Yumi took a detour en route to Naruto's apartment. The sky was just getting dark, and the cicadas were chirping as she heaved the bags over one shoulder and then the other. She was curious about who had been the caller on the phone and jumped across the cracks in the pavement, tucking some stray strands of curling brown hair behind her ear. The moon was rising just beyond the mountain as she made her way towards the twirling steps that led up to the apartment on the fourth floor.
It was a nice place, this apartment, Yumi thought, as she ran her hands across the iron-railing bar. Poor Naruto, though, living here all alone, waiting for his Sakura-chan to come back... or not come back, as the case might be.
She had heard rumours that they had had an argument just before Sakura had left. Something about marriage, a friend had told her. Yumi personally had never been able to stand Sakura much: all that short strawberry hair, green eyes, and that attitude. But regardless, Naruto had been besotted with her ever since Yumi had known him.
Silly boy. Very silly boy. However, Yumi was one of many basing their views on the relationship on general gossip.
Other people younger than her found the blue-eyed, blonde-haired wonder attractive, especially after he had grown out of that annoying habit of saying "Believe it!" every two and a half seconds.
Yumi jogged up the last few steps and stood on the welcome mat, punching the doorbell. She had this funny feeling that she was being followed, but every time she turned her head to check, she corrected herself. Although, on one occasion, she did see a wisp of trailing white hair disappearing behind a building… but she assumed it to be the neighbour's small terrier dog.
A few seconds later, she heard someone clatter down the stairs and skid into the hallway.
"Delivery!" she called through the door, and out of habit, she ran three fingers through her dark curls and licked her lips in apprehension of the mysterious character inside Naruto's apartment.
The door opened, and Yumi held both bags in front of her, opening her mouth to chant the accustomed: "Ichiraku, thank you very much! We look forward to doing business with you again!"
...But she only got over the first few syllables of 'Ichiraku,' so it sounded more like "I-chi-u-huh?" as someone with beautiful dark hair that swept across his face, a slim dark figure and pale skin, like torn ivory, bleeding contradiction up to almond-shaped and slanted ebony eyes.
The young man placed some money in one of her stunned outstretched hands and then, from within the doorway, reached out for the ramen bags.
Yumi's mind whirred, fizzled, and calculated. She never forgot a face, not one as distinctive as this, and as the young man's eyes reluctantly met hers, the truth dawned.
"Uchiha..." she stammered and took three short steps backwards, "Sasuke Uchiha!" Yumi's voice rose into a short-strangled scream.
An S-rank criminal! What the hell was he…? Had he killed Naruto? What was he doing here!? God, was he going to kill her?
"I-urgh," the man burbled, giving her an alarmed look as if something very obvious had just dawned on him.
He looked a little sick as she pointed a finger at him and screamed: "What have you done to Naruto? Why are you here? Everyone said you were dead!"
The young man swallowed. If possible, his skin turned even paler as Yumi dropped the ramen bags and prepared to pelt down the stairs.
"I- I'm not Sasuke Uchiha!" he yelled at her, panicking at the ruckus she had begun to make, eyes darting left and right to see if she had caused any of the neighbours to peer curiously out of their bedroom windows.
"I JUST LOOK LIKE HIM!"
Yumi stared at him, dumbfounded at the top of the stairs, murmuring, "Oh right..." not without her own ample dash of sarcasm, and fled down the spiralling steps. Her footsteps clanged and clattered, and then echoed into the gathering darkness before they faded out altogether.
"Oh shit," muttered Sasuke Uchiha, leaning grumpily against the doorpost. The ramen bags had been dumped no less than half a metre away from Naruto's front door. Tentatively, he poked his little finger half a millimetre outside the boundary and snarled as the condensation of blue sparks descended painfully on the tip.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
If he ever thought before that he had done something ridiculous, this must surely take the cake and eat it too, Sasuke judged moodily. His ears were burning with the very indignity of it. "Just wait!" he muttered, "Just wait until Naruto wakes up. I'll kill him!"
Sasuke jammed his back harder against the lintel of the doorpost, giving the umbrella another aggressive swing; finally catching the food bags by their plastic handle loops.
Hah! Victory….
With a careful tug, the bags came sliding across the smooth wooden walkway, and Sasuke prayed that no one on the street below was watching him doing… whatever the hell this was.
Fishing for ramen with an umbrella, that's what.
With his luck, Sasuke imagined it likely that someone in the apartment opposite was leaning out their window, binoculars in hand and an incredulous gawping expression on their face, like a wet fish. And Sasuke had had enough of that expression for one day.
As soon as the bags were over the lintel of Naruto's front door, he dragged them fiercely inside and slammed the door shut. A little too vigorously, as some of the paint cracked and fell onto the welcome mat, only to be scowled at before the Uchiha turned and stomped (there really was no other way to describe it) all the way up the stairs and into Naruto's bedroom. He forgot he was still holding the umbrella in his left hand like a sword, swinging the plastic bags as if they were bludgeons.
As the door opened, Naruto shifted and rose into consciousness as the dream he had been having burst. His head felt as though it was made of cotton wool, and his tongue rasped like sandpaper over the roof of his mouth. He winced painfully as Sasuke brought light into the room with him, standing for a fraction of a second in the archway, and Naruto thought it was an almost nervous expression that lingered there for a moment.
Ideas and thoughts began to bubble in his mind, linking with memories. Wait, hadn't they just been arguing? Not that that was new… but outside, in the hallway? And then later, down the stairs? Why was he in here? Semi-naked? ...And in... in Sasuke Uchiha's bed?
Naruto scrambled, head ringing like a bell, to get up and out of the covers, but found himself cornered and almost speared on the end of an umbrella— a purple umbrella at that. It looked suspiciously like the one downstairs in his umbrella stand.
