Fish Bird
魚鳥
Sasuke had looked at him with very dark, impenetrable eyes, his face moody and pale, a seamless complexion like molten marble as he had opened his mouth to answer…
"Like I'd tell you." He had answered very simply and had slammed the bathroom door shut behind him.
Kiba had remained stock still on the stairs, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his mouth dry like sandpaper as he had tried to swallow, feeling the unpleasant sensation of his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.
Kiba's feet had propelled him into action, and he had bounded up the steps, coming to an abrupt halt outside the bathroom door, his hand outstretched, mere nanoseconds from opening it and hauling Sasuke Uchiha out of there.
However, hauling Sasuke out of anywhere had generally been a bad idea; Lord knows what would have happened if Kiba had tried to drag him out of Naruto's bathroom. The whole apartment complex could have exploded, or he could have been strangled to death by toilet paper.
He had recollected, wide auburn eyes under a mop top of spiky brown hair, and tapped his fingers across the wood of the door. He had felt Sasuke's anger prickling away in the bathroom, angry vibes seeping under the door like a drowning vapour.
Kiba had taken it calmly, step by step, feeling his way into new territory. The priority had been simple: if Sasuke was important to Naruto, then Sasuke, by default, was important to him. He had allowed a little exhalation of breath and had sat outside the bathroom door, waiting.
On the other side of the wall, Sasuke Uchiha had watched his reflection in the mirror, his breathing slowing as the ghost of lips touching his own and the invisible hands still clutched against his shoulders. Unwanted, delicious thoughts had flooded his mind—Naruto smiling at him, sunflower yellow hair framing blue eyes against the torn pale ivory of his own skin, Naruto arching into his arms, spine dipping and curving as Sasuke's hungry teeth had met his neck. They had been perilous thoughts, and he had felt uncomfortable with them. Too fresh, too new. Like skin that had been ripped open to bleed, the edges ragged and throbbing. It had felt as if part of his mind had been cleaved open, hot white fire assailing his senses as his mind had risen and fallen into a transcendent state. He had felt out of body, utterly unreal, strange, beautiful, and awkward.
Naruto had been dangerous; he had been as addictive and appealing as a drug, and already, as Sasuke had traced the line of his mouth with the tip of his forefinger, he had remembered how the feel of Naruto's tongue had been.
He had already wanted more.
Sasuke had put both of his hands on the rim of the sink and had fought down the childish urge to scream at Kiba to just "Go away!" He had turned on the hot water tap and had watched as the hot, steaming liquid rushed, swirled, and gurgled down the plug hole. The noise had distracted him for a minute, but then a rhythmic tap-tap-tapping had emanated from outside in the hallway, and an angry twitch had developed beneath one eye.
"What do you want?" he had snarled, spinning around to face the bathroom door, towering temper dripping from his words, a blue and purple bruise blossoming beneath one of his eyes, which had throbbed and stung, warning him of a coming headache.
"Are you okay?" Kiba had asked him in an annoyingly calm voice; in fact, Sasuke had decided that the Inuzuka was annoying, full stop.
Was he okay? What sort of question had that been? There had been nothing out of the ordinary, nothing for the pest to get worked up about…except…
'You did just kiss him,' the nasty little voice in his head had pointed out, the same one that had told him he was a coward for letting his parents die like that over and over again.
"Sasuke?" It had been Kiba again, and the dark-haired youth hadn't known if he had been annoyed or grateful for the disruptions of his thoughts.
"You okay in there?"
It had been a dumb question, and it had deserved a dumb answer. Sasuke had given it neither; he had just glared at the door, as if the handle would convey his feelings of displeasure and anger over to the idiot on the other side and shut him up once and for all.
The handle, however, had not bitten Kiba, no matter how much he had willed it.
He had wanted to push the thoughts of Naruto away, all the delicious temptation, the rebellious antics, and the perilous words.
"Do you want to talk?"
"No!" he had snapped, hostility in his voice, his back almost arching like a cat's, hackles raised all on edge at the sheer audacity. What the hell had this guy been thinking? He didn't talk, not like that anyway. It had been beneath his pride and far below his reason. He had been an independent person, and no one in any way had been allowed to take pity on him because he had been locked up and bodily violated. What had he been going to do anyway? Remind him about safe sex? Ask him if he had been gay? Threaten him? Taunt him? Try to drive him away?
"There's nothing to talk about," Sasuke had said simply, his voice aloof and clipped, a tone that usually had an inbuilt 'leave-me-the-hell-alone' warning sign strapped into it.
"I think there is," Kiba had told him, his voice deadly serious but with a smile on his lips. He had rapped his knuckles on the wooden frame of the door again, "Do you want to know what I think, Sasuke?"
