Now with Cover Art! here and even more here! I do love when people love me--makes me so squishy and warm inside.

Just fear me, love me, and I will be your slave.
--Jareth The Goblin King (David Bowie), Labyrinth

***

It was raining. Gray sunlight turned the poisoned trees and canyons dark charcoal, so smudgy it may've been night. Naruto ran.

He'd sent Sakura ahead of him with Kakashi-sensei while he protected the rear; the older man needed medical attention badly, and Sakura would be able to help him better than Naruto would if they weren't able to reach help in time. He wasn't sure how far ahead Sakura was--the rain made it hard to tell, but if he had this much trouble following Sakura with her low chakra and high speed that meant that their pursuers were having a worse time.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end while he ran--he could feel he was being followed, watched, tried branching off the path and double-backing to throw them off Sakura's trail, because in his condition he wasn't really up for fighting. Sections of his body--his left shoulder, lower right abdomen--had been badly wounded and burned painfully as the sinew knitted itself back together.

The wounds didn't slow him down much--they hadn't got his legs--but he was at enough of a disadvantage to not want to fight, in case they managed to surprise him. He could put up a resistance, but he might not win, and being a prisoner of the Sound, of Orochimaru...

Otogakure flew past him, drenched in the heavy humid rain. He could still feel them. They weren't too close. He had time.

Over the rain, wind, his own heartbeat, and the gentle slap of his zoari against the trees he heard metal whistle through the air and threw himself to one side instinctively, one hand already coming out of his weapon's pouch and the other twisted in the beginning of a seal.

He didn't really remember how the fight went. It was dark and they'd gotten the drop on him, so well he wasn't even sure what had happened.

Something happened to his leg, his head (the bastards had overtaken him, overtaken him and he hadn't so much as felt them do it). He only had one clear memory before he blacked out (or they killed him. He wouldn't be able to tell the difference between blacking out and dying until he tried to wake up and couldn't), and that was red. Something dark red.

Home.

***

When he came to, he took stock of his situation (as much as he could in his condition), and was not happy. From the stolid feel of his body, several hours had passed; probably not 12, but more than five, likely.

It was icy. He could smell metal, wet stone, and old blood. And...he could smell something else, but that wasn't possible.

His sense of smell was screwed up--he wasn't sure how, but it was. His senses were off, and it wasn't until several valuable vital seconds after he realized that, no, his senses weren't lying to him (not this time), but the guy who didn't exist anymore really was there.

In front of him. With him. There.

The air was charged, static. It tasted like tin, right before an electric storm, all dry thinned-out gray frustration and anger. The back of his throat caught fire--it wasn't exactly fear. Not exactly.

It'd been too long. That was why his senses felt screwed up--it'd been too long. What would Sakura do? What should he do?

What if he tried to kill Naruto again?

It was dead silent. His heart boomed in his ears painfully. The floor heaved.

Naruto favored attacking first. If he thought about it, about who was there (with him, he'd come for--), he'd stop breathing; he'd have a heart attack in the middle of Sound without anyone laying a hand on him and that'd be too embarrassing to contemplate.

"Am I supposed to fear you?" Naruto drawled sleepily.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, one wave of gray apprehension followed by another wave of sharp red pain and concrete chill. It hurt to struggle for either sphere, but Naruto crawled for the cold anyway. Where the pain and chill was, he would be there. He was worth crawling for.

"If you want," Sasuke sounded miles away. "You should be. I don't expect you to be smart enough to realize it."

Even through the pain, Naruto cracked a weak smile. His eyes stayed shut. "Back to the old insults?"

"That's what you came for, wasn't it?"

Naruto stopped smiling, gradually. His insides leaked.

Even at the academy, Sasuke had plenty of talents that he worked and sharpened neurotically, but he had several more talents he never fully grew into. The ability to kill Naruto's smile was one. The ability to kill Naruto was another.

Naruto made a point to control his breathing, not too fast in case it ripped something and not too slow so he passed out again. His lungs ballooned out inside him painfully, but didn't pop, so that was all right. He half-wondered what they'd done to his insides.

The men and women Leaf recovered from Sound, after experiments and torture (often both at the same time, often both the same thing), usually didn't live very long after being rescued. Then again, he wasn't them.

"I came to stop you," and the odd thing was, as cliché and pathetic as the phrase was, especially when he was coughing up blood on his bare chest and his bones were freezing and he couldn't feel his arms or even see, Naruto meant it. He didn't have much to back it up with, but he meant it.

"I killed you already. You've never been able to stop me before," the pain wasn't enough to paint over the distance, the unconcerned contempt and Naruto found himself biting the inside of his cheek to block out Sasuke's voice.

"You don't have the guts--not for Leaf, and not for yourself. You'd die fir--"

"Shut up."

'Shut up' was a good phrase; way over-used in the long illustrious insult-battles and wars of the Naruto-Sasuke History of Combative Diplomacy, but "shut up" was a good response. It was all-purpose, didn't take much thought, and while it almost never worked, saying it made Naruto feel better. Not as good as yanking Sasuke around by his hair and forcing his foot down his throat, but still good.

Surprisingly, Sasuke shut up. For a while.

Pain and mild heat ghosted over Naruto's bare abdomen, danced on the many shallow cuts and muscle bruises, burned slow in the two deep puncture wounds and bone bruising, the conflagrations of his left broken knee. They'd really done him over on his leg--he'd be lucky if he could make it stand.

He could feel Sasuke's eyes picking him over like a raven, feeling some parts and opening others, pocketing bits of useful information. Naruto's throat felt too much like cat litter to yell at Sasuke to stop staring, to tell him to go away.

His arms had gone numb from being tied above his head for so long he couldn't even feel them. The Sound had probably used iron--his nerves were too numb for him to tell, and he didn't feel good enough to look up. Something rectangular with edges poked out of the wall and poked the center of his lower back--felt like metal.

He wasn't sure what had been done to his legs, besides fracturing the left one, but he couldn't move either. He'd been working on wiggling his right big toe before he realized Sasuke was there. Naruto had no idea how long he'd been watched, half-awake and wasted, wasn't sure they weren't be watched now.

Nothing had been done to his eyes--besides blacking them--but someone had hit him with something at the base of his neck. From the ashy-brittle feel of his spine and migraine, he'd wager it'd been a small continent. Naruto opened his eyes and blinked unsteadily, not seeing much besides black on black, then on the second blink dark gray on black, then on the third blink something flickering that may've been a candle to his far, far right. The long gray shadow standing in front and away from him was Sasuke's legs. He didn't try to look higher.

"We both know I'm right," Sasuke whispered somberly. "You're weak in a way you can't change."

If his throat had been up to it, Naruto would've told Sasuke where he could shove that weakness and rotate on the damned thing, but his throat wasn't. Besides, Sasuke was right.

Go away. Go away. I can't deal with you right now--not when I'm injured. This wasn't how I wanted...

"They tell me," Sasuke's voice was like open water after midnight, dark and bottomless, "you have a monster in you."

