[fic] Waxing Gibbous [Naruto]

[rex_sun]

Title: Waxing Gibbous
Rating: Between PG and PG-13
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Team 7 (Naruto + Sakura + Sasuke + Kakashi, and also Sai.)
Summary: "I spend my whole time running, he spends his running after me." // Sasuke comes home... and then he leaves again.

Notes: I hate this piece but I had to write it. I think it could be a lot better, but I still wouldn't like it. Oh well.
Music: The First Time -- U2

Naruto loves like falling backwards in a strong and opposite wind. Can you fall backwards? Can you do it on your own knowing no one will catch you? Can you really-- no really, go try-- lean away and then let go, with nothing but pain and you know it? When your body smacks that ground, when your teeth rattle and the air scrapes in your chest and something between yours ears hasn't caught up and stopped falling-- then can you be glad? Naruto can, and he does-- into a wind that would push him up again, still he falls every time. Against everything telling him up, up!-- he falls down, and down. He waits for the pain in slow motion, in a grounded sort of free fall.

And well, if they asked him to, he would grab their white-hot kunai-- sharp searing sweet metal, slicing open his palms until the blood like liquid fire crept down forearms. In his eyes would reflect their raging fires and his brain would do what it does best and turn that symbol into their smoldering eyes. And it wouldn't even hurt, no, it hasn't managed to hurt yet, because all the time he is burning for them. He is used to cloaks of flame and a sudden combustion aimed to kill.

He finds the strength to raise his hand to skim across scratchy sheets and rough floor. He comes to a stop three fourths of the way to grasping at Sasuke's fingers.

"It doesn't matter, Sasuke."

Sasuke shakes his head, that familiar 'you are an idiot' head shake. "After all this you still live in a different life," he says, exasperated and disbelieving.

Naruto doesn't like that because it means the same thing as a childish scream of 'what do you know'. It's a means to separate Naruto from Sasuke. Futile, of course, they both know, but even a wounded animal will flail when caged. Outside the tent they hear Sakura snap in a voice choked with blood and grief and the way a woman protects more fiercely than a man, "If you take one step closer to him, we will fight to the death."

Naruto closes his eyes and can't help the chuckle that escapes him. Really it shouldn't be funny but--

"She's hurt," Sasuke says faintly, lowly, nearly whispering. "She shouldn't be--" And he begins to raise himself but fails, and that causes him to hate himself for any number of half-legitimate reasons, and he doesn't try again.

Naruto wiggles his fingers forward, inching ever closer. "Stay," he says again.

"I think," Sasuke begins, but then he coughs and stops. Then again nothing stops Uchiha Sasuke-- except maybe Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura and even then it takes years --but anyway he's feeling fairly stoppered right now and it must be immensely frustrating for him--the point, of course, that at the moment Sasuke is in turns viciously irritable and passive in his physical and emotional exhaustion, and an emotionally-exhausted-and-viciously-frustrated Sasuke will never do what's best for himself-- so if he coughs and a little trickle of blood wells up, what does he care? He says, "I forgot how much I could hate you."

As an optimist, Naruto takes that to mean that Sasuke hasn't forgotten how much he can love Naruto. He grins brilliantly. Sasuke is not pleased.

And then they sleep for a while, winds temporarily dying down, embers from bonfires. And as embers they wake, smoking softly, steam rising, drops of tears sizzling away from their refreshed faces. They feel a little better, some of their aches and pains gone; Sakura sleeps quietly in the corner. Naruto finds a sluggish smile: but for her they'd both bleed out.

He turns his head and sees Sasuke's blood eyes and can tell, somehow, that Sasuke loves her, too. That no one will ever again see Sasuke's coal black eyes is a damn crying shame-- but nevertheless there is something to the blurred line of his usually hard lips and the certain way his eyelashes soften and shade his gaze and a looseness to his brow that lets Naruto know. And that knowing makes something well up, from his chest to his throat to his eyes--

Sasuke notices and a brief flicker of pain leaps up before he turns his head and sleeps again. Naruto watches him with a fondness so strong it could kill him.

