don't give away the end

misssilivren,

for RTS

This has happened before, so Naruto's not surprised when on Thursday night, after ripping himself out of bed and falling down the stairs, feet tripping over themselves and the hail and the rain drumming a discordant rhythm against the window, he finds Sasuke at the door, wet and shaking and glaring out from under inky-black bangs straggled across his pale forehead. He drags him in when he doesn't move and feels warmth beneath the chilling wetness of his coat. Sasuke shrugs off the coat and kicks off his shoes, shoves past him into the living room like it's his own house. Naruto leaves the coat on the ground, spreading a puddle of dark water on the rug, and follows the track of wet-sock footprints on the hardwood up the stairs.

In his bedroom, he sees Sasuke's back, bent over in the closet to find a blanket. "In the brown box, not the blue one," he calls, and Sasuke sneezes, mutters, "You moved them," almost like an accusation. "Bastard," he says, oddly defensive, and lets Sasuke take the couch.

In the morning, Naruto wakes to the liquid silence of morning, slices of sunlight filtering through the half-shut blinds onto his pillow. He moves his head out of the sun and keeps his eyes shut, feeling the cold air waiting outside his covers.

Eventually he glances at the clock and sees that it's eleven. He curses and flings off the blanket before he remembers that it's a long weekend, they have Friday and Monday off, and that Sasuke's here. He leans back, defeated for a moment, before he pushes himself out of the bed. He passes Sasuke on the couch in the living room and doesn't look at him, though his eyes are drawn to that dark shape, huddled and bunched up on his sofa. He makes breakfast and doesn't try to be quiet about it; he hears Sasuke curse at him, finally get up, stomp to the kitchen, and lean against the fridge, still dressed in the same clothes he'd come in, except for the jeans he'd kicked off at some point. Naruto firmly keeps his eyes on the egg he's frying until Sasuke says, "Make one for me as well. Asshole." He grins and shoves Sasuke aside for the orange juice. "Bunch of your clothes are in my room," he says, "blue box. Get out of those wet ones; you've probably ruined my couch."

"Asshole," Sasuke hisses again, vehemently this time, and Naruto laughs. It should be scary how normal their routine is, but all Naruto can feel is worry gnawing at him steadily.

Sasuke leaves and comes back in the pajama pants he'd left here last time and a dry shirt. His hair is a black mess, sticking up and out, and Naruto flexes his fingers to keep from running his hands through it and smoothing it down. The rain last night has left the sky clear and that one shade of painful wintry blue, grey on the edges but almost like sunlight with the way he can't look into it. There's a square of it framed in his window, and he stares out above pale suburban houses to keep from checking to see if there are bruises on Sasuke's arms, or worse.

The morning slides away into afternoon and it remains clear. Naruto opens the juliette windows and rubs away flaking black paint on the metal bars, telling Sasuke, "Be good for you to get some sunlight, since you're probably going to waste away from Vitamin C deficiency or something."

"It's Vitamin D, idiot, and that's not physically possible." Sasuke hangs back, arms folded, insides hidden. His t-shirt collar is too wide (that whole shirt is a bit too big, actually, probably because he didn't check to see if he was doing it wrong when washing the last load of laundry) and Naruto can see the shape of something dark and purplish just below his collarbone. It looks suspiciously like - he swallows something sick that feels uncomfortably like jealousy and snaps, "You're just afraid you'll explode if you see the light of day, you vampire. Actually, don't do that; it'd be a pain to clean."

Sasuke sighs and moves out to the bars to his right, pressing forward until Naruto can see the metal cutting into his waist and he's leaning out almost too far. Naruto can feel his warmth through the thin shirt and there's a chill breeze brushing his hair, but it doesn't touch his right side. Sasuke flattens his palms on the front of the bars, sliding the fabric on his arms up, and Naruto curses that they're not thinner so he can see - he just needs a look to make sure -

Sasuke turns his head and sees him looking. The slight smile on his face curls into something angrier and he jerks back into the house, and Naruto can hear him going down the stairs fast. He listens for the sound of a closing door and doesn't hear anything; something in his chest loosens and something else just draws closer. He isn't leaving. But that only means that it was bad.

