Dentes

November 24, 2005

When he moved so slowly, like he thought my skin was made of egg shells, I began to believe that I could break, too.

I guess that’s where everything started to go wrong. Letting him take care of me.

How could I know he had to be taken care of, too?

November 28, 2005

Sasuke was a bit slow on the uptake, but eventually, “What,” slipped out, followed belatedly by, “do you mean?” like he’d forgotten how to string together a proper sentence. Somewhat dumbly, he swiveled his head from side to side as if he expected Naruto to be standing there in the hallway with them, hidden in the shadows.

Shikamaru’s voice snapped him back to attention. “I told you over the phone that I couldn’t track Naruto’s from all the towers in this state. Do you remember?”

Sasuke nodded numbly, fiercely beating back a sharp quell of hope that had rebelliously starting to inflate inside of him, like an airbag during a car crash. But instead of continuing, Shikamaru waved Sasuke towards him.

“C’mon,” he said, voice even more dead tired than it usually sounded. “I’ll show you.”

As steadily as he could manage, Sasuke rose to his feet. Every bone in his body felt frozen in place, and movement was a burden he didn’t feel quite like dealing with yet. But he was warmed by the thought that the upstairs might be warmer than the basement, and by a half-finished promise that finally, finally someone had found something useful.

Lee and Sakura moved out of his way as he followed Shikamaru up the stairs. He could hear them follow, their footsteps as loud as his in the quiet room. When they reached the door, the faint glow of Christmas lights danced across his retinas. Lee always wanted to decorate early. Naruto was going to help them, and Sasuke would have helped if he hadn’t taken that trip. That stupid, idiotic, selfish trip to a piece of shit spit of land….

Shikamaru led them up a second flight of stairs, to the guest room. It was the only room in the house with the lights on. It was furnished with a twin-size bed, a bureau, a large oval mirror set in a beauty stand, a desk, and on the walls several pictures from group outings. The curtains were drawn, the cream-color carpet bright in the light. Upon the desk was a Mac computer, so old that the back of the monitor bulged over to meet the wall. It was the only piece of technology in the room, and however old it was, it was out of place.

Shikamaru gestured Sasuke over towards it, sitting on the chair. It creaked beneath his weight as he fiddled with the mouse. Instantly, the black screensaver was waved away and the screen was filled with things one would never expect to see on such an old desktop computer. It was then that Sasuke noticed several thick ropes of cord circling from behind the monitor to a box twice as ride as the computer tower. The front panel was removed and the plastic stripped to reveal a jumble of wires within, and what looked to be around half a roll of electrical tape. “What…” Sasuke muttered, but Shikamaru shushed him for silence. He was tapping away at the keyboard now, every now and then reaching up to do something with the mouse. The door shut silently behind them, and Sasuke couldn’t tell if Lee and Sakura were still in the room. His eyes were fixed to the screen and what looked like an endless stream of binary code. Several bars floated at the edges of the dying screen, loading something, or several somethings.

A few minutes later, just as Sasuke was considering interrupting again, the computer beeped. It was the first noise in the room besides the typing of keys, and Shikamaru sat back in his seat, a vaguely satisfied look on his face.

“When I called you the last time,” Shikamaru said, “I told you I was going to start checking all the cell phone towers in bordering states, and work outwards from there.”

Sasuke nodded, even though he couldn’t remember. The screen had a small window of binary at the bottom right, but a majority of the screen was filled with a neon green gridline map.

“Well, it turns out I didn’t need to,” Shikamaru continued, eyes darting to the screen before meeting Sasuke’s again. “As soon as I heard that Naruto was kidnapped, I started a search for Naruto’s cell phone. When I found it was still at your house, I gave up on that and stayed tuned in with the police department handling the case.

“There are three ways this could have gone, and don’t be upset with me for this--it was ransom, a murder case, or a different sort of kidnapping. The first I ruled out after the first twenty four hours. The second I dismissed because if that were the case, there wouldn’t be much I could do anyway. So I started to think on the third.

“There isn’t much reason,” Shikamaru continued, “to kidnap Naruto. I ran background checks on both his parents, and their records turned up completely clean. Same with his family. No ties to gangs, the mafia, drug dealers, no anything. So retribution was out. And Naruto’s a man, which rules out the option of a stalker or an obsession. And while you have quite an inheritance,” he nodded at Sasuke, “that would be no reason to keep Naruto for as long as he has. He would have called for ransom by now.