He inches his hand ever closer.


*


Again he sleeps and again he wakes, breath deep and hollow. Real fire makes the tent side glow. The shadow of Kakashi is joined by the shadow of Sasuke. Sakura rolls over in her sleep; there is a smile on her face. For a long night those two shadows sit in silence, passing cups of coffee. Every now and then one will tilt his head to watch the coldly blazing stars.

At some point Sakura wakes with a gruff sigh, and she is appalled that Sasuke is up and moving. She lets Kakashi know exactly how, and Naruto, not wanting to miss this show for the world, crawls to the tent mouth and props his chin in his hand, grinning gleefully. Even better is the startled look on Sasuke's face-- this, too, he must have forgotten.

Of course she'd never gone this far before-- never had Sakura so adamantly ordered Sasuke around, one hand on hip and other finger pointing. For a minute this is the best entertainment Naruto's ever been part of-- Sasuke's offended, flabbergasted visage gets more comical by the passing second-- and Naruto's sure it's about to get even better because Sasuke really might be dumb enough to argue-- but all of a sudden Sakura's eyes are filled with tears.

Sasuke returns to the tent just to hide from her shivering sobs. Naruto lets him step over and then crawls back to lie beside him. Now just before dawn the shadows of Kakashi and Sakura are somewhat less than silent but still quiet. As the sun rises and the fire grows weak, the outlines get lighter and lighter. At last the movement of one shadow offering a comforting hand and the other taking a hug instead might be nothing more than Naruto's imagination or maybe a wish. In the meantime Sasuke and Naruto lie an arm's length away on the dirt floor under grungy blankets and listen to each other's breathing.

He wants this. He want this to happen again. Not Sakura crying, no, he doesn't want that ever again if he can help it; but listening to Sasuke's breathing. Naruto doesn't even have to look at him, he just has to listen and to feel his presence and know that it's him. Somehow he feels infinitely safer with the greatest enemy he's ever faced sleeping close enough to choke him out. It's like Sasuke was just a memory for so long, just an idea or an aspiration or a dream or an ambition or sometimes when Naruto was at his worst Sasuke was just a promise. But now he's here. He's real, and living, and though he was not twenty-four hours ago, Sasuke isn't trying to kill Naruto right now.

The world could be empty but Kakashi and Sakura and Naruto and Sasuke. It would be fine because Sasuke is here.

"Stay," Naruto says to the brightness of the tent in the morning. His voice is rough from silence and growls like the demon's.

Sasuke is quiet, and that's a million times better than his usual immediate rebuke, and a million trillion times better than a contemptuous blade flying. Then at length Sasuke whispers so maybe Sakura won't hear, "I can't."

"You can," Naruto says simply. It's his truth so it's the truth.

"There are entire countries that want me dead."

"So apologize to them."

Sasuke gives him the most disgusted glare like they are both twelve again. Naruto's grins won't stop coming. He can't stop drinking in Sasuke's features, wanting to touch him, wanting to talk to him, wanting to see him every day from now on and until forever.

Sasuke insists that it isn't as simple as that. Naruto insists that it is. Then Sasuke smacks the dirt beneath them and sighs.

"I betrayed Leaf. They'd never let me back."

"It's okay, Tsunade-baachan is going to make me Hokage, so I'll give you an official pardon."

"You'd get kicked out of office, idiot!"

"No way, no way, hey, they love me now, really, you should see it, it's amazing."

"I killed Danzo and the elders."

"I'm not complaining! --about Danzo at least--"

"I was willing to kill Sa--"

"Well, you wouldn't now, would you?" Naruto says too quickly, trying to keep his temper in check.

"Naruto," Sasuke sighs, long-suffering, "I assassinated top Leaf ninja. I am a traitor. A traitor, Naruto."

"Yeah well, stop now and don't do it again and I dunno--"

"Naruto--"

"--like maybe we can just lie low for a while, low profile or whatever, and I guess soon enough people will forget--"

"--not 'we', Naruto, I'm not--"

"Don't say you're not coming back!"

