The way Sasuke's cheeks had turned a sweet shade of pink when Naruto had been on top of him, pinning him down... The way Sasuke's lips had parted, just slightly, just enough for Naruto to see the wet gleam of his tongue. The quick, shallow breath that had escaped him like a wounded sound, his throat exposed and vulnerable, tilted back in unconscious offering... The way his striking mismatched eyes had widened once the Yamanaka device had reacted, those beautiful, beautiful eyes, always so cold and unmoved, dark with a kind of ache Naruto had never seen on him before... The way Sasuke had stared up at him then, all flushed, and so, so ashamed...
At that moment, Naruto didn't realize it, he had been too deep in his own anger, in his own fury and rage, but now he did, now he saw it clearly, at that moment, beneath him, Sasuke had completely looked like he wanted to be devoured.
Ruined.
Licked, and kissed and bitten raw.
Fucked and consumed whole. Right then and there, against the floor.
By him...
Naruto almost couldn't believe it. But he had seen it. It had been written plainly all over Sasuke's face.
A wilderness in his gaze, a desperate primal hunger, as though he had kept it chained away behind his iron walls of discipline and coldness, starving it, until in that single unguarded moment, it had escaped out of his control, a famished, untamed, creature, just to retreat as fast as it had surfaced...
And that sight... that sight had been the most captivating thing Naruto had ever seen.
Sasuke... so embarrassed, and trembling, his lips parted, his body arching faintly into touch rather than away from it, his long dark hair, long like a woman's, spilled all over the floor like black ink across the stone, his skin flushed with the heat of his arousal, his desire, written in the depths of his eyes... all that wilderness in his gaze...
Because of him.
Sasuke had felt attracted to him.
He had felt aroused by him, by his body, by his proximity, amidst all the rage, and the violence and fury that Naruto had thrown to him... in the middle of their fight, among all the harsh and hateful things they had said to each other... Sasuke had felt that way.
And somehow, strangely, it made sense.
Naruto had always known Sasuke felt strongly towards him; friendship, rivalry, hatred, rage, fury, betrayal, as Naruto had just learned... Sasuke had always felt things too deeply, too violently, everything in him burning at a temperature that would consume any ordinary person. Their bond had always been strong, deep, unique, intimate... complicated. Too complicated. Consuming.
Friends since they were kids, brothers in arms, comrades bound by all the impossible battles they faced together, rivals tethered by fate itself, and sworn enemies now...
Everything and nothing, all at once, and nothing at all...
Their bond had always been too strong, too intense, too consuming... and now that they've become further apart from each other than ever, of course their bond would twist itself into something physical, of course it would tangle itself into desire. And it turned out, Sasuke liked men after all...
Sasuke was truly a mess.
He always had been. Even though he always pretended he wasn't and that he always had everything figured out. Naruto knew Sasuke didn't give that impression because he always acted so calm and collected. People always assumed Naruto was the messy one, not Sasuke. But Naruto knew him better than anyone.
And yes, Naruto was a mess, but so was Sasuke.
Sasuke was impossible. Unmanageable. And that was the thing about Sasuke, he wasn't truly capable of moderation. He seemed like he was, but he wasn't. Naruto knew that. Always had known. Sasuke's heart burned too hot, felt too deep, ran too wild. Every emotion in him was a conflagration, a wildfire that consumed everything in its path and left only ash behind. Sasuke didn't feel things, he was consumed by them, devoured from the inside out. And he had been like that since Naruto met him. A burning heart that wanted to make the world burn like he burned from inside... Sasuke only knew how to burn, and burn, and burn.
And that was one of the things Naruto loved most about him.
Such a beautiful, maddening mess...
Naruto should have felt relieved, even hopeful, that his own attraction was somehow corresponded. Naruto had always imagined, in the wildest and most impossible of his feverish dreams, that if Sasuke ever looked at him that way, it would be the happiest moment of his life...
But he didn't feel like that. At all.
Because Sasuke didn't love him. Not the way Naruto did.
Naruto knew it with a certainty that tasted like copper on his tongue.
Sasuke had made that excruciatingly clear, screaming it into the space between them with a violence that had left Naruto's ears ringing *There never was an us*, Sasuke's words echoed in Naruto's skull, sharp and final as a blade falling.
He wasn't fool enough to think Sasuke was, or ever would be, in love with him. That was impossible. What Naruto had pieced together was that the thing Sasuke felt at that moment was attraction toward him. Plain, simple, physical attraction.
The kind that could exist without anything deeper behind it.
The kind that he had now learned Sasuke could feel even for a stranger...
And at that instant, sitting on the cold stone floor staring at the abyss, Naruto believed he had managed to understand.
Or at least, he thought he did.
Attraction was something different than love, wasn't it? At least for Sasuke.
Not for Naruto. He couldn't understand how someone could feel attracted to another person, desire them, and covet such intimacy with them without feeling anything else. He couldn't even comprehend it.
But apparently, to Sasuke, attraction and love were two completely separate things.
Attraction was chemistry, proximity, the body's betrayal of the mind's intentions. Attraction was looking at a body the way you look at a dish laid out before you, appreciating the presentation, the texture, the taste of it, something to be savored, consumed, and forgotten once the hunger is gone. Attraction was the warmth of Sasuke's thigh between his legs during their fight, the way his breath had caught when Naruto had leaned in close enough that he could have kissed him right there... Attraction explained the blush, the widened eyes, the way Sasuke had looked for one unguarded moment like he wanted nothing more than to let himself go a different kind of wild than the one he had been unleashing moments ago.
And the idea that Sasuke might be attracted to him, that his body might respond to his hands, to his voice, to his words, his heat, to his weight, that Sasuke could in fact see him in that way, should have sparked in Naruto some kind of hope that maybe, just maybe, in this tangle of betrayal, and hurt, and longing they were in, there was a chance... shouldn't it? That should have made him want to celebrate, to scream, to laugh at the absurdity of it, the boy he had been in love with for years, the boy who had run from him, fought him, rejected him in every way possible, finally seeing him in the same way as he did...
But it couldn't.
Because Naruto had seen Sasuke's face when he had walked away. He had seen the way Sasuke's composure had cracked, the way his cheeks had been flushed not only with embarrassment but with something else. Naruto had seen the way Sasuke's eyes had been too bright, too wet. He had felt the way Sasuke controlled his breathing, the way he avoided everyone's gaze...
Sasuke totally looked like he was about to cry. Naruto sensed it with every fiber of his being. And he knew that no one else saw. He knew that what everyone saw was his anger, his movements, his footsteps sharp and deliberate across the stone, shattering the Yamanaka device, the Chidori crackling to life and reducing to fragments the silver bracelet at his wrist, yanking the door open with fury, his palm slamming against the doorframe as he strode through it, the wood groaning in protest. But Naruto had felt it. He could not pinpoint what exactly it had been that had made him think that. But he just knew it. Sasuke hadn't given anything away; he was good at closing himself off like that, but Naruto had felt it anyway.
He was sure of it.
Sasuke looked completely devastated.
And that image, that single, devastating image, had burned itself into Naruto's mind and eclipsed everything else.
It didn't matter if Sasuke was angry at him, or if he hated him, or why he had come back or what he had planned to do afterwards. It didn't matter if Sasuke felt attracted to him or if he liked his arms, or his skin, or his hair, or his face, or his body or whatever he had found stirring about him. It didn't matter.
Because Sasuke was hurt, because Sasuke was in pain, and Naruto couldn't stand it.
He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't allow it. He just couldn't. And Naruto couldn't think about anything else.
If Sasuke was in pain, if Sasuke was hurt, everything else receded, and Sasuke's pain became instantly the only thing that mattered.
Sasuke's words surfaced in Naruto's memory like fragments of a broken mirror; *It all had been for nothing*, *We all are going to die*, *You betrayed me first...* Naruto could still hear the anguished crack in Sasuke's voice when he'd said *it all had been for nothing*, he could still hear the flat, exhausted certainty of *we all are going to die*, could still see the way his shoulders had sagged, the way his eyes had gone distant as though he had already accepted defeat, he could still see the raw, bleeding sadness in Sasuke's face when he'd screamed *you betrayed me first* And Naruto understood now, with a clarity that made his chest ache, that things between them were broken.
They were broken.
They were further than they'd ever been.
So far away from each other, so impossibly distant, even when they were in the same room, even when they were screaming at each other from inches away... Naruto couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear the thought of fighting the battle that might very well be their last like that, with Sasuke still hurting, still believing that Naruto had never truly loved him. The thought that Kaguya and Madara could emerge at any moment, that the seal could break without warning, that the end could begin before he had a chance to make things right, terrified him.
He didn't want to face the end of the world like that, while he and Sasuke were still at odds. He needed to make this right. He needed to somehow stop the pain that Sasuke was carrying, because he couldn't let Sasuke's last hours be filled with that grief, all that hurt and despair,
that betrayal, that belief that Naruto had never truly loved him. Naruto couldn't die like that. And more than that, he couldn't let Sasuke die like that.
