Chapter Text
Over four years, there are a series of letters. Each longer and more honest than the last. They are written by the same pen, signed in the same hand, and delivered in the talons of the same great hawk that sits at his window now. The sheen of the birds black eyes stare him down; the paper wrinkles in his hand.
The words ruin him, they always have.
They always will.
The first comes in the autumn. It is slipped amongst a stack of mission reports on his desk, like a breath of wind tried to bury it, and spare him. He cuts it open anyway.
It is done. I do not know when I will return. I have much to think about.
- S.
Naruto breathes out, presses a weary hand against his eyes.
If nothing else, years of Sasuke’s absence had taught Naruto one thing: nothing would ever sate his need for answers and retribution. And yet, here, signed in ink; Sasuke’s seemingly endless pursuit had found an end.
Had he found the root of his suffering, and snuffed it out? Dismantled the organisations and their following, vanquished those responsible, diminished any further threat? Had he finally found his answers? Had he gotten to the core of it? Prised it apart and made his peace with it?
What more did he need, if it was done? What was there left to think about?
What could possibly keep him away, now, when it was over?
Naruto felt the last of his hope flicker. And then, softly, like a candle in the draught of an open door, it went out.
His work would never be done. He could not afford distractions, he could not let words on a page take his thoughts and his loyalty miles away, when it was needed here.
He slid the letter into the drawer of his desk, and pressed it closed. It was the first letter from him in years, and all he could bear to do was put it away in the dark.
It would not be the last.
Passing through Lightning Country. Nothing to report.
- S
For one reason or another, the second letter comes as a surprise. It also brings with it an infuriation that Naruto had not felt since he was a boy.
Why write at all, if there is nothing of note? Why tell him where he was, when there was no feasible means of getting to him or excuse for doing so? Why waste ink and paper and the breath of his bird, why waste the precious seconds of his time taken to read it?
Naruto paces the length of his office, muttering obscenities under his breath and ignoring the thunderous tattoo of his heart in his chest.
Why send it at all?
It is snowing where I am. You always hated the snow.
- S
Naruto is actually present in his office when Garuda arrives to deliver the third. The hawk seems to regard him with a steady reproach when he reaches for the letter, and continues his unflinching gaze as he reads it.
The sheer length of time Naruto spends staring at the words seems to finally push his luck. The sound of the bird taking flight is the only thing that startles him back to the world.
Uncomfortably, Naruto swallows. He turns the page back to front, flips it upside down, shakes the envelope for any hidden message folded within. His efforts prove fruitless. If there is some cryptic meaning, it is lost on him.
And if there is some cryptic meaning that is lost on him, then Sasuke is to blame for being so utterly obscure.
Despite finding nothing else secreted away amongst the folds of the page or the creases of the margins, Naruto finds himself transfixed.
He stares at the characters until the backs of his eyes begin to ache. At length, he catches himself tracing the swooping brushstroke of Sasuke’s initial.
The shock of it makes his ears burn, and he shuts the letter away in the drawer with enough force to shake the windowsills.
He is savagely grateful that Garuda had departed before witnessing it.
Gaara sends his regards.
- S
Naruto actually throws his hands up in frustration at this one, though there is no one around to see it. Around the 9th or 10th letter of much the same abstruse nonsense, Shikamaru had learned to make himself scarce while Naruto opened them.
A wise decision, as currently Naruto felt like throwing something. What an absurd thing to send. What a ridiculous thing to write. If Gaara intended to send his regards, he was fully capable of doing so himself. In fact, Gaara engaged in more steady correspondence than Sasuke ever had. At least Gaara’s letters contained a lick of sense.
Every endeavour to unearth some hidden meaning from Sasuke’s letters had come up empty. He’d tried holding them up to the light, he’d tried holding it over a flame, he’d tried stencilling over the page for indentations in the paper.
He’d made Kakashi try his sharingan, he’d forced Shikamaru to look for anagrams, he’d asked a very startled Hinata to check for chakra signatures.
He’d read the letters backwards and forwards, tried turning the page upside down, and on one occasion himself upside down, he’d turned the envelopes inside out - there was nothing.
Upending this particular envelope revealed nothing more than a thin trickle of sand onto his desk, which only furthers his lament.
