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Sasuke took care of Naruto, in various small ways, ever since they were both thrown into Team Seven at age twelve (at times kicking and screaming and at times just kicking, but giving it their all in either case).
When they hit the age of 18, though, the tables turned.
When they were both twelve years old, Kakashi took them on a mission involving lots of sand, very little water, and no food.
(They were searching for a missing Genin – a teenaged girl who had gotten it into her head that she was old enough to live on her own “among the cacti.” Yeah, that didn’t work out so well for her. They found her and brought her back to her parents, who promptly grounded her to within an inch of her social life. But the mission parameters aren’t really relevant. Sasuke just finds them funny in an absurd how-can-people-really-be-this-stupid sort of way.)
Naruto, who often found himself unprepared (in their early days, that is. He got much better at is as time went on. Actually…scratch that. Naruto is still unprepared for a lot of things. Like the Hidden Leaf Village Annual Budgeting Meeting. Sasuke had to drop in during the middle of it and give him his report. And receive a kiss for his trouble. Just because.), had found himself without food, or anything else portable and edible.
In order to resolve his dilemma, Naruto had found it wise to attempt to cut, peel, and fire-roast some of the local vegetation. Kakashi informed him that the particular cacti Naruto had chosen was, in fact, poisonous.
“Pah!” Naruto spat, half-chewed cactus flying out of his mouth. “Kaka-sensei! Why didn’t you tell me that before I tried to eat one? Or while I was cooking it?”
His eyes narrowed into slits and a pronounced frown appeared on his boyish face.
“This chapter of Makeout Paradise was quite distracting,” Kakashi had remarked mildly. Kakashi said everything mildly.
Naruto threw his head back and wailed. “What am I going to eat? I’m staarrvvvinggggg.”
(It is important to note, at this point in the tale, that Sasuke has never cared much for ramen, particularly the instant variety. He will partake of a bowl or two of traditional varieties if Naruto is willing to go somewhere with a menu and reusable utensils. Otherwise, he steers clear.)
Sasuke, munching on a roll of sushi (crab, his favorite), looked up at that. He was distracted by Naruto’s ungodly noise.
“You honestly brought nothing to eat?” he asked. “Nothing at all?”
Naruto turned his sour face to Sasuke and stuck his tongue out at him. “What’s it to you, huh?”
“Your wailing is going to blow our cover,” Sasuke had retorted. He pulled a package of instant ramen (complete with seasoning packet) out of his pack and threw it at Naruto.
The ramen smacked Naruto in the head, and Sakura had laughed riotously.
“Eat, idiot,” Sasuke had ordered him, going back to his sushi.
Naruto crowed and jumped three feet in the air, holding the ramen package aloft like it was a trophy he had just won.
“Yahooooo! Ramen! Believe it!” he shouted happily.
Things were fairly peaceful after that. They all sat eating (except Kakashi, who never seemed to need food).
Then, Naruto opened his mouth again.
“Say, say, Sasuke?” he asked, mouth full of dry noodles.
“What?” Sasuke had grunted.
“Why do you have instant ramen in your pack anyway? You always talk about how disgusting it is.”
Sasuke was only twelve, but he had enough dignity - even then - to know that he shouldn’t answer that.
When Sasuke and Naruto were thirteen years old, they were still not masters of their respective chakras. Sasuke liked to think that he was better than Naruto (and, objectively speaking, he was. He could maintain his chakra at a desired level for thirty seconds longer than Naruto could. That fact mattered more to him than it should have at the time. God, he was such an ignorant little homosexual back then.) but actually in the grand scheme of things, he was far behind him. Naruto understood so many things about power that Sasuke never grasped back then.
Sasuke still thanks Naruto at least once a month for teaching him the things that Sasuke could never have figured out on his own.
Anyway, when they were thirteen years old, they were practicing chakra maintenance in one of the academy pools. Instead of walking on the water, they had progressed to walking above it. This was a more difficult task, as a ninja had no surface tension from the water’s edge to help support him. Knowing exactly how much chakra was needed was essential, as well as being able to keep expending it steadily over a given time period.
Since neither of them were masters at that point, they walked unsteadily, sometimes downright drunkenly, over the water. When they managed to walk at all.
Naruto bumped into Sasuke at one point, knocking him over and right into the pool.
“Idiot!” Sasuke grumbled, righting himself and treading water to keep himself upright. Luckily, they had thought to remove their shirts before starting this fiasco. His bangs stuck to his forehead unpleasantly.
(To this day, he hates leaving his hair wet, for that very reason. Naruto questions his hairstyle over it. “If you don’t like it, why not just cut it?” he asks, in what passes for – in him - a reasonable tone. Sasuke always answers that cutting it is out of the question. He needs the privacy that bangs afford. He deals with the daily blow-drying. He has it down to a science now, anyway.)
“Me?” Naruto argued. “You ran into me!”
“I did not!”