Naruto pushed himself to his feet. His jaw was set, his eyes blazing, his entire body coiled with the desperate need to move, to find Sasuke, to make this right before it was too late. He took two steps toward the door, not looking back at anyone, not sparing a single glance at the wreckage of the room behind him.
"Naruto, wait." Kakashi's hand closed around his arm, firm and sudden. Naruto startled, his body going rigid with surprise. He stopped, turning just enough to look at Kakashi over his shoulder, his expression shifting from determination to confusion.
"Listen to me." Kakashi's voice was low, urgent, "There's still a chance. A small chance. But it's there."
Naruto frowned, "What?" he said, completely clueless of what Kakashi was talking about out of the blue.
"You heard him." Kakashi's grip on his arm tightened. " "You betrayed me first." He thinks you failed him. That's leverage. Naruto, he thinks you chose Konoha over him. And he resents you for it. You can use this. If you say to him..."
Naruto's eyes widened, he cut Kakashi instantly, "Use it!?" he repeated, his voice rising, cracking with sudden, horrified understanding. "Use what? His pain? His... what, his feelings!!?"
Sakura's green eyes were fixed on Naruto's face, tracking every flicker of emotion that crossed his features. She had known Naruto for years, long enough to recognize every shade of his anger, every shape of his grief. But whatever had just crossed his face wasn't either of those.
"Naruto." Kakashi continued, his voice measured "We're going to die. All of us. If there's even a fraction of a chance that the Koi no Me..."
But before he could continue Naruto cut him again; "Do you think that's what I'm going to do!?" Naruto exclaimed, "That after everything I'm going to... to... I'M JUST GOING TO TALK TO HIM!!" Naruto shouted, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with disbelief. "You want me to play with his feelings, you want me to…"
"To save the world." Kakashi's voice was flat, unyielding. "Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying."
Ino stared at Kakashi with an expression that was half disbelief, half horror. And for a moment the image of Sasuke laughing with her earlier, with his delicate demeanor, smiling like any young boy of his age would, surfaced in her mind. She understood the situation they were all in, and yet...
Her voice came out barely above a whisper, disturbed and uncertain. "Kakashi-sensei..."
But before Kakashi could say anything more Naruto jerked away from his grip so violently that he stumbled backward, his blue eyes wide, his body trembling, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. And for one sickening second Naruto saw it again; Sasuke pressed against the table, his head tilted back, his delicate fingers tangled in Kakashi's grey hair, pulling him closer... the wet sound of their mouths meeting still echoing in Naruto's skull... Naruto blinked, trying to shake it off, but those sounds and that sight had branded itself into his mind. He stared at Kakashi like he had never seen him before, like the man standing in front of him was a stranger wearing the face of his teacher. And now he was suggesting him...
"How could you?" Naruto's voice cracked, raw and disbelieving. "How could you even suggest that? You think I... you think I was going after him to..."
"Weren't you?" Kakashi asked, holding Naruto's stunned gaze, unwavering.
"NO!" Naruto shouted, the word tearing out of him. "I was going to make sure he's okay! I was going to apologize! I was going to..." His voice broke, and he had to stop, had to force himself to breathe. "I don't care about the Koi no Me anymore. I don't care about the war. I don't care about any of it. I just... I can't..."
Kakashi held Naruto's gaze, watching the fury and hurt warring across his face, the same raw, desperate intensity he had seen when Naruto and Sasuke had been screaming at each other from inches away, their bodies pressed together, their violence indistinguishable from something else entirely. He understood now. He understood that whatever was between them was beyond his reach, beyond anyone's reach. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, no strategy he could devise. Because no one could get between those two. No one had ever been able to. And as Naruto turned away to leave, Kakashi felt a cold unease settle in his chest, a dread he couldn't quite name.
Sakura didn't understand what was happening between Naruto and Sasuke, not really, but she knew something was happening. Something was different. She could feel it. And she knew, she just knew, they had left her behind again, shut her out, like they always had... And those years when the three of them had been together now felt like an almost forgotten dream, fading the more she tried to hold onto it, forever out of reach.
Another rumble of thunder rolled through the room, closer now, a sound that seemed to crawl through the walls and settle deep in the bones. Still, no rain fell.
Sakura took a step forward without thinking, her feet moved before her mind caught up. Her voice cut through the silence, low and firm. "Naruto." She called him.
Naruto paused instantly at the threshold, his hand resting against the doorframe. Something in her voice made him stop right in his tracks. He turned and looked at her bright green eyes, too bright, fixed on him with an intensity that made something twist in his chest.
Guilt.
Because what Naruto felt for Sasuke was a betrayal to her. It always had been. Because he had watched her love Sasuke with a devotion that had outlasted abandonment and rejection and time itself, and he had stood beside her through all of it, brother and confidant, encouraging her, while his own heart committed the same crime in the darkness.
Because he had once promised her that he would bring Sasuke back for her, while in the depths of his soul he only had wanted to bring him back for himself. And he had been lying to her, and faking, and fooling her, again and again. And Naruto would never be able to tell her. He could never do that to her, even if Sakura knew now that what she longed for with Sasuke was completely out of her reach, Naruto could never let her know he had been sharing those very same feelings with her all along.
Naruto forced a smile onto his face, though it felt like breaking glass. "Don't worry, Sakura-chan," he said, his voice rough, his throat hoarse from all the shouting. "Everything will be okay."
Sakura held his gaze and she knew, without a second thought, that his smile was fake. Her lips parted to say something, to call him back to her, but before she could, Naruto turned and walked out, his footsteps echoing down the corridor, following Sasuke's chakra signature up in the tower.
Sakura's lips, still parted from the words she hadn't been able to speak, slowly closed, and after a heartbeat she exhaled, a long, shaky breath that seemed to carry all the weight of everything she hadn't been able to articulate, her gaze still fixed on the empty doorway where Naruto had disappeared. She let him go. She had to trust him, even if his smile had been a lie, to soothe her. She had to trust him. Because she always had. Because she always would.
Kakashi turned to look at the two girls, his expression unreadable.
Ino moved first, stepping toward Sakura and placing a hand gently on her shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asked, her voice soft.
Sakura let out a small, hollow laugh. "No," she said, her voice quiet, almost distant. Then she laughed again, a brittle, broken sound that made Ino's brow furrow with concern.
Ino's lips pressed together, and she muttered under her breath, barely audible, "Those idiots."
"Yes," Sakura answered, a small, tired smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
Ino looked down at the pieces of the Yamanaka device scattered across the floor, then back at Sakura. "Come on," she said, her voice gentler now. "Help me with this."
Ino knelt, her blond ponytail spilling forward across her shoulder, and began gathering the pieces, her movements careful, methodical. Sakura hesitated for a moment, then knelt beside her, picking up a shard of the broken device. "Do you guys have more of these?" she asked, her voice still distant.
Ino glanced at her, then back at the pieces in her hands. "Yes. But just a few. Maybe this one can be repaired. I don't know..." She shrugged, a tired gesture, "I'll have to take a look."
Kakashi watched them but his mind was clearly elsewhere, his eyes were distant, unfocused, lost in thought.
Then footsteps echoed from the corridor, firm, quick and purposeful. Tsunade appeared in the doorway, her green haori flaring behind her like a war banner, dark and imposing. Her sharp eyes swept across the wreckage of the room as Kakashi, Sakura, and Ino turned to face her at once. Shikamaru was at her side, scanning the disaster inside the chamber as well.
Tsunade's gaze went to the shattered device, then to the fragments of the bracelet on the floor, then to the splintered furniture and finally to the massive hole in the far wall.
"What the hell happened here?" she demanded.
Kakashi reached up and pulled his headband back down over his Sharingan, covering it with a practiced, deliberate motion. "Well," he said, his voice flat, "Naruto and Sasuke happened." He paused, his gaze holding hers, "We have a lot to discuss, Hokage-sama."
Shikamaru stepped forward, his sharp eyes still traveling quickly across the room. "And Sasuke?" he asked, his voice careful.
Kakashi turned to him. "Naruto has gone to talk to him." Then he paused, his gaze drifting toward the empty doorway. "There isn't much more we can do at this point. I think the best thing is to let them talk. Or try..."
Shikamaru let out a long, weary sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Tsunade closed her eyes for a moment, her brow furrowing as she extended her senses through her surroundings, tracking Sasuke's chakra. She found him instantly, in the upper levels of the tower, his chakra signature stable, not fighting. When she opened her eyes again, her expression had shifted, less urgent, more measured, and she nodded faintly to herself.
Sakura and Ino watched the interaction in silence, their hands still holding the fragments of the device.
Tsunade's gaze shifted to Sakura then, her expression softening slightly. "Sakura," she said, her voice firm but not unkind, "can you take my place at the infirmary? There are still a lot of shinobi to attend. I stabilized the worst cases, but they could really use your help there."
Sakura got to her feet, brushing the dust from her hands, giving the piece of the Yamanaka device she was holding to Ino. "Yes, of course," she said, her voice steady despite everything.
