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 have to admit, Naruto is damn fun to write!

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 the end ^_^

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The next morning, however, Sasuke wasn’t nearly so calm. It seemed like the good mood of the night before had evaporated with the dawn, leaving him even more nervous. Sure, some questions were answered the night before – but the ones that were raised were almost even more daunting. What if Naruto liked guys – but didn’t like him? What if he’d figured out he was gay because he got a crush on some other guy? What if Sasuke would have to spend time listening to Naruto wax romantic over that other guy? What if, what if, what if – the questions swirled around in his head.

Add to that the knowledge that he hadn’t been completely honest with Naruto the previous night – he hadn’t said a thing about the crush he had on his best friend (Though how would he have put it? “I’m only gay for you, Naruto?” Not a Sasuke thing to do at all), which left him feeling vaguely guilty. It was one thing to know your best friend liked guys – quite another to know that you were the one your best friend fantasized about. He remembered the time when he’d accidentally been copied on an email between a couple of girls talking about him like he was a piece of meat. It wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat.

So, when he saw Naruto’s orange bug in the parking lot of the community college they were attending that summer, he deliberately parked far away from it. After class, he hurried out to his car, hoping to avoid the blonde instead of meeting up with him and their other friends for lunch like he normally did. When he slammed into the kitchen at home, he was surprised to find that Itachi was already there.

“What are you doing home in the middle of the day?” Sasuke asked.

Itachi just looked at him.

Sasuke sighed. “Fine. Good afternoon, aniki.”

Itachi glanced over at the clock on the microwave, and smirked when he saw it was 12:01. “Good afternoon, little brother. I trust you had a good day at school?”

Pulling open the refrigerator, Sasuke said, “its college now.”

“Ah yes. My little boy is all growing up. So sad.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the older man. Itachi was only seven years older than him, but always tried to act like the gap between their ages was much larger. He’d had to grow up fast after their parents died. He’d been in his third year of college at the university in the city, almost done with his degree (being, of course, a massive overachiever). After their deaths, he finished things up as quickly as possible and took a job in a small town a few hours south of the city. Their relatives had been a bit worried about him trying to raise Sasuke on his own – but even though they’d run into a few bumps and bruises on the way, Itachi was pleased at how things turned out.

Besides, the occasional slamming of a refrigerator door and sulking into the den without a word of apology was all a part of Sasuke’s charm.

Wiping his hands on a towel, Itachi followed Sasuke into the den. The black-haired boy sat in a chair by the back window, looking over at Naruto’s back yard. Itachi followed the direction of his gaze.

“You and Naruto seemed to be having a pretty serious talk last night,” Itachi said.

Sasuke just shrugged.

“Everything ok?”

A monosyllabic grunt was the only response. Itachi smirked, and then turned to go back into the kitchen. “By the way, since I’m home, want me to make you some lunch? Maybe a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato?”

“Sure,” Sasuke said, just loud enough that Itachi could hear him. A minute or two later, Itachi heard the expected “Thank you.”

He glanced out at the den as he chopped up a tomato. Sasuke just sat in the same chair. He’d lifted a hand to the glass and was tapping on it to some secret inner rhythm, lost in thought.

. . .

“Aunty, I’m home!” Naruto cried out as he burst through the front door of his house. He cocked his head from side to side waiting on an answer, but when none was forthcoming, he shrugged and turned to lock the door.

His aunt ran a health food store in the heart of town, and sometimes she didn’t have time to take the afternoon off. He was convinced that at least half of the plants in his backyard had medicinal qualities. His friend Sakura had used his aunt as a resource for a directed course of study she did their senior year about non-traditional medicine, and tended to rave about everything Tsunade had taught her whenever the subject came up.

In fact, she’d been in southern Asia or somewhere when Naruto was born, out of contact with the civilized world while she did research and (according to Kakashi, once he felt Naruto was old enough to hear – so, 12) engaging in other extra-curricular activities. It took years for her to hear the news about his parent’s deaths, and how his mother had wanted her to have custody. Years that Kakashi felt he had still not paid her back for, since raising a baby was not exactly on his talent list. Finally, Naruto’s godfather – a world-traveler himself – had gone after her, dragging her out of her current den of thieves and getting her sobered up enough to understand what had happened. She rushed back as soon as she heard.

That, of course, was not the version she told to Naruto – she conveniently skipped over a few important details, preferring instead to focus on the tearful first meeting between her and her five-year-old nephew – but it made Naruto grin to think of his aunt, who normally tried to act so proper and responsible, being just as much of a scallywag at heart as his other parental influences.

When he walked into the kitchen, his eyes lit up at the packages on the kitchen table. “Yes!” he said. “They got them done in time!”

Rushing to the table, he unwrapped the smaller package first. It was the picture Sasuke had taken of him the weekend before, framed and matted. He let a small smile grace his lips as he traced over the glass lightly with his fingertips, before setting the picture aside and carefully attacking the larger package.

