so, somewhere along the line, this happened.

all beta credit goes to my love, "Vivian" on ao3. they are the bestest.

(also, please heed the rating. &the fact that this may contain some dub-con elements.)

oOo

It's fall and all the four trees in the quad have been stripped of their leaves.

A joyless prelude to his first day of freshman year, and of the crowds of people that now feel to encase him, zig-zagging back and forth throughout the hallways with schedules clutched into the occasional pair of quivering hands.

Naruto leans back against the wall of the classroom he's been assigned. Room thirty-six, fourth-most building on the right. Those nearby shift to form an awkward line. He holsters the straps of his backpack and peeks back, wondering if so many of these hands have been shaking because of the ice-cold air of Yuba's autumn; or if it's just that everyone's anxious, scared, like his grandmother'd teased he would be today before she dropped him off at the corner of campus, moments before managing to kiss both of his cheeks in spite of his squirming.

He thinks he can still feel her sticky pink lipstick stuck to his skin, the feather-touch of her long blonde hair grazing against the side of his face, and feels embarrassed.

He peers to his left to check if someone is looking. Then he wipes away at the spot on his cheek with the back of his sleeve. He brightens immediately, spotting glittery smudges on the orange cuff of his sweater.

The girls behind him giggle.

oOo

It's not so bad thereon. Especially If he steers clear from the juniors and seniors.

As for classes, he finds most of the content semi-familiar, but with the difficulty setting amped up by at least twenty percent.

He's got lit, then Advisory with Hatake (a tall fair-haired man whom a lot of the younger girls in the class openly fixed on all through prep introductions). Then algebra, followed by CAD in which a cute girl named Sakura sits directly across him at the opposite desk.

Naruto pretends to drop his pencil twice. She smells like strawberries.

oOo

Noon strikes.

He's met Kiba who also happens to chart up on Guild Wars and now they're lined up together at the lunch line.

"So, what do you think?" Kiba asks.

"Think about what?"

Kiba rolls his eyes. "About Hinata."

"Oh." Naruto hums. "Hard to say. Quiet. A little weird?"

Kiba brings a finger to his chin, taps it while he thinks.

"That's it?"

Naruto sneaks a peek from over Kiba's shoulder, reassessing. Sure enough, he spots her there, still sitting at the edge of an empty table. She seems to spot him, too. She looks away, but not before her cheeks go red.

"Dude," Naruto whispers. Kiba huddles in. "She's looking over this way. I think she totally digs you."

Kiba's shoulders perk up. He grins. His teeth look extra sharp.

"Knew it." He pauses. "Think she'd be my girl?"

"I think so."

The line moves up. They both get pizza and find a place to sit. Three other freshmen amble forth from the crowd and join them. Shika, Shino, Lee.

The table gets crowded. Kiba scoots a bit more, insinuating for Shino to take the space between him and Naruto. They talk, with Kiba doing most of the actual talking. Naruto shrugs. He turns instead towards Lee (whose brows are the thickest he's seen) and brings up some stuff about frogs while Shikamaru sits there with his palm braced lazily beneath his chin. He sighs. The metal piercings in his ears glinter in the offshoot of the light.

"No way," says Naruto. "Glass frogs do that, too!"

"True," says Lee. "But do pipidaes do it?"

Naruto's eyebrows raise.

"That's...a really good question."

They laugh. Shikamaru shakes his head.

oOo

Sometime before lunch is done, Naruto gets up for seconds.

He's almost back at the table by the time he attempts to circle away from a group of older students, but instead bumps into someone. Hard.

The milk he'd been carrying slaps to the floor.

"Oh shit," he sputters. His throat tethers, guilt cinching through his tone. "I'm sorry, I wasn't—"

He looks up, to front the person whose skin-tight denims he's doused, and finds himself staring.

He's a he. Taller. Probably older, unusually pale. The longer strands of his hair border his face, teased at the back to jag up straight. Ink-black. Like paint.

He looks back at Naruto now, direct, and without expression, as if nothing in particular had happened between them. He doesn't look mean. But he also doesn't look nice. Which means, Naruto can't just laugh and joke it all off.

Seconds pass, feeling like a lifetime. Muffled snickers from all sides, the tail-eyed view of Sakura. But most importantly, Naruto can still feel the eyes of the older students boring holes into the back of his skull.

