Work Text:
It was slow, simple and inevitable.
There were no strong emotions involved, at least not ones Naruto had been able to acknowledge before anything happened. Not like it had been with Sasuke, who had seemed to occupy all his being for years, resonating in his every cell, always on his mind and always hurting, hurting…
It was not the skyrocketing fall down the cliff along with an avalanche, leaving him in pain, bruising, crushed and a little broken, but the slow steady slide when he didn’t even notice that he had been moving until he was already down there, fallen.
There was no pining, no sleepless nights or spacing out during the day catching himself thinking of ‘what ifs’ or trying to figure out the sincerity of his own emotions.
No endless hours of trying to catch up in the illusionary hope that if he became a bit better, if he improved just a little more, ran faster, reached higher, he might finally stop running from the off-key chorus of his previous failures and mistakes, after the shadows of the past that went wrong, and he would finally reach what he had been so eager to reach since it slipped through his grasp all those years ago.
And it would be exactly what he had been looking for, and those black eyes would look at him, and there wouldn’t be sharp shatters of ice in them, but a warm soft acknowledgement, and he would know that all this chasing had not been in vain…
But it never happened.
And the person behind those black irises was no more alive than he was when he died along with the rest of his clan and all his world crashed into million pieces before his eyes, dragging him to the bottomless void of life living for the sake of revenge, leaving him for years running after his brother’s shadow only to discover that his whole life had been a lie, as well as the fake goal he built it around. And he didn’t need Naruto’s efforts of catching up - his mind was too far to even notice the ends his childhood friend had gone to for him.
Naruto had spent too many years in attempts to find something that had never been there, in an illusion that if he tried harder, he could’ve saved and healed, not seeing that Sasuke had never wanted to be healed.
Broken things can hardly work after they got broken. Broken people can function surprisingly long. And they were much harder to fix.
Sasuke had never wanted to be fixed.
Black piercing eyes, at the rare moments when they were watching Naruto instead of something behind him, far and unreachable, had always stayed distant and cold. Cold were his fingers and hands too, wandering Naruto’s skin a bit too harshly, gripping his hips a bit too hard, leaving bruises that would heal almost as fast as short were the times when Sasuke would give Naruto his attention.
The cold was digging in Naruto’s body, reaching the tendrils of what could hardly be called love, but definitely was a possession, to his heart, that worked so hard set out to spread its warmth and sunlight far beyond Naruto’s body in vain attempts of reaching the man beside him who had died inside too long ago for that to work, and instead he had been only pouring the parts of his damaged soul into that blond vessel of never ending enthusiasm, slowly bereaving him of his inner light.
If asked, Sasuke would honestly say that he didn’t do that on purpose. Living in pain, he hardly realised there was more to it in life, and he couldn’t notice him being the reason of Naruto’s bright smiles getting duller, appearing on his whiskered face less often than usual, until completely fading away. It was his own way to love, as he had never known another, because the last person he loved had hurt him too much, stealing everything he had, even the very possibility to keep loving him the way he was supposed to, the way he craved to, because the hate inside him had bloomed too fast and it’d spread to the every corner of his mind and body, consuming and devouring him whole.
For Sasuke, love was hate and pain, and the hole in his damaged heart that could never be filled again.
But Naruto tried.
But what had been dead for years could not be healed, and even Naruto had not been able to breathe life into the wasteland of Sasuke’s soul.
And he stopped.
It was when he was standing in front of a mirror one day and his reflection stared at him with the dull eyes the same color as the clouded sky outside their window, slow quiet rain pouring itself down the streets of Konoha, he realised, that even as close as they physically were, no matter how much of himself he was willing to give, he would never be able to actually reach Sasuke’s soul. And in the end there would be nothing of him left to give anymore. And his goal, his dream , the very thing he had been living for since the day Sasuke turned his back to his unconscious body lying on the ground in the Valley of the End, would still remain as far from him as it always were.
The truth he had never been able to accept before, despite everything, he was finally willing to accept now.
He quietly left, leaving a short note on a night stand and throwing one last glance at the pale body with raven hair spread in the sheets of the bed, no longer theirs, because there hardly even been they in the first place.
And Kakashi…
Kakashi had simply been there, with his silent support and the warmth in his grey eye, always present, even when Naruto had not been at his best, even when he failed, even when the only thing on his mind was Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke ...
Always there and always acknowledging, Kakashi was making him feel worthy of this acknowledgment never demanding anything to prove it. There was an understanding in that tired grey eye, and Kakashi just waited. And never asked.
He never asked for the reason of Naruto almost disappearing from his life for several long months. He never asked why he suddenly came back. The frown between his brows was the only indication of him noticing the weariness in Naruto’s face and the pain pooling behind his eyes which were much duller than he had remembered.
He never asked and never questioned, he simply waited. He waited until Naruto’s smiles returned to his face, maybe not as wide and frequent as before, but they finally were there. He waited until light came back in his eyes, and they once again shined the deep blue.
Naruto had always healed fast, body or soul, it didn’t matter. He would never forget, and there would be some scars left on his heart, but his life was always that - living, loving and smiling, and never letting anything hold him down.