"Don't you dare," the Uchiha growled down at him, dark eyes glimmering but cheeks retaining a blush of pale pink, as though he was flustered about something.
The umbrella pushed him unmercifully in the chest, backwards and downwards, and Naruto —facing umbrella skewering— meekly complied.
As he licked his lips tentatively and backed down, cornflower blue eyes slightly glassy and somewhat bleary, he asked in a cracked voice:
"How-how did I get in here?"
Sasuke put the umbrella down and dumped the plastic bags on the dresser, tossing black hair out of smoky grey eyes. He fiddled in the bags for something, and a delicious smell filled the room. Naruto sat up, feeling suddenly better. He knew that smell.
Oh, he knew that smell certainly— ramen!
"You're hungry, right?" Sasuke asked him, ignoring the question, and gave the baffled blonde a raised eyebrow as if to say 'Yes, moron, this is real'.
It's a funny thing to consider a bowl of ramen as a peace offering, especially when Sasuke Uchiha is holding it just out of reach, and the tempting aroma is wafting over you in delicious waves. Naruto unconsciously followed it with his eyes, his mouth watering on reflex.
Sasuke thrust the plastic container at him.
"Take it," he said bluntly and broke the chopsticks apart before he handed them to Naruto.
The Kitsune accepted unhesitatingly and proceeded to stuff his face with the noodles and soup. Within seconds, the bowl was empty, and Sasuke was pulling out another one and handing it to the blond. All for the contents to be hoovered up in a matter of seconds. Sasuke had to fight hard to suppress the smile that was trying to creep its way up to his lips.
"You're an idiot," he couldn't help saying as he pulled open a portion for himself and sat down on the floor to eat. Naruto just gave him a grin as he swallowed down a huge bite of noodles.
"Ichiraku, right? It's so good!"
"There's more in the bags if you're still hungry after eating all that." Sasuke watched, chopsticks hovering against his lips, as the Uzumaki tilted the bowl to his lips and ingested the contents with a faint gurgling sound. Sasuke looked away and forced himself to regain some appetite.
The recently unconscious blond leaned over and fiddled around in the bags, pulling out one dish after another, a gleeful expression on his face like a child receiving Christmas presents.
"God, Sasuke, there's a lot," was the gracious comment Sasuke received after Naruto had placed meal number twelve on the floor and was picking out thirteen and fourteen. "I know you think I'm a pig, but there's only so much even a pig can eat."
Sasuke quietly chewed the contents of the salty noodles in his mouth, swallowing after the twenty-sixth chew exactly before he answered: "I didn't know what type you liked. I'm hardly an expert on ramen. I just asked for one of everything."
Naruto choked halfway through swallowing something and put the bowl down on the dresser (not caring for marking the woodwork, despite the fact that Sasuke winced when he did it). He slammed a closed fist into his chest before spluttering out: "What? You mean Kiba or Shikamaru didn't… they aren't downstairs?"
The incomprehensible look was back again, and Sasuke felt his spine bristle slightly under his flesh.
What, am I not good enough for you then? Was the unspoken question on the tip of his tongue.
"No, nobody's downstairs."
"Not even Hinata?" Naruto asked desperately, blinking those damned wide cornflower blue eyes as if Hinata didn't count as a full person to Sasuke.
The expression he is presented with is not un-akin to someone sucking lemons, and icy sarcasm floated back to the surface; Sasuke rolled his eyes: "Well, if you'd like to check…."
"But- but!" stammered Naruto, looking pained, then frantic, and then aghast all very suddenly. He ran his hands through his blonde hair, ironing out the tangled sunlight gold tresses.
"Who opened the door then? Who took the delivery?"
Sasuke's expression immediately switched to something Naruto fathomed to be agitation, and the dark-haired youth visibly flushed. Looking down at the floor, he blinked before quickly recovering himself and admitted in a half-sheepish tone of voice that didn't suit him: "I did."
Well, it wasn't exactly the brightest idea, was it.
The words dropped and rolled as he watched Naruto bring his fingers up to his eye sockets, pressing his lids shut and murmuring between the forefinger and thumb: "Oh God, no, you didn't."
"Yes, I did," Sasuke snapped back, cheeks flushing darker. It was embarrassing to admit that he was stung by Naruto throwing the gesture right back in his face.
"What else was I supposed to do? Give her the money through the letterbox and tell her to leave it on the sidewalk?"
"She?" Naruto sat up straighter and leaned over the side of the bed to look down at the other, trails of yellow flopping round to curtain the sides of his face in tangled wisps. "A girl about… this high? Dark curly hair? Kind of oval-shaped face?" He made a gesture with his hands, trying to re-enact her.
Sasuke gave an almost invisible nod and watched with apprehension as Naruto's expression fell and then looked close to tears.
"It was Yumi, wasn't it? She saw you, didn't she? Oh, Sasuke!" He flopped backwards, and the Uchiha was filled with the crushing feeling of absolute conviction that he had let him down.
"She's the biggest gossip I've ever met. That's even including Ino. Really nice, but… oh, why? Why did you do it? They'll all know! It would have been better if you had just let me starve to death! This is exactly the sort of thing that old hag Tsunade warned me not to let you go and do… or else…. I mean no one else is supposed to know about this, and, oh SHIT.
I just don't understand you; do you not want another shot at all of this?
They wanted to kill you, you know.
The council did, didn't think it was worth the risk to see if you'd come around again and maybe behave yourself. Missing S-class, left and took the secrets of Konoha with him!
They thought you'd go mad like your brother did and just kill everyone, and no one would be able to stop you.
Tsunade argued for hours about it, and so did Shikamaru Nara, do you remember him? I think he hates your guts, but he vouched for you- they like him because he's got a great record, and he's nearly always right.
He thought it would be an injustice to kill you just because you might go and do what Itachi did; and that in your condition, there was no real threat.
