For: need_my_coffee
For: need_my_coffee
Title: Collision
Rating: T (PG-13)
Summary: Detention is a conspiracy that secretly contrives rooftop bonding. NaruSasuNaru.
Warnings: language, oral sex, vague mentions of suicide
A/N: 'tis my first time writing an exchange fic. i'm kind of nervous, to be honest, ehehe. but this is the longest bit of fanfiction i've written in forever. so, erm, i hope you like it. (:
Mod note: Reminder for the author/artist of this submission, please do not reply to comments signed in, if you want to reply anon commenting is enabled.
Eerie silence pervaded empty school hallways. Instead of the shouting voices, the raucous laughter, and the dull drone of conversation, the only sound was the squeak of wheels as a janitor pushed a trash can down the hall. Teachers faced empty classrooms with bemused expressions that asked where the hell everybody was. The students were suspiciously absent but vague voices rising up from the silence and growing steadily louder gave away their position. Echoes of sound reverberating in the emptiness mutated into a sudden mob of chanting voices. "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"
Spotlighted by a blaze of midmorning sun streaming in through the window, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto pounded the shit out of each other for an audience comprised entirely of their buzzing classmates. The two of them were a tangle of merciless fists, vicious flailing, and thrashing limbs on stark, white linoleum. Furious and utterly unable to process any other thoughts, they attempted to tear each other apart one vital organ at a time with their bare hands while everyone cheered them on. Trying to stop them was suicide anyway.
"What is going on here?" a belligerent voice demanded out of nowhere. Tsunade, a menacing, buxom woman with fury to end all fury, struck chords of fear in hearts. The storm of anger polluting her strangely youthful face parted the sea of students effortlessly. Discomfited silence settled over the crowd all at once. Caught up in their battle, neither combatant heard the click of heels as the principal strode briskly towards them. Without so much as a grunt of exertion, Tsunade wrenched the two boys apart, a feat that would have put anyone else on crutches for months on end. The scathing glare on her face prompted students to spill off in different directions, a mess of colors swiftly escaping lest they be punished for being bystanders.
Removed from the fray, both boys appeared a lot less like impressive fighters and a lot more like screwed-up kids painted black and blue by fists. Air escaped them in heavy pants but their weariness couldn't keep them from matching each malicious glare for another malicious glare. No one really understood why Sasuke and Naruto hated each other. Most people assumed the abhorrence stemmed from their sharply contrasting personalities. They clashed like night and day, but they could never harmonize to create a picturesque sunset. If anything, they collided and brought hell on earth to each other.
Something passed between their fierce gazes and, as if by an unspoken agreement, the two boys suddenly lunged simultaneously. Only the firm, iron grip on their collars kept more punches from flying. Sasuke resigned himself to folding his arms across his chest and glaring in the other direction to maintain some semblance of dignity. Indifferent to matters of proper decorum, Naruto struggled against Tsunade's hold, snarling and spitting vulgar language. His lip was split but he didn't care. He just wanted to try beating up his arch nemesis again.
"March!" Tsunade commanded, giving them both a none too gentle shake when they refused to cooperate. She shoved them in the direction of her office and they complied grudgingly. For Naruto, the troublemaker that he was, this wasn't a new experience, but a daily visit to the principal's office wasn't exactly part of Sasuke's routine. With the top GPA of his junior class, the title of Vice President of Student Council, and a family name with prominent status hanging over his head, blemishes on his record rarely occurred. Despite landing himself in the principal's office with all those on his shoulders, the dark-haired boy somehow sustained a stoic expression.
They were forced to sit on hard-back chairs across Tsunade as she settled in her leather chair. They were polar opposites, but they sat in twin slouches with their uniforms in similar states of disarray. Stern amber eyes fastened upon them. Pressing her lips into a thin line, Tsunade glared at them wordlessly for an eternity before sentencing them. "You're both suspended for the rest of the week. And you will have a month of detention starting the following week," she condemned them frigidly.
While they opened their mouths at the same time to protest, Sasuke wisely shut his trap. The apathetic mask he wore flickered with an indiscernible something that vanished so quickly it could almost be mistaken as a trick of the light. Naruto, on the other hand, fumed, "Why the fuck are you punishing me? That bastard threw the first punch!"
"Watch your mouth, brat!" the principal snapped. If she was surprised, she didn't show it, but her eyebrows scrunched close together as she frowned. What could possibly have provoked Uchiha Sasuke, of all people, to take such violent action? Naruto seemed to be the only one capable of pushing his buttons in all the wrong ways and incurring the full effects of his wrath.
"If I remember correctly, Uzumaki," Sasuke said tersely. "You shoved me first."
"I don't care who started it. I'm ending it. Suspension followed by a month's worth of detention, boys. Your parents and guardians will be notified," Tsunade stated.
Naruto objected loudly, fully aware that Iruka would ground him and that meant no TV, no outings, no anything. Sasuke looked paler than usual but perhaps that was just the discoloration that made his skin appear especially sallow.
When Naruto continued whining and Sasuke told him to shut up, chaos seemed to be on the verge of breaking loose again. Whatever they felt of their punishments, they both seemed to agree it was the other's fault. Azure and ebony locked in a glare capable of sparking fire. They would have gone for each other's throats again if the principal wasn't nearby and willing to knock them out cold.
Tsunade gritted her teeth and released them from her office one at a time to avoid another outburst of bloodthirsty rage outside her door. When she was alone, she allowed a sigh to escape and reached for the key that unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk. Education was a noble vocation. She just needed a drink to remind herself of that.
- - -
Nobody talked about his suspension, but the silence was thick with tension. Although Mikoto made several attempts at conversation, she couldn't shield him from the disapproval radiating from the other end of the table. Sasuke fixed a downcast gaze on the food before him. Every sensible bone in his body warned him not to look up. If only common sense spoke with a louder voice.
As he lifted his gaze from the table, Fugaku looked away smoothly, but the damage was done. Sasuke wasn't six anymore; he knew a look of utter, disgruntled disappointment when he saw it. Chopsticks clattered onto the table as he stood. Mumbling whatever pathetic excuse came to his lips, he left the dining room without touching his food.
The stifling atmosphere subsided when he reached his bedroom. Being able to breathe again was a poor prize for the hurt throbbing dully in his chest. Sasuke flopped onto his bed. For a long moment, the ceiling captured his attention and the simmering, angry dejection faded. In need of a distraction from the faint ache accentuated by a sudden feeling of emptiness, he rolled onto his side and switched the lamp on the nightstand on. He reached towards the clutter of books and papers and writing utensils scattered on his desk then paused. Sasuke retracted his hand, switched the light off, and turned his back on his school things.
What was the point anyway? Fugaku's eyes said it all: Sasuke would never be as good as Itachi.
As the night wore on, dreamless slumber eased him out of reality. When he could close his eyes and shut out the world, everything seemed alright in those last few seconds of consciousness before he dozed off. Sleep smoothed away the emotional details of his countenance. Without the expressions of cynical wisdom, icy apathy, and bitter hostility that aged his face, Sasuke resembled youth at its most tranquil.
The door creaked softly open. Mikoto hesitated in the doorway for a heartbeat, listening to the gentle inhale and exhale of Sasuke's breath. Finally, she glided noiselessly to her son's bedside. Moonlight fell in slants across his sleeping form. He looked so young; she just wanted to hold him close and kiss it all better. Smiling sadly, she brushed a gentle thumb over the dark bruise on his cheek. Silky hair cascaded over her shoulder as she bent down and pressed her lips to his forehead. "Goodnight, Sasuke," she whispered.
- - -
Everything was a competition between rivals, even trivialties such as cleaning classrooms to fulfill a punishment. While Kakashi played overseer, Sasuke and Naruto unconsciously competed to clean better than each other. Smearing pine-scented liquid across the floor with mops, they tailored their paces to match any and all changes in the other's speed. They raced to make the room gleam in spotless perfection. Needless to say, classroom floors would be cleaner than they had been in ages.
They finished off two rooms with shining excellence before any trouble started. Kakashi left them alone for a single moment and a discord broke the noncommittal peace. As their mops glided swiftly across the white floor in a dance of vehement sanitization, their mops collided and they faced off with bared teeth.
"Fucking move, Uzumaki," Sasuke snapped, not budging an inch.
The blond retaliated by doubling the pressure on his mop. "Why don't you fucking move, Uchiha?" Naruto spat angrily.
"Fuck you."
"Fuck you, bastard!"
From the doorway, a serene voice intervened nonchalantly, "Back to work, lovebirds, or I'll have to turn you in to Tsunade-san."
Immediately, two sets of glaring eyes locked onto the teacher leaning against the doorframe. If Kakashi was any less of a man, he would have certainly cowered in utter fear at the flames of anger burning in those young faces. The term 'lovebirds' only fueled their rage. "Are you fucking kidding me? I hate that bastard!" Naruto cried in outrage as Sasuke simultaneously expressed his own incredulity, "I hate that fucking idiot!"
The sound of each other's voices reminded them that their enemy was still present. They exchanged menacing glares and turned away in complete sync. They resumed mopping but their fury leaked into the silence that enveloped them. It wasn't peaceful but at least it was quiet now. Kakashi merely shook his head at their antics, amusement twitching at the corner of his lips.
- - -
Contrary to popular belief, Naruto remembered a time when he didn't hate Sasuke. That one interval in his life lingered indefinitely in the back of his mind. Sometimes, when he most wanted to throttle the bastard, the reel of memory would unwind, and he could picture the moment in his head as a movie.
Indigo crept towards the smear of pink and orange sunset. Fading brightness cast the day's last rays of light on the park landscape and shadows began to grow into twisted monsters. Naruto took the shortcut across the park to get back home -- or, rather, another temporary house to stick him in. He was seven, an orphan living with a foster family he wasn't comfortable with, a kid without a real place in life. Nobody wanted to adopt anymore so he got shunted from house to house. Despite the exuberant stupidity he displayed for the world to see, he was smart enough to know no one really wanted him.
