these things that are broken, m, sasuke/naruto
you left before i had a chance to say.

One day, somewhere in the hazy middle of summer, Sasuke awakes and sees Naruto leaning out the window, naked as the day he was born, laughing, and just then, he thinks he might be in love. Naruto's hair is golden with sunlight and his skin is cinnamon, spicy and smooth and with nothing but a sheet wrapped around his waist (though not tightly enough to offer any real modesty), he is like a god of light and laughter and all the things that Sasuke never knew.

And then Naruto turns around and that smile, that brilliant, brilliant smile focuses its full force on Sasuke, and for a moment, Sasuke's inner hurricane is banished.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Naruto quips, and all but throws himself across the bed, his legs and arms a tangle of happiness. "I thought you'd never wake up, I'm starving and I don't know where anything is in this house."

"You know where the ramen is," Sasuke replies, clearing the sleep from his voice and closing his eyes again. "You eat all of it every time you're here."

There's something strangely domestic about this, he thinks as Naruto grumbles his way into the kitchen. It should worry him, by all rights—he's a ninja, and his nin-do has never allowed him to become soft the way that Naruto is making him. But by some twist of something, he is exactly the opposite of concerned about it. Waking up like this, into the sweet buzz of life with Naruto—Sasuke could get used to this.

"All your pork ramen is gone," Naruto informs him when he comes back to the room. He leans against the doorframe, completely unashamed in his own skin and cradling a half-empty bowl of noodles against his chest. "You really should think about expanding your selection."

"This is my house, not a ramen shop," Sasuke says, but it's a tired argument, one that he's used many times before and has never acted on. And somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that later that day, he'll be inspired to buy some new flavor of ramen, just because of the suggestion that Naruto is planting in his mind.

"It could be both," Naruto says, and drinks down the last of the broth. "Great sex followed by better ramen. You'd never get rid of me."

The words come before he can stop them: "I wouldn't want to," Sasuke says, and then his eyes widen and his teeth click shut. This is something he has never admitted aloud before, to himself or to anyone else (let alone Naruto), and the knowledge hangs heavy between them like leaden clouds. Naruto is watching him, a strange look of appraisal in his eyes, and then he's setting the bowl aside, climbing across the bed and settling himself over Sasuke's hips.

"Say it again," he commands, his fist pressed against Sasuke's solar plexus.

"No," Sasuke replies, and brushes the hand away.

It's not enough, not yet, but it's a start, and for now, Naruto knows that's all he's going to get. He leans over and kisses Sasuke, all teeth and tongue and force and heat, and they don't get out of bed for the remainder of the day.

It doesn't take very long for Sasuke to learn that Naruto is as curious about his body as a child with a new toy. He's all hands whenever they're alone—his fingertips find the dips between Sasuke's ribs, the hollows of his collarbones, the place where his legs join his hips. "I dunno," Naruto tells him when Sasuke asks why. "It's just fun. Haven't you ever wanted to do this?" He punctuates the statement by pressing his mouth against the inside of Sasuke's wrist, and Sasuke loses his train of thought.

Much later, Naruto sprawls out across the sheets (always on top of them, never between them) and watches Sasuke through half-lidded eyes. "Try it," he says, his voice languid and much calmer than Naruto's voice should have any right to be.

And so Sasuke does. He traces the lines of Naruto's body, first with his fingers and then with his tongue, and finds all of the secret places, sensitive places. The spaces between Naruto's fingers, and the line of his stomach between his throat and his navel. All places that send shivers running up Naruto's spine when Sasuke touches them.

"Interesting," Sasuke says, and spreads his fingers over the inside of Naruto's knee.

—And then he jerks his hand back, startled, as he realizes that he's treating Naruto as an experiment. An exercise in human anatomy. Naruto quirks an eyebrow, too lazy to comment, and Sasuke shakes his head minutely. They could have entire conversations like this if they wanted.

The next day, when they train, Naruto knocks him down and presses his fingers lightly against one of Sasuke's chakra points. "You weren't paying attention," he says, that slow fox grin spreading across his face, and Sasuke scowls.

"There's nothing you can teach me that I don't already know," he says, and slams the heel of his hand against Naruto's breastbone.

They both know he's lying.