And even then, they were all for an underground cell with ANBU surveillance twenty-four seven and white walls and sterile ceilings and drips for god sakes, with needles! Is that what you want, Sasuke? Is it?!"
Somehow, they were close now, the Kitsune's eyes crinkling in the corners as he continued to rant despairingly, arms moving up and down and up and down as his mouth depressed even more as time went on.
The lead-balled pit in Sasuke's stomach seemed to grow even heavier, if it were possible.
"I-no-I mean-I didn't-" Sasuke tried to interject between Naruto's furious yells of: "She's going to tell everyone!" and "Oh God, we are in so much shit!"
"Look, I'm SORRY, all right?" Sasuke suddenly burst out, grabbing Naruto by both of his wrists and yanking him forwards so that their noses bumped painfully against each other.
They both looked thoroughly shocked by it, and Naruto's whole body seemed to calm as he fell to his knees off the bed, absolutely stoic as he simply stared at Sasuke, his mouth very slightly parted as he sucked down air.
Sasuke Uchiha stared back at him for a moment, determined, steady gaze but not without his fair share of embarrassment. He dropped Naruto's wrists as if they had scolded his pale skin and looked again at the floor. Jet-black hair shielded his face so the Kitsune couldn't read the expression; Naruto just continued to gape at him, taken aback.
"I-uh…you're what?!" he sputtered, allowing his arms to fall to his sides.
He tilted his head, already close to Sasuke's, even closer, so he could almost feel every little shudder the body made when it breathed in and out. The Uchiha met his eyes again with a hot look. He'd rather bite off his own tongue than say it again.
"You heard me," he said bluntly, a stubborn jaw locked, as if willing Naruto to choke on the word too… but he owed him the word at least. Then again, he owed Naruto a lot of things he's never going to admit to.
They both looked away simultaneously in opposite directions, both horribly aware that something rare and mysterious had just occurred.
Naruto took a deep breath and wiggled his feet.
"What did she say when she saw you?" he asked, keeping his face turned carefully to the wall.
"She- well…first she screamed, and then she sort of… backed off and ran away," Sasuke admitted, with a slight tilt of his head.
Naruto couldn't help the quick burst of laughter that bubbled from his lips at this statement. He grinned into the air, and felt Sasuke bristle behind him.
"You caused a girl to go screaming in the opposite direction from you? I think that must be a world first."
Sasuke, whose fingers were fiddling absently with the chopsticks on his knees, said in a sarcastic tone of voice that Naruto was wonderfully comfortable with: "Well, I am talking to the expert here on that, aren't I?"
And he caught the blue-eyed youth's expression as it split into a wide grin and responded with, "Touché."
Sasuke smirked, and the youth grunted, shaking his head.
Naruto pushed the food bowl towards Sasuke and got up to put some clothes on.
He wandered for a moment back into his own room, where the enraged cry of "This is not my mess!" could easily be heard through the wood panelling, as well as the clicking he made with his tongue as he inspected the floorboards they broke earlier.
He poked his head around the door again, slightly frowning, dusting splinters from his hands.
"I'll speak to Tsunade about it tomorrow," he mumbled and looked speculatively at Sasuke, gnawing at his bottom lip. "I suppose it would be a bit of a tall story to swallow."
"Very tall," Sasuke agreed, "seeing how I've been gone for years. Besides, I never knew her- I've never even seen her before."
"Yeah," replied Naruto, sitting opposite Sasuke on the floor and allowing himself to get comfortable in the jeans and white t-shirt he was now wearing. The Uchiha eyed the clothes from between a mouthful of noodles and prayed Naruto wouldn't ask him how the other set came off in the first place. The only excuse he could come up with involved raccoons, and somehow, he doubted even Naruto would swallow it.
"But she knew you, though. Everyone always did. Especially the girls, and that, my friend, is the difference."
"Well, it was annoying, whatever the hell it was. Following me everywhere, hassling me when I didn't even know who they were. Let alone care."
"You could have been polite to them at least, all they wanted was some of your attention, Sasuke."
"Huh!" it was followed by a disgusted snort, and then, "Why the hell should I have been attentive? It was their fantasy, not mine. I couldn't have cared less if they lived or died."
Naruto let out a stifled sort of sound, stuck his tongue over the tip of his lips, withdrew it back again, and let his face crumple into a small frown as he watched Sasuke very slowly consume the rest of the bowl.
"You're always like that," he said eventually with some substantial bitterness that surprised even himself.
"Everyone acknowledged and accepted you, and you never ever seemed grateful for it. You threw it all away in the end. When I was younger I wou-" but he bit his lower lip before he could finish the sentence, for fear of admitting to Sasuke that he had wanted nothing more than to be like him.
How he would have given up anything for that dream.
A dream to be a person that everything came so easily to: love, strength, admiration, and empathy.
When had he ever had that without pushing for it until the stubs of his fingers bled and he could hardly move but to drag himself across the floor?
Sasuke noted the bitterness in Naruto's blue eyes, the way he had drawn his knees up to his chest, one arm encircling the other under his chin.
He waited until he was full before he decided to answer. He found his own voice to be icy cold.
"Do you think I ever wanted all that attention? All those expectations? It almost drove me mad. Whatever I did, there was a certain standard I had to achieve; ever since the second I was born. I had to be better than everyone else. I was an Uchiha; I had standards to maintain and a future I had to succeed in. I was never free; you at least had the option of doing what you wanted when you wanted to."
"I don't let people control me," Naruto bit back, his voice firm and level. But there was something dark in the way he opened his mouth to say it, pink tongue touching the brilliant white of his teeth.
It felt like there was a secret he was holding back.
"Neither do I," Sasuke responded, eyes narrowed, and unconsciously his spine straightened.