What was their purpose, other than to mock him? What did Sasuke intend to convey, other than the fact that he was getting progressively further with every note? With the mention of snow in previous letters, Naruto had forced down hope. Snow Country was closer than Sasuke had ever been. But now? To know he had pressed on passed, travelled straight through, had not stopped? That he’d carried on into Sunagakure, with nothing to signal his passage but more confounding letters?
Four words on a page, and Naruto’s world unravelled. What was he doing in Suna? What could possibly be out there for him? Sasuke despised the heat of the desert, the gritty scrape of sand. Why had he not stopped to come home?
Naruto made an aggrieved noise, locking the letter away with the others.
He could not spend anymore time ruminating. There was work to be done.
If Sasuke had some hidden message, he could come and tell him himself.
A year passed this way. Naruto chipped away at archaic policies, dismantled barbarous systems of child soldiers and commissioned upkeep and a monument to the fallen in the Uchiha compound. Sasuke was around to see none of it.
Every few weeks, another letter would arrive - sparse words on a page, pointless and meaningless and held so tightly in Naruto’s hands he feared the paper may tear.
He could never bring himself to write back. Every time he tried, his words ended up devouring whole sheaths of paper, telling him anything and everything, too much to fit in an envelope. Garuda had learned to stay for a few moments of rest, for companionship and for food, but never for a return letter. He was clever that way.
The hawk would take slithers of meat from his hands, would sit primly as Naruto pet his feathers and asked what his bastard of a friend was up to now. Garuda, of course, said nothing.
Naruto found he didn’t mind. He spoke enough for the both of them.
In the spring of the second year, Sasuke’s letters began to grow. Not in frequency, but in length. By mid-season, they had graduated to paragraphs. Naruto wondered sourly if some sort of ceremony was in order.
Naruto,
I have attached a pressed flower that reminded me of you. It is garish and orange and attracts all manner of insects, and it smells of the earth. I have held it in my hands for longer than I care to admit. I hope you find some use for it.
- S
Naruto stares at the words for some indiscernible amount of time. The pressed flower lays curled in his palm. It is indeed very orange.
Moments pass this way, and Naruto is motionless. He stares at the page and the flower until his vision blurs, and then he must turn away for fear of ruining the ink.
His head hurts. His breath shakes. There is a slow, hollow throbbing in his chest like someone had put lightning through it.
He closes his eyes until the ache subsides.
The letter and the flower go into the dark of his desk, and the drawer is closed. Naruto keeps his hand pressed to the wood as if it were the only thing keeping the contents from spilling out.
Then, resolute, he reopens it. Delicately, he retrieves the flower.
Should he put it in water? Should he keep it pressed, or let it remain loose? Does it need sunlight? He’s kept plants before, but no one has ever given him a flower, pressed or otherwise.
Considering the laminated splay of its petals, he figures it may be a little too late for water or sunlight to provide any benefit. Best to keep it flat, if that’s how it had persevered so far.
He could put it between the pages of a book, but he would likely never find it again.
At length, his eyes find the picture frame on his desk. The Team 7 photo stares back at him.
Gingerly, he unclips the back and places the flower inside. He is not brave enough to have it visible, but knowing it is safely tucked behind the picture is enough of a comfort.
When it is done, he puts the frame back in its place, and gets back to work.
As the months pass, and the second year draws to a close, Naruto has a desk full of letters and an office full of knickknacks. Sasuke’s reasons for sending them are just as impossible to discern, and Naruto finds a strange affinity for them in the same way he had his words.
Aside from Garuda’s rest perch, and his station of dried insects and water, every shelf and windowsill is littered, acorns and shells, pebbles and bottle-caps, the books are lined with pressed leaves, shrine ribbons, postage stamps. His favourite item so far is a little carved frog Sasuke had purchased at some outpost market or other, stubby and lopsided and painted a ridiculous shade of blue. He had named it Kearu-sama, as he remains as creative as he is patient, and it sits on his desk and stares down anyone who enters like a little wooden sentinel. Shikamaru has taken to nodding his acknowledgement to it every time he enters the room, as though it were Naruto’s personal summon.