Ino looked up at her, something softening in her eyes. She rose as well, the pieces of the Yamanaka device clutched carefully in her hands, and together they walked toward the door. Their footsteps faded down the corridor, leaving behind only silence.
Tsunade waited until the sound had disappeared completely before turning to Kakashi and Shikamaru.
"Let's go somewhere more private to talk," she said, her voice low. Her gaze swept across the floor one last time, catching on the ancient Uchiha scroll, forgotten, abandoned, still lying where it had fallen. She crossed to it, picked it up, and tucked it into the small pouch at her hip without a word, then she turned and said; "Follow me. Kakashi, I want you to tell me everything. I want your assessment of the situation."
And within seconds, the room was empty. Kakashi and Shikamaru followed Tsunade out of the containment room, heading toward a smaller meeting chamber down the corridor. Their voices were low and urgent, carrying only as whispers through the empty halls, leaving the containment room behind, silent, still, and utterly abandoned.
---
As soon as Sasuke had left the containment room he had gone upstairs in the tower, his footsteps sharp and deliberate against the stone, each one carrying him further from the wreckage he had left behind. The Sharingan and the Rinnegan faded from his eyes but its ancient power still hummed in his veins, in his blood. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't care. His body moved on its own, driven only by the need to create distance, to be alone. He climbed. Floor after floor, past empty corridors and closed doors, past rooms that smelled of dust, old wood, and yellowed paper where the scattered shinobi he crossed paths with lowered their eyes as he passed.
The tower was vast, a labyrinth of forgotten spaces now, its upper floors had been evacuated, its authority reduced to empty halls and the lost echoes of bureaucratic order. As Sasuke climbed higher, he walked through them like a ghost, unseen, unheard, already half-gone. The higher he climbed, the cooler the air grew, and the quieter the tower became. The sounds of the war, the distant shouts, the hurried footsteps, the low murmur of strategists, gradually faded into nothing. Here, there was only silence. And he welcomed it. He needed silence.
Sasuke kept climbing past offices sealed with hastily-scrawled warnings, past windows that showed him Konoha draped in bruise-colored storm clouds, the village he had sworn to burn now reduced to a graveyard waiting for its obliteration. He moved past doors with faded plaques designating functions that no longer mattered: Strategic, Planning, Diplomatic Relations, Civil Defense Coordination... all of it nonsense now, all of it ash in the making. The corridors on the upper levels were lined with faded tapestries depicting long-forgotten victories of Konoha's past, their threads frayed and colors muted by time and neglect. Windows set high in the walls there, let in slivers of stormy gray light, casting long, jagged shadows that stretched across the floor like accusing fingers.
He kept climbing until he found a floor that felt different from the ones below. It was darker, narrower, the air thick with the smell of metal and oil. The walls were lined with doors, some marked with faded kanji; Artillery, Blades, Field Supplies, Equipment Maintenance... It was a level dedicated to storage rather than strategy or healing.
Sasuke turned to a side passage and chose one unmarked door at random, its wood scarred by decades of use. He pushed it open and stepped inside. The room was a small armory and polishing station. To the right, in the far corner, there was a low forge flickering with a sullen light. To the left two horizontal windows ran the length of the wall, from midway up to just below the ceiling, offering a view of the somber sky outside. They were closed. The room was modest but functional, with tall wooden shelves lining the walls, stacked with katanas, kunai, daggers and spears, wrapped in protective rags, there were also several bundles of shuriken and all sorts of maintenance tools.
The forge glinted with a subdued flame, its coals glowing a deep, angry orange, casting long shadows across the stone floor. The fire crackled softly, the only sound in the room, a low, steady heartbeat of heat and light. Someone had left it burning hours ago, probably preparing for the endless waves of White Zetsu that had threatened the village earlier. But the Zetsu had retreated. The war was on hold. No one would come here now.
Sasuke closed the door behind him. The latch clicked into place, a small, final sound that seemed to seal him off from the rest of the world. He stood there for a moment, his back against the wood, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. He tilted his head up until it rested against the closed door, then closed his eyes, letting himself be completely still for just a breath. He exhaled faintly and opened his dark eyes again, his gaze drifting across the room. The fire cast dancing shadows across the walls, across the rows of weapons, across the two benches that sat in front of it, worn smooth by years of use, positioned for craftsmen to labor without pause.
He felt exhausted. Drained.
Sasuke crossed to the far end of the room, opposite the door, he moved slowly, mechanically. He reached for his katana at his hip as he walked and placed it on one of the benches without looking, next to a whetstone and a rag, still sheeted. He would sharpen it. Later.
He walked past the benches and reached the wall, then he slid down until he sat on the cool floor, his knees drawn up slightly, his back pressed to the unyielding stone, his palms against the floor, his gaze hollow, empty, as he stared at the door, at the wall ahead, at the faint cracks in the old stone, at the dancing darkness in the room. The silence wrapped around him, broken only by the soft crackle of the forge.
He was finally alone again. No one would come here now.
A crack of thunder split the silence, close enough that its growl rattled the windows in their frames. After a heartbeat it faded, only to be followed by the faint crackling of the fire in the armory.
Sasuke's body ached with the precise geography of Naruto's violence, bruises flowering dark across his ribs where a knee had driven in, the tender swelling along his jaw where a fist had connected, the more insidious pain in his wrists where he had been pinned against stone and held there, helpless, while Naruto's breath ghosted across his lips. His throat still throbbed where Naruto had pressed his forearm against it, right over the fading bruise Madara had left behind when he had strangled him on the battlefield. Sasuke slid the loose sleeves of his black shirt back to his elbows and stared at the inside of his forearms. Purple fingerprints and blooming bruises wrapped around them, stark against his pale skin, the unmistakable imprint of where Naruto had hit and held him.
Sasuke summoned chakra to his hands and pressed the healing energy against his chest. After a few seconds, he moved them to his forearms. He didn't have Sakura's skill, his healing was rudimentary, enough to close a wound, enough to stop a bleeding, but not enough to mend deep tissue or fractured bone. The bruise across his ribs would take him hours to completely mend, maybe more if the tissue beneath was damaged. He directed enough chakra there to dull the pain, but nothing more. The smaller marks on his forearms, those he could manage. He pressed his palms against them, letting the chakra flow.
Sasuke could still feel the weight of Naruto's thigh pressed between his legs, the hard, insistent pressure that had sent sparks up his spine even through the layers of fabric, even through the fury, even through the hits he took and the physical pain they caused him. Staring at the healing bruises in his forearms, Sasuke could still feel the way Naruto's arms, corded with muscle, tanned and strong, had flanked over his body, the way his rough, bigger hands had wrapped around his wrists... His thick fingers... His blue eyes... his voice screaming at him... He had never looked at Naruto that way. Never. Not even once. Up until that moment.
Sasuke couldn't wrap his head around it. He couldn't make any sense of it... Because it didn't make any sense.
The way Naruto had launched himself against him and pinned him down... there had just been something about that, about the way that Naruto went right on top of him like a fucking animal... like a fucking beast...
Sasuke kept healing the bruises in his arms, staring at the marks Naruto had left all over his body... Naruto had attacked him full force, he had poured all his strength in hitting him, he had thrown him all over the place, and grabbed him, and pulled at him like he had weighted nothing...
He could still feel the heat of Naruto's chest against his own, the frantic rise and fall of their breathing synchronized in a rhythm that could have almost looked like something else... The way Naruto's nose had brushed against his, the barest ghost of contact, the way his tender lips had hovered over his, the way those deep blue eyes looked at him from above, so close... the smell of his body... the smell of sweat, the smell of his sun kissed skin, the way he had been almost able to sense Naruto's wet tongue, so close to his own mouth... The way his hips had arched, just slightly, just enough, pressing into the heat of Naruto's weight above him out of pure instinct.... The way his breath had caught, a wounded, completely shameful and desperate sound escaping him, and how he'd wanted... how he'd wanted... in that instant for Naruto to close that final inch, to crush their mouths together, to feel his tongue inside his mouth, to touch his blonde hair, and grab it, and pull it, and bite him, and growl at him, and punch him and feel his manhood against his own and rub his own against it... how he'd wanted to punish him, and hurt him, and be punished and hurt by him at the same time... He would have let him. He would have let Naruto tear his clothes off right there on the floor, would have spread his legs for him, and touched him, and sucked him off and let himself be used and fucked like a whore.
Like Naruto called him...
*I would have totally fucked him...* Sasuke admitted to himself, in the darkness, and the thought felt like spitting on Itachi's memory. But he would have. In that moment, pinned and furious and aching with need and pain and anguish, he would have let Naruto take him apart, would have clawed his back and bitten his shoulder and screamed and cursed him until the tower shook, until Naruto bled and hated him and made him forget about everything else. And that desire, that unthinkable desire to give himself away like that to the person who had failed him the most, who had lied to him and betrayed him in the most despicable way possible, felt like the worst kind of treason.
To Itachi's memory.
And to himself.
