Naruto 1. Chapter 1

Just Come Here

Part One

Chapter 1

The morning air was hot as the sun warmed the tips of the trees. The birds were not yet awake and the dew was still wet and glistening on the blades of grass as he made his way down to the edge of the water. The sweat began to form on the surface of his skin.

The water of the pond was calm and still as he sat down on the small wooden pier. He had come here more times in the past few months than could be counted. It was a place he could come to in attempt to silence the world that he lived in when the noises and the demands had gotten too loud for him to bare. It was a place he had found for himself when he needed to be alone and feel the stillness of the air.

He dipped his slender fingers into the cool liquid and pulled them through it, feeling it slide smoothly in between and around them. The water was still cold from the night air and not yet warmed by the surely smoldering sun.

He sighed a small sound in the silence around him. It was not unusual for this place to be much quieter than an average pond would be this early in the morning. It was one reason among many why he had chosen this of all the places that he could spend his time in.

He breathed the warm air into his lungs and allowed his chest to inflate. He lay back against the old splintered wood, untangling from his crossed legs position. His legs stretched out straight and his feet hung just above the water. The dark hair spread out across the wood, the light picking up its shine. His hands came together and rested against his flat stomach.

He closed his eyes to prevent them from being burned by the sun that had spread its rays across his pale face. His lips were dry. He licked them with a moist tongue.

He eased the invisible weight from his chest and took in the relief. He allowed himself to fall apart all at once and unwind. A strong forearm came to rest across his eyes, its clenched fist falling gently to the wood. The skin scraped across the wood and he could feel a splinter dig into the soft flesh just above the wrist on the outside.

His breaths increased in pace and his mouth opened in attempt to inhale more air. He felt like he was drowning in this seemingly calm morning. A knot in his stomach clenched and tightened his insides. Water came to the corners of his eyes. He did not allow them to fall. He did not allow the world to defeat him just yet.

The different emotions that played in his mind infected his entire body, causing a paralysis to debilitate him where he lay. He was unsure which one was the most prevalent and his head felt dizzy with the lack of an answer.

He was overwhelmed. He was confused. He was slightly angry. He felt guilt. He was deeply saddened and he was all alone in his thoughts. This was not the life that he had envisioned for himself and he was disappointed. His heart constricted, a painful and lonely beating.

He had come here to catch up to himself, but this pouting would not do, he knew. He uncovered his eyes and stared up at the sky, allowing the sun to cause them to sting and it earned him a small temporary blindness.

He sat up, holding himself with two hands reached slightly behind him. He shook his head to get a better hold on his mind. He attempted to contain the emotions into separate boxes and planned to look over them, one after the other.

He was overwhelmed. There were so many tasks that he had to accomplish and a few that had been assigned to him. He had people to extinguish, creatures to capture, points to prove. He attempted to sort them out. Of these things, only one or two of them were objectives that he had chosen for himself to achieve and most were not actions he personally agreed with or even found possible. Yes, there were things that he could admit to himself that he was not able to do. There were also things that he absolutely would not do under any other circumstance. There were things that had already been done that he regretted. It didn't matter. He had orders to fulfill. He asked himself when he had become a dog with a master.

He felt utter confusion invading his thoughts like an unwanted splatter of ink. His brain was fuzzy and almost unmanageable. There were many factors that hung over him and begged him to allow them to influence him. They begged him to allow them to trick him. He did not know whether or not to listen to them and some were not harmful in the least. It was sorting them out, bad from good, that caused such a mess. He wasn't sure which of these thoughts would change him for the better or the worse.

The anger burned him from the inside and caused him to overheat. So many things were unfair. So many things were asked of him without his consent and most of those things were not optional to complete. He hadn't even gotten to choose this path, not really. He had been influenced and taught to be the way that he was and it was not fair. Nothing was fair, he reminded himself. It would not do to act like a child that hadn't gotten his way. He had never really gotten his way in the first place. If it were so, he would not have had to come here to this pier to think on his own, so much of the blood that he had spilled already would have been erased, and so many choices would not have been presented to him like a deadly gift.

The guilt flooded through him. There was nothing left to do but to allow it. He had done many things in his short life time already that he regretted with every part of him. Doing foolish things was a part of life, he reminded himself, but what he had done was unforgivable. He had destroyed something that he had once loved more than anything. He had caused it to decay and wither because of a delusion he had had since he was a child. At the time, he truly believed that he was correct, but the truth of the matter had been too much to take in when he learned of it. He took a life that didn't deserve to fade away, not truly. Yes, he deserved to drown in these regretful memories.

The sadness overtook him and cooled down the heat in his body. It hurt, this loneliness he felt. He was not physically alone, per say, but he yearned for all of the bonds he had left behind. He ached for them. He dreamed of them. He saw them when he closed his eyes. He silently begged into the air for their return. They would not. They were no longer obtainable, it was too late. At least that is what he had been telling himself for the past four years. He no longer knew how to achieve them again or mend them and it created a crack within him that he could never repair. It had been his own fault, really. He had willingly scorned them on his own in the first place.

Perhaps he could ask them to reform and cling to him as they once had. Perhaps he would not even have to ask. Maybe they would still be chasing after him. Maybe he would walk alongside them the next time that he saw them. No, to do so would be admitting failure from his goals and from his orders and failures as such were not an option. Perhaps he would not follow them but would beg for their forgiveness. Also no, he had not ever begged anyone and he would not do it now.

He missed them. He saw their faces in his daydreams, the people that he had once had bonds with. He saw the smiles of each and he knew of the pain that he had etched into each one's entire beings. He wondered if they missed him as well. He wondered if they thought of him as often as he had thought of them, although he tried every possible trick not to. At one point when he had been younger, he had even convinced himself that they were dead. He had pictured a mess of pink hair stained with red splotches and a torn dark face mask. He thought of a pair of cold dead blue eyes staring into his face as if they had nothing better to do. That was it, he could not remind himself of all the harsh ways that he had pictured those eyes dying and fading into nothing but dirt. He could not see the tan skin develop a pallor in his mind as he had once done before.

He had seen them recently. Not recently to others, but recently to him. He had stood above them, looking down on them scrutinizing and memorizing every outline and facial expression that he could without giving himself away. He hadn't been ready to give into their demands then. He still wasn't ready now. Well, deep down his subconscious told him that he could deal with their requests, but that would be counterproductive in his ultimate goal.

He had seen a saddened pale feminine face. Had watched her small mouth say his name. Had watched tears form in her green eyes. Had attacked so strong that she had been thrown across the stony ground.

He had seen those blue eyes and watched the recognition pass over the scarred face as he realized just who it was that stood above him. He heard the determined voice. Heard the pleading and the begging. Had heard the desperation behind the words. He had placed his hand upon an orange clad shoulder and had whispered into an exposed ear. No, he did not like to think of this either. He did not want to be reminded that he had almost done what he had had nightmares about almost every night for a year after he had left them all behind. He did not want to be reminded that he had almost destroyed the life of the man that had been brave and loyal enough to chase after him for years.

The man had chased. He had chased him for so long now that he could not remember when the hunt had begun. For months after each encounter, he heard that loud voice and that proud mouth proclaiming that he would be dragged back with force if he did not willingly comply. Forever had he envisioned the sullen face after he had denied the man in his requests.

Yes, the man had chased, but was the game of tag over now after what he had done? He had already broken the flesh, allowed the blood to flow into stirred up dirt. He had already run so far away from the village gates that he was doubtful he could find his way back on his own. He had already said the cruelest things to the man that his mouth could think of. Perhaps the man would no longer run after him with such devotion in the task.

