Throw it all away

When Naruto had said he’d sent his ‘closest, dearest friends on a mission that they might not come back from’, he’d been talking about most of his inner circle. Aside from Naruto himself, it seemed the same team that had charged into Oto to rescue him, was the same team on the priority mission.

Neji, Kiba, Lee, Shikamaru, Chouji, Shino, and even Kakashi were all missing from the village the next morning. Guarding the Hokage became Sasuke’s sole responsibility. And he found, with much discomfort, that the village seemed to consider this situation an assassination attempt on his part.

Oh, no one had come out and said it, but Sasuke could tell.

He didn’t know why they even thought their mighty Rokudaime would fall to him of all people, but he was the only one left, and so, he carried out his duties to the best of his ability.


It was a long first day.


Naruto sighed heavily, as Sakura entered his office. In her arms were several scrolls, which she promptly deposited on his desk. Naruto groaned, causing the kunoichi to cluck her tongue at him. “Naruto, you can’t put this off any longer,” she reprimanded.

The blond looked over the pile of scrolls and then met her eyes. “I won’t sign them until after Shikamaru looks them over first.”

Sakura held out a slip of paper. Naruto gave her a curious look, before taking it. Leaning back in his chair, he opened it.

“Naruto, here are the new drafts for your series of controversial laws. I’ve already read them over and made the necessary changes. After you’ve read them, sign them. After all, we’re hip deep in troublesome legal debates because of you.”

There was a fond smile upon Naruto’s face as he finished reading the note. Setting it aside carefully, as if it were very delicate, he reached for a scroll, and unrolling it, sighed.

Sasuke could feel Sakura’s eyes on him, as Naruto steadily put his seal on each document in turn. True, they weren’t exactly friends, yet he had hoped she’d at least trust him. They had once been teammates after all. She’d even hoped for more.

Thankful that Sakura had moved on, Sasuke decided to forgo any attempts at meaningless conversation.


Naruto – perhaps for his sake, perhaps because he didn’t feel up to it – refrained from his daily walk through the village. Sasuke figured, the villagers would blame him, but frankly, didn’t care. They would blame him regardless. So, it may as well benefit him.

“Naruto,” he said, from his position by the window. Though he didn’t turn to look, he could feel that Naruto had. “After everything,” he continued, wanting to close his eyes to ease the pain. But, his pride would never let him. “Are we…?”

Naruto, thankfully, didn’t require an ending to the question. He really had grown. “I like to think so,” he replied. As an afterthought, he added, “I…like to think we never lost it.”

Sasuke could feel something deep inside his chest unravel at that. As if a tight knot had finally begun to unwind itself through time and exposure. “Yes,” he said. “So do I.”

Looking across the room at the blonde, Sasuke couldn’t help but cling to it. The invisible thread that kept them joined by the heart. No matter what had happened in their pasts. The severity of fights, the abandonment, the pain of being apart. He felt relieved to find he wasn’t the only one to have been tortured nearly every moment of their time apart. And yet, if he were honest with himself, he was the root cause of all their suffering. His at the hands of Orochimaru. Naruto at his own.

Sighing internally, he leaned back against the window frame and looked to Naruto. “Was there ever a time…?”

Naruto fidgeted, fingers winding about one another tightly. He looked down at his hands, almost shyly. “…Yea…You?”

“…Yes.”

The air had grown thick, suffocating every attempt at an inhale. They weren’t looking at one another, but they never had needed to connect so trivially. Their’s was a deep bond. Even Sasuke wasn’t completely sure about the mechanics of it.

His chest felt tight, as if his heart had paused in order to not disturb the moment. His throat had closed against more words, perhaps because they were unnecessary. His body was as a dead tree limb, draped awkwardly, precariously at the edge of falling.

He could do it now, he realized.

He’d never get a better chance.

And yet…He couldn’t move. Couldn’t even try. It felt oddly reminiscent of Tsukuyomi; except, trapped in the jutsu he could at least attempt rebellion. His body was giving him no such leisure.

Naruto still hadn’t looked at him. His hypnotic blue gaze set firmly upon the hardwood desk before him. The same desk he found pleasure in, with Hyuuga Neji.

Sasuke found himself getting angry. Even this moment, his one chance to get Naruto back, completely. Even this was being stubbornly fought for, by the older shinobi. And what made the entire situation compulsively ludicrous, was the fact that the Hyuuga wasn’t even in the damn country!

He grit his teeth, hand curling into a fist. He wanted to hurt something. Someone. Hyuuga Neji.

Naruto, well accustomed to the subtle shifts in his mood, looked up. “Sasuke?” he queried, voice steady, but tinged with wariness. At his soft call, Sasuke looked up. It was the wrong thing to do. As dark met light, Sasuke could feel his resolve weaken. Unaware that they both inhaled sharply at the same moment.

Was he truly happy with the Hyuuga? If Sasuke really loved him, why couldn’t he accept that? Maybe because Naruto wasn’t truly happy? Was he imagining it? Could the blonde still…? If he ever did, could he still?

They stared at one another, souls lain bare for the other’s perusal.

Sasuke was surprised to find so much darkness in Naruto’s. When had he become so tainted? Was it truly his own fault? How then could Naruto bear to forgive him? And barring that, how…how could he still feel so strongly?

Was there more? Had the Hyuuga healed those rough patches at the edges? Tied together the loose threads that fringed the younger’s soul?

Had Sasuke himself ripped that part of him? If so, it only made sense that he and he alone should be responsible for fixing them.

He could fix them. Even if it cost him all that was left of him. He would fix what he’d broken, whether Naruto wanted him to or not.