"Yes, you do, you always have done, Sasuke. Ever since I first met you, although I didn't realise it at first. But you're like a hand puppet, acting on someone else's actions, your whole existence governed by someone else."
Sasuke was unbearably furious now. His hands were shaking as he kept them folded in his lap, and he clenched his fingers over each other, letting the nails bear down into the skin.
The pain relieved the pressure in his voice somewhat as he responded in low dangerous tones: "He killed my mother and father, my clan, my happiness, and most of my soul. Of course, I'm going to kill him. If not just for my sake, then for theirs!"
"By any means possible then?" There was something carnal about the way in which Naruto said this, a look of a wild animal in his eyes, infinitely distrusting and savagely beautiful.
To Sasuke, it felt as if he was raising invisible hackles along his back. But he wouldn't allow himself to be dragged down into an argument about morals, when he knew Naruto was lumping his own set of values onto him.
"And what would you have done? Rolled over and played nice so people would simper and smile over you and scratch your stomach? I did what I had to do."
"Yeah, you did!" Naruto snarled back at him just as venomously as Sasuke felt but wouldn't let show on his face. "You stabbed everyone in the back who cared about you and lov-"
Sasuke interrupted, hot tongue in contrasting volition with his brain, which ordered him to stop this right now: "This is not about you and your sycophantic need to recreate a nice cosy happy family around you. For God's sake, how old are you? Do us all a favour and just grow up!"
It was a low blow, but it was at the very core of the matter, and its effect was instantaneous. Naruto withdrew like a wilting flower, his body becoming defensive, shoulders drawn up around his ears as he spoke to his knees.
"You had parents, you knew what it was like to have unconditional love, that no matter what, or how much you went for something - even for those few years - someone believed in you. Someone was always there. They were there when you were afraid, they were there to encourage you and tell you that you were worth something. Even when… even when you felt like you weren't. When-" his voice became a little hoarser, and he refused to meet the Uchiha's hard, direct gaze.
"When you're born into a world where people seem to hate you for no fathomable reason. When there seems to be an invisible fence between you and happiness. When no one thinks you are worth Jack Shit, no matter how hard you try, and when you are assured almost constantly that you are in fact worthless, that you'd be better off dead, because guess what?
You are the thing that killed your parents and God knows who else and what else. When that happens to you, Sasuke Uchiha, you can call me immature then.
But forgive me for thinking you sound like a pampered brat when I ask you why it would be unnatural for me to want to be with somebody who at least at the end of the day won't recoil if I touch them and tell them that I love them? Or am I not worthy enough to deserve human affection?"
"So that's what Sakura is to you then?" Sasuke blurted out, not quite sure if it was any of his business or even relevant. He just knew that his voice had a bitter edge to it that he tried to swallow down and almost gagged on.
His stomach burned with indignation at how important Sakura probably was to Naruto, not that anyone could blame him for it, but that was not the point.
He was still angry about it.
Naruto tilted his head at this odd question and glared at Sasuke, incredulous.
"I love Sakura, you arrogant prick. I love her more than I think I've ever loved anyone else. She's stuck by me through all of this insane shit, through all of it, she's still here and she—she—"
"Accepts you?"
"Yes, yes she does!" Naruto snapped back at him, furious that Sasuke could simplify it to such an extent.
"And because she does so you've decided to spend the rest of your life with her because you believe that she's the only one who's got the stomach for it."
Naruto's face was a portrait of incredulity and angry bewilderment.
"She loves me, Sasuke, no one has ever done that before."
"Or you think she's the only one that's ever loved you, and you've never even considered the fact that other people might have loved you too? Except maybe they expressed it differently?"
Naruto swallowed. "Sasuke," he said blinking slowly, "I don't understand what you're saying."
Sasuke Uchiha let out a long exhalation of breath, "You always leap for the obvious choices."
"When you've had nothing, you tend to grab onto what you can see right in front of you and never let go."
"Is that what you're doing with me then?"
Naruto fell back against the bed at this and regarded the dark-eyed, pale-skinned man sitting directly across from him almost languidly. "I find myself wondering if you actually enjoy being alone; and it's not just something you do because you're actually afraid of letting people in."
Nothing for an instant, and then, with a short brittle reply: "Nobody likes being alone."
Naruto scowled at him, giving a probing, wandering look. "Then why do you insist on—"
"Because—" Sasuke snapped, pushing away from Naruto and jerking his head back to expose his neck, hot and flushed. He hated being truthful about things like this, and yet somehow, he found himself unable to lie about it.
It was those damned blue eyes, infinitely wide and trusting, they seemed to call out and drag on the deep rigid recesses of his soul and hold them under the light for examination.
Killing him softly with gentle words and open arms.
"…Because it's easier than letting people down. Because I might have forgotten how to let people in, and because I'm afraid—" but he bit down on his tongue and brought up blood; he'd choke on his own flesh before he actually admitted to himself, let alone Naruto, that breaking those barriers might mean the end of him.
That if he let someone in, he'd become dependent on them, and if he lost them… if he lost it all again, lost someone dear and precious to him, he'd go mad.
"You think you're afraid of being alone, Naruto?" Sasuke ground out from between his back molars, choking on the blood, wishing he didn't have to compete against that innocently bright blue focus.
"Every day I realise," he continued, "the fact that I am probably going to die alone, somewhere far, far away from the place I was born and grew up in. Miles away, lives away from the people I loved and cared about, and no one will know or even give a damn. You think you were alone? Well, I am alone Naruto Uzumaki, and I can't help that. It's just the way things have to be."
"You don't have—" he began, but Sasuke cut him off not wanting to hear it. Prizing and holding Naruto's hands to either side of his head and shaking him lightly so he should understand and hear it properly this time:
"But I will, and you can't change that. I'll die alone, without any family that I care to speak of, friends, or… lovers. Because I am an Av—"
"So, no one will miss you? Is that what you really think?! Don't you think that I'd miss you in every single one of those ways?" his fingers scrabbled at the place where Sasuke was firmly holding his wrists in place and looked indignantly back at him.
