Archive of Our Own

There was a wall cloud looming over the landscape from the east, the air smelt wet and electric with a potential that couldn’t be held down. Down in the endless fields of grass they stood. Tiny and human where the wind whistled through the bulbs of grain and something so much larger than them stirred.

“Storms’ a brewin’” Naruto said, spitting out the end of a stalk of wheat he was chewing on and  squinting into the dull light of the overcast. 

“No shit.” 

“You check the chart?” 

“Hooks moving in, should be rolling over this location in the next half hour.” Sasuke said to his tablet, “A couple options for you, we can move east and try to intercept. Good chances that  something's going to try to touch down.”

“Yeah I like that one.” Naruto said all bare feet with broken shoes thrown haphazardly into the grass and a foxish grin. 

“Yeah no shit we’re going to intercept, I meant your options are we wait for Kiba to finish live-streaming taking a piss or we leave him here to think about what he’s done.” 

“He can’t still be pissing can he?” 

They looked over to where he seemed to be talking to the cows that were watching them. Their necks craned over the shoddy wooden fence, Their big dull eyes curious. Kiba always did have a way with animals. 

“What are we waiting for?” Kiba asked as if he didn't know that they were waiting for him.

“We're going to intercept so strap your dick on straight,” Naruto hollered like a dog with both hands cupped around his mouth back at Kiba. He took off running back to the truck parked on the side of the road and Sasuke was off like a shot after him. There was no way after waiting this long he was going to get stuck sitting in the back seat.

“Shit “ Kiba said as he fell into the back seat of the truck pushing his way past the fast-food garbage. Naruto revved up the truck excitedly as he monologued to the camera strapped to the dash board. He turned to Sasuke in the passenger seat, his corn flower blue eyes filled with delight, his smile like an open invitation. 

“Breaks over, seatbelts on boys, it's time for touch down.” 

When Shikamaru had first joined the weather club he had done so under the mistaken belief that it would be nothing more troublesome than laying down in the grass and watching the clouds as they drifted overhead. That is after all what Naruto had said when he pitched it, stressing that it was ‘actually super chill.’ However, what Naruto had failed to tell him was that he was actually a liar and that the weather club was secretly actually a pack of near feral adrenaline junkies, filled by cheap gas station coffee and delusions of middling internet fame. 

In whatever the opposite of his defense was, he should have known better. He had sealed his fate by steadfastly ignoring all of the glaringly apparent safety red road signs along the way. If he had been paying even the slightest attention he would have never have found himself, in a home-brewed armoured vehicle staring directly down the barrel of an oncoming tornado, while hail the size of a toddler fist played haymaker on the windows. 

He couldn’t really in good conscience entirely blame Naruto for that.

“I need a north-west option!” Naruto screamed out from behind the wheel, ass not even touching his seat. All while going far too quickly across the glossy wet roadway and hydroplaning dangerously close to a ditch. 

In retrospect that should have been the right moment to get out. He should have listened to the rising panic telling him that there was no way anything was worth this. He should have listened to that voice as he clutched at the overhead hand hold of the truck, and every muscle in his body bowed tight with tension. 

Instead he just swore to himself that with god as his witness he would never let Naruto drive him directly into a tornado again. And to be fair he didn’t, because next time he would bring his own car and he would be the one behind the wheel. 

As if that was any better. 

The summer they graduated from high school Naruto had weaseled and plotted and schemed and whined and whined and whined to convince Sasuke to go on a road trip with him. Though Sasuke had for his part put up a good fight against it, in the end Naruto had gone so low as to team up with Itachi and he found that he had been completely outmatched. So the week after school was finally done, they set out into the vast openness of the American country. It had felt like they were on a delicate life determining precipice. 

The whole world was out there and now they were out there too, roaming over her roads. Emboldened to do anything, to go anywhere and experience everything. There was a part of Sasuke that felt terrified. Not that he would be going out into the world without the protection of his loving family, but that he might lose Naruto somewhere in the mix.

 That one day he would look back at this moment as a perfect but inevitably distant memory. 

The future was looming overhead, rushing in fast like a gale to sweep him off his feet. Sasuke had got into his choice school. He had decided that he would be going to study science though only in the vaguest sort of way and so incredibly little for his life else beyond that. Naruto had made the choice not to go directly back into school. Laughing into that terrifying wind of change and asking him “Who the hell is rushing to go back there?” 

Sasuke knew the truth, he knew that Naruto’s bravery was at least a little bit pretend. That more than anything else he was just terrified of school. After all, he had barely managed to struggle his way through high school on makeup projects, pity marks from befriended teachers and the endless mercy of Sasuke’s helping friendship.

Out on the open road things had felt so delicate, Sasuke kept wondering how long would it take for this house of cards that was their friendship to finally fall? When would they realistically be able to see each other again? How would he ever realistically be able to hold on to him? He knew that Naruto thought about it too, all the time. He could feel it in the air between them. All the words that he swallowed behind tight smiles. All the little things that had turned suddenly painful. 

“You know, ‘science’ sounds like it’s so lame, but who knows you might actually do something super cool.” Naruto was saying into a burger sitting on top of a picnic table at a surprisingly good roadside burger joint. “You could like totally end up changing the world and I’ll tell everyone, oh that guy, I know that guy, we’re best friends” 

He knew he was trying to be supportive, knew he was trying to put on a brave face but it was just getting harder and harder to take. He wanted to reach out, wanted to tie them together forever. Wanted to tell him to come with him, though it wouldn’t be fair for him. How could he ask Naruto to put his whole life on hold just to follow him around?

Sasuke had been harboring a pretty monumental crush on Naruto for just about as long as he could remember. For years it had been bearably unattainable, his favorite and most precious secret but now that they were here, now that this could be their last summer, all his feelings kept trying to crawl out of his throat at every opportunity. 

He kept thinking this could be the last time they would do this together. This would be the last time they would listen to this song or make fun of his brother or do any of the thousands of things that made up their entangled lives. For all he knew this could be the last burger he would be eating while he watched Naruto lick the reminisce of his own from his fingers.

He kept telling himself to be happy. That Naruto was here with him now. That he was doing all this just to make him happy, that Naruto deserved that, but he just couldn’t be happy. The heart sickness just hurt and hurt and hurt.

“Holy shit! check that out” Naruto said pointing out into the distance, as a dark cloud that had made a little dimple slowly stretched a rope of visible air, it wiggled around like a suspended string before touching a field somewhere miles away. The tornado flexed as though it grew confident, its body filling out eagerly, until it shyly curled back into the sky and disappeared. 

Naruto looked at him dead in the eyes with all the light of the sun, a smile that could reach out a million miles. 

“You should totally study to be a tornado guy! That’s like the most badass thing ever!” 

It was more than a little pathetic that that smile had the power to dictate the trajectory of his entire life, but that was just the power of Naruto. Honestly there were probably worst things he could do to confuse and disappoint his parents.

They were at a thrift store in London, Kentucky, looking for new shoes for Naruto. Trust in him to already somehow rip the sole clean off of his sneakers only days into the season. Sasuke was just waiting flopped down on a spinelessly well worn couch scrolling through his phone. Looking at radar as it showed him colorful moving pixelated patterns across his screen.

So far they had managed to get themselves in every wrong place, chasing storms that thundered and hailed but where the wind still failed to materialize. Failing to make it to the right place at the right moment to catch as god fingered the earth.

“I just want something that’s water proof that still breathes you know?” Naruto said cross legged and sock footed on the floor in front of him, an array of supposedly unfit shoes thrown about around him in a messy pile. 

“That’s not something that exists, you're going to have to pick one or the other.” he told him without looking up. This was a bad array of formations, everything was so far away, but there was nothing else that they could do. They were just going to have to pick a best bet and start driving. 

“No way!” Naruto said with offense, “What I mean is like, a good all rounder that I can run around in all summer, I won’t compromise on this!, how's the radar looking anyway?” 

“Like shit,” Sasuke said into his phone, as Naruto hobbled his way over on two different sets of shoes. Sasuke noticed that one of them was an oil slick black snakeskin cowboy boot. “You're not getting that.” 

“Fuck you, these are totally awesome!” he said emphatically, flexing out his heel to show the way that it reflected the harsh fluorescent lights of the store, they didn’t suit him at all. The other was a better match, white tennis shoes already grass stained from a previous owner, the laces had been replaced with childishly garish purple and yellow curled elastic laces. 

“Just get the runners and let's hit the road.” he told him. 

“Don’t tell me what to do asshole, don’t you wanna look around?” Naruto asked him.

“No.” 

“Well I’m gonna look around, go sit in the car if you're gonna sulk.” he told him and then hobbled off to stalk through the isles of the store. They were just about the only ones in the place, outside the huge square windows the sky loomed low and grey. He looked back to the radar, as though if he just checked it often enough then he could change what was on there. 

“Sasuke, check this out!” Naruto said, suddenly back in his face. He threw himself down on the sofa next to Sasuke, bright smile and tiny spring freckles all in place. In his hands there was a burned CD with 80’s mega mix written in sharpie on the thin plastic cover. 

“No.” 

“Come on!” 

“No.” 

“Dude! It's 50 cents, I’m getting it,” he said, plopping himself back on the floor and prying the mixed matched shoes off his feet. “And the boots.” 

