Going Down

AN: I am moving all of my updates to Tuesdays at this point. The period in between now and when I start posting Dreams of Fire was supposed to be a break for me, but I found myself writing just as much as I normally do. So, I am moving Blackmail and Betrayal to Tuesdays, since it was every other week anyway, and will be finishing up this story on the off weeks as well as starting any new stories on those days.

I am going to start pulling my notes/plots/ideas together to work on DoF so I need to give myself a little more free time.

I appreciate the time that you all take to read and review my various works. Feedback makes the writing addiction grow and flourish!! Hope you all enjoy this chapter!


Chapter 3


Sasuke slowly ran his fingers through the blond hair splayed across his lap. Sometime during the night Naruto had slid down until his head was resting on Sasuke’s leg and while the executive would never have willingly admitted it, it wasn’t so bad.

Taking advantage of the dim dawn light edging around the wall at the entrance of the cave, Sasuke closely studied the sutured face on his thigh. Pale fingers trailed over a strong jaw line, ghosted over the angled cheekbones and then slid a curious thumb over the light-colored eyebrows.

His hand froze as Naruto stirred slightly. The caramel-colored eyelashes fluttered briefly as his head nuzzled gently in Sasuke’s lap. Sasuke swallowed as a hot breath washed over the light cotton material covering his groin as the pilot let out a long sigh before settling down again.

After staring at the unmoving form for a few minutes which seemed to be the slowest in Sasuke’s life, he cautiously moved his fingers once more through the thick mane. When the pilot remained still, he allowed his hand to apply more pressure, enjoying the feel of the slightly coarse hair sliding over his skin.

The bandaged face turned slightly towards his body heat and let out another one of those heated breaths across his stirring manhood. Sasuke’s fingers twitched in an effort not to pull those slightly parted lips closer to his groin. However, it seemed like he didn’t really need to as his slowly swelling cock filled the scant space between fabric and flesh and was soon practically pressing itself against Naruto’s lips.

Sasuke watched in a daze as his own hand betrayed him by gently cupping the pilot at the nape of his neck and edging him to close that short distance. Heated air blown directly onto the light cloth covering him made any blood that might have still resided in his brain to drain and flow southward, leaving him light-headed and struggling not to gasp.

Naruto struggled through the layers of sleep. A wonderful scent was invading his senses. One with which he was familiar; a warm musky smell that denoted an aroused male nearby with an underlying sharp, cold scent that stirred a faint memory. He became aware of the hard, thickness against his mouth and automatically followed his instincts. He parted his lips and stretched forward to nibble on the length, drawing a shocked gasp from above him.

Blue eyes snapped open to see his boss staring down at him in stunned disbelief as well as an underlying hint of something that evaded Naruto’s understanding. His own face immediately assumed the contrite expression of a kid that had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

The hand that he hadn’t noticed at the nape of his neck jerked his head up and in a whirl of blankets, Sasuke was gone.

Naruto sat there, trying to figure out what in the hell had just happened. How in the hell he could have made such a horrendous error as to start mouthing his boss’ dick?

He stopped berating himself when two things suddenly occurred to him. One, Uchiha had already been hard and two, his boss had had a hand at the back of his neck holding him in place.

The little bastard hadn’t been the innocent victim of a sleep molestation after all. The little prick had been actually enjoying it! Well, he couldn’t actually say “little prick” if the width that had been in his mouth was any indication.

The bastard had practically been mouth raping him and was probably just ashamed that he had been caught!

He held the edges of his blanket as he got to his feet and stalked to the front of the cave, intent on giving the bastard a piece of his mind. However, as he looked around the edge of the wall that separated the cave from the outer alcove, he stopped.

There stood his boss, arms crossed protectively over his chest as a chill ran over him from the cold morning air. His clothes were rumpled; his hair was mussed and spiked up haphazardly all over the place. His face, as he glanced once back at Naruto, was uncertain, confused and embarrassed.

Naruto realized with some shock that Sasuke looked human for once. And for once, he was truly beautiful.

“What do you want, imbecile?” his deep voice asked in a tone colder than the air.

Naruto was about ready to snap back in his usual manner but then remembered when he had first found out certain facts about himself and his sexuality. He had panicked at first as well and had tried to deny his feelings. He didn’t know if that was exactly what Sasuke was going through, but he knew that neither harsh words nor comforting ones would do much good at this point.

Instead he pulled the blanket from his shoulders and tossed it at his boss, who caught it reflexively.

“Try not to freeze to death,” he said calmly. “I’ll leave something to eat out and then go check on the plane.”

Sasuke pulled the blanket around him as Naruto disappeared back into the cave. He couldn’t stop himself from briefly burying his nose into the material, smelling the blond’s spicy scent.

What in the hell had he been thinking this morning? He should have known better. The image of Naruto with his full lips moving over his cock sent a shudder through his body. He had always known that there was something about the pilot that pulled his attention to the man, but this was ridiculous.

