Author's note: This is something rather random I've been playing around with in my mind for a while and I finally decided to try writing it. Not entirely sure what to think of it, but somehow I still like it anyway. I hope you'll like it as well!

Warnings: Sasuke's pov; set somewhere after their final fight, but is not epilogue compliant; established slash; sprinkles of angst tossed into it; very light implied mature content; some fluff. Let me know if I missed a warning.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.

I hope you'll like it!

Sometimes

Sometimes he wondered when the other shoe would drop. Feared the day that the other one would wake up and realise he was much better off without him.

Sometimes he wondered just how much longer his luck would last, how many more days he'd have the privilege of looking at him and knowing he was his. How many mornings he had left where he was allowed to wake up next to the other man and be gifted with his sleepy smile and clouded over eyes before they would share a sweet kiss, morning breath be damned.

How many more evenings where he'd come home and be greeted by an enthusiastic kiss, possibly even burnt dinner if the other one had become too distracted. He'd huff that he would have to eat ramen again then, because it was the quickest dish to make, scold the other for burning their dinner for the second time that week, but they both knew he secretly didn't mind.

Not really. Not anymore.

He would lie awake at night and try to count the days he'd left with his lover, the days he loved the most, because those days were spent doing nothing and everything they wanted. Those days it was just them, nobody else.

He feared he was running on borrowed time, but unlike before, he couldn't bring himself to tear away from the other man. When the other shoe dropped, when the other would realise just how much better he could get in life, no doubt it would be agony, saying goodbye to him. It would feel like being ripped apart, limb by limb, muscles torn and shredded, and if he was smart, he would leave before it was too late. Protect whatever was left of his heart. Guard himself against pain he knew all too well.

Perhaps he wasn't as smart as everyone thought he was, because he stayed.

God help him, but he stayed.

Because he'd rather have had this short time of bliss than never having known it at all.

He knew what they said about him behind his back. What they whispered to each other when they thought he couldn't hear them; the poisonous comments the other one tried to keep a secret from him.

Dangerous. Unstable. Insane. A threat to the village. Murderer. Traitor.

"Why he's free to walk around is beyond my comprehension. They should have left him to rot in jail, like he deserves."

"I know Uzumaki said we can trust him, but … I'd never turn my back to him, that's all I'm saying."

"That whole family wasn't right. We finally got rid of them and now there's still one of them walking around. Who says he's not going to end up like that Madara guy? The first Hokage also thought he could make deals with that clan – and we all know how that turned out."

The whispers followed him wherever he went; their eyes drilling in the back of his head, burning with disgust. Shopkeepers greet him with a sneer; girls who used to flock around him and try to catch his attention now avoided him, their heads firmly turned away if they encountered him on the streets.

It didn't bother him. He'd never cared what the villagers had thought of him, had ignored their comments and their stares ever since he was little. He couldn't even care less about the lack of attention from the girls; their obsession with him had always annoyed him. Frankly their avoidance of him now was like a breath of fresh air.

He rarely walked through the village anyway, preferring to stay in the cottage in the forest, which was in theory located closer to the Suna border than to the one of Konoha. The village hadn't been his home since he'd lost his entire family during that one faithful night; he definitely wasn't mourning not being able to stay there without being subjected to rumours.

What did bother him, though, more than the vicious sneers and the poisonous whispers and the hateful glares ever would, was the effect it had on his lover.

Because for him Konoha would always be his home, no matter how badly most of the villagers had treated him in the past.

"You don't have to stay here, you know," he remarked one day, watching hands stiff with tension work their way meticulously through cutting the vegetables. "If you would feel better in Konoha, I wouldn't - "

"But you don't feel comfortable there, do you?" Naruto asked him, abruptly lowering the knife on the cutting board. His hands rested on the counter and he stared down at them; his mouth a faint thin line.