Somewhere in the slightly-less-than-hazy middle of things—two summers after Sasuke wonders about the state of his sanity and the likelihood of Naruto being some kind of ancient god—things begin to change.

It comes slowly, at first. A slight shift of Sasuke's focus. He no longer instinctively looks up every time Naruto enters the room, and Naruto no longer seeks him out with his eyes. Naruto calls it 'normal' and Sasuke calls it 'annoying,' and this sparks a disagreement between them that lasts for a week, until Naruto slams him up against a wall and that settles the matter. But the issue isn't put away.

It is at about this time that Sasuke realizes that he intends to leave Konoha behind, and this knowledge sends another rift into the space between himself and Naruto. He would never tell the blond idiot, which tells him something about what their relationship—if it can be called that anymore—has become: Naruto is no longer his priority.

Regardless, though.

Regardless of that, when they fight at the Valley of the End, Sasuke knows that the pain in Naruto's eyes is deeper than the pain of losing one's friend. He knows that Naruto is feeling the white-hot knife jab of betrayal, of love, of loss—and Sasuke shuts his guilt away and knocks Naruto out, and then walks away from Konoha forever.

He sleeps with Orochimaru sometimes, more for sport than anything. He treats it as a game—a sort of cat-and-mouse dance that they do when things are quiet and they need something to keep them occupied. Sex with Orochimaru is never spectacular, never loving, and Sasuke refuses to think of Naruto. He tells himself that it's because Naruto never meant anything to him.

Sometimes, though, he wonders if it might be because he wants to preserve those memories. To think of Naruto when Orochimaru is inside him—that is lower than Sasuke can will himself to be.

"Your mind is elsewhere," Orochimaru tells him, and Sasuke replies with a snarl and a grating kiss that leaves neither of them satisfied.

And all the while, something nags at the back of Sasuke's mind, murmuring inanities and taunting him. Naruto never used you, it tells him, and You're disgusting. He meditates to shut them up, dedicates his energy to his training, and refuses to think of Uzumaki Naruto.

Uzumaki Naruto.

Sasuke sometimes wonders who chose that name for Naruto. Uzumaki—whirlpool. Whoever it was must have been wise, because it describes him perfectly. Naruto is a whirlwind, a vortex of energy and passion and occasional idiocy, and he's pulled Sasuke right into his depths.

It's just.

Uchiha Saske is not in the business of doubting himself, least of all in matters where his brother is concerned. He has never once regretted his decision to leave Konoha—he tells himself it is something that had to be done, a step he must take. Emotions make the heart weak, and Sasuke's nin-do has never allowed him to be soft the way that Naruto was making him. The cutoff was like ripping off a bandage. Do it quickly, and the pain will be minimal.

But maybe Naruto's whirlpool extends its arms further than even Sasuke could have realized, because sometimes he stands too still and feels the tides tugging at his ankles, feels the cold fingers of realization wrapping around his legs and pulling him back. Gravitation, or a riptide.

Sasuke doesn't doubt himself. But sometimes—when he's alone, and he lets his thoughts stray for a moment—he wonders that things could have been different.

There is a point at which remembrance becomes borderline obsession, and this is a line that Sasuke becomes painfully familiar with. It's not that he thinks of Naruto actively—at least, not usually. But more often than not, something inane will spark a memory that will nearly cripple Sasuke's mental barriers. The smell of baked earth, the feeling of cold rain against his skin, and he feels the weight of all that he's left behind.

Once, Naruto spent an hour trying to explain to Sasuke the way the seasons smell in the Leaf Village. "Summer… It's like smelling the sun," he said, tilting his head back into the golden glow. "Or the way dirt smells when it's all walked-on and packed, and that wet smell from the humidity. You know? And fall, too. Smells like fire and fallen leaves. Sometimes it smells a little bit like winter, but that's mostly because winter's coming, I think."

And Sasuke had given him one of his looks, the kind that said 'I can't imagine what you're talking about,' and Naruto had just grinned. "Winter smells like snow and water. And rain. You know how rain smells? Like everything is clean? I think spring's my favorite, though. That's when it smells like dirt and candy and green things." Totally unperturbed by Sasuke's unwillingness to imagine. That was Naruto, always ready.

Not always ready.

Except that now—now that he's away from Naruto—Sasuke can smell them. The seasons, that is. Baked earth and humidity and fire and fallen leaves, and snow and rain and dirt and candy and green things, and every one of those smells reminds him.

