Almost Sucks

Almost Sucks
by Mashiro

Naruto fandom, series, no spoilers
AU, BOYS LOVE: Naruto x Sasuke, Kakashi x Iruka, Lee x Gaara

first version: April 28th 2006, Friday
second version: August 15th 2008, Friday

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DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the rights to the Naruto series or characters and I make no money writing this. I’m just a fan. This is fan fiction.

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19: Warmth and being near you

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His throat was thick and his stomach weird; like he’d fallen asleep in the middle of the day. Sasuke hated that feeling. Otherwise though, things were good. He was warm and comfortable and he felt safe. Had Kakashi come home from work and carried him inside? What time was it?

Where was he anyway? With awareness came interest in such things. Maybe he should open his eyes. But he didn’t.

In reflex Sasuke moved a leg and immediately figured out that he was lying down, and it was hard so he guessed on a floor. He wasn’t lying down completely though, he was leaning against something not so hard. It was a body. Sasuke knew from experience how it felt to lean against bodies. They had that typical body quality of softness mixed with hardness, flesh and bones; and warmth and arms that wrapped around you. Just like this. Someone was holding him.

“S-Sasuke?” a voice said and judging from the vibrations against Sasuke’s ear, it belonged to the one holding him.

‘I know you...’ Sasuke’s brain said softly. ‘I know that voice.‘

“Naruto?”

“Yeah,” the voice sighed with relief. The arms gripped tighter at the same time as the body Sasuke was leaning against relaxed. “Yeah, it’s me. Are you okay?”

Naruto’s voice was drowning in worry. Sasuke frowned and the interest in where he was and why increased. He had an idea, but he didn’t want to be right.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled and wondered if it was a lie. But everything seemed to be working; he moved the other leg slightly and shifted his arms as well. Naruto’s arms around him loosened, but stayed wrapped around.

“Al-–right, I don’t... know anything about stuff like this, whatever it is. See? I don’t even know what it is.”

Naruto laughed weakly without joy.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I… Are… Are you sure you’re alright? Do you need anything?”

The arms around Sasuke shifted. They were really warm. One hand was on his shoulder, the other on his back. Sasuke's face was against Naruto's chest. His smell invaded Sasuke’s senses.

For every second that passed and the further into awareness Sasuke got, the idea he had seemed more and more like what had to have happened. Damn it.

“Should I...?” Naruto swallowed. “Should I have called someone? I didn’t... couldn’t... You were...”

The hands pressed closer. Naruto moved and soon Sasuke felt his face on his hair.

“No. And I don’t need anything,” Sasuke said, hardening his voice and shifting; he wanted the blond to get over it. Yes, sure, it wasn’t something you could easily just ignore, if what Sasuke thought had happened had happened, and he was growing more and more sure of that, but come on! It was... embarrassing.

“I’m fine. Let go of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Naruto repeated. “I just...”

Sasuke opened his eyes. He saw an orange arm and leg; he saw Naruto’s kitchen through the doorway, spotless floorboards, legs of the table and the chairs, the parts of the counters that met the floor. They were in the hall.

There was a sniffle and Sasuke stiffened.

“Are you crying?” he snarled, as if it was a crime, and struggled harder to get up and away from the arms. “Don’t cry, you idiot! Let me go!”

“No!” Naruto tightened his hold on Sasuke. Determination. “I’m not crying, and I’m not letting you go.”

There was something in those arms and the warmth and the closeness that weakened Sasuke’s struggles, from enthusiastic to half-hearted to nothing. Naruto sniffled and Sasuke sighed. He could understand if the blond had been scared. Even Shikamaru had been scared the first time.

At the thought of his friend, Sasuke remembered the call. He had come with Naruto to his house and he had called Shikamaru.

“You’re not sorry,” Sasuke mumbled. “You’re just sorry I don’t like you.”

“You do like me,” Naruto muttered.

The words sounded different when spoken against Sasuke’s head. Less like stubborn, idiotic things and more like something real and honest and tangible. Like wrapping your hands around a hot cup of chocolate; Sasuke remembered the feeling from after the call and the shower. He’d had a shower too.

It was scary, the lack of stubborn idiocy in words that should be stubborn and idiotic; but Sasuke didn’t feel like struggling. The floor was digging into his bones, he felt that now; and he felt the bumpy doormat against his feet, but it was comfortable. Naruto’s body was warm and Sasuke was tired of being cold.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “This just happens sometimes. I’m sick.”

The hands clenched slightly, fingers digging into Sasuke’s skin.

“How sick?” Naruto asked and it sounded like he didn’t want to know. Overreacting blond.