In the end Sasuke got him the tennis shoes, to spare himself her whining when the boots inevitably blistered her feet.

The weather club had been less of an idea and more of a shitty joke that had somehow managed to take on a life of its own. It started at the end of winter of Sasuke's first year in college. Naruto had said that they should try storm chasing in the spring, and like most things that were stupid, had held on to the idea with a death grip. 

Sasuke had started calling it ‘the weather club', just about the same time that Naruto had dedicated himself to convincing every one he had ever met to join. At first it had just been to make the whole thing sound as stupid as it was. But in the end it stuck because Naruto was shameless enough to make it his own.

“Dude!” Naruto told him from miles away, the way his voice sounded induced the kind of full body pain that could best be described as home sickness. “I bought a truck for the weather club.” 

“What? Why the hell would you do that?” He asked as the shock of the kind of commitment Naruto was trying to make to this stupid pipe dream washed over him. 

“Well mostly cause I wanted a truck and you know how my car is like a total piece of shit? back in December it wasn't starting- anyways it's not about that,” Naruto said he was just a little breathless on the other end of the phone. Always running around, constantly in motion, constantly bringing Sasuke along for the ride. 

“If we're going to be serious about the weather club then we definitely need a truck right? And dig this right? I was talking to Kiba about getting it tornado ready and he was like a hundred percent on board.” 

“Kiba?” 

“Well yeah, ‘cause he's like a mechanic y'know and that's gonna be super clutch for the weather club. I was showing him pictures of the dominator and he was super into it.” 

“And who's gonna pay for that does ‘the weather club' have some sort of treasury that I haven't heard of.” 

“First off fuck you, I'm paying for it and Kiba said that he's gonna help me out ‘cause he's a better friend then you are. Secondly I'm alarmed that you're not more stoked on this truck it’s gonna be fucking awesome.” 

“Congratulations on buying yourself a car.” he said, across the dorm room his roommate walked in. 

“Thanks,” Naruto said, “...Wait, what's wrong?”

“What are you talking about? I didn't say anything.” 

“Yeah but the vibes are totally different.” He said, somehow that hurt too. How could anyone ever know him as well as this idiot did?

“My roommate just got back.”

“Oh,” Naruto said and he was right, somehow the vibe was different. “You should ask him if he wants to join the weather club.” 

“No.” 

“Come on, do it you pussy.” 

“Why would I do something like that?” he said irritatedly. “It's not even like we know each other”

“Tell him we're accepting donations for the Treasury department- that’s you by the way and show him pictures of the dominator.” 

“What am I? Your go fund me page.” 

“Shit I gotta go. Talk to you soon, bye bye asshole.” 

Then suddenly it was over and his voice cut out. Sasuke was left there feeling as though something had been physically stolen from him.

“There!” Naruto screamed. “Are you recording this? Tell me you're recording this.” 

Outside the truck, the wind screamed like a turbine. The soft slope of the tornado was little more than a field over. Sasuke's heart raced inside his chest. The rain poured down. He watched as the tornado dug into a patch of dirt and its perfect white body filled with soil. 

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Kiba screamed as he kicked the back of Sasuke's seat in excitement. Sai was silently leaning out the window phone in hand as water poured into the truck, as casual as if he was taking a picture of a clear blue sky. 

“Sasuke, are you recording this!” Naruto screamed as he tried to drive and film it at the same time and managed to fail to do either passably. Sasuke was trying to co-steer while he did the same. The look in Naruto's eyes was so wild. 

“We need to get closer!” Kiba screamed. 

“It's turning.” Sasuke tried to yell over the chaos. “Look, it's moving.”

“You think it’s turning into a wedge?” Naruto asked no one in particular. 

“I'll show you a wedge.” Kiba said and the two idiots cackled like hyenas. 

The rain gave out, they watched as the tornado moved in its unbroken steady march across the farmland. It was over, he thought and it was a shuttering empty sort of realization that made him feel hollow enough his fingers hurt. 

“I got some good footage.” Sai told them after the laughter had numbed into something empty. They pulled over and took a look. Watching Sai’s video as if doing so would give them the power to relive it if only for a moment. 

Once they were done they went through all the footage one camera at a time. Video by video, until that too was over.Shikamaru eventually caught up and came inside the truck with them, giving them the chance to go over all of it once more with diminishing returns. 

“This is awesome, guys this is totally awesome.” Naruto reminded them. “Okay Sasuke you drive, I'm gonna start editing and get this one posted. Guys, that was so kickass!” 

Sasuke got out as he walked across the truck and filled his lungs with the fresh green smell of turned earth and torn crops, something dangerous slithered over his tongue. 

“Naruto-”

“I fuckin love the weather club, don’t you?” Naruto interrupted, and just as it had come up, he was able to swallow it back down.

“So is she cute?” His roommate Suigetsu asks him some time later, just conversationally, just as he's getting off the phone with Naruto. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sasuke asked him.

“You know, your girlfriend, the one that you call eight times a day.” Suigetsu said with a laugh pointing at the phone still in Sasuke's hand. Sasuke froze. He knew that he should say something, he understood that the only way he could get out of this was to lie his way out. 

Instead he didn’t say anything, instead he just felt like he was watching this occur from outside of his body. Suigetsu just stared him down without any particular interest, and all Sasuke could think was ‘he knows,’ suddenly Suigetsu broke out in a laugh that felt more than a little bit cruel. 

“Well, you are Asian.” Suigetsu said as though that explained everything, throwing Sasuke so off guard he regained the ability to speak.

“what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you probably got parents who give a fuck about what you do.” Suigetsu said, pulling a vape out of his pocket and blowing a strawberry scented cloud into the room. He looked far too casual, far too much like he was not tracing the edge of the most personal part of Sasuke’s being. 

“I don't have a girlfriend.” Sasuke said and though it was true it was also far too late for that.

“Sure.”

“I don't,” He said. Still feeling a little like he was still having an out of body experience. Suigetsu looked up at him and then Sasuke could see it, the exact moment when it clicked in his mind. He wanted to strangle him, anything to stop what was already happening. 

“Hey man,” he said after a long moment, Sasuke felt like he was falling, falling. “I'm not going to tell anyone.” 

Sasuke sat down. He didn't know what to do. 

“Tell anyone what? There's nothing to tell.” He said normally, right? 

“Sure.”

He had thought that they were… well not friends exactly, but something sort of similar to friends. Hadn't Suigetsu always told him that he thought he was alright? 

Hadn’t Sasuke tolerated him and his many many annoying flaws, vaping in the house, coming and going at all hours, stealing every cup in the house to add to the collection on his desk. The worst of which is his relationship with his girlfriend Karin. A relationship which composed as far as Sasuke could see almost entirely out of fighting, broken up only occasionally for them to fuck just as loudly. 

Hadn't Sasuke been tolerant enough to be given a break on this one thing.

“Hey you want some of this?” Suigetsu said, offering over his vape like an olive branch. 

“Keep your popcorn lung to yourself.” He said. 

“So I have a confession,” Naruto told him, this had been back in highschool, during the middle of the night on some weekend or another, they were laying out on the couch ,the tv on. Naruto was upside down, his legs lifted hanging off the back of the couch. 

“Yeah what’s that,” Sasuke said after Naruto failed to immediately spill out his guts. Sasuke had copied his pose, it was so late that he was starting to feel like he might just fall asleep sharing the couch like this. 

“Okay, so I know this isn’t cool or whatever,” Naruto prefaced. He yawned, and stretched out just a little bit more. Sasuke bit back the immediate response of telling Naruto that if he was worrying about being cool then he was doing a pretty shit job of it. “But… I like pop music.” 

Sasuke frowned. What the hell kind of confession was that, of course Naruto liked pop music.  Naruto was pop music, lively, bright, living rent free in your head whether you like it or not. 

“So?” Sasuke said. 

“Hey!, that’s easy for you to say, you probably like some kind of cool artistic experimental rock bullshit or whatever, and you know I’ve listened to that kind of stuff, and I try to get it but I also like sort of don’t y’know.” Sasuke scoffed. 

“And then I was hanging out with Sakura and she was playing this band, Dragonette and I was like, you know I really like this kind of thing, I know that’s super gay or whatever...” he finished dismissively. Sasuke sat up from where he was flopped down and squinted at Naruto. 

“What?” Naruto asked. 

“You know caring what other people think, enough to pretend you like things you don’t. Makes you like a hundred times gayer right?” 

“Dude!” Naruto said sitting up, copying his pose this time. “I know, it’s like a catch 22 or something.” 

“It would be a catch 22 if it was in any way equal,” Sasuke said. “I just said this is way worse.” 

“You think?” 

“Naruto, everyone already knows you're gay, you cry during every movie. I’d be more concerned about them finding out that you're also being a coward on top of that.” 

“That’s actually kinda true, you know.” 

“See, stop worrying. No one cares what music you want to listen to, it's not a big deal.” Sasuke said. 

Two weeks later, Naruto had just pulled into their high school parking lot. Sasuke was sweating and it wasn't entirely due to the swelling morning sun, or Naruto's shitty car with the broken air conditioning. He’d done something a little stupid and it had his heart floating somewhere in his throat.