Sasuke flops his arm over his eyes and groans, long and low. Naruto pulls his blanket up to his nose. Again they sleep and this time Naruto is aware of everyone else who sleeps, too. The war made the whole world exhausted.


*


In his dreams a million and one epiphanies come to Naruto. He has a perfect plan when he wakes up, and it makes him smile. He knows where they'll all be and what they'll all do and he knows-- always knew --but knows with a renewed, pounding fervor what he wants in life. And what Uzumaki Naruto wants in life he will always get.

"I had a dream," he tells the tent. Kakashi shifts in the corner, startled by speech. Sakura pauses, hand stilling, and she looks at him with those lovely green eyes. Then she moves again, a smile this time lighting, brightening her face. She pets Sasuke's ripped flank with a soothing, healing hand.

"As soon as we're all feeling better," Naruto starts again, "I demand a group hug."

Sakura giggles. Sasuke sighs. Kakashi hides.


*


Finally the homeward-bound cart makes it their way. They've been seeing carts move in to take the wounded, picking through the fields of tents in which the ninja of the allied nations lie healing or dying where they dropped at the field base on this huge battlefield. Now finally it being their turn, the cartman ducks into the mouth of the tent and looks around. He sees the lady and doffs his straw hat.

"Dead cart?" Kakashi asks wearily.

"Nope, living. Do you need the dead cart?"

Kakashi looks over to Sasuke's prone form.

"Not just yet," Sakura says sternly. "Where to, mister?"

"To Leaf."

"Perfect," Naruto says, sitting up and stretching.

Sasuke says nothing.

Outside they are last in among a bed of ninja Naruto half-knows. He crawls in first to cheers and greetings; they smile and touch his hands and shift around to make room. A lady-nin kisses his cheek. Naruto leans back into someone's shoulder and crosses his legs. Kakashi backs out of the tent next, holding tautly Sasuke's sheet, while Sakura holds the other end and Sasuke weakly protests that he can walk goddamn you. The people of the cart as a whole take one look at Sasuke and go quiet.

Naruto holds out his hands. Kakashi hefts the body up. Naruto latches his arms under Sasuke's armpits and hauls him up, struggling pathetically, into his lap, head against his chest, and damn but Sasuke's so warm. Tears well up and drop without him ever blinking; how can he blink when he's so busy looking at Sasuke's beautiful, fucked up face, at this body he finally gets to touch again without hurting or maiming. And then there is Sakura by Sasuke's side and Kakashi at his feet and the cartman gives them all one uneasy look before slamming the back of the cart into place.

Someone calls Naruto's name. He turns to see--

"Sai! It's you!" he shouts out, chest rising until Sasuke's head slides further down, into his lap, legs bunching at the knees.

Sai's smile is peaceful and genuine. (Him too, Naruto thinks quickly, remembering his dream.) Naruto twists his torso with a wince and leans over the side of the cart. Sai steps up and places his hand on the edge.

"I'm glad you're not hurt," Naruto says. He feels a grin warming his face.

"Not too badly," Sai agrees. "Just tired."

"Thanks for all your help."

"Thank you," Sai insists, and then he leaps up onto the spokes of the cart's back wheels, just high enough to force Naruto to lean back and tilt his head up so that he can place a dry-lipped kiss to Naruto's own cut lips. A few people laugh or squeal. Naruto crosses his eyes to look at Sai; Sai's own eyes stare straight ahead.

"Oi! What the hell, Sai!" Naruto yells hoarsely as Sai pulls back and hops down. "What was that for?"

"A thank you!" But there seems to be something in Sai's eye, something mischievous and wicked that wasn't there before, something that gives Naruto tiny little belly-flutters.

"Burn your books, you weirdo! They give you bad suggestions!"

Sai just chuckles. Then finally his expression melts into his deadly smooth mask and he turns and points. Naruto follows the finger, bewildered. On the horizon there is a line of ninja. They are too far to discern expressions. "Cloud, I think," Sai says. "It's hard to tell since everyone is so mixed up nowadays, but..."