Sasuke Uchiha had rolled his eyes at the bathroom mirror and had blown the loose strands of hair away from his face. He had definitely been going to have a bruise on the side of his face come morning, and a big one at that.
Kiba had warranted the silence emanating from under the bathroom door as consent enough to continue in his train of thought. He had hugged his knees to his chest and looked gravely at the light seeping out from the inch gap between the floor and the wooden panel.
Did he dare say what was on his mind? What he thought? Or what he knew? And what would Sasuke do if he said it? Kill him? It would have been hard for the Uchiha to do it effectively without chakra, that was for sure, but still possible; he had no doubt about that.
And worse still, what if Shikamaru found out?
Kiba had swallowed and fought down images of his friend slicing him open with a meat cleaver and feeding his liver to Akamaru on a silver platter.
He had never been wrong about this sort of thing.
"I think you're in love with him, Sasuke."
The doorbell had rung, loudly and suddenly,at 1:30in the morning. This had seemed to be exactly what Kiba had been waiting for, because he had sprung up deftly from his position outside the bathroom door, run three fingers through his hair, pranced around on the stairs for several seconds, and then had run down to the door, pausing for a second before opening it.
The person who had opened the door had looked extraordinarily like Sasuke Uchiha. Striking, tall, dark hair, unnaturally smooth pale skin, and deep, moody, soul-searching eyes. Except this person was definitely not Sasuke Uchiha; the girls standing at the door had known that much. The roguish, lopsided grin, the messy, bedridden hair, and clothes that bore creases, the wear of age, and the slight stink of tobacco and alcohol.
"Is that him?" one girl had asked doubtfully, a pretty curvy redhead, her eyebrows raised almost into her hairline.
"He doesn't really seem coldly aloof, and neither do his eyes pin me down and ask if I would like to be shagged."
Kiba had waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her, and she had frowned at him as if lost in thought. "In fact," she had said slowly, "he seems awfully familiar."
"Yumi told me it was definitely Sasuke Uchiha," the brunette to her left had said in a boldly confident voice, taking a step towards the ninja in disguise.
"But you're right; something's not quite—"
"Am I not living up to your standards, ladies?" Kiba had asked, unable to stop the grin from sliding across his face, his eyes sparkling almost manically.
"If you want, we could all go roll about in the hay for a little while, and then you two would definitely get your answers to whether I'm irresistibly sexually overwhelming or not."
He had raised his arms in the air. "Anyone for that option?"
The redhead had given him another scrupulous look. "I know that tone of voice," she had said slowly. "I've had the misfortune of dating that tone of voice."
She had punched him quite hard on the shoulder, and there had been a small poof as the jutsu had unbound at the seams like sand slipping through cupped fingers.
"Kiba Inuzuka!" she had said triumphantly, taking a step back. "I knew from the moment you opened your mouth and started making sleazy propositions."
"Arisa," Kiba had said mockingly back to her, "as charming, flattering, and lovely as ever I see, still sucking the life out of the living to keep your undead soul alive? Well, now you know our little secret; you can tell the rest of the spectators to go on home now, nothing and no one to see here, except me."
He had hesitated before adding, once again the devilish rogue, "Although, of course, the rolling around option is still open, minus the hay."
Arisa had wound her long fingers into the fiery red hair of her mane and had given Kiba an assessing look. "You scared Yumi senseless? You? You couldn't even scare a newborn kitten, let alone a person."
"Like I said, always the charmer."
The brunette had touched Arisa lightly on the shoulder, steering her towards the stairs, saying softly, "Looks like there's nothing to see after all."
"There's always me," Kiba had shouted after them, leaning against the doorpost, now thoroughly enjoying himself. "I give quite a show; ask Arisa."
"I seem to remember you were all talk, Kiba; couldn't even get it up on the last occasion."
Kiba's eyes had been half-closed with mirth as he had uncrossed his arms and put one hand on the edge of the door, leaning out across the threshold of Naruto's front steps.
"That's because, Arisa, you're just so terrifying you scare the living daylights out of every red-blooded man in the vicinity."
And then he had closed the door with a slam before she could get close enough to ring his neck.
That had been way too much fun.
"What are you doing?"
Kiba had looked up from where he had been in a happy little puddle of euphoria and had seen Sasuke Uchiha peering at him from the middle of the hallway, his face childishly curious and his inky dark eyes wide.
"Pretending to be you," Kiba had responded jovially, jumping to his feet. "Couldn't you tell?"
"No, not really," had been the dry and sarcastic comment that flopped back at him. "And if that was your best attempt at being me, you suck."