“Did so!” Naruto had insisted, wobbling precariously over the surface of the water. He managed to stay upright.
Sasuke got an idea, then. An awful, wonderful, ugly, beautiful idea.
It was irresistible.
He dived under the surface, swimming as fast as he could, right near the bottom. He kicked and undulated and loved the feeling of the water surrounding him. When he was just under the place were Naruto was hovering, he spun to the surface (adding in a burst of chakra, because it would make the effect that much more dramatic). He exploded through the water with a spectacular splash and collided with Naruto’s legs.
“Aaaarrggghhh! Sasuke!!!” Naruto screamed in angry surprise. He fell into the pool with a spectacular splash of his own.
“Heh,” Sasuke chuckled to himself.
(Laughing is something he only rarely does in the company of anyone but Naruto. In fact, when Sasuke looks back on his life, the only real belly laughs that he has ever experienced have been either a) because of Naruto or b) in Naruto’s presence.)
Naruto surfaced, spitting water out of his mouth dramatically and splashing water around all over the place.
“Sasuke!!” he huffed. His face screwed up in anger as he swam to the farthest edge of the pool and levered himself up and out.
Sasuke had only smiled, watching Naruto pick up a towel (Sasuke’s own, actually, which Sasuke should have been angry about. But somehow, even at the time, he just…wasn’t.) and towel himself off.
He was pulling the towel back and forth across his back when he suddenly made a high-pitched, frustrated sound. More of a whine than anything, really. (Naruto still makes that sound when he’s annoyed with something. Also, the sound is usually accompanied by a particular facial expression: Naruto’s eyes close, his eyebrows go up, and he sticks his nose in the air, mouth curved down into an upside down rainbow. Sasuke loves that expression, for reasons he can’t define. Naruto often makes it at him just to make Sasuke laugh, and it works every time.)
“Sasukeeeeee,” Naruto whined. “My back ittccheessss.”
Sasuke had sighed and shook his head. “You’ve got my towel, just use that! Idiot,” he called out.
“It’s not working!” Naruto pouted. “Come over here! Team Seven has to help each other out!”
“Tch, with missions, Naruto. Not back-scratching!”
“Sasuke, come on! I can’t handle it!” Naruto had yelled angrily. He danced around the poolside, reaching behind himself ineffectually and spinning around in a circle.
“Ugh, alright,” Sasuke had muttered. He had made a big show of being put-upon. “I’m coming.”
He got out of the pool (using the ladder, like a civilized person, thank you very much) and went over to Naruto. He pulled the towel away but Naruto continued to squirm around, out of Sasuke’s reach.
“If you don’t stop moving, I can’t help you.” Sasuke had said dryly.
“Oh! Yeah,” Naruto had exclaimed, then laughed to himself. (Naruto can always find the humor in anything. He’s the most positive, determined person that Sasuke has ever met.) Naruto held still after that. “Hurry up! It’s killing me!”
Sasuke’s nails (on the longish side, but not pointy or unkempt) turned out to be perfect for Naruto’s needs. He dragged them over Naruto’s nape, his shoulder blades, and up and down his sides.
“In the middle!” Naruto exclaimed, starting to squirm around again. “No no, higher! No, lower! Wait, wait, there!”
Sasuke scratched hard in this spot, nails leaving angry red marks on Naruto’s freckled skin. (Years later, he would leave similar marks on Naruto’s back, but under very different circumstances.)
“Oohhhhhhhhh, yeah,” Naruto had purred. “Hhhnnngghhhh.”
(Naruto would also make similar noises later in their acquaintance – again, under very different circumstances.)
At that, Sasuke pulled his hands away from Naruto’s back. The favor was done, and he wasn’t about to keep touching out of any desire to on his own part.
“You owe me, you know,” Sasuke had muttered, stealing Naruto’s towel and drying off with it, since Naruto had taken his.
Years later, Naruto did end up paying him back – with interest.
Over the years, Naruto has given Sasuke his fair share of panicked hours. Sasuke had never expected being a ninja to be easy. Of course not. Panic and unexpected dangers came with the job. Occupational hazard. But Naruto seemed to make the whole enterprise frankly heart-stopping.
(Again, this should have been a clue to Sasuke’s younger self that his relationship with Naruto was not strictly platonic. He never experienced heart-stopping fear on Sakura’s behalf. Or even on Kakashi’s. Although Kakashi was a competent enough ninja to avoid deadly traps. Sakura was decidedly not.)
Sasuke is still surprised that he doesn’t suffer any long-term cardiac disorder as a result of being scared to death for Naruto so many times.
You see, by the time they were both fourteen years old, Sasuke had concluded that he needed to have certain things on hand at all times during missions. These included instant ramen, water, and a tube of seishin.