“Hey I got something,” Sauske said. “I don't know if you'd be interested.” 

“Yeah, what's that?” Naruto asked, the sky reflecting back in his blue eyes. 

“It's a CD, I don't have a CD player and I know your car still uses CDs so…” why was he nervous about this? He and Naruto gave each other stuff all the time, he reached into his bag and handed it over. 

“Body parts? Dude, you got me a Dragonette CD there's no way you remembered that from one off hand comment.” 

“No,” he had. “Sakura just said something-” she hadn't.

“No way!” Naruto said, while Sasuke prayed he wouldn't ask any questions. “This is so sick, thank you” Naruto turned the car back on and ejected whatever was already  in the stereo and put the new CD in. 

The car filled with a bassy dance track with high female vocals, Naruto looked over at him with a terribly sweet smile and soft eyes. Sasuke could feel his heart speed up as though racing to match the beat of the song.

“Thanks,” he said again, too personal, too genuine. 

“It's not a big deal”

The highway was endless. Naruto was sitting without his shoes on, his legs crisscross apple sauce in the passenger seat. He was staring down at his lap top perched on his legs. The 80s mega mix was crooning Phil Collins ‘you can’t hurry love’ through the speakers. 

The sun was setting over the wet road way in bright beautiful summer colors, for a long Moonish moment Sasuke was suspended within the bubble of a liminal feeling. He wanted to lift his hand from the gear shift and cross the invisible borderline and invade into the personal space of Naruto's world. 

Maybe it was just the Phil Collins. 

“Ok we're all go, online. Man there's so many comments it's wild.” Naruto said, closing the laptop with a satisfying click. 

“Yeah?” Sasuke said a little too late as he flicked on the turn signal and pulled into a gas station. 

“You want anything I'm grabbing snacks. Naruto asked, cramming his feet back in his white tennis shoes, walking over the backs of them despite the fact that they had elastic laces to begin with.

“Yeah sure” he said, stepping out into the harsh buzzing light of the gas station. The smell of petrichor and gasoline, running together like a rainbow puddle. The sky felt heavy, he could see stratification in the cloud bodies above them, still the storms were churring elsewhere over different horizons.

“What are you thinking?” Naruto asked him when he came back leaning against the car, and offering over a bag of boiled peanuts. Sasuke took one and crushed it in his teeth. 

“Couple hours to Alabama,” he said. “There should be storms there.” Naruto had the bag of peanuts on the roof of the truck he was already fishing his phone out of his pocket. 

“Awe man, the fit crew’s really leaving us in the dust.” Naruto said. They had split up in a Tennessee waffle house, Kiba and Sai both jumping into Shikamaru's Honda fit. Back then it had definitely been Phil Collins that had driven them away. 

“Who cares we’re all going to the same place.” Sasuke said, though the real reason was just that he wanted to be here secretly cherishing every moment that they could be alone together. His heart ached, one day it would all be over, blown away into the wind. It felt like cheating destiny.

“Dude watch this,” Naruto said, playing a video for him off of his phone, breaking the stillness and quiet of the night. In the video a perfect tornado spiraled down from the sky, it never visibly touched the ground, just hung suspended in the air like a beautiful dancing ghost.

The wind in the video whistled, the rain lashed against the window of someone else's car, Sasuke's heart raced as he watched it confidently moving on its unstoppable path through the churning grey of the sky. Naruto pressed his shoulder into him, they were so close, skin pressed to skin. Sharing vanishing air. 

Then suddenly the video was over, the little frozen movement complete, Naruto pulled away. No storm could last forever. 

“You need me to drive?” Naruto asked, but what he really meant was ‘why are you still just standing there.’ He didn't have an answer, not one he could admit to. It was getting harder all the time. 

Right before the spring of the first year of ‘the weather club’, before they had ever gone out looking for storms. There came a time in which Naruto suddenly arrived at his door. Seeing him was like seeing the moment when spring finally broke through the winter sky. It was like a shift in the atmosphere that opened a clear endless sea of blue sky where suddenly he could breathe .

“Hey, I hope you don't mind me just dropping in.” He said with a laugh, the truth was that he did mind, it was always so much worse saying good bye after he had been close enough to touch him. 

It was late February, and Naruto had driven all the many miles to come see him just because according to him, ‘he was so desperate to show him his newly modified truck he literally couldn’t wait’. The truck was Cherry red and looked like a Frankenstein monster of welding, without an ounce of beauty to it at all.

“Don't worry it's totally road legal.” Naruto told him in a voice that was more than a little suspicious. His eyes were full of the last of winter sunlight. Sasuke took a long walk around the truck. Not so much that he knew anything about cars. More just to see how much it was a blatant death trap on wheels.

“Come on, let me take you for a drive.” Naruto whined at him just as Suigetsu rode up on his bike. The look that he gave them was as though he immediately knew, like he could see right through the core of Sasuke's pathetic heart. 

“Hi. Are you Sasuke's roommate Suigetsu? I'm Naruto.” Naruto said. 

“Sick truck, what are you some kind of road derby guy or something?” 

“Dude! you didn't even tell him ‘bout the weather club.” Naruto whined again, as though it should be that easy for Sasuke to crack himself open like an egg and show everyone what was inside. 

“Weather club” Suigetsu said skeptically raising his eyebrow at them, Sasuke felt extremely uncomfortable. 

“Yeah, we're going to go storm chasing. You should join us, its gonna be so cool,”

“Do you mean like tornados right?” Suigetsu said, giving Sasuke a strange look like he had just gained unexpected respect for him. 

“Yeah, cool right?” Naruto said through a huge grin. 

“I think I got enough problems without literally chasing after tornados." Suigetsu said with a laugh, which was friendly just in a prickly kind of way that Sasuke wanted nothing to do with. 

“Hey loser,” he said to Naruto, trying to separate the two of them before any kind of lasting damage could be done. “I thought you were taking me for a ride.” 

“Sick! Hey Suigetsu, you wanna come too?” Naruto asked, running over to get in the driver's seat and jumping up on the running board. 

“Nah, I wouldn’t want to get in the way, but you two have fun, I know Sasuke's could probably use a ride.” he said with a sharkish smirk, Sasuke felt his stomach flip. 

“Ha ha, suit yourself,” Naruto said completely oblivious, Sasuke got in the death trap, the door felt ridiculously heavy, this thing must be a monster on gas. 

“So where are you taking me?” he asked Naruto in the shelter of the truck's cabin. 

“Anywhere.” he said like the whole world was at their finger tips.

They were chasing a rain wrapped cyclone down a long flat stretch of the highway. The rain was blowing in at them sideways in the powerful wind. The sun had set, in the rain and darkness and the visibility was completely shit.

There were flashing bolts of lighting that were cracking brightly through the sky like downed power lines. George Benson was singing through the speakers to give him the night. The cab of the truck felt as secure and secluded as an island, that even this enthusiastic storm couldn’t touch

“I think this might be bad.” Naruto told him from the passenger seat, his face was pressed up against the cold glass of the window. “I can’t see anything.” 

“If you can’t see anything then you don’t really know if it’s bad or not.” Sasuke told him, as he tried to keep his eyes focused on the road, the torrential downpour was making the journey slow down to a crawl. The Honda with the rest of their friends was somewhere ahead of them, in the dizzying mess of streaking red tail lights. 

“Isn’t it always worse at night? Night tornadoes are so scary and I worry about people who are in their houses, that might not know.” he continued while he was still bobbing nervously along to the music. 

“There’s only so much that we can do, I mean we called it in,” Sasuke reasoned, trying to peer through the river washing over his windshield. 

“Yeah I know, it’s just still scary, you know,” 

“There,” Sasuke said as he spotted the Honda in front of them. “Look if you're gonna be worried then you're going to have to put on a different song.” Naruto laughed. 

“Your right this song has like literally no menace." he said pulling out the flimsy case of the 80’s mega mix and starting looking through the little hand written list that had been tucked into the inside of the case. He switched the song to The strangler's golden brown almost apologetically. “It’s not a very edgy era of music, or I mean at least this CD isn’t. I’m doing the best with the tools I’ve been given.” 

“We have other CDs,” Sasuke reminded him as they approached their friends. He heard the horn honk from the other car as they saw them. They were basically the only cars on the road, which was good really even if they shouldn’t be out in weather like this either. Naruto waved back at them, though Sasuke was pretty sure there was just no way to see that from the other car. 

“Wait, I can find something,” he said, going back to consult his list. Seeing how there wasn’t anything that could be seen outside tornado wise, Naruto was taking his duties as DJ very seriously. 

“Don’t change it, like this one.” he said back as they stopped at a red light, there was the soft click click of the windshield wipers, suddenly it all felt very private. The sky around them lit up with a flash of lighting and for a fraction of a moment they got a perfect glimpse of the uncovered tornado, its tell-tale body nearly black, the spiraling multiple vortexes caught in its orbit, it was so beautiful the image burned into his eye. 

“Holy shit did you see that?!” Naruto said in a volume that wasn’t necessary. 

“Yeah,” 

“Ah man I hope they were filming in the other car, I can’t believe that I missed it.” Naruto whined, almost climbing up out of his seat as though he could get closer then he might be able to catch a glimpse of it again. There was another perfect moment captured in the flash of lighting. Naruto was fumbling for his phone. 