“So, reason-wise, I’m just as without a clue as you and everyone else. It made it hard to put myself in the shoes of the kidnapper--how safe he would feel staying in one place at one time, how far he’d be willing to travel--and they have a wanted notice in airports keeping an eye out for Naruto. Nothing. So he hasn’t made any long-distance plans for travel.

“So would he be traveling by car, by truck, with the aid of an accomplice? I figured by car, and I calculated how far he could get if he traveled twelve-hours out of a day. I got nothing. But then I realized one mistake.” Shikamaru held up a finger, and looked slightly ashamed at himself. “What if he hadn’t moved at all?”

Sasuke frowned. “What do you mean?”

Shikamaru sighed. “When I first started tracked your cell phone’s signal, it had been more than forty-eight hours since the initial kidnapping. So I started with towers outside a fifty-mile radius. I had to hack into the mainframe of each one individually, and this system can only do five at a time.” He frowned. “And there are a lot of cell phone towers. I didn’t bother with the ones near us; I thought he would have taken Naruto far from here by now.” There was a short pause in the stream of words. “But I was wrong.”

Sasuke paid much closer attention to the computer monitor now, eyes practically glued to it, trying to make sense. Just green squares, tiny strips of code lining them in some areas. But now he could see it. At the top right, a tiny speck of yellow in the black background.

Shikamaru pointed at the dot. “This,” he said, “is your cell phone.” Sasuke stared at it like it was a long lost relative. “And this,” Shikamaru dragged his finger down and to the right, right to the corner of the screen, “is where we are.”

Sasuke’s breath snagged in his throat. He stared at the dot even harder, like it could swallow him up and spit him out wherever it indicated.

“Your phone is off,” Shikamaru said, “but not really. Because you were prissy enough to get a Blackberry, in fact. Those things never really turn off. It maintains a connection to the internet whether on and off, and can receive e-mails, texts, nearly everything even if the battery is dead. So the signal’s still fairly strong.”

Sasuke didn’t realize how hypnotically he’d been staring until he felt a hand on a shoulder. He jumped, and his head snapped around to meet Sakura’s concerned eyes.

“Sasuke,” Sakura said slowly, like she’d rehearsed what she was about to say, “you have to realize that this isn’t a one-hundred percent chance. The kidnapper could have thrown it out the car on his way, or someone might have found it and just kept it.”

Sasuke turned back to Shikamaru, and found in him an ally. “This whole area,” he gestured the top half of the screen, “is downtown. The area of the city that’s due to start reconstruction in the spring. It’s… highly unlikely that anyone would be driving through it.”

When Sasuke turned back to Sakura, he was already saying, “See?” More to convince himself. The hope couldn’t be shut down anymore. It was overriding everything, making him feel better than he had in days.

But just as quickly as he found it, he lost it. “Sasuke,” Shikamaru said, “Sakura’s right.”

“I agree,” Lee said, stepping forward. He was in plaid sleeping pants and a university hoodie. They must have been in bed when Shikamaru came over, toting a massive computer and a warning. “Nothing ever is, Sasuke. You can’t get your hopes too high up.”

Sasuke wasn’t having any of it. “Do you have an address?” Sasuke asked of Shikamaru. “A street name? A direction? Anything.”

Shikamaru sighed, rubbing at his temples and muttering darkly under his breath. “Before you go running off,” he said, “I feel I should remind you that the entire city is filled with people wanting you in cuffs. And however righteous your cause, they won’t let you go gallivanting off if they catch you.”

“I know,” Sasuke snapped. “An address.” He tagged on, “Please,” like the word was an insult.

Shikamaru continued as if Sasuke hadn’t interrupted. “You need to drive carefully, slowly. Give no one any reason to pull you over. I’d suggest pulling over at a diner or parking garage and continue on foot. If they see anyone driving in that area of town, it’ll arouse suspicion in an instant.”

Going through a deserted city full of drug dealers and the homeless, during the dead of night. In winter. Sasuke scowled. Fun.

Shikamaru dug in his pocket for a second before pulling out a rather chunky cell phone, the kind you got for free when signing up for a plan. “Here,” he muttered, handing it to Sasuke. “Once you get into the city’s borders, calling me on that.” He nodded at the phone Sasuke was tucking into his pocket. “My number’s the only one programmed into it. I have the line scrambled through the satellite to automatically re-network to several out-of-state towers, so tracking it should be impossible.” Sasuke nodded his head to mask his confusion. Shikamaru stood up, cracking his back and yawning widely. “I’ll be waiting for your call, and I’ll give you directions from there.”

