Climb a Little Higher
Fall a Little Faster

When all is said and done, all that's left is to live well, and with no regrets.

It's been sixteen days, four hours and a handful of beautiful seconds too small to count and too precious to measure since Uchiha Sasuke died and was reborn. Sixteen days, four hours and a handful of insignificant seconds that really don't matter (how many breaths does a person take in a single minute?) since he lifted his head, wiped blood from his mouth and said a word so simple and perfect and eloquent that it became a wonder and a marvel in his mind why he'd never said it before.

"No."

It came hardly won, like a battle on an alien turf, like the amputation of a limb that's already dead, like someone clinging to starlight when all they've got is sunshine. But once he said it, once he was sure and certain and once he knew it was the right thing to do, he repeated it again. Just to tarnish the mystery. "No."

And his brother, the Uchiha prodigy, his first enemy, his first real friend, smiled at him. That sad little resigned smile that he'd known and remembered and cherished all this time but had wanted to forget just the same. "I'm proud of you." A whisper, something he'd wanted to hear all his life, from different lips than he might have liked. More than friendship or love (and my, what an overused term that is. Sasuke doesn't love, because words are words and Sasuke is Sasuke, and Sasuke doesn't need words.) this is acknowledgement. Bought and paid for in blood and bone and endless misery. "You're finally stronger than me."

He hadn't believed it. He doesn't believe it now. Sixteen days, four hours and a cascade of sweetly bitter seconds later. But Naruto is laughing and sunshine is sunshine again, amber and gold, and the world is new and there are things to be explored, jokes to be told, things to laugh and love (Sasuke didn't believe in love, but it seems an apt term when nothing else can possibly suffice) and live for.

Naruto doesn't know. Doesn't ask, even. But he cares. Oh, he cares. Sasuke sees it, an unspoken question. Naruto is blunt and brash and crass and honest but he won't ask because that isn't the right kind of victory. Sasuke knows that. Basks in it, kinda. Likes the way that Naruto is just the same as always, calling him names and striving to be better. And he is better. In lots of ways. One thing Sasuke doesn't know was when or where or why he was suddenly able to admit that, but it's come, it's gone, and he's humbled now, a simple man living a simple life and sure he still craves power some of the time, but when that happens, he challenges Naruto to a sparring match and gets beaten into the ground.

Because Naruto doesn't hold back.

And today is all cinnamon and tourmaline, whorls of color so beautiful he was amazed he hadn't seen them before. Somehow, even with the power of the sharingan, deadly but docile, he'd missed this, all of this. He knows better, now. So sometimes he just stops in the midst of the madness, and he tastes the sunshine.

"Idiot," he says in random annoyance, and Naruto glares at him and narrows his eyes and then he carries on, talks louder than before, and Sasuke sighs, cradles his forehead in his hand and tries, but not too hard, to hide a smile. Naruto catches it and grins back, insult dismissed and forgotten, and he talks on. Sasuke listens, and adds a comment from time to time, and even though the conversation has about as much substance as one of Jiraiya's 'books', it's the fact that they're here, that they're laughing and fighting and hating and loving (there's that word again) like they should be that means so much. It's real beyond reality, beyond imagining.

This is what matters. This is what he doesn't want to lose, and what he's needed all along, more than oxygen, more than any revenge (was he ever that young?) and more than, in some instances, life itself.

So Sasuke takes a deep breath, just for the sake of breathing, and he reaches over to where Naruto's sitting, just for the sake of touching, and he pushes him into the water, just for the sake of…everything.

Naruto yells, and surfaces, and glares, and splutters, and perhaps not in that order but who's daring to keep score?

Sasuke leans back on his hands, kicks his feet in the cool water, and tilts his head quizzically, doing his best impression of the 'Who, me?' expression. Even though he's not very good at it, because he's never really needed it before. He can throw a kunai with pinpoint accuracy, level a town with destructive power, but in and amongst learning all of that, he's never quite mastered the art of kicking back, hanging out, being less than what he is and more than who he can be.

"What was that for! Jerk!" Naruto splashes him with that explosive energy of his, and then he laughs and gives up for the time being, contented to float in the water. Sneak, sneak, sneak, and then Sasuke's in the water, too, and he's laughing, and he can't quite figure out how or why.

"I didn't kill him," he says, treading water, breathing 'cause it's not painful but it used to be. Naruto, startled, forgets to tread and goes under, comes back up spluttering and stares in something that's not amazement, not that Sasuke had been expecting it.

"I knew that," Naruto says smartly after a moment. And then he reaches up, ruffles his mop of golden-hued hair. "Idiot. I know you better than that."

"I walked away," Sasuke insists with a slight smile and a feeling like love-but-not because he doesn't believe in that word. "Eleven years of hating him, and I just walked away."