“What’s that? half a mile? fuck I can’t see shit.” Naruto said, brushing the wrong side of the windshield glass as though he could push the rain away.  He pressed his phone next to the glass and started to record, waiting, waiting, the light turned green. They moved back into action, the whole time Sasuke holding his breath, waiting, praying for one more look. 

Sasuke drove even slower, really they were hardly moving at all, the wind whistled screaming hollow and still breathlessly quiet all around them. There was another flash, bright enough that it hurt his eyes when he had to turn them back to the shiny darkness of the road. 

“Did you get that?” he asked in a soft whisper. 

“Yeah I got that.” Naruto said he didn’t have to look to hear the smile in his voice. Sasuke glanced over, Naruto was now recording a video of him driving. 

“What are you doing?” he asked him, and Naruto stopped, he turned the camera off and let his back hit the seat. 

“You looked, I don't know, kinda cool I guess I thought maybe I’ll make some kind of montage. You’ll be my b-roll you know.” Naruto said after a long quiet moment. And that all made sense, even before the weather club Naruto liked to make video mortgages, almost like digital scrap books. Usually they were something almost embarrassingly ernest about it, like someone showing you their vacation photos. 

“You gonna post that?” 

“I don’t know, maybe.” Naruto said, “I mean I’ve already done a couple, people like that kind of thing.” 

Naruto almost sounded embarrassed, almost like he took pictures of Sasuke just so that he could look at them when they were apart. Almost like how Sasuke stayed up late stalking Naruto across the internet on days when he should be doing his schoolwork, he sighed. He wasn’t about to admit to that either. 

“Well, send it to me first and I’ll tell you if it’s any good.” he said, he didn’t have to look over to see Naruto's smile he could feel the heat of it, like the summer sun. 

“Yeah?, sick.” 

The first time that they went out storm chasing they didn’t see anything. Back then it was just Naruto and him most days. Even though Kiba was also a member of their stupid club and a few other people, who would later drop out before they ever actually went out.

During weekends while the other students in Sasuke’s class would be out drinking, he would wake up at the crack of dawn with Naruto and spend the whole day out on the road. Then Naruto would drive him back home again, sore and tired and frustrated with nothing at all to show for it. 

It was all just for the chance to see something and even if they never saw nothing, even if it was always destined to be a fruitless endeavor, it felt somehow worth it just to be trapped in a car together. Even when all Sasuke would think was that he was still losing time, losing Naruto, slowly, slowly. That he was trying to hold on to something, maybe even the only thing that mattered to him and that it was slipping away moment to moment out of his fingers. 

Then one day they saw it. Naruto, Kiba and him all together, the three of them just when they had decided to give up for the day and start on the long drive home. It was just a little spindle of wind, that shyly whirled out of the clouds sideways as though it were a puppy that hadn’t opened its eyes and couldn’t find the ground.

The spindly thing flirted with the ground, looping in all the wrong directions in an endless dance without ever making real or solid contact. And somehow that was enough, somehow that had changed everything from ‘we could do this’ to ‘we are doing this’. 

Then the very next time they had rode out they saw another, almost as though now that they had made their first acquaintance with the sky it had decided to reveal itself to them. It felt almost spiritual. It felt like having a purpose, not at all the kind of thing that he would have ever expected to share with Kiba. Regardless it was so powerful that it had already bonded them all together forever.

It was just that it was something that was so much bigger than they were. 

That’s all it took for it to turn from an idea into an addiction. 

Out of all of Naruto’s many, many friends, Sai was by far Sasuke's least favorite. It wasn’t even clear how he came to join their little circle of friends, as far as he could tell it was just that back in high school he had been assigned with Naruto and Sakura on some class project. Then he had started hanging around them, as though proximity had given him permission to think he had  become their friend. Naruto as he was, friendly as a golden retriever and with glaring abandonment issues of his own, was unwilling to tell him otherwise.

The weird thing was that Sai didn’t particularly seem to actually like anyone, and no one seemed to really like him either. Probably because of how he was generally rude to everyone all the time. Still somehow that didn’t stop him from always hanging around them, in fact on any given day he was really more likely to join into whatever they were doing then their actual friends that they actually liked. Which made it not really that surprising that he joined the weather club. 

The other thing that sucked about Sai was he actually took really good pictures. He took good video too in fact probably about eighty percent of what they had as usable footage came straight out of his camera. It would have been one thing if he was just shitty to be around, but being shitty to be around, strangely available and strangely useful, was a deadly combo that made it really hard to just get rid of the guy. 

That meant basically that Sasuke had been put in a position where he had to tolerate him for the sake of the weather club. As much as he was perfectly able to not be outright hostile with him, he still wasn’t going to pretend that they were actually friends. 

Right now they were all standing around in a cheap motel parking lot. Trying and failing to call it a night. There was an argument about how to divide up the rooms that had turned into just an endless stream of whining and complaining. It was the road, the tight confinement of the car’s, the relentless playing of the mega mix. They were all getting on each other's last nerves. Sasuke just wanted to go to bed before he had to kill somebody. 

“Dude, no offense but I'm a grown man I don't wanna share a fucking bed.” Kiba said. 

“Great, you can sleep on the couch then.” Sasuke said with building annoyance at how long this was taking. 

“If you want your own room you can pay for it yourself.” Shikamaru said he was already laying back against the car watching the stars, the lazy fucker probably even knew his constellations.  

“I ain't made of money.” Kiba argued. 

“Look man, let's just fucking sleep in the truck, I'm so tired.” Naruto whined he was hanging off Sasuke which was always a bad sign he was about to go into annoying helpless baby mode. 

“We can get a room with two beds, and Kiba can sleep on the couch.” Shikamaru stepped in, not that they hadn’t been saying that forever, just that no one was actually willing to give consent to this plan. 

“Wait! how are you dividing those beds?” 

“Why do you care if you're not even in one?” Sasuke said. He could feel his blood pressure rise, he was about ready to kill them all. 

“I'm with Naruto.” Sai volunteered out of nowhere. Sasuke almost groaned out loud. Sai walked over and placed his hand on Naruto's arm in a way that wasn't really a real gesture but managed to get Naruto to let go of where he was hanging off Sasuke’s arm. Naruto looked extremely uncomfortable. 

“Look I'm just gonna get the room, you guys can figure it out amongst yourselves." Shikamaru said calmly and left. 

“Why don't we ask Naruto who he wants to share with?” Sasuke said and Naruto looked at him like he had just betrayed him by putting him on the spot. 

“You're sharing with me right.” Sai said without enthusiasm. It was so obvious that he was just trying to sew discord. 

“Ah, I mean I could, definitely, but also like, you know Sasuke is my best friend and everything…” Naruto said spinelessly looking at Sasuke like he wanted him to step in to save him so he didn’t have to say no. Sasuke tried to remind himself that his second option was Shikamaru who was really in most ways a better bed partner than Naruto was anyways. 

“But Naruto, I thought I was your best friend.” Sai continued with a smile that could mean anything but probably didn’t. 

“No, that's not…” Naruto said, playing right into the idiotic trap. 

“Fine, do whatever you want.” Sasuke said, turning away from them. Naruto looked at him like he had just been subjected to a second round of betrayal that was worse than the first. 

“Yay.” Sai said in a full deadpan. “Sleepover.” 

Later when they were all in bed he could feel Naruto's discomfort wafting across the room. It was actually strong enough that it was keeping him from falling asleep. It was so frustrating he was just so tired, why should he care anyways ,Naruto had done this to himself. Naruto was on the side of the bed facing into the center of the room, just like Sasuke was. He could feel his eyes open and searching for him across the room.

Their eyes met in the darkness. The room was incredibly still, empty except for Kiba’s snoring. Naruto's blue eyes studied his. It was like there was an easy transference of understanding. With everyone sleeping around them this felt somehow clandestine and made more intimate because of it. 

Quietly, Naruto slowly, slowly reached out his hand into the open air of the center of the room. He slowly blinked at Sasuke like he was a cat, it should have felt stupid but somehow it didn’t. Sasuke reached his hand out into the space between them, they were just close enough that their finger tips could lightly brush in the darkness. 

‘I love you’ he thought. Naruto slowly pulled his arm back under the covers, a delicate smile on his face, the tension in his body shook off. The little smile made Sasuke feel like he was burning. Finally Naruto closed his eyes and drifted off, his smile still in place even after he fell asleep. 

And for a long time Sasuke just watched 

They were driving uphill into a storm of hail, craning their necks, trying to see a tornado that should have been just outside but somehow none of them had spotted yet. The hail began to grow, some now the size of golf balls falling onto their truck with heavy thunks. 

Kiba whooped from the back seat, as Jane child was singing don't wanna fall in love over the speakers. Naruto was tap, tapping out the rhythm on the steering wheel as he pulled over to the side of the road. He cranked the volume all the way up, competing against the heavy drumming hail all around them.

Now that the truck was parked he and Kiba started bouncing around in time to the music and the hammering of the hail falling over them. It was so stupid but Sasuke found himself getting drawn up in it too and rocking back and forth in his own chair. For a moment all of them forgot the tornado and forgot to film.

