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He has blisters on the heels of his feet, and each step is a painful reminder of the fact that there’ll be blood and flesh to clean up and tend to once he’s home. It makes him push forward with more determination, ignore the discomfort and Naruto’s talking at his side. He has been sporting a migraine for the past couple of days, a mix of sleepless nights, no food and a chatterbox for a partner for this mission, and the soreness has spread all over his body, that he’s not even sure what he’d complain of first, if asked.
But he’s a ninja with a mission, and however much unwanted it might have been, Sasuke Uchiha gets it done, and he does it well, and fast as well. For how much he’s been busy organizing diplomatic meetings, even Naruto is a bit impressed by the efficacy he displayed in this first actual mission; and Sasuke allows this one remark to pass by with just a smile, and a somewhat kind pat to his best friend’s shoulder, who is about to be a groom in less than two weeks.
This is why, Sasuke Uchiha tries to reason, he is ignoring all the nerves in his body screaming at him to stop. This is why he pushes Naruto’s hand away from his arm, throwing biting remarks over his shoulder to get the blonde pumped up all over again, like this is a game, like they’re twelve again. Things could have been worse, he supposes. The night is clear, a chilly, but not totally unpleasant wind rustling through the trees accompanying their footsteps, and the air has that familiar forest smell that can only mean home.
If one were to ask the last survivor of the Uchiha years ago, back when he was but a child with bitterness as his only guide, when he was blinded by the notion of power, when his dreams were nothing but boastful pride where he would be at his current age, the answer would have been so easy:
Dead.
Well, present situation ignored, Sasuke cannot find many other things to complain about in life. He’d found some kind of peace in what was left behind the war, he found some kind of purpose in rebuilding so much of what was destroyed: people’s hopes, bonds, trust. In the beginning, he has worked on the new hospital wing in Konoha, alongside simple citizens, under blazing sun and chilly rain, screamed at as if he didn’t have a zombie hand now for his war efforts, served the same dull soup every afternoon, men boisterous at his side, the helping girls cautious,but welcoming. That was easy: fitting in, playing pretend at being just one of the others. And it worked, for as long as there was need for him there. Then, the last nail was hammered in, the last door was fixed, and one morning, out of habit than anything else, Sasuke turned the corner and saw children at one of the windows he helped mount, had a nurse wave at him on her way to the store to fulfill one patient’s needy request.
That’s when the politics started tugging at his sleeve, and in-between cleaning out his own district, making space for refugees coming in from worse-off areas, in hope of a better, new future in the village of the two heroes of humanity, Sasuke found himself quite often loudly arguing with a sighing Kakashi, or biting his lips to keep from teaching one young noble at a time what respect looks like.
He wasn’t loved, but he was good. He struck the best deals, he knew when to back down with his head bowed, when to flatter, and when to swear and fight his way into an agreement. It took time, but the eyes watching his back were less incriminating, less attentive, and Sasuke found himself breathing easier, smiling more in Naruto’s way, his grin blinding; allowing Sakura an afternoon here and there, to catch-up over tea; accepting Kakashi’s head ruffling his hair.
He was loved, by those who mattered.
Probably this is why he is thinking of it right now, he supposes, as he stops a bit in his tracks, allowing Naruto to catch up with him, checking out his walk, calculating if they can make it each to their own bed without another break. Sasuke Uchiha, after a two months long mission, is sickly homesick.
From a few meters in front of him, Naruto howls. Above them, one of Sai’s birds is looking back at them, and his best friend is jumping up and down, like his shoulder isn’t bleeding again, and muttering an idiot under his breath, Sasuke plops to the ground, head in his hands, and waits. Naruto is sprawled now on the lush grass, his backpack used as a pillow, and Sasuke wonders how the gifts for Sakura will survive under the blonde’s hard head, though he doesn’t seem to think too much of the consequences of his actions. There’ll be someone to pick them up soon enough, patch them in and get the reports on the last leg of the mission out of them.
“Nothing quite compares to Konoha,” his friend says, and the Uchiha can only nod along, even if it’s barely noticeable. But Naruto has always been good at picking up Sasuke’s feelings without needing explanations, without needing proof, without him even knowing he does it at all. After all, as Sakura likes to make fun of them when she gets drunk, possessively clinging to Naruto’s side and twisting their fingers together, they are the closest thing to soulmates she has ever seen.