Sasuke nodded again, waiting. Shikamaru was staring at him, and Sasuke’s eyebrow ticked. Where were his other warnings? Where were the long list of precautions? Before he could ask for Shikamaru to just get it over with, Lee said, “You can use my car,” and Sasuke realized that this was it. All he needed was the phone in his pocket, the car keys Lee was holding out to him, so cold and solid and real in his hand, and Naruto, waiting somewhere out there for him. Naruto. “Naruto,” he said out loud, and the name filled him with a happiness he didn’t think he’d ever feel again. Naruto.

I’m coming.

November 24, 2005

When Naruto woke up, it was to an empty bed. He was tired, as if he hadn’t slept a wink, and sore, sore everywhere. The clock blinked 1:30 in the morning, and with so few hours of darkness left, Naruto decided it was time to get up.

Naruto slowly slid from the warm covers, every muscle in his body feeling over-taxed. Halfway across the floor he realized he was shivering and tracked back to the dresser drawers. Pulling out a shelf, he shuffled through but gave up, mentally abrading himself for being so picky. He couldn’t even pinpoint why. In the end, he went to the closet and pulled it open. Sasukeh’s robe was hanging there, dark, silk, red and warm. He pulled it over his bare shoulders, tying the knot twice, and padded out of the room.

He found Sasukeh downstairs, watching a random television show on mute. There was no remote in sight, and when Naruto sat down, Sasukeh didn’t look up. Just stared over the television screen, into the wall, the multi-colored light making his face glow surreally.

After a while, when Sasukeh refused to initiate conversation, Naruto asked of him, “Now what?” Sasukeh had been leading him along all this time, with such confidence that it was frightening, and wish so much righteous courage that it made him slightly angry. But now the big ‘what’.

Slowly, Sasukeh looked away from the wall to meet Naruto’s questioning gaze. His expression was carefully guarded. “That,” he murmured, “is up to you.”

It made Naruto angry to hear that. Three days ago, Naruto would have loved nothing more than to hear those words, and would have left without ever looking back. But he knew Sasukeh didn’t mean it. Never had Naruto ever really been allowed a choice. Not when he was young and baffled by an industrializing world, surrounded by smoke and always those dark, cautious, warm eyes. Not when he lived in his dorm room, looking down at a housing form for the next year while in the middle of one of their fall outs. Not in a broken battlefield, a sword by his side and a cold hand in his, blood in his lungs making it difficult to speak. And not now, so confused and still so torn, looking at his best friend, his best lover, his best enemy.

Naruto reached out for Sasukeh’s gloved hand, brushing fingers against the stone-hard skin, feeling how dead it was and wishing he could heal it. But he would never, could never, will never be able to. Sasukeh turned the hand and laced his fingers with Naruto’s, pulling the man closer until he’s straddling Sasukeh’s lap. They’re at eye level now, and slowly they kiss, languidly, like it’s not the most unnatural thing on planet Earth. When Naruto laps at Sasukeh’s lower lip, the vampire sighs and opens his mouth to him, and slowly they meet in the middle. Pulling back half a half centimeter before colliding again gently. Naruto pressed Sasukeh back into the couch, wishing this was as real as the muscles felt underneath his palm. Sasukeh was lazily combing the hair back from Naruto’s forehead, their kissing still slow and unhurried. When Naruto drew back for breath, Sasukeh slowly made his way down his throat, biting but not breaking skin. Naruto tilted his head back for him, cupping Sasukeh’s jaw just to feel how it moved. Wishing it were all real.

Sasukeh switched their positions so that he lay on top of Naruto, pinning him down to the cushions. Naruto thought that the weight of him was heavy and cold, but comforting in the way Sasukeh used an arm to help bear part of the weight. They continued to kiss, never speeding up or slowing down, quiet wet sounds muted in the thick quiet of the room.

Sasukeh, Sasukeh, and forever, Sasuke.

For destruction, Naruto thought hazily as Sasukeh used a firm hand to begin to untie the knot of his bathrobe, ice is also great, and would suffice.

And again, Naruto lost himself.

November 29, 2005

Sasuke pulled up at a roadside inn close by an exit off of the freeway. He parked in the farthest spot possible, and circled around the building until he got to the road. This wasn’t an area he was familiar with, but Sakura had given him directions before he left.