He swallows, straightening to the full of his height.

"Anyway," he starts. It's more a squeak, hot with the shame burning at the tips of his ears. "Sorry. I wasn't looking."

He takes the first step, desperate to leave the whole fiasco behind him. But stops when he hears the effortless huff of a scoff.

Dumbass.

Everyone laughs.

oOo

He tries not to think about what happened. It doesn't work.

And hours later, he can still feel the quiet prickle of humiliation whealing at the bottom of his gut.

He decides not to talk to Kiba about it. But now that classes are over Kiba brings it up, anyway.

"Back there," he says. "Don't let it get to ya." They round the corner of the quad, heading in the direction of the bleachers where a lot of the younger students wait to get picked up. "And if you do, just beat his ass." He laughs. "Then again, I bet he'd like that."

Naruto turns, a bit weirded by the last part.

"Do you know him?"

"Nah. But I've got him for Physics. Just sits there like a lump, emo-ing away in the corner." He pauses a moment, stroking through the ruff of an invisible beard. "Strange, though. How during rec all the chicks in the back just flocked around him like he was some sort of landmark."

"It just sucks so much," Naruto sighs. "That Sakura was right there looking. And on the first day, too. Must've looked like such a wuss."

Kiba smacks him on the back. "You know, from what I hear, girls can kinda kink that stuff."

Naruto looks at him again, piqued.

"Yeah, that's right. I mean, you should see my sister's boyfriend. Total bruiser type with the Jaguar XK to prove for it, but when he's around her. He's just. So whipped, man. Does the dishes, rubs her feet, and everything."

"But. How is that a bad thing?"

"Exactly. It's not," Kiba tells him smartly. "Just gotta find the right chick to do it all for. Know what I mean?"

Naruto grins, cackling a bit.

"Sort of reminds me of my grandparents."

Now it's Kiba's turn to look at him weird.

oOo

Half an hour later, Kiba gets picked up.

In fact, by about six o'clock, everyone gets picked up. Except him.

It starts to get dark. And cold. No teachers in the classrooms anymore. Naruto takes out his phone. Fifteen percent.

He hugs into himself, the fabric of his sweater suddenly too thin. He wonders if his grandmother has gone out drinking again. Or if she's somehow still at work. He decides on sending her another text. His grandfather, too. He waits, knowing that taking the bus at this hour would mean getting his neck wrenched by the time he got home (if he got home).

This is the reason, he thinks, why he's been begging for a new car. And at this rate, he opts he'd take any car. Even one of those ancient ones trashed away in the garage.

Breeze picks up. He shivers, brows pinching in. This is no new thing. For as long as he can remember, he's always been the last one to get picked up from anything.

He swings on his backpack and ditches the bench. He climbs the grandstand, instead, searching for a not-wet place to sit on its topmost bleacher. He settles, gathering his knees for heat. Eventually, his teeth stop clattering. He stares out from under the warmth of his hoodie, counting every car that speeds on by until at last his phone begins to vibrate.

He picks up immediately.

"Gramps?"

"Hey, shrimp."

Naruto rolls his eyes. "Where the heck are you? I'm totally dying out here!"

"Chill out, beansprout," Jiraiya tells him. "Or, should I say, chill in."

Crazy laughter, cough, successive choking sound. Naruto waits it out, cringing to himself.

"Anyway, Tsunade can't make it," his grandfather tells him. "She, uh. Well, you know how it is on Mondays." Naruto's grip on his cellphone tightens. She got drunk, probably passed out. Of course she did. "But! I'll come get ya after I finish up this tail pipe. At, say. Eight thirty?"

"What? But that's—" Naruto checks his phone. "Like ten more hours!"

"Alright, alright. Maybe sooner." It's almost a coo. "But, hey. Stay up front where I can see you, kid. Never know what you high schoolers are up to at the backs of buildings these days."

"But—"

Click.

Naruto seethes, dials again. No answer.

He gets up, hands feeling frozen. Needed to go to the bathroom, anyway.

oOo

Luckily, the restrooms aren't locked yet.

He looks at himself in the mirror and pulls down the hood of his sweater, tousling through the bright yellow shock of his hair.

Better this way, he thinks. Brings out his eyes. At least, that's what his grandmother tells him. That it makes it look like how his dad—her son—used to have it.

