Brighter Chapter 17: And if you have to go, a naruto fanfic

Well at the risk of people getting mad at me… I'm back!... sort of… I make NO promises to anybody, I'm in college, I'm busy, I have a life… not to mention I've stopped following Naruto so there are going to be a TON of inaccuracies… please don't tell me about them… please! I've been updating this pic (so far I've updated chapters 1-4, so I can add some new stuff, get rid of some old stuff, and just edit the story into something more… useable :P … please feel free to go back and reread! And check back for more updates!

Summary: Oh please, not again… if you're still reading the summary go back and read the whole rest of the story you lazy bums :P

Warning: People are a bit OOC… I'm sorry, my story, and I gotta move things along somehow, right? RIGHT!

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto and not Masashi Kishimoto this hiatus would've pissed a lot more people off…. So maybe it's a really good thing I don't in retrospect….

Chapter 17: And if you have to go

For what felt like the millionth time in the last few days Naruto felt like vomiting. Maybe it was being trapped in this "dungeon" of a room with only Sasuke for company every couple of days, maybe it was these sick people who had him trapped in here, maybe it was the food they were serving him, if it could even be called food, or maybe it was Naruto's own body odor, as he hadn't been allowed a shower in the 3 weeks he'd been here…. Yes it was probably his body odor.

"Hey!" he called out, though he didn't really expect anybody to answer him.

"What?" came a clipped, and rather unexpected reply.

Biting back his shock Naruto recovered fairly quickly, "Can I get some basic hygiene here?"

There was a fairly cold laugh from the shadows, and the figure quickly exited the room, much to Naruto's confusion.

Minutes passed without incident until Naruto heard Sasuke's drawling voice from outside the "dungeon".

"What the hell do you want, Suigetsu?"

"It's not what I want, really… but I think you'll be interested in giving your boyfriend a shower." Next came a silence dripping with awkward tension.

"What?"

"Well there's no way we'd leave him in the bathroom alone, all kinds of shenanigans could happen in there! So I figured you'd be the most willing, and quite frankly the least painful to my person, candidate for giving him a shower…."

Naruto sat where he was a blushed furiously. How come he couldn't shower alone? It's not like he needed help! He'd been able to function just fine since he'd woken up, and it's not like he could escape in the bathroom!

"Fine."

Naruto darkened more when Sasuke came out of the shadows and grabbed Naruto's hand, yanking him up, probably with more force than he'd intended, off the ground. Suigetsu, Naruto was really starting to dislike the guy, came over and tied Naruto's hands behind his back, rather forcefully. "No funny business in the shower," he commented, his usual smirk gracing his face, "We've got stuff for you to shave with and bottles and what not, for your own safety as well as ours."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and pushed Naruto out of the room. He'd been rather forceful and abrasive since their first meeting, Naruto turned a furious shade of pink just at the thought. "Because if you were to really ask me, I'd say you should stay, right here, with me, forever"

"Naruto," Sasuke sighed, as they neared the bathroom, "Please try and retain some of your normal color, it's a little embarrassing."

"Shut up, teme!" Naruto retorted quickly. He was actually rather peeved at Sasuke for treating him so coldly, hadn't he been the one telling Sasuke to stop before they got caught? It wasn't like he'd done anything wrong, and Sasuke must have some idea of how Naruto felt, how could he be acting this stupid and indifferent and cold?

Without realizing it, caught up in his own thoughts, the two of them had reached the bathroom and Sasuke quickly shut and locked the door. He moved to turn on the water and as soon as the noise of the water had picked up he immediately hugged Naruto. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, breathily, into Naruto's ear. The warm breath felt comforting in some strange way and Naruto relaxed. "Get in the shower," Sasuke commanded abruptly, his voiced raised a bit in an attempt, Naruto assumed, to make it heard over the shower.

"In my clothes?" Naruto couldn't help but ask, with eyebrow raised. He saw Sasuke's eye twitch and his cheeks pinken, which in turn made Naruto his, now, usual shade of pink. Sasuke began to help maneuver out of his rank clothing, made far more difficult by the ropes around Naruto's hands, and pretty soon the two of them were naked. Naruto figured that Sasuke had obviously decided it would be fairly counter-productive for Naruto to return to the same disgusting clothes Sasuke called out for Suigetsu to go grab some new ones, he heard shuffling outside and could only assume he had complied.

The two of them stepped into the hot shower and let the warm water rain down on them, it felt wonderful to have the filth washed away. Naruto sighed heavily and contentedly and tried to move his hands up to was his hair… before realizing he was still tied up. He looked at Sasuke, who had an odd expression on his face.

"Say um… do you think you could give me a hand?" he inclined his head towards the soap and shampoo and Sasuke seemed to break out of his little trance slightly, reaching a hand over and grabbing the shampoo bottle first.

…..

"Hey Sasuke, c'mere!" Sasuke didn't particularly care for the expression on Suigetsu's face as he grabbed his hand and began pulling him towards Naruto's room. This could not be good, he mused, thinking back to the horrible incident that was the night Naruto woke up and every tortured and, he fumed, monitored visit since then.

"What the hell do you want, Suigetsu?" he asked, venom dripping with every word. He wondered briefly whether or not they were close enough for Naruto to hear them but didn't think about it for very long.

"It's not what I want, really… but I think you'll be interested in giving your boyfriend a shower." It took a considerable amount of will power to not look utterly shocked at this statement and he remained silent slightly longer than he'd intended to.

"What?" he finally asked.

The two stared at each other, one with a rather sadistic smirk and the other with a look of daggers. Oh if only looks could kill, Sasuke briefly mused, before finally sighing, understanding that the best way for this to happen was to simply comply.