"That's only because I was smiling when I opened the door!" Kiba had shot back petulantly. "You should try it someday."
Sasuke's face had remained absolutely deadpan. "I don't smile because I don't find acting like a moronic idiot remotely amusing."
Kiba had felt his eyebrows descend in a knot over his eyes. "No, you don't smile because you have a stick rammed so hard up your ass you can't even bend over to yank it out."
Sasuke's hard, penetrating gaze had dropped to below sub-zero temperatures, and his upper lip had curled up in a sneer.
Kiba had glared right back at him, feeling the hairs on the nape of his neck prickle and stand straight up. "Pity, because I think smiling might suit you."
Kiba had been playing with fire, and he had known it; Sasuke could turn around any second and send him spinning through the kitchen wall before he'd even had time to blink, yet provoking him had seemed to be the best method of wriggling the truth out of him. In his slightly agitated state, the Uchiha had been having greater difficulty in constructing the hollow mask he usually hung above the muscles on his face—a puppeteer's masterwork, flesh working to a formulated routine, no truth, practiced smiles and sneers, no genuine reflection on the inner workings of his mind… and yet.
Somehow Naruto had dug a chink, a small cranny in the seamless defence, and a small glimmer had been peeking through. If Kiba could get his fingers in and dig—dig carefully—he might be able to prize it open wider.
He had been concentrating so hard that he had clamped down on his tongue between his front teeth and had almost gnawed it off in his frustration.
Did he dare repeat what he'd said upstairs? Sasuke Uchiha had been staring him down; it had been somewhat unnerving, that look—thick and intense like churning cement. It had seemed to pour through his sockets and fill the crevices of his mind with a wet, gloopy substance.
"I'm not going to stand here and listen to this," Sasuke had said painfully slowly. His voice had been sharp and metallic like a knife's edge, his almond-shaped eyes narrowed.
Kiba had run his tongue over the cracked surface of his lips, his body tensed and shivering from the clenching of all his muscles. He had opened his mouth and had felt himself preparing as if for a physical blow.
"Sasuke, you have to tell me. Are you just fucking around with Naruto for the hell of it? I know you're pretty pissed and all about him keeping you here, but he just wants to—"
His voice had trailed off as he had received a disgusted look and a slow, graceful movement that had presented him with a broad, stubborn back. Kiba had snarled suddenly, outraged. He wasn't playing, dammit! This was important!
"You know he was going to propose to her, don't you, Sasuke? Naruto was going to ask Sakura to marry him, two weeks before we unfortunately stumbled across you!"
This had called a halt to the movement, and the Uchiha had turned his head a little, his eyes as sharp as a knife's edge.
"Why didn't he?"
If this information had been new and unexpected to Sasuke, he hadn't shown it; if anything, his demeanour had become colder and more impenetrable in the last thirty seconds.
"He got cold feet, last second. He bought the ring and everything. He had pulled double shifts, collapsed on my doorstep a few times; other times, Shikamaru and I would have to go pick him up because he had been too exhausted to make it home by himself."
Still nothing. Kiba had ground on, thoroughly protective of Naruto's actions and his convictions. "He loves her, you know. He's under the deluded idea that no one's ever going to do that again as long as he lives. He always thinks he's all alone when he never is. He looks around for people to like and respect him when he already has our respect. It's you, you're the—"
"The outsider?" Sasuke had finished. Kiba had his full attention now, but there had been a nasty, cynical expression twisting itself across the seam of his mouth, too sinister to be called a smile, but twice as smooth—almost mocking in its intensity.
"The problem? The one that Naruto always goes running after? Despite the fact that I told him not to? Despite the fact that I never ask? I never wanted—"
"He wanted you!" Kiba had yelled at him, losing his cool completely and yelling himself hoarse for all the world to hear. "He still wants you!"
"Naruto doesn't know what he wants," Sasuke had announced in cold, clipped tones of someone who had had enough. "He's a child; he runs after one thing blindly and ignores everything else. He still thinks he can fix me, and if that's not deluded, I don't know what is. He should marry Sakura, if she'll have him, and I rather wonder if she couldn't do any better than him. Surely even Rock Lee would be a better—"
Kiba's pupils had almost dilated to slits as his spine had curved and bent, sucking in breath and feeling the anger bubble and rise inside him. He'd always been impetuous, primal instincts like an animal; he'd known right then that all he wanted to do was solidly smack Sasuke Uchiha's pretty face into a bloody pulp. He had clenched his hands and pretended he was smushing Sasuke's dark eyeballs between his digits.