“There’s a road there that goes on for about two miles, and leads you under a bridge. Past that is a strip of old toll gates. Go through there, and when you reach the city square, give us a call.” She’d kissed him on the cheek then, smelling like fresh lilies and something warm. Lee had clapped him on the shoulder, and Shikamaru had muttered something Sasuke couldn’t make out before he was shown out and to the forest green jeep Cherokee.

Now he walked along the road that was proving to be more far more than two miles. He checked his watch at least once a minute, the seconds ticking by slowly. More than once he considered running it, but the night was practically freezing his breath to his nostrils and the rood of his mouth. Breaking an ankle on a patch of black ice wasn’t in tonight’s plans. So, at an agonizing pace, Sasuke walked it.

The night was dead quiet. Once or twice a gar chugged by him in the opposite direction, but too fast to get a look at Sasuke’s face, or visa versa. For a mile or so he walked down a tree-line wood, heavy bushels of dead bramble and roots like fence posts, lining his way. Once he emerged, it was to a wide-open, six lane road. He walked on the side of it, even though there was really no need. Along the wide road, several plazas of discount department stores and outlets sat dead in the snow, their windows empty of anything interesting or up-to-date. The part of town was poorly taken care of, obvious in the way that the blanket of snow coating the parking lot was untouched.

Up ahead, like an ancient church, the bridge hovered. It had been closed down a long time ago, deemed unsafe for use. The hollow beneath it was like a giant, toothless mouth, gaping and dark. As he approached it, Sasuke began to shuffle through the bag on his shoulders that Sakura had prepared for him. In it was the phone, the car keys, a .9 mill glock, several things of water, an airtight pack containing a foil emergency blanket, several energy bars, and what Sasuke was looking for; a flashlight with a light, Lee had said, to rival a floodlight.

When Sasuke flicked it on, he found that Lee had underestimated that. Instantly, the dark night was filled with a yellow light so bright it made Sasuke’s neck snap as he looked over his shoulder, afraid that it would alert something.

Moron, Sasuke chided himself. There’s no one around for miles. It’s fine.

But when Sasuke took his first step into the tunnel, he began to rethink that.

It was the type of bridge that traveled underground, underneath roads, with bright orange lights lining the top corners of the tunnel, only now they were black and dead. Only two lanes with a bold stripe of paint in the middle warning cars not to attempt to switch lanes. As Sasuke walked further in, he felt the pressure slowly causing a building tension in his ears. He scowled at nothing in particular. It was bad enough driving through these things in a car. It was even worse going through it with only a flashlight and a million clips from zombie movies catalogued in his mind.

Naruto could never do this, Sasuke thought to himself. He checked the digital watch on his wrist. He’d been walking through this for ten minutes. He hates the dark.

Something flapped overhead and Sasuke resisted the automatic urge to jump. And so do I, he thought viciously.

When he emerged from the tunnel half an hour later, he shook his head, trying to get his ears to pop. He swung the bag off of his back again to return the flashlight, looking ahead of himself as he did so. The abandoned part of the city looked surreal with only the stars as lights above it. Behind him, his home town glowed bright, the light chasing him forward and illuminating his footsteps in the thick trench of snow. No one could have snow plowed this area all season. The snow came up well past his shins, nearly to his knees. He took wide steps, crunching through the snow. The toll booths were just ahead, and to the right of it, a wide field that separated this town from the next.

It would have been so much easier to go across that, Sasuke thought. And then, Yes, because it’s the epitome of normal to see a man walk to a deserted city in the middle of the night. Right.

He leapt over the poll in one of the toll booths. The windows were masked with grime and peeling stickers. He hadn’t put the bag back on his shoulders yet, and now he buried through it. He stood still for a moment to try and see properly. The glock, shining a bright and deadly black, Dasani water like Swarvoski crystal, and there it was, like full gray lint in the corner.

Pulling it out, Sasuke opened it. The background was blue with the company logo, and the time in the middle. He scrolled through the menu to Contacts, and going down, he saw in the only name title a long list of digits. Frowning, Sasuke hovered over it and hit Send before bringing it up to his ear.

It rang only twice before Shikmaru’s voice answered, a dull and uninterested “Hello?” in his ear.

Sasuke eyed the city wearily. Like it was staring right back at him. “Shikamaru,” Sasuke replied, glaring right back at it, “I’m here.”