Seishin was an astoundingly useful ointment, curing everything from poison ivy to certain minor curses in a matter of hours. It was used so often in Team Seven that Sasuke saved up every six months for a new supply. (Without saving, he would never have been able to afford to keep it on hand. Seishin was damn expensive. It still is. Sasuke is working on cost-conserving measures for it right now but his research is still preliminary. Naruto thinks he’s wasting his time but Sasuke will prove him wrong. They have a bet going on the outcome.)
Can you guess which member of the team demonstrated a consistent need for it?
That’s correct. Naruto.
Here is a good example: Sasuke and Naruto had graduated to Chunin level and so Team Seven was allowed to regularly work B-level missions. Sakura was still working on her graduation. The three of them were following Kakashi through a jungle of sorts, guarding a precious artifact on its way to the Lightening Village.
“Do be careful of the purple bushes you see there,” Kakashi said, waving carelessly at a clump of them as he walked along. “You may find yourself in quite the situation if you step into them.”
Sasuke heard these words and wisely steered clear of the bushes. He looked over his shoulder at Sakura and Naruto.
“Naruto, leave me alone,” Sakura was whining, pushing at Naruto’s shoulder.
“But Sakura-chaaaaannn, the Chunin Ball is only two weeks away! You know you want to go with me. Yeah? Yeah?” Naruto said. He smiled winningly and nudged her again.
Sasuke turned away immediately. He could still hear their inane conversation behind him, and wished the birds flying above them would chirp louder and block it out. He realized his lips were pulled into a vicious sneer and forced himself to relax them.
Naruto was an idiot for thinking that Sakura would be a good date. She had nothing of use to contribute to any conversation, and no skill with a knife. Sasuke supposed that she wasn’t hideous, but there were far more worthy choices in Naruto’s immediate vicinity.
(Today, Naruto explains this lapse in judgment by blaming his bisexuality and his early exposure to demonic spirits. Sasuke still gives him hell for it, simply because he can. And because Sasuke truly believes that only something demonic could induce someone to have a crush on Sakura. …she’s gotten to be a competent ninja in adulthood, though. That’s all Sasuke can really say in her favor.)
At any rate, the crux of the matter lied in the fact that Naruto was not paying attention to what Kakashi-sensei was warning them about. Too busy pursuing the object of his stupid teenage hormones, he stumbled directly into those purple bushes.
(Kasai Busshu, Sasuke later learned, was the correct name for the things.)
Within seconds of hearing Naruto’s uneven footwork, Sasuke heard him give a spectacular yell.
“Naruto? What’s the matter?” Sakura was asking, standing there like a bump on a log and doing absolutely nothing to make the situation better.
Sasuke was already at Naruto’s side, even before Kakashi was.
Naruto’s arms, face, and legs were covered in angry red boils.
“It burns!” he screamed, flailing about.
“Idiot!” Sasuke whispered viciously, digging into his pack for the seishin ointment. “Sensei told you not go trampling around in those!”
“Aaaah!” Naruto shouted. “When did he…ahhh!....say that? Sasuke, do something!”
“I am!” Sasuke argued angrily. He pulled out the seishin and dabbed globs of it over every bit of Naruto that he could see. “That should make the burning go away.”
“Huh?” asked Naruto, looking at his own arms. “Hey…you’re right! Thanks, Sasuke! What is that stuff, anyway?”
“Tch,” muttered Sasuke. “It’s Save Your Ass ointment. Otherwise known as seishin.”
“Cool!” Naruto exclaimed, smiling brightly. The boils were already shrinking.
“If you had been listening to Kakashi-sensei instead of flirting with Sakura, none of this would have happened,” Sasuke told him. “Idiot.”
“I’m not going to the Chunin Ball with him anyway!” Sakura interjected, as if she were relevant.
Sasuke didn’t deign to give that a reply. He busied himself with re-capping the seishin and stowing it neatly into his pack.
When he looked up, Naruto was eyeing him thoughtfully.
There wasn’t much between the ages of 14 and 15 that Sasuke experienced that Naruto didn’t also experience. They were together almost 24/7. Between missions, training, the Academy, and meals, they became something like inseparable. The arguments and squabbles that used to consume them gave way to more carefree, shooting-the-breeze types of exchanges. At times, they even sat together under the Academy oak tree and had thoughtful discussions of the direction that the Village of the Hidden Leaves was going.
Sasuke realized, belatedly, and with no small amount of shame, that Naruto was not the idiot he had once assumed him to be. Naruto was actually fairly brilliant. He had a unique way of looking at the world – one that was highly individualized and unable to be reproduced. He could work around any problem put to him, finding an unorthodox but effective answer each time. Sasuke found himself often bewildered by the leaps of logic that Naruto was capable of. He had to actually push himself to keep up with these, as well as Naruto’s astonishing understanding of the human condition.
(Sasuke still calls Naruto an idiot, though, for old times’ sake. Naruto calls him a fussy bitch, so they’re even.)
Perhaps it was their new, odd sort of not-quite-friendship-not-quite-something-else that was responsible for Sasuke making the offer that he did, back when they were only just 15 years old.