"Don't," had been the dangerously soft reply on Sasuke's behalf. "I don't care if you insult me; I don't care if you yell at me and curse each and every one of my descendants. But don't say things like that about Naruto as if you know him so well—"
"I do know him 'that well,' you utter moron!" The cool had suddenly broken; Sasuke Uchiha had been standing in front of Kiba, in the same towering temper he'd had when he was twelve years old.
"You think anyone knows him better than I do? You think I don't know what motivates him? You think I can't see where his ideals of me lead him to? You don't think I realise how much he's built me up in his mind into some sort of idol, some part of himself, something I don't want to be? I don't want to drag him down with me." His fingers had run over the glassy onyx stubs on his wrists, and his expression had suddenly become detached and distant.
"You are in love with him, aren't you?" And Kiba's tones had been calm and perfectly at ease; in fact, Sasuke had thought the capricious youth had been smiling at him. There had been a certain sparkle in his amber eyes.
"Yet here you are, fighting him tooth and nail."
Sasuke had set his jaw and had responded coldly down the straight slant of his impossibly perfect nose. "You just said he wanted to propose to Sakura. Surely he's in love with her then."
"Yeah, he is in love with her."
Sasuke's stomach had sunk, and then he had been disgusted with himself for even feeling… feeling what? Resentment? Regret? Anger? Jealousy? Disappointment?
"But he's obsessed with you, and he always has been."
Sasuke had snorted derisively. He had been tired, agitated, cold, and hungry; he hadn't wanted to be having this conversation now or at any other point in his life for that matter. Mentally, he had pictured sticking Kiba full of pins and throwing him out of the upstairs window for the crows to eat. It had sounded like a good plan to him.
"There's nothing—" Sasuke had begun, not quite understanding why he had been trying to explain it anyway or even what he had been trying to explain.
"Oh sure," Kiba had snapped at him. "So you guys just made out because you felt like it. Don't insult my average intelligence, Sasuke; you have a hickey on your neck, and Naruto was standing in the hallway dripping and almost naked. Either he jumped you, or you jumped him; whichever way round it was, both of you enjoyed it, and you both participated in it. Which means you find each other sexually attractive as well, which… which…" Kiba's arms had flailed for a moment, and his mind had clunked and processed what had been attempting to flit through it. All it had given him was the answer: therefore, they wanted to have sex. Except, Kiba had known that if he helped Sasuke come to that decision in any way or form, Shikamaru would know, and Shikamaru would kill him. Kill him very slowly, with a spoon.
And that had been something he had wanted to avoid at all costs.
Sasuke had regarded him now with a keen mixture of curiosity and hesitation, as if he had wanted to ask something but hadn't had the courage to do so.
The doorbell had rung again, and Kiba had almost fallen over in shock. He had shooed Sasuke down the corridor and into the living room, closing the door behind him before bouncing to open the door.
More girls, as expected—five this time, all looking at him with interest.
But before he even opened his mouth, one of them had announced tartly, "That's not him," to the rest of them, to which they had all nodded, eyes narrowing. Kiba had felt the back of his spine prickle and curve. It had been like having one's body parts out on display, and he had distinctly disliked the feeling.
"He's still pretty cute, though," another one had commented, bold with curly blonde hair this time. "Wanna come out with us?"
Kiba's mouth had flapped for a moment, not knowing whether to shout with glee and throw himself into their midst or to bang his head against the wood with frustration.
Finally as an image of an enraged Shikamaru danced before his eyes, he had stuck his hand on the edge of the open front door and shouted: "Sorry girls, I'm gay!" and had slammed the door shut again.
After meandering in the corridor for a brief thirty seconds, wondering if he had gone completely barmy, Kiba had regained enough sense to go back and look for Sasuke.
His mind had still been running around with thoughts of sex, and who was having sex, who wanted sex, and how everyone seemed to be currently getting some apart from him.
Especially Shikamaru, for that matter. The lecherous hump, as Kiba privately called him in his head.
There was a man who got laid by a perfectly beautiful woman at least once a week and was still permanently grouchy.
Some people didn't know how good they had it.
Sasuke Uchiha had sat with his back to the wall, his gaze following the cracks in the floorboards as the living room door had opened and Kiba had walked in. He had set his jaw, determined to lock it, but had found this very difficult to do once Kiba had squatted down in front of him and grinned, as if this was the happiest moment of his life.
"Five girls wanted me to hang with them," he had said smugly, almost bursting at the seams with barely repressed pride, "and they even knew I wasn't you." Sasuke could see all of his teeth, right to the back molars.
"Still," he had added, visibly deflating, it had been like watching a tyre with a puncture become more and more flabby, "they didn't know it was me either, so maybe it doesn't count."
"You think?" Sasuke had bit back, almost choking on the sarcasm that had come coughing up and out of his throat.
