A Thousand Words

Summary: When neither Sasuke nor Naruto can find the words to say what’s really important, they find a picture might say enough to get them started.

Disclaimer: I don’t own either Sasuke or Naruto :( But, if I had to choose, I’d probably take the raven… yummy :)

Warnings: yaoi (M/M), angstyness, mild references to drug use and sexual assault, occasional Crack!Itachi

Oh yeah, and reviews make mouths happy!

Review responses at end :)

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The next few days, Sasuke noticed that people were acting slightly strange around him. He first noticed it with Naruto, who was acting slightly skittish. Sasuke had been nervous at first, but when Itachi started being evasive as well, Sasuke became downright suspicious.

Then he checked the calendar. And groaned. It was getting to be that time of year again.

Sasuke’s official birthday was back in March, a time of year he hated. His birthday just happened to fall two days before his parent’s wedding anniversary – and two days after the anniversary of his parent’s death.

The spring of his sophomore year made things especially hard, because he was also dealing with newfound feelings he didn’t have a name for. Feelings that seemed to suspiciously answer the question of why none of the girls in school ever caught his interest, even when they tried really hard. Feelings that seemed to erupt around his best friend. Feelings that overcame his initially joy that one of his most persistent admirers, a pink-haired girl that had even joined the dojo to snag his attention (though he had to admit, she was scary strong), seemed to have lost interest in him… and was now focusing her attention on his blonde best friend.

He wanted to deny the feelings, especially once he got a clue what they were. Their town, while great, was definably on the more conservative side. No one like that lived there, that he knew of. He caught a showing of some ranching movie on late night TV, and was horrified at what the cowboys on the show had done to a guy who was like that. Even some of the more positive portrayals left him nervous – he didn’t want to become someone who liked Bette Midler and wore woman’s clothes, he liked being a guy. He just didn’t like girls in the way he was supposed to, even if he could see they were beautiful. A part of him was terrified that he would change even more because of this, that it was inevitable, like a disease, and all the negative things people said were justified.

But most of all, he became more and more certain that, if his parents were alive, they would have been ashamed and horrified to know that their son felt that way about other guys. He started having nightmares where his father, who was always a bit stern in his memories, stood over him and railed against him for sullying the family name. His mother would beg and plead with him, showing him picture after picture of beautiful girls. Worst of all, Naruto would look at him with shocked horror, and then run away. As his birthday drew near, the nightmares grew more gruesome. He couldn’t stop imagining what his parent’s bodies must have looked like, trapped in the wreckage of their car wreck. Sometimes, his father’s eyes would snap open and look at him accusingly, as if he was the reason they were dead – because he was like *this*.

He began to grow more sullen and withdrawn. He hooked up with some of his old friends from the city on facebook, and spent hours talking to them on the computer. He started spending less and less time at Naruto’s place, convincing himself that the blonde was finally able to spend time with his long-standing pink-haired crush. He picked fights with Itachi without provocation, and stopped going to the Dojo as much.

For a couple weeks in April, things started to get better. He came down with a bad flu right around the time of a major tournament, and he and Naruto – who was also knocked out of the tournament, thanks to a really stupid accident involving the last two steps of the school stage and a mistimed jump – spent a week just hanging out, trying to recover from their respective ailments. But he couldn’t help but feel like the blonde was walking on eggshells around him, and it made him even more mad. It didn’t even help when he overheard Naruto finally talk to his pink-haired admirer, letting her down far more gently than Sasuke ever would have. There was just too much pain inside. Everything seemed like a sick joke. Itachi was away on business more often, and even he didn’t seem to care much about how Sasuke felt. It just felt like he was placating him, playing everything off as Sasuke just being a teenager, and not really taking his complaints seriously.

Being called “foolish little brother” one too many times – even if most of the time Itachi was trying to tease him – eventually got the best off him. What did Itachi know about it? Itachi wasn’t gay. Itachi wasn’t really anything. Sometimes it seemed like Itachi didn’t even care that their parents were dead (though secretly, Sasuke knew that wasn’t true). He couldn’t stand staying here and having to deal with all this crap.

The week after school was out, he picked a fight with Itachi and stormed out of the house. Itachi hadn’t been worried at first – it seemed to be happening more and more often lately – but when Sasuke wasn’t home by one o’clock that night, he got worried and called up Naruto’s home. He started to panic a bit when he found out from Tsunade that they hadn’t seen Sasuke at all that day. When the boy still hadn’t shown up by the next morning, the panic started in earnest.