He washes his hands, tries to remember his parents. But aside from what he's seen in a handful of photographs and the occasional video recording, can't do it. If anything, he can vaguely recall the texture of his mother's fiery hair, the way it tickled him, the green clip she always wore pinning it in place.

He still has it. The clip. Tucked in with her apron and the two other boxes of his father's favorite Superman comics, all of which are secretly stashed underneath his bed.

Naruto shakes his head. Doesn't want to think about it.

He dries his hands, pockets them, and leaves the bathroom.

oOo

He makes his way back to the bleachers. But does not make it far, once he catches sight of someone sitting on top of one of the tables in the quad area.

Naruto squints through the fog.

Legs outstretched, back reclined, gazing up at nothing in particular. No jacket, plain tee. Forthwith, Naruto recognizes the skin-tight jeans.

He doubletakes, intent on minding his own business.

"I know you're there," he says, voice glib. He turns, those same black strands of hair moving along with him. "Dumbass."

Naruto's brows pinch in, all seven tiers of insults flashing in his head. Still, the comeback he chooses flats out and sizzles someplace at the back of his tongue. He can't be blamed. Something about the guy's pitch-dark stare feels a little invasive, even from this far away.

Naruto starts to walk the other way.

"Was just going," he says, sounding more like a wimp than anything.

A huff, like disappointment.

"Whatever."

Naruto pauses, thinks, realizing that—maybe, really maybe—he's just been socially approached. His nerves smoothen. Back there, in the lunchroom. It could have just been some huge misunderstanding between them, some chummy lark he'd failed to catch on to.

"I mean. Not that I'm in a hurry," he adds, stepping back (tentative) to where he was. "Are you waiting for someone?"

No response.

"Sorry about earlier," Naruto tries, confidence this time. "It was an accident."

Again, nothing.

Naruto sucks in some air, both cold and not knowing what else to say.

Now he feels like a dumbass.

"Anyway. Bye, I guess."

He turns to leave, but then the guy starts to suddenly move, swinging his legs from the table and standing.

"Phone's about to keel. Wanna walk?"

At first, Naruto fumbles with the English language. Whoever he is, he's come a lot closer, enough for Naruto to be able to catch a whiff of him. He smells nice. In a very different way than Sakura. But nice. Naruto's grip tightens on the weathered straps of his backpack, compartmentalizing his thoughts.

He nods, casual as possible, knowing full well he's being stared at.

"Yeah. Sure."

The guy motions sidelong with his neck—pale and smooth as the rest of him—leading the way towards the outfield of campus. He doesn't wait up.

Naruto hurries to catch up with him.

oOo

They walk the campus for a while, two strict feet away from one another. In silence.

It's awkward. Especially with the echo of their footsteps, the occasional side-glance that Naruto sometimes dares himself to take.

This close, he can sort of understand why girls would kind of like a guy like him. The stoic semi-creepy type, just enough to draw in, but not surfeit. Naruto wants to be able to do that, too. Maybe then girls like Ino would start to look his way a whole lot more, instead of Kiba's.

Steady, Naruto musters up some courage. He clears his throat, aware that they are now passing the biology labs.

"I'm Naruto," he says. "And you?"

Side-eye, as if amused by the name. Then,

"Sasuke."

A whole minute passes.

"So, uh. Sasuke. What's your favorite food? Mine's ramen."

"Never thought about it."

Naruto nods importantly.

"What's your first class?"

"Trig."

"Are you a freshman?"

"No."

"Oh." Pause. "I am."

"I know."

Silence. Naruto fiddles with the loose strings of his sweater.

"I thought you hated me at first," he confesses. "During lunch, calling me a dumbass in front of everyone. But you were just, I don't know, just spoofing, right?"

Sasuke looks at him again. Naruto doesn't check, just feels it. Still, Sasuke doesn't say anything.

"Aren't you cold?" Naruto asks. "I mean, I'm wearing this thing and I'm still freezing."

Sasuke shrugs one shoulder. Naruto bites his tongue because damn that was stupid and keeps walking, gazing at his feet while not really knowing what else to bring up. He wracks his brain for more questions, all the while trying not to wear things like excitement on his face. Because Sasuke, he's cool. Like, is-probably-in-a-band cool. Has a tat on the side of his wrist, and another on the bottom left of his neck, tribal or something. Must've been painful. The barbell in his eyebrow, too.