November 24, 2005

Sasukeh had brought the ancient photo albums downstairs instead of dragging Naruto up there with him. Naruto had made himself breakfast, and was scraping off his plate when Sasukeh came back down with the book tucked snugly under his arm.

When Naruto was woken up that night, it was to a curiosity that proved insatiable. With a thousand memories that had been tucked so carefully away, he found that he needed some sort of outline to contain them. Some way to force those thoughts into a timeline that made a decent scrap of sense.

Naruto hadn’t needed to explain any of this to Sasukeh. He seemed to understand Naruto on a level that he hadn’t been able to appreciate in a long while, and he’d disappeared for a short amount of time just as Naruto was cracking a few eggs into a hot pan. Now he was carefully setting the book on the table. Naruto left his plate in the sink, wiping his clammy palms against the cloth of his jeans before rejoining Sasukeh at the table. The older man shifted to the side, allowing Naruto to stand directly before the open book.

In a teasing tone, meant to lighten the mood, Sasukeh said coolly into his ear, “Don’t sweep it to the floor this time.”

Naruto elbowed him in the chest, blushing darkly. Sasukeh chuckled. Ignoring him, Naruto slowly lifted the cover.

What struck Naruto almost immediately was that there were actual people in these pictures. More specifically--and this caused a heavy jolt in his stomach--pictures of him. Him in his old flat with his easels and work bench, him floating around the London streets, him in Cambridge when they‘d gone to visit the universities there. There was Sasukeh there, too. Looking the same in those pictures as he did standing right next to him. Sasukeh kept up a constant, smooth commentary for each of the photos, explaining more when he saw that Naruto stopped on a particular picture, tracing it with a finger.

“Did I like this?” Naruto would sometimes ask, and Sasuke would reply with a yes or a no. “Were these my friends?” If they were, Sasukeh would give names and Naruto’s mind slowly fit personalities back to where they fit. She was shy but mischievous, he was Naruto’s old flat mate, that was one of Naruto’s clients, that was the little boy that followed Naruto around like a second shadow whenever Sasukeh was absent…

“This is Sakura,” Naruto said to himself, and was again struck by the similarities. A year ago, during summer break, they’d all taken a group trip to the beach and stopped at a photo shop on the boardwalk. There they’d dressed in Victorian outfits to take pictures. Lee had somehow cajoled them into doing it. Naruto knew that Sakura still had one of those pictures in her bedroom. But now, seeing it there and in front of his face… they looked so similar.

“Mhmm,” Sasukeh hummed. He paused. “Is she like the one in… this era?”

“They’re very similar,” Naruto told him, a bit proud to be the one explaining something for once. “She liked you up to high school, until she met Lee in college.”

“Who’s Lee?”

Naruto frowned. “No Lee in London?”

Sasukeh shook his head ‘no’. “I wish there was, though,” he admitted. “She was very… persistent.”

Naruto laughed. “I remember,” he said, slightly fondly. “She always knew how to go after what she wanted.” He looked up then, eyes glinting mischievously. “Kinda like a certain person I know.”

Sasukeh smirked until Naruto shook his head, going back to the photos.

An hour or so later, there was a long moment of silence as Naruto finally closed the album. Sasukeh’s hand was at the small of his back, rubbing away. He was silent, apparently having talked himself out. It used to be soothing. Now, Naruto wasn’t sure. But Sasukeh knew what was coming. He had to. Naruto just had to be man enough to bring it up.

Swallowing stiffly, Naruto said, “I just can’t leave him.”

Playing dumb, Sasukeh asked, “Who?” as he moved to encircle Naruto’s waist with his arm. Proving his point in the way that Naruto didn’t move away from him.

Naruto swallowed again, and winced in pain. There was a giant knot in his stomach, and it took a great effort to speak around it. “Him,” Naruto clarified. Then, “Don’t act stupid now.”

Sasukeh sighed, but didn’t remove his arm. Instead, he tugged Naruto close to his side. “You can’t have us both,” he told him, and Naruto heard the unspoken addition to that sentence. And you can’t have him. I won’t let you.

“I know that.” But he didn’t. Not really. There was Sasukeh, Sasuke, and why couldn’t there be two of him, or one of them? Two worlds, because he couldn’t possibly house both of them in the same reality. Lives overlapping, intruding where they didn’t belong and staying there, refusing to die.