"I see," Naruto murmurs. Sakura tenses and reaches for a weapon with one hand, the other hand gripping Sasuke's wrist. Kakashi lays his hand on his forehead protector, ready to push it up.

Sai turns back to observe Naruto's expression and then he smiles again. "Don't worry. I won't let them."

"Sai, what?" Naruto asks breathlessly. He stares back at Sai, incredulous.

"I'll protect you-- all of you." He peers over the rim of the cart, down at Sasuke. "Please get him to the village. It's what you've been wanting, right?"

Sasuke glares up at them but it is a weak glare, practically a smile in Sasuke's books. Some of the ninja behind them nervously squirm.

"It is," Naruto whispers, meeting Sasuke's eyes for only a moment before Sasuke whips his head to the side. Naruto's hands, previously on Sasuke's shoulders, slither down and over. He rests his arms across Sasuke's chest, wrists crossing, hands cupping gently. Sakura's fingers twine between Sasuke's own lax digits.

Sai simply nods and backs off, hand raising in a wave. His other hand draws his tanto. Kakashi knocks on the side of the cart. "Take us home, please, driver."

Someone whispers something about Sasuke. Naruto looks at him over his shoulder. The cart goes quiet again.

Then Naruto smiles at Sakura, and her smile back is nothing short of beautiful.

We're going home.


*


Someone dies on the way. The cart pulls over and Sakura helps bury him because he was too far gone for her to save. Naruto prays for him. Sasuke closes his eyes and manages not to scowl.

In the rest period after the funeral, team 7 reunited stretch their legs and find shade from the blaring sun underneath a tree so large they know they must be within Fire borders once more. After lying for a while Sasuke raises himself by the support of the tree trunk and begins to hobble away. Sakura and Naruto and Kakashi watch him without moving, knowing he won't get far.

Indeed he stops at the crest of the small hill and turns his face into the sunlight. Naruto wishes he could see Sasuke's face; are his eyes open or closed now? As if summoned by these idle thoughts a pale breeze picks up, just as transient and smooth. The clouds run in pulled-cotton streams, in patterns soft as feathers, away from the sun, and then they curve -- all the world's round --and hug back into the warmth, like the sun's own personal halo, like the sun's own cradle. And the sky could sear your eyes into seeing only blue for the rest of your life. And the velvet carpet of bright green grass moves like great waves across the ocean-like plains. And the good earth is soft and moist when Naruto digs in his fingers.

And Sasuke is coming home. They are all going home.

The winds are chilling, shivering, but the sun is strong. It bakes them, burns them. Naruto feels his old skin heat and shrivel and snap and peel, baring the pink freshness of a new self. Atop the hill, Sasuke drops to his knees and they listen to him sob, a very tiny sound in the vast openness.

Then when the cartman finds them and calls, "All aboard!", Naruto and Sakura take either of Sasuke's arms and bear him up. They board again, again ignoring the suspicious glares and the general discomfort and that new, strange dichotomy of the disgusted hatred of Sasuke and the nigh-hero worship of Naruto.

It doesn't matter. Naruto wonders if that sort of stuff will ever bother him again.

The cart trundles along the wide, open, straight-forward path that runs through Fire. They don't stop until far past sunset.


*


Naruto wakes in the night before their arrival to find Sasuke gone. He is not surprised but his eyes still well with hot burning tears. Sakura is shaking his shoulder.

"Naruto..."

He looks up into her face. Past her is Kakashi, his back turned to them. She wipes Naruto's face with rough, scratchy fingertips.

"Come on. We have to go get him."

He takes her hand and she helps him up. Naruto fights past the lingering pain in his body and they chase after their boy.

They find him not far and are pleased if shocked to find him wobbling down the very path the cart had taken-- this dirt highway, the main road of Fire, broad and flat and expansive. On either side of this flat honest highway are the seas of grass. The waxing gibbous moon shines upon the white of Sasuke's skin and disappears into the black of his robes. There is no cover here, no deception-- it is a ninja's worst enemy, this path, so how strange that four powerful ninja would meet here.

Sasuke shuffles along even as they catch up easily. Naruto pants harshly and grunts through the excruciating burn of breath in his damaged lungs. The four of them fall into step. If Sasuke is angry he does not show it.

