of them gave in and began to laugh.
He doesn't knowhow to deal with this version of Sasuke. It's like he's jumped the stream and landed in the ocean chugging down salt water (which he's only ever done once before and it's friggin' unpleasant) …way out of his depth.
Now he is older and no longer boyish. If there was ever an innocence about Sasuke Uchiha he's lost it, or at least Naruto thought so: there was no hint of a smile about his mouth and his eyes were cold and as unyielding as a stone statue. He might as well be made out of marble from the way Naruto could read him, and about as bendable as a china.
How are you supposed to connect with someone who gives you as much leeway as a pebble?
It's not that he was giving up. It would take far more than this to push Naruto Uzumaki away, believe it! But it was more the fact that no matter how he looked at it, he just couldn't see a way around it. When Sasuke was in the hospital, at least then all Naruto could do was hope that things would get better. That when he was properly conscious they could at least, you know….
Talk.
He sighed, wondering vaguely what Sakura would do in his position. It was rather depressing to think that everything would probably be a lot easier. For example, she would have known not to natter on about inconsequential obscenities, and he doubted very much that Sasuke would have blown up at her. Sasuke had never blown up at Sakura, because he probably had a soft spot for her or something disgusting like that.
Naruto found himself frowning darkly at the idea of this, a quick spike of something flaring in his stomach that he supposed was anger. Sasuke had never picked on Sakura the way he had on Naruto, never ever, despite the fact that in their youth she used to hassle him much more than he had done. Or maybe it was just hassling in a different way.
He let himself slip down even lower, so he was practically lying on his back, forced to stare up at the slats of his bedstead.
He really should write to Sakura… she'll be pissed otherwise, and he did promise. Even if she'll probably write back along the lines of "Naruto, your handwriting is akin to that of a drunken spider with the vocabulary of a pre-schooler. I can't understand a single line of it!"
If he wrote her a very long letter she'd take great joy of picking everything out all of his grammatical errors and drumming it into his head that he should separate out his sentences with a comma ("because comma's are you friends!") and something very tedious about expanding his vocabulary…. It would give her something to do though, even if he wrote her the line: I miss you – several hundred times over. He was tempted.
Deliberating on it now, Naruto didn't think he could tell Sakura about Sasuke. It would be too complicated. She'd probably (most likely) come charging back from wherever the hell she was, despite the fact she'd made such an enormous fuss about going in the first place.
She'd kick his ass, then Shikamaru's ass, then Kiba's ass... and then she'd turn on Sasuke and… and….
Naruto didn't like to think about it really. She'd probably tell him he "only did this because she was away," …which might in a sense be true, but Naruto wouldn't admit this to himself. He was not going to admit that to anyone how afraid he was of ending up alone again, least of all to Sasuke.
He let himself doze for a moment, thinking about nothing in particular.
It was pleasantly warm on his bedroom floor and he could hear the pipes for the central heating whistling away downstairs in the airing cupboard as if his apartment was singing to him.
He smiled for no reason: a curious, disarming expression that made him simultaneously older as it did younger.
Then he heard the door across the hallway open, very quietly as if the person opening it didn't want to make a noise, and Naruto abruptly sat up.
He did this a little too immediately, because the top of his head collided with the wooden slatted bedstead and brilliant flashes of white stars go sporadically before his eyes as he yelped.
He ignored the prominent throbbing as he jumped up and crossed the room, yanking the door open and sticking his head cautiously out of the door. The only thing that had changed since he last checked was the fact that the tray was now empty.
Naruto felt the first hot sparks of anger fizzling through his chest. He didn't know why he's so irritated, he just was. He really, really, really was.
Maybe it was just the audacity of someone who was staying in his house when he didn't have to. Staying out of his own courtesy, and to just being so goddamned rude about it. Maybe was the fact that Sasuke had eaten the food and not said thank you.
And maybe, most likely of all, it was the fact that it was Sasuke doing all of this to him.
Sasuke who he had always craved attention from.
Sasuke who he had endlessly chased.
Naruto stormed out the room, barely containing himself; he felt like he was going to explode all over the place. One huge messy splodge, everywhere. He wanted desperately to vent, and suddenly it seemed a wonderful idea to implant his fist through the wall. Except that would be stupid because Sakura was not here to yell at him to clean it up and then magically fix it herself.