Perhaps it was just his imagination, but in Naruto’s eyes…deep, deep in the hidden flecks of green there was a withstanding plea. A request to be saved, that Sasuke remembered for as long as he’d known him. As he had come to known the blonde, come to accept him, he’d agonized over the mysterious glint. How it had flickered and wavered in every smile. How it was ever present, and constantly overlooked.

He was slightly surprised to see it had survived this long. One would think, with all of Naruto’s accomplishments, it should have been effectively obliterated. A thought came unbidden to his mind. What if that tiny hidden emotion wasn’t meant for everyone? What if Naruto was still looking? Searching for that one thing that could heal his own soul.

He’d saved enough others. Could no one still hear his pleas? Was Sasuke the only one because it was meant for him? Or was it simply because he knew him better than anyone?

The thought made him both happy and sad at once. Naruto still held onto him so deeply he was unaware of it. Naruto still clung to him…so he could not move on. If he’d not returned, would Naruto be tormented slowly by the unconscious feeling unto his death?

He was unaware of moving. Unaware of the predatory nature of his silent glide. His eyes held Naruto’s, and Naruto’s his own. Trapped within one another, he let the strength of feeling between them guide him. It pulled them together with a force greater than the strongest magnification jutsu Sasuke had ever known.

As he approached the desk, Naruto stood.

It was like a singular tremble had engulfed them. Their bodies shaking from the inside.

Were they opposites then? Destined to long for one another from afar? For eternity?

Sasuke refused to accept that.

And yet, as he drew closer, an irrational fear began to overtake him. What if, as soon as they got close enough, like true opposites, they’d be thrown apart? What then?

Then they would fight. They would fight harder. Until their bodies were worn and weary. And they would continue to fight. Until time escaped them, and they fell into the abyss. But, Sasuke would search for him. Even into the next life.

He was so sure they belonged together.

Why else would the Gods create them thusly? A perfect, symbiotic pair. Breathing in the exhaled taints of their own battered souls. Taking them into their own bodies and weaving the pieces together to recreate their lives. So perfectly interwoven…Sasuke knew were Naruto to die, so would he. Without due cause. He would simply fail to exist as soon as the blonde exhaled his last breath. For there would be no more soul exchanges. Without Naruto, he was nothing.

It had taken a self-imposed exile in a country far away for him to realize what it was exactly that balanced him. Without Naruto as a counter, as a buffer, as a guide, the years away had torn him to near desolation.

With Naruto before him now, so close, so close he could merge with him…he didn’t know what to feel.

They stared at one another, breath mingling in a warm, intimate surge between their bodies. Somewhere, way in the arrogant depths he still possessed, Sasuke was pleased that he was still marginally taller. The moment drew on, undisturbed for what could have been hours as easily as seconds.

Then, without any premeditation, Sasuke reached out. His arms slipped smoothly about Naruto’s waist, gliding unstopped beneath the young Hokage’s arms. They tightened about his firm body, drawing him close. There wasn’t time for the silent gasps as their bodies pressed together, in a hard, heated thrust of flesh. For Sasuke’s mouth, on instinct, sought out Naruto’s own.

All of this had taken but a moment, but to their over sensitized nerves, it had lasted in all it’s excruciatingly erotic individual movements.

Naruto’s mouth opened before his own. The kiss, like all things between them, taken with brutal honesty. Tongues battling, and heavy exhales that held secretive murmurs from years past. Desire beyond mere lust coating every shove and slide.

Hands gripped his hair, curling almost painfully. His own embrace tightened, hands searching with wild devotion. Along every inch of covered and uncovered skin. Over strong shoulders, and up the back of a smooth neck, burying in blonde tufts.

There was a moan. Sasuke couldn’t be sure if it was either or both of them.

The next moment had them pressed against the desk.

Naruto’s breath left his chest in a puff of exertion, as his back connected. Arms tightening about the darker man’s neck. Sasuke was pulled down with the movement, and caught a knee in the wood. A good deal of twisting and thrusting had them both laying upon it. Sasuke’s body covering Naruto’s own.

Scrolls, quills, folders and heavy books scattered helter skelter, like a puddle that had been jumped upon. Raining down unto the floor with a new secret.

Coherent thought had been tossed out the proverbial window. The pair grinding and writhing against one another. Mouths travelling, learning the contours of their comrade’s body in a new light. A knew sense adding lingering memories to their stock piled collection of stolen moments.

Taste.

Sasuke had gotten as far as prying Naruto’s belt and slacks open. His mind rushing with the need to fulfill this unspoken need between them. A living, breathing, near sentient existence. That ordered and demanded and expected to be heeded.

True happiness was but a moment away.

As all things in his life, Sasuke should have been conscious of the coming fall from grace.

“Sasuke!” Naruto husked, arching.

Warmth spread through him like a proud fire.

Yes…that was the right name…

“Sasuke! I order you to stop!”

His body jerked into immediate subjugation. Obeying the command without being conscious of hearing it. Except that he had heard it.

Oh, how he’d heard it.

All the warmth drained clear from his body in a single instant. The familiar, ice cold loneliness rushing through every fiber of his being.

Although he’d stopped, he hadn’t moved. Perhaps in shock, perhaps…perhaps…

‘Why?’ his mind screamed. ‘Why? Why?!’

Naruto pushed himself up on trembling arms, and dragged himself out from under him. Sasuke sat back, one leg curled beneath him.

He must have been scowling – though he couldn’t feel it – because Naruto took a calming inhale that visibly trembled. Angry, he looked up, meeting the blue eyes. It dissipated almost immediately.

Naruto…

The blonde looked away, heartbroken.

“We can’t,” he said.

Sasuke could feel his heart plummet.

‘Why?’

“We can’t,” Naruto reiterated.

And Sasuke knew he wasn’t imagining the broken sight before him.