"You're not my lover, Naruto." Sasuke stated this flatly, watching as the blond coloured, his snub nose dusting with a light sprinkling of pink flush.
"I know I'm not your lover in… that sense. But I'm probably the closest thing to it right now. Don't you think I'd miss you if you did something as stupid as to die all alone like that? You were the closest thing I ever had to a brother and a best friend."
"Was Naruto, past tense."
"Well, that doesn't stop me from still feeling it, does it Sasuke? Up until your last living breath, I'll hate you and love you, regardless of whether you feel anything for me at all! Until the second that I die, I'll still feel it, and I'll never forget you. And in death—" he gulped, "it will be just the same, but eternal."
"You're a fool."
"I always was more of a fool when it came to you than I ever was for anyone else. I was so desperate to impress you, to try and get you to acknowledge me."
There was a silence in which they sat close, almost on top of each other. Naruto no longer fighting Sasuke's restraints, they seemed to breathe and feel at the same time.
"…Why are you telling me this?" Sasuke murmured curiously, almost without breathing.
"Because, if you do slip away again—when you do go after Itachi again as I know you will do—" Sasuke opened his mouth to interrupt, but Naruto pressed on. It was important to say it. It was important to let him know.
"He was always more important than I was, and he always will be in your eyes. I can't change that, but you'll know. You'll know that somewhere, somehow I'm here, willing you alive, and wishing you'd come back—come back to what you've left behind."
The words: 'to me, come back to me' died on his tongue.
Sasuke just looked at him with an unfathomable expression. Burgundy lips slightly parted as his tongue darted out and wetted them so they glistened slightly as Naruto watched.
Was it in astonishment that he was looking at him like that? Or perhaps confusion?
"I'll always want you back, Sasuke Uchiha."
There wasn't very much Sasuke could say to that, as he looked down at his knees, flustered and confused. He dropped Naruto's wrists very slowly, which he had been holding gently against the sides of his neck, now unsure of where to look and how to respond.
"Thank you," he said after a long moment, and felt the blond peering at him. He was thankful for the two curtains of hair either side of his face as he blushed, for what seemed the umpteenth time that evening.
Nothing happened for a while, but the intensity pulsed and stretched between them like electricity before Naruto broke away.
His hands touched Sasuke's for an instant.
An accidental movement - forefingers touching his thumb and tracing the back of his knuckles before contact was lost and the tiny warmth was withdrawn.
Out of reflex, Sasuke looked up and after Naruto who had moved across the room and stood for a moment in the doorway.
"Uzumaki," he asked haltingly, not sure why it mattered, why he felt he needed to know what Naruto was doing, where Naruto was going, and what Naruto was thinking.
"Where are you going?"
The Kitsune gave him an inquisitive look, the expressive mouth firm and almost doubting.
"Downstairs, I was going to go sleep on the sofa, 'cause my room's a total tip." He gave that easy, 'it's no problem' smile and started to head out of the door.
"Wait!" Sasuke scrambled in an oddly clumsy motion to his feet. He felt out of sync and breathless.
"You should sleep in here, idiot, it's your house. I'll sleep on the sofa."
"I don't think you'd want to," Naruto replied softly and he ran his hands over the tops of his arms to his elbows. "You won't be able to move your neck come morning, the springs, they stick out and are pretty painful."
They stared at each other for another moment, and then Sasuke, slowly as though he was encroaching on something that was a forbidden taboo, started the sentence that Naruto finished:
"You can…"
"…Sleep in here?"
'So now you're sleeping together?' the nasty little voice in his head jibed, as it prodded and poked Naruto with tiny, cold, invisible fingers.
"I'm not sleeping 'sleeping' with him," Naruto insisted to the bathroom mirror as he brushed his teeth. "I happen to be sharing the same bed as him, that's all. And you know something, he probably wears shoes and socks to bed anyway. So I don't know why you're making such a big fuss about it."
His reflection looked unimpressed, and Naruto, gulping guiltily, accidentally swallowed the last of the toothpaste and stuck his head underneath the taps, noisily glugging down water. When he re-emerged, hair sopping wet and plastered to his forehead, he once again glowered at his mirror image before eventually bursting out furiously: "Look, nothing is going to happen alright? And even if it did, who would know?"
The answer came back to him, sickeningly swift as he reached over to turn off the light and dry his hands on the towel: 'God will know, and so will you.'
Naruto grimaced, showing all of his teeth. If God was going to know, he could be sure Kiba and Shikamaru would not be very far behind him.
"Okay," Sasuke reiterated very slowly. He had that look on his face, the deeply foreboding look of someone who had proposed something that they did not quite like or had not thought through properly.
"This is my side, got that blockhead? You don't put so much as a toe over onto this side of the mattress. Do I make myself clear?"
Naruto nodded, wide-eyed and slightly fearful. He had forgotten quite how pedantic the dark-haired youth could sometimes be, especially now, as he stood at the end of the bed clad in a simple cotton t-shirt over loose shorts, with his two index fingers pointing at the four-poster and repeating at Naruto several times over: "My side. Your side. You got that?"
Naruto nodded, simply because he was afraid of what Sasuke might do if he did not.
…Probably strangle him with a pair of orange socks, he concluded, as he jumped onto the mattress so that everything bounced and the pillows soared into the air.
"Don't do that!" Sasuke shouted at him, watching as Naruto fell back laughing into the covers.
"Can't touch me Sasuke, I'm on my side of the bed!"
"You are such a child," he was told scornfully as Sasuke presented his long slender back to Naruto and sat on the rim of the bed, elegant hands splayed out behind him.