The park, by the swing set, was where he encountered Sasuke for the first time outside of school. Though they rarely spoke during class, Naruto felt a sudden connection to him -- the sort you had to be around to feel because it's impossible to describe. He had never seen such a lonely expression on anyone's face other than the one he saw when he looked in the mirror. The dark eyes aimed at the sky wished for something, although he couldn't tell what. Naruto stared with wonder until those black irises landed on him. It felt almost like understanding then, as though they both realized loneliness did not choose only one victim. The moment passed and they made distasteful faces at each other. But when Naruto turned away to continue walking home, a smile warmed his lips.
It was, oddly enough, a fond memory of his; it was good to know you weren't as alone as you thought you were. Even though he hated Uchiha Sasuke and wanted nothing to do with him, Naruto recalled that moment with nostalgia. Sasuke, on the other hand, probably didn't even remember it.
- - -
The monotony of routine settled in effortlessly: school, detention, then home again. Sasuke faced his days with brooding apathy once more. Even Naruto, with his idiotic antics and bubbling obnoxiousness, couldn't get a rise out of him. The boy had retreated into his shell and coaxing him out of it would be like awakening a dormant volcano. That disappointed look haunted him and he couldn't shake it out of his brain. Most likely at his wife's urging, Fugaku made some efforts to hide it, but every time father and son almost made eye contact and Fugaku looked away, Sasuke knew what expression he wore.
You couldn't hide something from someone who was used to seeing it.
"Hey, bastard, you missed a spot," Naruto pointed out smugly from across the room. There was no Kakashi around to reprimand his profane language. Once again, they had started detention without their exorbitantly late teacher.
Wordlessly, Sasuke swept his mop over the square of linoleum brought to his attention by the other's index finger. That look stamped on his brain drained the fight from his body. Naruto was just another insignificant speck of dust on his life, and he didn't have the energy to give a damn about him. He turned his back on the other boy and resumed work as though nothing had been spoken.
Anger flashed in cobalt irises. Naruto hated being ignored. Sasuke's refusal to properly acknowledge his existence, even if it was just with fists or angry words or glares, sparked a sort of fury in him that he didn't fully understand. The bits and fragments of other emotions blended into it confused him momentarily until his riled temper cast them aside. "Hey, bastard," he growled. Sasuke gave no signal that he had heard the other boy.
"Don't ignore me!" Naruto snapped, using his mop to flick soapy water at his back.
Droplets splattered spiked hair and the back of a neatly ironed, white button down. Stiff, angry silence injected a grim severity to the atmosphere of the room as the raven-haired boy straightened slowly. Without warning, Sasuke whirled around and retaliated in the exact same way.
Naruto, being Naruto, obviously had to top that. Just as the classroom door slid open, he picked his bucket up and hurled its murky contents. Gray water drenched Sasuke to the skin. "Naruto!" Tsunade shouted from the door.
Sasuke flung strands of sopping wet hair out of his face in disgust. "You fucking asshole," he hissed, dropping the mop clenched in his trembling fist. He snatched his bucket off the ground and pitched the dreary water at the object of his loathing. Neither could be satisfied until they were equals. Now, dripping wet and scowling, they made very skewed mirror images of each other.
A very disgruntled Tsunade assigned them an extra week of detention after yelling at them for their display of immature behavior. No doubt Kakashi would be given a horrific punishment for leaving them to their own devices for even a second. "At least the room smells lemony fresh," Naruto pointed out, further aggravating the busty woman.
Sasuke caught his lips almost betraying him with a smirk of something akin to amusement at the blond's smart aleck remark. He shot a glare at Naruto and opened his mouth to grumble something snarky. However, the words slid to the back of his throat as he slowly drank in the way the wet, white material clung to lean muscles and a toned midriff. Sasuke narrowed his eyes and swiftly dropped his gaze.
No one else noticed his moment of weakness. Tsunade seemed intent on twisting Naruto's ear off even as the boy howled relentlessly in her grasp. "You want to be a smart ass?" she berated him sharply. "Then you can stay longer and clean up this mess by yourself. Uchiha, you are dismissed." Naruto's protests were cut off as the principal yanked his ear again.
Slipping away quietly, Sasuke strode down the empty halls. There was no one else around to see him in all his pathetic glory, but he held his head high anyway. Even if he was soaking wet and smelled of bleached pine trees, he could still compose a façade of stateliness. As he drove home, however, that veneer seeped away like the droplets of water skittering over the leather upholstery of his seat. What would his parents say?
Trying to sneak inaudibly through the house proved futile as soon as he opened the front door. He heard the smooth, rich voice of his brother before he saw the body it was attached to. As if the world wanted to add humiliation on top of his disasterous countenance, Itachi had come to visit. Sasuke walked hesitantly towards the living room, where he could hear the low murmur of words and the waterfall sound of tea flooding a cup. "Sasuke, is that you? Your bro-- oh, my," Mikoto trailed off into silence.
Droplets dripped and splattered noiselessly on the carpet. Without his interruption, it could have been a picture perfect moment worthy of a frame and a spot on the wall. The old money family grandeur they exuded clashed sharply with his deplorable appearance. Sasuke shifted his gaze between the three of them. Expressions varied between surprise and apathy, but Fugaku's eyes exposed the truth with shattering clarity. It was undisguised, raw, and so painfully there.
Now that he saw it, he realized it had always stared him straight in the face. It had just taken a bucket full of puddle-gray water to open his eyes and make him see what he was unwilling to see before: he would always be the one who didn't measure up, the blemish on the family's so-called perfection, the disappointment.
Mikoto reached out towards him but a flare of sudden hostility made her draw her arm back. Sasuke tilted his chin up defiantly and stalked out of the room. It was a clear 'fuck you' but only a guise to mask the emotions he refused to show. He could act as haughtily dignified as he wanted; it didn't change things. Itachi would always be the golden son and he, Sasuke, would always be the disgrace.
- - -
Specks of dust danced in the beam of afternoon sunlight shining in through the windows. Mumbled singing filled the air as a wet mop head hit the floor with a soggy sound. Naruto only sang to himself to alleviate the spooky tension of being alone in an empty room. Where there should have been a spot of brooding teenager, there was only a hole in the atmosphere. They hated each other, but at least that hate was acknowledgement.
When you were alone, there was no one around to validate your existence.
The mop swished back and forth like a dancer with a duty to clean. Naruto distracted himself from the loneliness by tackling his punishment with vigor. When the door slid open, his eyes darted to the door only to see Kakashi standing in the doorway. It couldn't have been possible, but the ever so extravagantly late teacher had beaten Sasuke to detention somehow. "You're early," Naruto remarked, frowning.
"Earlier than usual," Kakashi corrected, glancing around the room. "Where's Sasuke?"
"Maybe he died," Naruto remarked, resuming his mopping as though he didn't care at all.
"Go find him. It's your duty as his fellow detention mate," the teacher ordered idly. He cracked open his usual, inappropriate book and buried his nose in it. To Naruto's objections, in the pleasant voice people used to chat about the weather, Kakashi replied, "You can go or I can extend your detention."
The threat propelled him out the door but not without a substantial amount of grumbling under his breath. It was just like that bastard to give him trouble when he wasn't even there. With only the sound of his footsteps echoing in the silence, Naruto searched the entire school building for Sasuke unsuccessfully.
Uchiha Sasuke seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth without a trace.
No, not yet, Naruto thought, pausing at a door marked 'Roof'. He ascended the stairs slowly. Everyone who escaped to the roof had their reasons: a need to nap, a need for freedom from classroom imprisonment, a need to think about questions without concrete answers. He pushed the door at the top of the stairs open and blinked at the sudden burn of sunlight.
Against a backdrop of pure, pretty sky, Sasuke stood on the edge of the roof with his head tilted back to accept the sun's glow upon his face. For once he seemed, not happy exactly, but at peace with the world, liberated from all his woes, intricately intertwined with the beat of life. Perhaps beautiful wasn't the perfect word, but it was the first that came to mind. Naruto bit back a smile. Instead, he opened his mouth to call him, but a sudden realization snatched the words away before he had a chance to speak them. Flashes of thought raced through his head.
An obituary of a girl who committed suicide. The sobs of a mother. A broken-winged bird spiraling downward to its death.
'Maybe he died.' How nonchalantly, how effortlessly those words had slipped his lips earlier. Now those very words chilled him to the bone. It was like he could envision Sasuke flying free for a single, breathlessly wondrous moment until gravity smashed his body to the pavement in a mess of blood and shattered pieces.
And then Naruto was running. The background blurred away and all he could hear was the inhale, exhale, inhale of his breathing, the thud, thud, thud of his shoes, the thump, thump, thump of his erratic heartbeats.
Naruto grasped a pale, bony wrist and pulled. The sheer force of the tug whipped Sasuke around. Time slowed as blue met black. For the quickest of seconds, Naruto could see a wistful wish reflected in those dark eyes and the surprise seeping into his gaze. They went down in a disarray of arms and legs and elbows scraping against the rough surface of the roof. As they fell back in a jumble, the air was knocked brutally from their lungs. Naruto broke the other boy's fall with a grunt of pain. A head of ebony hair hit the blond's chest and, as they caught their breath, Sasuke could hear his heart palpitating.
"What ... the fuck ... were you doing?" Naruto panted in between breaths, anger streaking the concern in his words. Sasuke rolled off of him wordlessly. They rested side by side on the rooftop with their chests heaving up, down, up, down. The question hung in the air, suspended in their silence, waiting indefinitely for an answer.
A shadow abruptly blocked out the sun. Naruto grabbed a handful of white shirt and glared at the bastard in his grip. As he searched that pale, unreadable face for anything that would reveal the truth, the anger on his face softened. Quietly, he murmured, "What the fuck were you doing, Sasuke?"
Who was he to ask? Who was he to try to pry into his life? Sasuke challenged him with a glare. "What the fuck were you doing?" he shot back.