Now, he sits at his desk and takes all of it in with a tired sweep of his gaze. Every token and every word makes him ache. His work wears him out, and Sasuke’s letters keep him awake. He wants, desperately, to be where he is. He wants to be next to him on whatever path he is wandering now, next to him while he seeks out these silly little keepsakes, next to him rather than on the other end of his stilted written words.
What he wants is irrelevant. He stays. He signs off on policy documents, delegates at the mission desk, attends festivals and oversees tournaments. When he can, he sees his friends, sits with them in bars, talks with them over ramen, discusses the weather and the latest to make genin. In those moments, it is almost possible to think of anything other than the letters burning a hole in his desk, and Sasuke’s absence burning a hole through the core of him.
Almost. Not quite. But almost.
Everywhere he goes, there is a shadow in the shape of his friend, and it follows him always.
For the most part, Naruto considers himself quite accustomed to his particular brand of heartache. For the past 19 years of his life - whilst admittedly oblivious for much of the first half - he’d come to terms with the fact that what he felt was, and always would be, unrequited.
However, there was only so much he could do in the way of hope when the nature of Sasuke’s letters took a turn toward sentiment midway through the third year. The one that sits on his desk now certainly has him at a loss.
Naruto,
With every passing day, I find myself losing focus. There is nothing out here for me but reasons to write to you. I am listless. I am scattered. Did you know they built a bridge in your honour? Looking at the characters of your name makes me waver in my purpose. It took every fibre of my being to cross it and not turn back.
- S
He sits, staring sightlessly at the paper on his desk, like it were an incendiary about to go off.
What in the world was he to do with that? How was he supposed to take it? At face value? If not with some sort of enamoured intent, what possible message could he be hoping to convey? With previous letters, Naruto had always managed to argue the fifth, twist the words in such a way that they could be construed as homesick maybe, delusional certainly, but this? How on Earth was Naruto supposed to read this? Was it a joke? Was someone holding him somewhere at knifepoint, and this was their chosen method of torture? Was he well? Feverish, perhaps? Drugged, possibly?
Perturbed, and not quite thinking correctly, he writes a response. He doesn’t stop to consider that this will be his first and only respondence to one of Sasuke’s letters. In his stupor, he manages one simple line, which he hopes will convey the depth of his concern and confusion.
He reads it through to make sure it is legible before tucking it haphazardly into an envelope and sealing it shut. He ensures that Garuda is fed and watered before tying it into a scroll and securing it to his talons.
“Please be a good hawk and deliver this to Sasuke.”
If birds could raise an eyebrow, Naruto would imagine that was the look Garuda was aiming for. Either way, the creature takes flight, carrying itself and his message toward the horizon. He can only hope it reaches him before whatever unfortunate state Sasuke’s found himself in worsens.
Sasuke,
What is wrong with you?
- Naruto
The letter finds Sasuke sometime late the next evening, where he is perched on a rock by the riverbed, taking a moment of rest.
The words, once he had scrambled to tear open the envelope, simply manage to startle a laugh out of him. Thankfully, there is no-one aside from Garuda around to hear it.
Wearily, he presses a hand over his eyes and sighs into the night air. To no one, he says,
“If only I knew.”
Dobe,
I am fine. No need for concern.
- S
And with that, over the next few months, Sasuke’s letter return to their original brevity. His paragraphs become sentences, and his commas become full stops. And while Naruto is grateful that the bastard had not been kidnapped, he also thoroughly considers knocking his head against a wall.
Back to square one, it seems.
Steadily, over the turn of the next year, Sasuke’s letters begin to flesh out again. Like a cautious animal, his words creep back in, one sentence at a time. Where there was once aimless drips, there was now a flood, descriptions of places and cultures and his soft maundering through the dappled sunlit forests. He tells of the weather and the food he eats and the animals he happens across, the villages he avoids and the ones he braves, the shinobi he meets along the way - whether full of quiet respect or outright violence at the sight of him.
Naruto does not respond to any of it, for fear of ushering in another retreat. He drinks in the letters greedily, reverently pouring over each word, eagerly anticipating the next, until all at once, the letters stop.