"It's alright for you," Kiba had responded, resting his chin on the knuckles of his clenched hands. "You've always known you were attractive to other people. Girls flocked around you." He had wrinkled his nose as Sasuke glowered at him, his perfectly shaped mouth once again close to something resembling a sneer.
Why did they always think that sort of attention was a good thing? When no one really knew you but just expected? And expected something he was sure he didn't even possess anyway. After all, one had to have a heart to care, didn't one? And he had felt suspiciously lacking in the caring department.
"That must have been horribly annoying, actually."
Sasuke had blinked, but Kiba had continued, unobservant. "Still, you wouldn't have had any problem getting laid, now would you?"
He had given a slightly cynical bark of laughter and continued, "I'm still jealous of you, though. Maybe if I'd have been better looking… maybe if I'd told her…"
His mop of brown hair had swung across his eyes for a moment before he had answered. An oddly serious expression had appeared on his face as he continued, "If you don't tell someone that you like them, Sasuke, you'll lose them, and you'll be stuck with 'What if?' for the rest of your life.
"I… there was…" He had paused again, licked his lips, and then bitten his thumb.
"I didn't tell her, and now she's getting married. Which is good," he insisted, suddenly fierce again.
"Because I can't give her what he can give her. He's stronger than I am, and it would make more sense. Re-unite the family branches and all that, and he's a genius as well, so you know if she ever had kids, she wouldn't be risking gene pollution for her babies by having my stupidity genes mixed in there too. I've dated a few girls that look like her, and then stopped because it was an insult to the other girl. Then I dated Arisa, who was her polar opposite."
He had given a low wolf's whistle.
"Let me tell you, that was a disaster."
Sasuke's mouth had twitched a little, just a fraction, but it had been enough—more than nothing and definitely something.
"I'm lucky, though," Kiba had said quietly, almost a whisper. "I get to see her every day, and talk to her, and be her friend… and it's enough. It's enough to know that I can be there for her and make her laugh when she feels down, and offer a shoulder to cry on if she needs me."
"So, there's no tension between you?" Sasuke had asked, not so much curious as demanding.
"I—uh…" Kiba had begun, feeling suddenly uneasy. This had been very unlike Sasuke to be interested in him, in another person's problems that had little to do with his own agenda. Sasuke Uchiha wasn't, after all, known for being a generous soul.
He had had a bad feeling about this.
"What if there was sexual tension?"
Kiba Inuzuka had been horrified; this had been exactly the sort of conversation he had known Shikamaru would find out about if ever Naruto and Sasuke ended up in the sack together (heaven forbid), and somehow it would all be his fault.
Kiba had looked around carefully, considering all possible answers he could give. He had looked at the floor, then back up at Sasuke again—Sasuke, who had fixed him with an intentionally determined stare like that of a crouching tiger.
"You, erh… I mean… what?" Kiba had asked him, although he had already known what was coming.
"What do you do," Sasuke had repeated slowly, his unblinking gaze never moving from Kiba's face, "when there's sexual tension in a relationship?"
Kiba's face, if it were possible, had gone into a rigid state of shock, his mind wildly spinning with thoughts like: "I knew it, I was right! I was right!" and "Crap, what do I say? What do I do? Will he kill me if I don't answer him?!"
"I mean," Sasuke had pressed on, his expression clean, analytical, and hungry, "do you act on it?"
"Sometimes," Kiba had blurted out, unable to stop the words from spilling over his tongue. "But maybe not… it depends… I wouldn't do it with— but it's up to you… I don't think… maybe!"
"So," Sasuke had said very slowly, "you think I should?"
Kiba had backed into the wall.
Shit, Shikamaru was going to annihilate him when he found out about this.
Kiba had run his hands distractedly across his face. "Look," he had said eventually, resigned to this cruel fate life had dealt him, "have you ever done it before?"
Sasuke had given him a look that spoke of disgust.
"Oh, sorry," he muttered. "You went off with that guy who had a tongue fetish, didn't you? So, of course, you have."
Kiba had wriggled around on the floor a bit, trying to find a comfortable position while Sasuke had looked almost frantically at the door, wondering if he could sprint there fast enough before Kiba was fool enough to open his mouth. But it had already been too late.
Kiba had obviously been one of those people who had no problem regurgitating every small and intricate detail about his own experiences and personal explorations and exploits.
Sasuke, however, had not.
"I think everyone experiments a bit," Kiba had said, quite ignoring the most chilling sneering stare the Uchiha could muster, and it had had absolutely no effect whatsoever; in fact, it had seemed only to stir the eager embers of Kiba's exuberant and ever-perky spirit.