"I won't go back," Sasuke grits out at last through his own ragged, wrenched breathing.

"What are you going to do?" Sakura asks.

A chill wind howls; it is not yet spring, still mostly winter.

"...I don't know," Sasuke hisses. "I don't know, I don't know--" and he stumbles, legs weak, and in an instant there are three pairs of hands on him, supporting him "--I'm not going back--

"I've already--

"There's nothing left," he finally finishes. Naruto is sure no one but them has heard Sasuke speak this way.

"Nothing left," he says again weakly. "It's all gone."

--Itachi has gone and all the people directly responsible are dead and every reminder of his family is fled and there's not enough Leaf left for him to destroy and all of his bridges he set on fire himself

and no one loves him and he has nothing to call his own and he is powerless-- he can do nothing--

there is nothing more to do

"We love you," Sakura whispers. She takes his dry face in both her hands and says this, more than once, so sincerely. Kakashi takes his other shoulder in hand, head turned away in some form of privacy. And Naruto finds his himself burying his face in the back of Sasuke's neck.

They have to drag him back, but at least he's back. The moon sets around midnight and in darkness they find their way.


*


The great crater that is Leaf gapes before them when they finally arrive past noon the next day. The party spends some moments admiring it, feeling the resonating holes in their hearts where their homes used to be. Overhead the waxing gibbous moon hangs, a pale distortion in the blue sky. Their backs are warmed by the sun while their fronts are chilled to the point of goosebumps. Then after having taken in all the sadness they can bear they slowly disperse, waving goodbyes to Naruto, their hero. Their footsteps are the heavy thuds of weary soldiers the likes of which Leaf has not seen since even Kakashi had been young. The cartman turns and goes back to his job of tirelessly ferrying other people home.

"Where are they going?" Sakura asks after a while. "There aren't homes for them, are there?"

"I suppose they'll try to find their old homes," Kakashi says. "The places they used to live."

Sasuke hears this and sighs, putting a hand to his ribs and starting forward. His face is the careful mask that Orochimaru taught him. They follow him without words, Kakashi trailing far behind. Sasuke slides down the slopes and trudges across the wasteland, shaking off mud from his sandals as he goes. Every now and then he will pause, turn in a circle, and then set off in a different direction.

By sunset Sasuke finally stops walking and they stop, too. They are nowhere. Nothing is familiar. The bowl of Leaf is full of shadows. Sasuke stands, neck bent, sunburned and lonely, in a place that might or might not have been the site of his past home. Sasuke shivers-- it could be because of the wind.

Instead they climb back up the soft earthen slopes as they rapidly cool in the night. Sasuke drags his feet but refuses help-- ah, some things will never change. They find the lip in the night and follow the edge, searching for a place they can stay. Happening upon the first standing house, Sakura approaches the softly glowing paper doors and slides them aside, politeness be damned when the village is in this state. "Excuse me," they hear her call, "is there any room left here?"

Sakura thanks the inhabitants, withdraws, and shakes her head at her team. They go on. The second house is like this, too, and the third. Finally they don't bother to find a house intact, passing by all the shabby little shacks with their boards falling apart and the holes in their doors. Instead they settle for a ruin. The roof is half missing but there will be no rain tonight and so it will do.

Left intact is the kitchen, but the appliances are useless. The fridge is yellowed and gives off a foul odor when Naruto dares to open it. Then there is what might have been the living room, with wide open doors that prove difficult to close. The backyard has wilted. The bedrooms are full of roof tiles and plaster and small chirping bugs.

Sakura rolls out their pallets for them in the living room. Naruto starts a fire in a ripped up part of the floor. Sasuke simply collapses, exhausted, and does not move again for the rest of the night.

This is home, Naruto thinks. As the night wears on, as the others find sleep too, as Naruto takes watch like they aren't in Leaf but some feral jungle, as the fires dies into a snapping little glow-- This is home. In the distance if he squints he can make out Hokage mountain but not the faces there. And if he imagines hard enough, he supposes he can guess where his tiny old apartment used to be and where Ichiraku used to be. And this is someone else's home, destroyed. And if he breaths deeply and listens to nature's thrumming, he knows in his heart that his friends are safe.