Sasuke sleeps on the couch again, and Naruto spends half the night thinking about him downstairs, fancying that he can hear his breathing echoing throughout the still, dark house. He replays those few glimpses of Sasuke's arms that he'd caught in his mind and tries to think if he saw thin angry lines, if he saw blackish marks, if there was any hesitation or pain to his movements -

He can't think of anything, and eventually falls asleep to the imaginary noise of Sasuke's pulse.

When he wakes the next afternoon it's overcast and 1:00. He gets up without dawdling, and practically runs down to make sure he's still there. Sasuke's sitting on the couch, curled up in his blankets and watching TV on mute with subtitles, legs drawn up on the couch and knees level with his chin. He gives Naruto a wry look when he sees him, panicked in the doorway, and says, "Don't worry, darling. I haven't gone anywhere," caustically. Naruto flushes and is about to stalk into the kitchen before he sees an open box of pizza on Iruka's pristine coffee table, coke and coffee. They're on separate coasters like Iruka's always telling him to do, and Naruto thinks that this is exactly the sort of thing Sasuke would never even think to do, remembers Sasuke's clinical house and the one time he'd been there, hovering awkwardly because even his blithely unconcerned brain had somehow gotten the silent message that he mustn't touch anything. He sits down and drinks the rest of the coffee; Sasuke hits him and unmutes the TV. They watch the show and Sasuke smiles very slightly at the exuberantly gesticulated jokes; Naruto laughs without caring and gets grease on his fingers from the pizza. He feels Sasuke's eyes on him when he licks it off and doesn't look back. The couch is very soft; he sinks into it and puts his feet up on the coffee table, nearly knocking over the coke. He is hyperaware of how they carefully do not touch, and memorizes Sasuke's every sharp inhale, every half of a laugh.

Naruto has learned his lesson about asking how long Sasuke will stay, and continues to look for marks or cuts. He doesn't find any until the third night, when it rains hard and Sasuke folds up his borrowed blankets and crawls into Naruto's bed without asking, and Naruto rolls over and doesn't say anything pithy or witty, doesn't say "Hi," like it's a joke, draws Sasuke on top of him and sucks new bruises into the skin of his neck, kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until they both have black spots in their vision when they pull away. "I wondered," he murmurs, but doesn't get to finish before Sasuke shuts him up. He touches the old hickey below a white collarbone, presses his fingers warm from Sasuke's heat into it possessively and starts "Who - " until Sasuke's hands steal the thoughts from his mouth and the words from his brain, or maybe it's the other way around. He rediscovers all over again what it's like to press himself against him, like he's trying to mold them into one person, like he can never get close enough.

After the fever is gone and they're both feeling the cold a little more, Naruto's idly wandering fingers blindly trip over raised lines on Sasuke's right side and stop there. He goes back and traces them again, counting and recounting them, digging his nails into them until Sasuke hisses in pain and raises his head from the crook of Naruto's neck and shoulder, glares at him. Naruto glares right back and flips them over, slamming Sasuke into the mattress and digging his knee into Sasuke's thigh. "You said you stopped," he snarls quietly, not knowing why but feeling that whatever was going to be said should be in a whisper, should be kept to just this, the warm air between them.

"And you believed me?" Sasuke shoots right back, mocking and angry and callous and, below it all, ashamed. Of course he wouldn't be apologetic, say he wouldn't do it again, say something to ease the sore ache in Naruto's chest. He would ask why but he knows why, would tell him to stop but he knows Sasuke won't. He presses his accusations into Sasuke's soft, cruel mouth, writes out lines of condemnation and helplessness and directionless longing into his too-pale skin with hard hands. Sasuke laughs at him harshly and asks him questions he can't answer, and they fall asleep together just before the sun rises.