"I did," Kiba had announced even louder this time because Sasuke had actually put both of his hands over his ears.
"It's very different doing it with a guy than it is to do it with a girl," he had enunciated, taking deliberate pleasure in saying every word as slowly as possible.
As if this hadn't already been obvious.
"I mean, you have to pick the right moment," Kiba had continued, grinning from ear to ear. Sasuke had wanted to interject things like: "Stop it" and "Stop it or I'll smash your head into the wall" or "I'll cut out your tongue if you say one more word."
But even as he had thought this, he had heard Kiba say, "And it's all awkward at first, and you're thinking, 'What the hell am I doing?' The trick is to not overthink it, you know? Just go with it, and it'll be fine."
"It'll be fine."
Is that what Naruto wanted? For everything to be fine again? A perfect fairy-tale ending?
It would never be fine.
Naruto had wanted things he couldn't give; he always had. He had asked too much. Loyalty, a lifelong companion, family and love—he had wanted Sasuke to want him in the same way he wanted Sasuke, whatever that was.
Sometimes Sasuke had thought he had come very close to it.
After all, it had been an obsessing, soul-consuming love between the two of them, souls unbodied and laid bare. There had been times when he had been younger when he had almost felt like Naruto was a part of him, where one essence had ended and the other had begun—actions and thoughts so predictable, so second nature.
There had been no doubt that Naruto was a problem, like some hot metal barb splicing through his heart and drawing blood with a steady drip, drip. One day it might kill him. One day there would be no more blood in his veins to give, and then he'd die, but not before…
Unconsciously, Sasuke had traced the onyx knob on his left wrist; he had mistakes to right before he died. A stupid, stupid mistake, and a deal with the devil to fulfil first. He hadn't had the time to die just yet.
"And then you start doing your thing, and it's like 'Shazam!'"
Sasuke had blinked, the voice suddenly jerking him back down into reality once more. He had raised one dark, arched brow and asked with all his usual cold sarcasm, "Shazam?"
Kiba had smiled at him. "That's what I say when I'm getting some—'Shazam!'" He had wiggled his fingers above his head as he had said it to accentuate how good it felt.
Sasuke might have laughed then; he might have even told Kiba that if he ever said "Shazam" in a moment of heated passion, he'd admit to being a frigid cold arse to Naruto and that there was a stick rammed so far up his arse he could rotate on it.
But he had said none of this, partly because the words had seemed unable to make it past his tongue, and secondly because at that exact moment, the front door had opened, and Naruto and Shikamaru had come stomping into the front hall.
From the moment Naruto had moved across the threshold of the apartment, everyone inside the building had known he was in one hell of a bad mood. It had been something to do with the way his feet had hit the floor—less of a 'clack' of leather onto wood and more of a 'ker-thunk' as someone had driven not just their heel but their entire sole onto the wooden planks.
Kiba had twisted up from his position on the floor, ears suddenly pricked and looking eager, like a dog will do as their master pulls open the front door. Suddenly excited and raring to go within the blink of an eye, he would have jumped up and leapt all over Naruto too, despite whatever mood he had been in, except Shikamaru had intervened.
He had grabbed Kiba by the collar and had hauled him out the door so fast it had all been over in a heartbeat. Kiba had barely had the time to wriggle round and give Sasuke the thumbs up before he had been thrown out across the threshold of Naruto's house.
"What the hell gives?" he had hissed at Shikamaru, who had the exhausted expression of someone who simply wished to crawl into bed as soon as possible.
"What did they say? What's going on, Maru?" he had continued to pester as his friend elbowed him down the stairs.
"You do not," Shikamaru had begun, the flat of both of his hands on Kiba's back as he had applied pressure to make him hurry up, "want to get in the middle of that fight. Believe me."
Kiba had craned his neck to look over his shoulder, and his stomach had wrenched at the deadly serious expression on his best friend's face.
"W-what did they say?"
His words fell heavy into the velvet inkiness of the dark.
Naruto didn't say anything for a long, long moment.
The front door clicked shut, and the indignant sounds of Shikamaru pushing a dazed Kiba down the stairs faded into the background noise of the pressing gloom.
The light had been out in the corridor, and the shadows crept from the hallways into the artificial lamplight of Naruto's sitting room, illuminating the shabby corners of the sofa and the wooden chairs.
Sasuke said nothing, obstinate and on edge all at once again; he wasn't going to be the one to break the silence.
But the look had annoyed him; it had been the look Naruto had given him when he had left— the 'I-don't-believe-you've-done-this-to-me' look, with impossibly wide blue eyes.