Naruto propped himself up on his elbows as he watched Sasuke move one leg under the covers—he peered at it as it slipped cleanly out of view.
Well, he couldn't see any shoe on his foot or dark knee-long socks. But the idea of Sasuke wearing knee-length socks in any form or manner was slightly ridiculous anyway. The shoes maybe, but not the socks.
"What are you doing?!" Sasuke demanded, glaring at Naruto who had, of course, totally forgotten the meaning of the word discretion, and he swallowed air and hiccupped in his haste to reply.
"Nothing, nothing at all. Um…" he withered a little under the full onslaught of 'The Glare' and asked in a higher pitch than he normally used, "Shall I turn off the light then?"
Sasuke didn't say anything.
Taking this as leeway for a polite 'yes,' Naruto jumped out of bed so that everything bounced again, causing the Uchiha to groan in frustration. He made a clattering journey over to the light switch before killing the light, and an even noisier journey back to the bed again.
Sasuke, as he suspected he might have, had actually stuck his head underneath the pillow rather than listen to the ruckus: hands digging deep into the fluffy endowment of the eiderdown, knuckles clenching almost white as he pressed it over his ears.
Naruto couldn't help chuckling as he got back into bed again. He would have jumped had it not been for the warning look Sasuke had shot him from underneath the pillow as he prepared to do it.
The look had promised disembowelment and a slow and painful death, and Naruto, for once, saw sense enough not to challenge it.
He wriggled around for a moment, trying to find the best possible position in which to sleep, and every time he tossed and turned, Sasuke let out the dramatic sigh of a long-suffering prisoner who could not see the end of this interminable torture.
Finally, he rolled onto his stomach, and resting his chin on his folded arms, he opened his mouth.
"Sasuke, can I ask you something?"
The person who, in the dim gloom, was nothing more than a dark and smeary shape, groaned once again.
"If you must, but only one question," he ground out irately from his back molars.
"I was wondering, you know, earlier? I always meant to ask you at some point but I never got around to it. I always thought you must hav—"
"Naruto," the shape sounded exasperated, "if you've got something to say, say it. If not, shut the hell up and let me get some sleep."
The Kitsune licked his lips, drew in breath and took the plunge. "When you were younger, not now obviously… but… did you ever… fall in love?"
A brief pause.
"Why does it matter?"
It was the sort of enigmatic response that Naruto suspected he would answer with if he were guarding a secret like that, and he wished that he could see the expression on Sasuke's face at this moment. Sasuke would have no second thoughts about bluntly denying something he'd never done, even if most people would consider it to be an abnormal thing not to have done.
"Who was it?"
Silence.
And then Sasuke rolled over so Naruto could feel his back facing him, and the covers were pulled away from him.
"Go to sleep, Naruto."
"Sasuke, who was it?"
But he was not to expect an answer and neither was he given one. As he lay there on his side of the bed, the question burned within him uncomfortably. He supposed it was because he was curious; he wanted to know because it was Sasuke. But even as he slipped into a troubled and agitated sleep, a tiny part of him suspected it was because he was jealous.
On the other side of the bed, Sasuke Uchiha listened to the sounds of Naruto's heavy breathing and light snores. His eyes flickered from the floor to the ceiling as he bit his lower lip and considered the fact the question was more: "Who is it?" than "Who was it?"
Mere seconds before there had been sunshine on his face, the warmth of another hand in his hand and the sound of Sakura's laughter in his ear.
Now the world is black, and the fox pads silently in amongst the darkness, sharp claws raking the fragile earth and leaving footprints a mile wide in its wake.
There is danger here.
Naruto does not know why he cannot open his eyes, visions of a clear sunny day flutter and brush beneath his eyelids. A feeling of warmth…of contentment. The feeling tickling gently, pulling and rousing inside his mind, Sakura's soft lips against his cheek and warm green eyes welcoming him as she laughs. It fills his head with a light humming sound.
Naruto tries to stir – he needs to be somewhere. Someone needs him. He said he was going somewhere. All of his limbs seem to be dragged down by lead weighted with all the oceans in the world.
Slowly, achingly, he opens his eyes…
"Hey, sleepy," and its those soothing tones. They slide across Naruto like melted butter and he doesn't have to think.
"Sakura," he murmurs back, reflexively his hand reaches out for hers. Everything is out of focus and his senses are reeling as he stretches his mind back to recollect what on earth it was he was doing before. But there's nothing there, nothing at all.
The back of his mind stays shut, the door bolted and closed for some reason he can't, doesn't understand. There is some old magic lingering around the hinges. Dark red in colour and clotted, it seems to cluster as he probes into it: pushing him out again, back to a conscious state where he can't seem to move his body or open his eyes properly.
The cool press of fingertips against his temple and then hands around his shoulders, gripping firm and secure, push him onto his back. It's uncomfortable like that. He can't breathe properly, his lungs contracting and expanding awkwardly and he tries to tell her. But the words tumble out of his mouth garbled and chewed, so it sounds more like a moan.
"I've missed you."
He knows she is close, either immediately above him or to his left, he can't quite pinpoint where. But her fingers interlace with his own, flesh joining flesh, and despite the fact that he can't move, despite the fact that he can't quite see, for the first time in a long while he's happy.
Happy without trying, without caring: full of knowledge of being wanted without reason, that being there is just enough for both of them.
There is the sound of her laughter above him, and he wants to reach up and pull her closer, wind his arms around her neck and tell her that he loves her.
"You should wake up soon," she tells him simply. He can almost see the expression on her face through all the fuzz: wide green eyes, curling wide lashes and arched, bow-like smile.
"I am so sorry, Naruto."
Why is she sorry?
His mind reels as panic bubbles up inside of him, bleeding through his senses, and the press of fingers against his hand becomes much more insistent. He clutches back at them, something solid, something real, desperate to keep a hold.