Itachi had checked Sasuke’s bank balance, and was horrified when he found out that Sasuke had withdrawn several hundred dollars from his savings the week before. He asked around, but the only thing that gained him was a very worried Naruto who started to live on his couch, waiting for the return of his best friend. He checked the phone records, but the only unusual thing he could see was a pattern of calls to numbers in their old city. None of the numbers answered when he called back – and so he did the only thing he could do.

He called the cops and gave them Sasuke’s description. Then he called up all his old college friends from the city, and asked them to keep an eye out for his little brother. He didn’t know for sure if Sasuke had gone there – he could have taken off for anywhere, as far as Itachi knew – but his friends would have his back. They all remembered how hard it had been for the brothers after their parents' death.

The only thing left to do after that was to wait. And keep restocking the cabinets with ramen.

Two weeks after Sasuke left, the waiting finally paid off.

One of his friends – a guy named Kisame, who worked at one of the less-trendy bars in the heart of the city – called and said that he was almost certain he’d seen Sasuke in amongst a crowd of kids who got thrown out of the bar for fake ids. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make Itachi pack up to go check out the city. Kakashi and Naruto came with him as well; mainly because Naruto made it very clear there was no way he was letting Itachi go without him – even if he had to ride on the top of the car.

Sasuke could admit, looking back on things now, he’d been very lucky they came when they did. He’d been at a party when another of Itachi’s friends had spotted him puking in a flowerpot, trying to handle the strange mix of drugs and alcohol his old friends pushed on him at the party. That had been the high point of the evening. The worst point came right before Naruto, Itachi, and Kakashi found him. They swooped down like a trio of avenging angels – well, Kakashi and Itachi were a bit more like angels of death, but the raven had been pretty screwed up by that point so he forgave himself the poor memory – and took him back home.

The first days back, he’d been grateful and so thankful to be home – but then the same old problems started raising their ugly heads. Suddenly, the exciting parts of the city started to outweigh the bad parts, and he started plotting ways to go back. Itachi didn’t know how to handle angry, deceptive, manipulative person his little brother had turned into seemingly overnight, so he did the only thing he could do.

He got help.

The first few sessions with his shrink Ibiki had been hell. The old man was a lot harsher than Itachi, and seemed to see through his bullshit without even blinking. He also sat back and took Sasuke’s crap without getting angry or judgmental. The only thing he responded to was the truth.

Little by little, he opened up to the man, grudgingly at first. Then one day, everything came pouring out. He even cried.

The next day, he went over to Naruto’s house for the first time in months. He also apologized – haltingly – to Itachi for everything that had happened. It wasn’t always perfect - for a few months, he still had moments where the rage threatened to spiral out of control like a gasoline fire – but it was a start.

Ibiki challenged him in each of their sessions, pushing him to learn new ways to deal with the rage, and helping him figure out how to not be so caught up in the extremes of emotion. He picked up photography as a means of self-expression, and a way to see the world more clearly, instead of just in the black and white that his passion tended to shape the world into. He learned how to talk to his friends and family about what had led up to him running away.

Even with all the newfound honesty, Ibiki was the only one he ever told about being gay. He was still too afraid of the reactions it would cause. They were still working through that fear.

When Naruto had found out about all the negatives associated with Sasuke’s official birthday, he announced that he was giving him a new “rebirth” day, and that they would be celebrating it every year instead of the old, boring, simple, “birth” day. Sasuke had scowled at the time, but secretly he was pleased. The day that Naruto picked was July 23 – the day when Sasuke had come over apologize and start to mend their friendship. Surprisingly enough, Itachi had gone with it as well. Sasuke had assumed last summer that the two would have forgotten about it, but that assumption had been rudely quashed by the huge bar-b-que surprise party that awaited him when he got home the evening of the 23rd.

Sasuke had a sneaking suspicion that they were plotting something similar this year. Although, knowing those two, they would probably try to top everything they’d done last year. He shuddered at the implications.

. . .

That Thursday evening, Sasuke sat outside down near the river near the fire pit. The evening was too hot for a fire. A cool breeze brushed up from the water. He watched the bats from the nearby caves swoop down on insects that gathered around streetlights on the other side of the river. The stars were slowly coming out as the last of the sunset faded behind him. He could hear the soft rhythmic splash of water against the dock lulling him into an almost meditative trance.

When a new sound of splashing was added to the mix, Sasuke didn’t even have to turn his head to know what it was. A few moments later, he heard the sounds of a canoe knocking against the dock. He glanced over to see Naruto setting a package up on the dock before scrambling out. He ignored the slight increase in pulse at the sight of the blonde.