It didn't matter anyway. There were still things that he had to accomplish, whether they were his own ideas or not, and repaired bonds and friendships would only get in the way. He dipped his hand into the water once more and allowed his skin to take in the comfort he found in this pond.

He was interrupted by a voice from behind him. It broke through the silence and shattered the peacefulness of the moment. It halted his thoughts and made him sigh in annoyance. It was a shrill sound. It was a regrettable thing, an empty thing.

His name was called more times than he cared to hear and he pulled his body up to stand.

"Sasuke-Kun! I've been looking all over for you!" Her face held an attempt to charm. Her scarlet eyes fluttered their lashes at him from behind a pair of thick rimmed glasses.

He was annoyed. He was not ready to reenter this world quite yet. He turned and stood with his back to her and took one last look at the small ecosystem in front of him. Her hand was bold enough to land on his upper back. It burned through the fabric of his top and sent an ache through him.

"Don't touch me," he spoke.

He turned in her touch and gently grabbed her wrist only to drop it by her side. He was gentle with her this time. It wasn't as if she needed to be handled as such, it's just that she reminded him of another girl at the moment.

She did not like that her hand was removed and he could see an unhappy expression plant itself on her small face. He could tell that she was also surprised that he had not punched her or pushed her with force as he normally would have done.

He did not like her mouth. He did not like the Cheshire grin that grew on her face each time that she attempted to impress him. She had many talents and uses of course, that was why he had brought her along, but it was nothing that he hadn't already expected.

That sickening smile bloomed across her face, "It's time to move on Sasuke-Kun, and don't we have better things to do?"

She thought that their next task was something that he had chosen for himself. She assumed that it was he that wanted to capture something so powerful and she wanted to show him that she was ready for it. It disgusted him. Like himself, she portrayed a heartless face to the world and it disgusted him.

Love, she had called it. It was not something that he wanted or needed from her. It was not real, it was infatuation, and she could not see it. Other women had been this way before, always. A tall curvy blonde woman, a beautiful girl with pink hair, a stranger on the street. Could they not tell that it was not what he had wanted from them?

He concluded that she was right however, and walked his calm and collected walk past her as he had done many times before. He headed in the direction he had originally come from and began to put on the invisible mask that he wore each day.


	2. Chapter 2

Just Come Here

Part One

Chapter 2

He had chosen an abandoned cabin for their temporary residence. It was old and smelled of dust. They had lived there for a few weeks already, but none cared enough to clean it. It had once been painted on the outside, a faded and crinkly mess it was now. Decaying paint continued to cling to the aged wood, while some flakes had given up and chipped away.

It had two rooms. He had chosen to keep one for himself and share the other. He was selfish in this, but saw it more for their benefit than his own. This way his nightmares would not disturb them in the dark. This way he would not kill them as he dreamed of faces in his sleep.

As he walked into their makeshift home, his footsteps echoed on the wooden floor. He watched the other two bodies sitting in a corner of their room, while he felt the girl close behind him. He could hear her breath.

They had been talking in hushed tones. They stopped at the sight of him and he decided that they had been talking about him. He became angry. He would not have gossip among the four of them. They were Taka, they were a team and a team could only run smoothly if there were no secrets kept from its leader. It would not do for them to have doubts about him.

His mouth ached to lash out at them. It felt like a weight sat on his tongue. He gave into the urge.

"If you have something to say, it would be best to do so now." His voice had been stiff and stern. He stared with the glare he often used to intimidate his enemies and those he desired to interrogate.

He watched them twist and shift in discomfort within his gaze. The white haired water user lifted his hand to the back of his head and began to rub it up and down in nervousness. He disliked this gesture. It reminded him far too much of that blue eyed one he had left behind. It reminded him of the bond he had once tried to sever and failed. He looked away and kneeled to sit down where he stood.

It was quiet for a few long seconds as they took him in. They were clearly wondering if they would die for their reply.

The orange haired man was the one to speak first. His broad shoulders were hunched, pulled together begging to touch one another. He watched this man place his hands together in his lap in order to gain some confidence in himself.

"We were wondering. You've accomplished your goal to kill your brother. Why are we still doing all of this?"

He blinked. He took a big breath into his lungs to stall for time. He needed to provide them with an answer, but found that he had trouble coming up with one. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth as he looked up to the ceiling.

"Itatchi was not who I originally thought he was all of these years. He was not truly responsible for what he's done to our family and to me. He was following orders. My target will be the ones that gave him those orders, but I need Madara's assistance. He won't help me unless I capture the eight tales for him. This is our next objective." He looked down to his hands and moved his fingers around to prove that this was not a dream.

"The eight tales, huh?" But won't he use it for world domination or something?" The water user asked of him.

"It doesn't matter, I have my own goals and he has his." His mouth betrayed him. It did matter. Over the years he had become cold and distant to human life, but he still did not want the world to end. And still, he found that deep within himself he knew that it was unfair to force the eight tales and its host into captivity where they would be ripped apart. The creature would be harvested for its power, while the human body would die. He should no longer care for such things, but he did and he wasn't sure if he was truly able to go through with this.

The girl could sense his insecurity with her ability to detect changes in chakra and he knew that she wouldn't be able to resist. She sat down beside him. He watched her body stiffen and her mouth open to speak.

"Sasuke-Kun, if you're feeling any doubts about the eight tails, then maybe we shouldn't do it. I mean we can find another way without Madara's help." Her crude high pitched voice had become softer and more serious when she said this in order to catch his attention. She knew that he had a weakness for women with elegant voices.

He almost agreed with her. The uneasy knot in his stomach tightened and the nausea set in. he almost admitted his doubts. No, he couldn't. He had to do this and he needed Madara's aid. He needed to defeat his target.

He could have snapped at her as he normally did. He could have slapped her and reminded her to keep her mouth shut, but what would that prove. She had a point.

"Karin. We are doing this. Do not question me again." It was not a kind statement and it was meant to remind her of his dominance over her. He could tell that his deep voice had bit her.

"Alright if you're sure, then let's do this! Besides, I've got to get my hands on that sword." The white haired man said.

He shook his head at himself and knocked the dust around inside his mind. A name. He searched his mind for a name to match the white haired one's face. Suigetsu. Suigetsu, was his name. The one with orange hair was Juugo, that's right. And Karin, the woman with them.

It had been quite a while since he had called them by name. It was something that he purposely avoided. Saying names created a closeness and he could not have that. He had no more room within him for more bonds, especially when he secretly was still mourning the loss of his old ones. He had decided years ago that he would never have to break another one if he was careful not to create any new bonds.

The months had bled together and eventually clarification of whom he was speaking to was not needed as they became used to his speech patterns. And so their names had been forgotten, lost among all of the other forgettable things in the back of his mind, until now.

"What is our next move?" A voice that was often silent spoke up. Juugo hung his chin towards his chest out of shyness. This man was often quiet and often submissive toward him. He was Juugo's cage after all.

He thought about it. He weighted his options and thought of the possibilities.

"We will capture the eight tales in his village. He will not predict our attack there."

"Won't they notice and try to kill us?" She asked.

"We will wait until he is alone." He thought of the odds of this and decided that there wasn't anything else that they could do.

The hot day passed into the night and the stars hung like lights in the dark sky. They would set out on their hunt when the sun rose.