Why can't he open his eyes? Why can't he move?
And then he realises, and it washes over him in an icy bucket of dread. Something is very, very wrong.
Naruto's eyes jerk wide open, and his body seemingly contracts and he feels like he's falling into a void whilst Sakura still clutches onto his hand.
"What's going on?" he asks over the smell of smoke and burning wood, soot clouds his eyes and makes them water. Is the apartment burning down around him? Where is the fire?
And then he realises everything is alight, everything is filled with hot orange flames, everything is burning.
Everything.
The walls, the bricks, the roof, the ceiling, the building, the street, the roads, the libraries, the shops, the towers, the village… the village is burning like a huge monstrous Catherine wheel, sending up golden glimmers and dancing globular sparks up into the night.
Smouldering columns of fluted ash whirl skywards in sickeningly fast eddies of hot air, lost in a tundra of stormy grey as the wind blows dry and scorching against his skin.
"What is going on?"
Sakura's fingers are unnaturally cold inside of his grasp, her flesh feels almost transparent, it feels like he's slipping and sliding through her body as he desperately tries to hold on.
"It was my turn Naruto, my turn to protect you."
He doesn't know why the tone of voice fills him with dread. Part of him understands—some innately wise fraction of his mind comprehends it's all over, and slowly, he turns to look.
Her smile is cracked, her green eyes are hollow, like lime marbles. Her hair falls across her face gracefully still the colour of a summer sunset but her body is broken beyond repair. Her spine is snapped in two. White silver membrane and nerves dribbling out of the gaping gash that splintered the vertebrae, disconnected from the soul. Neurons and synapses fire from nowhere to nowhere, but with no internal highway system present the body is useless.
Dead.
Naruto yells her name, the name that is joined with his, connected to his heart. He feels his own organ pounding in his chest as he grips her by the shoulders, not caring for the blood that lies all around her body.
In the back of his mind the fox rumbles, low and melodic, infinitely threatening.
Sakura's hands fumble for a moment, losing his; they reach up and touch his temple, gracing across his matted locks, and a faint smile appears before she slides out of focus.
"You must find him Naruto." Her voice is soft and yet made of steel, each word, each syllable holds another meaning.
Naruto's mind isn't functioning properly—he's scrabbling around on his hands and kneecaps, fingers probing into the treacle-like gunk that drags and sticks to his limbs as he fumbles in the darkness.
Sakura's gone. She's gone. Where did she go? She has to still be here. With him.
She can't—won't… ever leave him.
"What's going on? What's happening? Sakura! Sakura!?" he yells over and over again until his voice is lost, and his voicebox grates like a razor blade over the tendons of his throat.
He drops to his knees, sobbing, shaking all over.
"Who did this?" he chokes out, "I'll kill them. I swear I'll kill them."
Somewhere in the distance he can hear a child screaming, and feels an innate sense of urgency connected to it, the cry lancing through him as if it were coming from himself.
But the sound is drowned out again by the incessant humming and he puts his hands over his ears and doubles over as if in agony as the drone hits a peak and screams into his eardrums.
Sense seems to topple over and stop as the answer comes back to him, smoothly: "I came to collect what is owed to me."
"Where is she?" Naruto is now shouting at an anonymous voice, finding his legs to be stuck in a glutinous substance.
"A sacrifice," the voice answers back, tones elegant and foreboding: "She gave you more time, not that it matters much."
"What are you talking about?!" Naruto yells back, fighting tooth and nail to break the restraints he's under, he twists and writhes but cannot pull loose.
"An old magic, but I shall not be thwarted. I shall take back what is rightly mine."
"Give her back to me!" Naruto chokes out, gagging on the thick coils of smoke and ash that drench across him and rake down his throat.
"What has she done to you? What do you want from me?"
"You fool, you cannot give it to me now, but you will."
The floor shifts, a heaving eruption of black butterflies rupturing from the ground like the mass blooming of some ethereal rose, shedding its ghostly petals into the night.
"I will take what I am owed and you will bow before me. You will pay for his hubris."
The landscape suddenly shudders, twisting abruptly as if caught in a vortex. Smoke writhes and wriggles before Naruto's eyes, shapes blending into human figures until suddenly he can see a person holding the mask of an Oni before his face. For a moment Naruto's heart stops beating, but the long elegant fingers of Sasuke move the mask to reveal his dark eyes and Naruto feels himself gasp.
Sasuke who looks like death incarnate, veiled in beauty and power.
Naruto nearly breaks his collarbone in his desperation to escape his restraints.
Sasuke leans down further, impenetrable eyes sleek and merciless as they dip across his lips and over his face, travelling last up into his cornflower blue eyes.
Naruto considers the fact that Sasuke could take him right here and now, that it wouldn't matter to Sasuke if Naruto did or didn't want it. The pain wouldn't matter; the blood, the agony, the violation, the boundaries had been crossed and intermingled with the enemy until the division line of where one stopped and the other began had been fuzzed over. Like ink lines left out in the rain, the black smearing and running into each other, twisting and meandering into different patterns.
Another level of being.
He's done it before, why should it matter now?
"I'm not the one keeping you here, Naruto," is the only reply. He receives a flash of a smile: triumph? Sarcasm?
The glimmering lights dance closer.
He won't trust anything Sasuke says, so he closes his eyes tight and tries to ignore the voice as it starts again, timbre soft and earnest, almost like a plea.
The fox tosses its monstrous head in savage greedy hunger: it's going to rip them apart and score their flesh, smite them and skewer the bones from their crimson bodies.
Sasuke pulls away, eyes heavy and looking directly into Naruto's cornflower blue irises, half-lidded and intoxicated.