A month passes, two. Naruto forgoes sleep, paces his office and strangles the relentless urge to go out in search of him. His work suffers, his tone suffers. Even Sakura learns to clear out of his path, no longer insistent on knowing what was going on with him. She knew. Everybody knew. It had never been a matter of guessing what could so thoroughly hollow him out.
And then, in a quiet sweep of mercy, Garuda arrives at his window. He near breaks the chair in his haste to open the window. His hands shake as he unravels the note. The sheer amount of words overwhelms him until his vision aligns out of a dizzying blur.
Naruto,
Today, I walked into an outpost village where no one recognised my face. It was a relief I did not know I needed, to walk amongst those who do not know and do not care for what I’ve done, and what was done to me.
It made me think of when I was young, and felt as though no one could see me past my clan or the massacre that was done to it. As though I were some echo of its horror. I remember the weight of it; the burden of it. Everything I had to live up to, everything I had to represent. I remember feeling like a ghost.
And then - you came. And you saw me. I remember whatever horrible emptiness I carried around resonated in you; two terrible abyss mirroring each other. I knew you knew my ache. I knew you knew me.
Every time I look at you, I feel like a child. I will never be known again the way you know me.
As ever, your echo,
- S
By the time he reaches the signature, Naruto has to brace himself against the window for fear his legs will give out.
Unbothered, Garuda preens his feathers, looking for all the world as though Naruto’s imminent collapse was beneath him. Eventually, the hawk turns and busies himself with his feeding station.
With blood thundering in his ears, Naruto returns to his desk, takes whatever piece of scrap paper his hands find first, and unsteadily pens a response.
When he is done, he places it inside the same envelope, strikes out his own name and writes Sasuke’s above it. He ravels the letter, secures it closed, and ties it to Garuda’s taloned feet. The hawks black eyes watch him, steadily.
Quietly, Naruto manages one word.
“Please.”
Garuda bows his head, once, before taking flight. Whether the gesture was out of respect, or pity, Naruto will never know. He finds he cares little as long as the letter finds him. For now, it is all he can do.
Sasuke,
Come home. Urgently.
- Naruto
Sasuke does not stop at the gates. The village, as far as he can see, is supposedly in one piece. The guards feel nothing; see nothing. If he were still a threat, the damage would already be done. Instead, he heads for Naruto; the anxious flare of his chakra - not in the Hokage tower, but his home. When he reaches the threshold, he doesn’t knock, the door is unlocked. The force with which he tears through it almost knocks it off it’s hinges regardless.
He finds Naruto in the kitchen. All around him, littering every surface, there are folded sheaths of paper; his letters. They are concentrated on the dining table, where Naruto sits. His head is hung, but it lifts at the sound of him. His eyes are dark. His face is listless, emotionless. He looks as haggard as Sasuke feels.
There is no greeting, no acknowledgement. He lifts his arm in a slow, tired arc toward the mess of his kitchen. His voice, when it comes, is little more than a tired croak.
“What is all this?”
Sasuke bristles, nonplussed. As ever, his anger finds him first.
“Apologies, Hokage-sama. I was working under the impression that you were literate.”
Naruto’s lip twitches, as if he finds their usual brand of ribbing distasteful. It is near animal-like, as though Kurama were still just below the surface.
“Don’t mock me right now. Don’t."
Sasuke feels himself rise to the threat of it.
“You’ll forgive me if I’m being short with you. Someone insisted I travel from the Hidden Mist in under two days on no sleep - ”
“You think I can sleep - with these - these words messing with my head?” This silences him, jaggedly. The exhaustion in Naruto’s eyes pierces through the core of him. “I haven’t slept in weeks, Sasuke. I can’t rest. I can’t focus. I can’t serve my village. I have been trapped in this house pacing the rooms - searching for some possible reason why - Why are you doing this to me?”
It took every fibre of his being not to flinch at the words; deeply affronted by how poorly Naruto was taking this. Something fragile in his chest wrenches at it, and his righteous fury floods back in like a steel wall going up.
“Burn them, it they are so terrible. Give them to me, I’ll do it - ”
He takes a step towards the table, but Naruto rises to meet him, stopping him cold.
“Don’t you dare. Not one page - don’t you dare.”