He sat outside the door of the cabin on the ground. The air had cooled down and created a chill that covered his pale skin. He shivered. He crossed his arms over his chest and shifted.

A sigh left his chest. It was a lonely sound. A frustrated sound. An almost giving up sound.

Again as they had in the morning, his thoughts came back to the people he had left behind a long time ago. Some were worthy of his company and some were not, he concluded.

He could not help but linger on the subject of his most powerful and strong bond. The yellow hair and those eyes. He couldn't deny that he missed the man that owned them. He missed his best friend.

He thought of the memories of the man that had been burned into his mind and tried for the millionth time to ignore them. It was not normal for him to miss someone like this. It was not normal for him to feel so confused.

The confusion was more than he could handle. Since he was a child, the blue eyed boy had caused it. He was never really able to escape the thoughts and feelings that ran to catch up to him so long ago, but he had gotten used to them rattling around and pestering him inside his brain. He had gotten used to them just before he had left. He had begun to except them.

But that was before. Before he had run off in search of power. Before he had joined the snake. Before he had destroyed his brother's life. Before everything.

Now, that confusion and those twisted up feelings were no longer welcome in him. He did not have the time or the room for them to disturb him. He could not allow them to get in his way.

Maybe he could, just a little. Maybe he had time to indulge himself for a few minutes.

He evened his breaths and closed his eyes. He did as he had done on the pier and allowed the thoughts and memories to overtake him and consume him.

He thought of that blue eyed man and let a smile settle on his face. A name. A name. Naruto. Yes, it was Naruto. Naruto was the one that he missed the most.

He wanted to argue with him. He wanted to hear that overly loud laughter. The animalistic howl when out of anger. The will to go up against anything. A ridiculous orange outfit. He wanted them. He wanted him near.

He wondered if Naruto was still in pursuit of him. Perhaps he'd distract him the next time he met him. Maybe he could stall for time, just to take in the other man's presence. Just to observe the changes in the other. Just to watch the way Naruto moved.

Movement told a lot about a person. About a ninja. About a best friend. It showed the control that someone had over their body and it allowed observers to predict their next move.

Skills and fighting techniques were not important to him now. He just wanted to see the way his rival moved so that when he allowed himself to use his imagination, pretending that Naruto was walking beside him would be much easier.

He hated it. He hated this _affection_ he felt towards the idiot that he considered his closest friend, even after all of these years. He despised himself for _wanting_ him.

Yes, he could finally admit to himself in this moment that he wanted Naruto. He had been avoiding the truth for years. Had been telling himself that the feelings were only there because he hadn't found anyone else that interested him in the slightest. Long ago he had convinced himself that it was a phase. That it was just a side effect from being close to the blonde.

That's what the confusion was all this time, he supposed. That's why he had missed him more than the others. That's why for months after his departure, he felt like he was dying a little each day the further that he got away from the village.

This would not do. He had no time for the confusion, or what he had come to the conclusion, was love. Love was not supposed to hit him in the form that it did and he was devastated.

It didn't matter, this new revelation. It would get in his way. He had goals to complete and he would not be thrown off track just because his heart and body decided that he was infatuated, obsessed even, with the man that had been chasing him all over this side of the world for years.

He sighed from the frustration. Suddenly he felt so much colder than the night air had allowed him to earlier and he finally let the loneliness settle inside him as much as it had needed to long ago. He hadn't allowed it to, and now it left un-repairable cuts within him. He intensely stared at the dirt that peaked through the grass at his feet.

"You're staring at the ground like you want to watch it burn," a toothy mouth said to him.

He jumped in surprise, an action that he had not allowed himself to do for quite some time. The sudden break in the silence had startled him. He hadn't even felt Suigetsu sit beside him.

"It's nothing," he felt his mouth move to say.

He watched Suigetsu look down at his hands and then up at the sky. That mouth opened again.

"You know, I was thinking about something for a while now." The razor sharp teeth rested on an lower lip, too big to fit in his mouth.

"Hn," it was his common reply. It was a neutral response that he had learned to use since he was a child. It allowed his listeners to interoperate it in their own way. Suigetsu took it to mean that he should continue, he supposed.

"You know while you were off accomplishing your ultimate goal and smiting down your super hero brother," it was said in a sarcastic voice. It bothered him but he allowed the man to continue, "I met that blonde kid that you said was following you around all this time."

He was surprised. He hadn't known. There hadn't been time before for this sort of discussion, he concluded. Besides, it wasn't supposed to be important to him.

But it was. It was important to him considering his earlier answer to his confusion.

"And?" he asked the water user. He was curious and he was again confused. It was as if his companion could tell what he had been thinking about earlier, or rather whom.

"Well, it's just that I don't get why he's so damned determined to get you back in that village. Like why are you 'his most precious person'? I mean are you really that amazing?" The man chuckled as he looked over at him.

He had thought about this before. It was a question that he was never able to answer. It was also an answer that he had always needed. The possibilities of what it could be had been eating him up for years when he allowed himself to think of them.

The egotistical part of his personality told him that it was because Naruto looked up to him because he was the most skilled and most intelligent ninja of his generation. The dobe must have wanted him by his side to learn from him.

He knew this wasn't right. He wasn't the most skilled or the highest quality of genius, although he was close.

The old innocent part of him that needed to be taken care of and protected was hoping that perhaps Naruto wanted to find him to do just that. Yes, he concluded, being taken care of would not be so bad.

He did not allow himself to think of this part of him for long. It would not do to ache to depend on someone else for support. He would complete his goals alone. He would let other's assist him, but he would not allow dependency to get in his way.

The desperate part of him drew from the love he just decided that he had for the other man. It caused him to burn a heat throughout his body and hope that Naruto wanted to retrieve him because he had some kind of love for him also.

This part was one he decided to keep to himself and only allow himself to think of when he was alone. It was embarrassing and out of his character to hope such a thing. It was feminine and it was something that he, at this moment, wanted badly enough that if he continued thinking about, it would cause him to abandon all of this.

All of this work. All of these goals. All of this effort.

Then he thought about the words that Suigetsu had used.

"What do you mean his most precious person?" He tried to play it off like he wasn't curious. He was not successful.

"What you actually care? Alright, whatever. It's what he said. Brother Kisame and we were trying to stall him and the rest of those Konoha people from interfering with your sibling rivalry and that's what he told us. He said that he had to find you and he had to make sure that you were ok because you were his most precious person. That grey haired old guy just looked at him like he was crazy or something. I guess it was a surprise, eh?" He chuckled again and all of those teeth were visible. His lavender eyes fell on his face, waiting to observe his reaction.

What could he say? There was nothing that he could allow to slip from his mouth that would allow him to keep up his persona and dignity. He rummaged around in his head and chose the first thing that came to mind. He was a bastard after all.

"Who cares? He's an idiot and he won't ever catch up to me, that dead last." He looked at his hands and hoped that the comment had hidden how he was actually feeling.

Inside, his stomach filled with insects and other little creatures that created a giddiness that pushed itself up to land inside his throat where his neck met his chest in structure. It burned there and begged him to laugh. Begged him to be happy. Begged him to give into his more sensitive emotions.

The comment didn't work, he supposed. The other watched him a little too closely. Those purple eyes squinted in disbelief, as if waiting for something more to be said. When nothing was, he spoke again.

"That must have been a strong bond you two had, for him to openly announce that his most precious person was another guy. I mean, it's kind of unusual. I would have thought that he would place that pink haired hottie higher on his list of priorities."