"Naruto," Sasuke says gently, his eyes deep, and Naruto fears he's going to fall into them, that his mind will buckle and break and the restraints will fly in all directions.
"You'll never leave this place."
The door breaks down and the fox throwing charms and broken sealing spells in all directions, plunges as an unstoppable force forwards. Its jaw snaps open, glimmering white fangs and hot putrid breath, ready to engulf them both as the lights flare and dazzle into a blinding brilliance that obscures reality.
"Naruto… Naruto! Wake up!"
Blue eyes opened into a dim confusion of tangled sheets and writhing bodies, his skin soaked with cold sweat and his mind still reeled, a kaleidoscope of different images in front of him, most of which ended up drenched in blood. He clawed at the cold fingers weighing his torso to the mattress and fought down the screams that threatened to tilt and spill through his oesophagus.
All of his limbs seemed to jerk and twitch on their own and just behind the cage, plucking at the bars, he felt the Kyuubi stalk. Behind his eyelids, he felt the panic stirring inside of him.
"Nobody's dying!" Sasuke was telling him, but he might as well have been speaking to a brick wall for all the coherent response it provoked.
Naruto's actions were almost feral; like a wild cat drowning in the ocean, he clawed at the places where Sasuke was pinning him down. Mouth open and snarling, and long, glinting white canines glimmering, Sasuke wondered vaguely if Naruto would bite him if he got the chance and decided not to let him.
They fell, limbs still locked to the floor, and it was like trying to hold onto electricity. The hot, urgent taste of chakra seemed to fizzle and whirl all about him; it climbed up the walls and festered in boiling pits between the floorboards.
"Naruto!" he yelled again, "Snap out of it!"
But Naruto wouldn't, or couldn't, and suddenly Sasuke could see the pictures too, the bloody ones, dripping in entrails and gore, the things that no one liked to see, the parts that people kept hidden.
The worst part was he knew that Naruto thought the pictures were real, and the more he slid into panic, the more the Kyuubi prised forward.
He fought to bring both hands to either side of Naruto's face, slamming his skull into the wooden planks. Sweat and tears streamed from around eyes stained with mauve, but the pain made the panic worse.
He stayed in the half-nightmarish state of dark shadows that flickered on the outskirts of reality, ghostly figures stalking him, prying apart his ribs and cutting out his bleeding heart to burn the flopping thing in front of him.
Sasuke tried to talk, to get through, and to tell comforting thoughts to a person suffering the onslaught of mental pain: but it was useless.
The choked sob broke from the Kitsune's chest, low and painful, like something fragile was breaking, and Sasuke acted; he did the only thing he could think of doing to stop that awful rise of chakra.
He kissed him.
The effect was immediate: Naruto lay still, and for perhaps the second and a half that his own lips pressed against Naruto's, Sasuke could feel the dull lub-dub of his own heart beating in his chest, see eyes through a blurry focus widen in shock, and then…
Naruto twisted his head away, pushing Sasuke with a violent force from his body so he fell heavily to the floor.
He grabbed the Uchiha by the collar of his shirt as he knelt over his body, but in the darkness, Sasuke, whose breathing was heavy and agitated, could not see his expression.
He half expected Naruto to start pounding his face into a bloody pulpy mess. But not for Naruto to lurch forwards like that, yank Sasuke up and attack his mouth with his own, covering it with one glib and untamed movement.
Something inside of Sasuke soared, his stomach seemingly disappearing as teeth clacked and grated against his own. Hard and fast, a tongue pushed bruisingly against his lips, parting and demanding entrance. Naruto's fists were still curled around his neck as Sasuke brought his own hands to unpeel them from where they were slowly choking him.
His fingers snaked up into the nape of Naruto's neck, cradling the back of his skull and pushing him forwards deeper into the kiss. The moist sound of Naruto sucking against Sasuke's tongue filled the air, and the Uchiha growled into their mouths, the sound reverberating into Naruto as he was pushed over and onto his back.
His hands fisted the material at Sasuke's shoulders, entwining fingers around his neck, bringing all of the long warm hardness of Sasuke's body against his own. His hips arched of their own accord as Sasuke played with his tongue, toying with it, dancing a possessive game inside his mouth.
He ran his own tongue across the tip of Naruto's canines, careful not to cut himself on the sharp edges, one hand deeply entrenched in the blonde's hair as he pulled his head back, breaking the kiss so his lips lingered teasingly just over Naruto's.
Close enough for them both to feel the heat but not close enough for them to feel the pressure. The warm tip of Sasuke's tongue glanced over Naruto's lower lip, and then his upper lip, licking the corners, exploring it thoroughly.
Naruto became impatient and, bucking against Sasuke, opened his mouth begging for entry. He wanted the heat and the pressure back again, but Sasuke just laughed, and bit on Naruto's lower lip gently, not puncturing the skin. Dragging the lip down, and then sliding his tongue smoothly inside as he heard Naruto gasp and give a little needy sound, he let his mouth connect completely over the Kitsune's again.
A hand made its way from Naruto's neck, down the knobbly junctures of his spine. And it was Naruto, Naruto who moved his head back, who ground his hips into Sasuke's: wonderful, hard, delightful pressure as Sasuke moved back with him.
Feeling he couldn't go in any deeper, none at all, tasting and feeling Naruto all that he could with all these damned clothes.
Salty warm taste in his nose, his eyes, his hair, coating his skin.
Naruto, Naruto, Naruto, Naruto…
Naruto pulled away first, eyes heavy and looking directly into Sasuke's dark marble irises, half-lidded with intoxication; tongues leaving contact last, essences that had intermingled now being dragged apart.
He felt the hand in his hair, the way one of his legs was intertwined with Sasuke's. He felt how urgently he was pressing his body to him, and the hard-laboured breathing against his ear.
They stared at each other, and then…
"What the hell are we going to do?"