Instead of answering, Naruto settled back down beside the other boy. They lay stretched out in silence under the scorch of sunlight once more. The breeze picked up and whispered in the quiet space between them. A bird cried shrilly as it circled lazily overhead. Finally, he spoke, "I ... thought ... well, I mean, you were on the edge of the roof ... what was I supposed to think?"
Sasuke didn't seem to have a reply for that. They listened to the air conditioner humming in a baritone somewhere behind them. "When you stand there, the sky looks like it's almost within reach. It feels like ..." Sasuke finally murmured, trailing off because he couldn't think of the right words to describe it.
"Like freedom?" Naruto supplied, staring up at the ceaseless stretch of blue and clouds. You could reach up all you wanted from the tallest buildings in the world. The sky would still be unattainable. It seemed that they both knew that.
"Yeah."
It occurred to Naruto that they were having a moment. They supposedly hated each other, but perhaps they weren't as different as everyone thought. Certainly, they were like the sun and moon, but the sun and moon shared the same light. Despite every rude word, despite every bruise marked by knuckles against skin, despite every malevolent glare, right now, they understood each other.
"If you hate me, why bother 'saving' me?" Sasuke asked dryly, if only to fill the silence left behind as their moment began to fade. Just like that, they would go back to being Uchiha Sasuke, the prissy, supercilious bastard, and Uzumaki Naruto, the obnoxious, idiotic troublemaker. They would tuck away the knowledge that someone who was just Sasuke and someone who was just Naruto existed at their very cores and go about their daily lives.
"Bastard, you should be grateful! Besides, who else would I use as my punching bag?" Naruto retorted with a grin.
The bird soared overhead again. Naruto shifted and their heads touched and they watched the winged creature together. Two sets of eyes followed as it danced majestically across the endless sky. After a prolonged silence, he remarked, "Maybe that will be you someday."
"Hn."
- - -
Although Sasuke went back to being Sasuke and Naruto went back to being Naruto, something had changed between them. They had the whole school buzzing about the sudden difference in their relationship. It was a gradual dip in hatred: a nod of acknowledgement here, an exchange of glances there, a not unkind greeting once in awhile. The entire school population watched bug-eyed and dumbfounded as the animosity began to dissipate. Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto were being civil to each other. It had to be the end of the world as they knew it. But there were no heart-rattling explosions and hell didn't erupt onto earth in a sudden gush of flame and the sun did not shatter into a million pieces.
Things had merely changed.
Though the days of their punishment were dwindling, time in detention had waved away the grudges they held against each other. Sometimes, almost every other day it seemed, Sasuke would be running late. So, Naruto would trek up to the roof to call him down only to find himself inevitably keeping the other boy company until they had to return to detention. They would talk and they would understand a little more about each other and they would come a bit closer to friendship almost without realizing it.
Today, oddly enough, the familiar head of blond hair was already in sight when Sasuke pushed the door open. Foregoing interrogation, he laid down beside him silently. Gray clouds crept sluggishly across the sky to blot out the sun. Streams of light escaped through holes in the cloud coverage.
"Sasuke?" There was a beat of silence before Naruto continued. "Do you remember that one day, when we were kids, and we saw each other at the park? It was sunset and you were sitting in the swing all by yourself and I was walking home all by myself. Do you remember that?"
Sasuke expected himself to scoff in this sort of situation and tell the other boy to stop being stupid. As the description took hold of his brain, however, an old memory shook the dust off and creaked to life in his head. "I remember," he replied. As an afterthought, he calmly added, "It was before we hated each other."
"You know, I hated you because you had everything. You had family, and you had looks, and you were good at everything. And I ... was just me. I was all alone, and I didn't have a damn thing. I hated you because we were so different in those ways. And I just had to be better than you," Naruto explained. Sasuke tilted his head to the side to look at him but his blue eyes were shut. "I guess you had a right to hate me back after that."
"I hated you because you knew how to push my buttons and piss me off," Sasuke grumbled, a scowl settling on his brow.
"You were just jealous because I was awesome!" Naruto countered with that obnoxious grin of his splayed across his face. That expression still kind of aggravated Sasuke, but he had decided that a foolish grin suited the foolish moron perfectly. The peaceful, companionable hush that settled on their conversation gave him a moment to inspect the other boy. Sunshine yellow locks fanned out messily against the roof. Blond eyelashes caressed his tan, whiskered cheeks. Pink lips breathed in the humid air.
Feeling suddenly unsure of himself, Sasuke turned his gaze to the sky as he sat up. "We should head inside," he stated indifferently.
They dusted themselves off, stretched, and trooped down the stairs. The voyage back to detention was brimming with impish remarks and playful shoving. Naruto was prone to insulting Sasuke, who, in turn, was prone to sticking elbows into his ribs.
"At least I have more than two brain cells to rub together to make coherent thoughts," the black-haired boy grumbled in reply to an especially stupid comment about his hair. Getting overly offended as per usual, Naruto bubbled with indignant retorts. He shoved his companion to accentuate his retaliation, but his vengeful gesture backfired. As he stumbled from the sheer force of the push, Sasuke seized a handful of the other's sleeve reflexively, and they careened clumsily from their original path into the lockers.
The cold, uncomfortable surface of the lockers pressed painfully into Sasuke's spine as their bodies entwined against the lockers with a bone-jarring impact. Hips collided, a knee slid between his legs, hot breath cascaded over his cheek. Their lips smashed together in the most painful accidental kiss in the history of accidental kisses. Paralyzed in this awkward position, wide eyes engaged in a mutual stare. He didn't know who made the first move, but the next thing he knew, they melted into a frenzy that was all hands and mouths and desperation.
Parted lips locked together in a fervent kiss. Tongues thrashed in a heated battle for dominance. Hands slid zealously over the lean muscles of thighs, arms, and chests. Pale fingers tangled in strands of golden hair as soft lips planted fierce kisses along an elegant neck. Sasuke drew Naruto into another passionate kiss, abusing his bottom lip with his teeth, swiping his tongue soothingly over the nibbles he made. Naruto grinded their hips together and elicited a moan from the mouth latched firmly to his. They dragged each other impossibly close: lips meshing perfectly, hips crashing together sensually, hands everywhere.
Naruto slid a hand down the back of his pants and cupped his ass, yanking the other boy closer still. The delicious friction between the hard-ons confined to their pants evoked more moans of pleasure from both of them. Sasuke couldn't think straight anymore. He wanted clothes off and flushed flesh sliding smoothly together. His body screamed for more intimate contact. He was scrambling to undo the buttons of Naruto's shirt when a pointed cough shocked them apart. They broke away panting, chests heaving, still turned on and in need of more, more, more.
Kakashi gazed at them with a mysterious little smile of almost sadistic amusement. With bruised lips and mussed hair and hickeys sure to form, their activities would have been obvious even if they hadn't been caught red-handed. Sasuke stared at his shoes. What the fuck was he thinking? Fuck. He refused to make eye contact as he swept past both of them to the library. If the librarian or her aide noticed that he looked like he had been making out with someone -- a guy no less -- they didn't say anything. They simply pointed to a cart of books and commanded him to get to shelving.
The distraction of shoving books back into their proper place was welcome. Sasuke concentrated on the white tabs wrapped around the spines of books and let everything else fade into the background. Unfortunately, the warm breath suddenly breezing against his ear tugged him back to reality. Sasuke whirled around and came within inches of kissing Naruto again. He turned away and those enticing lips brushed his cheek instead. Understanding the message clearly, Naruto pulled back. Sasuke tried not to look at him as he wheeled the cart to the next aisle.
Sasuke leaned back gently against the shelf of books for a moment to clear his head and ran a hand through his hair with an exasperated sigh. Shit. What the fuck was he doing? Confusion muddled his thoughts as he returned to putting books back into their place. If only everything -- and everyone -- had an exact spot to fill. Sasuke sighed again and fit volumes of beautiful, poetic prose in empty spaces, unaware of azure eyes peering at him through the gaps where absent books belonged.
- - -
"Well, I think it's always been sexual tension. Maybe that's why they're acting weird around each other now. I swear I totally saw a hickey on Naruto's neck," Ino, gossip queen extraordinaire, remarked deviously, shooting Naruto a pointed look as he walked by. The other girls at her lunch table twittered in agreement. They were all staring at him intensely, as if the slightest detail could prove their point.
Catching their group stare, Naruto only huffed and resisted the urge to punch the nearest, moving object. Ever since their make-out session in the hallway, Sasuke was avoiding him. Needless to say, they spent the last few days of detention evading each other and the roof remained dismally empty. Complicated, mixed feelings haunted him. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to break Sasuke's pretty face or kiss him senseless again.
Truth be told, Naruto was still smarting from the rejection.
They had progressed so quickly from hate to emphatic understanding to awkward sexual tension. Now, Naruto wasn't sure what to feel every time he saw Sasuke. Only when they met in his dreams could he peel away all the difficult layers of emotion and find the core of all his feelings. In his dreams, soft fingers touched heated skin, their bodies clashed together erotically, and lips kissed everywhere. In his dreams, it was fucking hot. Back in the real world, he took cold showers in the morning and Sasuke continued to elude him.
With a sigh, Naruto slumped in his seat, scanning the cafeteria with vague interest. Sasuke was a constant blip on the edges of his peripheral vision and easy to pinpoint even in crowds. At a table by the window, he sat all alone, wrapped up in his own little world. Every minute detail caught his eye and made him pay attention: a book held in place by graceful fingers, long legs crossed at the ankle under the table, strands of hair brushing pale skin. The way the sunshine streamed in like a backlight added an ethereal glow to his profile.
As if sensing the intensity of his eyes, Sasuke glanced up. Their eyes met across a sea of other students all chattering, laughing, gossiping. Sasuke hesitated before looking away this time and that slight moment of indecision spurred Naruto through the maze of tables to him. He sat down across from him. Eyes swiveled onto them and a hush blanketed the noise level. People held their breath as the scene transpired before them.
"Sasuke."
