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Sasuke’s just absolutely screwed. He wasn’t supposed to get here. This wasn’t the plan. None of this was the plan.
Finding Naruto should’ve been a miracle, and Itachi made it possible. Befriending him, though, was inevitable, and this – this –
Sasuke’s starting to believe this love was, too.
It wasn’t the plan. Sasuke just – he’s spent so much of his life with dreams he doesn’t understand of blue eyes he can’t remember only to be drowned overnight in memories defined by this man of power and a village and a slaughtered people and someone who loved him long ago, and now – and now –
Now he’s here, sitting at a table in a coffee shop with the man he’ll love in every universe, it seems, and he can’t comprehend how something like this can ever be contained to a single lifetime, anyways.
Naruto fumbles his coffee cup when he notices Sasuke’s probably too-intense-for-normal stare and then there’s hot coffee everywhere, and Sasuke snaps back to the present.
“Shit – I’m sorry, Sas – can you – shit!”
Sasuke’s moving before he’s processing because Naruto’s been burned shit fuck, grabbing the mug and setting it aside and slapping his ice-cold water bottle into Naruto’s hand before using the napkins on the table to sop it up. “It’s fine, moron – it’s fine. Just keep your hand on that until we can get you some ice – no. Stop.”
Naruto scowls at him. “It’s my mess! Lemme clean it up –”
“Clean it up with your left hand, then, but that one –”
“It wasn’t that hot, Sasuke, it’s fine –”
“Keep your hand on that water bottle or so help me god I will walk out of here,” Sasuke tells him. “For the love of – just let me help you, idiot.”
Naruto makes a face but sits back. “You suck,” he says pointedly.
“Says the dumbass who dumped coffee all over our homework,” Sasuke mutters. “Go get some ice from Sakura.” He glances behind the counter, where she’s already rolling her eyes and heading to the freezer.
“Oh, so now I’m allowed to –”
“Naruto,” Sasuke snaps, and there’s that – that layer of desperation that wells up underneath his skin from a life long-lived that Naruto doesn’t even know exists and it breaks through the surface, and Naruto goes still. “Just – please.”
“Okay,” Naruto says immediately. “I – okay. I’m gonna – I’m gonna get ice – Sakura! But you’re – it’s fine. I’m fine.”
“I know.”
“Uh huh.” Naruto eyes him for a minute and Sasuke waves him away with a hand that’s shakier than he wants it to be, but he goes anyways.
Sasuke wipes up the last of the spill and dumps the soaked napkins into a trashcan before walking straight outside.
The wind isn’t sharp enough. It’s summer. He needs a cold breeze. He needs to breathe. He needs – he needs –
Fuck.
He can see Naruto’s skin puffy and inflamed, and no, he knows, he knows he didn’t do this – knows burning Naruto isn’t something he’d do now or then, not really, but – but –
He sinks into a crouch, hangs his head between his legs, and breathes.
He counts twelve breaths before there’s a hand on his back. “Sasuke?” Naruto asks, voice softer than Sasuke’s maybe ever heard it before, at least in this lifetime. “What – what can I do?”
And it’s so much better than what’s wrong that Sasuke lets himself take a shaky breath. He needs to see him – see that he’s okay. That Sasuke’s very presence hasn’t damaged him, even though he knows that doesn’t make any sense.
He takes a deep breath and slowly stands, all too aware of the way Naruto’s hand falls slowly from his back, tracing to his elbow. He stares at this person he can’t stand to lose and looks at the ice that’s been packed into a ziplock bag and wrapped in a towel around his too-hot fingers and the way his face shows only concern instead of pain and breathes.
“You’re okay?” he asks, but it comes out raspy and panicked, and he flinches at the sound.
“I’m fine, I promise.” Naruto reaches out, but it’s slow and careful, watching for Sasuke to react. When he doesn’t, that hand settles gently against Sasuke’s chest, right over his heart. “I’m okay.”
Sasuke lets out a shuddering breath and nods. “That’s – good. I’m sorry.”
Naruto shakes his head. “I don’t – look. Sasuke, it’s fine, okay? I’m good. I just – I don’t know what’s going on or what made that – but I don’t care. I mean. Shit.” He slaps a hand over his face, and Sasuke finds himself relaxing, almost wanting to laugh at how mortified he looks. “I totally care! I just – I mean I don’t care like I don’t mind, and if you – you don’t have to – but if you do wanna talk about – you – uh. You can. To me, ya know?”
Except Sasuke can’t because, well.
They don’t both need to have panic attacks, now, do they.
Still. “You’re a moron,” he tells Naruto, and then before he can think better of it, “but thank you.”
“Sure,” Naruto says easily, and it’s only then that his hand leaves Sasuke’s chest – just to grab his wrist and tow him gently back into the shop. “Come on. You should have something to eat. I know when I get – well, eating helps, and water, too, so you’re gonna take back your stupid water bottle and –”
Sasuke stops, those words pounding in his head. “When you get?” he prompts.
Naruto pauses, door halfway open, and smiles at him before moving again, tugging Sasuke with him. “Well, yeah,” he says easily. “I recognize a panic attack ‘cause – well. It takes one to know one, ya know?”
“Oh,” is all Sasuke can think to say, and Naruto laughs, shouting to Sakura that they need a muffin stat and Sasuke –
Well.
Sasuke doesn’t know what to do with all of this except that he’s damn lucky to have found Naruto again, and he'll do what he can to make those panic attacks never happen.
In every universe, he thinks, he’ll find him.
He’ll love him.
Always.