He slammed his foot against Sasuke's door, not caring if the neighbours heard; god the whole goddamned village could hear it for all he cared.
Naruto opened his mouth as his foot connected with the wood, preparing his throat for more yelling, when the door shuddered and flew open. It crashed ear splittingly into the opposite wall. The brass handle connecting with the plaster at high-speed and the two meshed together. And suddenly there was a gaping indent in the paintwork.
"Oh shit." Naruto muttered to himself, hands still stuck adamantly in pockets, as he eyed up the wall and felt suddenly guilty. He hadn't intended for that to have happened. He had thought the door to be still locked, like it was all of yesterday and this morning. He felt his face grow hot.
A little on edge and somewhat startled, he steped into the room.
His first thought was that it wasn't as dark as it was before. The curtains were drawn but the blinds were pulled all the way up. It also struck him that the room is obscenely tidy, unnaturally so: all the surfaces were empty, the draws of the dresser firmly closed and the wardrobe shut. The mirror too, sat at an exact angle, reflecting the opposite wall.
Naruto gulped.
He had tidied, or rather Hinata had tidied the room for him, when he'd originally proposed that Sasuke should stay with him. But she hadn't put everything away. There had been a print on the wall that Iruka had given him for his seventeenth birthday of a mountain landscape, (along with some appreciated ramen vouchers) but it looked like that had been ripped from the wall. Several things suddenly struck Naruto as he looked about him. There was a bowl on the dresser full of interestingly shaped pinecones that he, Hinata, Kiba and Sakura had all found one day when out on a mission together. The bowl and the pinecones seem to have disappeared somewhere. The picture of himself and Sakura that Ino had candidly taken of them holding hands as they had walked back together from a festival, that had gone too.
Naruto opened his mouth to ask why but then found himself searching for Sasuke: Sasuke whom he'd imagined would have been standing in front of him looking angry, hissing venom and ready to kick him the hell out again.
But instead he found Sasuke lying on the bed, clad simply in a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans looking up at the ceiling as if he hasn't noticed that Naruto has entered at all.
All of a sudden, Naruto couldn't quite make out whether the emotion sprawling through his gut was anger or fear.
He licked his lips and chanced it. It was the only tactic he knew; he might as well try it.
"Why are you such a pig-headed asshole?"
There.
No preamble, no pretend niceties, no looking headways or sideways. Just plunge straight in.
Sasuke's head moved a fraction. Not enough to see him, but movement at least was an acknowledgment. He was still however staring at the ceiling, hair in rumpled thick strands around his face, as if he had been running his fingers through it over and over again.
Naruto noticed the bandages around his wrists are no longer present, and he frowned. The skin was red and irritated as if he had been scratching at those Things and sharp little stabs of panic clawed at his insides.
"Hey," he continued, and this time he advanced again, wooden floorboards creaked slightly under his feet. "I'm talking to you."
Hang on, hadn't he come in here to apologise?! Well that had gone out of the window pretty fast.
Smokey grey eyes found his, cold and flat. The mouth moved, working into an expressionless face.
"Are you now?"
Sasuke didn't move from the bed, in fact his body didn't move at all, not in the slightest. His long legs were tilted slightly at an odd angle, as if the heels and ankles were too painful to put weight on.
Naruto found himself biting his lower lip. He felt anxious for reasons unbeknownst to him, this all felt dangerous.
It was like wading waist deep through quick sand the constant threat of being dragged down into dark inescapable depths.
He swallowed his pride, or what was left of it anyway.
"I wanted to, you know… about the other day."
Sasuke's gaze didn't flicker, and Naruto had a horrible feeling that he could see right out and through the back of his head. Gaara once looked at him in that way, and the consequences were…well…
The words lose themselves on the tip of his tongue as he began to form them, skidding into nothingness; and he backtracked fumbling, and changed the subject.
Why did Sasuke have this uncanny ability to always make him feel so clumsy?
"What are you doing?"
This question was rewarded with a snarl. Sasuke turned his head so he was once again staring at the ceiling, ignoring Naruto.
But Naruto was an expert at being dogged, it was his speciality. He pulled out the chair from beside the wardrobe, span it backwards and then sat on it, arms folded over the back.