“Not dying sick,” Sasuke rolled his eyes and had the awareness to wonder why he was sharing. “I’m fine. I just... I see a shrink and sometimes I pass out.”

“You scared me,” Naruto said.

“I’m fine.”

Sasuke remembered now. The first thing he had done was ask for the phone.

-

“Where’s the phone?”

“You don’t want a shower?” Naruto asked. “You shouldn’t walk around in those clothes.”

“I want the phone,” Sasuke said; kicked off his shoes and squeezed between Naruto and the coat rack. “Where is it?”

Naruto sighed dramatically.

“In the kitchen. On the wall. You can’t miss it.”

Sasuke didn’t miss it. He snatched the handset off the wall and dialed the number. While the beeps sounded Naruto came shuffling into the kitchen.

“Who are you calling?”

“None of your business,” Sasuke muttered. “Go away.”

“Hey, this is my house!”

Sasuke glared. Naruto glared back. Then the blond threw out his arms and sighed dramatically again.

“I’ll go get you some clothes to borrow,” he said as he wandered off. “You’re taking a shower later.”

“Whatever,” Sasuke said.

There were too many beeps, Sasuke noticed, his fingers fiddling with the long cord. Shikamaru always had his cell phone on him. He hated the things, but it was important that people could reach him and that he could reach people.

Sasuke found that he was still trembling, even more so now that he was warming up. It was painful, warming up. His fingers were stiffened; felt numb and thicker than they should be. He wanted to stop trembling but he couldn’t. Was it supposed to be this cold in August?

When the monotone beeping was cut off by a tired ‘yeah?’ Sasuke’s heart jumped in his chest.

“Shikamaru?”

“Oh, Sasuke. Hey. Sorry, I was in the shower.”

Sasuke threw a glance in the direction where Naruto had gone, but there was nothing to see.

“How’s it going?” Shikamaru said. He sounded like he’d been sleeping and not taking a shower.

“Fine. It’s just... fine, I...”

Sasuke had forgotten what to say and cursed himself.

“Hang on a second, will you?” Shikamaru said. “I’m going to find a towel.”

“S-Sure,” Sasuke frowned.

“Think of something to say, alright?”

“Yeah.”

Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut and cursed himself again. Naruto came back and dumped a pile of clothes on the table. It looked like at least three sets of everything; fortunately less screaming colorful than what Naruto usually wore.

“You’re gonna have to pick something out,” the blond said. “I don’t know your size.”

“Fine,” Sasuke sighed.

“You’re not talking,” Naruto muttered after a while. Sasuke glared over his shoulder.

“Shut up.”

Naruto sighed again and wandered off muttering something about getting a towel and ‘couldn’t be ruder if he tried’. Then Shikamaru came back.

“So? What have you got for me?”

“You fucking bastard!”

Shikamaru coughed.

“Alright.”

“How could you be so fucking stupid?” Sasuke growled. “You tell me to be careful, then you go and set something up to get yourself killed? Have you lost your mind!?”

“You talked to Gaara.”

“No, he talked to me! Don’t you ever do something like that again!”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah! I’m fucking alright, are you listening to me?”

“Look, Sasuke, I’m sorry,” Shikamaru sighed. “I needed to make sure.”

“What? That he wasn’t a killer?” Sasuke hissed, lowering his voice because the subject was not suitable for yelling. “It seems to me that you just assumed he was a killer and decided he should kill you rather than me.”

“I’m fine, Sasuke.”

“I know. That’s not the point. You... You’re my friend. I don’t want you doing stupid shit like that, not for anyone.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sasuke sighed. For a moment it was quiet, until Shikamaru spoke again.

“Look, where are you? This isn’t your number.”

“At... At a neighbor’s house. Does it matter? Don’t change the subject.”

“It does matter,” Shikamaru said. “We’ll talk later. Call me back when you get home.”

Sasuke wanted to protest but knew Shikamaru was right. This was not the place. A ‘you’re a fucking idiot!’ call was one thing, but having a longer talk would have to wait. He could feel Naruto hovering just outside the invisible circle of phone privacy.

“Fine,” Sasuke said.

“Say hi to Naruto.”

“I have other neighbors,” Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

“Sure you do,” a sliver of amusement had trickled into Shikamaru’s voice. “Later.”

“Bastard.”

The friend hung up and Sasuke did too.

Naruto came into the kitchen soon after, dropped a towel on Sasuke.

“Who did you call?”

“An asshole,” Sasuke muttered. “He said hi.”

“Okay,” Naruto said and frowned. “Say... hi back next time you talk to him... I guess. Now go shower! You’re dripping on the floor.”