This is home: this moonlit scar.


*


Kakashi leaves them by morning. Naruto is not at all surprised, but he wishes Kakashi wasn't like this. Sakura tries to gently talk him out of it, extending with both hands a mug full of coffee. Kakashi takes it and pretends to consider their words by turning his back to them. "Well, the other settlements are a rather long walk, aren't they?" Kakashi hums. He pulls down his mask and drains the hot coffee in one go, throat working audibly. Then he replaces the mask and turns to face them again. He hands Sakura the mug back and says, "I'll come visit."

And he is gone.

There is nothing to be done, they suppose. Sakura and Naruto duck back into the house, hiding from the blaring sun. The high winds blow again today, making the structure lean and moan, slipping into the cracks to muss their hair and lift their clothes on the inside of the house.

The two have breakfast in the kitchen, where a table is displaced but standing. This table had apparently not been moved by the previous owner in some time, and, having rattled and moved during the invasion, had revealed dirty black dents worn into the kitchen tile. The entire house is like that, though: dusty and dirty and grayed, some from the shaking and the collapsing, otherwise from a negligent previous owner. Where is the owner now? Sakura wonders aloud at some point, but it is a nonissue. Everyone shares their home nowadays. The people of Leaf will be rationed hard luck for a long time to come.

They discuss setting up shop here. They will need food and water. Sakura wants to find her parents. They also have to do some repairs for when the rain does come. And the village still needs their help; they have to go help rebuild, they can't slump around here all day.

Sasuke lies on his side in the next room, pale, eyes closed, unmoving.

Other people can wait, they decide.


*


Sakura leaves for the day and comes back by the first crickets of evening with a heavy pack full of rations. She says that she checked in on her parents, and she found Ino and Shikamaru and Chouji in the main settlements. Lee found her, on the other hand, and asked if she knew Kakashi was staying with Gai. Sakura and Naruto share a sort of exasperated chuckle over that; at least someone has the guts to force Kakashi into things.

"What have you been doing all day?" she asks tentatively, pausing in unloading her pack. She glances sidelong into the shadowed room they sleep in.

"Nothing much," Naruto says honestly. He manages to keep his voice down. "I cleaned a little."

Sakura looks the house once over, at the dirt still on the floor and the grime still on the windows. "This is your version of cleaning?" she asks pointedly. It's so normal that Naruto reacts instinctively by laughing it off nervously.

"I moved some big piles of wood around!"

Bickering is nice, and normal, and Naruto feels like he is on the precipice of happiness. His heart beats wildly as he recalls, almost dream-like now, falling against the wind, off that cliff, and warm bloodied arms reaching-- and fiery eyes-- and searing hot pain--

and this feeling now, it's like something between his ears hasn't caught up and stopped falling-- something in his heart--


*


Naruto takes guard again first. Why he and Sakura feel this bestial need to defend their little nest, a reason previously clouded to them, makes itself plain in the night. Naruto supposes that one day is a good enough frame of time for word to spread.

He is wondering about how Sai is faring when he sees the first of them. More of them come in the night: denser shadows hiding, moving silently, whispering so quietly it might be the whipping winds instead of voices. Angry. Hostile. Naruto stubbornly stokes the fire, throwing up tongues of flame, but the shadows are gone before the light can hit. Left only are bent blades of grass where their feet had been.

He waits maybe a little bit longer than he needs to go back inside. He shakes Sakura gently awake, and she peers up at him blearily. A vague, undefined fear makes him want to touch her hair, shush her back to sleep, say nevermind. Tell her she's pretty. But she sits up in an instant, apologizes for sleeping so long, and combs out with fingers her beautiful sleep-tangles. So he tells her that they've come to kill Sasuke but can't work up the nerve. She is startled only for a moment, and then she looks down, sad and resigned.

"Of course they are," Sasuke says. His voice is loud in the night and scratchy from disuse. "You didn't think it would just magically be okay?"