“Oi, bastard,” said Naruto, walking over and snapping his fingers in front of the raven’s face. That earned him a mild glare, before Sasuke sat up and greeted his friend with a simple “Yo.”

“Aunty sent over a bag of tomatoes for you guys,” the blonde said, setting his bag down on the table next to Sasuke.

At that, Sasuke perked up, and reached for the bag. He loved tomatoes, and there was nothing better than one home-grown and fresh picked. When they were younger, he and Naruto had occasionally raided Tsunade’s tomato patch, braving the wrath of the blonde-haired woman. He grabbed one of the round fruits and bit into it, savoring the tangy taste.

He knew Naruto was watching him. The blonde was always convinced that one day – one day! – his immaculate friend would mess up and end up squirting tomato seeds all over himself. That day, of course, had not yet come.

After a minute, the blonde turned and started pacing at the edge of the patio, looking out across the river. Sasuke watched him, tossing the tomato stem into the fire pit absently. He’d seen that look before.

“Sasuke, I need to talk to you about something.” The words were softer than Naruto normally spoke.

Sasuke stiffened, watching the blonde intently. Silence hung in the air between them, though Naruto didn’t seem to notice his friend’s lack of response. Finally, the blonde sighed, and started to turn around.

“Sasuke, I’m gAAHH!”

Sasuke blinked in shock at his friend stood, face scrunched up in anger, pointing at something behind him.

“Itachi-bastard! Don’t you know not to sneak up on private conversations?!”

Sasuke turned to look and shared a smirk with his older brother. He hadn’t heard Itachi come down the steps toward them either, but that was normal – Itachi was scary sneaky when he wanted to be. He was carrying a pitcher of iced tea and a couple of glasses.

Itachi chuckled. “Naruto-kun, didn’t your aunt ever teach you how to talk to your elders?” he said, setting the pitcher and glasses down next to the bag of tomatoes. “She called a few minutes ago and said she was sending over a bag of tomatoes. I wanted to make sure I rescued a few before the great tomato monster ate them all up.”

Sasuke scowled up at him, and then snagged one more before his brother took the bag back up to the kitchen. He poured a couple of glasses of iced tea and offered one to the blonde, who took it with thanks and sat down on the edge of the lounge chair across from the raven. Sasuke watched as the blonde stared down into the tea, seemingly lost in thought. He sighed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about whatever Naruto had freezing his brain at the moment, but it was probably better to get it over with.

“You were saying, dobe?”

Naruto broke out of his daze, and looked up, glaring at Sasuke. “Teme!”

Sasuke smirked.

The blonde sighed, looking back down at his glass. “Yeah, I know. It’s just that, since we’re going to be rooming and all this fall, I really thought I should let you know that I’m..” The blonde trailed off to a whisper that Sasuke couldn’t really make out.

“You’re what?” he asked, frowning slightly.

“I’m gay! I’m gay! There, I said it! Happy now?”

Sasuke froze in shock, his wide-eyed gaze meeting the challenging blue-eyed gaze of his best friend. After a minute, the blondes face crumpled, and he looked down, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Sasuke repeated dumbly.

“Yeah, well, I remember what happened to you up there at that place…”

Sasuke could remember too. The memory was still fresh, even after two years. He’d learned ways to distance the feelings a little bit, but it was still there.

The night that Itachi and the others found him, he’d been at a party with his old friends Suigetsu and Juugo. Suigetsu was a bit older and had his own place where Sasuke stayed after he ran away from home. For a while, it seemed like the perfect place. Sasuke would use the money he’d taken out of his bank account to help pay for booze and food, and they’d spend their days playing games and getting drunk. Suigetsu had also taken to introducing Sasuke to different types of drugs. The night of the party, it was E.

He’d walked around in a daze for a bit, until he stumbled on Suigetsu and his friends talking about the poor gay friend Suigetsu was sponging off of. Suigetsu had been reticent to say anything at first, but then he joined in, joking about how it wouldn’t be much longer till the poor little rich boy had to figure out how to really earn his keep, and that being gay would probably make things easier.

Sasuke was furious. And ashamed. And dizzy. He found Juugo and bitched at him for a while, but the other kid was too stoned out of his mind to really have anything useful to say. After a bit, Sasuke had decided what he really needed was some fresh air. He ran into some blonde chick on the way out who tried to catch his arm, but he shrugged her off and made his way to the door.