"Fine."

As they entered Naruto's… "holding pen" he noticed the blond blushing slightly, and wondered vaguely again if he had been able to hear the conversation outside. He reached out for Naruto's hand and pulled him up, to be honest he may have pulled a little too hard, it looked like it hurt, but he was so fucking pissed off he found he didn't really care. Suigetsu walked up from behind him and tied Naruto's hands behind his back. Both Sasuke and Naruto looked at him incredulously.

"No funny business in the shower," he explained, with his usual smirk, "We've got stuff for you to shave with and bottles and what not, for your own safety as well as ours."

As they walked away, both of them feeling fairly annoyed if Naruto's face and Sasuke's own feelings were any indications, Sasuke couldn't help but notice that Naruto was continually turning a deeper shade of blush. His eyes fleeting back to see that Suigetsu was following a slight ways behind them. "Naruto," Sasuke sighed, as they neared the bathroom, "Please try and retain some of your normal color, it's a little embarrassing."

The quick quip of "Shut up, teme!" hadn't really been expected and Sasuke couldn't help feeling a slight stab of remorse for the way he'd been treating Naruto but there wasn't much that could be done, this was for Naruto's protection as well as his own.

When they reached the bathroom Sasuke made sure to lock Suigetsu out, which he was sure annoyed the latter greatly. After he'd turned on the fairly noisy shower he went to hug the still incapacitated Naruto. He felt every bit of regret, remorse, pain, and any other feeling he didn't normally feel shoot through him as he whispered in Naruto's ear, trying so hard to keep his voice from shaking too much "I'm so sorry." He could feel the blonde relax a lot and slight wave of relief washed over him.

His brief moment of joy was interrupted by the image of Suigetsu standing outside the door. "Get in the shower," Sasuke barked, trying very hard to make sure they were heard. "In my clothes?" Sasuke's eye twitched and he felt himself blush. He hadn't thought about that. Oh god, Naruto, his Naruto, he couldn't help but think, naked!

He awkwardly set about removing Naruto's clothes, as well as his own, both of them turning darker by the moment. He called out absentmindedly for Suigetsu to grab Naruto some fresh clothes.

He barely noticed when the two of them were completely in the shower, he was trying far too hard to not ravish Naruto right there with his eyes. He wanted so much to touch that body, memorize it, and whisper so that only Naruto could hear, that everything would be alright. He knew he could never keep such a promise but he wanted to say it to the blonde dobe all the same. He didn't notice when Naruto's hands jerked awkwardly as he tried to move them and he looked at Sasuke with a sort of pleading expression.

His blissful trance and rather… mature train of thought were quickly brought to an end by said blonde. "Say um… do you think you could give me a hand?" Naruto was obviously indicating the shampoo and soap and Sasuke decided it would be best for him to not touch Naruto's body yet, so he grabbed the shampoo and prayed to some non-existent God that his thoughts would get pure fast, or he felt his body might betray him.

…

Marveling at his incredible self-restraint in the shower Sasuke quickly finished cleaning off the blonde and the two boys returned from the shower after about 20 minutes to find a new set of clothes outside the door. Sasuke finally removed Naruto's bindings and the two of them dressed quickly, neither speaking to the other, and both still a fairly dark shade of red.

Realizing with a rush of embarrassment that he could have removed those in the bathroom and nobody really would've cared… meaning Sasuke wouldn't have had to clean Naruto off… maybe it was better that he'd waited, he couldn't help but think selfishly as he finished pulling on the last of his clothing.

He walked Naruto back to his room and was getting ready to leave when he felt a warm and still slightly wet hand tug lightly at his clothing. "Do you have to go?" Naruto whispered, calmly. "You never really visit anymore." Sasuke had been to the room but he knew that wasn't what Naruto had meant.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, genuinely, as he slightly rubbed Naruto's cheek with his own warm and slightly wet hand. "I'm so sorry." Sorry seemed to be the only thing he'd been able to say lately. He was. He was so unbelievably sorry for everything he'd done to Naruto.

"I know." And the stupid idiot still didn't hate him. He hugged Naruto again, much lighter this time and the two just stood there and breathed. Those two minutes were the best he'd had in weeks and Sasuke couldn't help but be grateful he'd get them at all. Naruto, his Naruto, he couldn't help but think again.

"My, my, isn't this just peachy," came the dead pan voice of Karin from the edge of the darkness.

"Be careful, people might think you're a lollipop with a stick that far up your ass," Naruto growled from Sasuke's chest, earning him a shocked expression from both Karin and Sasuke.

"What?" She asked darkly.

"Leave it be," Sasuke ordered, letting Naruto go and heading for the edge of the room. "Good night, Naruto." He said gently to the blonde, who continued to stand where he had been left.

"If you have to go…" Naruto began, and Sasuke couldn't help but be reminded of a conversation they'd had in the hospital… that seemed like an eternity ago, and he would give almost anything to be back in that room, with the dobe in that stupid chair and all of their latest problems so far behind them. "If you have to go can you just promise that you'll come back soon!"

That hadn't been what he'd expected but he couldn't help smiling gently at the idiot. "For you, dobe? Always." And with that he left the room.

I'm so sorry (as Sasuke said repeatedly) for taking so long, you all deserve so much more than 2,000 words and I'm sorry I can't give you more for now…. To anyone who wanted the shower scene to go further than it did… as much as I love reading that stuff I can NOT write that stuff… sorry, look elsewhere… do they even have showers in the Naruto universe? They have to get clean somehow right? …. I don't think they have lollipop's either but I just HAD to use that line XD

Thanks to everybody who's still here and to anybody who's joined along the way, I'll try and update, but like I said that is so hard for me right now, but I will try….