Sasuke didn't even look at him. Just said in quiet dangerous soft tones : "Get the hell out."
Naruto squared his shoulders, "Stuff that, this is my flat and technically my bedroom."
"Fine, I'll leave then."
Sasuke made to get up, even though it looked like it cost him some effort to move, he hid it well. Only by looking at the unhealthy paleness of his skin, Naruto can tell: he is fairer than ivory and twice as cold.
"You can't leave," Naruto told him simply. "There are boundaries outside the windows, the doors, the whole building… you can't cross them because you know… you can't use chakra."
For an instant Sasuke looked at him, and his eyes flashed suddenly with an intense… something, before everything went still again and there was only the dull throbbing of his heart inside his chest as the valves opened and closed to the same monotonous rhythm.
Then that cold condescending smile formed all the way across the beautiful flush of Sasuke's lips, and his eyes narrowed as he laughed. The tones chilled Naruto as he sat, trying to maintain his cool, but it was costing him effort.
"So, this is it, is it?"
Naruto frowned at Sasuke, genuinely not understanding the question.
"So, what is what?"
Sasuke sat on the edge of the bed, feet touching the floor, and again Naruto marvelled at how pale he was. Like torn ivory, he seemed to bleed away into the black he wore loosely over his physique, as contrasting as blood against snow.
He leant forwards a fraction from the hips, those eyes with thick feathery lashes seeming to extract Naruto's soul and examine it at his leisure.
"You and me. What is this? Some sort of game?"
"Game? You think this is a game? What are you, sick or something?"
"Maybe, but I'm wondering why you brought me here in the first place. Why with you? Surely you should have learnt after last time Naruto, you can't change people. You can't stop them from becoming what they are."
"And I suppose you think you're a living example of this do you? Just because you gave up Sasuke, that doesn't mean everybody does, just because you were w-"
Naruto bit his tongue. He was about to say because you were weak, but that would have gone down as successfully as a ton of bricks. Yet he thought… no, he knew Sasuke can second guess his movements as well as predict them, he was always oh, so very good at that.
Sasuke raised his thumb to his mouth. He bit the tip of the nail, mouth forming something that Naruto wouldn't, can't call a smile, because it's far too ominous. It was almost debasing but for some reason he couldn't tear his eyes away from it.
Like a spiral, he fell straight down.
"It's ironic, isn't it?" Sasuke said, and the words were phrased softly like the calm before the storm; and Naruto found himself cursing his short explosive temper.
Sasuke was drawing his own rage out with a frightening amount of patience, like a spider spinning silken threads to make a deadly web. Sasuke was angry, murderously angry, and he could see that in every line of his body.
"How dare you sit there and judg-"
"I'm not judging you Sasuke." Naruto interruptted him quickly, this is fast sliding into an argument which was the last thing he wanted, but it was so hard to remain level headed when his own temperature seemed to be soaring and the Uchiha was attacking him from every side and every possible angle with lethal accuracy.
"Then what is this? Pity? Because if it is, Naruto, I'll tell you what you can do with it."
"Why," Naruto asked, standing up, skin flushed, "must you turn everything into an fight, or a threat, or something equally horrible? Why must you look at everything like that? You can see that I don't want to do it!"
"Because that's how everything is." His eyes were perfectly indifferent as he said it. He believed the words he was saying - Naruto could tell he's was not lying, he was not even goading him. This is how in his mind, in his world, things worked.
"There's no such thing as happiness. People get what they want from the suffering of others, happiness is a selfish thing," he scoffed.
"You know that Naruto, better than most I should imagine. People blame and ignore what they don't want to see, because it makes them feel better."
"No they… well they don't anymore. It's different… it's changed."
The words were spoken in defence, heatedly; teeth gritted and jaw clenched.
"Really?"
The response was laced with lazy sarcasm.
"Do they now? Do all of them think differently? Do none of them hold it against you Naruto? All of this, this silly pretence of friendship and independence… this… this place?" And he jerked his head to the side indicating the apartment.
"It's all changed has it? For the better? And what about Sakura? She hasn't been around has she? What's the matter Naruto, afraid to tell your girlfriend the truth, that you let the traitor back into your life again? Or afraid that I'll tell her the truth about you?"