What was worse was that he had been trying to think of a way to pull his manhood out of his pants this morning without waking the blond up so that he could feel those warm lips directly upon his flesh.

He had no business having thoughts like that. He had an image to uphold. He had a reputation to maintain. Screwing around with a male pilot under his employ wouldn’t help with either of those.

Would Naruto have stopped had he not run away?

He shook his head almost violently. He was lucky that the man didn’t beat the shit out of him for taking advantage of him in his sleep. He was lucky that Naruto was still talking to him and, strangely enough, talking to him as if nothing had happened. He should just thank whatever powers that were watching over him and let it go.

But Naruto had leaned forward of his own free will.

As his mind wrapped itself around that fact, the man in question stepped out into the alcove, once more clad in his pilot’s uniform.

Naruto glanced up at the heavily overcast sky, noting the lack of rain but realizing that the storm hadn’t completely passed. He then looked down into the fog enshrouded valley. The trek down to the stream wouldn’t be pleasant and the ground still looked saturated. A glance at his watch confirmed that it was still early in the morning and by mid-day the temperature would be up high enough even with the low front to make the humidity cloying at best.

He tugged his hat off, ran his hand through his shaggy hair and replaced the cap upon his head. Figuring there was no time like the present and that both of them could do with a little time alone, he started off toward the stream.

Sasuke watched as Naruto made his way carefully down the rubble strewn hillside and finally into the trees. He turned and walked back into the cave, curious as to what had been salvaged to eat.

On top of the two folded blankets he saw a half of a bag of trail mix, a candy bar and a fresh bottle of water. Shaking his head, he went over to the bag that Naruto had hurriedly packed the night before, hoping to find something else. He didn’t fare much better however, when his searching only revealed several small packages of honey roasted peanuts, a couple more candy bars and a half dozen sticks of beef jerky.

Grabbing a stick of beef jerky, he threw the trail mix and the other candy bar back in the bag. He then quickly dressed in his clothes from yesterday, sneering slightly at the dried mud on his pants. Unfortunately his other suit had been hanging in the back of the plane and had probably disappeared when the tail had slammed into the trees.

He glanced over the remnants of the fire that had burned out sometime during the night and then to the few sticks that they had left. Hopefully they would be picked up today, but if not then they would need some more firewood.

Besides, it would give him something to do other than sit here and try to avoid thinking about Uzumaki.

He quickly ate his poor excuse for a breakfast and downed some water before putting on his shoes and grabbing his jacket. It was time to show that moron that he was perfectly capable of pulling his own weight.


It took Naruto a little bit longer to locate the plane with the surrounding fog than he had expected. He tried to keep a bead on the cave as he walked the outer edges of the flooded stream. He would have given anything for a pair of hip waders at this point, or at least a good pair of hiking boots.

Rounding a small bend, he spotted the broken shell of the plane still stranded on the bank like some kind of ugly white beached whale, long since having given its last breath. The water wasn’t quite as swift as it had been the night before, making his footing a little more sure as he maneuvered around to the open door. Looking at the broken wing and gauging the distance up to the edge of the door, he grabbed the edge and hoisted himself up inside of the plane.

The stench of the water logged interior immediately assailed his nose as he looked around the tumbled insides. He carefully traversed the six feet or so to the cockpit and slid into the wet seat. His eyes scanned the control panel, trying to find some spark of power alive in the electronics.

He flipped a few switches randomly, hoping that something might kick back to life, but by the dark streaks over the panels and the burnt smell he knew it was hopeless. He grabbed the radio and tried it a few times as well, but there wasn’t even static on the other end, just dead silence.

Sighing, he stood, wiping at his wet ass with a slightly distasteful look. He was now starting to wish that the Uchiha Corp planes came equipped with flare guns but he figured if anyone was flying overhead they would be hard pressed to miss the white plane lying in the middle of the creek.

Scrounging around the plane, he couldn’t find too much more that would be useful for them. Opening the small door to the snack bin, he rescued the last few bottles of water and spotted the box wedged between the roof of the bin and the shelf it was tucked into.

Pulling out the box, he spotted the eight donuts he had left over from his breakfast the morning before. Somehow they had survived the trip relatively intact, the box slightly crumpled but the donuts whole. Shoving half of one in his mouth in one go, he shut the box and tucked it up under his arm.


Sasuke struggled to get the bundle of sticks that were now wrapped in his jacket up the edge of the hill and back to the cave without slipping on the slick, wet foliage with his nearly treadless shoes. He had almost lost one again when he had stepped into a hole in the ground that undoubtedly doubled as something’s den. He had rescued his precious shoe but had to retrieve all of the wood that he had dropped in the process.

Tired of being poked and prodded by sticks as well as dropping them numerous times, he had finally shucked his jacket and used it to carry the semi-dry wood back towards the cave. He figured that his jacket would already need dry cleaning, if it was salvageable at all, a little more dirt certainly couldn’t hurt at this point.