Naruto froze. The liquid swelling up his throat had nothing to do with the pain. He closed his eyes--his hair hid his face, so no one could see it anyway.

He'd been expecting this. Eventually. He'd told Sakura to keep it from happening. He hadn't expected it so soon. Not from...

Then again, he hadn't expected anything from Sasuke. Except that he'd try to kill Naruto again.

"That you can't die normally. That was why you didn't die, when I killed you."

That hurt. That one hurt.

We're enemies. It shouldn't hurt.

If we were enemies, it wouldn't hurt. I wouldn't care.

"Fuck off."

Another good, all-purpose insult, but the snarl shuddering underneath was a better answer. More eloquent.

Naturally, Sasuke ignored it. Sasuke ignored almost everything he did, except when it really mattered.

"I wondered what was wrong with you. You were so fucked up, but you never died." Sasuke scoffed, low in his throat, "I thought maybe you were special, somehow, and not a freak like the others said."

Naruto shrugged it off.

"You were wrong," he hated saying that, hated admitting that--he didn't even believe it--but it was the only way to shut Sasuke up, the only way to make him stop. If he acted like he didn't care, Sasuke would stop--he wanted a fight from Sasuke, but not about this. Not this. He didn't need this, not from Sasuke, never from Sasuke. Not now.

Anyway, this wasn't even really happening--he was delirious. They'd probably drugged him--his head felt like it, fuzzy with a side of hell. Orochimaru wouldn't be stupid enough to let him get close to Sasuke. No way; no way in hell. Not even Orochimaru was that dumb.

Naruto went through the motions anyway. He could argue with Sasuke for hours without Sasuke actually being present; he didn't need drugs or pain for that.

His voice was wooden. "I've heard this before."

I'm human. Fuck what you think.

"Funny how it still hurts, even though it's old." Sasuke had a lot of skills. "Even though you already know."

Naruto didn't answer.

In the distance, water dripped. He'd been hearing it for a while, but hadn't recognized it. It felt like they were underground--cold, with air that was ancient and damp, smelled like dirt more than it smelled like air. A lot of the Sound village was underground--intelligence hadn't been able to ascertain how much.

Something white threatened to explode in his spine as Naruto lifted his head up an inch, "What do you want?"

He knew what Sasuke wanted in a general sense--everyone knew what Sasuke wanted in a general sense. What Sasuke wanted specifically, why he'd bothered to see Naruto at all and speak to him, was something else.

He came to see me...

He came to spit in my face, that's what the fucker came to do.

I don't think this is happening. My senses are off.

Could be an illusion. Sasuke wouldn't...not for me. Fuck. Probably not even for Sakura, the bastard.

Naruto didn't try to look further than his good right foot. They'd taken his shoes. Not looking at Sasuke wasn't about fear--he'd spit in Orochimaru's eye and choke the bitch with his own tongue if he got the chance. Not looking had nothing to do with physical fear. Sasuke had always been special.

What if it's real?

Naruto didn't believe that. He didn't believe this, that he was talking to him, that it wasn't another stupid dream (or daydream). He'd had a million dreams like this, him and Sasuke yelling and bitching one another out, and there was never a clear resolution when Naruto wasn't being romantic. The dreams bothered Jiraiya-sensei, notable only because almost nothing seemed to really bother Jiraiya-sensei.

"I wanted to see how you changed," Sasuke's voice was deeper than he'd imagined it being, colder, with a body that didn't feel like Sasuke, the Sasuke Naruto remembered. The Sasuke he thought about. "We didn't get the chance to fight."

"I would've kicked your ass," even without looking, Naurto could see the response on Sasuke's lips--whatever color they were now, however they looked now. They'd known each other too long to not predict one another's reactions. It was like a dance or a play: everything known ahead of time, no loopholes or escapes.

"You know what I am," Naruto placed the words down like his second-best set of cards. "I wouldn't have to hold back this time."

Naruto closed his eyes, counted to two, and braced his left side.

The attack came from the right, a foot in his ribs, right where he'd already healed from the damn acid, a hand slamming his throat back and up until Naruto's feet dangled, still lifeless and numb. Stars exploded in front of his eyes. His arms felt like the bones had been ripped out, the flesh hanging like loose empty sleeves. Loud cracking noises echoed in the periphery of his ear, the echoes of his own body being kicked around and slammed against the wall. It was hard to hear it over his heartbeat, pounding an overwhelming red in his temples and ears. The sound was going to bust his skull open. He was going to pass out again.

I let you win. You weren't worth a real fight. How do ya like that?

He didn't scream. It hurt, but he'd been expecting that, and even though his eyes were clenched shut Naruto shoved a grin out because underneath the shadows, darkness, and silence, Sasuke was still human. Sasuke was still Sasuke. Still an ass hole. Still taller than him too, damn it.

"You're enjoying this?" Sasuke's voice was still level, somber, but annoyed at the edges. Naruto mentally clapped himself on the back, the grin inching wider. Fingers dug into the side of his neck, squeezing--damn, but Sasuke's hands had gotten wide over the years. Naruto's had gotten taller, but his hands were still a fingernails-width smaller than Sakura's. It was embarrassing.

He was going to pass out. He was going to throw up and pass out.

Sasuke dropped him, and Naruto tried to angle himself forward so he wouldn't scrape his back on the metal-square sticking out of the wall.

His ass hit the floor. His arms burned from the jolt, but he'd avoided most of the metal-square, so only the top of his back was skinned raw. His throat jerked and his lungs--or something--coughed up more blood, made his throat raw-er.

His vision went from black to light, opaque green, sliding easily into white and Naruto fought not to pass out. He could probably live with throwing up because there wasn't enough in his stomach to make a big deal out of it, but being unconscious and defenseless in Sound (in front of Sasuke) was not a survival strategy.

Blocking out pain wasn't the first thing they taught you at the Academy, but it was the lesson that got hammered in repeatedly. Whenever it got too bad--and it was pretty bad now, the pain--he always remembered Iruka-sensei getting stabbed through the back with a 4 foot long shuriken to protect him, or Kakashi-sensei's hand punctured through the bone before kicking Zabuza's ass to protect everyone, or Sasuke being stabbed all over with senbon needles and still fighting to. To protect.

He didn't think of that so much anymore. Not even in his dreams.

But after a while--three weeks usually--physical pain was nothing. Everyone got used to it, or they kept to missions that didn't involve leaving the village much.

"You won't look at me," Sasuke commented to himself. "You are afraid of me."

Physical pain didn't have a thing to do with keeping his eyes shut. It did have everything to do with his body wincing and flinching, clenching because it hurt, and the pain wasn't going away.

"You're still a bitch," Naruto growled viscerally out because his throat was too hoarse to do anything else. Blood ran down his throat and burned like lead over the open sores.