Sasuke’s face twists, bitter and uncomprehending in the face of Naruto’s impossible temperament. What the hell did he want from him?
“Get rid of them, if they are such a torment - ”
He makes another move toward the letters, and Naruto physically pushes him back, like they were children. Sasuke opens his mouth to express his rage, but Naruto is talking over him, incensed.
“What use would that be? As if I could forget? As if they are not already burned into me - you think the damage is not already done?”
Sasuke almost physically staggers back, and Naruto is no longer within range to be an excuse for it.
“The damage - ”
“The fucking damage, Sasuke!”
The sheer volume of his voice takes the air from the room. Sasuke is utterly silent. Naruto’s shoulders rise and fall with the labour of his angered breath. He makes an about turn, like an animal pacing a cage. He presses a hand to his face as if he wanted to hide, and Sasuke sees all the fight bleed out of him. His shoulders fall. His voice, when it comes next, sounds like a frightened child.
“Why are you doing this now?”
Sasuke’s brow creases in confusion, utterly thrown by the question.
“I don’t - ”
Naruto speaks over him, as if he can no longer hear him. He paces, endlessly, as though he can no longer see him.
“Why not then? I needed it then, Sasuke. I don’t think I can bear it now. The thought that there was a chance you shared a fraction of what I felt - ”
“Naruto - ”
Naruto finally turns to him, fully, and the open desolation on his face makes him lose his voice.
“You think there is anything I would not have given back then - for one line of those letters? Anything at all?” The self-derision in his voice is pitiful, and whilst the words kept Sasuke firmly in place, he felt everything inside of himself reach out at the sound of it, desperate, “You think there is anything I would not have done? Is there anything I have not done for you?”
Sasuke simply stands there, still. What could he possibly say to that? When his voice finds him at last, it is a quiet sound, defeated.
“I didn’t know.”
“Oh, bullshit, you didn’t know,” Naruto says, flippantly, throwing his hands up in defeat and slumping back into his chair. His head hangs back, staring up at the ceiling, his wrists hang limp, over his knees. “Everybody knows. I can’t walk down the street without someone looking at me with pity because I’ve gotten it written across my fucking soul. It’s in everything I do.”
He eventually catches Sasuke’s gaze, staring at him down the line of his nose until he finally sits up straight. The line of his shoulders are crowded inward, his palms hang loose, defenceless. Sasuke sees the darkness under his eyes, still so fucking earnest.
“I tore the world apart trying to find you. I was going to die with you. I still would. I’d do it now, if you asked.”
The look in his eyes makes Sasuke’s fingers ache, and the feeling telegraphs all the way into his phantom limb. He stands there and takes it, because he doesn’t know what else to do.
“You never told me,” He tells him, at length. He doesn’t know what else to say.
Naruto makes a mocking sound, irreverent.
“Oh, and we’ve always solved everything with words,” He rolls his eyes, leans back in his chair, gestures to Sasuke’s still form, “As if you would even listen to me if I tried - did anything I ever say get through to you? Do you remember any of it?”
Sasuke feels that settle in him, like a weight.
“I remember all of it,” He admits, because if Naruto deserved anything right now, it was his honesty. And with every word that comes out steady, his surety find him, “Every time I saw you from the day I left - it’s all branded into me. I remember the sun and the rain of it, the break in your voice, the blood on your cheek. I remember every word you ever gave me. And the word that never changed was friend.”
This seems to pull Naruto up short, his expression taken aback, and Sasuke stays quiet while the words process, patiently. The spluttered indignation in Naruto’s voice finally sound more like himself, if nothing else.
“So that - that negates all of it - I couldn’t be both?”
Sasuke closes his eyes and shakes his head, frustrated.
“Naruto, I didn’t know,” He reiterates, feeling utterly stripped bare, “I couldn’t understand why you deemed me worthy for even that much, let alone - I could scarcely let myself hope.”
Sasuke prays for patience as Naruto’s brow creases, stubborn.
“Why would you tell me now - if there was no hope?”
Sasuke understands now the urge to pace. He tamps down the impulse, remains firm.
“Because I needed you to know. I’ve lost too many people who will never know what they meant to me - I refuse to let you be one of them.”