The next morning they're stiff and angry, and Naruto can hardly look at him. He lets Sasuke lean too far out of the window and thinks Let him fall; it's not like he gives a shit, so why should I? He knows he's being petty, but he also knows he's probably right. He finishes essays and math problems in his room and hears Sasuke order Thai food on the phone downstairs, walk around restlessly, hears him drop a book and curse, the quiet white noise of the TV. He doesn't go down, and every time he wants to, he thinks of feeling the cuts on Sasuke's side, and anger swells up again like a balloon pumped full of hot air. Sasuke brings up the leftover Thai for him and sets it outside his firmly shut door, and tells him loudly, "You are being a child. It is none of your business, all right?"

"It is my fucking business!" Naruto hollers from his desk, and chucks an eraser at the door. "You are my business!"

Sasuke sighs, sharp and tired, and says, "No, I'm not," and leaves. Naruto stares at the door, feeling unexpectedly wrecked, until he turns back and looses himself in Xs and Ys and comfortingly quantifiable variables. Numbers have definitive answers. There is only "yes" and "no".

He knows Sasuke will leave soon, knows that he should be taking advantage of every moment before that door closes behind him. Eventually this knowledge drives him out of his room, in the evening, and he sits close to Sasuke on the couch and slides an arm between him and the cushions. Sasuke stiffens; Naruto leans into him and says, into the cloth of his shirt, "I shouldn't... I just - God you make me angry," in an explosive exhale. Sasuke doesn't say anything, but tensions eases and he relaxes into Naruto, a silent apology. That night Sasuke's breathing evens out before his, and Naruto looks at his shadow-shrouded face in the dark room, moonlight shuttered out. He can't see his features, but he can picture them. His mind fills in the holes until he closes his eyes, and falls asleep.

Sasuke leaves in the night, and it's snapping with cold outside as he sits with Sasuke on the curb in the bus stop, listening to cars rush past with quiet roars, throwing lights ahead of them and illuminating his face in snatches. Naruto can see only a few stars burning coldly in the sky if he squints and looks hard until his neck hurts. They don't talk, but Naruto can feel the warmth of his palm bleeding through his gloved hand, fingers exposed and wrapped tightly around Naruto's own. They sit on the bench, pressing their thighs together, misty exhales wisping away in sudden breezes. He'll see Sasuke at school on Tuesday, probably, and they'll insult each other like they can never properly do alone, and Sasuke won't lean into him and breathe out barely-there apologies and he won't rub Sasuke's fingers together between his to warm them, and there will be dark spots on Sasuke's skin and thin raised lines on his sides, and he won't come and give himself a chance to heal again for a long time, because Iruka will be there and the thing Sasuke fears most in the world is somebody else knowing. He already hates the fact that Naruto does.

He sees, finally, bus lights shine at the end of the road, and he puts his face into Sasuke's neck and whispers, "Please stop. Leave, come here, just please, please stop," and because he can't see Sasuke's face it's alright to let his voice shudder, to let his feelings saturate his words until Sasuke can't hide from them. "Okay," Sasuke whispers back, arms around him until he pulls away, and Naruto lets himself believe it until next time.

A/N: More NaruSasu - um I think I did alright with this one (though I wanted it to be more poetical and flowy and stuff arrrrrrgh I will never be satisfied) mostly because it was established relationship and not... real romance? Or something. This doc was sitting in the upload section for like a month and was about to expire or whatever, which is why my title is as random as fuck.

D'aww, lookit them, so emo and teenagerish. *smiles fondly* All their adorable self-harm and abusive issues. Aren't they precious? (i can't believe i even wrote something like this uuuugh i will never regain my self-respect NEVER)

Beta'd by Yukihana Hisako, all remaining mistakes are mine. Theme song for this is "23" by Jimmy Eat World (I really should start doing A/Ns on the top but it fucks up my formatting. Such a quagmire I find myself in), which you should listen to just for the awesome instrumental guitar bit at the beginning.