"Fuck." Sasuke breathed, the word escaping sharp and ragged, as he dragged both hands through his hair, fingers tangling in the dark strands, pulling at his temples. Sasuke bent forward, elbows on his knees, his hair falling forward like a curtain to obscure his face. His palms pressed against his eyes, hard enough to see stars, and then, he laughed.
A bitter, dark, broken sound that echoed off the stone walls. Too high, too wild.
He laughed at the absurdity of it. Of all of it. "Fuck." He cursed again, still laughing. "FUCK!" He growled a second after, shaking with the force of the word tearing out of himself, amidst his broken, choked laughter.
After a few seconds, Sasuke's laughter died on its own, tired, choking off into something that sounded dangerously like a sob, and he pressed his palms harder against his eyes, as if he could physically push the images out of his skull. But Naruto's face remained, burned into the darkness behind his lids, the wild blue eyes, the bared teeth, the muscle and heat and fury of him.
*He just wants to dominate me* Sasuke told himself, into the hollow of his hands, *He just wants to win. He wants to subjugate me. He just wants to assert power over me, control me, tame me to his ridiculous, coward, ignorant, childish illusions.* Naruto didn't see him that way. Naruto didn't want him as a man wants a lover. Naruto didn't even want him as a true friend. Never had. Naruto wanted him as a trophy, as proof that the Will of Fire could conquer even the darkest heart, as the final obstacle in his adolescent fantasy of heroism and futile justice.
And while all of that happened all Sasuke had been thinking about was his dick.
And Sasuke felt stupid. Pathetic.
It was a fucking joke. A goddamn mess. All of it. But soon, it wouldn't matter anymore. None of it.
In a few hours, perhaps less, they would all be dead. Kaguya and Madara would emerge from the frail dimension he made and that was holding them and they would unleash the final destruction upon all of them. And everyone will die. And everything will disappear into nothing. And Sasuke's revolution would end here, in this village, in this tower, in this forgotten armory where he sat bruised, wounded and alone. And Itachi's sacrifice would have been for nothing. Meaningless in the end. And the deaths of his father, his mother, his clan, all his family, would have been for nothing. And every step Sasuke had taken, every life he had ended, every piece of his soul he had traded for power, it would all be for nothing. And all the pain, all the vast and absurd misery he had endured it would have been for nothing. And the hell of a life he had suffered would have been for nothing.
There was no meaning. There was no reason. Nothing meant anything.
He had failed. Everything had failed. In the end, he hadn't been able to awaken the Koi no Me. He had thought he could do it. But he couldn't. He was ultimately incapable of attaining that power. Sasuke could see it. He could see it now. There was no hope. Everything was lost.
The Koi no Me...
He didn't have an enough kind of heart for that. There wasn't any innocence, any pure feeling in him anymore. Not anymore.
And Justice would never be done. Itachi's memory would never be honored. And his dream, his beautiful, beautiful dream of revolution, that dream that had confronted him in his sleepless nights, in his worst battles, in the darkest of his hours, would vanish into nothing. Unknown. Unheard. Unseen.
Nothing mattered anymore. In fact, it never had. And Sasuke had just been only stupid enough to spend all his life believing there was something that could be done, when in reality, he had been condemned since the moment he had been born.
He should have died. A long time ago. Sasuke knew that. He should have died with his parents that night. Or killed himself after. He had lived past beyond any logical expectation there could be. Itachi should have been in his place. Itachi should have been here. Itachi was kind, his heart was pure, even with everything he did. Itachi could have done it, awaken something like the Koi no Me, there was still a light in Itachi's heart, he had kept it until his very last living breath, even with everything that had happened, Itachi had managed to maintain that light inside himself until his very last moments.
But Sasuke was different.
Sasuke knew his heart was tainted to the core.
And the fact that he had felt, even though it were for a moment, the way he had felt for Naruto, it became to him nothing but proof of the profound darkness inside himself, a bottomless corruption that reached even the limits of his most sacred principles; Itachi's memory and his oath to never forgive and never forget.
But it didn't matter. None of it mattered. Not anymore.
Because in a few hours Kaguya and Madara would break through the seal, and he would fight, and he would die, alone, in pain, bleeding and suffering, just as he had lived.
And he would die in Konoha, in the place he hated the most, the village that had stolen everything from him. In the same place where his family died and was buried, in unmarked graves, their names long forgotten.
And Itachi... Itachi's body was lost, with no grave to mourn at, no marker to kneel before. And all of it, the revenge, the revolution, the plans he had made in Itachi's memory, all of it had been for nothing.
Sasuke dropped his hands from his face and stared at the forge, at the coals burning low and sullen, at the amber light that painted everything in shades of rust and dying. Thunder rolled again from outside, and he felt it in his bones, in the bruises that still throbbed beneath his skin, in the hollow space where his heart had once beaten with something like purpose.
He was so tired.
He wanted to close his eyes and never open them again. He wanted to sleep until waking up was no longer possible.
Sasuke turned, pressing his forehead against the cold stone wall, one palm flat against the rough surface, the other braced against the floor. The chill of the rock seeped into his skin, into his skull, a small anchor in the vast emptiness of his chest. He closed his eyes, letting the coolness settle against his brow, letting himself be still for a moment. Just a moment.
If Itachi had had a grave, Sasuke thought he would have gone to it now. It would have been nice to feel closer to him in his last moments, to talk to him maybe, to feel close to him again, in a way. But there was no grave. There was nothing. Itachi didn't even have a grave...
And then the memory came, unbidden, sharp and warm like a blade pressed against Sasuke's chest.
He was six years old, limping through the streets of Konoha, his feet raw and bleeding from a training session that had gone too long. He had pushed himself too hard, as he always did, trying to catch up to Itachi, trying to prove that he was worthy of his brother's attention. His sandals had worn thin, and the soles of his feet were blistered and torn, each step a small agony. He had been trying not to cry, trying to be strong, but his eyes had been wet and his lip had been trembling.
And then Itachi had found him.
Sasuke remembered the way his brother had knelt in front of him, his dark eyes soft with worry. He remembered the way Itachi had sighed, a small, fond sound, and said; *Sasuke, you're going to hurt yourself if you keep pushing like this.* And then, Sasuke remembered this most clearly, Itachi had turned around and crouched low, offering his back. *Come on,* he had said, his voice warm, patient. *Let me carry you home.*
Sasuke had hesitated, embarrassed, his pride stinging. But his feet had hurt so much, and Itachi's back had looked so safe. He had climbed on, his small arms wrapping around his brother's neck, his cheek pressed against the warm fabric of Itachi's shirt. And Itachi had stood up easily, as if Sasuke weighed nothing, and begun to walk. Sasuke remembered the rhythm of Itachi's footsteps, steady and sure. He remembered the warmth of his brother's body, the faint scent of wood and incense that clung to his clothes. He remembered the way Itachi's voice had rumbled through his chest as he spoke, a low, soothing sound that had made Sasuke feel like nothing in the world could ever hurt him. *You'll get there, Sasuke,* Itachi had said. *Slowly. One step at a time. There's no rush.*
Sasuke had felt so safe then. So protected. So loved.
*Let's go home.*
But he didn't have a home anymore.
And Itachi was gone.
*Why did you do this to me?* Sasuke asked himself, asked Itachi, knowing there wouldn't be an answer, *Why did you leave me?* he asked again, pressing his forehead harder against the cold stone.
*Why?*
Then Sasuke's face contorted, the pain too vast to contain. A choked cry tore out of his throat, raw and broken, and then the tears came, hot, sudden, unstoppable.
*Why did you do this to me?*
The tears spilled down Sasuke's cheeks, fast and relentless, dripping onto his shirt, his pants, the floor. His breath caught in his chest, hitching and shuddering. He didn't try to stop them.
*Why did you do this to me if it had been for nothing at the end?*
*Why?*
Sasuke didn't try to dry his face. He just pressed his forehead harder against the wall, his eyes closed shut, his body shaking with the force of his sobs.
---
Naruto followed Sasuke's chakra signature the moment he stepped out of the containment room, a familiar, steady pulse that guided him through the labyrinthine corridors of the Hokage Tower. He had sensed Sasuke immediately, still in the building, high above in the upper levels. A wave of relief washed over him, Sasuke hadn't left, hadn't disappeared into the chaos of the war, hadn't slipped through his fingers again. But the relief was short-lived, replaced almost instantly by a gnawing urgency that coiled in his chest and pushed him forward. Naruto didn't hesitate. He climbed.
Naruto's body moved on instinct, driven by something deeper than thought, the desperate need to reach Sasuke before it was too late. Naruto's footsteps echoed against the stone, sharp and urgent, a rhythm that matched the frantic pounding of his heart. The smell of rain was everywhere, heavy and damp, saturating the air even though the sky outside was still dry.
Scattered shinobi crossed his path as he climbed, a jōnin with a bundle of documents clutched to his chest, another hauling a crate of supplies, their faces drawn with exhaustion, nodding as he passed, quick, respectful gestures of acknowledgment. But Naruto barely registered them. The tower was vast, its stairwells winding and narrow, the air growing cooler with each floor Naruto ascended.