Naruto chews a bit on his cheek. Having him as a friend...introducing him to Kiba and Lee and all the other friends he's already made—but, best of all, he'd have someone to hang out with after school while he waited.

Naruto straightens.

Surely if Sakura saw him hanging out with someone like Sasuke—

Sasuke stops them. Naruto looks around. They're at the back of the school, by the janitor's closet.

"There's a park nearby, down the block," Sasuke tells him. "That way." He points to the dark, if not for a field and a couple of shady-looking houses. "Wanna go?"

Naruto stammers.

"Uh. Well. I told my, um, gramps I'd wait up front, er—be here, and so—"

Sasuke looks at him, a not-so-subtle sneer stretching his lip.

"What. Are you scared?"

"No!" It's more a shout, a declaration. "I mean, no. Of course I'm not scared."

"Good," Sasuke says, already jumping the fence. "Come on, then."

Naruto goes with him.

oOo

Five hours before midnight.

A thin film of fog permeates the park, a looming phantom strung an inch above the grass.

It's cricket-quiet and the sky is naked. No moon, but starlight marking shadows across the asphalt of a nearby parking lot. Sasuke leads them towards a narrow grove, pines of all heights towering from both sides.

They stop at one tree in particular, or more like under one. Leaves low, like tear-drops. Naruto looks up. A willow.

"This is so cool," he says, the sound of his voice blunt in the encompassing silence. "Do you come here often?"

"No," Sasuke says. "But that depends."

"On what?"

"Things."

Naruto looks at him. Sasuke steps closer (perhaps two feet away), then stops, casually reaching into the back-pocket of his jeans. Bic lighter, pack of Kents.

Naruto backs up a bit. Sasuke fleers.

"Figures." He takes one out, placing it into the far corner of his lips. "Try it."

He offers the pack, a single stick jutting neatly from the rest.

"Uh." Naruto flounders, glancing between the cigarette and the derisive look on Sasuke's face. He can't mess this up. He swallows his hesitance. "Okay."

He stares at it, from tip to paper-filter. Then he puts it in his mouth, feeling like his grandfather would very much strangle him if he ever found out.

"Here," Sasuke says, breathing out. The smoke twirls from his nose. It looks like cursive.

Naruto dares himself forward. Sasuke lights his cigarette. He squints, coaxing himself into the idea of testing it out like any other person. He tries his best to inhale, to soothe it in. Immediately, he gags up air. It burns—like gritty hot ash knotting in his trachea—and the taste itself is terrible.

Sasuke watches him mid the fumes.

"Cute," he says.

Naruto looks up, heat rising to his cheeks.

"Wha-what?"

Now Sasuke puts out his cigarette, mashing it beneath his heel. He comes closer—closer than before—until there is barely half a foot between them. Naruto stiffens, his back flat against the tree. He thinks it's one of two things here: that he's been lured precisely to get his ass beat, or that Sasuke really did just call him cute.

"Are you deaf," Sasuke says, "or are you stupid?"

Naruto gapes, some toad-like noise escaping him.

"Or maybe you're both," Sasuke muses, pressing forward.

All the blood rushes to Naruto's face in an instant, unsure if the knot in his gut is for fear or for humiliation.

"I think," Naruto starts. "I think I should get ba—"

"Are you embarrassed?"

"No," he stutters, swallowing words. "I just—"

"Have you fucked?"

The question is simple, the way that it's asked, like all the other questions before it. Naruto looks up, fish-eyed, the dark bemusement in Sasuke's eyes as intrusive as the stare he'd given when they were at the quad.

Before he can help it, Naruto hears the scritch of his own sputtering, the hitch caught clear in his breathing, the moment that Sasuke bucks against him a second time.

"No," he gulps, "not—"

"Sucked?"

"What, no—"

"Huh. Hard to believe," Sasuke whispers. "But I believe you."

He thinks about running. About somehow getting his arms to respond so that he could shove Sasuke aside and announce that there has obviously been some awful misunderstanding. That the thickening pressure he feels being jut against his stomach is something that shouldn't be jut there, that he doesn't like it, shouldn't like it, that he likes Sakura, her hips, lips, women—

And Naruto tries to, really does. To reassure himself as much as to say it. But his resolve dithers in, devolves, once Sasuke caps the remaining distance between them—one white hand jerking his hair to the side, the other pinning his wrist to the trunk of the tree—grinning against the reddened skin of Naruto's ear.