And one day he smiled, feeling the last pieces of shattered ice leaving his heart, and he breathed in and squinted at the bright sun, warming his skin with soft touches. And he could finally look around, with blue eyes wide open, and he opened his heart again inviting another opportunity to love and be loved, ready to share his light for as long as it would be needed.
There were no sudden realisations hitting him - it was not a matter of some insight opening his eyes to a truth he hadn’t realised before. It was slow and even boring, not worthy for being in any of these romantic books and totally not enough for inspiring even a single line in those Icha Icha ones Kakashi was so fond of.
But in spite of it, or maybe because of it, it seemed inevitable later, when they both were looking back, trying to figure out how it started and never able to - they had been just steadily gravitating towards one another, until, not even colliding, but quietly slipping in the places beside each other, which had been patiently waiting for them.
Naruto couldn’t sincerely say that he knew everything about his former sensei, but he had spent enough years beside him to say, that he knew him . No longer a kid, finally relieved of the addiction with the raven hair and the eyes of the same color, that left too many scars on his heart that he couldn’t anymore ignore the pain, he grew to appreciate the comforting silence, quiet understanding and mutual respect he had with Kakashi.
He and Sasuke, they were different and yet so similar in a way, both hiding their broken, burnt out selves under the masks, be it figurative or literal. But the actual masks were easier to take off, and being used to be hiding behind it was the soul that in contrast with Sasuke’s, wanted to be healed but never knew how and was simply too afraid to come out.
And Naruto was willing to try once again.
He was the one who initiated their first kiss.
It was an impulse, a whim, if you want. The thought that had never visited him before so he wasn't even prepared for it. But like any other urge of his, it made him act instantly, without thinking twice. It simply seemed the right thing to do at the moment. Honestly, it was hardly anything surprising considering his impulsive nature which hadn’t tuned down that much with him getting older.
He wasn’t the brightest, but he had always been honest. With others and with himself. And he had never hidden his true feelings.
So when one evening he looked up at the man standing beside him, the grey eye with shade so familiar but watching him so differently, and he saw his own hand reaching up to the face hidden behind the mask, he didn’t resist and just allowed his body to do what in just one moment would feel as something he should’ve done a long time ago.
Fingers gently curled under the edge of the mask, and Kakashi trailed off in what he had been saying, but Naruto couldn’t bring himself to bother now, rising on his toes to bring his eyes on the same level with Kakashi’s, while his hand was slowly pulling down the stretchy material.
And before Kakashi could even react (and come to think of it, he actually could, he had enough time in these few stretched seconds to do anything, to catch Naruto’s hand before it even touched his mask, to step back, to pull the mask back, but for some reason he didn’t), Naruto pressed his lips to his mouth, shutting his eyes, not even a single thought in his head about what he was doing, except for how right it felt, when these lips started moving along with his, answering the kiss.
He opened his eyes, pulled away a bit, leaving the space between them, little enough to still be considered intimate but wide enough to allow him to take in the part of Kakashi’s face now for the first time being opened to him.
“Naruto,” there was a hardly heard question in the man’s voice, sounding more like he was asking himself something rather than expecting the answer from the blond.
But Naruto curled his fingers in the nape of Kakashi’s neck and brought their lips together one more time, answering the unasked question in the only way he could think of at that moment.
Kakashi was smiling when they separated.
And Naruto smiled back.
~~~
The cool fingers were something he had been familiar with, but it was the different kind of cold. Pleasant coolness against his heaten up skin instead of the indifferent ice digging in until it hurt, soft loving touches moving along his body never hurting and almost worshiping, instead of tight painful grips meant to hold him still.
Gentle nips and the lips which were caressing, instead of bites drawing blood.
It was so different. They were so different.
Two mismatched dark eyes, with the colors so familiar, were looking at him with a warmth he’d never received from Sasuke during their intimate moments. He was taken aback with the force of emotions flooding in the one eye opened most of the time, and it caught his breath for a moment enough for Kakashi to notice, and those cool fingers, that were the strong fingers of a professional assassin and somehow yet so gentle on his skin, were cupping his cheeks, and the thin delicate lips which he saw for the first time just recently were tilting in a smile against his own.
~~~
He would come back from a mission and would see the reflection of his bright smile in that grey eye. He would curl his fingers around the edge of that mask later when they were alone and slowly tug it down. And this act, that became already so familiar after all that time, would still feel intimate and special and never fail to steal his breath away.
The hands on him with long, slightly cool fingers would always be gentle, wandering, wondering , and Kakashi would look at him softly but with a little undertone of worry and Naruto would see the same half-question in the flicker of the dark eye as he heard in the man’s voice the day they kissed for the first time. And Naruto would pull him closer by the arms around his lover’s neck, and press him deeper with the heels of his feet on the small of Kakashi’s back, and his eyes would not leave two mismatched ones.
And they both would smile.
~~~
He hadn’t noticed when he’d started comparing them and he didn’t notice when he stopped.
But he could finally feel the warmth and light he was giving being returned to him, and warm lips were whispering gratefulness with every kiss, and he didn’t have to chase shadows anymore.
And if the grey eye seemed just a little bit brighter, then that might have been just a play of light.
FIN