"I don't," he easily admitted and shrugged. "But that doesn't matter. If you feel better there - "

"I feel good wherever you are," Naruto said curtly, his blue eyes turning red for a fraction of a second. "Or are you trying to get rid of me? Because if that's the case, bastard, you might as well be - "

"If I wanted you gone, I'd have kicked you out a long time ago," he cut him off and watched him blink before his features softened and the corners of his mouth quirked into a smile.

"Well, that's settled then," the blond man hummed and picked up the knife again. "I don't want to leave and you're not kicking me out; you're stuck with me for life, bastard."

"Guess so," he murmured, ignoring the way his heart thudded faster. It sounded so easy when Naruto said it …

He stepped forwards, sliding his remaining arm around Naruto's waist. The Jinchuuriki easily leant back, bracing himself against his chest, while he continued to cut the tomatoes.

"If you ever want to leave …" he started, but went quiet when Naruto swiftly turned around and pushed a tomato cube in his mouth.

"Then I let you know," he replied and kissed him, heedless of the tomato taste still staining his mouth. His eyes were dark when he pulled away and they studied his face; the hand with the bandages coming up to caress his left cheek. "I don't care what the others say, you know. Never have, never will."

He arched an eyebrow. "That's a lie," he said sceptically.

Naruto flushed a bright red and he pouted. "Bastard. Fine. I don't care what they say about you."

"You might if you ever want to become Hokage," he remarked quietly. He closed his eyes when Naruto kissed him again.

"No village, no title, no job, nothing is worth losing you," Naruto whispered. "They can keep me a Genin for the rest of my life if they want to – as long as I got you, I'm happy."

For just that moment, this quiet evening in their little cottage, he allowed himself to believe those words. To trust in them.

"Besides," Naruto said and turned around again in his embrace, picking up cutting the tomatoes where he left off, "if Konoha doesn't want me anymore, I'm sure Gaara will have some position open for me. Maybe he'll even let me be co-Kazekage," he said cheerfully.

"If he wants the whole village to go up in flames, perhaps," he snorted and relaxed.

Naruto huffed and smacked his arm. "And here I was being nice and making that tomato salad you love so much. See if I ever do something nice for you again."

"You're only making that salad now because one, there's no ramen stocked and two, you broke the coffee table," he said calmly.

Naruto froze. "How did you know? I replaced it before you came home!" he cried out dismayed.

He scoffed. "Yes, with a completely different one, you idiot. You think I wouldn't notice that the coffee table had suddenly changed shape?"

That set off Naruto like a firecracker and he started ranting about stupid table shapes and stupid bastards with expensive tastes for the next half hour.

Sasuke just watched and hid a smile, because even whilst ranting, Naruto never removed himself from his embrace.

Sometimes, when they lied in bed, and pale fingers slid their calloused tips across warm, firm muscles, and dark eyes watched pale pink nipples turning into small pebbles and gazed at the body squirming underneath or next to him, he was amazed at the amount of trust the blond man showed him.

He'd shoved his hand straight through the man's chest when they'd been younger, yet he never flinched when he drew his hand across his chest. He never tensed up when his hand covered his heart and never reacted when he touched vulnerable places like his stomach save for pressing himself even closer, begging for more.

Uzumaki Naruto was truly a peculiar man. One who could hold grudges for ages just because Sasuke would forget to buy one particular ramen flavour, but who waved off past attempts on his life as if they'd never been serious.

As if Sasuke had never tried to really kill him in the past. As if once – not that long ago, yet it felt like a lifetime ago anyway – they hadn't clashed with each other, nearly destroying each other in the progress.

Like Sasuke had never come dangerously close to losing himself to the darkness, dragging everyone around him down with him.

Like his entire being wasn't tainted with blood.

"People most likely consider you stupid for trusting me," he murmured one night; his breathing only just having regulated itself again.

They hadn't seen each other in more than a week, Naruto away on a mission and him scouting places on the other side of the country, and their desperation had led to them being sequestered away in the bedroom, making love to each other for hours.

On his chest, Naruto stirred slightly; his blond strands vaguely tickling his skin when he shifted his head a tad. One blue eye peeked up at him. "And you claim my pillow talk sucks," Naruto groaned.