He holds Naruto’s eyes as he says it, desperate for the depth of it to be fully conveyed. Again, he meets resistance, a reluctance to hope, a refusal to listen.
“And if I didn’t feel the same way? What then? What would you have done?” Naruto presses, demanding and missing the point entirely. Sasuke simply buckles, finding no will to fight. The idea that what he felt would ever be returned? It was unthinkable. Why would he have even dared to think of impossible things?
“I just - wanted to tell you,” Sasuke breathes out, suddenly so unbelievably tired, “I didn’t think much beyond that.”
Naruto rubs a hand over his face, blithe. “Clearly.”
It seemed that no matter how old they got, he always knew exactly how to get under Sasuke’s skin. With that one word, his will to fight was wide awake.
“I needed you to know,” Sasuke insists, ardently, too torn apart to keep the desperate emotion from his voice, “What else is there to understand?”
Naruto says nothing. They stare each other down, until Naruto simply gestures to the open floor between them, a silent prompt to continue. Sasuke finds that only infuriates him more. What more could he possibly say? Had he not already laid it all out in his letters? Why draw it all out, all over again? As punishment? To humiliate him, more than he already was? Despite himself, despite his pride, he finds the words building in his chest, and he is unable to hold them at bay.
“There’s just - ” He feels as though he may choke, “There’s just so much of it. Naruto. I don’t know what to do with it all. It’s important to me that you know that.”
In the uneasy tension of the room, Naruto remains quiet. His expression gives away nothing. Bitterly, he tries again.
“When all the anger left, all that was left of me was this feeling. It scared me. The clarity of it. The fact that I’ve carried it with me all this time and didn’t have a name for it.” Sasuke feels his hand clench, as though he were trying to hold onto something. “I know the name for it now. That’s all I wanted to tell you. It was never meant as a torment. With all the love you have ever given - to everything, to everyone - I needed you to know that you are loved by me. Maybe not as purely as someone else could love you, but entirely. With everything I am; because you know all of it. You are the only one that has ever known all of it.”
When his words run out, the quiet floods back in. He shifts under the weight of Naruto’s gaze, as though he were a child being reprimanded.
At length, Naruto finally speaks.
“What use is this to me?” And like a child, Sasuke flinches. Naruto goes on regardless. “Telling me all this, now, at arms length? Giving me everything I’ve ever wanted, whilst you are miles away? Would you have even come back, if I hadn’t demanded it? Would you stay, if I asked?”
Sasuke has been hit many times in his life, but nothing quite stuns him the way the sudden feeling of hope blooming in his chest does.
Uncertain, he meets Naruto’s eyes.
“That is dependant.”
Naruto raises an eyebrow. “On?”
“Whether I am too late,” Sasuke breathes out.
Naruto waves a dismissive hand, as if that were irrelevant. He stands, and brushes off his knees, as if concluding some stuffy political meeting. “Do you even need to ask?”
“Naruto.” Sasuke begs, tersely. “I’m asking.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Naruto dismisses, lightly. He advances until there is little more than a few paces between them, keeping his eyes on him. “This feeling will outlive me. Do you get that? When I am gone, this feeling will leave a scar on the Earth. When I am gone, some poor fucker will have to carry this in their soul until it finds yours again. You could kill me, and bury me, and reincarnate me - and you wouldn’t be too late. You fucking asshole.”
Sasuke feels the edge of some amorphous feeling tug the corner of his mouth.
“I feel the same.”
Naruto rolls his eyes, as though he were bored of hearing the obvious.
“Mah, then stop asking me stupid questions, you absolute - ”
The words die on his tongue. Sasuke can almost taste them. Snippy little insults like popping candy.
Naruto doesn’t even put up a fight. He melts. His legs almost give out.
It’s no small feat to pin a six-foot-four chakra god to the wall with one arm, but Sasuke is an Uchiha, so he manages it with grace. He turns them both, walks them back until Naruto’s spine hits the wall, and then presses him into it. Naruto doesn’t even appear to have noticed, until Sasuke pulls back and looks into both of his eyes, one after the other, like he used to do once he’d pinned him in a fight. Something must be wired wrong in both of them, because Naruto simply presses a breathless moan into his mouth and runs his hands into his hair, pulling him in again.
