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The late afternoon sun bled orange and purple across the Konoha sky, casting long, distorted shadows from the Hokage Monument.
Inside Naruto’s apartment, the light was softer, filtered through the dusty windows, illuminating motes of dust dancing in the air like tiny, displaced spirits.
It was in this quiet, gilded space that Sasuke Uchiha moved with a familiar, silent purpose, re-strapping his travelling pack, checking the sharpness of his kunai, performing the small, ritualistic preparations for departure.
Naruto watched him from the sofa, a hollow ache growing in his chest with every precise movement.
Sasuke’s returns to the village were rare, fleeting things, like the passing of a comet.
They were filled with a strained, intense normalcy—shared meals of ramen that tasted of nostalgia, sparring matches that left them breathless and bruised under the open sky, and long, quiet silences that spoke volumes more than any conversation could.
This visit had been no different, a precious, stolen week that had evaporated in a blink.
“The borderlands near Stone have been restless,” Sasuke said, his voice a low, even baritone that barely disturbed the stillness.
He didn’t look at Naruto as he spoke; his focus was on the strap of his pack. “There are whispers. It’s best I investigate.”
“Yeah,” Naruto replied, the word feeling inadequate. “Just… be careful, you know?”
A ghost of a smile, there and gone, touched Sasuke’s lips. “Hn.”
The sun dipped lower. The room plunged into deeper shades of blue and grey. Sasuke finally straightened, his single arm settling the pack onto his shoulder.
The movement was so final, so decisive, that the ache in Naruto’s chest sharpened into a spike of panic.
This was it.
The moment where the comet would vanish back into the dark, leaving only a memory of its light.
“I’m leaving,” Sasuke stated, turning towards the door.
As Sasuke’s hand reached for the doorknob, Naruto’s body moved before his mind could catch up. He launched himself from the sofa, his hand shooting out to close around Sasuke’s wrist.
The contact was electric. Sasuke’s skin was cool, his pulse a steady, quiet rhythm under Naruto’s fingertips.
Sasuke stilled, his head turning slightly, a single dark eye regarding Naruto with mild curiosity.
Naruto’s breath hitched. His face felt impossibly hot, a flush creeping from his neck to the tips of his ears. He could feel his own heart hammering against his ribs, a frantic, wild drumbeat against the calm of Sasuke’s.
He stared at their point of contact—his own tanned, calloused hand wrapped around the pale, slender wrist—and his courage nearly failed him.
“Sasuke, wait,” he mumbled, his voice thick.
Sasuke waited, his expression unreadable.
Naruto took a shaky breath, his gaze fixed on a crack in the floorboard. “Can you… can you spend the night with me?”
The silence that followed was profound.
Then, Sasuke slowly turned fully to face him.
A slow, knowing smirk spread across his features, a look Naruto knew all too well—a blend of arrogance, amusement, and something darker, more intimate.
It was the look he got right before he won a particularly difficult match, or when he understood a complex truth no one else could see.
The air in the room shifted, growing thick and charged.
Sasuke took a small step closer, his wrist turning ever so slightly in Naruto’s grasp until their fingers were almost interlaced. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, suggestive purr that sent a shiver straight down Naruto’s spine.
“Oh?” Sasuke murmured, his breath ghosting over Naruto’s burning cheek. “You want to fuck, is that it?”
Naruto’s brain short-circuited. His eyes blew wide, and the blush on his face ignited into a full-blown inferno.
He sputtered, waving his free hand frantically as if he could physically bat the words away. “Wha—NO! Not—not that! Teme, that’s not what I meant!”
He was so flustered he thought steam might start coming out of his ears. He could feel the heat radiating from his own face. Sasuke’s smirk only deepened, a flicker of genuine amusement in his lone eye.
He had successfully flustered the knucklehead, and he was enjoying it immensely.
“No, you bastard!” Naruto continued, his voice climbing an octave. “I just… I just meant….”
He squeezed his eyes shut, gathering every ounce of his courage, forcing the words out in a rushed, embarrassed whisper. “I just want to sleep with you. Like, in the bed. Together. Just… cuddling. Or something.”
The confession hung in the air, small and vulnerable.
The smirk on Sasuke’s face softened, then faded completely. The teasing glint in his eye was replaced by a look of quiet, profound surprise.
He studied Naruto—the way his shoulders were hunched, the desperate grip on his wrist, the utterly sincere, flustered embarrassment on his face.
This wasn’t a request born of lust, but of something far simpler, and far more terrifying: a deep, aching loneliness.
Sasuke looked from Naruto’s face to their joined hands, then back again. He let out a soft, almost imperceptible sigh. The tension seeped out of his frame.
“...Hn.”
It wasn’t a agreement, but it wasn’t a refusal. It was a concession.
Carefully, he shrugged off his travelling pack, letting it drop to the floor with a soft thud that seemed to echo in the quiet room.
Naruto’s heart leapt, a fragile hope blooming in his chest.
He released Sasuke’s wrist, his own hand feeling suddenly cold and empty. “Really?”
“Don’t make me say it, dobe,” Sasuke muttered, but there was no bite to his words.
He toed off his sandals and walked past Naruto, towards the bedroom, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Naruto’s bedroom was a testament to his chaotic life—a few scattered scrolls, a bright orange jacket slung over a chair, the bed itself unmade, sheets tangled from a restless night.
Sasuke stood by the side of the bed, looking out of place in his neat, dark clothes amidst the disorder.
“Uh, make yourself comfortable,” Naruto said, suddenly self-conscious. He hurriedly straightened the sheets, patting them into a semblance of order.
Sasuke didn’t move until Naruto had clumsily changed into a soft, worn-out t-shirt and a pair of loose shorts.