He scoffed out loud. That 'pink haired hottie' wouldn't give Naruto the time of day it would take for an actual conversation. Suddenly he was angry with her. The blonde deserved better.

That selfish and desperate part of him spoke up again and decided that it was a good thing. Less of a competition for him.

It had been a strong bond. It had been an unbreakable one. Not even when he had tried to burn it, melt it, crack it, did it break. It was something inerasable and immortal. He almost smiled inside himself at this.

"We were children together. He was on my first team. I suppose that he feels a connection to me and feels that if he can get me to return to his village, it will be saving me from something." He looked off to the trees, watched their shadows arched cross the ground and begin to dance as the wind picked up in their leaves.

"But wouldn't it?" the question dangled before him begging to be touched. It defied gravity as it swayed, tempting him to give into the possibilities of its truth. He wanted to reach out and pull it down, hear it shatter.

He was afraid to answer it because he knew that the truth would spill out of his mouth and he wasn't ready to hear it out loud yet.

Instead, he pretended to ignore it. His companion wouldn't allow it though. Suigetsu pressed him.

"Wouldn't it make things better for you to return? Hey, I could go with you! Maybe they'd make me into a regular ninja citizen again and then I'd get to go on missions and stuff. Maybe they'd even send me on one to kill brother Kisame, then I'd get my hands on that sword of his."

He didn't respond to this and so Suigetsu continued on in his small rant of possible solutions, "Juugo could do something to work with pets or whatever it is he wants to do and Karin could do medical stuff or scouting. You know, shit she's good at? We'd live in an actual house with real plumbing. You have no idea how long it's been since I've actually used a toilet. And you! You could get your friends back. You'd get to hang out with that blonde."

The water user's suggested outcomes did sound good but they were impossible. He needed to fulfill his orders to be able to complete his goal. He could not have any distractions.

He made a face and raised an eyebrow at his companion.

"What? I mean he can't be all that annoying, can he? He's actually pretty hot. A little haircut and different clothes and he'd be sexy as hell, don't you think?" That chuckle came back and he fought the urge to laugh along with it.

"Enough. We will do this. In the morning we will leave to capture the eight tales and then I will defeat Danzo. We don't have time to be citizens of anywhere."

It was a cruel thing for him to do, to dismiss his companion's daydream of a different life. It was necessary, he decided.

He knew that he had wounded the other man and he softened. He was harsh and unfriendly most of the time, but he never got over the look of hurt on the faces that he had effected.

Suigetsu looked away for a moment and then said, "What about after we complete your goals?"

"I will be tried as a criminal. They will kill me," he said in a softer tone. The look on his companion's face didn't change.

"What would it matter, you will have completed all of your goals and aspirations? What else is there for you out here?"

Again, this man made him think. Suigetsu was right, there was nothing out here for him to do after his set objectives. Finding and conquering love was out of the question. Naruto would never allow himself to be with a traitor to the village.

"Maybe afterwards, then," he said.


	3. Chapter 3

Just Come Here

Part One

Chapter 3

They set out into the morning just after dawn as he had planned. He was often fully awake in the early hours of the day, but today he was tired.

They walked in a line, his body ever the leader. He led them off into the trees, each step closer to their destination.

His feet felt heavier and much more burdened than usual. He came to the conclusion that his fatigue was his body's way of reminding him that he was hesitating. Hesitation about going through with the order to capture.

He found that he was having trouble breathing. He felt as if his lungs weren't getting enough oxygen as it was inhaled through his mouth in large gulps. He was suffocating.

He came to a halt and bent his waist and rested his hands upon his slightly bent knees. He drew the breaths quick and sharp, never able to satisfy his need.

His stomach tightly constricted with his internal conflict. He attempted to hold back all that he knew was coming, but it was no use as his throat began to burn and his body emptied its contents into the grass in front of him. The sun had fully risen and the smell would surely begin to become overwhelming.

His body heaved once more, spilling clear liquid stomach acid to soak up the ground. He stood up straight and wiped his mouth with the back of his a pale hand.

The three behind him also stopped. They stared with their disbelieving eyes. He could feel their gaze upon his back and for a few agonizing seconds he wondered what they thought of him. He wondered if they thought less of him for this show of weakness.

He realized that it didn't matter. He had a current goal and a much more widespread one to accomplish, there was no time for attending to his self-consciousness.

He took a deep breath in while trying to ignore the burning taste in his mouth before continuing to walk in the desired direction. He was stopped by a rough hand on his elbow.

He turned in the small embrace to face the person who dared to interrupt his attempt to pretend what had just happened hadn't.

His elbow was released and he watched Juugo take a step backwards to express his submission to him.

"Are you sick? If you're sick, we should rest."

He scoffed aloud. There was no time for stopping. Resting would mean that there was more time for him to overthink his hesitation. He could not risk changing his mind.

"No, we will continue." As he gave the order, he turned and continued their journey.

For several miles his stomach had seemed to settle in its subconscious attack on him, but this did not last.

Once again his stomach wound tight and evacuated its liquid in front of him. He coughed, an unintended action that caused his body to ache and his mind to scream a reminder that he was exhausted.

She came up beside him and took the chance of resting her small hand on his shoulder. He moved away, a hard jerking motion as if she was an insect that disgusted him.

"Sasuke-Kun, I really think that we should rest for a while. There's a civilian village not far from here," she suggested, her pink tinted cheeks showing concern for him.

He could not ignore this request. He could not push aside the signs that his body was giving him. He nodded in agreement as their direction changed course.

The hotel room that they had rented was spacious. It was enough room for each of them to take their own corner as he laid himself on a provided futon.

He drowned out their chatter and turned his body to face the wall. He lay their silent and attempted to wash away his thoughts.

The more he thought about his assigned task, the more his brain told him that it was not something he would be alright with. He knew that if he went through with it that he would never mentally recover from it or forgive himself. To capture an innocent man and cause his imminent death was much too much for him to handle.

He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, the corners stinging and begging him to release his emotions. He threaded his fingers through his hair and tugged slightly in order to dislodge the thoughts that had become stuck to the front of his brain.

He thought about what his closest friend would have said. He thought about the disappointment and the possibility that he might be fought against. He thought about the way that particular friend with those caring blue eyes might eventually come to reject and hate him for this poor choice.

He decided that he wouldn't be able to deal with that heartache. He wouldn't be able to stand it if Naruto came to despise his existence. He had done so many things in the past that he deserved to be hated for but wasn't. It would not be the case with the capture of the eight tails, he knew.

He thought of the nature of tailed demons and of their hosts. He thought of the strange orange and red glow that emanated from his rival in times of anger and the urge to protect and avenge. He thought about the fact that Naruto would eventually be targeted and captured as well, his life fading with the extraction of the nine tailed fox.

His stomach clenched once more as he crossed his arms around his chest from his position on the futon, the fingers from his right hand wrapping around his right shoulder while the fingers from the left laid clumsily on the futon. His knuckles itched to punch something out of his frustration.

He sighed again and forced himself into the unconsciousness that came with sleep.

When he awoke hours later, his body felt less sick but his mind felt just as troubled, if not more so. He attempted to ignore it.

His companions had left the room, their various traveling possessions still about the room. He sat up and used his solitude as a way to indulge himself in his emotions as he had done on the edge of that still pond.

He attempted to face the consequences and the outcomes as a result of continuing on with his orders.