Except the eyes were darker this time—pits of deep indigo splashed with cornflowers, framed by impossibly dark lashes for one with such fair hair. He had looked…hurt. Hurt and angry. Like a fox cornered by a hunter, leg broken, but the gleam of some ancient savagery alive in its eyes.
It had begun quietly; the large things always do.
"They tell me," he had said in tones that were unlike Naruto's, his gaze and expression never moving, never changing a bit. As though he had wanted to hear it from Sasuke before he accepted it, he needed to hear it from Sasuke before he accepted it. Before it plunged his world into darkness and sent him spiralling through it, lost and alone.
"They tell me that the Village of Sound was destroyed a little over nine months ago."
Sasuke's heart momentarily stopped in his chest; panic rose and begun to bubble inside him, veins and arteries dilated as blood rushed tempestuously hither and thither about his body.
Thoughts darted about his mind: 'How much do they know? Surely not… there was no way… it was a secret between 'the devil' and myself…'
Naruto kept looking at him; he couldn't break away.
"They tell me all the remaining members of Akatsuki, including, from what I'm told, your brother… are dead."
Sasuke said nothing; his expression remained completely stoic, his body language stiffening as he rose to his feet, eyes level with Naruto— an unyielding, impenetrable demeanour.
Terrifying, beautiful, and sad beyond thought and reason.
Yet all that Naruto saw was a person he'd lost hold of, someone he loved, might even be in love with, but someone who was, or might as well be, an utter stranger to him.
With only the reward of silence, Naruto had pressed on, his own conscience, his own needs, his own justification pushing him forward. Part of him had slipped and slid on reality as it spiralled, and things had begun to shake loose and fall. Things he'd always believed in, like when Sasuke was strong enough—strong enough to…
"You didn't mean… to come back, did you?" Naruto had asked, there was a slight rise to his voice here, the wide, generous mouth twisted a fraction, an oddly firm line, more carnal, glinting teeth and white canines.
"It was all an accident. If you'd meant to… you'd have come back already. If you'd wanted to, but you didn't… you—"
"Did you expect me to?" Sasuke asked, his eyes cold, pinning Naruto against the wall he had been standing in front of, limbs heavy like tombstones.
"Did you expect me to come back?"
"This is your home…"
Sasuke Uchiha laughed—if you could call it laughter; it had been a hollow, mocking sound, much like his smile, and it had sent waves of desperation and anger up Naruto Uzumaki's spine.
"Home? You think this is my home? I burnt my bridges to the past when I left this place the first time, Dead Last. The Village Hidden in the Leaves can no longer contain me, you fool. I've outgrown it; I'm too dark, too twisted, too dangerous to be kept here. Do you honestly think these thin plaster walls can hold me here for long? You're sitting on a time bomb, Naruto; you keep underestimating what I'll really do to get what I want."
Sasuke had licked his lips, and a shadow had flitted across his face—a whisper of things to come. "There are worse things than death, you know."
"How did they die?"
The question caught Sasuke off guard for a fraction of a second, but he had never lost his composure once; the ice mask dripped poison that seeped into the air poisoning both of them.
"Didn't they tell you?"
Naruto's face had worked only to form the next word; the only thing alive in the mask had been his eyes, a brilliant blue that had flashed as they became steadily angrier and angrier with each passing second.
"Intelligence says the whole place has been flattened—completely wiped out. It's all gone; there's nothing left. Not even a blade of grass or a standing tree. It's a wasteland now, barren and completely bare."
There had been that look again, the strange, hurt look of a child.
"No person could have done that, Sasuke."
"Are you saying I'm not human?" There had been the sneer again.
"I honestly don't know anymore…" Naruto's voice had trailed off. "You tell me nothing but lies. I can't trust you."
"So, you're finally catching on, are you?"
It hurt a little to say it; it hurt Sasuke to say it to Naruto.
Naruto, who had believed in him blindly. He had always left Naruto behind because Naruto had kept on looking for much longer than all the others had done—Naruto, who had continued to trust despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
It had been something precious and fragile that Sasuke had been trying to kill, a white, innocent thing smoother than stardust and infinitely dearer. He could see it in those blue, blue eyes, and he longed to crack it forever—to be completely free and clean of the past altogether. He couldn't die here, he couldn't stay here. Naruto could not… would not pay for his mistake.
"I don't care about you, Naruto; I never will. I just use people to get what I want; I've used you. Don't you understand? Everyone else does."
"Shut up, Sasuke."
The syllables were ground out, and the voice impossibly rough; he was close to breaking.
"You were always dumb; you never understood. You couldn't understand. You've never had a family; you've never lost like I have, so you don't know the pain. You don't know how to suffer, and you implant your silly, idealistic—"
"Shut the fuck up."