Sasuke might have mentioned that Naruto often found himself unprepared on missions. Do you remember? Well, this mission was no different.
They were extremely lost and extremely cold. Kakashi was nowhere to be found, having been convinced that Team Seven was ready to try out a few things on their own. He had left them in the frozen tundra to complete the rest of their objectives independently.
“I’ll see you when you get back,” he had said with a mysterious smile, right before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura had all spent the next three seconds looking at each other blankly.
“Er…well, I guess we should build a fire?” Naruto had asked, looking back and forth from Sasuke to Sakura.
The three of them managed to get that fire going, as well as defend themselves from a pack of wild nin-dogs. (Naruto had scared them off with a very impressive fire dragon justu.) After that, night was falling swiftly and Sakura began unrolling her sleeping bag next to the fire.
“It’s f-fucking freezing, you guys,” she had complained, shivering. “I’m going to sleep. We can catch up to that D-Dark Shinobi in the morning.”
Naruto nodded. His teeth were clattering against each other. “I-I’m on board with that. S-sasuke?”
Sasuke nodded at him, silently agreeing with the plan. He was expending large amounts of chakra to keep himself from violently quaking with the cold. Even with the chakra, his fingers were turning blue. If he wanted to be in fighting condition by morning, he needed sleep.
In the interest of preventing hypothermia, Sasuke laid his sleeping bag next to the fire as well. He had put his at an angle to Sakura’s, leaving space for Naruto to unroll his. The three of them would have formed a triangle around the fire.
Sasuke says ‘would have’ because someone forgot to pack a sleeping bag.
Crawling into the warm cocoon of his bedroll, Sasuke watched Naruto (he did a lot of watching Naruto in those days. If he is being completely honest, he still does. Naruto has shoulders and biceps that could put any other Hokage to shame. At the age of 15, he was starting to grow into them. And…yes. Sasuke approved.). He expected Naruto to unfold a sleeping bag of his own, but instead, Naruto sank into the snow, sitting cross-legged near the fire. He did a series of Signs and brought a blue-white flame into being. This flame hovered right in front of Naruto’s chest, above his lap, and even with it’s warmth so close, Naruto still trembled in the icy wind.
Only very rarely did Sasuke act impulsively. He was, by nature, a planner. He did very little without first examining the consequences from a variety of angles. But something about Naruto’s huddled, trembling form bid his mouth to speak before his mind had really caught up with the words coming out.
“Oy,” he called. “Get in here.”
Naruto’s head whipped in Sasuke’s direction, blue eyes bugging out and mouth falling open. The blue-white flame flickered and died out. “Er…what?”
“You heard me,” Sasuke muttered irritably. “You’re going to freeze to death out there. We’ll fail the mission. So get in here.”
Sakura had sat up violently in her sleeping bag, throwing the top half off of herself and wearing an incredulous expression. “Whoa, whoa, what? If anybody should be sharing a sleeping bag, it should be the woman in the team!”
Privately, Sasuke reflected that the term ‘woman’ was a bit generous in this instance.
“Shouldn’t you just sleep in my bag, Sasuke?” she asked. “And then Naruto can have his own!”
Sasuke was faintly repulsed at this idea, for a variety of reasons.
“I would never make a decision about what to do based on who’s a girl and who’s a boy. That’s sexist,” he said, refusing to look at her. For some reason, he couldn’t meet Naruto’s gaze either. He stared into the fire instead, watching the dancing flames. “You shouldn’t think that way, Sakura. I’m sure Kakashi-sensei would agree.”
To Sasuke’s eternal surprise, Naruto nodded at his words. He pulled off his boots, tossing them aside, and crawled toward Sasuke’s sleeping bag.
“Yeah…Sasuke’s right, Sakura-chan,” he said simply. “You keep your bag. It’s my own fault I forgot mine.”
And with that, Naruto raised one end of the sleeping bag and wormed his way inside.
Over Naruto’s blond spikes, Sasuke could see Sakura’s face, painted all over with something like sullen suspicion.
He couldn’t help himself. In a fit of triumphant pique, he shot her a little grin.
Sakura’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. She wrapped herself in her bedroll once more and turned her back to the fire. That was all they heard of her for the rest of the night.
Naruto was incredibly warm. He radiated like a small sun, and Sasuke was enamored of the heat he brought.
(Neither of them were comfortable enough, at that point, to sleep in each other’s arms. They slept side by side, an inch of space between themselves. It feels so incredibly formal to Sasuke now, when he reflects on that night. Especially compared to how they go to bed each night nowadays: tangled up in each other’s arms and their hair mingling on a single pillow.)
They had watched each other in the darkness. Naruto’s eyes caught what little moonlight there was, reflecting it and glinting in the night. Sasuke could clearly make out the outline of his cheekbone…the curve of his eyebrow.
“Sasuke?” Naruto had whispered. “Are you asleep?”