Yes, Sasuke thinks, that would be one way to put it, although he suspects that he’s not the first person that comes to Naruto’s mind when he hears the term, just as Naruto isn’t his either. But it’s one easy way indeed to describe the desperate need for the other one to be happy, coupled with all the possible efforts to help them reach exactly what they need.
And it’s comfortable to know that whatever happens, he has Naruto, Konoha’s skyline and the rustle of the leaves during clear nights.
The briefing is short: Konoha missing them just as much as they missed it, and there’s a whole lot of urgency in being shoved in Kakashi’s office, and the warm cups of tea waiting for them on his desk. Neither dare to sit down, their muscles aching even worse after they took the earlier break, and they try to ignore Kakashi’s knowing and understanding smirk, because it feels like they’re 8 again and doing stupid young things.
Kakashi loops one final signature on the papers, making them disappear in a puff of smoke the next instant - and his pen is thrown somewhere on the opposite end of the room, as he takes on a very tired, slouched position. Sasuke is sure that under his mask, he must be smiling still.
“Agh, Naruto, you should have hurried a bit more. Sakura’s been scolding me for not having picked flowers for the wedding already, like it’s my fault that you couldn’t reply to any of her letters.”
At the mention of letters, Sasuke’s heart leaps in his chest. All contact has been forbidden throughout the mission, but knowing that Naruto’s fiancee still tried made him feel in a particular, strange way. Curious, maybe.
Naruto’s smiling too, scratching sheepishly at his neck, in an attempt to cover part of his blushing cheeks. Kakashi is laughing at his actions, pleased to have succeeded in making his loudest student even a bit bashful, though he knows too that it’s all tiredness and neediness.
The door slams to the wall, a teary-eyed and ravished Sakura standing in the doorway. For a few seconds, the two lovers just take each other in: Naruto’s grown beard, Sakura’s too big frog-patterned pajamas. Then, in a flash, Naruto’s voice pierces his ear with a scream, as he scrambles her all in his arms, and Sakura loudly sobs in his shoulder, hiding her face against his neck. After that, Uchiha at least has the decency to look away, towards his old teacher, silently asking for permission to leave. Kakashi weaves a dismissive hand, still enraptured by his other two students as they’re now sharing short kisses with each other, in-between hushed status updates. Sakura’s hand are green already by the time Sasuke makes a run for it.
The Uchiha district is eerily silent, and his own footsteps are thumping loudly in his head. He wonders, a bit, why he didn’t stay on Kakashi’s couch at least for a few hours, make himself a bit more presentable after such a long time, wash off some of the caked dirt on his skin, replace some of his old bandages. Spare his own haven the sight of his tiredness.
All the doubts disappear when he’s finally in front of his home: everything as it should be, everything as he remembers it. It’s the familiarity of it that presses at his throat, making him choke as he dumps his backpack on the floor at the entrance, as he slowly takes off his sandals. He almost stumbles and falls at the first corner, and a laugh bubbles at his lips, because he’s just so damn content to be home . He falls into his usual habits fast, eyes darting to the dresser at the entrance, immediately noticing the pile of letters with his name on it neatly stacked at one end. He grabs them in one of his hands before silently moving forward, making sure his slippers are on.
When he raises his face again, he is welcomed with the sight of her. Her hair is frizzled all around her like a dark halo, and her eyes have to blink several times before they finally focus on him. He’s smirking by the time she is properly realizing that he’s back.
“ Hinata ,” he breathes, and she pushes forward with mad determination. He expects a hug, or a scolding for having been gone so long, but she is silent, and her hands are hesitant around him.
“Can I touch you?” she asks, barely audible even in the still silence, and something in him molds around the tone of her voice, follows the rise at the end of the question, and he finds himself blinking rapidly trying not to cry. He nods his head, bangs falling in his face and the first thing Hinata does is to get on her tiptoes and push his hair back behind his ear, meeting her beautiful, beautiful eyes with his.