A man with long black hair sat on the front steps smoking a cigarette. He’d recognized Sasuke as being Itachi’s little brother, and Sasuke could vaguely remember someone like him coming over with a group of Itachi’s friends before his parent’s had died. At first, he was worried the man would call Itachi and let him know where he was, but the man laughed that off, letting Sasuke bitch about everything that had gone on that night. When Sasuke started to feel tired, the man had offered to let him spend the night at his place. All of Sasuke’s good sense had been squashed by the haze of the alcohol, and he had agreed. He hadn’t noticed the strange gleam in the man’s yellowish eyes as they got up and started to walk off.

Even the drugs weren’t enough to block him noticing the brick wall he got shoved up against in the alleyway next to the party, however. He could still remember struggling ineffectively, hands held above him as the man leaned in and licked his face. He could still remember the hand that wandered cruelly down his body, pinching and grabbing in places where no one had touched him before. And he could still remember the words the man mumbled in between licks.

“Those eyes… you look just like him. You look just like your brother.”

A punch had knocked the man away from him, allowing Sasuke to crumple to the ground. He could remember the look of horror on Naruto’s face as he was gathered in the blonde’s arms and gently rocked. He could remember looking over to see Itachi beating the crap out of the dark haired man. Kakashi finally held him back from killing the guy, but the look on the grey-haired man’s face as he looked down at the whimpering body was cold enough to refreeze icicles.

The sound of an indrawn breath brought him back to the present. He looked over at his blonde friend, who was still looking into his glass of tea. “I’m sorry, Sasuke,” he said again. “I don’t want you to ever have to feel that way again.” He looked up at the raven. “I don’t want you to every have to worry about me like that, or worry that I’d ever do anything like that to you. If you want to switch roommates, I’d understand...”

Sasuke blinked, and then sighed. “Dobe.”

“Huh?”

“You think I wouldn’t want to room with you just because you’re gay?” He conveniently forgot his own hypocrisy in the matter.

“Well – I mean – I know you aren’t a homophobe, although if that had happened to me, I probably would be –“

Sasuke snorted. “You’d be afraid of yourself?”

“Huh? Well, no – maybe – I don’t know – it probably would have screwed me up pretty bad, that’s for sure...”

Sighing, Sasuke looked out across the water. This seemed to be a night for confessions. “It did.”

“Huh – what?”

“I said, it did.” Sasuke clinched his fists. “It did screw me up pretty badly. I’m gay too, Naruto.”

“Oh.”

The two teens were quiet for a few moments, Sasuke watching the bats again, and Naruto looking at his friend.

Finally, Naruto broke the silence. “How long?”

“A couple of years.”

“Before?”

“Before.”

Sasuke glanced over at his friend, and could see the wheels turning slowly as the blonde played things out in his head.

“You never told me.” Sasuke opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the blonde. “You bastard, you never told me. You knew all this time, and you didn’t tell me? What, did you not trust me? We’re supposed to be best friends!”

“I...” Sasuke stopped, and looked down, unable to face the look of hurt on his friend’s face. “I was afraid it would change things.”

“Change things?” Naruto said, then gave a short laugh without any humor. “Huh. And I’m the idiot for thinking me being gay might make you want to change rooms.”

Sasuke was silent, unable to answer that accusation. Naruto got up and started pacing along the waterfront again. After a few minutes, he turned and looked at his friend, face blank. Then he sighed.

“I guess, of all people, I know how you felt.”

Sasuke looked up and watched his friend come back over to lie down on the lounge chair.

“What a pair we make, huh Sasuke? Both of us gay. Who’d’ve thunk it.”

Sasuke chuckled, and sat back, trying to relax. “Probably Kakashi.”

“That old pervert,” said Naruto, grinning and taking a sip of his iced tea. “I don’t even want to know all the stuff he might think about.”

Sasuke heartily agreed. “It’s a good thing you didn’t inherit that gene from your dad’s side of the family.”

Naruto looked over and grinned. “Maybe I did,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you like to know!”

Sasuke just rolled his eyes and looked up at the stars, enjoying the silence that drifted between them like the current of the river at night.

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Review Responses

Prism0467 - thanks! Hope you continue to like it!

Angel - tytyty :) I totally understand your obsession, it's been mine for a couple yeeears? or so as well! Hope you continue to enjoy the rest of the story as it unfolds :)

Mija - ^_^ Thanks :) I used to love driving past those salt beds, they enchanted me... obviously enough for me to use them here. Not totally sure real life matches up to my memory, but it works. Enjoy the continuation!!