One of the balls of hail that must have been the size of a baseball hit the windshield and exploded leaving a crack down the upper left corner. Everyone screamed and then laughed when they realized what had happened. Naruto turned the music off and started giving an update to the live stream, he pulled out his phone to get a better angle of the damage. 

“Holy shit there it is!” Kiba said, jumping across the back seat. They all craned over each other to get a glimpse of it. It was far away from them, tearing through the dirt, its whole body an ugly mud color. There were collected pieces of debris hanging suspended and whirling in the air all around it. 

“Buckle up boys we’re going in.” Naruto proclaimed pulling back onto the road. The song switched to Peter Schilling’s ‘major tom’. Sasuke watched as Naruto cranked the speakers back up. Naruto looked at him, his grin was wild with excitement. A shadow from the cracked windshield, painted down his face like a bad omen. 

“Earth below us, drifting falling” Naruto started to sing loudly, just a little out of time. Sasuke could feel his heart racing. As they chased the wind out in the distance. He looked in the rear view window and could see the Honda following after them. Shikamaru looked so calm, Sai was in the passenger's seat with his face hidden behind a camera. 

“Coming home!” Naruto sang out, Kiba joined in and both of them were laughing. The look of simple, perfect joy on Naruto's face was so temporary it made him grab on to the hand hold of the truck. 

“Da da da da da.” Naruto sang through the verse. “Oh fuck!” He interpreted himself. “It's heading for that house. Do you see that?” 

“Watch the road moron.” Sasuke said as another round of hail battered the car. Kiba was filming from his phone. There was something almost gruesome about it. It was climbing the hill, from this distance it looked almost slow, there were popping flashes as it ate its way through the powerlines. 

They watched as the tornado tore through the trees around the property, then unstoppable into the side of the house. Just a sudden moment when the air filled with debris, flying in and out of its vortex in a chunky cloud. It was like blowing on a pile of pencil shavings. Indifferently the tornado just kept going, ripping its way through more trees, following the road, moving onward. Naruto sped down the road, pulling up to the house's driveway kicking up gravel. 

There were fallen branches and torn wood thrown haphazardly everywhere. The house looked like it had taken some significant damage, part of the roof had been torn off and thrown around. The second the truck stopped they were jumping out. Running across the crunching glass to the battered house and screaming. 

There was a call from somewhere inside the house. Naruto jumped recklessly through the debris to get inside Sasuke followed after him, they found a Middle aged woman inside the house. She looked like she was in shock hunched under the stair case in the middle of the house. Naruto bent down to her. 

“Are you okay?” He asked the woman, who said that she was but Sasuke could see that there was blood dripping down her side. 

“Anybody else in the house?” Naruto asked her as he helped her up and started to bring her outside to the truck. The Honda was pulling up the driveway as they got out.

“Just Oreo, just my Oreo.” She kept saying scared, her eyes unfocused in panic. 

“Who's Oreo?” Naruto was asking her. 

“He's my dog, he was the only one with me.” She said back. 

“We need to get her to a hospital.” Sasuke said, as though Naruto couldn’t see that for himself. 

“I know,” Naruto said he was panicking too, Sasuke could see it.

“I'll look for the dog,” Sasuke said with a firmness he hoped that Naruto could find grounding. “You take her.” Naruto looked at him for a second, then nodded. 

Naruto took her away, while Honda went out  to check on the neighbors, Sasuke looked at his phone and saw that the reception was garbage. He felt very alone, he reminded himself that it was fine, that they would come back for him. 

He started to run around the house calling. Thunder cracked in the sky above him. Rain was pouring out the clouds so thick that it made everything dark, luckily it seemed that the hail had passed. 

“Oreo!” He kept calling and calling,  looking for anything that would give him away. Finally he heard the high softness of Oreo’s little whimper and took off running in its direction. As he got closer the dog started to bark out to him.

The dog was hiding trapped where a tree had blown over into the wall of the house. There were wet leaves and branches everywhere. He started pulling them away trying to work himself towards the noise trapped inside. 

“I know, I know.” Sasuke cooed back to the barking, hoping it would make Oreo feel less scared, the barking increased with urgency. 

“I'm coming don't worry, I'm going to get you out of there.” he told it, he heaved at the pile, shifted one of the larger pieces and something it was supporting fell. Then a black and white streak came running out of the rumble like a shot.  

Oreo shook out his long coat and raced around him panting in celebratory joy. Sasuke sat down on the ground and Oreo came over to check him out. Sasuke grabbed him by his collar and started to check him out too. 

The dog had quite a long coat but as far as he could see was uninjured. He combed his fingers through his long fur as the dog painted with what looked to be a reassuring smile on his face. Lighting flashed far away in the distance, rain fell, the bassy rumble of thunder like a clearing throat. But still a sliver of sunlight broke through the clouds, hanging visible in the air.

Later when they had stopped for dinner Naruto kept buying him beers and telling the story to everyone within earshot over and over again. They were waiting on their food, so he had gone up to another table at the restaurant to tell an older couple the good news and surprisingly  they seemed to have adopted him. He was now sitting with them gesturing wildly. The whole table laughed. It was honestly more than a little embarrassing. The food arrived at their table and Kiba had to walk over and steal him back from his new friends. 

“Dude you saved a life today.” He said again, all smiles and child-like wonder. “That's like so fucked cool.” Naruto had turned Fleetwood Mac's little lies on the jukebox as though he hadn’t already heard it a thousand times on the mega mix.

“Eat your burger.” He said back, it wasn't like anyone else would have done anything differently, it wasn’t really like they knew how much danger the dog had really been in either. ‘Saving a life’ really felt like it was pushing it, but that look in Naruto’s eyes was a magnet thing anyways. 

“Dude you guys didn't even see it- when we reunited them, Carol was so happy she cried and it was literally like watching a movie. I almost cried.” 

Which wasn't true. Naruto had definitely cried. In fact he looked like he might cry again just thinking about it.

“Can you imagine, you house gets fucked up and it's like you lose everything and then just when things are at their worst you get your best friend back” Naruto said sappily he sounded more then a little drunk.

Sasuke pushed one of his fries into Naruto's mouth just to shut him up. He ate it without reacting, as though his trust in Sasuke extended past the point where he could just randomly shove things in his mouth. Sasuke saw how this backfired when Naruto then proceeded to eat his fries like he had just given him permission. 

“Look I love dogs as much as the next guy but I feel like we’ve been having this conversation all night.” Kiba said across the table. 

“What? Really?” Naruto said, like there was any possible way that he hadn’t noticed. 

“We all think Sasuke is very cool.” Sai said, in a way that felt like an insult. 

“What about you Shikamaru?” 

“I think you can talk about whatever you want. We've definitely been hearing this all night.” he said with a sigh. 

“Man, this kind of feels like an intervention.” Naruto said taking an uninvited bite out of Sasuke’s burger like he didn’t have his own just sitting on his plate. 

“Just let it go.” Sasuke said, and then they all fell into silence like no one actually had any idea what else they could possibly talk about. 

“Awe man, I'm exhausted,” Naruto proclaimed. Everyone at the table groaned in agreement. 

After their meal they all made their dozy way back outside into the warm open night air. Naruto was in no state to drive and Sasuke had given in when Naruto had fed him a couple beers. So Naruto threw Kiba the keys and the two of them both piled into the back seat together.

“What am I your cab driver?” Kiba asked from the driver seat, Naruto giggled as he leaned forward to switch the song on the stereo. It was one of his little idiosyncrasies he couldn't stand to listen to a song starting midway. There was something about it that made Sasuke's drowsy heart fill with affection. 

Honeymoon suite started singing ‘love changes everything’.  

“Hey I actually like this one,” said Kiba. As Naruto started to sing along. 

“Yeah you do, Honeymoon suite is the best!” Naruto exclaimed.  

“What are you, my mom?” 

Naruto leaned back in his seat, he wasn't wearing his seat belt properly, it allowed him to crawl right over to Sasuke's side. He looked like he was about to flop over onto his shoulder, Sasuke was definitely going to let him. 

“Dude you saved a dog today.” he reminded him for the millionth time instead. 

“Yeah, get over it.” 

“Hey if you save a dog's life and you can't feel good about yourself, then you're cooked man. Really it's over for you, just give up at that point.” Sasuke laughed despite himself.

“Really I'm serious about this .”Naruto said again, close but not quite touching. 

“But now I know love changes everything” Kiba was singing along to the song, it felt like a whole different world in the back seat. Kiba was even singing along to the guitar solo, Sasuke laughed it felt so safe. Naruto clumsily laid his shoulder into Sasuke's, it felt so accidental. Naruto looked over at him, the look in his sky blue eyes glowing like Sasuke was the most amazing thing he had ever seen. 

“We don't even know if the dog was in real peril,” Sasuke said finally when that look was too overwhelming. 

“Shut up.”

The street lights flickered past outside the window one after the next after the next. Sasuke realized that he wasn't ready for this drive to be over much less this season. Kiba brought them back to their motel, Kiba got out without closing the door. Neither of them made a move to get out of the back seat. 

Naruto unbuckled himself and moved that tiny space in between them to lay his head on Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke shifted to make it easier, make it so that their bodies fit together like puzzle pieces. 

“It was a good day, it was good that we were there,” Naruto said finally. “Driving Carol to the hospital, making sure that she didn't have to worry about Oreo, that's good right?” 

