Constellations (complete)

“Neji…” Sasuke gasped. Neji closed his eyes and bit harder on the tendon at the juncture of Sasuke’s neck and shoulder. This was the first sign of life he’d managed to pull from his partner since he’d started trying a week ago.

He’d watched Sasuke sleep on the couch for the last six weeks and wanted him to return to their bed desperately. They’d been sleeping apart for weeks now and Neji didn’t know how much longer it would be before he himself gave in and moved the floor at the end of the couch, just so he wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.

As Sasuke’s breathing deepened, Neji kept the assault up and maneuvered them down the hall. He’d gotten them to within feet of the door when Sasuke stiffened. He stared at the door, fear on his face. Then he shook his head and pushed away, going back to the couch, turning his back toward the room.

Neji replayed the scene in his head and then it hit him. He sighed with relief. It was the room; the bedroom they’d shared with Naruto. Sasuke couldn’t lay in that bed with Naruto’s scent in the air, the memories of every hour, every minute saturating each item, every surface. This he could fix.

The next day he worked like a madman. When he was finished, the babies had their old room and their new room was now on the other side of the house. And it was as different as he could make it.

That night, he found Sasuke sitting on the couch taking his shirt off. Neji took him by the hand and pulled him to his feet.

“Come.” Sasuke resisted until he realized that Neji was pulling him down the other hallway. When they reached what was the babies’ room, he opened the door, expecting to find the baby and Suki tucked into their beds. Instead he found a room he’d never seen. The bed and all the furnishings were completely new and it was absolutely nothing like the room he’d shared with Naruto.

Sasuke turned to Neji. “You are a treasure beyond price.”

“Come to bed with me? I know you are not resting well on the couch. A good night’s sleep will be good for you.”

Sasuke glanced back and forth between the couch and the new bed a couple of times and then nodded. Soon he was lying on his back next to Neji. They were both staring through the darkness at the ceiling.

“You’ve held up well.” Sasuke’s statement sounded like an accusation.

“He asked me…” Neji’s voice was a quavering whisper, then he started again, stronger. “He asked me to stand up and hold things together until…”

Sasuke sighed. “Do you think he knew how much you loved him? What he was asking of you?”

“I don’t know. Probably. Maybe not.” Neji sighed. “It wouldn’t have mattered. His back was against a wall. He was out of choices.”

Sasuke turned onto his side to face Neji. “He was, wasn’t he? I’ve been so angry at him for not staying. I kept thinking, if he only had the will that I had for him, he could have changed it.” He smoothed a fold in the blanket. “But he wouldn’t have left willingly, would he?”

“No. No man ever born has taken his responsibilities more seriously than Naruto. He would not have left his children,” Neji said. “He truly had few options at the end. To make sure he took the demon with him. To make sure his family was going to be okay. To leave with dignity.”

After a couple minutes of silence, Neji spoke again.

“He wouldn’t have left you. He loved you so much. He lived and breathed for you.” Neji tilted his head in Sasuke’s direction. “In the end, that came to be true for both of us.”

“I never did anything to deserve such a thing.”

Neji shrugged. “I have questioned how I came to deserve such a miraculous life. I am the picture of mediocrity.”

“Not to me.”

Neji turned his head back to study the ceiling some more. After several minutes, he spoke again. “I’m afraid of life without him. He was the light in every corner of this house, of our lives. I don’t want our children to grow up in darkness.” He turned on his side as well.

“You and I are darkness. Uchiha and Hyuuga, raised in rigid, controlling homes… I feel lucky to have escaped and don’t want that for our children.”

“It won’t be like that,” Sasuke said. “We aren’t him and I wouldn’t try to be him, but we aren’t them either. I’ve changed. You’ve changed.” Sasuke wrapped a lock of Neji’s hair around his finger. “He might have been the sunshine, but you are the heart and soul, the wisdom.

“It bothers me,” Sasuke continued quietly. “He is the sunshine. You are the heart and soul. That leaves me as the…steel. I don’t want to be that. Steel is cold.”

“You have never been cold. I find you molten hot. You are the laughter and the wit and the intellect. Perhaps you are the steel, but steel is sharp and brilliant.” Neji covered Sasuke’s hand. “You challenge this family at every turn, making each of us strive for greater and greater heights.” Neji squeezed his fingers. “I would not change you.”

Sasuke rolled to his back. “I will strive to be that and more,” he clutched his chest, “as this fucking pain goes away.”

“Come rest on my shoulder,” Neji said. “Let me hold you.”

Sasuke put his head on Neji’s shoulder and slept the night through.

The next morning, Sasuke woke to a sharp pain in his eye as a spear of bright sunlight poked through a crooked slat in the shades. He registered the usual morning clatter coming from the kitchen and while his body still felt heavy, it wasn’t the absolute leaden feeling of the last weeks.

He put his hand up to the ray of sunshine and envisioned holding it in his fist. Then he closed his eyes and rubbed his face, imagining that he could feel its warmth as he smoothed it into his skin. Wanting more, he got up and went to the window and pulled the shade all the way up. The bedroom was flooded with bright light and warmth and then he heard his children laughing down the hall. He caught his breath as he felt the tiniest bubble of peace burst inside his chest.

Taking a deep breath, he donned his clothing and went to help Neji feed the children. To Sasuke, the light at the end of the tunnel was the barest of flickers, but it was there, nonetheless.

This caused the timer that Naruto had inadvertently place in Neji, to began its countdown. ‘Until…’ Tick. ‘Until…’ Tick. ‘Until…’ Tick.

One morning shortly after Sasuke managed to get through the days more like a human and less like a zombie, he came into the kitchen to help with breakfast.