"I want you," he murmurs. "Do you want me?"

Naruto's knees wilt. He swallows, brows weakly knitting. Still, he steels himself to look at least once at Sasuke, into the brand-hot weight of his blackish stare, divulging, at length, the last of his dignity.

"I'm actually," he breathes, heart thrashing in his ribs, "I'm not—"

"A faggot?"

Sasuke laughs, feather-soft. He smiles now, releasing Naruto's hair in lieu of reaching down between them. He grasps what's there, firm and with a whorled down-thrust of his palm, asking,

"Is this for me?"

Naruto flags, failing to bite back the fainthearted mewl that goes to forsake him. The pleasure runs through him at first like a pike, in through his spine and to the gradual lull of his eyes, kindling his cock to pulse and react instantaneously.

"You look good like this," Sasuke tells him. He leans in, nuzzling the choppy strands of Naruto's hair. "So good..."

Steady, the swirl of his palm quickens. Clockwise and ruthless, until Naruto is liquid against him, distressingly stiff from under the stitch of his jeans. He bites his lip. Chews on it, unable to cohere or to want the need of a protest. He clenches his eyes, whimpers through teeth, feeling it now, slowly and like a landslip of heat, the white-hot twist unraveling in waves within his pelvis, and knows—knows—he's nearly there, nearly—

Sasuke pulls away from him.

oOo

For a moment of pride-splitting torment, Sasuke simply stands there, watching him.

But then Sasuke tilts his head, setting one smooth hand, blasé, onto the subtle crook of his waist.

"Turn around," he says, and the look he gives is expectant.

Naruto tenses, lungs glut with breath and with the fizz of blood filling in his ears.

He can't move, can't talk, can't—

Sasuke does it for him.

He's spun the other way, cheek-first against the tree.

"You're soft," mutters Sasuke. "Like a chick."

Slow, Sasuke's hand snakes to the root of Naruto's hair, pulling sidewards enough to reveal the skin of his neck. No space between them now, but the obvious weight of Sasuke's arousal riding up against his thigh, pressing a trail of heat until it goes to a parting stop at his ass, gradually stiffening.

To his horror, a livening tingle runs down Naruto's spine. He gasps through teeth, an inglorious puling of breath alongside the not-so-subtle twitch of his dick, the instant that Sasuke leans into him, closing lips around the vein of his neck before sucking.

At first, the sensation is pain.

But then the uncomfort lays, creating a razor-sharp bliss which sends shivers all through Naruto's body. His mouth parts. Quiet shame there, knees bending. Sasuke notices. Must have, because now he is sucking harder with teeth, in towards another patch-full of skin, till at last Naruto's eyes begin to roll back, the same twist from before beginning to unwrap in his crotch without his cock getting touched.

Sasuke's free hand moves up, underneath t-shirt and sweater, cold and clever against the naked expanse of Naruto's torso. It strokes, fondles, pulling in with a force that causes Naruto to curve at the back. In this manner, Sasuke's knee presses into the now-open gap of Naruto's thighs, caressing his cock.

Naruto feels like he's falling.

The coil gets worse, better, his throat feeling raw with the sounds that he tries to hold back. The thought of what his grandfather would say if he could see him now makes his eyes burn, but the thought of having Sasuke against him—wanting him this way—he realizes, burns even hotter.

Abruptly, Sasuke moves away from his neck, unhanding his hair momentarily. He presents him instead with two fingers, slim like a pianist would have them, demanding through bated breath to go ahead and suck them.

Naruto sucks them.

Against all the decency his grandmother taught him, he does. He opens his mouth, clenches his eyes, hyper-aware of Sasuke's knee still goading him into a petty completion. He's so close now. Can feel it, thrill like a second heart in his stomach.

"Tell me," Sasuke whispers. "Do you see it? My cock down your throat, your lips wrapped around it?"