“No,” Sasuke had whispered back. “Why?”
“Why are you letting me sleep in here…with you?” Naruto’s words were still only breath between their mouths. No voice.
There was a long pause then, as Sasuke contemplated what to say. And what not to say.
“I’m not obligated to answer that,” he finally whispered back.
Naruto made a “hmm” noise at that, and said nothing more.
It was a long time before either of them fell asleep.
“Sasuke! Get back here!” Sakura yelled.
Sasuke didn’t pay much attention. There was very little light, and what little they had was coming from small, scattered fires. The tunnel they were in was crumbling around them. Bits of rock and ash were tumbling to the ground at their feet, tripping them up and sending up small mushroom clouds of smoke.
Sasuke was running forward. There was a tiny crack of light ahead, rapidly shrinking. He kept his eyes fixed on it, goal in mind, giving no thought to what would happen after he reached it.
Naruto was lying just in front of that bit of light, and Sasuke would be damned if he didn’t reach him.
“Naruto!” he yelled as he ran. He hoped against hope that Naruto would answer.
Nothing.
“Naruto!” he yelled, harder, louder.
Sasuke knew that Sakura and Kakashi could very likely hear the desperation in his voice. He knew that Kakashi, at least, would understand what it meant. But he couldn’t hold back. He would give anything, anything for Naruto to be okay. Even if it meant revealing to all of Team Seven just how much he cared for him.
“Sasuke, don’t!” he heard Kakashi order behind him.
“The tunnel is coming down! You’ll be trapped!” came Sakura’s high-pitched scream.
Sasuke ignored them both. Better to be trapped in an avalanche of rock than live without Naruto.
(He was given to flights of melodramatic romance at 16 years of age. Sasuke likes to think that he’s grown out of his rebellious, all-or-nothing worldview since then. However, he knows he will never grow out of the need to protect Naruto – all the time, against all odds, from anything.)
It probably was only thirty seconds…a minute, at most. But it felt like a lifetime, running through that tunnel. No matter how fast he went, or how many bursts of Chakra he used, he couldn’t reach Naruto soon enough.
Every second felt like one of the last he would have with him.
When he finally got to the end, Naruto was breathing far too shallowly for Sasuke’s comfort. There was a boulder – a fucking boulder – lying on one of his legs. Ash clouds were rising up from every place Sasuke could see.
There were still bits of the tunnel ceiling falling all around them.
Immediately, and without serious consideration of the situation, Sasuke ran to it and tried to lift it off of him.
Naruto’s eyelashes fluttered, eyes opening slowly at the commotion Sasuke was making. The boulder, unsurprisingly, wouldn’t budge.
“S-Sasuke,” Naruto said weakly. His voice was alarmingly soft. “Go. The tunnel’s…caving in. There’s…there’s time.”
“Shut up, Naruto,” Sasuke argued fiercely.
He stepped back from the boulder, forcing himself to stop and consider the situation. A huge chunk of rock came crashing down and nearly was the end of him. Sasuke leapt out of its path just in time.
“S-Sasuke, go,” Naruto told him, harsher.
“I said shut up!” yelled Sasuke. “I’m saving you, dammit. Now let me think.”
The light at the end of the tunnel was almost completely gone now. Only slivers of white remained, the only light by which Sasuke could see.
And then it hit him. Was he a ninja or wasn’t he?
A few Signs later, a few whispered words, and blue light spun out from Sasuke’s hands. The boulder levitated, slowly but surely. In seconds, Naruto was free.
Sasuke forced the boulder away with a thundering crash. It fell a few feet away, rocking the ground under Sasuke’s feet. Then, the tunnel groaned, as if it were a dying animal heaving out its final breaths. The walls and ceiling vibrated with the force of it, and hundreds upon hundreds of rocks started falling at once.
They had only moments.
He wedged one arm under Naruto’s shoulders and one under his knees. With one mighty effort, he lifted Naruto bodily from the tunnel floor, and ran with everything he had back the way he came.
It was the scariest run of his life. The tunnel debris was on Sasuke’s heels. (He is sure that if he had slowed down even a fraction, he and Naruto both would have been swallowed up by the avalanche of stone.)
When they reached the other end, Sakura was scolding him in every way that she could for his recklessness. Kakashi merely sighed, murmuring something about the mysteries of teenaged passions.
Sasuke laid Naruto down on the soft earth. The rest of Team Seven circled around him. Kakashi weaved several healing jutsu Signs over Naruto’s leg. Sakura asked after how Naruto was feeling no less than five times.
But Naruto’s eyes were on Sasuke.
“You…you saved my life,” he coughed. He smiled weakly at Sasuke. There was ash all over his cheeks and his eyes were hazy and unfocused. But he was alive. “I think I might owe you a bowl of ramen.”
“Idiot,” Sasuke scolds him, through the tears in his eyes.