"Sasuke," Sakura cuts in sharply. "Let us handle it. We swore we would."

He turns his head until they can all catch each other in profile. Still he bares his back to them, the tattered Uchiha symbol streaked with dirt. There reigns a tense silence for long moments until at last Sasuke says, voice gentler in that it is a vindictive, slithering hiss, a quietly mocking sneer, (and under the layers and layers of hate, it really is gentler, and kinder, because it is to them)

"This won't end the way you wanted it to. I have been marked for death for a while now. They will not accept me. They hate me now. It is only right. They will come after me-- now and always, until they have killed me."

They breathe deeply. A wind howls through their little hovel, lifting their hair and clothes. It almost drowns out the rustling of cloth as Sasuke sits up and then stands, almost drowns out-- "I know how they feel."

"Stay," Naruto chokes out. "We'll protect you."

Sasuke unties and reties his belt, checks his sandals. He stretches his limbs and adjusts his collar.

"It'll be another decade before anyone could find it in their heart to forgive me."

This time when he leaves, they do not chase after him. Sakura and Naruto stay up the night, occasionally brewing pots of coffee, not bothering to speak. Naruto only speaks once, to tell Sakura about that dream he had a few nights ago. "I dreamt that I had my family back together. I mean, you and Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei and Iruka-sensei and our friends. And I had a house and we all stayed close to each other and... Well, it was a very nice dream. We lived in peace forever."


*


...and even though no one asked him to, he still grabbed Sasuke's white-hot kunai-- sharp searing sweet metal sliced open his palms until the blood like liquid fire crept down forearms. He fell to his knees, tired like he was staring down oblivion. When he looked up his eyes were reflected in Sasuke's sharingan, lost in a blazing fire, and his mind did what it does best and superimposed the memory of eyes like dark coals unlit. It didn't even hurt, the kunai running through his palm-- the same palm upon which, years and years ago, he had sworn to never run away.

Sasuke stared him down, breath clenched and pained and smelling of blood. Unflinching, as always.

They swore to each other that they must inevitably fight, and so they fought. They fought until the earth was scarred and all their allies or enemies fled. They fought until they had nothing left to fight with, until lightening would not be summoned and wind would not swirl into their palms. Until at last all they could do was punch, and bite, and slam heads, and try to stab weakly.

Naruto stumbled back to the edge of the cliff he was sure they hadn't been anywhere near when they started the fight. His legs felt weak. Heart weaker. Sasuke got back up from that last kick through sheer vindictiveness, hand flexing around his kunai. It glowed white still with the strength of a fire spell earlier cast upon it. They met eyes again and Sasuke did something less than charged, did something closer to falling. And instead of letting it go through his heart, Naruto reached up and grabbed that white-hot kunai.

He fell to his knees. Spit out blood. As he remembered those coal black eyes that Sasuke used to have, he felt strength once more, just one tiny spark, and he pushed himself to stand.

That was all he had left, though, and then he fell backwards--

into a wind that would push him up again, still he fell. Against everything telling him up, up!-- he fell down, and down. He waited for the pain in slow motion, in an exhilarating free fall. The wind whistled, high-pitched, and the image of Sasuke's face gave way to the sky above--

and then into Sasuke's face again, as Sasuke followed him over that final edge. Sasuke's expression never changed from that fiery, murderous visage, teeth gritted, eyes desperate-- but he extended his bloody arms, cut and burned, tattered sleeves flying back, hair whipping off of his forehead. Naruto understood that Sasuke looked like this for no other man he would kill but Naruto, and that was sweet in its own way. He wanted to laugh, but that could have been the euphoria of rushing death screaming in his ears.

He held out his arms, too. Sasuke reached-- to stab or to grab, Naruto didn't know and it didn't matter --but then his sight blacked away. He woke sometime later, on the ground, under a broken canopy of trees. Pounding through him was the course of nature, the yawning of the winds and the rattling hum of shifting leaves and the smell of hot dirt. Every inch of his body ached, and he could not move, and Sasuke's arms were around him.