It wasn't really a question. Sasuke swallowed hard.

“Dude, you guys getting out of the car or what?” Kiba called from outside. 

“Fuck off,” Naruto said and Kiba lobbed the keys at Naruto and shut the door. Naruto was just able to swat them away before they hit him directly in the face. He grinned up at him as he bent over Sasuke to grab the keys where they landed under the seat.

He felt like he should say something but there was nothing he could say now that wouldn't just be painfully honest. 

“Hey Sasuke, You got my heart on a string.” Naruto said softly, his eyes boring breathlessly right into him, then he smiled wickedly and burst out. “But now I know! Love changes everything” 

Naruto got out of the truck and Sasuke followed after before Naruto accidentally locked him inside. 

Sasuke's older brother was perfect. Perfect grades, perfect respect for authority, perfect manners. He was a natural at everything he ever tried, just born to excel. There were definitely pros and cons to that. One of the most enduring cons of course being the persistent feeling that Sasuke was a massive disappointment to all the people around him.

Weirdly that was also one of the biggest pros, he would always come second and as annoying as that was it wasn't exactly a bad thing. Sasuke had the luxury to fade away into the background when he wanted, that level of privacy was more valuable than he could put into words. Maybe that's why Itachi always treated him like he should have no privacy at all.

“You know mom has been watching the stream.”Itachi said over the phone. Sasuke took a deep breath. “You should call her, you know how much she worries.” 

“Yeah I'll call.” 

“You know I watch it too.” Itachi said after a moment, he didn't want to think about that, it felt too much like having his private world cut right down the middle. 

“Yeah?” Sasuke said back, he could hear the patience smile on his brother's face. “What? Are you going to tell me that you worry too.” 

“I might, especially when I see Naruto behind the wheel.”

That was fair, Naruto was at the best of times a horrible driver, he got bored too easily and Sasuke was suspicious that he never actually looked at his side mirrors. 

“Well I'll pass that along,” Sasuke said, just as Naruto came out of the gas station.

“Oh, is that Itachi?” Naruto asked, like he had his big brother radar turned all the way up. Naruto grabbed the phone straight out of his hand and started talking to Itachi like he had been the one that he called. 

When they were eleven Naruto had gotten so jealous over Itachi that he had started plotting to steal his brother away from him. This ended in a multi week plan that only continued to balloon in scope before collapsing spectacularly under the weight of its own ambition. 

In the end the conflict had been significant enough that it drove them from official best friends -to- official never speaking to each other again -to- missing each other so badly that Naruto showed up at his house leaking snort and tears begging for his forgiveness and Sasuke promising him that they could share his older brother if that’s what it took to be together again. 

At some point in this horribly stupid endeavor Naruto had won Itachi over forever. Itachi it seemed was still more than willing to let them share him and play big brother to both of them. In a way how easy he accepted that role had been a little too perfect of him too.

Sasuke wanted that, for Naruto to be so intertwined in his life and his family that he could never leave. At eleven he had wanted Naruto to be his brother, it had even felt like that a little when they shared Itachi. Now he wanted a different kind of bond. Maybe it would have been better for everyone if it had never changed. 

“Don't worry about Sasuke,”Naruto said to Itachi over the phone, smiling like he belong here wedged right in the center of Sasuke's world. “after all he's got me.” 

“Hey, have you ever been in love before?” Naruto asked him, it was a very un-Naruto kind of question, Sasuke froze. 

“Why?” He asked, Naruto was watching the rolling grass lands outside his window like there was any sort of storm activity going on there, which there wasn't. 

“It's the mega mix,” he said after a long moment, “it's a lot of ballads y'know” that wasn't the real reason, he could tell this question was weirdly important to him, he didn't know what to say to that. 

The silence just kept stretching over ‘what love got to do with it ’, Sasuke was starting to think that maybe it was better to just lie to him. 

“Itachi's like that too, right?, like never brought a girl home I mean, like neither of you have ever dated anyone right?” Naruto continued, what was he supposed to say to that? Certainly not the truth right? 

“Itachi's weird, in school he skipped more years than he did. It messed him up.” Sasuke said, squinting into the bright overcast. 

“I thought it was just ‘cause he’s you know…” Naruto said. 

“Asexual?” 

“No, autistic.” 

“Itachis not autistic.” Sasuke said.

“I mean he's gotta be at least a bit right?” 

“Look I know for a fact he’s not…he might be asexual though I have no idea.” Sasuke said, at least if they were speculating on Itachi his problems they weren't talking about him. 

“Well, are you autistic?” Naruto asked normally.

“what? No,” 

“Come on, you gotta be right? Like just a little bit.” 

“Fuck off” 

“No seriously. You can be, you know, super intolerant, that's like a autistic thing right?” Naruto said. 

“I don't like being annoyed, that doesn't mean I have autism.” 

“I'm starting to think I have no idea how autism works.” Naruto said. 

“I know for a fact you have no idea how autism works.” Sasuke said back. 

“Well, are you asexual?” Naruto asked while the song changed over to ‘waiting for a girl like you’ he was right the mega mix was a lot of ballads. He wondered if telling him he wasn't asexual was too obvious if it would make him realize what had been staring him in the face this whole time or if he was too stupid for that. 

“To be honest I'm not super confident that I know what asexual means either. That's the one where you're not interested in sex right?” Hearing Naruto say the word sex did something terrible to his nervous system. 

“pretty much yeah,” 

“So is that it then, you're just not interested in that stuff?” What was he supposed to say to that? Who the hell just asked questions like these? If he said no then he was going to have to sit here and make something up about why he had never dated anyone. 

“Look,” he said not really know what he was going to say next, “I've been busy with school and this weather club shit-”

“That's horse shit,” Naruto interrupted with more aggression then really had a place in a curious conversation between friends. “are you asexual? It's a yes or no question.” Sasuke felt so cornered, he opened his mouth to say something but his voice didn't work, he cleared his throat. 

“No.” He said a little weakly. 

“So what is it? And don't give me that shit about being too busy ‘cause I know how much you spend talking  to me and it's a lot. If you actually wanted a girlfriend you could definitely figure it out” 

 Sasuke was looking for a turn off, would it be too obvious if he tried to get gas again? They were pretty stranded on this highway; there really was no reasonable way out of this. 

“What? are you gay or something?” 

Sasuke could feel as his world bottomed out. The song switched over to ‘aways on my mind.’ He felt like he was going to be sick, would it be too obvious if he stopped the truck to throw up. 

“What the fuck dude?” Naruto said he was staring at him like he was a completely different person. This is exactly what he had been afraid of. “Why would you never tell me? I thought I was your best friend.”

“It’s not like I ever dated anyone.” He said finally. There it was, there would be no going back after this Naruto would always know. 

“So what?! That's the kinda thing you tell people, right? Who else knows?” Naruto demanded. 

“Do you really think I'm telling people shit about me that you don't know?” Sasuke said offended. Naruto looked at him, his mouth wide open for a really long time.

“Is being completely emotionally constipated a symptom of autism?” 

“Oh fuck off.”

He thought the world would change if Naruto ever found out he was gay and it did. Naruto was being super weird about it,  he had expected that Naruto would make a performance about it. That he would relentlessly go out of his way to prove to Sasuke that everyone excepted him for who he was in some kind of annoying way that would drive him crazy. 

What actually happened was somehow worse, instead Naruto was constantly watching him in a way that was both super obvious and incredibly uncomfortable and Naruto had started to get super squirly every time they got too close. Which seeing as the status quo was for them to be attached at the hip meant constantly. 

They had just stopped at a gas station and Naruto had just opened a bag of chips up between them. They had both reached for it at the same time and Naruto had jerked his hand back like touching him burned. 

It was so weirdly shitty that all at once Sasuke decided that he had enough, he decided all at once he was going to ambush Naruto, the same way that Naruto had ambushed him. 

“Kiba get out of the truck.” Sasuke demanded, Kiba must have seen what he was about to do shining in his eyes because he didn't even argue. He just got out and went into the Honda that was right there parked beside them.

“Hey what the-” Naruto started to argue. 

“Why are you acting like this?” He demanded. He had never really been afraid of telling Naruto that he was gay. He hadn’t actually thought that it was going to cause some sort of problem between them.  It had only been that it seemed like such an obvious gateway to Naruto fidgeting out that he was I love with him.

“Acting like what?” Naruto snapped and then deflated under the weight of his glare. 

“Acting like you're freaking out every time you're around me.” 

“It's not because you're gay.” He said defensively. 

“Then what the fuck is it?” 

“It's just that you lied to me, you know.  I've never lied to you!” Naruto said which in itself was a fucking lie. 

“How about when you tried to steal my brother, or after when you said you hated me or in seventh grade over the sandwich thing-”

“I've never lied to you about anything important.” Naruto said and Sasuke's intuition prickled, he leaned over the gear shift and squinted right in his face. 

“You're lying to me right now aren't you? you little chicken shit.”

“What!?” Naruto squeaked which might as well be an admission . 

“Look me in the eye and tell me what's your problem with me.” Naruto squared himself off and looked him directly in the eye, he watched as the conviction to lie directly to his face completely fell apart. 