Naruto did end up buying him that bowl of ramen. And a plate of barbequed squid. And a cup of delectable curry. And, on one memorable occasion, a three-course dinner at the most expensive restaurant in the village (which Sasuke still doesn’t know how Naruto managed to afford).
They spent a lot of time together, is the point. Sasuke couldn’t tell if they were hanging out as best friends who were taking turns saving each other’s lives or if they were actually dating.
He hoped it was the latter. But somehow, he never actually got up the guts to ask.
And Naruto never said. He laughed and joked and seemed to be having a good time, at least. Sometimes his eyes would linger on Sasuke. Sometimes he would leave a few beats of silence in their conversation, during which neither of them would do anything but watch each other, something unresolved in the air. Sometimes he would stand just a bit closer, or sit a few centimeters nearer than he normally would. But Sasuke could never be sure if it was actually that on Naruto’s mind.
Either way, Sasuke enjoyed it. He had Naruto’s undivided attention on a regular basis.
And Naruto wasn’t asking Sakura out to similar meetings, which was a major plus.
With these developments in their relationship, Sasuke still found himself taking care of Naruto whenever he needed it. Even in highly demonstrative ways.
When they were seventeen, they were all Anbu operatives – tasked with the most dangerous and fearsome missions in all the Hidden Leaf Village. (Sasuke quite liked being in the Anbu. He was able to wear literal masks and hide himself from whoever he cared to, on top of doing a job that required a good amount of cunning and secrecy.)
Naruto never really enjoyed the Anbu. It ran contrary to his natural state, which was one of honesty and forthright display of his emotions. On one of their Anbu missions, in fact, Naruto lost it.
The mission involved rescuing a married couple who had been kidnapped by thieves holding them for ransom.
Except…they didn’t reach the couple in time. When Sasuke and Naruto had reached the theives’ camp…the couple had been murdered. Gruesomely.
Upon looking at them, Naruto had promptly threw up. Sasuke rubbed his back as he did, and wracked his brains for some sort of cure for the nausea, but came up short. All that he managed was a quick jutsu that instantly cleaned Naruto’s mouth. That should help him feel a little better, right? When Naruto straightened up, he had a dismayed, haunted look in his eyes.
“They have a child, Sasuke,” he had said, with a quaking voice. “A son.”
Sasuke hadn’t known that. He hadn’t known what to say. “How old?” he found himself asking.
“Two,” said Naruto. Sasuke saw tears well up in his eyes. “Two. He won’t even remember…”
And Naruto shivered violently. He wrapped his arms around himself and held, hunched over and turning his eyes to the ground.
“I can’t do this anymore, Sasuke,” he whispered. “I can’t. I’m not cut out for this. I want to go back. I’ll do something else. I’m not good for the Anbu. I’m not good for this I’m not good for this I’m not good for this - ”
It was hard for Sasuke to see Naruto so not himself. He felt badly for the couple, and their orphaned child, but it was a distant sympathy. What he felt for Naruto’s pain was immediate, and clearer, and sharper.
Naruto never gave up. On anything. He never thought himself less than capable. For him to react like this…Sasuke knew it was because of Naruto’s own, all-too-real empathy. His own wretched history.
Naruto felt alone, and abandoned, the same way that orphaned two year old would feel, when they learned of their parents’ deaths. Naruto had been alone for most of his life. No guardians. No family. Apart from the Ninja Academy, Naruto had nobody.
Sasuke could change that. He would change that. Right now.
“Naruto,” he had said, and Naruto had looked up.
(They were the same height, back then. Sasuke still remembers the insane amount of blue in Naruto’s eyes, even then, when they were swimming with tears.)
And then Sasuke had taken Naruto’s cheek in his hand, and kissed him.
“You’re the strongest ninja I know,” he had said, when he pulled back. “You’ll be alright.”
Naruto had said nothing, but he had stared at Sasuke with wide eyes, and had nodded, after a few beats.
They left that mission with heavy hearts. (Naruto still has nightmares about it, once or twice a year. He went on to mentor the toddler that was left without his mom and dad. The boy is now quite a respectable Jonin.)
He and Naruto never discussed the kiss, or the thing growing between them. But Sasuke knew that the roots of it ran deep.
“There is no way that’s going to work,” Sasuke argued. “We would have to remain unseen through miles of enemy territory, carrying the Rock between us, which lights up like a damned beacon, mind you, in the dark.”
“Sasuke, what choice do we have?” Naruto asked. “We have to get the thing there.”
Sasuke huffed, turning away. This was a disaster in the making. Naruto was right. What choice did they have? That was entirely the problem. They were stuck in an almost guaranteed-to-fail set of circumstances.
“Sasuke…ninjas must endure,” Kakashi murmured behind his balaclava.
“We’re practically handing ourselves to them. We’re going to be caught, and hanged. The only variable is whether or not we’ll be tortured first.” Sasuke argued. He was exhausted, overheated, and thirsty. He had no time to couch his words in anything resembling courtesy.