His mind was trapped in the replay of the moment Sasuke had shattered the Yamanaka device, trapped in the raw devastation he had seen in his eyes. The image was burned into his skull, relentless and unforgiving, and the memory gnawed at him like a wound that wouldn't close. And Naruto had fought him, screamed at him, insulted him. And guilt and hurt were like a living thing coiling in his chest, tightening with every step he took. And he needed to make this right.
He needed to make it right.
The corridors grew narrower as he climbed higher. He found the floor where the walls were lined with faded tapestries depicting historical victories of Konoha's past. He knew those tapestries very well, as a kid Naruto usually lingered on that floor to stare at them, captivated, dreaming one day he could be a shinobi strong enough to be part of one of those victories. But now he didn't even look at them.
He soon realized the upper levels had been emptied, all the shinobi forces had gathered below, attending the wounded and preparing for the battle ahead. The air was cold here, almost biting, and the silence pressed in from all sides. There was only the echo of Naruto's own breathing and the relentless beat of his heart.
Naruto kept climbing until he reached the level where Sasuke's chakra signature was strongest. He was so close now, so close he could almost feel it against his skin. His dark presence, vast and rich, a dormant pulse, somber yet alive, like a forest at midnight where all kinds of marvelous creatures crawl in the shadows, a signature he had been chasing across countries and battlefields for years, seared into his consciousness so deeply that he would recognize it anywhere, anytime, even in the darkness of death, as if he had engraved it with fire into his memory, into his bones, into the very core of his being.
Always such a powerful and beautiful signature...
The floor was darker than the ones below, the air thick with the smell of metal and oil. He could feel Sasuke through the stone, through the cold air. The walls were lined with doors, some marked with faded kanji, others unmarked and forgotten. He could sense Sasuke just beyond the next passage. Naruto turned a corner, then another, following the thread of his signature. There were more doors, all closed, and Naruto's gaze swept across them, searching, until he found the one.
A wooden door scarred by decades of use, unmarked, its surface worn smooth by countless hands. Naruto sensed Sasuke's chakra strongest behind it, a pulse that seemed to call to him. He reached for the handle, his fingers trembling, his heart pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears.
And he pushed the door open.
The room was dim, lit only by the sullen glow of a small forge in the corner, and in front of the door, in the far wall, curled on the floor, there was Sasuke. He sat facing the wall, his back to the room, his forehead pressed against the stone wall, one hand on the floor, the other gripping the cold surface before him, his shoulders were contracted and his black hair was spilling forward, completely hiding his face.
Sasuke turned instantly, his longer hair whipping with the movement as his black eyes went wide.
Then Naruto saw; Sasuke's cheeks were full of tears. And the sight made Naruto's heart stop.
Sasuke hadn't sensed him approaching at all, he had been too deep in his grief. Too lost in his anguish.
His dark eyes were red-rimmed, swollen from crying, his cheeks were completely wet with tears that glistened in the dim light, his expression was startled, caught, and his lips were parted and flushed pink, like the tip of his nose.
For a moment, Sasuke just stared at Naruto, utterly frozen, as though he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. As though Naruto was a ghost, an apparition, something that couldn't possibly be real.
Naruto was paralyzed. He had never seen him like this.
He had never seen Sasuke cry before.
He hadn't actually expected to find Sasuke crying. He had known Sasuke was in pain, anguished, devastated. But, somehow, he hadn't expected to see him like this, crying that way...
And that image undid Naruto completely. Something in him awakened.
For a flicker of a second, horror crossed Sasuke's face, a sharp intake of breath catching in his throat, then his features contorted, not slowly, not gradually, but all at once, into a pure expression of fury, his tear-streaked cheeks making the transformation even more jarring.
Sasuke was on his feet in an instant, his body moving with a speed that defied his exhaustion, his Sharingan and his Rinnegan blazing alive in his eyes again on their own, spinning wildly, fixed on Naruto even more enraged than before. He took a step forward, a lunge, his weight shifting, his hands rising, ready to launch himself at Naruto again, ready to pick up where they had left off in the containment room, ready to tear into him with his bare fists.
"Go FUCK YOURSELF!" His voice tore out of him, high and raw, howling completely out of himself, his longer hair whipping with the force of it, "Leave me THE FUCK ALONE...!"
But Naruto had stopped thinking.
Before Sasuke could finish, Naruto crossed the distance between them in a blur and hugged him.
The force of Naruto's momentum drove them both backward, and they crashed into the wall behind Sasuke, a dull, heavy thud that Sasuke's body cushioned. Naruto's arms locked around him, one hand pressing harshly against Sasuke's waist and the other at the back of Sasuke's head, his fingers tangling through his black hair as he roughly pressed Sasuke's face against his chest.
Sasuke went rigid, his hands still raised, frozen mid-motion.
Naruto closed his eyes shut instantly, burying his face in the curve of Sasuke's shoulder, feeling him, his body, his warmth, his scent... pressing him against the wall with his body, holding him, caging him there between the wall and his body with all the strength he possessed.
Sasuke slammed his hands against Naruto's chest, shoving with all the force he could muster. "Back OFF! BACK OFF!" he screamed, frantic, "Don't TOUCH ME! BACK OFF!" he repeated, each scream faster than the last, his voice rising in pitch, his body lashing out on instinct, consumed by the need to create distance, squirming against Naruto's forceful embrace, completely lost in panic. He could have shoved him away with a burst of chakra. He could have gotten away with his Rinnegan teleportation. He could have pushed him with Susanoo, Amaterasu, with a dozen other techniques. But Sasuke couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't calm himself down. He was terrified to the core of his being.
"SASUKE!!" Naruto shouted against his ear, his arms crushing Sasuke against him, his fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt, desperate, unyielding. "PLEASE, PLEASE!" The words tore out of him, ragged and raw, his voice cracking at the edges. "Please don't cry," he begged, his voice dropping suddenly, almost into a whimper, his forehead pressing harder against Sasuke's temple, his nose brushing through his hair.
"LET ME GO!" Sasuke screamed again, his voice splintering into a sob at the last syllable, his fists still pounding against Naruto's chest, his body thrashing, squirming, trying to break free.
But Naruto held on tighter. "PLEASE!" he shouted, his voice breaking, "Please Sasuke, please don't cry! Don't cry!" The words spilled out of him in feverish haste, over and over, while Sasuke kept pushing, kept punching, kept trying to shove him off. "Please don't cry! Please!" Naruto repeated, his voice raw, his arms locked around Sasuke like he was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth, his body pressing Sasuke into the wall, trapping him there.
"BACK OFF!" Sasuke shouted again, openly crying now, devastated and enraged in equal measure, his expression contorted in pain, his face still pressed against Naruto's chest, his voice cracking rough and wrecked. Naruto could feel the wet heat of his tears soaking through his shirt, the ragged, hitching sound of his sobs muffled against his chest, vibrating through his own ribs as Sasuke's fists kept pounding against him.
"Please!" Naruto breathed out, his voice cracking, his own eyes burning with the sting of unshed tears as Sasuke's scent overwhelmed his senses "Sasuke, please don't cry."
Sasuke's body was trembling, shaking violently against Naruto's chest, his fists still pounding, weaker now, the blows losing their force with each strike, as though the fight was draining out of him with every hit. He couldn't hold it. He couldn't take it. He couldn't anymore. It was too much. Everything was too much. All the weight of the life he had endured, all the pain he had gone through, all the anguish, all the rage, all the questions that always would be left unanswered, all that had been lost and never would be back again, all of it crushed into him at once, as if Sasuke had been somehow escaping it through all his life and now it all had finally broken loose. The wet heat of his tears had soaked through Naruto's shirt completely now, a warm, devastating stain that seemed to spread straight into Naruto's heart, into the very core of his being.
"I'm sorry," Naruto choked out, his voice scraped raw, his lips brushing Sasuke's ear with each syllable. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sasuke. I'm sorry. For everything. I'm sorry. Please!"
"No..." Sasuke whimpered, more unravelled than before, more lost, the word crumbling into a sob. His fists kept beating against Naruto's chest, but they were useless now, flailing, automatic, the last, weak echoes of a fight that had already been lost. His face remained buried in Naruto's chest, his tears carving rivers into the fabric, his breath coming in ragged, hitching gasps. Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut but the tears kept coming. He couldn't see, he couldn't look, he couldn't bear it, he couldn't hold it.
He couldn't.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke. I'm sorry," Naruto repeated, his voice shaking, his throat tight, his fingers tangling in Sasuke's hair, "I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for having said those things. I don't think that. I never thought that. I didn't mean any of it. I didn't..."
"No..." Sasuke gasped, his voice barely audible, "Don't... Don't..."