The eight tails would be used to take over what he thought might be the world, the host destroyed in the process of the separation of the two. The actual man, the host, had done nothing to him. He wasn't even quite sure what the man looked like in the first place. The man had done nothing to harm him and yet he would be the death of the man. He would be the reason that this innocent person would die. He did not consider himself a good person, but he knew that he wasn't what people would call evil. He was not that cruel, not that brutal, and yet he was planning on sentencing the host to death out of some attempt to extract revenge that had nothing to do with the host at all.

He would be considered an official criminal. He wasn't one before, not officially. If he had the nerve to leave this little empty room right now in this moment and walk himself all the way back to the gates of Konoha, he knew that he would be welcome. He knew that he would not receive a heavy or life altering punishment. The bonds he had unintentionally created would not allow anything otherwise. His absence would be played of as an extended mission. As a mission to kill the Snake Sanin. A mission to kill Itatchi. A mission to spy on Madara. He could get away with his desertion. But not if he attacked, captured, and handed over the host of the eight tails to Konoha and the rest of the shinobi world's biggest enemy at the moment. They would probably execute him on sight.

Naruto, the girl, and the teacher would surely scorn him. Hate him. Reject him. Resent him. He couldn't have that. He couldn't have those blue eyes look at him as disappointedly as he knew that they would. He only just realized that he was in love, it would not do to crush what small glance of hope to nurture it all, in one go.

If he didn't go through with it and defied the man holding his leash, he'd never get a chance to obtain revenge on Danzo. He'd never get the opportunity to feel that satisfying sense of peace in killing the man that sentenced his once beloved brother to massacre his family. It was a feeling that he needed in order to feel fulfilled.

And even if that should happen, he'd still be a criminal. This avenger lifestyle would bring him no happiness, he realized. This scared him because he wasn't quite sure how he could suddenly stop. How he could just stop being angry. Stop seeking consolation in the death of those that had wronged him, his family, and ultimately his Itatchi.

He sighed deeply into the silence of the empty room and gathered himself enough to go in search of his missing companions. Perhaps their interaction would distract him enough to make a decision.

He found them in the tea shop that they had passed on their way to the room that they had rented. It was old with worn paint crumbling in defeat from the weathered wood it desperately tried to cling to. His eyes focused on the raised up slices of wood, splinters waiting to infect him in the door frame.

The three of them had each ordered for themselves. His stomach ached, ever with the anxiety and now with the disease of hunger. The air smelled sweet. He sighed again. He disliked sweet things, they made his mouth ache.

They welcomed him, Karin quickly moving over to accept him on her side of the wooden booth. Her crimson hair fell about her shoulders. Her glasses were repositioned with a nimble finger, adjusted to get a better look at the avenger.

He looked away from her, staring at the food already placed on the table. The rice would fill him, but the soup would warm him. He couldn't decide which would be better for him.

Hunger always eventually faded away into nothing until its owner forgot that they ever starved for food in the first place, but coldness and the chill from loneliness almost always remained to taunt and pick away little pieces of personality, of what was supposed to be a heart. Soup it would be.

They scarcely spoke to one another during their meal, but he could feel their eyes on him again. He said to them what he had always said at times like these.

"If you have something to say, it would be best if you got it over with," he stated to no individual of the three in particular. One would speak sooner or later, it didn't matter who.

"You were sick earlier," Juugo announced, not meeting his eyes. The man's timidness did not annoy him as he supposed it should.

"I was tired, that is all," he responded, hoping to convince them.

They were not considered to be geniuses, but they were intelligent and they were shinobi. They saw through this lie without effort.

"Are you sure that this is the right thing to do?" The girl asked him, again challenging their current goal and challenging his ability to carry it out.

He could not help himself. He could not help but admit that perhaps there was a flaw in this plan.

"No, it is not the right thing to do, but we are not do-gooders. We are not a part of some self-righteous and kind village. We each have our own goals and the three of you are only following me until mine is completed. In order for mine to be accomplished, this must be done. No matter how unfair it is or seems to be, I will do it because it will help me be done with this all." His hand shook slightly as it sat on the table grasping the small porcelain tea cup at this admission of imperfection.

It took several seconds before any of them dared to respond, but when the time for thinking had passed by, Suigetsu was the one to challenge him as he had challenged him outside of their self-claimed cabin.

"Have you thought about giving up your goal then, instead? Is killing that old man really worth all the trouble?"

The comment angered him far less than perhaps it was supposed to. It should have boiled through him like a fire. It should have made his temperature rise and his face glow pink. It didn't and it confused him. Perhaps revenge wasn't as important to him as it once was. He scowled half-heartedly at himself. No, it was still everything to him. He reflected on the reasons that he hated this old and shriveled old man and spoke them allowed in attempt to recreate the fire he had once felt for this cause that had once burned and flickered within him in his temporary insanity.

"Danzo is one of the men that ordered my brother, my aniki, to kill his own family. He is one of the men that he begged to spare me, to let me live. He was one of the men that took everything from me. He denied me a chance of normalcy. He denied me the opportunity to choose not to be an avenger. I must destroy him and the other two in order to bring my family peace," he told them while trying to keep his voice low to avoid the stares and recognition from the civilians that sat around them minding their own various food items and small conversations.

"But Sasuke-kun, is that really what Itatchi would have wanted from you? Like, you told me after Madara explained everything to you that your brother didn't want you to know the truth because he wanted you to return to the village and be happy. It sounds to me that even if it pained him, he kinda understood why he was ordered to do that, I mean he understood the reasoning right? So why not just do what he wanted you to do and go back?" As the water user spoke he moved himself slightly further away from the edge of the table, attempting to put more distance between himself and him.

He calmed himself at the words and allowed them to float around in his mind as he contemplated them. The option sounded tempting.

It was true that even though the village had ordered Itatchi to extinguish his entire clan, his older brother did not hate the ones that had given him the orders. His brother had known that if something wasn't done to stop their family members, the village would fall to ruin under their violently forced command. He did not scorn them as he took his intended place as a criminal without any hesitation. He had become an enemy of the village, just to save the clan's reputation, although he technically did nothing wrong. Itatchi wasn't a true criminal, he knew that but the villagers did not. In this way if he returned to the village this moment, he would be claimed a hero for slaying a notorious rouge.

When the realization of the truth in his teammate's words faded away into the back of his consciousness, he said nothing, only continued tending his food.

After their stomachs were full and their items were packed, they continued onward in their goal into the darkness. He had demanded that they leave right away to make up for the time that they had lost earlier that day.

They walked into the chill night air until their feet grew soft painful blisters that would eventually turn into rough callouses once the puss had drained away.

They made camp under a large tree. The fire cracked and sizzled as it bit away at the bark from the twigs it consumed. Small orange sparks floated up into the air and he could not help himself from wishing that he could go along with them into the atmosphere until they lost their heat and glow.

The stars had come. They had come to taunt him with their carefree glitter. He stared at them, searching for all of his answers from the sky. When none were provided, he decided to place his focus on the task of retrieving more kindle for the fire to keep up the heat. He insisted on going alone, the silence a welcome companion.


	4. Chapter 4

Just Come Here

Part 1

Chapter 4

He heard them among the trees. Their small idle chatter distracting him and instantly giving away their location. Their familiar chakra washed over him where he stood listening to them. He closed his eyes and imagined himself there beside them, included in their small group. He almost allowed himself to smirk, but not quite, he was not delusional. Not anymore. Not as he had been the last time he had encountered them.

He crouched to the ground, the damp earth soaking moisture into the fabric around his knee and his pale hand aching from the night's cold air as it gently touched the forest floor.

He cleared his mind and focused on their words.