"How do you know…how do you know about me and Sakura?" Naruto asked, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth and he was unaware of the fact that his hands were clenched, knuckles white and shaking.
Sasuke didn't answer, he simply narrowed his grey eyes at Naruto viciously.
"Or are you," and this bit was accentuated maliciously, "afraid that if she sees me, she'll forget all about you? She always did have a thing for me now that I think about it. A stupid school girl's crush."
"Shut up." Naruto's was angry he could hardly see straight. He had to blink back bubbles of white-hot rage that seem to be popping and colliding inside his mind.
In his mind he wanted to scream: 'You never realized how lucky you were to be so easily accepted… so easily loved… and you never tired. You never tired, not even once.' But the words died in his throat as their eyes locked together, a suffocating shroud.
"So tell me…" He let the words fall and rise on the heavy silence between them, assertions sizzling between them like millions of tiny needles.
Sasuke pushed them in deeper, simply because he could, because he was angry at himself and all the world. But mostly he was angry at Naruto for being so blind and thinking after all this time that he could still change things.
That at the end of the tunnel there is still light.
"What's it like fucking her then?"
Naruto went pink and then he went white with rage. That was infinitely more dangerous.
"Shut the fuck up Sasuke." he managed, but it was hardly above a whisper, so great was his concentration to not launch himself at Sasuke and drive him head first through the wall.
"You wouldn't- you'd never knew, you never ever loved anyone besides yourself, you've never had-have any friends. You have no right to ask me that- or see her… ever. And why anyone would want to see you is beyond me."
Finally was Naruto getting the point?
"And so," Sasuke was still smiling that haunting smile, like death in flesh and supple fingers. "She swapped the traitor for the monster, did she?"
The silence is so heavy it crashes over both of their heads.
"Monster…" Naruto mouthed the word in barely above a whisper, his blue eyes wide with such a soul wrenching hurt Sasuke felt something inside himself move and stir in anguish.
Naruto stood there for a moment, swallowing what felt like is his tongue, before he turned blinking out of the room. He stood in the corridor light headed and shaking all over; his hand resting on the wall, heart pumping frantically in his chest as he waited for the world to stop spinning.
The door swung shut by itself and Sasuke found himself slipping down onto the floor where he put his head between his legs, and tried to swallow down the bile that his stomach was threatening to hurtle up through his oesophagus.
Desperately, with every fibre of his being he wanted to go after Naruto. So succumb to the urge to tell him that he is lying, that he didn't- never meant it….
That he'd never considered him a monster and neither, to his knowledge had Sakura. But he can't, he knows he can't, reason pulls him down and force him to sink, and he gulped down the very human impulse to suddenly start crying.
If Naruto never spoke to him again it would make everything much easier.
If Naruto never looked at him again it would be much better.
It would be much simpler if he didn't miss him already, or hate himself for doing it.
Much, much easier.
Naruto wrestles stubbornly but it's no good.
Sasuke pushes him down and under him, back forced roughly against the hard solid stone beneath them. He's smiling down at him, strands of hair trickling around his face, framing the slender shape.
"Got you," he murmurs quietly, mouth close to Naruto's ear, and it sends shivers up his spine.
Naruto doesn't know how the game started but he knows how it ends: already Sasuke is making his way down from his neck to his collar bones, a hot searing trail that causes his breath catch jerkily in his throat.
For some reason, he rolls. He moves his body up and over, so that he's lying on top; long legs and hips pressing into his abdomen as he brandishes his own fox like smile. The whisker-like scars in his cheeks are dark and deep in the dim light.
"You suppose too much," Naruto hoarsely replies, cornflower blue eyes half closed. His heart is racing and he's exhilarated; he can't remember when he felt this perfect. This goddamned… good.
Sasuke's fingers, pale, elegant and long, ghost across his chest. A possessive, engulfing gaze is locking onto every atom in his body, and Naruto's breath hitches again. His body prickles in anticipation as Sasuke pulls him forwards, tongue and teeth clicking and colliding together. Hot wet mouths: pushing and feeling, tasting, being tasted, fighting and surrendering, merging, connecting. The tip of Sasuke's tongue strokes the insides of Naruto's mouth, which lets out a gentle moan into the kiss.
He can't care about anything anymore as a hand, fingertips cold, brushes as close as a whisper across the smooth skin of his back, gliding up underneath his t-shirt.