Naruto pressed his face deeper into the curve of Sasuke's shoulder, his fingers tightening in the dark silk of Sasuke's hair, his arms locked around him like he was trying to merge them into one. "I'm sorry," he repeated, his voice shaking, his throat tight with the effort of holding back his own tears. "I'm sorry, Sasuke. I'm so sorry. Don't cry, please. Don't cry. Please don't cry." He begged.
Sasuke's fists finally fell limp against Naruto's ribcage, resting against the heat of his chest, while Naruto's hand still cupped the back of his head, holding him there, trapping him against the frantic pound of his heart. Naruto's scent flooded Sasuke's senses, Naruto's warmth enveloped his body so completely that he didn't even feel the cold stone on his back anymore, his arms held him suspended, one hand splayed across his lower back, the other buried in his hair, pulling him closer, pressing him deeper into the embrace, as though Naruto was trying to absorb him entirely, and he couldn't see. He couldn't look. He couldn't bear it. He couldn't hold it. He couldn't take it.
He couldn't take it.
Sasuke squeezed his eyes tighter, as though he could will himself into darkness into nonexistence, into a void where nothing and no one could find him.
"Sasuke, everything will be okay, please," Naruto kept going, his voice raw and desperate.
Sasuke choked on a high-pitched sob, half a whimper and almost a laugh, as if those words had hurt him even more.
Naruto felt something crack open inside his chest at the sound, understanding, and his arms tightened around Sasuke instinctively, pulling him even closer, pressing him deeper into the embrace.
"Please, Sasuke, everything will be okay. I promise. I promise you." the words spilled out of Naruto in a feverish rush.
"D-Don't..." Sasuke stuttered, his voice thin and wavering, the syllable dissolving into a shuddering exhale. His body crumpled forward, his weight sagging against Naruto's chest, trembling.
But Naruto kept going, his voice dropping into a trance-like rhythm, the words coming out in a broken, desperate stream, as if he was saying them to himself as much as to Sasuke. "We will fight together, okay? We will fight together, Sasuke. You won't be alone. I won't leave you alone. I'm here for you. I would do anything for you." He whispered, his lips brushing against the shell of Sasuke's ear with each word, his breath warm and uneven, his golden hair falling forward, mingling with Sasuke's black strands as he pressed closer, their legs slotting together, his thighs pressing against Sasuke's, anchoring him, holding him, as Sasuke's tears kept spilling against his shirt.
"I would do anything for you, Sasuke. Can't you see?" Naruto whispered.
But Sasuke couldn't see. He couldn't look. He couldn't bear it. He couldn't take it.
"I would die for you, Sasuke. Please."
But Sasuke couldn't take it. He couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't bear it. He could only gasp and cry against Naruto's chest.
"I would always die for you. I missed you so much, Sasuke. I missed you so much..."
Without thinking, Naruto began to move his nose in a soft, gentle motion against Sasuke's ear, back and forth, back and forth, a small, unconscious gesture of comfort. Sasuke's breath hitched, and his head tilted slightly toward the movement, an involuntary surrender, his cheek pressing more firmly against Naruto's chest as his tears kept falling, soaking through the fabric of Naruto's shirt.
"I don't want to be like this before the battle begins." Naruto kept whispering, "Please let me make this right. Please, Sasuke. Please don't cry..." Naruto breathed, nuzzling his nose against Sasuke's temple, smelling him, trapping him still between his body and the wall behind with his embrace, pouring into him everything he possessed, loving him with everything he had inside himself.
Sasuke's sobs began to quiet, the ragged, violent gasps gradually softening into something smaller, more fragile. His body still trembled against Naruto's chest, but the shaking was less frantic now. After a while, Sasuke's fingers slowly curled into the fabric of Naruto's shirt, weakly holding on without knowing why.
Naruto didn't stop, didn't let him go. He couldn't. He kept muttering into Sasuke's ear the same hushed, broken, endless pleas: "Don't cry. Don't cry," and "Everything will be okay. Don't cry. Don't cry." Again and again, holding Sasuke in his arms.
Sasuke could feel every point of contact between them, Naruto's palm splayed against his lower back, the heat of his fingers seeping through the fabric of his shirt, the solid warmth of his thighs bracketing his own, the strength of his arms wrapped around him like a cage of muscle and heat, the rough brush of his breath against his ear while he murmured to him, and his scent suffocating him, drowning every one of his senses.
Naruto's grip began to loosen, the fierce, crushing force of his hold softening into something more pliant, his hands sliding from frantic possession to gentle cradling.
Sasuke felt the rise and fall of Naruto's chest with each breath, the brush of his abdomen against his stomach, the rough fabric of his shirt soaked through with his own tears. And beneath it the steady, rhythmic beat of Naruto's heart, strong and alive and so close that Sasuke could feel it vibrating through his own ribs, through his own chest, through every inch of his body that was pressed against Naruto's. And the warmth of him was unbearable, confusing, and deeply intoxicating.
Naruto's lips kept moving against Sasuke's ear, his voice an endless murmur, the same pleas spilling out of him like a prayer he couldn't stop reciting; "Sasuke, don't cry. Please, Sasuke, don't cry. I'm sorry. Please don't cry." His nose resumed its gentle motion, back and forth, back and forth, this time slower, more deliberate, as if he was trying to soothe Sasuke with that simple gesture. The movement was slower now, lingering, Naruto's breath warm and uneven against Sasuke's skin, his lips brushing the shell of his ear with each whispered word.
Sasuke's eyes, still closed, softened at the edges, the tight, desperate clench of his lids easing slightly, and then he inhaled, purposefully, deeply, drawing Naruto's scent into his lungs. And it flooded him, warm and overwhelming, the smell of the sun, the smell of what scared coldness away, the smell of summer, the smell of the ocean. His lashes fluttered, still wet with tears, as a few exhausted droplets slipped free from his eyes. Then Sasuke breathed in again, and again, his fingers curling more firmly into the fabric of Naruto's shirt, as Naruto kept whispering to him in that voice that he had never heard from him before.
Outside, the sky had darkened further, thick storm clouds gathering like bruises across the horizon, swallowing the last traces of daylight. A distant roll of thunder echoed through the armory, muffled by the stone walls, a low growl that seemed to vibrate through the floor and settle deep in the bones. The forge crackled softly in the corner, its flames casting long, dancing shadows across the walls and above them, the only sound besides Sasuke's quiet, hitching breaths against Naruto's chest. Naruto breathed in, filling his lungs with Sasuke's scent, smelling the salt of his tears, the sweetness of his skin, like the sweetness of rain at midnight, like the first breath of frost before winter.
Without realizing it, Naruto's hand began to move at Sasuke's lower back, his fingers tracing a slow, gentle path along the dip of his spine, down to the hollow where his back met his hips, and then up again, as if he was memorizing the shape of him through the thin fabric of his shirt, a steady rhythm that seemed to calm them both.
Naruto had never talked to Sasuke this way before. He had never held him like this, not even when they were kids, not after battles, not ever. He had never wrapped his arms around him for this long, never let the silence stretch between them without filling it with a joke, or a punch, or anger or an accusation. He had never whispered those words against his skin, the times he had promised Sasuke that he would die for him, he did it screaming on a battlefield, covered in dirt and blood and fighting him with all he had. And Naruto would never have imagined that he would one day see Sasuke not just crying, but crying like this, broken and quiet and completely undone, in his arms.
And, for a fleeting moment, Naruto wondered if that stranger, the one who had touched Sasuke, been with him, slept with him, had held him the same way Naruto was holding him now. Heat crept up Naruto's neck, a flush of embarrassment spreading across his face as he realized he was somehow comparing himself to Sasuke's casual lover... But he couldn't help but wonder if Sasuke had let himself be held by that man the way he was letting himself be held now, by him, made so small, so quiet... almost pliant... or, perhaps, if this was something new for Sasuke too... And he wondered if that man had been able to comfort Sasuke's pain somehow, or if that encounter had been nothing more than another bleak, cold and hurtful thing in Sasuke's life...
Naruto had learned so many new things about Sasuke in just a few hours, so many new, hidden sides of him he hadn't even known existed... And he feared, with a sharp ache in his chest, whether he had been too careless, too focused on his own anger and loss, always fighting with him...
They had fought so much, so harshly, and so many times... He had been so focused on bringing Sasuke back, on winning, on proving himself right...
Had he been too lost in his own anger and his own sadness that he had entirely missed what truly was in Sasuke's heart? What he actually needed? What actually eased his pain, even if it was a little?
And now, holding him, feeling the weight of him, Naruto wondered if he had failed Sasuke in ways he hadn't even understood.
Sasuke's tears kept falling, his breath still hitching against Naruto's chest, his body still trembling with the aftershocks of his sobs. Naruto's fingers continued their slow, steady path along his lower back, tracing the same gentle rhythm, up and down, up and down, a motion that had become as natural as breathing. And then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, Sasuke's hand moved. It slid from where it had been against Naruto's chest, hesitant, and curled around Naruto's waist, his fingers flat over the fabric of his shirt.