His skin burned differently now, and not only from pain--everything was slowly moving to a low-grade fever, meaning the minor wounds were fairly healed and everything else was being a bitch. His temples pounded loudly, almost drowning Sasuke out. His arms screamed then went silent then screamed again--the blood circulation was finally coming back to them. "Could at least offer me some goddamned tea. First time--"

Naruto swallowed the rest and closed his throat--felt like he was going to vomit, and it wouldn't be food that came up. He was pushing it--his body was freezing and too badly wounded. His body was healing; faster than any normal human's, a normal ninja's, burning with a faint heat that was a different sort of pain as it healed, but he was pushing it.

Water dripped. He couldn't hear Sasuke at all.

Something smooth and hard touched his broken lip, and cold sloshed over the cup's rim. It could've been poison, but then they could've funneled arsenic down Naruto's throat until his stomach exploded just for the hell of it. Naruto drank, some water spilling down his chin. It tasted metallic, dirty, but cold. He coughed when he was done, but his throat didn't feel like something spiky that'd been dragged through the sewers anymore.

Chilled water splashed over his head and Naruto hissed briefly, ice trickling down his armpits and sides. Small spasms broke out under his skin as his body started shivering to keep warm. He cracked an eye open to aim the giant gob of mucus and blood at Sasuke properly and found himself looking at Sasuke's shoulder level with his head. A foot away.

Naruto's eye closed. When had he gotten so close to him? When in the fuck had he...?

Muscles jerked in his abdomen and neck, and Naruto rasped, "What the fuck did you do to my legs?"

Sasuke was crouched over his legs. Sasuke was within two feet of him, and Naruto couldn't so much as kick him. Or spit on him. Unfair.

This didn't feel like a dream anymore. He was never this cold (never cold) when he dreamed. And he was never this weak. Sasuke was rarely so close, except in the dreams where Naruto really wasn't in control but really asleep and this definitely wasn't one of those. In those, he wasn't in pain.

"Don't know. You could be permanently paralyzed."

"Bullshit, they wouldn't hurt if I was--fuck!"

A hand slammed his left cheek into the wall while a knife dug shallowly into his right one.

He's touching me. Oh shit.

The hand hurt more than the knife did.

His right cheek began to burn painfully, blood trickling down and back towards his neck, down his jaw. The skin around the cut was pale under Naruto's tan. Sasuke was quiet, watching him intently, and Naruto understood. He doubted Sasuke was surprised--he'd shoved his hand through Naruto's lung and seen the body heal in under a minute.

They tell me you have a monster in you.

Naruto wheezed erratically, trying to slow his breathing down into something stable. Sasuke's hands were warmer than they should've been--they should've been freezing, like the cell and iron and like Sasuke's voice, but they weren't.

I've got a lot more than that...

"What's your threshold?" Sasuke sounded curious.

That one took him a while to understand, then Naruto went cold for reasons that had nothing to do with the water or stone. Not ice-cold, but early-spring cold. The kind of laid-back casual cold that went postal without warning.

Not everyone went through torture. Not everyone survived torture. Naruto had come close to it, to people who had, but he'd never been put through it, never had to stand it.

"Do you know your limit?" Sasuke's voice was too familiar, too much like home to be asking and suggesting that. "On pain? Recovery?"

Naruto stayed very still. He tried to remember everything Kakashi-sensei had ever told him about staying still. One finger gently traced the still pink but healed wound, warm and smooth. One finger traced his--his--skin. Then, for some odd reason, someone was breathing on his skin, pressing him tighter against the stone.

It really didn't feel like a dream. He was never this tense in his Sasuke-dreams.

When Sasuke's tongue touched his skin, Naruto yelped and jerked up with his arms, tried to kick with his feet (he did manage to move his big toe) but didn't achieve much besides slouch further down and twist his hips sideways. The metal-whatever dug into his vertebrae painfully, gouged out a small hole, the wall roughed his shoulders and banged against his skull.

"Sasuke! What the fuck! Sasuke!"

He's not he's really he can't oh god oh fuck oh shit.

Holy crap. Sasuke Uchiha. Sasuke.

Oh shit.

He couldn't get away, couldn't breathe, and for a long, long time it went on.

"You taste like fire," Sasuke's voice slid frostily from underneath Naurto's jaw, behind his shoulder.

He was fighting to keep his face blank. Wasn't working so well. Every nerve ending was hanging off the edge and snarling, wanting nothing else but the chance to rip Sasuke's face off or bolt. He really wanted to bolt. His jaw clenched--he couldn't persuade it to relax, he'd start screaming if he did. Cold sweat slid down his face, slowly.

Sasuke was too close. He was way too close, warm, and the only thing warm even under all the gray layers of clothing, crouched over Naruto's legs and his tongue again--

Naruto blinked rapidly then wanted to slap himself for it--his heart rate was too fast. There was no place to run and no way to hide. He couldn't panic--not now, not in front of Sasuke. He just couldn't.

He could smell his him, his hair, Sasuke was that close. Naruto was going crazy. He'd never been touched, never been close enough to a girl to even get close to being touched like this. And this wasn't a stranger. This wasn't even a girl.

Water dripped. Slowly, but somewhat rhythmically. He focused on it, the tiny hollow sound softer than his heartbeat. Water drops were like a clock's ticking: whether you hated them or loved them, they were a distraction. Naruto tried counting them.

The tongue moved to his jaw. Not tasting blood anymore, just tasting him. Warm and wet and just a little bit rough.

He kept fumbling the water drops--he counted five when it might've been seven. The water was too damn slow. The sweat coming out of skin wasn't quite so cold anymore. He was going to scream.

Sasuke pulled his head back and studied Naruto face pale with anger, kept shoving his face into the rock. How long had it been? Seconds? Minutes? Felt longer. Sasuke thumbed a minor bruise on his chest.

"Does that hurt?"

Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore.

Naruto kept his eyes half-open and focused on the far wall. His vision was still too blurry to make anything out. Silence for a few seconds. He felt Sasuke study him--take in every weakness and restrained impulse his face let show. He started wishing in earnest he'd paid more attention to Kakashi-sensei's lectures about self-control.

Concentrate on the water. Might've been eight drops now.

Sasuke's finger trailed over his skin, one finger warmer than the cell and colder than the fever and the softest thing he'd ever felt. Down his chest, along his breastbone, sideways over his ribs--Naruto's jaw clenched harder, it was hard to breathe--started to go his stomach but stopped before it reached his navel, rubbing a pink freshly healed scar. He could imagine the sweat and grime smearing underneath the finger, even if he couldn't see it. Wasn't visible. Naruto was good at imaging things.

Traitor.

"Does this still hurt?" The finger performed a slow waltz over his right pectoral. Directly over his right lung.

You tried to kill me. You wanted to kill me.

"You should've died. You were supposed--"

"That meant to scare me?" Naruto could hear his own voice shake. It wasn't from physical fear, exactly. A good deal of it was anger. Sasuke had always been special.

"Yes," Sasuke was serious. "How much can your body take before it shuts down?"

Naruto blinked slower than he wanted to, so slowly he almost closed his eyes and winced. It took him a while to answer, and he didn't like that either.

"That what you're here for?"