And then Naruto has caught him, wrapped legs around his waist and pulled him underwater and they're kissing but not because this is more an exchange of oxygen in an environment where such a thing is the only way to stay alive. Briefly, fleetingly, Sasuke remembers that long ago, Itachi Uchiha had drowned his best friend in this lake, but he doesn't care, can't care, because Naruto's here and Naruto's his best friend and he's still alive, still breathing and bleeding and living. They surface and part, and Naruto's grinning like an idiot again.

"You kiss like a dead fish."

Sasuke rolls his eyes, red-crimson like his history, and reaches for the dock, hauls himself out of the water with an athletic grace, and starts to walk away.

"Hey!" Naruto calls, and Sasuke doesn't pause because he knows Naruto will follow him anywhere, everywhere. And then Naruto's pounced on him, and he hits the dock and the air rushes out of his lungs and somewhere in the back of his mind he's thinking 'that wasn't fair' but instead he just twists, kicks Naruto off of him ands sends him flying. Stands, dusts at his clothes, keeps walking.

"Hey, hey!" And then Naruto does something and he's standing in front of Sasuke, glowering down at him, and since when had he gotten so tall? And then he flicks his forehead, grins again and flashes a thumbs-up as Sasuke stumbles backwards.

"I win."

"Win what?"

"Win…this?" Now Naruto looks confused, cute and quizzical, and then Sasuke's kissing him again and he's not sure how it happened; only that it's right, like living's right, and that's enough. They grapple, not breaking the kiss, making it a challenge. They've never backed down, they won't start now. Naruto mumbles something against his lips; sounding like 'bastard' but Sasuke doesn't care about that right now. Then with a bit of surprisingly quick thinking on the blonde's behalf, he trips his shorter companion and they both go sprawling. Unsurprisingly, Naruto's on top. He flashes his teeth in a fiercely triumphant grin and Sasuke punches him, and they're back to fighting again, stealing a kiss whenever enemy territory is brought under their control for the briefest of moments, quick and bold like fireworks against an obsidian sky.

They stop at first blood, like they should have years ago, and Naruto's rubbing one cheek wryly as a thin cut blossoms red, and Sasuke can't hide his smug little smirk, even though it was more a random act of chance than actual intent. "So, what does that make this?"

"Thirty to thirty-four, I think." Naruto squints against the sun, shields his eyes and smirks right back. That's a margin he knows they won't be filling any time soon.

Sasuke snorts, swats him. Misses and doesn't care and Naruto catches both his wrists and picks him up off the ground. An easy feat, considering the difference in their heights. This earns him an iron-clad glare.

And Naruto's still grinning. "Well," he says in avid interest, "will you look at that. I'm taller."

"I know that."

"Dun care." A shrug, and Sasuke's dropped, and he lands on his feet and hops away to avoid another frontal assault. "Felt like rubbing it in."

Sasuke kicks him. Swipes his feet out from under him and Naruto yelps and topples and then Sasuke's on top, a kunai conjured from somewhere and held to his throat. "Word of advice," he purrs, voice low and succinct. "Next time you feel like rubbing anything…don't."

Naruto pseudo-pouts, and Sasuke tosses the kunai away, not bothering to listen for the thud of it hitting the tree that had been his target, and they're kissing again, tongue and lips and hot breath, a battle of more than wills and less than blood. And when Naruto bites his lip, he just bites back, and they take it to a whole other level.

Pause. Breathe.

"So, Sasuke…about Itachi…"

"Shut up," he drawls just prior to butting his forehead against the other boy's face. It's not exactly meant to injure, but Naruto sits back and rubs his nose with an annoyed 'hmph'. "You shouldn't have to ask."

"Eeh? Well what if I want to?"

"Then you're an idiot, as well as a loser." Push, shove, grapple, kiss, breathe.

"Who's the loser now, huh!" Preening, prideful. Naruto's on top again, and he pushes Sasuke's shirt up, leans down and bloody well licks him, from navel to nipple, possessive and playful. Sasuke swats at him again, not with love, seeing as how he doesn't believe in that damned word, but with affection, because it's the next best thing and not nearly as…predictable.

A moment's reflection is all it takes. A moment to realize that he's laying on a grass hill near the old Uchiha residence in the twilight, with a boy that he would have killed if not for the unforeseeable opposition that his heart had given him in their battle so many years before. A moment to realize that this is real and not a dream, malleable and not static, that it's his to cherish and keep, as long as he's willing to cherish and keep it. He's not one for poetic drivel, less one for open affection, but he'd be willing to try both if he could hang onto this just a little longer. An illusion made real by the passage of time and by the roads wandered to get to the final, distinctive culmination. A moment to tilt his head back and catch the final rays of the dying sun on his face, to smile, just a little, and to whisper words once forbidden simply because of the repository of their impact against Naruto's ear when he catches a fist of the other boy's fair hair and pulls him down, not gently, but not cruelly either.

Maybe he'll love again with time, but for now he's content to breathe, to live, to take things as they come and to never, ever give up.

It's easier than he thought it was.

But then, living's like that.