All of them were exhausted. It was yet another reason why this plan was sure to fail.
“Don’t talk to Kaka-sensei that way!” Sakura shouted at him.
(By the time they were 18 years old, Sakura had lost much of the deference her younger self had to him. In fact, she was downright contrary with Sasuke much of the time. At the time, Sasuke paid very little mind to this. Now, he reflects on it and realizes that she was likely angry about the not-so-subtle flirting that he and Naruto did on a regular basis. He couldn’t blame her. They were known to be about as subtle as an elephant in a library. During one memorable episode, Sasuke had literally found himself drooling. Naruto had stripped down to his shorts. He was throwing himself into a river, you see, trying to get dragon venom washed off of himself. And Sasuke had just…yeah. Stared. Kakashi had had to put one finger under his jaw and close Sasuke’s mouth for him. Which had been highly embarrassing.)
“Sakura, the problem is not my tone,” Sasuke had said, through gritted teeth. “The problem are these damned mission parameters. Am I the only one who sees how ludicrous this – argh, Naruto, what are you doing?”
“Come on, Sasuke,” Naruto had said firmly. He was dragging Sasuke along by the arm, in the direction of the nearby forest. “Atta boy.”
“What? W-where are we going?” Sasuke had sputtered. He looked around himself in complete bewilderment. The figures of Kakashi and Sakura were retreating into the distance. “Naruto, the enemy town is that way,” he continued, waving his free hand in the opposite direction.
“I know,” said Naruto, with a remarkable amount of audible patience. He continued dragging Sasuke to the forest.
“Then why are we - ”
“Because, Sasuke,” Naruto explained, pulling Sasuke into the trees. “You’re in one of your…moods.”
(Sasuke remembers how indignant he felt at this remark. He was eighteen years old - a full grown, rational man, thank you very much. ‘Moods’ were for people like Sakura.)
“I don’t have moods,” Sasuke immediately argued. “I was pointing out very real concerns. I’m trying to keep our team alive, Naruto.”
Naruto sighed. He finally let go of Sasuke’s arm. Sasuke found himself surrounded by a thick ring of evergreens. There was a carpet of pine-needles under his feet and almost complete silence in the air.
(He remembers these details very keenly, you see. They are burned into his neurons.)
“I know you are, Sasuke,” Naruto had said, with another sigh. “But you’re driving everyone insane. …don’t give me that look. It’s true.”
Sasuke was pretty much dumbfounded at this pronouncement. He thought he was being practical. Aren’t team members supposed to look at situations realistically?
“I know you’re not trying to. But you’ve got to calm down. You have all this…anxious energy and the rest of us can’t handle it,” Naruto had said, full of firm kindness.
Sasuke blinked. He felt a rush of hot shame. The last thing he wanted to be considered was a loose canon, especially in front of Naruto.
He wanted Naruto to see him as strong. Capable. Smart. A partner.
Suddenly, he found himself pushed against one of the tree trunks. Rough bark dug into his shoulder blades, and his head banged against it hard enough to hurt.
“Naruto! What was that for?” he demanded.
But Naruto said nothing. He fell to his knees at Sasuke’s feet.
An entirely different rush filled Sasuke then. This was an image he had often dreamt of. Naruto’s golden locks within arm’s reach…blue eyes huge and staring up at him. Clouding with…with that. That look. Like Sasuke was the only man in the world.
Sasuke wasn’t prepared for it. At all.
“W-what are you doing?” he asked. He tried to push himself off the tree trunk - tried to stand up properly. At some point, without his consent, his body had seen fit to simply sag against it.
Naruto’s hands latched onto his hips and pushed him back.
“Sasuke, relax,” Naruto said. “You’ve been snapping at everyone. The mission’s suffering. Even Kakashi is going to snap back at any moment, and he never snaps at anyone. You need to chill.”
Sasuke felt himself frown. “Well, it’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. I - ”
Naruto cut him off. “No, Sasuke, that’s not how I meant it. You’re fine. You’re more than fine.”
With that, Naruto’s eyes ran from the tips of Sasuke’s spikey hair to his boots and back again.
“You just need to…release some tension,” Naruto continued. He leaned in, hands sliding from Sasuke’s hips to his belt buckle.
In an instant, Sasuke’s hands were on top of Naruto’s, clutching tightly. “Whoa whoa whoa…what are you doing?”
Naruto took that opportunity to grin up at him, mouth wicked and knowing.
“If you don’t know,” he said. “It’s been way too long.”
Sasuke’s brain was slowly putting the pieces together: what Naruto intended to do, here, in this silent forest, during this insane moment when they were supposed to be completing a dangerous mission, with him. But despite how much certain parts of him were quite on board with the idea, he couldn’t let it go any further without Naruto understanding something.
“It’s been never, Naruto.”
Naruto paused, then smiled up at him with bright eyes. “Even better,” he said simply.
Then he went back to work on the belt, shaking Sasuke’s hands off.