Naruto groans, and it is a sound full of shame that glares in the quiet. Now Sasuke snakes down his left, away from Naruto's abdomen, undoing the zipper and button of Naruto's jeans in one practiced movement. Before he can protest, Sasuke yanks low. The fabric gathers at Naruto's knees. Underwear, too. The same hand goes now to unbuckle the prong of Sasuke's own belt. He slips his fingers from Naruto's mouth and pistons his hip, allowing Naruto to feel what it is he'd like to do next.

And Naruto knows full well what Sasuke would like to do next.

He stirs against the tree, against Sasuke's weight, a surge of panic overriding him.

"Tell me that you hate it," Sasuke tells him. "And I'll hate it, too."

Naruto makes a noise, a noise he swears is yes please I hate it, but falters. It results in little less than a snivel that comes out sounding a lot like the opposite.

"Good," Sasuke mutters.

Something there, stiff and heavy. Naruto feels it almost viscerally, a velvet heft in the shape of Sasuke's prick coming to a rest against his ass, the still-wet glide of fingertips parting through the crack, alluding gently, at first, the urge to push inside him.

Naruto tautens in an instant, understanding.

He brings up an arm, nips back a gasp. And in the dark of the park, seems more a useless bid at hiding his indignity.

oOo

The first finger does not sting.

The second sort of does. And the third is slid in through gradual increments.

Naruto chews his lip, cheeks glowing hot. And soon, he finds himself a lot more eager than he'd like.

His back arcs, pressing back. That's when Sasuke starts to really move. In and out and to his knuckles. Rhythmic, till Sasuke's wrist feels more a vicious flutter pumping from beneath him. Naruto's mouth falls open, tears resurfacing at the corner of his eyes. His own cock jerks in the aftermath of each thrust, jilted of touch.

"Just say it," murmurs Sasuke. "Say it like you mean it and I'll put it in you."

"I…" he swallows. No use. And for a moment, Naruto thinks he can feel Sasuke's heart soaring as fast as his own against his shoulder. "I don't..."

"You don't what?"

Sasuke grinds forward once, his fingers hooking from inside. They graze something. Naruto yelps, his eyes going wide. Sasuke does it again, four more times. And on the fifth, Naruto feels like he really might die.

"Please..." he stammers. "I wa…I want it—"

Sasuke pulls his fingers out. He shifts a bit, takes himself in hand.

Naruto closes his eyes, anchors his grasp on the tree. And knows that it's coming.

oOo

At first, it feels like being crammed apart.

Pain, like the skin of his hole might split and bleed at any second.

Sasuke makes a noise—either delighted or impatient—bringing both hands to clasp onto Naruto's hips, lurching him in.

"Fuck," he says, voice off-balance. "You feel so good already."

Naruto's shoulder hitches, neck ducking in. It might not even be the first inch of cock inside him yet, but already his chest constricts with the knowledge that he is losing his virginity. His thighs close in, back hunching up, all in a last-ditch attempt at getting rid of the intrusion. Sasuke doesn't let it. He uses one hand to take hold of Naruto's neck, lightly squeezing, before forcing him into a semi-straight position. He leans in (breath as warm as his embrace), his lips mouthing freely.

"Loosen up for me," he whispers, nipping gently. "Take it."

So Naruto takes it. Sasuke, who is so cool and strong. Who likes him. He whimpers, lets it push inside. Inch by sodden inch, until he is being fucked on repeat with at least half of Sasuke's cock.

"Do you like it?" Sasuke asks him. "It's not even all the way in yet."

Until it is.

The rest of Sasuke's cock shoves in, all at once and to the hilt of it, resting there.

The length, in truth, is like a punch to the gut. The girth too wide. Naruto realizes this far too late however, as Sasuke begins to properly fuck him, out and then in, beyond the preparation of just three fingers. He claws at bark. The stretch itself continues much until he is crying out, half sobbing, half begging, his hips attempting to dislodge him.

It doesn't work. And Sasuke only holds him closer, the winded noise he sometimes makes muffled into the crook of Naruto's shoulder.

Soon, Naruto's balance starts to give in. The pain subsides in mind-numbing waves, loosening his sphincter. He sees stars, listens to the constant slap of Sasuke's hips slamming against his ass, and realizes that a part of him loves it. It's embarrassing. But ever more is the fact that he has been brought to a humiliating hardness, a finger-tap away from reaching climax.