"Naruto," the raven-haired boy acknowledged calmly. He marked his place and shut his book and stared indifferently up at him. They held each other's gazes then looked away simultaneously. An uncomfortable silence reigned in which they became acutely aware of their audience.
Lowering his voice, Naruto murmured, "Stop avoiding me."
Ears were straining to eavesdrop on their private conversation. Voices hissed for other voices to shut up. "I'm not," Sasuke snapped, albeit quietly so as to shield their talk from the prying listeners all around them.
"You're denying it? Stop being such a bitch," Naruto threw back, his voice rising of its own accord. People leaned in hopefully but he turned the volume down again. "Sasuke. I know you felt it too. So stop pretending it didn't happen, you bastard." With a substantial shade of uncertainty in his tone, he stammered on, adding hopefully, "I ... err ... we ... could hang out. This weekend. Maybe."
Sasuke's eyes smoldered with fury as he cast a sharp gaze across the table at Naruto. The whole audience seemed to be waiting with bated breath for his answer, though, really, they waited only for a climax to a situation they didn't fully understand. Finally, his mouth opened and an answer escaped coldly into the air, "No."
He unfolded himself out of his seat and strode away without looking back. Instantaneously, the cafeteria erupted in a cacophony of questions and theories and utter hearsay. Naruto just stared mutely at the empty space across from him. After a moment, with a frown in place on his brow, he too got up and walked away from the table.
- - -
Nocturnal fantasies were supposed stay nocturnal. Those dreams where lips kissed with bruising force, where warm hands stroked his length, where blue eyes twinkled up at him through the shadows of night -- they weren't supposed to haunt him sporadically throughout the day. The images floated into his mind without warning at the most inconvenient times, including breakfast with the family on a Saturday morning.
Drizzle flecked the window with tiny pinpricks of rainwater. Mikoto's voice was a distant hum in the background as the moans and heated touches and spine-tingling sensations spilled into his mind's eye. Sasuke shifted uneasily in his seat. Focusing on breakfast was difficult enough without the added complication of hormones. The atmosphere was riddled with tension and, with the exception of his mother, no one was eager to make eye contact with anyone else. " -- don't you think so, Sasuke?"
Like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Sasuke lifted his head suddenly. His eyes darted left then right as he tried to remember what she had been speaking about only moments before. All that came to mind were the scenes concocted by his imagination and his desires. "What?" he asked blankly, pushing those thoughts away quickly.
"I said, a family picnic would be nice, don't you think so?" Mikoto repeated patiently, a tentative smile on her lips. Her endeavors to mend the rips between them, to bridge the gaps, to knit them closer together were always in vain. The smile faltered as Sasuke pressed his lips together.
Optimism just wasn't his style.
"No," Sasuke replied brusquely. Seeing her face fall with unexpected sadness, he immediately softened. She tried a little too hard to fix such a hopeless situation, but at least she tried. She was a good mother and, as a son, the least he could do was spare her feelings. Conjuring the words quickly, he hastened to cushion his negative response with an excuse. "Not this weekend. It's supposed to rain this weekend."
Mikoto offered him a gentle smile. It didn't escape his notice when Fugaku settled his hand over hers. Sasuke, witnessing this sudden display of affection, returned his mother's smile with a faint one of his own. In the back of his mind, those eyes -- a myriad of emotions reflected in that blue sky hue -- glimmered at him. Whether it was the allure of that gaze or whether he had just folded under the pressure of all those arousing images, he came to a decision. "Besides," he added after a split-second of hesitation. "I'm busy this weekend."
- - -
Cold water sprayed tan skin in a steady thrum of falling droplets. Naruto gritted his teeth against uprising moans and vivid depictions as he stroked himself under the cool stream. He didn't want to see that bastard in his head. He didn't want to envision a writhing, panting, bed-shaking tangle that involved that taut, lean body. He didn't want that annoying face swimming through his thoughts. Yet his hormones continued to defy his wishes as did the nighttime visions that his brain contrived. All he could do was scowl and grumble under his breath.
When he got out of the shower, he could hear the indistinct murmur of voices down the hall. Little attention was paid to the indiscernible conversation as Naruto dried himself off with a towel. Clean boxers went on and dirty clothes made their way into the laundry hamper. The voices had quieted. The house was still. This, of course, gave him the perfect excuse to waltz around the house half-naked. He danced around with spectacular flailing as he belted the words to a rock song. As he whirled around and dropped down on one knee to croon an especially passionate note, he found himself kneeling before an unexpected guest.
Sasuke gazed at him silently. There was a cup of tea set on the table in front of his clasped hands and, beside it, an untouched platter of cookies that Iruka liked to set out when they had visitors. Instead of announcing his presence with even the slightest of coughs, he had simply sat there and waited to be noticed. Naruto glowered at him. How dare he arrive unannounced after so callously rejecting his invitation to hang out? Who the fuck did Uchiha Sasuke think he was?
"Look who it is," he angrily sneered. "Who let you in? No, better yet, where'd you get my address?"
The proud, prim ice princess avoided his gaze in obvious discomfort. Naruto felt a flicker of smug satisfaction, but it disappeared when Sasuke lifted his head and glared right back at him. He was in no position to be his usual, arrogant self, but that didn't stop him from doing so. In a tart, haughty tone, he replied, "Sakura gave me your address. And Iruka let me in before he left to run errands."
Naruto opened his mouth to bombard him with insults and wrathful words then shut his mouth again. Without so much as a glare cast over his shoulder, he turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen to his bedroom. Through his haze of fury, he could hear chair legs scrape back against the floor and footsteps following him down the hall. The bedroom door banged open as he stalked inside.
He didn't get very far before a lithe body pressed into his from behind. The sudden close contact with the boy who constantly infected his thoughts effectively halted him in his tracks. He breathed in ragged, infuriated breaths, but he didn't move. Sasuke gripped his hips and pulled him closer. The soft lips pressed to his bare shoulder murmured the softest of apologies. They stood there in silence for a long time. Seconds ticked away on the clock in the hallway.
Finally, the frozen moment thawed out. Naruto took two steps out of reach, turned, and punched an astonished Sasuke. As the knuckles landed a sharp blow to his cheek, he stumbled back and fell promptly onto his ass. Blue eyes glared daggers at him and then the rage melted away. Naruto grinned in wicked amusement as he held out a hand to help him up. "Now," he announced. "We're even."
Pale fingers brushed barely over the aching cheek. Eyes narrowed up at him. "You fucking idiot," Sasuke hissed, slapping his hand away. In a sudden blur of fluid motion, he tackled Naruto onto the bed and straddled him. One hand tangled viciously in golden hair and dragged Naruto closer to smash their lips together furiously. Enraged heat passed between their mouths as their tongues lashed together in a violent dance.
"Only because you're a fucking bastard," Naruto breathed between angry kisses. He slid his hands under cloth and over soft flesh. The cool of Sasuke's skin contrasted pleasantly with his warmth. As the hem of his shirt continued rising, the other boy broke off an especially fierce kiss to yank it off. It fell carelessly to the floor in a puddle of black.
Sasuke littered vehement kisses down a tan neck, bruising skin with eager lips and teeth. He rolled his hips forward and a moan slid through the blond's lips. Naruto jerked his hips up and gained the same reaction from the boy on top of him. With a tug of dark locks, their heads tilted in the right direction for another kiss.
As jeans joined the shirt on the floor, more tantalizing flesh begged to be touched. The bed shook as their positions were flipped. Sasuke growled in dissatisfaction but the noise morphed into a sigh of pleasure as it slipped from his mouth. Naruto let his hands glide everywhere, leaving no bit of skin untouched. He marked the smooth expanses of skin with his lips. Lower and lower his mouth trailed until he tugged boxers off pale hips and tossed them away.
Once more the bed rattled as their positions were reversed again. Tremors of desire swept through Naruto as kisses were placed on every inch of him. Soon his boxers joined the small clutter of clothes on the floor. Sasuke kissed his inner thigh and, as he squirmed with need, Naruto could almost feel the smug smirk radiating against his leg. He opened his mouth to complain or toss an insult into the air but found himself moaning instead as skillful, pink tongue skimmed over his erection. Sasuke teased him mercilessly. "Bastard," he hissed with some difficulty as the other boy tormented him.
Finally, black strands of hair tickling his bare skin, the heat descended on him. Lustful ecstasy washed over him in waves as Sasuke put the muscles of his mouth to good use. Naruto writhed at the sensual contact of those soft lips. He thrust his hips almost desperately as his brain began to shutdown. Coherent thoughts were no longer capable of forming and he could barely remember what his lungs were for. Sasuke gripped his hips to hold him in place as he picked up the pace. There was a flash of a moment where everything else seemed to fade away and then Naruto lay back, suddenly limp.
"Holy shit," he groaned as Sasuke, licking smirking lips, sprawled on top of him. They lay together in companionable silence, letting the moment settle over them. "Hey, Sasuke?"
"What?"
"Can you hear my heartbeat?"
"Yeah."
Sasuke tilted his head to look at the other boy with an odd look on his face -- a strange expression stuck between wonder and curiosity. Naruto just closed his eyes and smiled. "Good."
Another peaceful silence blanketed them. Naruto wasn't quite sure what they were anymore. Rivals? Friends? Perhaps even something more than just friends? Wherever their relationship stood on the spectrum of human relationships, he still had a naked Sasuke on top of him. Cobalt eyes sparkled with mischievous glee and a grin spread over his lips. "Sasuke?"
"What?"
"Can we have sex now?"
Sasuke lifted his head to give Naruto an incredulous look. The bawdily flirtatious gaze he was given in return did little to soothe the flare of irritation that creased his brow into a scowl. He rolled off Naruto with a huff and an incoherent grumble. Naruto attempted to pester him persistently with pleading words and puppy eyes and little kisses placed on his skin.
Amusement twitching at the corners of his lips, Naruto drew Sasuke's name out until the other boy gave up resistance angrily. Skin glided against skin and a pale handed threaded roughly through blond locks. Glinting blue eyes locked with glaring black eyes.
"Shut up," Sasuke snapped. And then he kissed him.