Sasuke leans back from the kiss and Naruto finds himself groaning at the loss, turning his face into Sasuke's jaw, taking in the smell, slightly sweet, slightly sharp, like citrus. His fingers curl around the lean arms in front of him and he finds himself rolled over, being pushed under again, someone coaxing him to spread his legs.
Except he doesn't. And the warm feeling he's chasing after seems to flicker and fade, and he wants to sit up, wants to stop, because he suddenly realizes how ridiculous this is. He'll end up being hurt again, lost and pushed aside.
He pushes against Sasuke's chest, and lifting his face finds vibrant grey eyes, slivered like a mirror and twice as smooth, looking down reflectively into his own. It's the look that reads him, reminds him, controls him; thrusts him down harder, faster, over and over again.
He's trapped.
"No." he says and he's surprised at how normal his voice sounds on the thick tepid air. He watches the flushed mouth above him, red and parted from all the kisses. It draws back slightly and he can see the tip of canines sparkling and white inside of the gloom.
"No?" and the word is pushed back at him like a question. Sasuke leans in lower, powerful muscular shoulders like a great cat's, covering him. Warm hands are moving over his own where they push against Sasuke's chest, no longer firm, almost limp, feeling the heat of naked skin against hard fingertips.
His arms are thrust up and over his head, making him gasp, pinning their bodies together. Flat on his back, wide eyes looking up, damn straight up, into orbs that hovers inches above his own.
Naruto swallows his heartbeat.
Sasuke's eyes seem to laugh into his own, an unfathomable laugh, teasing and dangerous.
One hand slips down to Naruto's abdomen, delicately touching sensitive skin that shudders; and Naruto follows, hips lifting slightly as Sasuke toys. The neck of the blond flexes back into the firm ground beneath him. His eyes roll back as the hands ghost lower… and lower… cold fingertips burning his flesh.
Sasuke places his mouth against the hollow behind Naruto's ear, hot breath like a steaming breeze, voice silky and deeply melodious, as he tells Naruto that he wants it… he wants it.
It's Naruto's realization. The realization is that exactly. He does want, and he wants all of it. He wants Sasuke right now with an addictive craving that seems to grip and scrape at the hot seething of his insides; inside his chest, inside his stomach…. Everything's so strange, he doesn't know anything but he feels it. He feels it when his body arches into Sasuke, hard, muscular, graceful and beautiful and yet masculine. Common sense goes sprawling to place that doesn't exist, and everything is dark red and blurred. He can't think straight with those hands on him, devious and doing things he never thought to be possible; and it feels so…. Very. Good… Sinfully so.
And then, as he turns his mouth, seeing clearly for the first time as Sasuke traces the line of it with his tongue, he sees exactly how it is, and what he wants. And more to the point what he doesn't want.
He looks up, hair sticking sweaty across his forehead, tanned skin flushed and blood pumping so fast inside his veins. "I want you," he murmurs, and the words cost him no effort and no reflection. He watches as Sasuke's mouth moves into a line of something not unlike triumph, followed by carnal pleasure.
Fingers move up into Naruto's hair, releasing his wrists, which fall limply to his sides to feel the ground beneath him as it seems to move.
Naruto opens his mouth, eyes closed as butterfly kisses trail over his temple and forehead. His tongue darts out and wets his lips, and he inhales deeply, taking in the smell, musky, sharp and sweet all at once.
"Sasuke," he breathes, before he looses his mind, before the world goes out of focus into a multicoloured haze:
"I want you, but I don't need you."
There is a pause… a stinging silence, and then the fingers in his hair become painful, applying pressure as his head as it is wrenched upwards, so he's staring into the eyes of a predator, dark, deadly and enamouring.
Neither smoky grey or inky black.
Fear itches across his body as Sasuke withdraws a hand and hits him.
At two o'clock in the morning Naruto sat up in bed abruptly, his body was covered in a cold film of sweat as his heart jumped erratically in his chest. He could still feel Sasuke's body against his own, his hands, his limbs, his touch, and he shivered from the base of his spine.
He stumbled blindly out of bed in the darkness, his hands fumbled for the bathroom door, which he opened and closed noiselessly behind him.
He was going to take long cold shower… and maybe drown himself in it.