"This trip to Suna has taken much longer than it was supposed to," he heard the one that they had replaced him with say with a monotone voice range.

He despised this imposter, this doppelganger. He hated how the trust he was once given had dissipated and covered this mannequin like being. He couldn't stand the way that he knew those blue eyes landed on that emotionless face.

He sighed to himself. He no longer deserved that trust and he was not much better at expressing himself than his replacement. Hating the man that had prevented the edge of his katana from piercing the flesh of the person he missed most, would be a foolish and childish thing for even an avenger to do.

"It wouldn't be taking so long if Naruto wouldn't be looking all around him every step that he takes!" the girl exclaimed, irritation fully audible. He had missed her admiration of him, but not the girl herself, he decided. He watched her small delicate face fill with a blush made slightly orange from the light of the fire illuminating her skin and her features. Although she annoyed him, he had never been able to deny her beauty.

"Hey! You know full well why I've been keeping a lookout. We could run into him out here. I thought that you'd be looking too," that loud voice he had missed so much, addressed to the girl.

The soft pounding that his heart made in his ears increased in volume and speed at the sound. His fingers trembled where they rested on his bent knee and he ached to reach out to touch the owner of that voice. He stilled himself, attempting to hold onto his pride and his sense of calm.

"Naruto I want to find him too because I love him, but what are the odds that we'll run into him? Don't you think that he'd run away the moment that he knew we were close by?" She asked in such a harsh way that the expression on the man's face depicted hurt and a tang of longing.

The light from the camp fire flickered and danced as the conversation continued onward and down.

"It doesn't hurt to look anyway Sakura-Chan. I know that he's too smart and clever to be caught right now, but I can't help but hope to catch a glimpse of him. You say that you love him so much, so why am I the only one that is really trying to catch up to him? Why am I the only one not giving up?" he heard his rival challenge.

"It's not that I'm giving up, it's just that I've come to realize that he's not going to come home willingly. And besides, if we try to force him, he'll fight us and probably kill someone, making him a true criminal. If he's locked up or worse, he can't be with me anyway. So there's no use encountering him here or anywhere where he's not weakened enough to not strike back," she announced, standing up from the forest floor and placing a fragile looking hand upon her hip to suggest her superiority in the matter.

Her proposed reasoning irritated him. It heated the blood in his veins and caused him to feel pure annoyance. Yes he had missed her, but not enough to be able to swallow her theories of what she expected his and her fates to be like, especially when she suggested that they someday be entwined around one another's. Perhaps they might have been in the future, but he couldn't help but wonder whom she thought that she was to assume something as important as that.

"Sakura, you say that you love him and you want him to be safe and stop his path of revenge, but it sounds more to me like you just want him to come home so that you can marry him. What about his well-being? Aren't you afraid that he'll get lost in all the darkness that surrounds him? Don't you want him to come home so that he can be taken care of and so that he can get better?" the man asked sternly, also standing to meet her face to face.

A twisting excitement gathered and pooled in his stomach from the man's words. Whereas the woman was selfish in her reasons to confront him, the man just wanted what was best for him.

Yes, he could admit that perhaps what was best for him was to return to the village that had kept trying to pull him back since he had first left it. It was the matter of if he was willing to give up on his pursuit of revenge or not, that was the issue.

He could not see his brother's death, although caused by his own hands and determination, go un-avenged. He could not see himself allowing those whom had ordered his family's deaths to go unpunished. He sighed at the new confusion settling in his mind.

The small rising conflict between his two former teammates electrified his stomach and caused a giddiness to form. It wasn't as if he enjoyed seeing them fight and is wasn't as if he was hoping for the argument to escalate. It fascinated him because he had always known his rival to agree wholeheartedly with the girl. He had never seen the man challenge her or attempt to prove her wrong. He did not particularly take joy in either one of them winning any sort of row, but it filled him with static to see the man feeling strongly enough about something to stand up to the woman he had always followed around like a puppy before. It thrilled him that the subject happened to be him.

"Of course I want him to be alright! It's just that I can't help but think about _our_ future together and how it will work if he's in chains!" she told the man, her chakra energy allowing him to identify that she believed that she was right in everything that she said, no matter what the topic was and he knew that the man knew this too.

He watched the man's face soften and those sky colored eyes, now darkened from the night and tinted from the flames, fall to the ground beneath his feet as he opened his mouth to respond to her small outburst.

"What if he doesn't want to marry you? What if he's not even interested in anyone?" that loud mouth now somberly asked as if afraid of her.

"He will definitely marry me! He loves me and I love him. Once he stops trying to get revenge, we can be happy together," she told her teammate. His chest ached for her slightly in pity from the way that she believed her attractive lie.

He didn't love her. He hadn't ever loved anyone except his greatest rival and he believed it to be because the man was the only one that could ever captivate him in such a way that he couldn't predict what the next movements would be. To be because the man had never given up on him although he had allowed his selfishness to leak out of him in large doses and be plainly displayed in the way he spoke and the way he treated others around him. To be because the man was everything that he was not in ways so deeply imprinted that there was no denying them. To be because his rival was the only one he had ever tried to sever a bond with and fail.

He closed his eyes in the dark from where he had settled himself and took a deep inhalation. None of that mattered anymore and none of it would help him in his quest for revenge. His earlier fears of his left behind bonds forgetting him or giving up on him, had been proven useless in this eavesdropping session, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter how much he ached for them, how much he ached for the loud and obnoxious man, he would never be able to be the way he deeply wished that he could be.

And even then. And even so, should he ever be accepted back into their world and his revenge be forgotten as he obtained and strengthened those bonds again with them, he would never be able to have the man in the ways that he wanted to. The man may have wanted him by his side, but not their hands entwined.

He sighed as he allowed his eyes to reopen, the corners stinging from the emotions he had always ignored before.

"It's been so long now and I'm not really sure why I haven't asked you this before, but what makes you think that he loves you back? And honestly, I've always wondered if you think that you love him because of his personality or because of his looks and skills. Do you even remember how he treated you? Because I remember how he treated both of us. He treated me like the biggest idiot and you like the most annoying person in the village. I don't remember him offering you flowers or dates or those little chocolate candies that you like so much. And I know that you'll just throw the question back at me. I know that he thinks of me as a friend because he told me so. We fought a lot, but I realized a long time ago that that's just how we communicated with one another and that's how he made sure that I would get stronger, by challenging me. At least he stated our friendship to me once. Did he ever tell you how he felt about you out loud?" the man countered her words with his own.

His stomach again filled with that excitement as he forced himself to stay hidden and out of sight. He held himself back from jumping out of his position and into their vision just to get close to his rival's body, just to observe the reaction he would cause in them.

"How dare you! How dare you ever suggest that I love him for such shallow reasons! You know better. I can't believe you Naruto!" Her voice cut through the darkness around them, possibly giving away their positions to enemies searching for them.

The man he remembered as the wood user and their current team captain stood as well from his spot near the fire and placed a firm but gentle hand upon her upper arm to signal to the both of them that they needed to calm down. The girl remained in her position, unwilling to admit defeat or a truce.

"Ah, I'm gonna take a walk to cool off, I'll be right back," her teammate told them as he slowly wandered off from the campfire.

He crouched lower to the ground and began following the man, just wanting to watch and take in the movements of his rival.

He followed him undetected for what he suspected was half a mile from their campsite and his own. The man came to a stop and leaned back against a tree, stretching his limbs and taking a deep breath as he spoke aloud to himself.

