Chapter Text
[===== Plot =====]
Sasuke hadn't met Naruto's eyes since they were in the academy. He had known the moment they accidentally kissed, and Naruto started to look at him less like competition or an enemy and more like… possibility. Those ocean-blue eyes had been speculative and calculating.
And in the end, Sasuke had made a very simple miscalculation. He had acknowledged Naruto. He had treated the blond as a human and then let on that he saw Naruto as… maybe not an equal but at least someone worth keeping around.
Sasuke hadn't been able to look at eyes so blue he would drown in them in literal years. He knew what would happen if he did. Centering on Naruto Uzumaki would have been the best thing to ever happen to Sasuke. He didn't deserve a blessing such as being tied to the human embodiment of sunshine.
If Naruto had been born with red eyes, Sasuke would have built him a temple. He was so bright it would have been undeniable that he was an avatar of the Queen of Heaven.
Instead, Sasuke had dedicated himself to years of hate and had run away from his only salvation. Sasuke hadn't deserved Naruto when they were twelve, and he didn't deserve Naruto at eighteen. It would have been better for them both if Sasuke had died for his cause as he had always intended to. Died on Itachi's blade or Orochimaru’s scalpel or the sharp edge of his own pride and hubris.
The gravitational pull of Naruto's sheer presence - chakra, an immense typhoon, the wind nature causing a mesmerizing sensation of movement even as it was so dense that it seemed to sink to the floor and pool around the blond’s feet with every breath - never let Sasuke get far. Naruto chased him and fought him and always, always offered a hand that was free from weapon and violence.
Sasuke couldn't bear to keep slapping that offered hand away. He couldn't bear to keep pretending that he didn’t need Naruto to chase him and fight him and keep reaching out. He had needed it so that here, at the end, he could open his burning Sharingan and look into perfect, crystalline blue and feel his whole world realign.
He can't look away now. Saskue had been right; there was always going to be space for him there. In that shining conflagration of a soul that was always reaching out to him.
Naruto was exhausted, his chakra at its lowest Sasuke had ever seen it, so his eyes were a stormy blue-grey. Those eyes were soft and open, and Sasuke almost missed their souls tangling together when he realized how very close to death his other half was.
Belatedly, he took in the blood, not just a coating left from their days-long war with Kaguya, but fresh and pouring out of the stump that was all that remained of Naruto’s right arm. Sasuke lurched forward, using his single remaining arm to try to stem the tide of life draining from his Center. Kami, Sasuke had done this!