He unwrapped the bubble-wrap from the framed picture, then set it on a chair, stepping back to look at it critically. He nodded to himself, pleased that the colors of the matting worked just right with the colors in the painting. Glancing over at the photograph on the kitchen table, he shook his head. The two pictures worked so well together – and he and Sasuke hadn’t even been trying this time. Naruto had finished the painting a few days before the picture had been taken, and Sasuke didn’t know about it – yet. Grinning, Naruto rewrapped the painting, and put it in the box.

Grabbing the framed photograph, Naruto continued into the living room, pausing to admire the paintings on the walls. The first set was a vertical pair. The top was a shot Sasuke had taken of the aqueduct at night, lit up from the bottom by different colored lights. The old structure looked just like the old-style aqueducts the Roman’s used to build, with a layer of sloping arches holding up the concrete waterway above. Sasuke had used the colored lights to make sure that Naruto’s painting could tie in just right. It was a painting of black koi highlighted primary colors swimming in dark blue water. They arched against each other in an echo of the arches up above, which was echoed again by the ripples of water below.

In the next set, Sasuke’s picture was on the bottom. It was a photograph of the old railroad bridge, shot at an angle so the top of the bridge wasn’t visible, just the struts reaching up into the sky. The river was barely visible on either side of the bridge below the tracks. In the painting above, Naruto had added onto the struts, stretching them out and turning them from rusty black into grey, intertwining them like vines until they became swallowed up by clouds of the sky. In the distance, below the arch of meeting vines, a lone figure clung to a balloon and flew through the air to places unknown.

The photograph by the steps leading upstairs was a solitary picture. It was black and white, done while Sasuke had been going through an Ansel Adams phase. It was framed on one side by trees at the edge of a snow-encrusted meadow, breaking out into a breath-taking view of mountain heights and a moon at half-phase overhead. Naruto grinned, checking his watch and taking account of the time. Soon, they’d be in those very same mountains!

He ran up the stairs to his bedroom, and then glanced out the window towards Sasuke’s house. The bastard hadn’t shown up for lunch today, not that Naruto was half-surprised. His friend always did horribly the day after emotional announcements. It was almost like he was worried that if he showed any sort of vulnerability, no one would like him anymore. The day after his first re-birthday, Naruto had had to go over to his house and drag him kicking and screaming to go see an action movie.

Not that it really mattered today. Sasuke probably would’ve been bored at lunch. He and Kiba had been wrapped up in a discussion of the manga they were working on together, Kiba writing the story and Naruto drawing it out. They were trying to get as much work done as possible before they went off to school in the fall. Kiba wasn’t going to the same school as Naruto and Sasuke – he wanted to be an English major, and their university didn’t really take “light” majors that seriously – but he wouldn’t be that far away, going to a state university about an hour up the road that had a great English program. Still, it was safe to say they would probably be too busy to get together on a regular basis.

Naruto pulled out a suitcase and started packing, throwing clothes in haphazardly, just making sure they were clean. They were only going to be gone for the weekend, but they had dinner reservations at seven at some hoity-toity French restaurant the bastard was sure to love. Naruto personally would have preferred some big party here with all their friends – but he knew Sasuke. Even though the raven had admitted – grudgingly – that he’d enjoyed the party they threw for him last year, Naruto was pretty sure he’d enjoy this weekend of quiet even more.

Their French teacher had taken them to the restaurant on a fieldtrip the previous spring. Naruto didn’t see why he needed to take a foreign language – especially not three years, when technically he only had to have two! – but the bastard had talked him into it. Not that he hadn’t understood. Even if Sakura had gotten over her silly crush – on both of them, thank goodness – there were a handful of other girls in the class who were swooning over the idea of the raven talking in the “language of love”. He wouldn’t’ve wanted to be subjected to that alone, either – even if he was sure a couple of the girls talked about the two of them openly in code. Who the hell names their cats “Mr. Black” and “Snoochums” anyways?

Sasuke, of course, was brilliant at French. He was almost positive the bastard could speak at least four languages fluently – and that wasn’t even counting the crazy C sharp, Java, Perl, whatever the hell else the bastard talked to computers in. The only hard subject Naruto had a chance of edging Sasuke out in was math, and there it was really that Naruto got the concrete stuff better while Sasuke got the abstract stuff better. He was still pleased, although the calculus class he was taking this summer was really kicking his ass.

The conversation he’d had the night before with Sasuke gave him hope – though he was still mad at the bastard for not telling him sooner. Hell, if Sasuke had said something, maybe he would’ve figured out his own sexuality sooner! He remembered how clueless he’d been back in tenth grade when kissing Sakura didn’t really do anything for him. He’d let her off easy – though he still felt bad about making her cry. The one person he might’ve talked to about it – the bastard – was, at that point, not really talking to him. More like yelling. Or making cutting remarks. Cutting remarks that were serious, and not just darkly teasing like normal.