If the answer was yes, he was going to be physically ill. There were a lot of things he could believe about Sasuke, the stories he and Sakura weren't supposed to know about that circulated through Leaf, but he wasn't ready for this yet. Not that. Not this.

No answer.

Naruto pressed, "Were you sent?"

Water dripped. Sasuke's fingers trailed over his throat gently, his other hand still plowing his skull into the wall. Naruto swallowed awkwardly while Sasuke's hand slipped slowly over his jugular, along his jaw.

"It would make you feel better if you thought this was an order," Sasuke murmured softly, invisible, lightly touching the dried blood underneath Naruto's lips from where he'd punched him around. "So I suppose I should say I came here freely to hurt you. But if I wanted to win your trust, I should say this is as painful for me as it is for you."

It was silent, and then Naruto laughed in his throat. He was not enjoying the fingers touching his lower lip, running again over his cheek that still burned a bit. He was too close. He could smell him too easily, remember things he didn't want.

Naruto's stomach felt queasy, unusually queasy given the circumstances. "I wouldn't believe the last one."

There wasn't an answer, but the fingers left his cheek to go for his throat again, trace his collarbone and shoulders. The touch was too gentle, too light, two fingers only. That bothered him more than he could explain, more than he really wanted to think about. Insults were much better than this. Naruto cast about for something to talk about, something that would get his mind off Sasuke's fingers slowly moving over him, touching him like a doctor. Like Kabuto. Another traitor. Someone Naruto would've liked as a friend.

"So. Feeling up prisoners one of the skills they teach here?"

The fingers froze, then his head was released gently and he leaned forward, twisting the small non-explosive kinks out of his neck. He braced himself for a punch, expecting it to be his left side this time.

Two hands, wider than his and warmer than iron, closed on either side of his face and lifted his head up. Gently, though. No yanking, no squeezing, no throttling him dead. Gently. That was scary.

"I could torture you. I could rape you. No one's going to rescue you." Thumbs rubbed over his closed eyelids soothingly. "What makes you think I won't?"

"You're asking me to defend you?"

Naruto's laugh was a little hysterical, but that was creepy. He'd defended Sasuke from the gossip, from anyone who came close to mentioning something about Sasuke, good or bad, because while they might not be wrong (even about the bad things, especially the bad things, and there were so many bad things...), they had no damn right.

They didn't know Sasuke. They'd never bled for him, never had Sasuke bleed for them and had never made him laugh or seen him smile or hurt and didn't know shit!

But he shouldn't have to defend Sasuke from Sasuke. He wouldn't know where to start.

One hand slid to his throat again, wrapped around it, the other hand skiing over the contours of his ear. Very slowly, Sasuke began to squeeze.

Water dripped.

There was muscular pain--the sides of his neck, the front of his larynx, his jaw--first. Behind his eyelids dark red light crept upward. There was pain long, long before he couldn't breathe anymore, before his body began to panic automatically, frantic, before the dark red light began to turn light pink with white asterisks, the second to last phase before everything went dark and he passed out.

"It's stupid," Sasuke was still squeezing, a slow increasing pressure, his voice lapping and ebbing like dark old water, "to think I won't hurt you. You're weak in a way you can't change but I'm not."

Sasuke pulled him up slowly, as easily as he had the first time rubbing his shoulders raw against the stone, but this time Naruto's feet didn't dangle. When Sasuke spoke again, he tried moving his right ankle and found he could tense his thigh and calf, could probably manage a kick even though it wouldn't be very strong, wouldn't get the chains off his wrists. His left leg burned at a low heat now--still healing but better.

"I will kill you."

He couldn't breathe--couldn't speak. Naruto wasn't too worried about dying like this--the Uchiha Sense Of Drama wouldn't let him die like this without rubbing his face in the dirt some more, but he was worried about passing out. He could always wake up naked and an amputee, or worse: Sasuke could be gone.

I called you brother. Guess I probably should've chosen someone who didn't have such problems with his family.

Naruto's vision went off-white, dove-gray.

I didn't choose you. It just happened.

The pressure vanished from his throat before he could pass out. He angled his body forward again, thinking of the damn metal-whatever and coughed brokenly, throat exhausted from all the abuse it'd been chosen for special lately.

Naruto didn't fall though--Sasuke was holding him up one-handed, his palm pressing into the top of his chest to keep him from falling. Naruto's elbows were finally level with his head without being a scarlet source of agony. He managed to roll his left shoulder. He was getting movement back--slowly, but the responses were coming.

"Open your eyes."

Naruto didn't bother trying to answer, to talk--every so often someone would be right about his big mouth attracting trouble like honey and flies, but mostly he didn't want to talk because his throat hurt, and Sasuke could shoot himself if he couldn't understand that.

"Open your eyes or I'll tear your eyelids off."

Naruto considered that. When they'd been...younger, Sasuke had threatened him once every three or four hours regular, had bluffed his way through scrapes with stronger ninjas with a straight face. What were the chances he was bluffing now? What if he wasn't? What did having your eyelids torn off feel like?

Fingers were brushing his cheek right when Naruto cracked his right eye open. There was a slight burn from the cut underneath it, while the left side of his face was still bruised and aching from plowing the wall.

Somewhere along the line, his eyes had gotten used to the dark, to the tiny dead candle sputtering so far away. He could see Sasuke's pale neck clearly, the lines of the top of his chest and the twists of his gray clothing. Sasuke had gotten taller than him. Naruto didn't try to look into his face.

Is this the part where you ask if you've got something in your teeth? If your lipstick looks all right? Or is this the part where you tell me I'm weak and worthless and start to beat me up?

Water dripped.

"I admired you."

Naruto almost looked up in surprise. His lips parted, but he didn't say anything.

"I thought..."

That was his Sasuke. That was his Sasuke speaking, right there. He'd recognize that cool nervous angry tone anywhere. Something sparked in Naruto's chest, started to burn without encouragement. Wildly.

"But you weren't. You were a freak. You were cheating."

Naruto's mouth hardened. The metal-whatever bumped the back of his calf--he was getting more feeling back. If they drugged him, it'd only be a matter of hours, maybe less, before it wore off.

"You were weak."

"Keep telling yourself that," Naruto's voice was gravelly, dry as old paper, thin and not-quite-gone yet. This was so very, very old. The inferiority complex, the revenge, the damn rivalry--as if any of that really mattered, when people were dying. It got so...stupid.

"That you were better. Stronger. Hell...might come true, if you say it enough. Back then. Not now. I never whored myself out for my power."

In the back of his mind, Naruto didn't expect to finish--he expected Sasuke to punch him long before he came close to finishing, wheezing in between words instead of coughing his lungs out, but Sasuke didn't. The attack never came. Water continued to drip, the temperature continued to be freezing, and Sasuke kept holding him up.

What're you waiting for?

What do you want?

Naruto swallowed and blinked slowly, lifted his head as high as his neck would allow without exploding into a stronger migraine, but he kept his eyes on Sasuke's collarbone, on his chest.