There was something less childish about the blond suddenly and Sasuke had to wonder how much of the getting-killed talk he had overheard and taken seriously. But instead of mentioning anything about it, Naruto went off and started rummaging around in the cupboards. Sasuke, who wasn’t about to willingly start a conversation with the blond, especially not about his ex-murderer friend, started rummaging through the pile of clothes.

“Do you like hot chocolate?” Naruto called over his shoulder.

“No,” Sasuke muttered, pushing a too bright blue shirt out of the way.

“I’ll make some,” the blond said as if he hadn’t heard. “Hot chocolate is perfect for rainy days.”

“It stopped raining,” Sasuke informed.

“I know,” Naruto said like Sasuke was the idiot. “But it’s still a rainy day.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes and decided on a black shirt and blue pants. The pants were a bit too blue for his taste, but at least they weren’t orange. Taking the clothes and the towel, he left for the bathroom. Peeling the soaked clothes off his skin felt heavenly and the hot spray of water in the shower even more so, erasing the frustration of having listened to what Naruto said.

Sasuke recognized the bottles of shampoo and body wash from the sleepover and realized that he had been in here before the kisses being ignorant, between the kisses being pissed at himself for not recognizing the then painfully obvious crush signals and after the kisses being pissed at Naruto for being a desperate retard. Like last time, he hadn’t thought he’d be in this house again. But even when those memories came rushing and rattled him, Sasuke was happy he’d taken the shower. The water almost burned against his cold body.

Sasuke found himself thinking again about what Sakura had said about Naruto and his not so perfect childhood. Part of Sasuke wished he could ask the blond about it so he could stop being so damn curious. Another part called the first part an idiot for being nosy. Would Sasuke like it if Naruto poked around in his past? Don’t poke around if you don’t want to be poked. Yet another part called the first two ones idiots for caring about things and people that shouldn’t, didn’t, matter.

Naruto sat at the table when Sasuke came into the kitchen, steam rising from the cup in his hands and from the one by the empty chair opposite him. He grinned and looked up, raised his cup.

“Hot chocolate! Perfect for rainy days!”

Sasuke rolled his eyes and sat down in the empty chair. His cup was black with messy sand colored square shapes, radiating heat and the smell of hot chocolate.

“Where are your clothes?” Naruto asked.

“Bathroom.”

“Did those fit?”

“Apparently,” Sasuke muttered. The fabric felt strange against his skin and wrapped him in the smell of Naruto. Sasuke noticed that his hands were still trembling.

Naruto was happy, blowing on the chocolate so the surface rippled and the steam was chased off. His feet were jumping under the table and it looked like he was trying his very best to not grin, but he was failing.

“Soo,” Naruto said and glanced in Sasuke’s direction. “What do you wanna do?”

“Nothing,” Sasuke glared. He was not here to have fun. “Aren’t you grounded from everything?”

“Yeah,” the blond sighed; then he seemed to remember, his eyes narrowed and bubbling happiness vanished. “That’s your fault, you know?”

“You could have left me alone.”

“I was just being nice!”

Sasuke snorted, shook his head and rolled his eyes. He brought the black cup to his lips and sipped the liquid. It was as sweet as he’d expected.

“Iruka always overreacts when it’s school stuff,” Naruto muttered, dropping the blame topic. “I skipped once and he went completely insane.”

Sasuke wondered why his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“How long have you known that redhead?” he asked, looking away from his fingers.

“Who? Gaara?”

“Yeah.”

“A couple of years. Why?”

“Just asking,” Sasuke said. “What do you know about him?”

“I don’t know,” Naruto looked confused and shrugged. “He lives with his sister and brother, likes coffee and teasing people. Why are you so interested in Gaara?”

“I told you I’m just asking.”

Naruto huffed.

“He wasn’t very nice when he came here,” he said after a while. “Gaara. But he’s cool now. Just annoying sometimes.”

The blue eyes started glittering as a smile crept onto Naruto’s lips. Sasuke told himself to look away, but he didn’t. Or couldn’t. A soft blush had come to paint the blond’s cheeks.

“Kind of like you,” Naruto finished.

It came suddenly and somehow managed to stroll right past all the defenses, all the ‘I don’t like him’s and ‘why the hell should I care?’s that Sasuke had set up. Sasuke’s heart beat hard and his stomach swirled. For seconds that felt like months he couldn’t look away and he couldn’t breathe. When he finally did manage to struggle free and look down, Sasuke noticed the ripples in the chocolate in the cup his hands were cradling and realized his hands were shaking worse than before.

“Sasuke?”

