Sasuke had never focused much on Naruto. He was loud, obnoxious and never seemed to cease but remind him of the childhood he was desperate to leave behind. He didn't care about the deep cerulean of those wide eyes, didn't care much to ask about the markings on his face, and didn't think one way or another on the bright corn silk yellow of his hair. He was just his teammate... until he started... doing incredible things. Things that made Sasuke feel; it was never a pleasant feeling. The kiss- stolen- bringing squirming angry embarrassment of being touched publicly. Sasuke always told himself his skin would feel nothing but the pain of training until the day he felt the splash of his brother's blood hot across his skin.

So yes, the kiss made him angry, not hot, not tingling with anticipation of the next press of those slightly chapped salty tasting lips to his own.

Then Naruto had surprised him again, his idiocy seriously knew no bounds in Sasuke's mind. Then there was black and the last thing he saw was Naruto's face. He didn't wish for one more moment to spend with the blond, wishing only that he could have seen the dying breath whisper from lips that were almost a mirror of his own. But Itachi never wasted energy on sneering or frowning or glowering, had mastered a Zen like mastery of his features that Sasuke envied even as he chuckle gasped his shock through a face too mobile to ever properly reflect his brother's emotionless eyes.

Other things, other moments and suddenly Sasuke found himself staring up at crumpled metal and feeling something other than cold driving need for vengeance. Anger. Burning hot and it coiled in him dark and deep. He wondered then if Naruto would look the same way if he peeled back his skin, rumpled and broken like that as he stared across the chasm at the blond. Finally noticing blue and gold: hero colors.

He knew Itachi would never have done what he did then, could feel the cold press of another's power. He sneered and wanted. Wanted to find a darker shade of yellow and blue in fading bruises his fists caused, wanted to see that sun brown skin mottled and fragile under his fingers, because if Naruto was dead, he wouldn't surprise him anymore. Sasuke didn't have time for surprises.

He reveled in the feel of Naruto's jaw cracking under his fist, watched dispassionately as he fell. All heroes fall. That's why they were heroes; they had to get back up. Sasuke wondered briefly if this was what Itachi felt like. If he was just looking for a fall. He watched the slow motion tumble, the break in concentric circles far below and wasn't really all that surprised when Naruto did something unexpected.

He only half listened to the impassioned voice, remembering how hollow his own voice had sounded, echoing and alone in the small room while his parent's bodies bled redredred across the wooden floor. Red and Black. Villain colors. He wondered if the Uchiha clan had planned it's own fate, villains always fell. Difference between them and the other side was they never got back up, were buried quietly and without fuss with no one to mourn. Sasuke knew he was no one, just living on borrowed air.

It was the reason he didn't mind when the next breath was ripped from him by a solid punch, it wasn't his. It belonged in the dirt with the rest of the family. He watched Naruto rage, watched him live and wondered if he would care as much if he'd had a family once.

Sasuke knew he didn't want another family. His families died. It wasn't a sense of preservation misguided to protect new people; he just didn't have the energy to really give a damn. His only family left needed to die so he could exhale his borrowed time and sink under the good dark earth, bleed red on black and embrace his heritage.

And later, when Naruto was beating him, fists connecting solidly, rocking his head back and forth with their ferocity he couldn't work up the energy to fight back, lay there and felt his own silky black hair sting as it whipped into his eyes, tasted the copper bright blood in his mouth, felt a rib crack and splinter... and didn't care. He was black in this scene. He wasn't supposed to get up, make a miraculous defeat. That was reserved for the boy who was really alive. The boy on top of him crying as he broke who he thought was his best friend. Hero's were always breaking their best friends.

Sasuke didn't want to reform. That would mean he actually had a shape to return to.

Sasuke knew his lines, knew when the villain was supposed to have the revelation of what love was. Knew how to act this scene and played it flawlessly. A cough, a smatter of red on his lips and now, lift a hand, shaking and soft fingered and smear the droplets of his own blood across those marks he never took the time to find out about. Let his eyes mirror- imitation was what he did best after all- the look of little boy lost in those clear blue eyes, watering with a hurt Sasuke didn't have the patience to learn. Take a shaking breath and whisper a name softly, let it hang in a tense moment between them and close his eyes and almost say he was sorry, but never get it out so he'd not be lying. Sasuke did dislike lying, so he kept quiet.

He wished he could wipe the tears that weren't his off his face, but knew they needed to be cautiously kissed away to the back beat of a hero's name harsh and breathless across his lips. Needed to wait until Naruto's lips were on his, desperate and gentle- a paradox because virtue was irony. It wasn't surprising to him when the blonde touched him with fingers that shook and trembled against his pale skin, his bruises would be darker, almost black under his skin and he pushed his skin mechanically- always the consummate actor- into the tongue that darted wonderingly across the dark mottled pale of him. Naruto always did have a flair for melodrama. Sasuke bit his lip against a laugh and let himself be undressed.

It hurt too much to move anyway.

He wasn't hard as Naruto's mouth moved across his body, but he touched back, finger for finger, mouth for mouth, copying the act of passion if not the feeling behind it. All his emotion was shriveled and refocused to hate. No time for love. Naruto's tongue lapping softly at the thin skin over his hipbone as his tanned bruised swelling fingers mapped the inside of his thigh wasn't love anyway, it was forgiveness that Sasuke had never asked for.

It was the rough push into him, the sharp pain of it, the violation that made his eyes widen and his body react like it was still alive. It was always a stab into his back that made him move autonomously anyway, and on his knees like this, bent under the browned exercise hard body as Naruto's teeth closed on his shoulder around a soft exclamation of his name, broken by the left over remnants of heat inside his body. Naruto's body shook and rocked against him, the gritty pained stretch pulling little panting cries, almost moans out of a throat tired of crying out for better, harder, more. He did that enough on the practice grounds to even attempt it here, in this, the end of him.

He felt Naruto's fingers curl around his belated erection like fingers around a trophy stem. He felt them pull; urge something from him he didn't really care if he gave. Coming for Naruto now, like this would be like bleeding out at Itachi's hands. He'd feel the hardening of Naruto's cock inside him, the speed pick up, the actions grow more desperate- almost feral. Would feel the crackle of that red chakra, hidden behind blue. Sasuke knew from experience the best villains were always the hero's worshipped the most. Itachi had taught him that. He would come, desultory, expected, crying out a wordless something that could be interpreted as bliss, but was in reality a death rattle.

He would shed one tear. For the things that he could have accomplished and Naruto would carry him home, where he would be hated, then shunned, then slowly brought back into the fold because of the love the village had for the blonde he'd never cared to look at. The blond that would visit every day, would look at him with soulful eyes and touch him gently. The same blond that would fuck him into the mattress every night, urging him to live... live for him. And Sasuke knew he'd get more comfortable with lying, more comfortable mirroring like an unending wheel the love given to him, poured out on his body like a grave offering. And then one day, his face would just stop working. He would feel the long ponytail against his neck and look in the mirror and slowly cut lines into his face with a kunai and maybe wonder about the lines marking Naruto's cheeks, but most likely not.

He knew his destiny. He would meet it wearing the right face.

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