But Sasuke’s damned mouth wouldn’t stop running. “Naruto, wait. This isn’t the time for this. We’re on a mission and I…you…we haven’t even talked. We haven’t even said we - ”
“We’ll talk later,” said Naruto easily. He kept up a valiant struggle with Sasuke’s belt. “You need this right now.”
“Naruto, we can’t. Sakura or Kakashi will catch us, and that’s only assuming the Akatsuki don’t - ”
Naruto sighed again, and actually began to sound somewhat impatient. “Sasuke?”
“…hmm?”
“Shut up.”
Naruto got the belt buckle free and all but ripped Sasuke’s belt from his pants. He threw it carelessly behind himself before tearing into Sasuke’s pants.
Sasuke shut up.
Like most things in his life, Naruto took to this with an undeniable and infectious enthusiasm.
“See?” he asked, voice just a hint lower in pitch. His hands were touching parts of Sasuke that no one had ever touched. “You’re so tense, Uchiha. Even here.”
Sasuke inhaled sharply. (He remembers that his head had fallen back against the tree trunk at this part. He had bits of bark in his hair for days. They clung stubbornly to his locks and no amount of shampoo would easily release them. …but it was worth it. God, was it worth it.)
“And don’t think that I’m just doing this to calm you down,” Naruto continued. He stroked up and down, soft and slow, but sure. “That’s just an added bonus. I’m doing this because I want to. You kissed me weeks ago, you bastard. Before my birthday. And you never said anything afterward. What’s a boy to do?”
“I didn’t…I thought…” Sasuke tried to say. He closed his eyes against the sensations below, trying to think clearly. “I thought if you were…into it…that you would have said something by now.”
“That’s what this is,” said Naruto. His slow, pleasurable, addicting strokes didn’t falter. “I’m saying something.”
“I…hear you loud and clear,” Sasuke said, feeling like laughing. (It’s because he was so happy in that moment. Sasuke had spent much of his life under the assumption that someone wanting him that way would never happen. At least, he never thought they would do so with anything more substantial than the physical. And there was Naruto, surpassing his expectations, as always. And Naruto was still at his side, surpassing expectations. Sasuke loves him with a fierce, fierce hopelessness.)
“Good,” Naruto murmured. Yeah, his voice was definitely a good octave lower now. “Because I’m not much into sharing.”
“N-neither am I,” Sasuke stuttered.
That’s when Naruto took an experimental lick, and Sasuke saw stars.
“I like that sound,” said Naruto, pulling back.
Sasuke hadn’t even realized that he’d made one. Oh, he was such a goner.
Then Naruto leaned forward again, and was licking up and down in earnest. Sasuke’s hands buried themselves in his silky blond hair, probably clutching too hard, probably causing pain, but unable to ease up. It was too much.
Naruto was making appreciative sounds under his breath as he worked. Little mmms and chuckles that had Sasuke’s head filled with nothing but him. Every little smile of Naruto’s that he loved…every little jump and whoop and cheer. Every time Naruto had demonstrated some unbelievable strength…every time he’d put forward his undeniable goodness.
Naruto was a hero. And the hero had chosen Sasuke.
“I’ve never done this either, you know,” Naruto whispered.
Another long, wet lick. Sasuke keened.
“So don’t…judge too harshly. Okay?” he continued.
Sasuke’s eyes flew open. He stared at Naruto incredulously. He was short of breath, but he panted the words out anyway. “Do I…look like I’m…having anything less than the time of my life?”
Naruto chuckled. “Good point. You were always smarter than me.”
He got back to work. This time, he slid his mouth down, enveloping Sasuke completely.
It was heaven.
“That’s…ah!...that’s…oh dear God…that’s debatable…Naruto,” Sasuke breathed.
Things didn’t last much longer, after that. Sasuke lost track of time, and himself. All he really was conscious of was Naruto’s hot, wet mouth and how much he adored the man.
“Naruto…Naruto…I’m not…I’m going to…” Sasuke panted. He thrashed against the tree trunk, half pulling away from the intensity and half driving forward. (It was only courteous to warn someone, right? Sasuke had no idea of the etiquette required of…this.)
“Mmmm,” Naruto hummed. He pulled off, saying quickly, “Come on…do it…I want you to, Sasuke,” before diving back in, sucking hard.
Sasuke’s vision went black, then brilliantly white. He came, long and intense and bone-wracking. Gasping with the force of it, he felt like he would die from lack of oxygen.
Sasuke looked down, finally trusting his vision enough to open his eyes. When he did, he saw Naruto pull away, licking his lips and not a drop of Sasuke’s release in sight. He didn’t think that Naruto could have made the entire experience any better, but that…
Naruto was good at proving him wrong.
When they got back to Kakashi and Sakura, Sasuke was much more positive. They fulfilled their mission parameters, got the Rock safely across the border, and he and Naruto kicked butt. As usual.