The anger was closer now, like steam rising from a kettle; it had begun to whistle, almost ready to erupt, ominous clouds swirling.
Frustrated Sasuke rounded on the blond again, what would it take to stop forgiving him?
"Is it because you're in love with me, Naruto? Is that why you can't let me go? Because I was your one and only love, and Sakura keeps the bed warm but she's not me, now is she?…"
He had walked slowly across the room towards Naruto—Naruto, whose legs had been locked, rooted to the spot, unable to move.
"Because you want me, don't you, Naruto? You're a fool because you want me, and you always will; you can't break the cycle. I'll always have you at my beck and call…"
The blond flinched as Sasuke had brushed the tips of his fingers against his cheek and traced the three vertical scars, whisper-light.
"My poor, ugly, monstrous demon…"
Naruto's eyes had still been looking at him—angry, hurt, disbelieving—such a deep trusting and unfeasible blue. Sasuke's hot breath had been against his ear, and his heart had fluttered and jittered at the heat radiating from the supple body before him.
His body had wanted, whilst his brain had recoiled; he had been drunk on Sasuke Uchiha.
His eyes, his smell, his touch, the way he talked, the way he whispered, the way his mouth moved as the words had spilled over his tongue.
So, what if they hurt? So, what if they pulled him apart inside? Sasuke was here, wasn't that enough? Touching him, so close to holding him.
Sasuke Uchiha had tilted Naruto's face up to look into his own; the rigidity in Naruto's body had gone. He had been like a limp fish, moving easily and responding easily to Sasuke's touch like a puppet, and Sasuke had felt himself become darkly excited as cornflower irises had met his half-lidded, pained gaze—yet somehow still, asking for him.
Like he needed him, like he couldn't exist without him.
"How could anybody ever love you?"
There it was, that small whimper of pain before Sasuke's lips had crushed against Naruto's, and the Kitsune had held onto Sasuke as if he was going to drown. As if he was going to choke and never come up for air again, as if he was going to die and he simply didn't care.
His mouth was flushed and swollen from the rough handling, gasping for oxygen but given no time to think as Sasuke had pushed him to the ground and had straddled him, Naruto had known he meant to do it this time.
Not because he wanted to, but simply because he could, and he wanted to prove to both of them that Naruto wouldn't… couldn't stop him.
Then, in a moment of cold clarity, staring up at the ceiling as Sasuke had reached down to unclasp the catch on his trousers, Naruto had thought, "I bet you wanted Itachi to do you like this, didn't you? Fuck you raw and naked up your ass. That was all you really wanted from him, wasn't it?"
Sasuke hadn't replied; in fact, his expression had barely changed, but his fingers had run up the length of Naruto's body, clenching and spanning the extent of his neck before slowly beginning to choke him.
That had been when Naruto Uzumaki had known he'd gone too far. He had known as he had kicked and clawed at the fingers around his neck that he was going to die right then if Sasuke could manage it. Little white dots had bobbed and careered over a darkened background as Sasuke had pressed down directly on his jugular and had held it there. Things had faded into black and white and then become fuzzy.
Sasuke's fingers had been cold and unrelenting as they had bitten into his neck; he hadn't even been sure Sasuke was in complete control of his own actions at that moment in time—if it had been his body performing something on reflex of anger, deadly soul-consuming anger that had overridden his brain.
Naruto would die for Sasuke; they both knew it. But as oxygen had been cut off to the rest of his body, his brain's receptors had screeched into overdrive, and the Kyūbi's chakra had exploded inside of him. Suddenly the fear of death had overwhelmed him, red energy surged and then expelled, and Sasuke had gone flying. Naruto had gone flying too—both in opposite directions and hard into the floor.
There had been a pause, a realisation, and utter horror.
Sasuke had looked at his hands and then again at the red-spanning marks on Naruto's neck and the way Naruto had coughed and swallowed down air through a raw trachea. Then he had looked like he was going to be sick and had walked wordlessly out of the room.
Naruto had heard the sound of footsteps going up the stairs and a door slamming shut, but all he could do was lie on the floor and gasp like he was dying. He hadn't gone upstairs again that night; he hadn't even moved from where he lay, curled up in a foetal position and shaking from the cold.
When he had fallen asleep, he would wonder how he had gotten onto the sofa with the blanket draped over his body. He would have forgotten the person who had come down later and had said over and over again that he was sorry whilst he slept, and he wouldn't know about the kiss in the dark—the light, loving one that Sasuke had given him as he had lain on his back, exhausted and fast asleep. He might think the dried tears on his face were his; he might think he had wept them, but he hadn't…
AN The full version of this is on my AO3 account!