Still, not once does Sasuke stroke him. Nor does Sasuke reach over in an attempt to kiss him. Instead, he tightens his grasp on Naruto's throat, obstructing his breathing. He glides out to the tip, stays there, catching his breath until lastly he pummels back in, renewing the process. And when minutes after Naruto is full and so sickeningly stretched that even the angle of his own cock is affected, he allows himself the space of a breath to understand that maybe Sasuke doesn't really like him.

At least, not enough to want to spend time with him. Not enough to want to go to the mall with him...Not enough to come over and study with him, nor be his friend.

The revelation stings more than any sting the penetration has given him. Naruto sinks back, limp, wanting so badly to somehow summon the courage to man up and ask.

He can't. His thoughts form up nothing, and above it, he is still as hard as he's ever been in his life. The cold air does nothing to relieve him. Pre-come oozes. It caresses the under-vein of his cock, and despite the empty weight in his chest, he whimpers cheaply in the pleasure of it.

"Ask, then," Sasuke urges, and his voice is very heavy with arousal. "Tell me that you want to come."

It is too much too ask. The need is torment, the self-abasement in that he's been depredated at the back of a park is enormous. Nevertheless... The thrill of doing something secret. Something dirty, being told that he feels good, that he's cute. That he's here with Sasuke, this person who every girl at school craves so much, who smells nice and who in the dark, before this, made him feel protected.

Naruto almost says it, almost begs it—

"I told you to ask," Sasuke says again, this time breathless. "But I..." He pauses, tone hitching. "Can't wait anymore."

With a sound which he once again muzzles into Naruto's neck, Sasuke pistons back in, seating himself completely. He waits a beat, then he rams back out, his hips beginning to thrust without rhythm. It's violent, noisy and harsh, but it is also bliss. Naruto bites his cheek. It bleeds. And in the exact moment that his eyes start to roll back, cock twitching, Sasuke gasps and spends inside of him.

His embrace in those few seconds tightens so much that Naruto can hardly breathe. And in that heat and security, Naruto feels like he can finally come.

And he very nearly does, without any touch nor further motion, until suddenly and without warning, Sasuke's hand goes to grasp him firmly in its grip.

He pumps. Once or twice, over the head and to the base, and Naruto's entire body is helpless not to wire up in an instant. He spends, and he spends loudly, marking the tree with the gush of his seed.

Quiet. Movement. Time like molasses.

"Naruto," Sasuke starts. His tone is almost hesitant. "W—"

Manson blares, max volume, snapping reality back like a fist.

"Shit."

Immediately, Sasuke jostles out his cock and sidesteps two feet, using both hands to pull up his pants.

Naruto himself is a frozen rock against the tree.

"Shit shit shit," he hisses again, struggling to pull out his phone. He reads the screen, then he looks once at Naruto, saying, "It's my brother."

Naruto nods, doesn't risk a sound.

oOo

Sasuke slides his finger across the screen.

Naruto watches him quietly, red-faced and in the process of pulling up his underwear.

He listens, knows that he shouldn't. But the voice on the opposite line rings crystal clear in the silence.

"Sasuke?"

It's deep, much older, and also suspicious.

"Yeah, hi," Sasuke snaps, fumbling now with the chape of his buckle.

"Where are you?"

"I'm here," Sasuke says, though the haste of it gives him away. "Took a go down the block. I'll be there in a second."

"Be where?"

"Where you are," he presses. "Where else?"

"I've been here ten minutes."

"I know. Bye."

Sasuke hangs up, pockets his phone.

"I've gotta go."

He doesn't look at Naruto when he says it, just says it.

"I'll walk you back." He adds, "If you want me to."

He takes out a cigarette. Lights it, and starts smoking. But what hurts most is that he does it all neatly, as if nothing between them had happened just minutes ago.

Naruto feels the come slipping and then cooling down his left thigh, causing his pants to stick like a stamp to his skin. He didn't have time to clean it. He feels sore, filthy, and his body feels like it's been flung at a pile of bricks.

He nods only once, unable to look Sasuke in the eye.

"Okay," he says, and swings on his backpack.

oOo

They walk back.

Three feet away, and do not speak to each other.

oOo

It doesn't take long, once Sasuke's left, until Jiraiya pulls up at the front of the campus to pick Naruto up.

In fact, the convertible sports car that Sasuke had left in passes right by his grandfather's truck, letting him intersect into the parking structure instead of cutting in front.