"Ah, she makes me so mad sometimes. I might be dumb, but at least even I can see that she only thinks she's in love with him because of his prestige. They had a bond, but not like the one that I had-have with him. Besides, even if he did love her he probably wouldn't marry her anyway. He's not interested in stuff like that, at least not right now. I mean, I know that he wanted to revive his clan and all, but why would he pick her anyway?" he watched the man pause in his rant and bring a hand that he knew to be tan within the darkness to the back of his head and muss that yellow hair before continuing on in his spoken aloud thoughts.

"Stupid Sasuke-bastard for running off and trying to kill everybody. If he would have just stayed with us, we could have both gotten stronger together. He was just too impatient. And while I'm at it, stupid me for chasing after him like an idiot. I don't know what's wrong with me, I know that he doesn't want to come home but I can't help but keep trying because I just want to be near him. Ah hell, I really am a baka. He'd never want to be near me anyway even if he did come back." With that, he watched the man pass a hand over his own face as if to wash away the emotions he must have felt in order to move on.

At the man's words, he lost himself. His head filled with a delicious fuzziness at the way the man desired his presence. At the way the man had announced to himself his want for them to have gotten stronger together. At the way the man ached to be near him.

His anxiety about his current assigned task went forgotten and floated away at the realization that there was a chance that perhaps the person he had just come to understand a few days ago that he was in love with, could love him back in some way.

He forgot that Uchihas are not often caught up in their own emotions and also forgot about his surroundings. He shifted in his crouched stance and caused the leaves beneath his feet to rustle in a small shushing sound. Before he had the chance to catch on or notice, it was far too late to escape the vicinity.

"Who's there? Sai, have you been doing that creepy stalker thing again?" the man asked as he stood in front of him, his blue eyes not yet focused on him.

There was nothing that he could do. He was face to face with the man, with Naruto. His heart echoed in his ears and he couldn't breathe. If he ran, he would be recognized anyway and pursued. He stood from his position, a passive mask hiding his nervousness.

"Sasuke?" the man asked, surprise shaking the voice he had heard only in his unconscious dreams the last few months before.

"Dobe," he responded before thinking of something better to say and decided that this would not be one of his finest moments. He would have to live with the failure and the embarrassment of the encounter.

"What are you doing out here? Were you following me on purpose? Are you ok?" Naruto asked him as the man began moving towards him without waiting for any answers to the questions.

His brain ceased activity and he was unable to make his mouth begin to move. His heart sounded in his brain, a loud rhythmic pounding through his veins. He reminded himself that his body often moved on its own and so he allowed it to do so.

His clenched fist bounced back slightly from the surface as his knuckles met the jawline, the bone making a sickening crack and causing his senses to tumble back about him.

He willed his feet to move as he jolted away from the man and attempted to fade out of sight. He realized that he was unsuccessful as his arm was caught just above the elbow by the predator he was trying so hard to get away from.

His limb stiffened as if surprised that it had been captured. He stared at it, naming it a traitor as he attempted to pull the rest of his body away from the man.

It was no use. It was no use and his arm was further pulled with a crushing and demanding force, causing him to give in to the silent command.

It was his turn to receive the blow, his nose crushing under the pressure of that tan fist. He felt the blood burst through the small broken veins and he raised a free pale and sweaty palm up to his face as if to hold in the red liquid.

His head was dizzy and he was once again caught up in his confusion. He felt disconnected from his body and surprised. He had never truly been punched in the face before. He had never allowed it and he certainly had never allowed this man to get the best of him, not ever, not even when he had been falling apart from the inside as he walked away in that valley that was supposed to be the end of this all.

Another strong tan hand landed roughly in the center of his chest and pushed him backwards without care.

He could feel the bark of the tree bite him through the fabric of his top as he was pressed into its trunk. The hand on his chest clenched and pulled together, bunching and twisting his shirt with it. A knee pressed between his legs in an unintentional attempt to keep him in place. It grazed his most intimate of places and it took him by surprise as the man maintained his fighting stance before him. He was surely the prey this time. This man had hunted him for longer than he could truly remember but he had never before been caught.

The pressure on his groin caught him off guard and paralyzed him, causing him to forget to bother trying to get out of the simple trap. He had never undergone this type of unexpected contact and he wasn't sure what to do about it. He had never even been purposely touched there before, despite what others thought of him.

The contact was not withdrawn and he was sure that the man hadn't even noticed their current position. He attempted to make his dark eyes focus on the face in front of his and try to calculate a way to get out of the web that had bundled him.

It did not work in helping him make a plan. Instead it worsened the situation by forcing him to realize that the man that he had just only truly realized that he was in love with, was standing before him pinning him to a tree with fire in his eyes and his knee pressing on such an embarrassing place.

He felt his body grow hot at this realization and could not help himself. He had never been in such a predicament before and had never been aroused before either. He wasn't sure how to control himself and this frightened him in a way that all the monsters he had fought in the past had not. He could not help himself but harden against that knee that had been offered to him.

When the pressure increased against his arousal, his mouth unexpectedly opened and a throaty moan tumbled from his lips before he had a chance to recognize it for what it was.

At the strange sound, he watched the anger and frustration in the man's face fall away and a concerned expression replace them. He saw the blue eyes regard him, scanning for an explanation.

The man did not seem to notice the state that he was in, too distracted by his sudden compliance. He listened as his rival began to question him again.

"Teme? What's wrong? I didn't really mean to hurt you, I just wanted you to hold still for me and talk to me. Let me help you," the man said raising a jacket sleeve covered hand to his nose to wipe away the blood, never moving from their position.

He marveled at the way the man could still be so gentle with him after all these years. After all he had done. After all he had planned to do. He opened his mouth to respond but no words came.

After several seconds of silence, the man again asked of him, "Sasuke, what are you doing out here?"

He could think of nothing to say. He could not admit that he had been spying on the man and why. He did the first thing that came to mind.

He raised both slender hands up to those strong shoulders in front of him and pressed all of his weight upon them, attempting to push the man off of him.

His rival had grown stronger than he had expected during their time apart and budged only inches backwards. The wrists of his hands were caught in the man's own, pulling him in closer and eliminating the space between them even further.

"Get the hell off of me!" he shouted at the man, trying to hide the pleasure he didn't expect to extract from being held in such a commanding way.

"No! Not until you talk to me! You never listen to me. You're always running away. I've been looking all over for you, just hoping to catch a glimpse of you, so I'm not letting you escape from me so easily this time even if I have to fight you." Naruto told him as he pushed him back into the surface of the tree, this time much more rough and much more adrenaline fueled.

He allowed it. He wasn't sure why, but he allowed this gesture. He allowed himself to be silently told what to do.

When he gave no answer and decided to avert his eyes away from the scarred face in front of him in attempt to dismiss the world around him before it completely engulfed and consumed him, the man continued on as he often did.

"Alright fine, you don't have to say anything, you usually don't anyway. I just need to know if you're alright. I mean, I highly doubt that you would be following me around like that if you didn't have a reason, and usually your reasoning would be that you either wanted to surprise attack and kill me or that you're hurt and trying to push aside your pride to ask for help. And don't deny that you've been following me for a while, I could tell something was off even before I left the campsite, I just thought that it was an animal or something so it didn't bother me."

He was again led backwards and pressed into that tree after the words had come. His body held firmly against it in attempt to hold him into place.

Again his heart sped up and threatened to break through the skin and cartilage of his throat. His breath became ragged as it fought to fill and exit his lungs.