Naruto felt the movement, felt the tentative weight of Sasuke's arm around his waist, and his breath caught. His hand stilled against Sasuke's lower back, his fingers pressing gently into the fabric of his shirt, and he buried his face deeper into the hollow of Sasuke's shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin, the slow, unsteady rhythm of his breathing.
Sasuke's eyes, still wet, fluttered half-open, his Sharingan and Rinnegan gone, just his dark, exhausted gaze, unfocused and distant. His head tilted slightly, unconsciously, toward Naruto's, as if seeking the warmth of his presence.
"I hate you," Sasuke muttered, his voice barely audible, "I... I hate this place. I hate..."
"I know," Naruto whispered, his lips brushing against Sasuke's ear, his voice soft and broken and full of everything he had never been able to say. "I know, Sasuke. I know..."
Sasuke's breath hitched, his fingers tightening in the fabric of Naruto's shirt. He felt embarrassed, exposed, but the warmth of Naruto's arms around him was too much to resist, too much to push away. He swallowed, his throat tight, and the word came out before he could stop it. "Why...?" Sasuke asked.
But he didn't finish. He couldn't.
Naruto's arms tightened again around Sasuke, his hand pressing against his lower back, his lips brushing against his ear. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice shaking. "I'm sorry, Sasuke. I'm sorry. I'm here. I'm sorry. Sasuke... Sasuke..." Naruto called him, again and again, "Sasuke..."
"N-Naruto..." Sasuke breathed.
Naruto's heart stuttered in his chest at the sound of his name spoken like that. He had never heard Sasuke say his name like that before. Never. And Naruto felt something give way inside him, his arms pressed Sasuke deeper into the embrace, burying his face into the curve of Sasuke's shoulder.
"Sasuke..." Naruto breathed back, "I missed you so much, Sasuke..." the words spilled out of him in a hushed, frantic rush, "I thought about you every day... since you left. Every day, Sasuke. I thought about where you were, how you felt, what you were doing, who you were with. I thought about you every day, Sasuke..."
"N-Naruto..." Sasuke called him again, his tone higher pitched than before, "It all... has been for n-nothing." He breathed, his voice breaking on the last syllable, dissolving into a sob.
Naruto felt something tear loose inside him hearing Sasuke breaking again, the stutter on the final syllable, Sasuke's body folding forward against his own and those same words that just a few moments ago Sasuke had screamed at all of them in the containment room and now left his lips again in such a anguished, devastated way...
"Sasuke, no," Naruto whispered, his voice shaking, his arms tightening harder around Sasuke. "No, Sasuke. No." A single tear slid silently down Naruto's cheek, disappearing into the fabric of Sasuke's shirt, "We are here. We are still here." He pressed his lips against Sasuke's hair, his voice desperate, frantic, but still soft, still tender. "Sasuke, I'm still here. Please, Sasuke. Please don't cry. Please. We are still here. I'm with you. I won't leave you alone. I'm with you. I'm always with you."
Sasuke's hand at Naruto's waist clenched, pulling the fabric taut, trembling, while his other hand in Naruto's chest fisted desperately his shirt, as if anchoring himself to the solid warmth of him. Sasuke's head bowed, tucking further in Naruto's arms, his face pressed against his chest as if he was trying to disappear into the shelter of Naruto's body.
Naruto kept murmuring, pleading, calling him, the words spilling out of him in a feverish rush, unstoppable, uncontrollable; "We are here. I won't leave you alone, Sasuke. Together. You and me. Sasuke, listen to me, you and me. You and me. We will fight together. I won't leave you alone. Please, Sasuke. Please. Don't cry. Don't cry." Naruto felt his heart breaking in half.
Sasuke didn't respond, didn't answer, didn't leave, didn't move.
He couldn't.
He could only cry.
Because everything, everything was lost. And in the end, it had all been for nothing. Every agony he had endured. Every loss he had to mourn. Every moment of terror and pain. Every night spent choking on grief and misery. Every day of sheer torment. All of it. All of it. For nothing.
And none of it meant anything. None of it. It didn't mean anything.
Sasuke felt cheated. Deceived. Fooled. So much, he could almost laugh because of it. He felt more cheated than he had ever felt in his entire life.
Even more than when he had learned the truth about Itachi.
And at that instant, Sasuke knew, that they both had been fools, Itachi and him, for believing, for pursuing, for chasing for something that in truth, was nothing but a childish dream. A fantasy. An illusion.
Because in a few hours, everything would be reduced to dust, and nothing will remain.
Naruto kept pressing his nose against Sasuke's hair as he breathed him in, again and again, losing himself in the scent of him, his own heart hammering wildly against his ribs as he felt Sasuke breaking apart, crumbling in his arms. And Naruto held on tighter, breathed him in harder.
"Sasuke... Sasuke..." Naruto called him.
But Sasuke couldn't answer. There was no answer.
Naruto slid his hand from Sasuke's lower back up to his face, his fingers brushing against the damp skin of his cheek. Naruto felt the wet heat of Sasuke's tears beneath his fingertips, grazing the tender flesh of his cheekbone, and then his thumb caught the edge of the bruise on Sasuke's jaw, the one Naruto had put there, as he felt the trembling of his jaw, the ragged exhale that escaped him. His other hand followed, cupping Sasuke's other cheek, holding his face, his thumbs beginning to brush away the tears that were still streaming down Sasuke's skin.
Sasuke's breath hitched at the touch, his eyes half-opening, unfocused, dazed, his lashes wet and clumped together. He didn't pull away. He couldn't. He just stood there, frozen, his face cradled in Naruto's hands, his tears still falling, as Naruto's thumbs wiped them away tenderly, again and again.
Naruto's head was still pressed against Sasuke's ear, his nose still buried in his hair, "Sasuke..." he murmured, the name escaping him like a prayer. His blue eyes were half-lidded, clouded, his breath uneven.
Another rumble of thunder rolled through the armory from outside, muffled and distant, as if the storm itself was holding its breath, the forge crackled softly in the corner, its amber glow catching the edges of the weapons on the shelves, making them gleam dully in the dark.
Naruto's fingers found a strand of Sasuke's dark hair, pushing it aside, revealing the delicate curve of his cheekbone, then Naruto pressed his lips to the pale, damp skin near Sasuke's temple. His mouth parted slightly, just enough to feel the warmth of his skin and then he brushed his lips against it, once, twice, a slow, gentle motion, before pressing his lips together in a soft, chaste kiss, staying still, the nature of the gesture impossible to disguise.
Sasuke's breath caught. His body went rigid, frozen in Naruto's arms, his hands still gripping Naruto's shirt and his back. His brows drew together slightly, a small, unconscious movement, a flicker of confusion, of embarrassment, at the intimate touch. His heart thudded once, hard, against his ribs, a single, unguarded beat that betrayed him.
Naruto felt it. Felt the warmth of Sasuke's blushing cheeks beneath his lips, felt the way Sasuke's breath had hitched, felt the sudden stillness of his body. And he knew he was doing too much. He knew he was crossing a line, pushing too far, taking too much. But he couldn't stop.
He couldn't stop.
He couldn't contain himself anymore.
After a while, Naruto moved his lips slightly lower, his hands still cupping Sasuke's cheeks, his thumbs still brushing away the tears in his face. Sasuke's eyes were almost closed, his brows knitted together, his lashes wet and dark, his lips swollen from crying and slightly parted, his cheeks flushed with a fragile shade of pink.
"Sasuke..." Naruto whispered, his voice barely audible, his heart aflame.
Naruto could feel his own heartbeat hammering like a drum against his ribs, engulfed by the desperate, drowning need to keep touching Sasuke, to keep holding him, to never let him go.
Naruto pressed his lips to Sasuke's cheek again, more deliberate than before, the kiss lingering just a moment longer, and he felt Sasuke's breath catch once more at the movement, a sharp, startled inhale that went straight to Naruto's ears and made his heart lurch violently inside his ribcage. And then a feeble, impossible tremor ran through Sasuke, a shudder that Naruto felt through his own chest, through the fabric of his shirt, through the warmth of Sasuke's skin against his lips, and made Naruto's heart beat wilder than before. And still, Sasuke hadn't pulled away. He stood there, motionless, his face cradled in Naruto's hands, his body pressed between Naruto's and the rough stone wall behind them, letting himself be slowly undone by Naruto's affections.
And Naruto couldn't stop himself. He couldn't stop. His hands kept moving, wiping away two droplets that had just fallen silently from Sasuke's eyes, tracing gentle paths through the wetness with his thumbs while he maintained his lips pressed against Sasuke's cheek, closed and still, as if he was trying to pour all his love into that single point of contact, feeling the delicate architecture of his cheekbone, the softness of his flushed skin.
Naruto kissed him again, and his mouth began to wander across Sasuke's cheek in a slow, unhurried path, first near his temple, brushing the corner of his eye, then kissing the high point of his cheekbone, then the soft hollow just below it, then warm skin just beside his nose, so, so near to the split in Sasuke's lower lip that was still raw, still healing... Another mark of Naruto's violence that made his chest ache with a profound regret, an uncontainable urgency, as he kept kissing him, again, and again, caressing his cheeks, each kiss more reverent than the last, each one an apology, a promise, a plea, a confession, while he felt Sasuke's weight little by little leaning into him, the tension draining from his shoulders, his body starting to surrender to their embrace.