“Okay, okay, fine, fine.” he lamented falling back into his seat. They watched as the Honda pulled out of the parking lot, and turned back onto the road. 

Naruto turned the key in the ignition and Chicago’s ‘hard to say I'm sorry’ came on. Sasuke leaned forward and switched the song with prejudice. It changed over to Spandau Ballet’s ‘gold’,  and Naruto turned the volume down. 

“Fine what?” 

“I don’t know, can't we just drop it?” Naruto pleaded. Rain started to hit the windshield, the little pitter pitter over the quiet of the music was horrible, it felt like things were already changing. 

“This is why I didn’t tell you I knew that you were going to be impossible about this.” Sasuke said to the rain, that wasn’t true either. It was just something shitty he could say in retrospect. 

“It’s not because you're gay,” Naruto said again angrily, Sasuke was starting to think he meant something entirely different. 

“What am I supposed to think when you won’t tell me?” Sasuke said, Naruto looked at him for a second, he looked almost sad, there was so much light being reflected out of his blue eyes. 

“I just-” Naruto said, then paused for a long time. He switched the song again, it changed to kajagoogoo ‘too shy’ “I thought, you know…we were going to be friends forever.” 

Sasuke sucked in a breath, god it was such a childish thing to say, it hurt, was this going to be the moment when they finally admitted the truth that their friendship could never have been forever. 

“I don’t see how anything's changed.” Sasuke argued, trying to show Naruto the exit sign trying to make him stop and pull over, please, please. Naruto swallowed uncomfortably. 

“It hasn’t, I guess I just realized that there's like a whole part of your life that I’ll never be able to be a part of.” 

‘please.’ 

‘Pull over’ 

‘We don’t have to do this.’

 Naruto bit his lip like he didn’t like what he was saying anymore then Sasuke did but he was going to do this anyway, what right did Sasuke have to stop this after all he had started it. 

“It’s not like that at all,” Sasuke said, and it hurt, and maybe it would just be better if he could just let go. Maybe he needed Naruto to be the one to say this? Maybe this was good even if it hurt?

“Yes it is,” Naruto told the sky, “I guess that’s why I push for the weather club so hard, it felt like… you know when we went that road trip, I thought that it was like…we could just keep doing that and I wouldn’t have to feel like you’ve outgrown me.” 

“I haven't outgrown you,” he couldn’t. 

“I know you wouldn’t say it, but that’s like the truth anyway. Come on Sasuke, what are we doing here? you know what I mean I just keep thinking ‘you can’t relive the past’ y’know.” 

“That’s the great Gatsby, that’s not real life.” Sasuke said, as he tried not to think about how that felt like it was actually a pretty good reference actually. That book was all about a person who lived their whole life trying to enact someone else’s fantasy- 

and why was he even thinking about this, Naruto hadn’t even read that book, he remembered doing all of his book reports in high school because Naruto refused to read anything. Sasuke sighed. 

“The great Gatsby is an American classic y’know, like it doesn’t have to be real to mean something real.” Naruto said, it wasn’t fair, none of this felt fair. He wanted to tell him that they were going to be best friends forever, but he’d rather die than say something that juvenile. 

“Look if you want this to change things then I can’t stop you,” Sasuke said. 

“Hey!” 

“But I’m not going to sit here and pretend that’s what I want.” he said, but what he really meant was ‘I love you, I love you.’ 

“That’s not fair,” 

“How the hell is that not fair?” Naruto picked at the driving wheel. He didn’t move to turn the car back out of the parking space, there was something stewing up inside him. It was so quiet the rain went pitter patter, the music just a bassy beat.  He could hear the wind blowing outside the car, could see the wet branches getting flung around. 

“What do you want?” Naruto asked him after a long time. What he wanted was the same thing that he had always wanted, to live a life that was wrapped completely around Naruto, he wanted to make all his life decisions around what Naruto thought was the coolest, he wanted to listen to his CD’s until he knew every song by heart, he wanted to stay, stay. Right here right next to him, keep driving and never go home again.

“I don’t want to not be with you.” Sasuke said, god it sounded dumb put like that, he wished he had said ‘I want to be with you’ instead but somehow it was a hundred times harder that way. 

“Well, that’s what I want.” Naruto said, his big eyes totally honest. “I don’t want to not be with you either.” 

“Okay well…” Sasuke said. “Let’s just do that then.” 

The storm was in full swing around them, the road was wet and clear and in the driver's seat Naruto's eyes shimmered with single minded determination. They were so close, the tornado was right along the road beside them they could hear its roar like a jet engine super real in the space around them. 

Sasuke was trying to film it, it was just the two of them in the truck. He was so unfocused that while he was filming the tornado slipped just off screen and he lost sight of it. Naruto was filming the storm around the grey and dark like a violent sea. 

Everything was in a haze. He was hardly breathing at all while he caught it back into frame. His ears popped, power lines in front of them flashed into little balls of lighting. The tornado slipped around with awesome speed, turning fast and erratic. Heading right for them, Naruto grabbed his hand suddenly with a gasping breath. 

The whole truck was spun right off the road, the force was terrifying. There was something solid that struck the vehicle mid spin, that smashed the windshield into giant spider wet cracks. It was all over before he could even really understand what had happened. 

Naruto was still holding his hand in a vice grip. His mouth hanging open, he looked over at Sasuke and screamed out in a  discharge of pure overwhelming emotion. He was laughing, Sasuke was laughing, his nerves so shot they didn't agree on how to reach. 

“Oh my gosh.” Naruto screamed, throwing his hands over his face. It was a weird moment to give up swearing. But he just kept saying it anyway.

“Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.” Sasuke couldn’t stop laughing. Naruto traced a finger down one of the massive cracks in the wind shield. 

“Holy shit.” He said, Sasuke's heart was pounding, he felt sick and all his muscles ached. Did they just almost die? He thought looking back to the road. Naruto was taking deliberate deep breaths, he looked back over at Sasuke. There was something in his big blue eyes, something that told him ‘everything's okay now.’

 Sasuke kissed him. 

He hadn't thought about it before he did it, his body had just moved on its own. He realized what he was already doing, it was sending bolts of panic down his already fried nervous system but once he started he couldn't stop. 

Which might actually be for the best because once he stopped then Naruto would have the opportunity to say something about it and nothing good could come of that. 

Naruto only hesitated for a second and then threw himself into kissing Sasuke with the same enthusiasm he would have had if it had been his idea. Outside they could hear screaming, Kiba and Shikamaru yelling as they ran over to them. 

Their lips stuck together for just a moment when they tried to separate. Sasuke couldn't think, Sasuke couldn't think at all. Kiba retched open the driver's door. 

“Dude are you alright?” He asked. Naruto was pink and dazed and looked like he was having as much trouble keeping up as Sasuke was. 

“Hey man, one of you has to say something.” He said again and Naruto threw off his seat belt and jumped out of the car. 

“Did you see that!” He yelled with zero volume control. “ Tell me you guys got that on camera!” 

“Don't worry, Sai got it.”

“Did you see, my windscreen it's totally fucked!” 

“Dude your so lucky that's all that got fucked.” 

Sasuke stepped out into the wet grass, he felt like his legs were going to give way out from under him.

“Hey you alright?” Shikamaru asked, grabbing him by the arms, he looked so worried, what Sasuke wanted to say was to tell him he was fine, instead what he said was. 

“I kissed him, I kissed Naruto.” 

“Oh,” Shikamaru said in a voice that could see trouble coming and wanted nothing to do with it. “What do you want me to do about that?” 

He wasn't sure, he wasn't even sure if there was anything he could do about it. Still what a funny thing to say he burst out laughing and let himself fall down into the wet grass. 

“Okay, you didn't hit your head on something did you?” Shikamaru asked. Sasuke took a deep breath. 

“No, I'm not injured.” He said and then covered his face in his hands, because he wasn’t not physically at least.

“Okay good.” 

They had to wait in town while the truck windshield was being replaced, if Naruto was trying to meet his eye Sasuke wouldn't have known because he wasn't able to look at him. They had to say something at some point about what had happened. Every time he thought about it he felt a little like he wished a hole would open up in the earth to swallow him. 

When they finally got the truck back it was like the second that they closed the doors the weight of what had happened was crushing in over them. Like the silence was the hole that he had been asking for and he realized that he didn’t actually want it at all. 

“Naruto, look-”

“Don't worry about it.” 

“No I want-” 

“Dude adrenaline is a hell of a drug.” Naruto said with a laugh that was just the littlest bit too tight and didn’t go anywhere near his eyes. 

“I wasn't-” 

“It's not a big deal.” Naruto cut in again, “right?” And that was it, this was the moment for everything to finally unravel. He could feel it, all the little worn out pieces coming undone.

“You kissed me back.” He said and this definitely wasn't the way to do it. 

“What?! You were the one who kissed me first!”

“Yeah well you kissed me back” he said like it meant anything.

“Yeah, okay, whatever, you kissed me first, and you're gay now.” 

“So?” Sasuke said he didn't even know where he was going with this. 

“So? What the hell does that mean?” 

“It means,” Sauske licked his lips, if he was going somewhere with this he should really hurry up and get there. “It means, that's weird right, aren't you supposed to be straight?” 

Naruto planted his face into the steering wheel. He was very pink. 