He supposed that the man had sensed his anxiety as he moved his own body in closer. An unexpected hand came to the side of his face to brush a dark strand of hair that fallen over his right eye in all the commotion. His hardness pushed against his trousers at this much to gentle gesture.

He knew that Naruto understood that there was something wrong, understood that he was confused about something. He trembled slightly in an involuntary jerk as the man softened his eyes and his voice.

"Sasuke," he heard the man call him as the hand on his face remained longer than it ought to have.

"Sasuke," he heard again and then, "Teme, are you hurt?"

He breathed in the sound of his name coming from that mouth and closed his eyes and then opened them quickly when he decided that silence was not working in his favor. He opened his mouth and allowed whatever words he could reach, to fall out of his mouth and imagined them wrapping around his rival's body and throughout the chakra that surrounded them.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. Let me go," he told the man, his head clouding over and his body begging him to push his hips out further into the man to increase their contact.

He watched the man subconsciously run his tongue over his own lips before responding in a much calmer way than he had known the man to do so.

"No, I'm not going to let you go. Not ever, Teme. I promise that I won't."

With the statement, his body shook in small trembles and his mind begged him to give up everything. To give up his revenge and to give up all of the hurt that he felt inside for the sake of that promise.

He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the figure before him to evaporate before him and the encounter to be just a pleasant dream because he knew that if he were to acknowledge the reality of the situation any further, he would eventually give in like a coward.

When he opened his eyes, he watched the man shake his own thoughts from his mind, that yellow hair swaying slightly and picking up the shine from the moon. He fought not to lose himself in the man's silhouette.

The hand on his face slowly travelled lower to land on his jawline, the fingertips only centimeters away from his lips. He itched for them to be touched. For them to be claimed. For them to be taken over in every way possible.

He let his mind be overtaken with the confusion of it all. He had never before wanted such a thing and he wasn't quite sure how to deal with it begging him to do something about it.

He couldn't think. He couldn't form all of the words that he wanted to say and gave up all holds on his pride as he sighed and allowed his head to fall backwards and rest against the tree, those fingers never leaving their position and instead following him causing their bodies to come into more unexpected contact.

He kept his eyes level and contemplated what could be done. There were no options that came to mind and he made the rash decision to allow the man to take full control of the situation. The change in attitude scared him briefly before he realized that perhaps giving up all control for the moment would bring him some favorable results such as closeness with Naruto in only ways that he would have to wait and see would be allowed.

Suddenly he was nervous and he could hear himself audibly swallow the spit that had formed and gathered in his mouth. He trembled still in anticipation.

He could tell that his compliance confused the man and he watched as the silent questions danced and played over the other's face. he watched the way that the line of scars on the man's face swayed and moved as the facial expression was altered into something just as nervous and as anxious as his own.

He closed his eyes and willed his arousal to fade away into nothing. He was unsuccessful. It was no use as he felt the heat radiating from the man's body and realized that they were close enough to one another that he could smell that strong masculine scent of sweat and exertion that he had always known could only belong to Naruto.

He opened his eyes in time to see that mouth move closer to his own and stop in caution just before his lips. He looked to the blue eyes and realized that the man was testing to see if he would strike out at him from the action.

he wanted the contact, wanted their mouths to touch. He remained still, the air around them far more silent than he expected it to be as he waited to see what would happen next. The small tremors returned to disturb his body.

the man pushed away the caution as their lips touched in a small quick way. It did not last. it was a delicious nerve racking experiment, he supposed. His lips tingled small stars across them and he reminded himself that this man had not only stolen his first kiss but had been given his second as well. He relaxed his mouth and waited for more.

He watched excitement pass over Naruto's face at the test's success as he allowed his eyelids to fall until his eyes were half closed, opened more than slits but not open all of the way.

The man moved his tongue over his own lips as he had done earlier, this time intentionally with the purpose of tasting him there.

He supposed that perhaps it was his turn to join in on the experiment. He moved his lips closer until they connected, this time determined to make it last longer.

The kiss was slightly skittish and completely tender. He lost himself in the way that their mouths fit together and he decided to use it as an opportunity to push all of the emotions that he couldn't verbally express into the contact.

When the man responded well and seemed to push all of his own emotions into the kiss, he allowed himself to be carried away by the sensations and fully realize the situation.

The man that he had always missed above all others was causing his mind to slow down in its usually quick thinking process and had managed to command him into doing something without a word. The man that had always been his greatest rival was pressing him into a tree with an arousing mixture of rough force and a hungry need. the man that he had always shared an unbreakable bond with had removed the hair from his face far more softly than had ever been done before and had kissed him in such a way to paralyze him where he stood with their mouths connected and their bodies touching.

He raised a pale and nervous hand up to the man's face in attempt to pull him in closer and tighter and moved the other hand to rest upon the man's neck, his thumb resting on the place that he knew the collar bone to be and the rest of his fingers hungrily wrapping over the back at the hairline.

Fingers that seemed as if they were aching entwined themselves in his dark hair and pulled him as if to prevent him from fading. The hand on his face had moved and placed itself around his waist in between his body and the trunk of the tree, a gesture of ownership, an attempt to pull their hips in closer together.

When they pulled apart, he silently gasped for more oxygen and tried to decide if it had really happened at all or if he was as delusional now as he had once been or more.

He studied the man's face and watched as that mouth opened to say something.

"Come back with me," the man commanded as he knew that he would eventually do.

The words cut him and sliced at his insides. He went back to his earlier confusion and admitted that he honestly couldn't decide if the path he had been taught to take was really the one that he absolutely needed to take anymore or if giving it up for the happiness that he assumed Naruto was offering him in desiring him to go with him.

He pushed the decision away. No, it would not do to be indecisive any longer. He could not abandon everything that he had worked so hard for, everything that he had given his life up for. He would go through with his revenge even if it meant never achieving the happiness that he secretly believed that he deserved.

His heart hurt at the way he knew the man's face would fall when he gave his answer.

"I can't," he said.

Ah, there it was, the emotion in that scarred face that he had expected. Dropping slowly, all sense of happiness drained and replaced by a deep unending sadness. The blue eyes become red at the invisible wound that he had inflicted. That soft mouth frowning and pulling even further away from his own.

He could have cried then if it would have been possible, he thought. He could have grabbed onto the man and sobbed hard and painfully into that tan neck while gasping for breaths and explaining furiously why he couldn't go with the man, if it would have been enough. But he knew that it wouldn't and couldn't ever be enough to make the man allow him to leave. It would only make Naruto pursue him even harder and more determined than before to do so, to openly display his distaste for what he had planned to do.

The arousal he had felt before, finally did simmer and cool down from the sight of the emotion in the other's face. He had hurt the man before, he knew that he would again.

He pushed the man away in a gentler way than what was expect of him and walked slowly off into the darkness. He watched his rival stand there blankly looking at the spot where his body had just been, not bothering to follow him with his eyes. He supposed that the man was surprised that there wasn't much more of a fight or argument between them. He supposed that they both were.

He allowed himself to admit that he was disappointed when the man didn't try to follow him or try to capture him and convince him as he had always attempted to do before. He feared that perhaps after this the man would stop chasing and looking for him after all. It scared him but he realized that in doing so, it allowed the man to move on in his life and for himself to focus on the tasks and goals that had been placed before him.

His eyes stung again and he fought back the tears that were not supposed to be there as he moved quietly in the dark towards his campsite after realizing that the man was truly not going to follow after him tonight.


End file.