Only then did he sit on the edge of the bed, his back to Naruto, and methodically remove his outer shirt and pants, folding them with a precision that was uniquely Sasuke, leaving him in a thin, dark undershirt and his trousers.
He slid under the covers on one side of the bed, lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
Naruto switched off the light, plunging the room into near darkness, save for the silver moonlight filtering through the window.
He slipped into the other side of the bed, the mattress dipping with his weight. An expanse of cool sheets lay between them, a no-man's-land of unspoken nerves.
For a long moment, they just lay there in silence, side-by-side, listening to the sound of each other breathing.
It was awkward.
It was strange.
It was everything Naruto had wanted, and now that he had it, he had no idea what to do.
“So…” Naruto whispered into the darkness. “This is… nice.”
Sasuke didn’t reply. He just continued to stare at the ceiling, a silent, dark shape beside him.
Naruto’s courage, so often a boundless, roaring flame, was now a flickering candle.
He took a deep breath, and then, with painstaking slowness, he rolled onto his side, facing Sasuke.
He inched closer, until he could feel the warmth radiating from Sasuke’s body. He hesitated, his hand hovering in the space between them.
Then, with a final, decisive movement, he closed the distance.
He curled himself against Sasuke’s side, his head coming to rest tentatively on Sasuke’s shoulder. He slung an arm carefully across Sasuke’s waist, his fingers clutching lightly at the fabric of his undershirt.
He held his breath, waiting for rejection, for a scoff, for Sasuke to shove him away and call him an idiot.
It didn’t come.
Instead, after a heartbeat of absolute stillness, Sasuke let out another soft, slow exhale. It was a sound of surrender. He shifted, not away, but into the contact.
His single arm, the one Naruto wasn’t lying on, came up and around Naruto’s shoulders, pulling him in more securely. His hand came to rest on Naruto’s upper back, a solid, warm weight.
And just like that, the awkwardness shattered.
Naruto melted into the embrace with a shuddering sigh, all the tension of the day, of the week, of a lifetime of chasing, bleeding out of him.
He nuzzled his face into the crook of Sasuke’s neck, inhaling his scent—ozone and iron, the clean smell of the forest after rain, something uniquely, fundamentally Sasuke.
It was the most comforting thing he had ever smelled.
He was here. Sasuke was really here, solid and warm in his arms, not a dream, not a memory.
The steady, strong beat of Sasuke’s heart against his own chest was a lullaby more soothing than any other.
“I miss you,” Naruto whispered, the words muffled against Sasuke’s skin. “Every time you leave. It’s like… a part of me goes with you, and the village feels too big and too quiet.”
Sasuke’s hand on his back moved, just slightly, his fingers tracing a slow, absent-minded circle.
“I know,” he said, his voice so quiet it was almost inaudible. “It’s… the same for me.”
That simple admission, so rare and so honest, filled Naruto with a warmth that spread to the very tips of his fingers and toes. He tightened his hold, pressing closer, as if he could somehow merge them together and make this moment permanent.
They lay like that for what felt like an eternity, wrapped in each other, the outside world and its demands fading into insignificance.
The moon travelled across the window, painting silver stripes across the floor and over their tangled forms.
Naruto could feel the exact moment when Sasuke’s body fully relaxed, the last vestiges of his perpetual vigilance seeping away, leaving him pliant and soft in Naruto’s embrace.
He felt Sasuke’s breathing deepen and slow, his chest rising and falling in a steady, rhythmic cadence.
Naruto tilted his head back just enough to look at his face in the dim light.
The sharp, severe lines were smoothed out in sleep. The perpetual furrow of his brow was gone. He looked younger, peaceful. Unburdened.
It was a sight so precious and so rare that Naruto felt a lump form in his throat.
He was beautiful.
Carefully, so as not to wake him, Naruto shifted, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to Sasuke’s jaw, just below his ear. Sasuke didn’t stir, but a soft, contented sigh escaped his lips.
Naruto settled back down, his head once again pillowed on that steady shoulder, his arm a protective band across Sasuke’s waist.
He closed his eyes, breathing him in, memorizing the feel of this.
This was what he had wanted.
Not the frantic, passionate collision Sasuke had teasingly implied, but this.
This profound quiet. This unshakeable peace. This feeling of being home, of being whole, of being anchored.
He had spent his whole life fighting to bring Sasuke back, to connect with him. And here, in the dark, in the simple act of holding him as he slept, he realized he finally had.
This was the real victory.
Not the final battle, not the broken prosthetics, but this quiet trust, this surrendered weight in his arms.
When Naruto finally drifted to sleep, it was the deepest, most restful sleep he’d had in years, untroubled by dreams of loneliness or war, safe in the circle of the one person who understood the shape of his soul.
---
The first light of dawn was pale and gentle when Sasuke awoke.
His senses returned to him slowly—the feel of warm weight pressed along his side, the scent of sun-dried cloth and Naruto, the sound of soft, even breaths puffing against his neck.
He opened his eye, looking down. Naruto was still wrapped around him, clinging even in sleep, his spiky blond hair tickling Sasuke’s chin. His mouth was slightly open, a tiny line of drool dampening Sasuke’s undershirt. He was snoring, just softly.
A strange, tender feeling, so foreign it was almost alarming, bloomed in Sasuke’s chest.
He didn’t move.
He just watched the sunrise paint the room in hues of rose and gold, and he listened to Naruto breathe.
He felt the profound rightness of it, the simple peace that had eluded him his entire life.
It was here, in this messy room, in this tangled bed, wrapped around the one person who had never, ever given up on him.
He knew he still had to go.
The world outside was waiting, and his path of atonement was not yet complete. But for this one, perfect morning, he allowed himself to stay.
He closed his eye again, tightened his arm around the sleeping blond in his arms, and let the warmth lull him back into a light, contented doze.
The road could wait a little longer.
The End.