“I don't see how any of this is my fault.” Naruto cried out in frustration. That was fair because it really wasn't. 

They sat in uncomfortable silence, the mid-day sun boring down on them. 

“It's not.” Sasuke finally agreed. He just wanted it to mean something, how stupid was that? “That's not what I meant?”

“Then please just tell me what you mean.” Naruto pleaded, he sounded like he was in pain. Sasuke didn't know what to say. “Please.”

“-I'm sorry,” he said after a long moment, he looked away out over the parking lot. He sounded like he was in pain too. Was he in pain? Sometimes it felt like he was always in pain. 

He looked over at Naruto who was just blinking at him, that wasn't surprising he almost never said he was sorry. Naruto picked at the leather of the steering wheel with his blunt nails. 

“You don't have to be.” Naruto said finally. 

“Well I am so…” he felt sick. He just kept his eyes focused out on the horizon.

“Hey Sasuke?” 

He didn't trust himself to open his mouth, he was just too close to finally cracking like an egg all over Naruto's truck.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” 

The question was like a knife, he felt so incredibly pathetic. The only other time he had kissed anyone had also been Naruto, though they never talked about it, only once when they had both swore that it didn't actually count. He'd been lying then too. 

“ You don't have to answer that.” Naruto said as though he could see how small Sasuke felt. 

How was it fair at all, when he knew Naruto had kissed other people, when he even saw him do it. That made him feel sick too, he didn't want to think about any of this. 

“I was just thinking like…you know. This doesn't have to count either, cause you know it doesn't mean anything.” 

Sasuke wanted to scream. It was taking all his power not to punch him in the face. 

“I'm fucking in love with you.” He said, he sounded so bitter, like he had only said it to hurt him. Then there was a second of complete silence, two seconds his heart stopped, he realized what he had done. 

Sasuke opened the door and got out of Naruto's ridiculous truck and started walking down into the blazing heat of the sun. He didn't know where he was going, how could it possibly matter? 

“Wait, wait, wait” Naruto yelled as he chased after him , Sasuke ignored him, even when he grabbed him by the arms. "why won't you just fucking wait a second.” 

He stopped, he didn't really feel like himself, he didn't really feel like anyone. He looked Naruto directly in the eye, if he was going down like this he wasn't going to be a little bitch about it. 

“What?, what? what?” Naruto said he looked kind of broken, the wheels of his mind spinning and spinning without making contact with anything. 

“Try again,”Sasuke said calmly. 

“Asshole,” Naruto said, but then took a breath to try to get himself together. “You meant that didn't you, I mean you're ‘in love with me’ in love with me?” Thank God, he didn't know what he would do if he denied it now, probably actually punch him in the face. 

“Yeah,” 

“Oh, okay,” he said like he still didn't really understand what that meant but he wasn't going to fight him about it. “But where are you going?” 

“What?”

“Well, you just kinda started walking off.” Naruto said. 

“No you don't get it, I'm in love with you.” he said again through clenched teeth. 

“I know that, you just said it.” Naruto said ,like he thought he was stupid. “That doesn't mean you should just run off to who knows where, like you don't even know anyone in this town what is your plan?” 

It was such a bafflingly pragmatic argument.

“I thought you wouldn't…” he could even say it, Naruto gave him a concerned look. 

“Wouldn't what?” How the hell was he supposed to say it? He felt his face going hot. This was so embarrassing. For a second he thought he might cry, almost as if to remind himself things could always get worse.

“Sasuke?”

“I thought …you wouldn't want me around anymore.” he said finally, Jesus he might actually cry. 

“Oh, oh fuck.” Naruto said, wrapping him up in a hug that was both really nice and the most devastatingly humiliating thing that had ever happened to him. 

“I like you, I like you so much.” Naruto whispered childishly into his hair. Hanging on to him for dear life. “I thought you knew that.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“I thought that's why you didn't tell me you were gay, cause you knew I liked you and you didn't want to make me feel bad.”

“What?”

“I want to be with you all the time, seriously I literally never want to not be with you. Even when you're being a total asshole.” Naruto whispered to him, his voice cracking with emotional sincerity.

“Okay, yeah me too” he said, wrapping his arms back around Naruto, their bodies pressed so tightly together that he was rocked by his breaths. 

They had made camp at the side of the road, while it was not technically a legal campsite it did seem as though it was remote enough that no one was going to try to get them in trouble about it. Sasuke couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t stop meeting Naruto’s eyes. He felt electric, it was obviously out of character, everyone had to be wondering what was wrong with him, he didn’t care, he didn’t care at all. 

The four of them were sitting around their fire, the forest around them lit up, green and humid. The sky promised rain that was yet to fall, the dark clouds hiding all the colors of the setting sun. Talk talk was singing out ‘it’s my life’ from the portable CD player. Sasuke had gone into the tent to find a sweater, he lingered inside for a moment, it felt different now like something transformed the little cloth room. Naruto and him had always shared a tent before, now it felt somehow dirty like they were horny teenagers that couldn’t be left together without the door being open, to be honest that really wasn’t that far off from the truth. 

Naruto came up to the tent and  moved the tarp that he had hastily thrown directly on top in case the rain finally fell. He started to climb into the tent with him, the light from outside was obscured through the thick covering over head. It felt quiet, alone, strangely compelling, even with everyone else right there on the other side. 

“Hey,” Naruto said softly, the sound of his voice sent shivers over his skin. 

“Hey,” he said back, the space between them felt electric as though they definitely couldn’t be trusted alone, Sasuke didn’t even feel like he trusted himself.

“I thought-” Naruto started but Sasuke didn’t give a shit what he thought, grabbed hold of him and pulled him in for a kiss instead. It was like that kiss completed the circuit, pushing all of the ambient electricity through both of their bodies. His heart was racing, someone from outside the tent said something that was completely clear even without raising their voice, making it obvious how illusory the feeling of privacy really was. 

“I can’t believe that you just did that.” Naruto said, his eyes full of so much light in the darkness that it seemed like it must be coming from inside of him. “I keep feeling like I’m gonna wake up y’know.” Sasuke did know, all of this felt like it couldn’t possibly be real.

“Don’t think you're getting out of this, that easy.” Sasuke said he could feel himself smiling, they were face to face with hardly any room between them to breathe at all. 

“Ha, who says I'm trying to go anywhere.” Naruto said, his giant cheeky grin addictive and magnetic and somehow finally his. Sasuke wanted to kiss it off, keep it forever in his pocket like a talisman. He wrapped his arms around Naruto and pulled him closer to his racing heart. 

“You wouldn’t dare.” he said a little more cockily then he meant too, Naruto’s smile only grew if that was somehow possible. 

“Yeah you’re right, so…” he said into Sasuke’s cheek, there was more talking outside the tent, laughing, reminding them ‘you're not alone, you’re not alone.’ “should I tell them or do you want to do it?” 

“I can do it if you're too scared,” Sasuke said meanly, only because he knew that Naruto wouldn’t be able to resist the challenge. 

“What! I’m not scared,” Naruto said, pulling back and immediately taking the bait. He opened the tent back up and threw the tarp over the top so that even Sasuke could see what he was about to do. 

“Hey guy I have an announcement,” he said, Sasuke could see the other three sitting around the fire, their whole attention fixed on Naruto. What an embarrassing guy this was that he had to go and fall in love with. Naruto took up his best, here I am, get over it stance. “Me and Sasuke are dating now so you're all just going to have to learn to deal with it.” 

“Deal with it? what the fuck is that suppose to mean?” Kiba asked at the same time Sai said. 

“Is this news?"

“Your announcement has been noted.” Shikamaru said after, Naruto failed to come up with anything else to say for himself.

“Hey guys! I’m letting you in on some really private shit here.” Naruto whined in disappointment over the failure of his reveal. 

“You and Sasuke being gay for each other was private, since when?” Kiba asked. 

“Yeah it’s always been pretty uncomfortably public isn’t it?” 

“Hey! Fuck you guys.” Naruto said without the shame to look even the least embarrassed, crawling back into the tent. 

On a perfect summer day in Kansas four boys stood at the edge of the road, phones in hand, wind whistling powerfully though the air as a super cell moved all around them. The air was full of pregnant potential, something larger than all of them, something that could not be tamed or stopped, that would go on in its own way even after they had to go back to their lives. 

For a moment, in the wildness of the earth they felt a part of something, a fragment of the wide world, part of the breathing, the destruction and the  witnessing. It was almost spiritual, something too impossibly large to hold onto with mortal hands. Things that went on living far after they were gone. Breathing with a life of their own, that would pass on their own whether in beauty or deviation. Whether you captured them forever in a photograph, or if they spun out unseen. 

Beneath the thunder and the flashing rain, it was as thought they had been rinsed clean in the purge of the storm. As though it had washed out all the things that they had tried to hoard in their hearts, let go into the transitory air around them and set free. 

All around them the summer was ending. Fading out like an old favorite song, a few last sweet notes before the CD reached the end. Before the silence that rang out like a choice to press the button and do it all over one more time. 

Naruto touched Sasuke’s hand in the middle of the storm, the gesture felt so big, so full of impossible promises. And Sasuke found that he wasn’t afraid of letting go, if only that letting go would also mean to chase what came next.