That spring had royally sucked. It started off good – he finally caught the attention of the pink-haired beauty of his dreams – but things had slowly started to spiral down. Some of the things were just stupid, like the time he jumped off the last two – last two! – steps leading down from the school stage, only to land wrong on one of his feet and strain the ligaments on the outside of his ankle. He’d always thought their high school was cool – almost like a mini-college campus – but having to navigate all those steps and try to go up and down hills on crutches had been awful. He’d hoped, after the week he spent cooped up with the bastard trying to get over the worst of the injury, that the two of them had gotten over whatever little spat had been brewing in Sasuke’s mind. Things had gone even faster downhill from there, though, and the question of his sexuality was put on the back burner.

It was only when he and Kiba began researching different manga art styles that he started to really get a clue. And then, there was that weird kid Sai in his art class, who was so openly gay and gothy it was scary, even if he’d dragged his best girl friend to prom in a dress with cutouts that left no question as to whether or not she was wearing underwear. For a minute, Naruto worried – what if Sasuke knew he was gay because he had a crush on Sai? Then he remembered that Sai had only transferred in the spring of their junior year, and Sasuke had known for a lot longer. Man, this relationship stuff was complicated.

He heard the doorbell ring downstairs, and glanced at his watch. Almost time! He’d spent too much time daydreaming and not enough time packing. He stuffed a few more random pair of underwear in the side of his duffel bag, and ran down the stairs. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” he shouted out, trying to make sure his feet didn’t give out on him and make him trip as he barreled down the steps. Huffing, he saw Kakashi in the kitchen.

The grey-haired man was grinning. “Ready for your date?”

Naruto scowled at him. “I should never have talked to you about that. This isn’t a date; it’s just a re-birthday weekend.”

“Maa, maa, if you say so. I told Itachi you wanted to blindfold Sasuke on the way up there, though.”

Naruto paled. If Itachi guessed at the secret desires Naruto had for his baby brother, there was no telling how he’d react. He might even decide to ship Sasuke off to some college in Japan or someplace crazy like that, and he’d never see the raven again! Or well, maybe not – but Itachi could be even more unpredictable than the blonde at times.

Kakashi laughed at the sick look on his nephew’s face. “For the surprise, of course – no other ulterior motive,” he said, waggling his eyebrows in a way that was eerily similar to the way the blonde had acted the night before.

“Oh. Heh. I’m sure Sasuke will love that idea.” Naruto snickered. “Grab the box and let’s go! I don’t want to be late.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Artsy-ness sir!” said the grey-haired man, picking up the box with the picture in it and following Naruto out to the car.

Naruto grinned to himself. Even if this wasn’t a date – and it wasn’t, even if he secretly wished it could be – it was going to be an awesomely amazing weekend.

. . .

Sasuke looked down at the black strip of cloth in Itachi’s hands in shock. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“But it’s a mystery trip, Sasuke-kun! Don’t you want it to be a surprise?” Itachi said, pouting.

Sasuke raised his eyebrows and looked at the older man. “No.”

For a few minutes, Sasuke found himself locked in a staring contest with his older brother. He had to give Itachi credit. He was probably the only person who could out-stare the raven. Finally, weighing certain doom against the price of his dignity, Sasuke grabbed the strip of cloth out of his brother’s hands and sighed. “Fine. But I’m only putting it on in the car. And I’m not going to wear it the whole way wherever we’re going.”

He blinked as he felt a hand pat him on the top of the head. “And I am not a good boy!”

Itachi just cackled, and made his way to the front door, opening it to their guests.

Sasuke blushed as he saw Naruto, and turned away, tightening his fist around the black cloth. This really wasn’t a good idea – or maybe he should make Naruto wear the blindfold? Naughty images of the blonde's blue eyes covered by the black blindfold as he lay on white sheets filled the raven’s mind, and he willed them away. Really, really, really not a good idea. Damn Itachi.

He grabbed his bags, awkwardly shuffling past the blonde and his sensei with his eyes on the ground. He didn’t notice the worried look that crossed Naruto’s face. When he got in the car, his eyes met those of his sensei in the rearview mirror.

“Oh, so you decided to wear the blindfold after all, Sasuke?” said the grey-haired man. “I’m sure that –“

Whatever else he was going to say was cut off by a swift kick from the blond sitting behind him. Sasuke and Itachi looked at him in surprise, but Naruto just shrugged. “You learn early on to cut a pervert off at the pass.”

The raven snorted, and tied the black cloth behind his head, fitting it over his eyes. Like a blindfold was going to keep him from figuring out where they were going. It didn’t keep him from playing twenty questions with the other three as they got on the road or from kicking the blonde’s ass and smirking at the outraged cries of “Hey! You cheated, bastard!” that filled the car whenever the idiot lost. The normalcy of the moment made him relax. He wasn’t sure what the others had up their sleeves this year, but at least – hopefully – it wasn’t another crazy party.

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Review Responses!

Prism0467 - they definately can be! Especially if they put the poor babys through torture :) makes things somuch more interesting.

vanillaxrain - Thank you so much! One of the things I love about these guys is their personality, and their interaction, and the challenge of trying to stay as true to it while being true to where they are - glad you enjoy!