When he pulls back a second time, he has to press his forearm to his collarbone to restrain him like a dog, least he try and claw them back together. In the dim light, his eyes look feral. His teeth look a touch too sharp. He’s looking at Sasuke as though he may starve if he doesn’t get his mouth back on him. He would have called it depraved if it didn’t make his heart race.
“What was it you said about solving things with words?” He says, coolly, gazing at the red of his mouth until his pupils dilate, “You gonna show me, instead?”
There’s a distinct feeling of vertigo as the world tilts, and it takes a few moments for Sasuke to realise that he’d just been fully picked off the ground. He knows when to pick his battles, so rather than fighting back with one arm and gravity against him, he allows himself to be carried deeper into the house. He even hitches his legs around his waist for easier purchase.
Naruto sends him a cautious look, as though he imagines he won’t be alive for much longer. Sasuke simply raises an eyebrow.
“If I knew there was such an efficient way to travel, I would have enlisted your help sooner.”
Naruto laughs, as though that had caught him off guard. Without much aplomb, he deposits Sasuke on the bed, and crawls after him.
“You’re a prick, do you know that?”
Sasuke hums, as though they were commenting on the weather.
As he draws him down with an arm around his shoulders, he answers, “It may have been mentioned once or twice.”
“Oh, really?” Naruto muses, running his canines over the soft curve of his collarbone, “It’s about to mentioned once or twice more.”
Sasuke lays back as Naruto takes his mouth to his chest, mouthing and biting at the skin. He rumbles a deeply satisfied noise when Naruto finally sinks his teeth in properly.
“Maybe I should take my attentions else where, where they’ll be appreciated,” Sasuke points out, mutinous, despite the fact that he was currently nestling himself into the covers to be savaged more comfortably.
“You gonna go find somebody else who mirrors your abyss, huh?” Naruto drags his tongue over the bite, as though to soothe the mottled bruise he’d just drawn out of him. “All the best with that.”
Sasuke tugs at his hair, hard, until he finally looks up at him with a grin. He pulls him up by his hair guide him up to his mouth, and Naruto is more than happy to indulge him.
“Oh, do shut up,” Sasuke says, and kisses him.
Later, in the dusky swathes of moonlight, Naruto lays against Sasuke’s chest and traces the marks he’d made. Beneath him, Sasuke hums in thought.
“Why didn’t you ever reply?” He muses, and though it is said softly and without accusation, Naruto sits fully upright.
“I did!” He insists, indignant and startling loud in their little quiet haven, “Once, and then you stopped speaking as much, so I thought I’d done it wrong.”
Sasuke lifts a brow, brushes a lock of hair that had fallen into Naruto’s eyes in his haste to be facing each other.
“I told you I missed you and you asked what was wrong with me,” He points out, amused. It garners the intended response.
“That’s - ! I didn’t -! You -” Sasuke watches him fluster and gesture about, blushing up to his ears and tirelessly animated, “I thought there was some - hidden message or something - I thought someone had drugged you - ”
There’s a deep rumbling noise that startles them both, and Sasuke realises with a little shock that it was his own laughter. It bubbles out of him, unable to stop it, and Naruto looks at him with wide-eyed wonder, as though he were some kind of mythic creature.
“I’m serious!” Naruto shoves at him, insistent, "I thought there was some sort of hidden meaning, and I couldn’t figure it out, and it pissed me off so bad - ”
This only serves to make him laugh harder.
“Bastard! I thought someone had kidnapped you! I thought it was a cry for help!”
There are actual tears in Sasuke’s eyes. He wipes them away with mirth.
“You’re a fucking idiot.” He tells him, hopelessly.
“Hey! How was I supposed to know you could feel things? Fuck off!”
Sasuke is still laughing while Naruto tackles him off the bed. His very serious attempts to engage him in a wrestling match only manages to make him laugh more.
Soon, both of them end up on their backs, stark naked and breathless. In tandem, they turn to each other, faces limned in amusement. Their eyes meet, and the same thought passes through them both, like a frisson of electricity jumping from one soul to another.
As always, Naruto is the first to reach out. This time, Sasuke reaches back.