Title: Collision
Rating: T (PG-13)
Summary: Detention is a conspiracy that secretly contrives rooftop bonding. NaruSasuNaru.
Warnings: language, oral sex, vague mentions of suicide
A/N: 'tis my first time writing an exchange fic. i'm kind of nervous, to be honest, ehehe. but this is the longest bit of fanfiction i've written in forever. so, erm, i hope you like it. (:
Mod note: Reminder for the author/artist of this submission, please do not reply to comments signed in, if you want to reply anon commenting is enabled.
Eerie silence pervaded empty school hallways. Instead of the shouting voices, the raucous laughter, and the dull drone of conversation, the only sound was the squeak of wheels as a janitor pushed a trash can down the hall. Teachers faced empty classrooms with bemused expressions that asked where the hell everybody was. The students were suspiciously absent but vague voices rising up from the silence and growing steadily louder gave away their position. Echoes of sound reverberating in the emptiness mutated into a sudden mob of chanting voices. "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"
Spotlighted by a blaze of midmorning sun streaming in through the window, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto pounded the shit out of each other for an audience comprised entirely of their buzzing classmates. The two of them were a tangle of merciless fists, vicious flailing, and thrashing limbs on stark, white linoleum. Furious and utterly unable to process any other thoughts, they attempted to tear each other apart one vital organ at a time with their bare hands while everyone cheered them on. Trying to stop them was suicide anyway.
"What is going on here?" a belligerent voice demanded out of nowhere. Tsunade, a menacing, buxom woman with fury to end all fury, struck chords of fear in hearts. The storm of anger polluting her strangely youthful face parted the sea of students effortlessly. Discomfited silence settled over the crowd all at once. Caught up in their battle, neither combatant heard the click of heels as the principal strode briskly towards them. Without so much as a grunt of exertion, Tsunade wrenched the two boys apart, a feat that would have put anyone else on crutches for months on end. The scathing glare on her face prompted students to spill off in different directions, a mess of colors swiftly escaping lest they be punished for being bystanders.
Removed from the fray, both boys appeared a lot less like impressive fighters and a lot more like screwed-up kids painted black and blue by fists. Air escaped them in heavy pants but their weariness couldn't keep them from matching each malicious glare for another malicious glare. No one really understood why Sasuke and Naruto hated each other. Most people assumed the abhorrence stemmed from their sharply contrasting personalities. They clashed like night and day, but they could never harmonize to create a picturesque sunset. If anything, they collided and brought hell on earth to each other.
Something passed between their fierce gazes and, as if by an unspoken agreement, the two boys suddenly lunged simultaneously. Only the firm, iron grip on their collars kept more punches from flying. Sasuke resigned himself to folding his arms across his chest and glaring in the other direction to maintain some semblance of dignity. Indifferent to matters of proper decorum, Naruto struggled against Tsunade's hold, snarling and spitting vulgar language. His lip was split but he didn't care. He just wanted to try beating up his arch nemesis again.
"March!" Tsunade commanded, giving them both a none too gentle shake when they refused to cooperate. She shoved them in the direction of her office and they complied grudgingly. For Naruto, the troublemaker that he was, this wasn't a new experience, but a daily visit to the principal's office wasn't exactly part of Sasuke's routine. With the top GPA of his junior class, the title of Vice President of Student Council, and a family name with prominent status hanging over his head, blemishes on his record rarely occurred. Despite landing himself in the principal's office with all those on his shoulders, the dark-haired boy somehow sustained a stoic expression.
They were forced to sit on hard-back chairs across Tsunade as she settled in her leather chair. They were polar opposites, but they sat in twin slouches with their uniforms in similar states of disarray. Stern amber eyes fastened upon them. Pressing her lips into a thin line, Tsunade glared at them wordlessly for an eternity before sentencing them. "You're both suspended for the rest of the week. And you will have a month of detention starting the following week," she condemned them frigidly.
While they opened their mouths at the same time to protest, Sasuke wisely shut his trap. The apathetic mask he wore flickered with an indiscernible something that vanished so quickly it could almost be mistaken as a trick of the light. Naruto, on the other hand, fumed, "Why the fuck are you punishing me? That bastard threw the first punch!"
"Watch your mouth, brat!" the principal snapped. If she was surprised, she didn't show it, but her eyebrows scrunched close together as she frowned. What could possibly have provoked Uchiha Sasuke, of all people, to take such violent action? Naruto seemed to be the only one capable of pushing his buttons in all the wrong ways and incurring the full effects of his wrath.
"If I remember correctly, Uzumaki," Sasuke said tersely. "You shoved me first."
"I don't care who started it. I'm ending it. Suspension followed by a month's worth of detention, boys. Your parents and guardians will be notified," Tsunade stated.
Naruto objected loudly, fully aware that Iruka would ground him and that meant no TV, no outings, no anything. Sasuke looked paler than usual but perhaps that was just the discoloration that made his skin appear especially sallow.
When Naruto continued whining and Sasuke told him to shut up, chaos seemed to be on the verge of breaking loose again. Whatever they felt of their punishments, they both seemed to agree it was the other's fault. Azure and ebony locked in a glare capable of sparking fire. They would have gone for each other's throats again if the principal wasn't nearby and willing to knock them out cold.
Tsunade gritted her teeth and released them from her office one at a time to avoid another outburst of bloodthirsty rage outside her door. When she was alone, she allowed a sigh to escape and reached for the key that unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk. Education was a noble vocation. She just needed a drink to remind herself of that.
- - -
Nobody talked about his suspension, but the silence was thick with tension. Although Mikoto made several attempts at conversation, she couldn't shield him from the disapproval radiating from the other end of the table. Sasuke fixed a downcast gaze on the food before him. Every sensible bone in his body warned him not to look up. If only common sense spoke with a louder voice.
As he lifted his gaze from the table, Fugaku looked away smoothly, but the damage was done. Sasuke wasn't six anymore; he knew a look of utter, disgruntled disappointment when he saw it. Chopsticks clattered onto the table as he stood. Mumbling whatever pathetic excuse came to his lips, he left the dining room without touching his food.
The stifling atmosphere subsided when he reached his bedroom. Being able to breathe again was a poor prize for the hurt throbbing dully in his chest. Sasuke flopped onto his bed. For a long moment, the ceiling captured his attention and the simmering, angry dejection faded. In need of a distraction from the faint ache accentuated by a sudden feeling of emptiness, he rolled onto his side and switched the lamp on the nightstand on. He reached towards the clutter of books and papers and writing utensils scattered on his desk then paused. Sasuke retracted his hand, switched the light off, and turned his back on his school things.
What was the point anyway? Fugaku's eyes said it all: Sasuke would never be as good as Itachi.
As the night wore on, dreamless slumber eased him out of reality. When he could close his eyes and shut out the world, everything seemed alright in those last few seconds of consciousness before he dozed off. Sleep smoothed away the emotional details of his countenance. Without the expressions of cynical wisdom, icy apathy, and bitter hostility that aged his face, Sasuke resembled youth at its most tranquil.
The door creaked softly open. Mikoto hesitated in the doorway for a heartbeat, listening to the gentle inhale and exhale of Sasuke's breath. Finally, she glided noiselessly to her son's bedside. Moonlight fell in slants across his sleeping form. He looked so young; she just wanted to hold him close and kiss it all better. Smiling sadly, she brushed a gentle thumb over the dark bruise on his cheek. Silky hair cascaded over her shoulder as she bent down and pressed her lips to his forehead. "Goodnight, Sasuke," she whispered.
- - -
Everything was a competition between rivals, even trivialties such as cleaning classrooms to fulfill a punishment. While Kakashi played overseer, Sasuke and Naruto unconsciously competed to clean better than each other. Smearing pine-scented liquid across the floor with mops, they tailored their paces to match any and all changes in the other's speed. They raced to make the room gleam in spotless perfection. Needless to say, classroom floors would be cleaner than they had been in ages.
They finished off two rooms with shining excellence before any trouble started. Kakashi left them alone for a single moment and a discord broke the noncommittal peace. As their mops glided swiftly across the white floor in a dance of vehement sanitization, their mops collided and they faced off with bared teeth.
"Fucking move, Uzumaki," Sasuke snapped, not budging an inch.
The blond retaliated by doubling the pressure on his mop. "Why don't you fucking move, Uchiha?" Naruto spat angrily.
"Fuck you."
"Fuck you, bastard!"
From the doorway, a serene voice intervened nonchalantly, "Back to work, lovebirds, or I'll have to turn you in to Tsunade-san."
Immediately, two sets of glaring eyes locked onto the teacher leaning against the doorframe. If Kakashi was any less of a man, he would have certainly cowered in utter fear at the flames of anger burning in those young faces. The term 'lovebirds' only fueled their rage. "Are you fucking kidding me? I hate that bastard!" Naruto cried in outrage as Sasuke simultaneously expressed his own incredulity, "I hate that fucking idiot!"
The sound of each other's voices reminded them that their enemy was still present. They exchanged menacing glares and turned away in complete sync. They resumed mopping but their fury leaked into the silence that enveloped them. It wasn't peaceful but at least it was quiet now. Kakashi merely shook his head at their antics, amusement twitching at the corner of his lips.
- - -
Contrary to popular belief, Naruto remembered a time when he didn't hate Sasuke. That one interval in his life lingered indefinitely in the back of his mind. Sometimes, when he most wanted to throttle the bastard, the reel of memory would unwind, and he could picture the moment in his head as a movie.
Indigo crept towards the smear of pink and orange sunset. Fading brightness cast the day's last rays of light on the park landscape and shadows began to grow into twisted monsters. Naruto took the shortcut across the park to get back home -- or, rather, another temporary house to stick him in. He was seven, an orphan living with a foster family he wasn't comfortable with, a kid without a real place in life. Nobody wanted to adopt anymore so he got shunted from house to house. Despite the exuberant stupidity he displayed for the world to see, he was smart enough to know no one really wanted him.