He hurt enough already, physically--seeing how much Sasuke wasn't Sasuke anymore was just a bit more than he wanted to stand. His Sasuke was still in there somewhere...but Sasuke had grown. Or changed. Or something. Sasuke was still his Sasuke, just not...exactly.

"If you're going to kill me, don't talk about it. I don't want to die with you yammering in my ears."

Don't torture me. It's not...it's personal. Us. Not you. Get someone else if... But not you. It's personal. Not you.

Fuck it all. Hit me or let me rest but don't...say that. I'm tired.

"You don't think I will?" Sasuke's voice was still chilly, indifferent.

"I don't care." That wasn't strictly true--he did care. He cared a lot. He wanted to live. He really wanted to live, he had too much to do, too much to fix and eat and feel and prank, too much to live for--too many people to live for--really, to die. Especially just to make Sasuke's pride and ego feel a little better.

On the other hand...

You're weak in a way you can't change.

Except that I wouldn't call it a weakness...but you'll turn it into one. I know you.

And you know me. Better than anyone.

Naruto looked over Sasuke's shoulder, trying to find the candle, trying to make sure they were alone. He didn't want to say this with someone looking over their shoulders, watching. He needed some privacy, to say what he was going to say. What he'd been thinking for years, what scared Jiraiya-sensei and kept Naruto awake at night, the thing he couldn't tell Sakura though Kakashi-sensei might've guessed, because he never could read anything on Kakashi-sensei.

The thing had bothered the hell--no. It hadn't bothered the hell out of him. 'Bothered' wasn't the right word for it, what it had done to him, what Sasuke had done to him. It hadn't even been torture, because torture hurt. Naruto wasn't entirely sure what it was, the thing Sasuke had done to him so completely, to the point where Naruto couldn't get rid of it because he couldn't and because he didn't want to get rid of it because god knew it was the only thing Sasuke had left him with, but he was about tired of being the only one it was happening to.

"I fight for those I love," Naruto rasped. "But if you can kill me, then I've been fighting for the wrong thing."

I called you brother. I still do.

Water dripped.

In many of Jiraiya-sensei's horrible perverted books, there was a phrase called 'waiting with bated breath'. Naruto had come across it a few times in Jiraiya's novels while in the bath, but found it mostly in the horrible flowery dime-store novels Sakura and Ino went crazy over, all soft-porn and flowers and diamonds that weren't much good for masturbating to unless roses turned you on something awful.

He'd never really understood what was so horrible about waiting with bated breath--so you didn't breathe while you waited--big deal. It didn't sound as bad as waiting and breathing after your body had been broken in a million pieces here and there, bone fractures and acid burns and muscles torn, feeling every breath your lungs took in pulling you a little more into the future where bad things were bound to happen to you, where you had less control and less power, and the pain could only get worse.

Knowing that the pain would get worse, and somehow you had to survive through all of it, still breathing if broken and insane.

I fight for you. You can break me. I know that. Hell, I've known that. Jiraiya-sensei knows it, and it scares him. He didn't want us to meet.

And now...you do too. Just in case you didn't before.

Water continued to drip, slow, distant, and hollow sounding. Sasuke didn't respond.

Naruto found himself wishing he hadn't said that, had just gone with one of the usual insult-weapons to continue the war. That had been a bad idea. He shouldn't have done that. Damn...he really was tired.

Fuck it all.

I can't help it. I don't want to stop. But not you. Not you.

"You're a fool," Sasuke whispered somberly.

For once, Naruto agreed.

"I missed you."

He sounded sincere. He sounded...depressed. Small.

Naruto didn't say anything. He blinked. Naruto's eyes went to the side, over the edge of Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke's hand was still burning against his chest.

He could be lying...

Hair--long and dark--brushed his cheek. Sasuke rested his head against the wall, not really touching Naruto but close. Close enough that he could've been, and it wouldn't have been any different.

Naruto swallowed, and felt the first real starts of a low-level dread begin in the bottom of his stomach; he could smell Sasuke. Sasuke. His Sasuke.

I missed you.

It probably said something about Naruto's personality that the only thing he could think right then was, This is going to make it damn hard to fight him later on.

It probably said something else about Naruto's personality, that even as he relaxed his shoulders somewhat and declined jabbing Sasuke's eyes out with his elbow, he was thinking We make terrible enemies.

His neck drooped his forehead forward enough so it came close to resting on Sasuke's shoulder without actually touching Sasuke's shoulder. Sort of resting over his shoulder, not really doing anything wrong but he could've been doing something wrong. Although being here and now, where he was and who he was with, was doing something very wrong already. They were touching each other. They were so close to touching each other...

Orochimaru--if Orochimaru had ordered this, if he even knew about this--was a fool. Jiraiya hadn't wanted them to meet. That kept on repeating in Naruto's mind, in between the shock, sickness, dread, and longing. Jiraiya was as sharp as Orochimaru, had survived through the same rough dark shit of the Shinobi Wars, and Jiraiya hadn't wanted them to meet because he was afraid of...something.

What do you want? What do you really want?

When they were younger, after they'd gotten used to one another and only tried to tear each other's eyes out when they were bored, they never thought twice about touching one another. The familiarity had come easily, almost like it'd been...waiting. For something. It had been so natural to fight together, to read each other like a twin, that no one ever thought twice about it, because it was so damn natural. It wasn't until later, after Naruto lost his twin, did the naturalness seem a little...odd.

And it was odd. Because even after they'd gotten used to one another, so used to each other that they couldn't quite stand each other and there was always something to fight about, even if it was nothing (especially if it was nothing), it was still easy to touch each other, still natural. It was just a lot more painful. But they'd never thought twice about that connection, never questioned it until it was gone.

No.

I didn't want this to happen. Jiraiya-sensei was right. We won't be able to...later on, we won't be able to do what we need to. What I need to.

It was harder and easier to breathe. Naruto closed his eyes.

This can still be a dream. It doesn't have to be real. It doesn't have to be real unless I want it to and I really can't afford...

It got warmer. Sasuke's shirt--or whatever he was wearing--was warm against Naruto's skin, had bits of heat pocketed here in the folds. His skin reached out automatically, crawling towards the heat. He could smell him, Sasuke's smell, the one that had hung around in Sasuke's apartment for a few weeks after he left and Naruto and Sakura volunteered to empty it for a new occupant while Kakashi lounged outside, his nose in a book. The smell stuck to Sasuke's clothes a little while longer inside the bag Naruto had dragged around with Jiraiya-sensei, but after a few months Naruto couldn't be sure if he was actually smelling Sasuke or imagining he was, the few times he accidentally on-purpose pulled the shirt out and smelled it while looking innocently for his toothbrush.

Fuck.

Naruto swallowed, quietly. He couldn't hear the water dripping anymore--he was too warm to hear it. He wasn't sure when, but at some point Sasuke had moved Naruto's head to rest on his shoulder. It had to have been Sasuke who'd done it--Naruto wouldn't have done that on his own, definitely. Sasuke's shoulder was solid, reliable underneath him, and the earth was finally stable and right side up and the world was on the right track for the first time in...what? Three years?