Naruto waited until Sasuke woke too and then smiled slowly, incredulously. Fondly. "Did you... really try to save me?"

"No," Sasuke coughed out firmly. "My body moved on its own... Idiot..."

And Naruto really did laugh. And he cried.


*


Naruto wakes from this memory on a bright morning days later and misses Sasuke just as sorely as that very first time he left. That years-ago wound never scarred-- it left behind soft flesh ripe for another spell of bleeding openness.

Sakura whistles from the kitchen, some warbling tune devoid of cheer. It sounds like a funeral dirge. When Naruto pops his head into the doorway, she stops and looks up and gives that same painful smile he's become so used to. She's got a little fire going in that one ripped up patch of floor. Over it she holds a little pan that fries eggs and vegetables. Only enough for two.

He strides up to her, takes away the spoon she was stirring breakfast with. They breathe each other's air. "I'll finish," he says finally. She nods jerkily and leaves to sit on the porch and let the sun dry out all her frustrated tears.

He brings their breakfast to the porch when he's done. The eggs are very brown. Sakura says thanks anyway. They stay there, unmoving, even after having finished. The world might have stopped, might only have consisted of the two of them. Every now and again the wind picks up a bit faster than before and the spluttering little flame Naruto left going swirls up with it.

In the hazy distance a shadow picks its way over uneven ground. Naruto hears his name being called and grins, calling back, "Sai!"

Sai joins them on the porch and the three of them engage in a lazy bit of cloud watching for a while. Sai casts many looks behind him, into the darkness of the house.

"Where are you going to live now, Sai?" Sakura asks.

"I'm not sure."

"Live with us," Naruto all but demands.

"Okay," Sai gives in easily. Then again they are quiet and Sai casts a few more looks into the dark home. A cloud shifts and the sunlight floods into the house. Eventually Sai asks, "Where is he?"

Naruto considers his answer for a bit. "Left," he says honestly.

Sai gives them his little smile. "Again?"

"Again," Sakura sighs.

Sai huffs. "So what are you going to do?"

Naruto scratches his head and shrugs. Sakura tips her head and looks at Naruto askance.

"Didn't you swear you two were going to both die next time you fought?" she asks with a carefully light voice.

Naruto tries not to smile. "Yeah..."

He thinks of that day-- the day Sasuke swore he had nothing to do with them anymore-- when he honestly tried to kill Sakura, and Sakura tried to kill him-- and then he thinks of Sasuke nearly dying for Naruto years ago, and Sasuke leaping over the side of a cliff-- and Sasuke asking Sakura why, over and over again, when she found them at the base of that cliff and smiled at Sasuke as she began to heal his wounds-- and Sasuke trying to get up to make sure Sakura didn't strain her war injuries, and Sasuke sobbing quietly under a waxing gibbous moon--

Sasuke saying the word 'forgive'.

"I think we died a little. And were reborn. Don't you think? Didn't you see it?"

Naruto lets that sink in for a moment; Sakura turns her head to hide a smile that is all at once exasperated, disbelieving, relieved, and very sure. He unfolds from his seat and stretches himself, reaching for the sun. He really does feel new-- free and unfettered and reassured.

More loudly than he has in days, Naruto says, "I think we've given him enough of a head start to soothe his pride! What do you think?"

Sakura stands too. Her eyes are blazing and her smile is giddy, and Naruto has never wanted to kiss her so bad in his life. "Let's go get Kakashi-sensei. He's so lazy!"

"Sai?" Naruto asks, extending a hand.

Sai frowns, eyes wide, a muted little expression like he just can't believe it. "Again?"

They nod.

"Again!"

"Always."

Sai takes Naruto's hand and pulls himself up, calm once more. "Wherever you lead, then."

That night the moon is full.




***

Dedicated to my brother.

Wherever you go-- if you hop on a plane and leave and don't tell anyone why-- if you steal from your best friend-- if you relapse again-- if you go to jail again-- if you lie to me again-- if you make mom cry again-- if they call you a criminal-- if they want nothing to do with you--

Still we are brothers, and I love you.

And always I will chase after you.