The park, by the swing set, was where he encountered Sasuke for the first time outside of school. Though they rarely spoke during class, Naruto felt a sudden connection to him -- the sort you had to be around to feel because it's impossible to describe. He had never seen such a lonely expression on anyone's face other than the one he saw when he looked in the mirror. The dark eyes aimed at the sky wished for something, although he couldn't tell what. Naruto stared with wonder until those black irises landed on him. It felt almost like understanding then, as though they both realized loneliness did not choose only one victim. The moment passed and they made distasteful faces at each other. But when Naruto turned away to continue walking home, a smile warmed his lips.
It was, oddly enough, a fond memory of his; it was good to know you weren't as alone as you thought you were. Even though he hated Uchiha Sasuke and wanted nothing to do with him, Naruto recalled that moment with nostalgia. Sasuke, on the other hand, probably didn't even remember it.
- - -
The monotony of routine settled in effortlessly: school, detention, then home again. Sasuke faced his days with brooding apathy once more. Even Naruto, with his idiotic antics and bubbling obnoxiousness, couldn't get a rise out of him. The boy had retreated into his shell and coaxing him out of it would be like awakening a dormant volcano. That disappointed look haunted him and he couldn't shake it out of his brain. Most likely at his wife's urging, Fugaku made some efforts to hide it, but every time father and son almost made eye contact and Fugaku looked away, Sasuke knew what expression he wore.
You couldn't hide something from someone who was used to seeing it.
"Hey, bastard, you missed a spot," Naruto pointed out smugly from across the room. There was no Kakashi around to reprimand his profane language. Once again, they had started detention without their exorbitantly late teacher.
Wordlessly, Sasuke swept his mop over the square of linoleum brought to his attention by the other's index finger. That look stamped on his brain drained the fight from his body. Naruto was just another insignificant speck of dust on his life, and he didn't have the energy to give a damn about him. He turned his back on the other boy and resumed work as though nothing had been spoken.
Anger flashed in cobalt irises. Naruto hated being ignored. Sasuke's refusal to properly acknowledge his existence, even if it was just with fists or angry words or glares, sparked a sort of fury in him that he didn't fully understand. The bits and fragments of other emotions blended into it confused him momentarily until his riled temper cast them aside. "Hey, bastard," he growled. Sasuke gave no signal that he had heard the other boy.
"Don't ignore me!" Naruto snapped, using his mop to flick soapy water at his back.
Droplets splattered spiked hair and the back of a neatly ironed, white button down. Stiff, angry silence injected a grim severity to the atmosphere of the room as the raven-haired boy straightened slowly. Without warning, Sasuke whirled around and retaliated in the exact same way.
Naruto, being Naruto, obviously had to top that. Just as the classroom door slid open, he picked his bucket up and hurled its murky contents. Gray water drenched Sasuke to the skin. "Naruto!" Tsunade shouted from the door.
Sasuke flung strands of sopping wet hair out of his face in disgust. "You fucking asshole," he hissed, dropping the mop clenched in his trembling fist. He snatched his bucket off the ground and pitched the dreary water at the object of his loathing. Neither could be satisfied until they were equals. Now, dripping wet and scowling, they made very skewed mirror images of each other.
A very disgruntled Tsunade assigned them an extra week of detention after yelling at them for their display of immature behavior. No doubt Kakashi would be given a horrific punishment for leaving them to their own devices for even a second. "At least the room smells lemony fresh," Naruto pointed out, further aggravating the busty woman.
Sasuke caught his lips almost betraying him with a smirk of something akin to amusement at the blond's smart aleck remark. He shot a glare at Naruto and opened his mouth to grumble something snarky. However, the words slid to the back of his throat as he slowly drank in the way the wet, white material clung to lean muscles and a toned midriff. Sasuke narrowed his eyes and swiftly dropped his gaze.
No one else noticed his moment of weakness. Tsunade seemed intent on twisting Naruto's ear off even as the boy howled relentlessly in her grasp. "You want to be a smart ass?" she berated him sharply. "Then you can stay longer and clean up this mess by yourself. Uchiha, you are dismissed." Naruto's protests were cut off as the principal yanked his ear again.
Slipping away quietly, Sasuke strode down the empty halls. There was no one else around to see him in all his pathetic glory, but he held his head high anyway. Even if he was soaking wet and smelled of bleached pine trees, he could still compose a façade of stateliness. As he drove home, however, that veneer seeped away like the droplets of water skittering over the leather upholstery of his seat. What would his parents say?
Trying to sneak inaudibly through the house proved futile as soon as he opened the front door. He heard the smooth, rich voice of his brother before he saw the body it was attached to. As if the world wanted to add humiliation on top of his disasterous countenance, Itachi had come to visit. Sasuke walked hesitantly towards the living room, where he could hear the low murmur of words and the waterfall sound of tea flooding a cup. "Sasuke, is that you? Your bro-- oh, my," Mikoto trailed off into silence.
Droplets dripped and splattered noiselessly on the carpet. Without his interruption, it could have been a picture perfect moment worthy of a frame and a spot on the wall. The old money family grandeur they exuded clashed sharply with his deplorable appearance. Sasuke shifted his gaze between the three of them. Expressions varied between surprise and apathy, but Fugaku's eyes exposed the truth with shattering clarity. It was undisguised, raw, and so painfully there.
Now that he saw it, he realized it had always stared him straight in the face. It had just taken a bucket full of puddle-gray water to open his eyes and make him see what he was unwilling to see before: he would always be the one who didn't measure up, the blemish on the family's so-called perfection, the disappointment.
Mikoto reached out towards him but a flare of sudden hostility made her draw her arm back. Sasuke tilted his chin up defiantly and stalked out of the room. It was a clear 'fuck you' but only a guise to mask the emotions he refused to show. He could act as haughtily dignified as he wanted; it didn't change things. Itachi would always be the golden son and he, Sasuke, would always be the disgrace.
- - -
Specks of dust danced in the beam of afternoon sunlight shining in through the windows. Mumbled singing filled the air as a wet mop head hit the floor with a soggy sound. Naruto only sang to himself to alleviate the spooky tension of being alone in an empty room. Where there should have been a spot of brooding teenager, there was only a hole in the atmosphere. They hated each other, but at least that hate was acknowledgement.
When you were alone, there was no one around to validate your existence.
The mop swished back and forth like a dancer with a duty to clean. Naruto distracted himself from the loneliness by tackling his punishment with vigor. When the door slid open, his eyes darted to the door only to see Kakashi standing in the doorway. It couldn't have been possible, but the ever so extravagantly late teacher had beaten Sasuke to detention somehow. "You're early," Naruto remarked, frowning.
"Earlier than usual," Kakashi corrected, glancing around the room. "Where's Sasuke?"
"Maybe he died," Naruto remarked, resuming his mopping as though he didn't care at all.
"Go find him. It's your duty as his fellow detention mate," the teacher ordered idly. He cracked open his usual, inappropriate book and buried his nose in it. To Naruto's objections, in the pleasant voice people used to chat about the weather, Kakashi replied, "You can go or I can extend your detention."
The threat propelled him out the door but not without a substantial amount of grumbling under his breath. It was just like that bastard to give him trouble when he wasn't even there. With only the sound of his footsteps echoing in the silence, Naruto searched the entire school building for Sasuke unsuccessfully.
Uchiha Sasuke seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth without a trace.
No, not yet, Naruto thought, pausing at a door marked 'Roof'. He ascended the stairs slowly. Everyone who escaped to the roof had their reasons: a need to nap, a need for freedom from classroom imprisonment, a need to think about questions without concrete answers. He pushed the door at the top of the stairs open and blinked at the sudden burn of sunlight.
Against a backdrop of pure, pretty sky, Sasuke stood on the edge of the roof with his head tilted back to accept the sun's glow upon his face. For once he seemed, not happy exactly, but at peace with the world, liberated from all his woes, intricately intertwined with the beat of life. Perhaps beautiful wasn't the perfect word, but it was the first that came to mind. Naruto bit back a smile. Instead, he opened his mouth to call him, but a sudden realization snatched the words away before he had a chance to speak them. Flashes of thought raced through his head.
An obituary of a girl who committed suicide. The sobs of a mother. A broken-winged bird spiraling downward to its death.
'Maybe he died.' How nonchalantly, how effortlessly those words had slipped his lips earlier. Now those very words chilled him to the bone. It was like he could envision Sasuke flying free for a single, breathlessly wondrous moment until gravity smashed his body to the pavement in a mess of blood and shattered pieces.
And then Naruto was running. The background blurred away and all he could hear was the inhale, exhale, inhale of his breathing, the thud, thud, thud of his shoes, the thump, thump, thump of his erratic heartbeats.
Naruto grasped a pale, bony wrist and pulled. The sheer force of the tug whipped Sasuke around. Time slowed as blue met black. For the quickest of seconds, Naruto could see a wistful wish reflected in those dark eyes and the surprise seeping into his gaze. They went down in a disarray of arms and legs and elbows scraping against the rough surface of the roof. As they fell back in a jumble, the air was knocked brutally from their lungs. Naruto broke the other boy's fall with a grunt of pain. A head of ebony hair hit the blond's chest and, as they caught their breath, Sasuke could hear his heart palpitating.
"What ... the fuck ... were you doing?" Naruto panted in between breaths, anger streaking the concern in his words. Sasuke rolled off of him wordlessly. They rested side by side on the rooftop with their chests heaving up, down, up, down. The question hung in the air, suspended in their silence, waiting indefinitely for an answer.
A shadow abruptly blocked out the sun. Naruto grabbed a handful of white shirt and glared at the bastard in his grip. As he searched that pale, unreadable face for anything that would reveal the truth, the anger on his face softened. Quietly, he murmured, "What the fuck were you doing, Sasuke?"
Who was he to ask? Who was he to try to pry into his life? Sasuke challenged him with a glare. "What the fuck were you doing?" he shot back.