Warm breath washed over the back of Naruto's neck steadily. Sasuke's free hand cupped the side of his hip, helped support him better than the hand that wasn't shoving him against the wall anymore, but was holding his shoulder. Sasuke was leaning against him enough to support him anyway, even without his hands. Naruto tensed, then exhaled slowly.

This wasn't going to work. Bit late now, though.

I'm back.

Wow. I'm really back. I thought you wouldn't...I didn't think we could.

His left leg was still a mess. He couldn't put any weight on it, though he could feel it plenty well, and it all hurt. His right leg was in better shape: it hurt, but he could move it a little, could put his weight on it with only some pain. He could move his thumb. He couldn't feel the rest of his fingers too well, but he could move his right thumb. Not far, not much, and not enough to form any seal to get him out of this mess, but it was progress.

He still wasn't in any condition to fight Sasuke and make a break for it. Sasuke would tear him apart without breaking a sweat.

"Before. Before I," Sasuke stopped again, his lips moving softly against Naruto's ear as he spoke. Naruto didn't think Sasuke noticed, or cared, but his own breathing hitched up and down quietly every time Sasuke's lips brushed against his ear, against his skin. He'd learned to block out pain, but this was a different.

"Before I left. I. I could've killed you." Sasuke paused. Naruto wondered if he could get his rapid heartbeat to shut up and be quiet, wondered if Sasuke was expecting thanks for letting him live. It was the sort of screwed up thing Sasuke would do.

"I think. I wanted to see you." Sasuke's thumb rubbed over his hip slowly, taking time to feel Naruto's skin above his trashed pants, coming as close to holding him as he ever had when they'd dragged each other away from training or a battle, three legs and three hands and two heads. "Again."

This time it was two arms and two legs but still two heads, very close to one another. Naruto lifted his head up enough to eye the weak light still sputtering in the far off corner slightly, his ear brushing against Sasuke's neck before letting their skulls rest together, blond bloodied hair and black knives. He wasn't sure who leaned into who first, but it wasn't the first time he'd been pressed flush against Sasuke, wasn't the first time he'd felt safe just knowing Sasuke was nearby and had his back. It was the first time they'd ever done it--been so close to one another, so open--only Naruto's hands were never chained up, but if he ignored that little detail...it was almost like being home. Again.

He could fall asleep like this. Standing up, curled up warm against Sasuke and smelling him. He could get his first decent sleep in years in Sound. He could get his first decent sleep in Hell, if Sasuke was there.

Naruto closed his eyes and inhaled. It was warm and he felt safe. He wasn't, but he felt it, and that was what mattered.

Back then, the time and place where everything made sense and was right and they were all twelve years old and going to make it Big Time, Sasuke wasn't a touchy-feely person. He disliked touching people on principle. Naruto liked touching people, he just wasn't delicate about it. They never had a problem touching each other, curling into each other when they slept back to back because the inn and Kakashi-sensei were too cheap to get a room that was above freezing. They never thought about it. It wasn't a problem, once they stopped trying to kill each other and reached a compromise that didn't include frozen asses or hypothermia. That was natural too. It wasn't the natural thing that made everything else seem natural, but it was the intimate extreme.

The hand on his hip moved slowly, over the rounded bit of bone then lower down, over his thigh then along the back of his leg and going up, still moving very, very slowly. Felt nice. Naruto smiled to himself--Sasuke hated touching people on principle, but when he wasn't trying to beat the crap out of someone or being a jack-ass (i.e., once every blue moon), he was careful. It always felt nice.

Naruto didn't jump when the hand moved over his butt--he was too relaxed for that, too warm--but he did blink when Sasuke's fingers didn't move into a more appropriate spot, when he noticed Sasuke's breathing was a little less regular against his neck. The hand--warmer and softer than the stone behind, and still more intimidating--stayed where it was. Naruto blinked again.

"What're you doing?"

The hand on his shoulder squeezed, ran down his chest slowly, like ice. It curled over his armpit, rubbed a thumb into his triceps before going down over his side, nails stepping down his ribs one by one like a steps on a ladder.

Naruto shivered involuntarily. It wasn't entirely from the cold.

"Sasuke?"

The wall was getting a lot more intimate with his back because Sasuke was getting a lot more intimate with his chest. Sasuke's nails scraped his nails along his lower back because there was a spot on his spine that made Naruto tense and shiver. The nails kept scraping slowly so Naruto's shivers were more pronounced, longer, and Sasuke kept pressing into him until Naruto could feel the contours of muscle and metal underneath Sasuke's clothes. Sasuke's breathing sounded loud in the silence.

Oh. Shit.

Warmth touched his neck where it'd gone moist from Sasuke's breathing, soft and mobile and brushing the back of Naruto's ear, the nape of his neck and bruises from Sasuke's fingers. His heartbeat began to pick up, and Naruto's face began to heat.

His lips. Sasuke Uchiha was touching him with his lips. Good god. Naruto blinked lazily, not quite believing (and there was still the chance he could be delirious...). There was a verb for that, and Naruto wasn't going to touch it with a big stick.

Naruto tried controlling his breathing. It was harder than it sounded because he was too worn out to really control anything, what with Sasuke's hand on his back pressing his body forward and Sasuke's hips pressing into his. His eyes kept blinking by themselves, drowsy and drugged and tired, too dumb and relaxed from Sasuke's smell and warmth to realize that, yes, he was in trouble and needed to wake up. That wasn't quite home yet. Or, at least, it wasn't the home that had left him (instead of him leaving it) last time he'd been there.

He swallowed awkwardly. He still felt drowsy inside, warm and comfy. Felt kind of nice, having Sasuke rub their cheeks together like that, and that probably...wasn't good.

The hips were the part that were really bothering him, because even though the thing with Sauske's mouth on his face was pretty bad too and so were his hands in places people usually didn't touch Naruto that slowly or that way, the hips were getting to be--going to be--a real problem. He wasn't quite in control with all the things that went on down there. That's what porn was for. And the separate concepts of Sasuke and porn did not (should not, ever, in his mind in no way no how!) go together! Ever. The result would be...bad.

Oh god.

His heart was beginning to hammer. His head was still drowsy, surreal.

So. Feeling up prisoners one of the skills they teach here?

"Sas--"

Teeth bit a spot on his neck that hadn't been brutalized and the name ended in a short surprised in take of breath. Naruto bit his lips, clenched his eyes shut and tried sitting on top of his throat to keep the soft sounds down. He didn't need to hear that. Sasuke didn't need to hear that--couldn't hear that. He hadn't been expecting that--hadn't expected his reaction to that. His hips. Crap.

His heart was drumming loudly and his stomach shivering so hard it spread out to the outside regions of his sides and skin, turned his cheeks pink in the darkness. He was starting to warm up from the inside now, the pain taking momentary back-seat priority.

Naruto pressed his body back, as far back as it would go with the wall in the way, and that didn't really make things any better because the body in front of him just pushed closer. And having their hips together now was definitely Not A Good Thing. Not a good thing at all. He'd never be able to look Sasuke straight in the face again. Not that he ever meant to anyway, but this was...that was...this was a whole different reason. He swallowed wetly, warmly, and tried to think of cold boring things.