Naruto watches his grandfather stick out his arm from the side-window, thanking the driver. In this way, at least, Naruto thinks, Sasuke has met his grandfather.

He swallows, an untellable knot in his gut. As he is, he is unable to picture how he'll be able to get in that truck without breaking down enough for his grandfather to easily guess what sort of thing had happened on his first day of class. Not to mention, the very next morning, mid the perlustrating presence of his sobered-up grandmother.

The truck comes to a stop by the curb. And as always, his grandfather blares the claxon twice just to annoy him. Naruto walks up to it. He opens the passenger door, takes off his bag, and climbs inside. It hurts, and feels like he's now sitting on a puddle of guck, once he settles upright. He chews on his tongue, threatens himself if he so much as wears any signs of discomfort.

He inhales, steady and cool, the smell of grease and gasoline allaying the car. Engine revs up, then his grandfather's hand claps him firm on the back.

"Sorry for the wait, kid," he says. "But hey, you made it! All grown up, hanging out in the sportsfield and everything."

Naruto nods, busying himself with his seatbelt.

The car starts to move, the radio turned down. Not even two minutes and Naruto can already feel his grandfather's apprehension solidifying in the silence between them.

"You alright there, shrimp? You look beat."

"Yeah." He swallows. "Just tired."

"Huh." They leave the parking lot. His grandfather side-eyes him, scans him down and up. "How was class? Make any new friends?"

Naruto shrugs, feels his throat clogging up. They stop at a red light.

"Hey, it's not so bad," says Jiraiya. "Sometimes it takes a while. Just keep doing your thing, sculpt that grin and let the ladies see some confidence."

Naruto nods. He tries his best to smile. His grandfather reaches out, ruffles through his hair.

"We go home and watch that ghost show you love so much, okay? What was it, with that guy in the trench coat?"

Naruto's eyes water up. He wipes them with his arm, pretending to yawn.

"Okay," he says.

oOo

He doesn't see Sasuke the next day. A part of him is grateful for it.

Now he's waiting again, topmost bleacher by the basketball nets, pulling both hands into the warmth of his sleeves.

Five minutes ago, Kiba had gotten picked up by his mom. Now it's been thirty.

Somehow, it was a lot easier around him. Moreso around Lee. Cracking puns during lunch, sitting next to Sakura in class, staring at her hair, forgetting and pretending.

But now no one is there. And once more, his grandfather won't be on his way until at least another hour.

All of two nights ago comes tumbling back. Blurred, yet vivid-raw before his vision.

He brings in his knees, hides half his face in the rift of them and slips on his hoodie, wanting so badly to wish away the ache that didn't quite ease from his backside. The swollen-blue hickeys on his neck, only Shino had noticed. Which is alright. A thing shrugged off without explanation, seeing as Shino does not really seem to care about much outside of chem class and insects.

The bleachers are cold. He's cold. He wants to go home, to snug up next to his grandmother's chest, following along while she reads out one of her lame mystery novels. He wants ramen, wants middle school to happen again, wants to backtrack and stomp on those moments where he ever even talked to a pervert asshole like Sasu—

"Hey."

Naruto doesn't look, doesn't move. His back stiffens.

Then, the gradual creak of the bleachers. Footsteps on steel, unhurried, climbing the benches.

Finally, faint heat, the unequal slant of someone heavier sitting next to him. Not too far, not too near.

Silence.

Naruto, with what cast of hatred he conjures, looks in the other direction.

"Do you mind?"

Naruto shrugs one shoulder, heart a craze in his ribs. A thrum which he feels all the way to the pulse in his wrists, twisting.

"You look—" Pause. Puff of breath, as if in a hurry to correct a mistake. "I mean, you seem...rested."

Now, Naruto turns to look at him. Slight, indifferent, and for just the fraction of a second. Still, the peek is enough to blooden his cheeks. Enough to let him notice that, this time, Sasuke is wearing a long-sleeve. Figure-hugging, tubed to cover the tattoo on his neck.

It's stupid. So stupid—

Another creak of the bench. Subtle, noise of a wrapper. Then,

"Want some?"

Naruto looks.

Gum.

Half an hour later, Sasuke scoots closer.

oOo

leave me a line and i'll probably cry tbh