Neji turned to him, plates in hand, and said, “Hey, Sasuke. Will you tell Naruto…” Then he froze and Sasuke watched as his face fell. The plates clattered to the floor and Neji clutched at his chest. His breath came in short gasps and pain transformed his features. The he dropped to the floor and vomited over and over.

Sasuke vaulted over to him and held his head as heaves wracked his body. Blood mixed with the sick all over the floor as Neji convulsed on the broken china littering the kitchen.

Hinata showed up in the kitchen doorway moments later, having felt a colossal emotional upheaval from her Hyuuga relative. Sasuke held Neji’s shaking body and yelled to her, “Get the children out of here.” Within minutes they were alone in the house.

Sasuke held Neji as he raced through all of the stages of grief in a thirty six hour period. Neji hung limply in Sasuke’s arms as he wailed and sobbed so hard that he had trouble breathing. Sasuke wept with him, tortured by Neji’s agony.

Neji cried out Naruto’s name and begged him to come back, negotiating with the gods for his return. Anything, he’d do anything if they would just give him back. Neji needed Naruto to live, to breathe. Without him he would die from the unbearable pain.

Then Neji’s sobs turned to screaming and Sasuke had his hands full as Neji tried to beat the shit out of him. His fury was almost palpable and he swung wildly at any part of Sasuke he could reach.

“I hate him. How could he ask this of me?” He cursed Naruto and the things that Naruto had asked of him over the years.

Then he railed against Sasuke, “I hate you. Why were all the burdens mine to carry? Why did you get to fall apart? Why did I have to keep the family together?” When that didn’t soothe him, he jerked free and heaved the kitchen table across the room. He was trying to pull the cabinets from the wall when Sasuke finally pinned him to the floor and held him until his writhing and thrashing and screaming finally ceased.

For a time, Neji lay limp on the floor. “It was all my fault,” he muttered as guilt gained momentum sometime after the sun had set. “I kept his secrets. If I’d been more vocal perhaps we could have found an answer long ago. Instead I just listened and said nothing. I killed this family.” He looked at Sasuke. “If I’d told you, you could have had seven years to find the answer instead of three days.”

“Neji, I wouldn’t have listened. I refused to see or hear any of it. Hell, baby” he soothed, “I knew it all along. I just wouldn’t believe it until it was too late.” But Sasuke had traveled through that stage of grief and knew that Neji wasn’t listening. So for now, he let him shoulder the entirety of the blame for Naruto’s absence. Reason was not a part of the grieving process.

As the sun illuminated the morning sky, the lethargy of the guilt stage became more pronounced and depression took over. “Just leave me alone,” Neji said, staring unseeing at the linoleum under his cheek. “What’s the point of any of this anyway? Fate. You can’t escape it. Naruto didn’t believe in it. See where that got us?” Again, Sasuke didn’t try to talk Neji into a better frame of mind. Neji had held it all in and held them all together for so long.

Sanity would return after this had run its course. Neji needed this, deserved to experience the full spectrum of his grief so that he could heal properly. Sasuke could give him this.

For hours Sasuke just stayed with Neji and was whatever he needed him to be. He was the strong arms for his fear, the punching bag for his anger, the steady heartbeat for the apathy.

Come late the second afternoon, when Neji was little more than a filthy, catatonic rag doll, Sasuke picked him up and took him to the bathroom. He stood him up and propped him against the wall. Then he pulled him into the shower and washed the blood and tears and vomit from his hair. When he had him clean and dry, he pushed Neji onto the toilet seat and worked on the cuts all over his body. He picked slivers from Neji’s hands and arms and knees. A couple of slashes were bad enough to require stitches, but Neji didn’t even blink as Sasuke pierced his skin over and over again, sewing flaps of flesh together.

Finally he tucked Neji in bed and just held him.

This had been horrible, but Sasuke felt better than he had in weeks. He found the same strength that Neji has shown for years. Neji had needed him and he found that having that purpose sustained him.

Sasuke wasn’t worried about Neji. Having traveled this road once as a child and again these last weeks, he understood that it was a healthy part of a healing process. In fact, now that this had happened, he realized he should have been worried before, when Neji just moved through life with little difference between the days before Naruto’s death and the days after.

The next afternoon, over two days later, Sasuke roused as he sensed Neji waking.

“Forgive me.”

Sasuke ignored that. “How do you feel?”

“Like a train wreck.”

Sasuke nodded. “About time.”

They were silent for a time, and then Neji spoke. “I was thinking I’d spend a day or two with my uncle, if that’s okay with you.”

Sasuke just stroked his hair.

“I have some questions that I never asked about my father. I don’t know why I never thought to ask before, but…,” he shrugged on Sasuke’s chest.

“Whatever you need. We’ll be fine here.”

Neji sat up and looked at Sasuke. “Will you?”

Sasuke leaned up enough to kiss Neji’s jaw. “Yeah.” He wrapped Neji’s hair around his wrist. “I know it’s been a long time coming, but I’m here for you now. You can count on me.”

Neji’s sigh was one of relief and he nodded.

“Neji,” Sasuke brushed his lips over Neji’s neck, “can I make you feel good?” He felt a tiny bubble of pleasure as Neji’s breath caught. “Let me make the world go away for a while; for both of us. Let me take away our pain.”

Neji lie back onto the bed and nodded. “Yes.”

As Sasuke burned away their world, Neji sent a silent thank you to Naruto. The pain of his passing was horrific, and now he really understood and appreciated what Naruto had asked of him. For him and Sasuke, the ones left behind, having each other, and their family, would make all the difference.