Sasuke's hands began to flatten, his fingers spreading against Naruto's chest and his back, pressing weakly, as if he was trying to feel the shape of Naruto beneath his palms, hiding himself in his arms.
Sasuke's blush deepened, spreading across his cheeks, staining his ears, his neck. He still hadn't pulled away. He still hadn't looked at him. He just stood there, his face cradled in Naruto's hands, hearing his heartbeat. Sasuke's head tilted slightly, almost imperceptibly, toward Naruto's, a small, unconscious movement that seemed to seek the warmth of his presence.
Naruto noticed the movement of Sasuke's head tilting toward his, so he pressed once more his lips to Sasuke's cheek, tentatively, softer than before, lingering, and he felt Sasuke exhale through his nose, a long, shaky breath that clearly showed Naruto how much that gesture was soothing him, and Naruto felt his chest swell with a tenderness so vast that he almost couldn't bear it.
Naruto's hands kept moving, brushing away tears, his lips pressing against Sasuke's cheeks again and again in small, gentle kisses. He could feel Sasuke exhaling through his nose with each kiss, could feel his weight fully leaning onto him now, could feel the heat of his skin beneath his fingertips and his lips.
And then Sasuke closed his eyes, as his hand finally pressed against Naruto's back, pulling him closer, his pale fingers splaying against the fabric, fully hugging him now, basked in his worshipful mercy.
Naruto lowered one hand to Sasuke's back again, pulling him closer as well, pressing their bodies flush, while his other hand remained cradling Sasuke's face. Naruto's lips kept wandering across Sasuke's skin, pressing against his cheek, the corner of his eye where tears had gathered, the hollow beneath his cheekbone, the warm curve of his jaw, the delicate shell of his ear. He kissed his hair, breathing in the scent of him, then his temple, then the spot just beneath his ear where his pulse beat faint and rapid. He couldn't stop. He didn't want to stop. He wanted to kiss every part of him, to cover him completely in the warmth of his mouth, to pour every ounce of love he had into his body. Their scents had mingled now, Sasuke smelled like the two of them, and that made Naruto feel as though he was floating, suspended in a dream where nothing existed.
Sasuke felt himself sinking into the embrace, the warmth of Naruto's body surrounding him like a shield, his lips kissing him, again and again.... It had been so long since anyone had held him like this. No one had held him like this. No one. Only Itachi.
Only Itachi.
But Itachi was gone. Itachi would never come back. Itachi would never hold him again. And it was Naruto who was holding him instead. And he had been going to kill him. He had been going to fight him to death, burn it all to the ground, and kill him.
For the revolution he had dreamed of. For Itachi. For his memory.
Kill him and burn it all to the ground... he had been going to do it.
He had been going to do it.
He wouldn't have hesitated.
Naruto... who kept kissing him, again and again, with such a gentleness Sasuke could have never imagined... With a tenderness he couldn't even comprehend.
Naruto... who had left him and hurt him beyond words, who had failed him and abandoned him, who had broken their friendship, the loyalty there had been once between them. Naruto... who had fought him and yelled at him and rejected him, again and again, and now was kissing him, and hugging him, and holding him...
And his smell was everywhere. Everywhere. And his breathing, and his hands... And his chest was warm, and his lips were soft, and his shoulders were strong, and his blond hair kept brushing his face with each kiss and each caress...
And all Sasuke could feel was Naruto all over him. And nothing else.
Nothing else...
And now, that nothing mattered anymore, Sasuke realized that he had missed him. He had missed him. He had missed Naruto's voice, and his stupid jokes, and his words, and arguing with him, and fighting with him, and joking with him, and laughing with him, and looking at him, and his smell, and his eyes, and his presence, and his warmth, and his strength, and his laugh, and his anger, and his shouting, and his attention, and his friendship... All those things they had... once... that were theirs and theirs alone.
Sasuke slid his hand on Naruto's chest to his shoulder, then up to his back and then higher, until his fingers tangled in the golden strands of his hair. He pulled gently, drawing Naruto's face down against his shoulder, making the trail of kisses stop, lowering Naruto's head into the hollow of his neck.
Naruto let him, and he stayed still, hugging him, breathing him in, held there by the weight of Sasuke's hand in his hair.
And for a moment, Sasuke didn't want anything else, for a moment, he wished he could stay like that forever. And nothing else.
Nothing else.
They stayed like that for a long while.
Sasuke's tears had finally stopped, leaving only the evidence of them, the subtle trails on his delicate cheeks, the swollen redness around his eyes and the wetness still soaking through Naruto's shirt.
Naruto didn't say anything else. He just hugged him, his face still buried in the curve of Sasuke's shoulder, his breath slow and steady against his skin. The frantic urgency that had driven him moments before had faded, replaced by something quieter, something peaceful. He could feel Sasuke's heartbeat against his own chest, a slow, steady rhythm that seemed to match his own. He could feel the soothing warmth of Sasuke's body seeping into his, could feel the soft rise and fall of his breathing, could feel the way Sasuke's hands had relaxed against his back and his head, pressing faintly, resting.
The sky beyond the windows had darkened, the clouds thick and heavy with rain that still hadn't fallen. The light that filtered through the glass was dim and gray. The low forge crackled softly in the corner, its flames casting a warm, amber glow that flickered across the walls, across the rows of weapons, across them while they stayed wrapped in each other's arms.
The air in the armory was cool and still, heavy with the smell of metal and oil and the faint, lingering scent of the approaching storm. The door Naruto had pushed open was still ajar. A blade of yellow light from the corridor spilled through the threshold, pooling on the stone floor, illuminating the dust motes drifting in the air, but failing to reach the shadowed corners of the room.
The corridor was completely empty and silent, as the upper levels remained utterly deserted. The tower felt totally quiet, no footsteps, no voices, no sounds of the war that was waiting below. Just the crackle of the fire, the soft rhythm of their breathing, and the distant, muffled rumble of thunder that seemed to come from somewhere far away, like from a distant dream, or a memory.
Sasuke's head was still resting against Naruto's chest, his eyes closed, his breathing even, his lashes dark and drying. His face was slack, exhausted, the sharp lines of his features entirely softened. At some point his hands slid down, resting loosely at Naruto's waist, his fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt.
And Naruto felt whole again, because Sasuke wasn't crying anymore.
Long minutes passed, as they both stayed still, and eventually, Naruto began to pull away. Just slightly. Just enough to see Sasuke's face, lowered, in the dim amber light of the armory, just enough to check on him. Naruto slid both his hands down to rest at Sasuke's hips, his thumbs, absentmindedly, brushing once against the jut of Sasuke's hipbones through the fabric of his shirt. Sasuke's black eyes fluttered open, dazed and unfocused. He didn't move, didn't look up.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and warm, and Sasuke felt himself drifting in the quiet of it. But then Naruto's thumbs brushed against his hipbones again, a small, unconscious movement, and something in Sasuke's chest tightened. He became acutely aware of the hands resting on his hips, the warmth of Naruto's palms seeping through the fabric of his shirt, the broad expanse of his chest still pressed against his own. And then the memory of Naruto's lips surfaced, on his temple, on his cheek, at the corner of his eye... and a flush of heat spread through him, sudden and shameful.
And Naruto was there, all over him, solid and warm and impossibly close...
Sasuke's hand moved before he could stop it, pressing against Naruto's ribs, shoving him away just slightly, just enough to create a sliver of space. His palm lingered there, flat against the warmth of him, unwilling to fully let go.
Naruto let himself be pushed, but didn't release his hips, keeping his thumbs there, holding him in place, observing Sasuke's exhausted expression through the dark strands that had fallen forward on either side of his face. Sasuke kept his head tilted down, his chin tucked, his gaze fixed somewhere on Naruto's chest, refusing to meet his eyes, his mouth slightly parted, and his cheeks stained with a faint shade of pink.
Naruto remained silent, and then his hand lifted slowly, his fingers brushing against the dark strand of hair that had fallen forward across Sasuke's cheek. His beautiful black hair... dark as the night, so long now... He tucked it gently behind Sasuke's ear, his knuckles grazing the shell of it, a soft, careful touch, to be able to see more clearly his features. Sasuke instantly flinched at the contact, a small, startled movement, his brows drawing together as he turned his face slightly to the other side, his chin still lowered, his gaze dropping further. Naruto's blue eyes searched his face, the flushed cheeks, the parted lips, the dark lashes still wet from crying. Sasuke wouldn't meet his gaze, but Naruto kept looking, kept searching, as if he could find an answer in the lines of his face.
Naruto's left hand dropped from Sasuke's ear to his upper arm, his thumb brushing once against the fabric of his sleeve.
"Are you-" Naruto began, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Nar-" Sasuke started at that very moment, the syllable catching in his throat.