Her fingers flutter lightly at his temple, immediately easing his painful migraine, and Sasuke almost moans in pleasure when her chakra is fast to fill up his own lacking one. She has one hand pressing at his back, softly pushing him forward, and he complies with her guidances until he’s sat on the bed, a bowl with warm water and three rolls of different types of bandages spread on the bed next to him, the letters still grasped in his hand.
Only the lamp by her side of the bed is on, and as she works silently, from time to time humming along to a song played on the radio in the morning. Sasuke is going through the stack of papers in his hand, discarding aside all that are of no real interest to him. Until something catches his eye: envelopes, at least ten of them, with just his name in the neatest handwriting he’s ever seen.
“Hinata,” he tries again, but she is not looking up from under her bangs, and he takes it as the slight embarassment that it is, and allowance to go on. He opens one, at random, and the same familiar handwriting, Hinata’s, welcomes him, filling up pages. She tells him of her days, of the weather, of the people living in the district, of those who asked her of him. She tells him of the food she’s eaten, friends she’s visited, cats she has pet. She never says something directly about her, and it’s this underlying absence in all of her texts; of an actual presence to grasp, that makes him realize that his absence has been as frustrating for her as for him.
Hinata bends closer, wet cloth at the cut near his brow, carefully cleaning up his face, disinfecting the wounds she finds in the way, healing those that she knows she can.
She ignores Sasuke’s hisses, she ignores his attempts to push her back, to try and clean and patch himself up on his own, suddenly shy in front of her. They have staring contests over the smallest things, his fingers wrapped around her wrist to stop her each time she makes a go for his shirt, for the wet cloth, for the ointment she herself made. Everytime he does so, her frown deepens, her lips form a pout.
When she reaches for his pants, she is blushing; and only then does Sasuke notice that she’s wearing one of his sweaters, sleeves rolled up out of the way, whole body swallowed underneath the material. She ignores his hand shaking up around her waist, under the material of her top, the fingers almost ticklish on her skin.
“Hey,” he tries again, though it sounds rather like he’s purring out the word. She stammers, trying to say it back in return, and he laughs, pleased.
“I missed you so much,” he goes on, tugging at her body, getting her closer to him so that he can hug her her, resting his head over her tummy, as she’s still standing. Her hands automatically go to his hair, so much longer now, playing with the ends, humming once again. Her lips brush against the top of his head, and he automatically buries his head in the material of that damn sweater that smells entirely like the love of his life. Like his soulmate.
“Welcome back, Sasuke,” she soothes, dropping to her knees so she can once again look directly at him. Much like a cat, he pushes forward, his forehead against hers, relishing in her presence.
“I’d really like to kiss you,” he breathes, hand now cupping her cheek. She surges forward, like under a spell, lips stumbling just a bit awkwardly against his, but he pushes forward, more force, more need and they find their rhythm, arms lounging to get closer and closer. Only after they part can Sasuke breathe, can convince his brain that yes, he’s home and everything is fine. Hinata takes his hand in hers, fingers tangling together, and when their eyes meet again, she smiles so prettily that Sasuke wants to kiss her all over again.
“I missed you,” she says, and it’s the first selfish gesture he’s seen from her since he entered the room, and he positively gleams at her admission. She can pick up his joy flickering in his own eyes, and just as she’s about to retreat into herself, embarassed, Sasuke drags her after him, tumbling in the bed: bowl splattered on the floor, paper wrinkling at their feet, bandage rolls painfully digging in their sides.
“Sasuke,” she tries to admonish, but her voice ends with a smile he can hear in her voice, so he knows she’s not actually mad. He tugs her closer, almost suffocatingly so, but she is not complaining. Instead, her hand darts for his hair, playing through it once again, and Sasuke closes his eyes against her touch, pleased. His own thumb is drawing circles at her hip, and Hinata shifts just the littlest, so that their legs tangle together.
“Tell me, again,” he asks, almost dozing off to sleep already.
“I missed you.”
“More.”
“I’m happy you’re back.”
“More,” he presses, his hand squeezing her thigh.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Don’t go again,” she whispers, and they are so close that he can almost know the words by her breathing pattern.
“Ok.”