Instead of answering, Naruto settled back down beside the other boy. They lay stretched out in silence under the scorch of sunlight once more. The breeze picked up and whispered in the quiet space between them. A bird cried shrilly as it circled lazily overhead. Finally, he spoke, "I ... thought ... well, I mean, you were on the edge of the roof ... what was I supposed to think?"
Sasuke didn't seem to have a reply for that. They listened to the air conditioner humming in a baritone somewhere behind them. "When you stand there, the sky looks like it's almost within reach. It feels like ..." Sasuke finally murmured, trailing off because he couldn't think of the right words to describe it.
"Like freedom?" Naruto supplied, staring up at the ceaseless stretch of blue and clouds. You could reach up all you wanted from the tallest buildings in the world. The sky would still be unattainable. It seemed that they both knew that.
"Yeah."
It occurred to Naruto that they were having a moment. They supposedly hated each other, but perhaps they weren't as different as everyone thought. Certainly, they were like the sun and moon, but the sun and moon shared the same light. Despite every rude word, despite every bruise marked by knuckles against skin, despite every malevolent glare, right now, they understood each other.
"If you hate me, why bother 'saving' me?" Sasuke asked dryly, if only to fill the silence left behind as their moment began to fade. Just like that, they would go back to being Uchiha Sasuke, the prissy, supercilious bastard, and Uzumaki Naruto, the obnoxious, idiotic troublemaker. They would tuck away the knowledge that someone who was just Sasuke and someone who was just Naruto existed at their very cores and go about their daily lives.
"Bastard, you should be grateful! Besides, who else would I use as my punching bag?" Naruto retorted with a grin.
The bird soared overhead again. Naruto shifted and their heads touched and they watched the winged creature together. Two sets of eyes followed as it danced majestically across the endless sky. After a prolonged silence, he remarked, "Maybe that will be you someday."
"Hn."
- - -
Although Sasuke went back to being Sasuke and Naruto went back to being Naruto, something had changed between them. They had the whole school buzzing about the sudden difference in their relationship. It was a gradual dip in hatred: a nod of acknowledgement here, an exchange of glances there, a not unkind greeting once in awhile. The entire school population watched bug-eyed and dumbfounded as the animosity began to dissipate. Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto were being civil to each other. It had to be the end of the world as they knew it. But there were no heart-rattling explosions and hell didn't erupt onto earth in a sudden gush of flame and the sun did not shatter into a million pieces.
Things had merely changed.
Though the days of their punishment were dwindling, time in detention had waved away the grudges they held against each other. Sometimes, almost every other day it seemed, Sasuke would be running late. So, Naruto would trek up to the roof to call him down only to find himself inevitably keeping the other boy company until they had to return to detention. They would talk and they would understand a little more about each other and they would come a bit closer to friendship almost without realizing it.
Today, oddly enough, the familiar head of blond hair was already in sight when Sasuke pushed the door open. Foregoing interrogation, he laid down beside him silently. Gray clouds crept sluggishly across the sky to blot out the sun. Streams of light escaped through holes in the cloud coverage.
"Sasuke?" There was a beat of silence before Naruto continued. "Do you remember that one day, when we were kids, and we saw each other at the park? It was sunset and you were sitting in the swing all by yourself and I was walking home all by myself. Do you remember that?"
Sasuke expected himself to scoff in this sort of situation and tell the other boy to stop being stupid. As the description took hold of his brain, however, an old memory shook the dust off and creaked to life in his head. "I remember," he replied. As an afterthought, he calmly added, "It was before we hated each other."
"You know, I hated you because you had everything. You had family, and you had looks, and you were good at everything. And I ... was just me. I was all alone, and I didn't have a damn thing. I hated you because we were so different in those ways. And I just had to be better than you," Naruto explained. Sasuke tilted his head to the side to look at him but his blue eyes were shut. "I guess you had a right to hate me back after that."
"I hated you because you knew how to push my buttons and piss me off," Sasuke grumbled, a scowl settling on his brow.
"You were just jealous because I was awesome!" Naruto countered with that obnoxious grin of his splayed across his face. That expression still kind of aggravated Sasuke, but he had decided that a foolish grin suited the foolish moron perfectly. The peaceful, companionable hush that settled on their conversation gave him a moment to inspect the other boy. Sunshine yellow locks fanned out messily against the roof. Blond eyelashes caressed his tan, whiskered cheeks. Pink lips breathed in the humid air.
Feeling suddenly unsure of himself, Sasuke turned his gaze to the sky as he sat up. "We should head inside," he stated indifferently.
They dusted themselves off, stretched, and trooped down the stairs. The voyage back to detention was brimming with impish remarks and playful shoving. Naruto was prone to insulting Sasuke, who, in turn, was prone to sticking elbows into his ribs.
"At least I have more than two brain cells to rub together to make coherent thoughts," the black-haired boy grumbled in reply to an especially stupid comment about his hair. Getting overly offended as per usual, Naruto bubbled with indignant retorts. He shoved his companion to accentuate his retaliation, but his vengeful gesture backfired. As he stumbled from the sheer force of the push, Sasuke seized a handful of the other's sleeve reflexively, and they careened clumsily from their original path into the lockers.
The cold, uncomfortable surface of the lockers pressed painfully into Sasuke's spine as their bodies entwined against the lockers with a bone-jarring impact. Hips collided, a knee slid between his legs, hot breath cascaded over his cheek. Their lips smashed together in the most painful accidental kiss in the history of accidental kisses. Paralyzed in this awkward position, wide eyes engaged in a mutual stare. He didn't know who made the first move, but the next thing he knew, they melted into a frenzy that was all hands and mouths and desperation.
Parted lips locked together in a fervent kiss. Tongues thrashed in a heated battle for dominance. Hands slid zealously over the lean muscles of thighs, arms, and chests. Pale fingers tangled in strands of golden hair as soft lips planted fierce kisses along an elegant neck. Sasuke drew Naruto into another passionate kiss, abusing his bottom lip with his teeth, swiping his tongue soothingly over the nibbles he made. Naruto grinded their hips together and elicited a moan from the mouth latched firmly to his. They dragged each other impossibly close: lips meshing perfectly, hips crashing together sensually, hands everywhere.
Naruto slid a hand down the back of his pants and cupped his ass, yanking the other boy closer still. The delicious friction between the hard-ons confined to their pants evoked more moans of pleasure from both of them. Sasuke couldn't think straight anymore. He wanted clothes off and flushed flesh sliding smoothly together. His body screamed for more intimate contact. He was scrambling to undo the buttons of Naruto's shirt when a pointed cough shocked them apart. They broke away panting, chests heaving, still turned on and in need of more, more, more.
Kakashi gazed at them with a mysterious little smile of almost sadistic amusement. With bruised lips and mussed hair and hickeys sure to form, their activities would have been obvious even if they hadn't been caught red-handed. Sasuke stared at his shoes. What the fuck was he thinking? Fuck. He refused to make eye contact as he swept past both of them to the library. If the librarian or her aide noticed that he looked like he had been making out with someone -- a guy no less -- they didn't say anything. They simply pointed to a cart of books and commanded him to get to shelving.
The distraction of shoving books back into their proper place was welcome. Sasuke concentrated on the white tabs wrapped around the spines of books and let everything else fade into the background. Unfortunately, the warm breath suddenly breezing against his ear tugged him back to reality. Sasuke whirled around and came within inches of kissing Naruto again. He turned away and those enticing lips brushed his cheek instead. Understanding the message clearly, Naruto pulled back. Sasuke tried not to look at him as he wheeled the cart to the next aisle.
Sasuke leaned back gently against the shelf of books for a moment to clear his head and ran a hand through his hair with an exasperated sigh. Shit. What the fuck was he doing? Confusion muddled his thoughts as he returned to putting books back into their place. If only everything -- and everyone -- had an exact spot to fill. Sasuke sighed again and fit volumes of beautiful, poetic prose in empty spaces, unaware of azure eyes peering at him through the gaps where absent books belonged.
- - -
"Well, I think it's always been sexual tension. Maybe that's why they're acting weird around each other now. I swear I totally saw a hickey on Naruto's neck," Ino, gossip queen extraordinaire, remarked deviously, shooting Naruto a pointed look as he walked by. The other girls at her lunch table twittered in agreement. They were all staring at him intensely, as if the slightest detail could prove their point.
Catching their group stare, Naruto only huffed and resisted the urge to punch the nearest, moving object. Ever since their make-out session in the hallway, Sasuke was avoiding him. Needless to say, they spent the last few days of detention evading each other and the roof remained dismally empty. Complicated, mixed feelings haunted him. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to break Sasuke's pretty face or kiss him senseless again.
Truth be told, Naruto was still smarting from the rejection.
They had progressed so quickly from hate to emphatic understanding to awkward sexual tension. Now, Naruto wasn't sure what to feel every time he saw Sasuke. Only when they met in his dreams could he peel away all the difficult layers of emotion and find the core of all his feelings. In his dreams, soft fingers touched heated skin, their bodies clashed together erotically, and lips kissed everywhere. In his dreams, it was fucking hot. Back in the real world, he took cold showers in the morning and Sasuke continued to elude him.
With a sigh, Naruto slumped in his seat, scanning the cafeteria with vague interest. Sasuke was a constant blip on the edges of his peripheral vision and easy to pinpoint even in crowds. At a table by the window, he sat all alone, wrapped up in his own little world. Every minute detail caught his eye and made him pay attention: a book held in place by graceful fingers, long legs crossed at the ankle under the table, strands of hair brushing pale skin. The way the sunshine streamed in like a backlight added an ethereal glow to his profile.
As if sensing the intensity of his eyes, Sasuke glanced up. Their eyes met across a sea of other students all chattering, laughing, gossiping. Sasuke hesitated before looking away this time and that slight moment of indecision spurred Naruto through the maze of tables to him. He sat down across from him. Eyes swiveled onto them and a hush blanketed the noise level. People held their breath as the scene transpired before them.
"Sasuke."
"Naruto," the raven-haired boy acknowledged calmly. He marked his place and shut his book and stared indifferently up at him. They held each other's gazes then looked away simultaneously. An uncomfortable silence reigned in which they became acutely aware of their audience.