His body was stretched out horizontally next to Sasuke's, his head pillowed by the older man's chest. Sasuke was pretty certain Naruto had insisted on an abnormally large bed just to be able to lie like this.

"Don't they?" he asked curiously, tugging gently at golden blond locks.

"Remove the 'most likely' and you got your answer," Naruto scoffed, closing his eye again. His chest and legs were littered with faint bruises; his hip bearing a vague bitemark. Already they were fading away; tanned skin becoming a smooth canvas once more.

His own bruises would take longer to heal. He didn't mind.

"Maybe they're right," he mumbled almost inaudible, not really intending for the other man to hear him.

"Who's the stupid one now?" Naruto groused and sat up, eyeing him balefully. "I trust you and that's all that matters. To hell what the others think."

"You're an idiot," Sasuke sighed, silently questioning what he had done to deserve the man in front of him. It certainly wasn't anything he'd done in this lifetime.

"Yeah, but I'm yours," Naruto promised and bent down to kiss him deeply; his tongue slipping through slightly parted lips.

He entered him just as smoothly as when he'd first prepared him, their bodies slotting together like two pieces of a puzzle.

For tonight and for however long he was allowed to have him, he was his. And that was enough.

Sometimes he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, watched black be replaced by the blood red of the Sharingan and the purple of the Rinnegan.

He thought of everything which had happened that had led to him acquiring these eyes, remembered the blood being spilt.

Understood why people flinched away at the sight of them. Not much good had happened when these particular eyes had been involved.

"I like them," Naruto whispered every time he caught him in the bathroom. He would come to stand behind him and link his arms around his waist, hooking his chin over his shoulder, and catch his eyes in the mirror. Holding them, never wavering, never flinching away.

"Because they're proof that you're still here. That you survived."

Yes. He looked at his eyes, his Sharingan rapidly shifting until the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan stared back at him. His other eye flashed purple, remaining hidden for the most part behind his hair.

He supposed that was a way to look at it.

"I wonder what you would say if you saw me now."

It was inane, his chattering, because he knew damn well what his brother would say.

"You and Naruto are so damn alike," he murmured, gazing at the dark grey slab of stone.

It stood right in front of a centuries' old oak tree; its branches towering high above, casting him and the stone in its shadow. It bore a simple inscription, engraved in the middle of the stone.

'Uchiha Itachi

Beloved Brother and Son'

"You two have far too much trust in me," he sighed and raised his head when a gentle breeze sprang up out of nowhere, sweeping past him. It shifted his cloak and ruffled his hair.

"Yeah," he said silently; his gaze lowering down to the stone once more. "You two really are alike."

Sometimes he questioned whether he would ever be really worthy of the man next to him. Whether he was really deserving of the love and the affection the blond man bestowed upon him on a daily basis.

Then Naruto would look at him and smile; his brilliant blue eyes alight with love and something inside of him would settle.

And he would think, maybe I really am.

Sometimes he wondered whether he would ever be good enough.

But then he would enter the bedroom and watch Naruto doze in the rocking chair, their baby held securely in his arms, cradled against his chest. He would walk over to them and bent down, caressing their son's small cheek tenderly before kissing Naruto's forehead. He would carefully take their son, making sure not to jostle him awake, and would place him in his crib, watching tiny hands curl into little fists.

Once their son was settled, he would return for Naruto and transfer him from the chair to their bed before following him, watching Naruto turn towards him and settle against him with a gentle sigh.

He would watch his family and think that even if he might never be good enough, he would do his damn hardest to be good enough anyway.

Sometimes he wondered.

Then he looked at Naruto and their son and he knew.

That everything was okay.

The End

AN2: Do I have the faintest clue what I wrote? Nope. Did I enjoy writing it anyways? Yeah, I did. *shrugs* Have this oneshot while I work on other stories - which will normally be less weird than this one *crosses fingers*

Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.

I hope to see you all back in my future stories!

Cuddles

Melissa

P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.