As if it would delay the moment he had to make that choice, Naruto leaned further into Sasukeh’s side. Ignoring the closed photo album for now, Sasukeh steered them into the living room. Naruto allowed himself to be guided onto the couch. It must have been close to midnight, and while his biological clock was quickly adapting itself to this new life style, Naruto still felt tired if he sat still long enough. Sasukeh didn’t repeat himself, but his words--you can’t have us both--hovered in the air, a silent and very real threat.

The repaired grandfather clock--when did Sasukeh have time to fix that?--chimed midnight on the wall. Another day passed.

“You know,” Sasukeh murmured, “I won our deal.”

Naruto snorted. “That deal wasn’t fair,” he muttered. They sat on the couch now. Sasukeh shifted, resting his head in the curve of Naruto’s shoulder. Absent-mindedly, he played with Sasukeh’s cool hair. Tugging at the bangs, taking the tie and pulling so Sasukeh’s hair fell loose about his neck. “Stop putting it into a pony tail.”

Sasukeh yawned. “Make me, moron.” They sat in silence for a few more minutes, time ticking away. Naruto wished he could have more of it. To stay on this old, beaten down couch forever.

“How was our deal not fair, then?” Sasukeh asked softly, as if he didn’t really care about the answer. His hand was on Naruto’s stomach, pushing the shirt up, reaching for skin. Sasukeh sighed, kissing at Naruto’s neck. His lips found two bumps from where he’d bitten Naruto the previous night. His mouth curved into a pleased smirk, licking gently at the fast healing wounds.

Naruto grunted, half-heartedly shoving at Sasukeh’s shoulder. The vampire relented, changing to gentle kisses. Merely mouthing the flesh, softly. “Well?” he prodded.

“You always knew I’d remember,” Naruto said simply. “So it wasn’t fair.”

Sasukeh chuckled. “Perhaps,” he conceded. “But I needed a bit of an edge to crack through your thick head.”

“Oi. My head isn’t thick, bastard. You’re just a manipulative git.”

Sasukeh’s grin widened at the insult--one he hadn’t heard in so long, he feared he’d never hear it again.

“That I am.” He bit gently at Naruto’s neck. The human didn’t even flinch when two pearl drops of blood emerged, quickly swept up by Sasukeh’s tongue. He hummed in approval, sucking gently, leaving a faint red mark by the time he pulled away.

He muttered something too faint for Naruto to understand. Cupping his jaw, Naruto lifted him so that they were eye-to-eye now. “What?” he asked, curious.

Sasukeh shook his head. He lifted a hand to slide it into Naruto’s hair, tilting it, looking at him at an angle. Would it be too soon to ask that they pick up where he’d failed so dismally years and years ago? He was so impatient, so eager, to finish this. To fulfill that promise made so long ago, centuries and centuries. But Naruto was still looking at him with the utmost of curiosity. No hatred, no hurriedness, no nervousness. Just Naruto, finally, finally here.

Where he belongs.

“Surely there must be some things you’re still curious about,” Sasukeh said instead.

Naruto shrugged. “There are,” he admitted. “More so about…” his eyebrows furrowed. “Were we really born… that long ago?”

Sasukeh laughed then. “Yes,” he said. “That long ago.”

“Do you remember any of it?”

Still chuckling, Sasukeh said, “Bits and pieces. Would you like to hear?”

Naruto nodded his head, scooting closer. Warm, Sasukeh thought, putting an arm around him. Warm, he thought again. There was a brief image of Naruto cold, a pale blue, with dead eyes in his head, but he chased it away as he began to call forth memories from a time far before that.

November 25, 2005

Naruto turned over and hummed in his sleep. Sasukeh was up uncommonly late, around one in the afternoon, adding another few logs to the fire when he heard it. He brushed his hands together to remove the wooden debris, and then--

“Sasuke.”

Sasukeh froze, hoping against everything that he’d heard wrong. That Naruto was mumbling random things in his sleep, his pronunciations skewed. But then he said it again, “Sasuke,” so plainly, heatedly, like that name was the only thing in the world that made sense to him.

Sasukeh’s hands clenched and he threw a dark glare at the curtains, through the window, to the world outside. To him, out there, somewhere. Who had a part of Naruto Sasukeh had never gotten the chance to experience.

And he wanted it.

Sasukeh slipped back into bed. He didn’t pull Naruto to him, like he usually would, just watched. Quietly. And he planned.