Lowering his voice, Naruto murmured, "Stop avoiding me."
Ears were straining to eavesdrop on their private conversation. Voices hissed for other voices to shut up. "I'm not," Sasuke snapped, albeit quietly so as to shield their talk from the prying listeners all around them.
"You're denying it? Stop being such a bitch," Naruto threw back, his voice rising of its own accord. People leaned in hopefully but he turned the volume down again. "Sasuke. I know you felt it too. So stop pretending it didn't happen, you bastard." With a substantial shade of uncertainty in his tone, he stammered on, adding hopefully, "I ... err ... we ... could hang out. This weekend. Maybe."
Sasuke's eyes smoldered with fury as he cast a sharp gaze across the table at Naruto. The whole audience seemed to be waiting with bated breath for his answer, though, really, they waited only for a climax to a situation they didn't fully understand. Finally, his mouth opened and an answer escaped coldly into the air, "No."
He unfolded himself out of his seat and strode away without looking back. Instantaneously, the cafeteria erupted in a cacophony of questions and theories and utter hearsay. Naruto just stared mutely at the empty space across from him. After a moment, with a frown in place on his brow, he too got up and walked away from the table.
- - -
Nocturnal fantasies were supposed stay nocturnal. Those dreams where lips kissed with bruising force, where warm hands stroked his length, where blue eyes twinkled up at him through the shadows of night -- they weren't supposed to haunt him sporadically throughout the day. The images floated into his mind without warning at the most inconvenient times, including breakfast with the family on a Saturday morning.
Drizzle flecked the window with tiny pinpricks of rainwater. Mikoto's voice was a distant hum in the background as the moans and heated touches and spine-tingling sensations spilled into his mind's eye. Sasuke shifted uneasily in his seat. Focusing on breakfast was difficult enough without the added complication of hormones. The atmosphere was riddled with tension and, with the exception of his mother, no one was eager to make eye contact with anyone else. " -- don't you think so, Sasuke?"
Like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Sasuke lifted his head suddenly. His eyes darted left then right as he tried to remember what she had been speaking about only moments before. All that came to mind were the scenes concocted by his imagination and his desires. "What?" he asked blankly, pushing those thoughts away quickly.
"I said, a family picnic would be nice, don't you think so?" Mikoto repeated patiently, a tentative smile on her lips. Her endeavors to mend the rips between them, to bridge the gaps, to knit them closer together were always in vain. The smile faltered as Sasuke pressed his lips together.
Optimism just wasn't his style.
"No," Sasuke replied brusquely. Seeing her face fall with unexpected sadness, he immediately softened. She tried a little too hard to fix such a hopeless situation, but at least she tried. She was a good mother and, as a son, the least he could do was spare her feelings. Conjuring the words quickly, he hastened to cushion his negative response with an excuse. "Not this weekend. It's supposed to rain this weekend."
Mikoto offered him a gentle smile. It didn't escape his notice when Fugaku settled his hand over hers. Sasuke, witnessing this sudden display of affection, returned his mother's smile with a faint one of his own. In the back of his mind, those eyes -- a myriad of emotions reflected in that blue sky hue -- glimmered at him. Whether it was the allure of that gaze or whether he had just folded under the pressure of all those arousing images, he came to a decision. "Besides," he added after a split-second of hesitation. "I'm busy this weekend."
- - -
Cold water sprayed tan skin in a steady thrum of falling droplets. Naruto gritted his teeth against uprising moans and vivid depictions as he stroked himself under the cool stream. He didn't want to see that bastard in his head. He didn't want to envision a writhing, panting, bed-shaking tangle that involved that taut, lean body. He didn't want that annoying face swimming through his thoughts. Yet his hormones continued to defy his wishes as did the nighttime visions that his brain contrived. All he could do was scowl and grumble under his breath.
When he got out of the shower, he could hear the indistinct murmur of voices down the hall. Little attention was paid to the indiscernible conversation as Naruto dried himself off with a towel. Clean boxers went on and dirty clothes made their way into the laundry hamper. The voices had quieted. The house was still. This, of course, gave him the perfect excuse to waltz around the house half-naked. He danced around with spectacular flailing as he belted the words to a rock song. As he whirled around and dropped down on one knee to croon an especially passionate note, he found himself kneeling before an unexpected guest.
Sasuke gazed at him silently. There was a cup of tea set on the table in front of his clasped hands and, beside it, an untouched platter of cookies that Iruka liked to set out when they had visitors. Instead of announcing his presence with even the slightest of coughs, he had simply sat there and waited to be noticed. Naruto glowered at him. How dare he arrive unannounced after so callously rejecting his invitation to hang out? Who the fuck did Uchiha Sasuke think he was?
"Look who it is," he angrily sneered. "Who let you in? No, better yet, where'd you get my address?"
The proud, prim ice princess avoided his gaze in obvious discomfort. Naruto felt a flicker of smug satisfaction, but it disappeared when Sasuke lifted his head and glared right back at him. He was in no position to be his usual, arrogant self, but that didn't stop him from doing so. In a tart, haughty tone, he replied, "Sakura gave me your address. And Iruka let me in before he left to run errands."
Naruto opened his mouth to bombard him with insults and wrathful words then shut his mouth again. Without so much as a glare cast over his shoulder, he turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen to his bedroom. Through his haze of fury, he could hear chair legs scrape back against the floor and footsteps following him down the hall. The bedroom door banged open as he stalked inside.
He didn't get very far before a lithe body pressed into his from behind. The sudden close contact with the boy who constantly infected his thoughts effectively halted him in his tracks. He breathed in ragged, infuriated breaths, but he didn't move. Sasuke gripped his hips and pulled him closer. The soft lips pressed to his bare shoulder murmured the softest of apologies. They stood there in silence for a long time. Seconds ticked away on the clock in the hallway.
Finally, the frozen moment thawed out. Naruto took two steps out of reach, turned, and punched an astonished Sasuke. As the knuckles landed a sharp blow to his cheek, he stumbled back and fell promptly onto his ass. Blue eyes glared daggers at him and then the rage melted away. Naruto grinned in wicked amusement as he held out a hand to help him up. "Now," he announced. "We're even."
Pale fingers brushed barely over the aching cheek. Eyes narrowed up at him. "You fucking idiot," Sasuke hissed, slapping his hand away. In a sudden blur of fluid motion, he tackled Naruto onto the bed and straddled him. One hand tangled viciously in golden hair and dragged Naruto closer to smash their lips together furiously. Enraged heat passed between their mouths as their tongues lashed together in a violent dance.
"Only because you're a fucking bastard," Naruto breathed between angry kisses. He slid his hands under cloth and over soft flesh. The cool of Sasuke's skin contrasted pleasantly with his warmth. As the hem of his shirt continued rising, the other boy broke off an especially fierce kiss to yank it off. It fell carelessly to the floor in a puddle of black.
Sasuke littered vehement kisses down a tan neck, bruising skin with eager lips and teeth. He rolled his hips forward and a moan slid through the blond's lips. Naruto jerked his hips up and gained the same reaction from the boy on top of him. With a tug of dark locks, their heads tilted in the right direction for another kiss.
As jeans joined the shirt on the floor, more tantalizing flesh begged to be touched. The bed shook as their positions were flipped. Sasuke growled in dissatisfaction but the noise morphed into a sigh of pleasure as it slipped from his mouth. Naruto let his hands glide everywhere, leaving no bit of skin untouched. He marked the smooth expanses of skin with his lips. Lower and lower his mouth trailed until he tugged boxers off pale hips and tossed them away.
Once more the bed rattled as their positions were reversed again. Tremors of desire swept through Naruto as kisses were placed on every inch of him. Soon his boxers joined the small clutter of clothes on the floor. Sasuke kissed his inner thigh and, as he squirmed with need, Naruto could almost feel the smug smirk radiating against his leg. He opened his mouth to complain or toss an insult into the air but found himself moaning instead as skillful, pink tongue skimmed over his erection. Sasuke teased him mercilessly. "Bastard," he hissed with some difficulty as the other boy tormented him.
Finally, black strands of hair tickling his bare skin, the heat descended on him. Lustful ecstasy washed over him in waves as Sasuke put the muscles of his mouth to good use. Naruto writhed at the sensual contact of those soft lips. He thrust his hips almost desperately as his brain began to shutdown. Coherent thoughts were no longer capable of forming and he could barely remember what his lungs were for. Sasuke gripped his hips to hold him in place as he picked up the pace. There was a flash of a moment where everything else seemed to fade away and then Naruto lay back, suddenly limp.
"Holy shit," he groaned as Sasuke, licking smirking lips, sprawled on top of him. They lay together in companionable silence, letting the moment settle over them. "Hey, Sasuke?"
"What?"
"Can you hear my heartbeat?"
"Yeah."
Sasuke tilted his head to look at the other boy with an odd look on his face -- a strange expression stuck between wonder and curiosity. Naruto just closed his eyes and smiled. "Good."
Another peaceful silence blanketed them. Naruto wasn't quite sure what they were anymore. Rivals? Friends? Perhaps even something more than just friends? Wherever their relationship stood on the spectrum of human relationships, he still had a naked Sasuke on top of him. Cobalt eyes sparkled with mischievous glee and a grin spread over his lips. "Sasuke?"
"What?"
"Can we have sex now?"
Sasuke lifted his head to give Naruto an incredulous look. The bawdily flirtatious gaze he was given in return did little to soothe the flare of irritation that creased his brow into a scowl. He rolled off Naruto with a huff and an incoherent grumble. Naruto attempted to pester him persistently with pleading words and puppy eyes and little kisses placed on his skin.
Amusement twitching at the corners of his lips, Naruto drew Sasuke's name out until the other boy gave up resistance angrily. Skin glided against skin and a pale handed threaded roughly through blond locks. Glinting blue eyes locked with glaring black eyes.
"Shut up," Sasuke snapped. And then he kissed him.