A tongue raced up his neck, to his ear and started doing things to it that made Naruto's eyes bug out and slam shut, made his body and throat spasm in ways he couldn't quite control. A sound managed to squiggle out of his throat this time, mushy and worm-green, and his hips twitched despite his control. Sasuke's breathing was haggard.

Stop it. Stop it.

I missed you.

The hands on his body moved faster frantically, almost fearfully, palming his chest and running over his breast bone smooth and aqua-feeling, soothing and nice until the hand started palming his nipple, roughing it up and down and up and down until Naruto's shoulder jerked violently, rattling the chains. Naruto curled his head against his chest, curled inward, breathing hard.

Sometimes I dream about you. We're always fighting. Almost always.

There was a momentary lull. During some awful heated embarrassing time, he'd relaxed his knees enough for a leg to slip in between his thighs. The leg pressed forward just a bit, probably on accident. Naruto gaped soundlessly and clenched his teeth, keeping his lips far away so he didn't bite himself.

His breathing was too damn loud. Too ragged. It echoed like bats, like moths, like a million tiny fragile things that looked for flame then died in some mysterious silent way.

If he concentrated--very hard, he couldn't even hear the water now to save his life, couldn't hear anything besides the race of his heart--he could hear Sasuke breathing. Softer, silkier than him, and right against his ear which made Naruto shiver, made him swallow and blink so fast his eyes stayed closed, but just as ragged. Maybe even a little scared.

There was a hand on his stomach now, faint and soft as cheese. It moved the fresh sweat around like a paintbrush, circled his navel nervously, as nervously as Sasuke's lips sometimes brushed against his temple, sometimes brushed against his ear, never real long and never significant. Not forcing. Asking. Asking without asking, because Sasuke would never let the world (or anyone who didn't have the brains to look) see him as anything than a confident frigid selfish self-centered bastard. That wasn't how Sasuke did things.

You don't have to we don't have to you don't have to--

"What're you doing?" this time, finally, Naruto could hear the trepidation in his own voice. The uncertainty, the shaking.

Sometimes I dream about you.
I missed you.

There was a wet confused sound from Sasuke licking his lips and trying to breathe at the same time. "Isn't it obvious?" His voice shook too.

He could've throttled him--if Naruto's hands had been free, he probably would've. There was even a slight irritated growl in his throat, and that felt good, to be able to get angry and not have a throat that felt like it'd been slammed in a blender and whipped up. "Why are you doing..." Could he say it? Fuck no. "This?"

Silence, but he still couldn't hear the water dripping. Sasuke inhaled slowly, shakily, then pushed his leg closer and farther up so that it was really, really hard to pretend that he wasn't feeling what Naruto really, really didn't need him to be feeling. Or know about. At all.

Naruto didn't breathe. He'd choke if he tried, or make some other embarrassing, telling noise. His cheeks were burning. His crotch was burning, smooth liquid metal that was going to leave very bad scars on his skin. His pants stuck to sensitive skin, chafed and hurting.

The hand moved from his stomach to his healed-up side, moved up his ribs slowly, making a point to note every fading scar and curve of muscle, so slowly Naruto came close to yelling at Sasuke to hurry up. Feeling him. Exploring him. As if he hadn't before...but then, it had been a long time. He didn't know much about Sasuke's body now, it made some sense that Sasuke would want to know something about his.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. Sweat--warm and bitter--slid down his chest slowly, down the cords of his arms in tiny streams, and pooled over his belly and crotch.

They tell me you have a monster in you.
I missed you.

By the time the fingers finally came up to his face to curve around his chin and force his head up, Naruto was swallowing regularly because the saliva kept welling up and his throat was still dry and he felt on fire. Then again, that usually happened when Sasuke was close to him. Irritating. He'd forgotten about that. He'd...forgotten.

"It's what I came to do." The words were level, cold, and deliberately parceled out, because Sasuke was scared. Naruto could hear it.

"I thought you came to see me," Naruto spat out, hating how close they were, how he could feel Sasuke's lips still moving against his cheek like that verb that Sasuke would never, ever, in a million years ever to with him, even on accident.

It did happen on accident. When we got made a team...

If Naruto were to stop pressing the side of his face against Sasuke's fingers, just let the fingers push him where they wanted to, they'd be doing the accident all over again. And it'd still be an accident too. Mostly.

"Same thing," Sasuke said easily, reflexively.

Naruto wondered how, the fuck exactly, 'seeing prisoners who were your friends a really, really long time ago' was the same as 'feeling up prisoners who've had the mother-loving shit beat out of them after making them feel the world might actually come together again'. Maybe it was a Sound thing. Maybe it was a Them thing. A Sasuke and Naruto thing.

The hand pressed a little harder--not enough to actually push him, not that hard, not yet--and the edge of Sasuke's lips brushed against the corner of his mouth. Naruto closed his eyes and thought about not breathing. Not about going unconscious (that was unthinkable), but about breathing just enough to stay conscious but not breathing so much that he went insane and did something stupid.

Only then he did do something stupid, because his neck relaxed just enough--he'd be never sure why (and even when he was he'd never accept it)--and opened his mouth just enough so that Sasuke's bottom lip fitted between Naruto's lips in all the ways they always fitted together.

So, to be honest, Naruto kissed first. But, to be fair, if Sasuke hadn't pushed him and gotten so close to him and touched him like he had, Naruto wouldn't have dared to do it, so it was still Sasuke's fault.

I missed you. I'm forgetting...things. The dreams...that's it. Shadows. Memories.

He inhaled deeply through his nose, felt Sasuke's fingers tense and shiver, then Sasuke's lips pressed against him gently, softly, and he stopped thinking.

It was perfect. Light. Painful. Tender. It was exactly how he'd thought it'd be.

If he were being romantic, Naruto would say there was nothing worth fighting that he wouldn't fight forever, because someone had to. If Naruto were being romantic, he'd pretend that he'd never stop caring so deeply it hurt, that he'd never give up that fight like the people he'd admired had--Kakashi-sensei, Jiraiya-sensei, and Tsunade-sama. If he were being romantic, Naruto wouldn't admit he was an idealist. An optimist.

If he were being romantic, Naruto would never admit that giving up to Sasuke was something he'd seriously thought about a couple times, as long as the price Sasuke demanded wasn't too high. There was no way Naruto would admit even to himself that giving up to Sasuke, giving up when it mattered to Sasuke (because what mattered to Sasuke mattered to Naruto and he couldn't admit that. At least, not anymore), wasn't really giving up at all. It was easy. It was natural.

Jiraiya-sensei was afraid...he knew.

I never wanted this to happen.

It was as natural as feeling his mouth against Sasuke's, his body against Sasuke's, and feeling home just because he could smell Sasuke, because he could feel his eyes on him and be in the same room with him.

Home.