“What?” Sasuke said quickly, looked up and met Naruto’s eyes again without thinking. The worry in them sent chills dancing through Sasuke’s insides. He realized what this was, what this could be, and it was unacceptable. Not here, not now and not with him. He refused.

“Are you okay? You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you cold?”

“I’m fine!”

But the pounding in Sasuke’s chest was so loud now that he barely heard his own words. They sounded far away. His head pounded too, though it was more of a sound than a pain. That it was unacceptable only made things worse.

Where the hell had it come from? Yes, it had been a rough day but that alone wasn’t enough. The cold? But he’d showered! He was warm now, it was...

Had to control his breathing. It was fine. Nothing was wrong. It was all about the breathing. If the breathing was alright he’d be fine. His heart could pound away, he could lose his hearing and his sight, if he just kept his breathing calm he would be fine. The rest of him would calm down if his breathing just...

“You’re not fine!” Naruto protested. “I can see you’re not fine. What’s wrong?”

But that voice rattled everything, and when Naruto put his hand on Sasuke’s arm, in a too soft for him ‘are you okay?’ gesture, it all fell apart. Sasuke had thought he was warm after the shower, but Naruto’s hand was fire against his skin. Sasuke was not warm.

He flinched violently. His heart wanted to flee from his chest, his whole body jerked and his breathing was hopelessly lost. His hand struck the black cup hard and it fell, spilling its content and creating a temporary fall of chocolate between the table and the floor; soaking and tainting the strawberry tablecloth.

Naruto’s hand jerked away from Sasuke’s arm and he stood quickly when the cup fell. He ran off and was yelling something but Sasuke couldn’t hear. Naruto came back with a roll of paper and started covering the table and floor. Sasuke’s eyes stayed fixed on one of the dark strawberries against the light brown dirty color.

He would have guessed that Iruka was the type of person that changed the tablecloths more often. He clung to that thought because it was the only thing reasonable he could find; clung to it like it was the only floating board from a shipwreck and he was a survivor. ‘It should have been another tablecloth,’ he thought, as the sea raged around him and storm roared.

He had to call someone. Kakashi or Shikamaru or Tsunade; they were all too far away to help but he had to call them anyway; like he had to fight to breath normally even though he knew it wouldn’t work; like he had to get away even though he knew he couldn’t.

-

Sasuke didn’t remember leaving the kitchen but he supposed he must have to have ended up on the floor in the hall. His body wasn’t aching anywhere so Naruto must have been there and caught him when he fell. ‘Fell’ sounded pretty and innocent, didn’t it? Sasuke had passed out.

It came with stress, when too many things happened at once or if something happened that affected Sasuke too much; when he couldn’t deal with what was going on. Most of the times he could control it and it didn’t go this far, but some days it did. His brain overloaded, made an emergency shutdown and brought him back again some minutes later.

It was more embarrassing than dangerous, unless Sasuke happened to be in a place with too many sharp or hard objects, and it didn’t happen very often these days; must have been over a year since last time.

Sasuke would have to call Tsunade later and let her know. She was picky like that, wanted him to recognize when he was in trouble and when to talk to her. This wasn’t surprising really, when he thought about it, with all the things he’d been through these past few weeks, but he should call her anyway.

“Sorry for scaring you,” Sasuke said and the arms around him pressed closer.

“I was going to call for an ambulance,” Naruto said after a while, his voice much softer than usual. “But you wouldn’t let me go.”

Sasuke closed his eyes and half of him wanted to tell the blond to shut up; this was embarrassing enough.

“You tried to get out first,” Naruto continued. “But you stumbled on a shoe and would have hit your head on the vase if I hadn’t caught you.”

Sasuke winced at that. Hitting your head on that vase could be the last thing you did.

“Then you grabbed onto me and wouldn’t let go. You were like a leech. And you... it was like you couldn’t breathe, I didn’t know what to do. I tried to get us to kitchen and the phone, but then we fell here and you went all limp and... I thought you’d died.”

Naruto sniffled.

“Then I noticed you were breathing, like normal, like you were just... sleeping. I don’t know how long you were out.”

The fingers on Sasuke’s shoulder were fiddling with his shirt. It felt corny and stupid, but nice.

Now that the initial wave of confusion and the one of embarrassment had passed, Sasuke felt strangely calm and clearheaded. It was like his brain cleaned up and sorted out all the stuff that had been making a mess of things during those shutdowns and afterwards it felt like the air after a violent storm. Sasuke felt like the air after a storm.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Yeah,” Naruto said and sniffled again.

Nothing had really changed, but still everything felt different.

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