Ten thousand tiny little ways that Sasuke isn't home, but he refuses to admit to himself that Konoha is just that. He doesn't have a home, not anymore.

When Itachi dies—that is the nearest that Sasuke ever comes to breaking. He's come this far. He's given up everything he ever held dear (everything he ever loved) to find this man, to get to this point. And the point comes and goes, and Itachi touches his face and whispers something, and dies, and Sasuke can't bring himself to feel joy.

Sorry, Sasuke. This is the last time.

What does Sasuke feel, then, if it isn't joy? Guilt. Anger. Loneliness, though he buries that in the far corners of his mind. Hurt, because his brother never told him. And responsibility. The weight of his own responsibility hangs on him like lead weights, dragging with his every step. His brother, exiled because of him. His brother, treated as a traitor—he was an S-Class, for the sake of everything holy—for him. Itachi. Stupid, brave, wonderfully awful Itachi, and Sasuke has never felt so alone.

The decision to destroy Konoha is something that Sasuke finds terrifyingly easy to make. Perhaps it's because he refuses to think of Konoha in terms of Naruto, but there is a disconnect there. The possibility of Naruto's death at his hands is something that Sasuke has never before considered, and now it's less a possibility and more of an eventuality. Something Sasuke must prepare himself to do. He has nightmares in black and white and vivid crimson of his snakes ripping out Naruto's throat and knows that this is a nightmare he'll see come true before his life ends.

Itachi's death was something Sasuke was prepared for. Being forced to choose—that was not.

"I don't think I'm ever gonna grow up," Naruto told him once, long ago when they were students. "I mean, being an adult… Well, the ninja part would be cool, but everything else. I don't think I want that."

"You don't have much of a choice," pointed out the ever-logical Sasuke, and Naruto just laughed and waved a hand.

"There's always a choice. Sometimes you just gotta look harder."

Naruto did grow up, though. When Sasuke met him, when Naruto was with Sakura and the other—Sai, isn't it—that childish enthusiasm was gone. There was so little left of the Naruto that Sasuke knew, back when they were almost-chuunin and hungering for more. So little of that flaring, summer-bright laughter and hope and passion. Maybe Naruto can't see it, but Sasuke can—that the pain that Sasuke gave to Naruto at the Valley of the End has lingered. There's something knotted inside Naruto, something that's been tied for so long he's forgotten it's even there, but it's present in the lines of his back and the tightness of his expression.

And Sasuke almost kills him, after all. Were there words exchanged between them? Maybe—Sasuke can't remember, but he knows that he was there, his sword tip was pressed between Naruto's shoulderblades, and there was something like resignation in Naruto's pose.

If I'm going to die, it'd be okay if you do it.

Something Naruto told him once, in the muddled haziness of one of their late afternoons.

It doesn't matter that Sasuke doesn't kill him. What matters is that he was going to.

There were many things spoken between them without words at all. Things Sasuke knew to be true without having to ask—things Sasuke knew that Naruto knew were true without him having to say. Deeper truths than anything words could give voice to.

Maybe.

Sasuke can't tell his own story beginning to end anymore, even if he wanted to. Things are confused. Things are muddled, and he sometimes can't remember where it begins or ends—that's the way things are when you tie yourself up with Uzumaki Naruto. Not that Sasuke would want to tell the story to anyone. It's just that he wouldn't know how to if he tried.

Things don't make much sense anymore.

But the thing is, between truth and accuracy—this is one place where Sasuke is willing to sacrifice accuracy for the greater truth. There were no lazy muddled afternoons spent in Sasuke's bed. There were no softly-spoken conversations or exchanged words. There was nothing but friendship—if that—between them. That is the accuracy of Sasuke's life in terms of Naruto.

But the truth of the matter.

The truth is that Sasuke can't remember the shape of Naruto's eyes, and he can't remember the sound of his voice, and he can't remember the way he looked when he smiled, but Sasuke absolutely cannot forget that he loved Naruto. This story is an idiot's love song, and Sasuke knows it, but he can't forget.

And somewhere in his heart of hearts, Sasuke knows that maybe, in another time, or another place—under a different set of circumstances, there might have been something more.

He'll wait, though. He'll wait and see. The story is still writing itself, after all.