Everyone underestimated what home meant to an orphan. Even Kakashi-sensei, who didn't underestimate anything. Everyone did. Even Iruka didn't think about it anymore.

No one thought about what being an orphan meant anymore, except for Naruto. And except Sasuke, who knew exactly what home meant when there wasn't.

It was like flipping a switch: the connection went back on, and they moved in synch again easily, naturally. Everything moved quickly, automatically, until Sasuke's free hand was gripping Naruto's chest so tightly he was leaving bruises, this time accidentally. The hand on his chin slid to the nape of his neck, the lips that weren't his flowed and pressed closer (but clumsy too, so Sasuke couldn't have really known what he was doing, wasn't really that different from Naruto, even now), and there was a demanding tongue in his mouth that wasn't his and he couldn't breathe and didn't want to and it went a lot, lot faster than he really wanted it to.

He was terrified. He could smell the fear coming off Sasuke in waves, the way his body trembled, and that was natural too. That was like home, when they'd been twelve and everything had been perfect.

It wasn't until afterwards he noticed that Sasuke's shirt (or robe, or whatever) was a lot rougher than it looked that Naruto realized it was because he was rubbing his chest against it. That he was rubbing his body against Sasuke's. That his nipples were two distinct liquid spots on his chest that were sending weak electricity through his body in a way they never did in the shower.

His tongue was getting inside Sasuke's mouth and getting sucked and caressed and subjectively fucked for all its worth and that he, Naruto Uzumaki of Leaf, was making sounds in his throat that he should have not been making, but that might've been ok because there were some definite sounds that Sasuke was making that he really shouldn't have been either. Sasuke was actually moaning, growling, and had the hungriest set of lips Naruto had ever imagined. He never wanted to stop.

I'm back.

He wants this.

He'd never be able to call Sasuke asexual again.

Sasuke's hands seemed to be everywhere, burned everything they touched and that felt fantastic except it made Naruto pissed off and needy when they went to some new place on his body that wasn't his chest or stomach or neck, someplace that didn't relieve the ache, just made him sizzle and light up. He was rubbing himself on Sasuke's thigh, which he should not have been doing, except that Sasuke's thigh was pressing harder into him, moving in short stilted movements and trembling. There was something pressing into his hip that had not been there ten minutes ago. And that turned him on and made his hands itchy and wanting to grab. And he couldn't.

The fact that Sasuke's hand was fumbling with the fastenings on his pants and not getting them off fast enough caught his attention briefly, made him nervous and anxious, but not enough to try and stop. It felt too good. They were running out of time.

Also, that Naruto was getting dizzy from not breathing, and didn't really care so long as Sasuke kept doing what he was doing with his tongue over Naruto's, over Naruto's lips and palate, and didn't get too distracted with other things, as much as Naruto wanted his hands on him.

The coherent part of his brain said, This is not how it's supposed to go. Jiraiya-sensei--

He said he missed me. He wants this.

He could've been lying.

Sasuke pulled away suddenly (and he could hear him growling low in his throat, insistent, and it made his bones melt and hungry, forgot to keep his eyes closed and saw that Sasuke didn't wear lipstick thank god but didn't see his eyes) and lips and teeth started making there way down his throat, along his shoulder.

The sound of his breathing was too rough to his own ears, too ragged, and Naruto wanted it to get worse. Sounds came out of his throat, high rough uncultured things that banged their fists on the table and demanded more Sasuke, more contact, and the damn chains off Naruto's wrists so even if he couldn't at least fight back then he should at least be allowed to participate.

We shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be doing this.

His mind was boiling, a frog in a soup, and during some mysterious very busy time Sasuke had managed to yank his damp pants open and shove them down and the rough gray cloth against Naruto's thighs felt nice--felt better against his cock though. The rock really should've been freezing and hard against his ass now that it was naked, only there was something wide and burning with five fingers pressed between his butt and the wall.

This could be a dream...?

It's never this real. It's never this real I should not be doing this damn it!

When am I gonna get another chance, stupid? When's he gonna--

Sasuke's teeth scraped his chest, over his nipples, and Naruto's hips jerked all by themselves while the back of his throat keened, all without his permission. And somehow even that was all right, because Sasuke's hand caught him and pushed him back, rubbed him down hard so it hurt and Naruto could've killed him because that part of his body ached and burned and Sasuke touching it (touching him, stroking him, Sasuke Uchiha of Leaf still) and made it worse and Sasuke's hand was dry and wide and rougher than Naruto's own, clumsier than Naruto would've thought Sasuke would be.

Not so different. Not so different, damn it, I want--!

The hand chafed and seemed to shred his skin while Sasuke licked his throat, dug his thumb into the underside of Naruto's cock and twisted his guts around his fingers and pulled.

Naruto screamed, short and high. Sasuke bit his mouth then kissed and licked it all better, pressing all Naruto's sensitive red buttons as easily and surely as he'd done when they were young, only it'd never felt this good, this wrong, to be doing this while they were enemies--

We're not enemies.

--and then Sasuke's hand left and his mouth left and even as he lunged forward (his body lunged forward, moving on need and desire) he wanted to curl up and hide. The chains were still chains, his bones were still aching (but not broken, he wasn't sure when, Sasuke had shown up and screwed everything up), and Sasuke could take advantage of him as much as he wanted, and that meant leaving so--

"Damn," Sasuke's mouth brushed his cheek, his wet fingers trailing Naruto's abdomen, his voice nothing like Naruto had ever heard it, "if you could see how you looked..."

Naruto blinked rapidly, and found it hard to breathe. The chains didn't seem so important suddenly.

Are we still friends?

He was half-expecting Sasuke to do what he did next. He wasn't expecting it to go so slowly though, for Sasuke to kiss him slowly while his fingers slid lower, wet and sweet down his belly until they wrapped around and squeezed slickly and searing and pulled gently, stroking and beating, going through the motions long, long after Naruto was incoherent and haggard, twitching and whimpering like a hanged man.

If we...

"I missed you," Sasuke whispered heatedly, sadly, as Naruto's spine went lighting-liquid, white and burning and Sasuke's hand went the same. "God fucking damn..."

Sasuke didn't say anything else, but bit down hard into Naruto's shoulder, hurting more than anything else but Naruto could still feel him trembling, shaking harder than before. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see, even though his eyes were open.

Sasuke clung to him harder, tighter, until the shaking died down. Naruto blinked unsteadily. His bones were being crushed in Sasuke's arms. He didn't care. The candlelight still sputtered and wavered from far away, creating small white after-images to form on his retinas like moths.

He felt--didn't hear, only felt--Sasuke inhale deeply, gather himself up, and watched him pull away. Naruto blinked.

What're you doing?

What do you want?

"Did you like that?" Sasuke asked quietly.

There were times when Naruto didn't believe Sasuke's audacity, he really didn't. He opened his mouth.

"Didn't think you had it in you," someone else said.

Naruto froze.

"Sir," Sasuke answered. "You shouldn't underestimate me."

***

Just fear me, love me, and I will be your slave.
--Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie), Labyrinth

***

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