When he came into view of the cave, he saw that Naruto was sitting at the edge of the opening with an open doughnut box on his lap. Upon seeing Sasuke struggling up the hill, he quickly set it aside and went to help him up the last few feet to the ledge.

Naruto noticed his glance towards the box. “I found a few left over on the plane. I saved you some,” he said while carefully taking the bundle away from his boss and carefully maneuvering it inside.

Normally Sasuke was not a doughnut aficionado, however at the moment, the plain glazed pastries looked inviting. There were two left in the box and, after a quick lament for the lack of coffee, Sasuke polished them off. It definitely beat beef jerky for breakfast.

A few moments later, Naruto came back out onto the ledge, shaking out his jacket. He wordlessly took it when the blond handed it his way, but didn’t bother to put it back on. The air was starting to warm up and he was already hot from the previous wood-gathering exercise.

They stood there in a tense, slightly uncomfortable silence for a long moment. Finally Naruto sighed and rubbed a hand at the back of his neck.

“I tried the radio, but everything is dead,” he reported, still not looking directly at the brunet beside him. Instead, he studied the grey sky and the low, dark clouds that were moving overhead. “We’re also going to get more rain real soon.”

“When can we expect someone to come looking for us?” Sasuke asked, studying Naruto’s profile.

A hand came up and absently scratched at the bandage covering his cheek. At the question, the same hand tilted and Naruto quickly read the time on his watch. “Your meeting wasn’t scheduled ‘til about now. So they will wait for an hour before they get worried and call the hotel. The hotel will then tell them you never checked in. They’ll call headquarters who will then call the Dallas branch. Dallas branch will confirm our departure and a call from them to the airport in Chicago will confirm that we never arrived.”

He stopped and glanced over at Sasuke who was watching him calmly, silently acknowledging the validity of the sequence of events he proposed. “So, we have an hour before they realize that we are truly missing. That, of course, is if we weren’t overheard on the emergency channel. Hopefully we were and they are already starting to look for us.”

“And if not?” Sasuke asked, wanting to know all of the variables.

Naruto shrugged and looked up at the sky again. “Then they will retrace our flight path and eventually run across us. If the weather holds up.”

As if to accentuate his statement, a rumble of thunder rolled across the valley.

“Great,” Sasuke said with a scowl. “I wish I had my cell phone.”

Naruto gave a snort. “It’s not like you could use the thing clear out here. Do you see a tower somewhere?”

“No, but my cell has a GPS on it,” he retorted.

Naruto looked over at him with widened, hopeful eyes. “Why the hell didn’t you say so? If you have a GPS then we should be out of here in no time.”

“Because, dumbass, it was in my briefcase which some idiot let slide out of the plane and get carried away by the current,” Sasuke growled out, shooting the blond a scathing look.

“Why the hell was your phone in your briefcase?” Naruto asked in frustration.

“Because I turn it off on flights, moron.” Sasuke glared at him. “Being the piss poor pilot that you obviously are, I’m sure you wouldn’t recall that it’s procedure.”

Without stopping to think his actions through, Naruto turned and grabbed Sasuke by the collar before slamming him against the nearest rock wall. “Look you little asshole, I don’t know what in the hell your problem is with me but I have done nothing but my job for you. I have gotten up at any ungodly hour that you demanded and I have flown where you have told me to fly. There aren’t too many people that could have kept us in one piece coming down the way we did. So get off my case!”

Sasuke looked up into the vibrant blue eyes blazing down at him and couldn’t help but see the wounded pride contained therein. Lightning flared in the distance followed a few seconds later by the stronger rumble of thunder.

“I know,” he found himself saying to that look. “I know that you’re a good pilot. Kakashi says that you are one of the best. That’s why I always ask for either you or him whenever I go somewhere.”

Those vivid eyes showed shock and surprise and the tanned hands loosened on his shirt.

Sasuke turned away from the questions that were forming within the deep sapphire blue gaze and looked out at the swiftly darkening sky.

“We need to go inside before we get wet again,” he murmured before stepping around the stunned pilot and into the cave.

Naruto blinked when he felt the first few raindrops hit his face. He automatically looked up and quickly deduced by the darkness that was swallowing the valley that there would not likely be a rescue this day.

He turned back to the entrance of the cave and once more his thoughts became muddled with the enigma that was his boss. The man had always acted like he hated Naruto and yet his behavior so far after their crash seemed to indicate otherwise. There were the cold insults like always, but the random acts of kindness were confusing him and for his boss to actually admit that he was a skilled pilot was nothing short of astounding. And of course, there was always the incident that had occurred this morning.

Determined but cautious, he stepped towards the cave. He was going to figure out this puzzle and find out just exactly what was going on in Sasuke Uchiha’s mind.


TBC