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For the record, Sasuke does not want to be here.
In early April, the rain is a terrible companion, perpetual day-in, day-out. On days like this, Sasuke prefers the great indoors, curled up inside a blanket with a book and a cup of tea. Usually, he’s immovable.
The thing about Uzumaki Naruto though, is that he can attempt the impossible.
“Sasuke!” Naruto waves at him, knee deep in the pond.
He’s completely drenched, for lack of better words. Even with his pants folded up to his knees, his spikes droop sadly around his face from the damp drizzle that’s suddenly drifted upon them, and even the whisker scars on his cheeks look wilted, to some degree. Still, his demeanor is anything but.
“You’re gonna catch a cold, y’know,” Sasuke calls back. There’s a disparaging lack of irritation, and he grimaces at the fondness that accompanies it instead. He can even hear the smile laced into his voice, and he knows that if he can hear it, Naruto can too.
He’s not paying attention though, instead choosing to plunge his arms into the pond. Duckweed pools around his elbows, gathering green algae against his skin, and Sasuke winces.
“Idiot, you’re—”
Water splatters in droplets, rippling across the pond, as Naruto raises his hands victoriously. “Aha! Caught one! Sasuke, look—!”
He thrusts his hands in Sasuke’s general direction, a brown toad clutched between his palms. It stares him down, looking as deeply unimpressed as a wild amphibian could possibly be.
His facepalm is instinctual, at this point. “Moron, what is wrong with you, put it back—”
Naruto pouts. “But Sasukeeee—! We came looking for frogs—”
“You came looking for frogs,” Sasuke corrects, deadpan. “I came to make sure you didn’t drown in the pond by some unhappy accident. Though, drowning you myself is looking more and more appealing by the minute.”
“You’re so dramatic, it’s literally like two feet deep—”
“And I’ve watched you freak out in the kiddie side of the pool, dobe.” Sasuke folds his arms, stares Naruto down from his very safe and dry spot next to the pond’s edge. “What’s your point?”
“The point is that you should be helping me look for frogs—”
“I never said I’d do that.”
“Right, because when you brought home that ginormous stag beetle last summer, you said you’d never touch one like, five minutes before that. Or when we went to the park last week and you said you were just gonna sit and read your stupid book, and you ended up playing soccer with me instead. Or when—”
Sasuke’s heard more than enough (mostly because he really does not want to hear Naruto expose every time he’s given into his taunting). Throwing away whatever bitter self control he has left (there’s none, not when Naruto’s involved), he rolls up his jeans as high as they go before he jumps into the pond.
Naruto’s right; the water surface barely skims his thighs. It’s not enough for either of them to fall in deep, even with Naruto’s clumsiness, but the gathering duckweed around his skin is oddly cloying. If not death by drowning, then death by weed suffocation.
“You’re such a liar, y’know,” Naruto tells him. He looks proud of himself. Sasuke wants to give his duckweed suffocation theory a try. “Oh, I’m Sasuke and I’m too cool to find frogs. I’m Sasuke and I can’t risk my pedicure, so I’m not getting in the pond. I’m Sasuke and—”
Sasuke splashes him with a handful of grimy pond water. “I’m Naruto and I can’t shut the fuck up,” he mocks back. “Oh wait, now I can. Because all I have is pond water in my mouth—fuck!”
Naruto’s dropped the toad, in favor of sending water flying back at Sasuke. “Fuck you, I lost my toad 'cuz of you!”
“You dropped him yourself, dumbass!”
“Because of you!”
The pond water is filthy. Sasuke knows he’ll be suffering from mosquito bites all over his arms, and his skin will be itching like no one’s business, in spite of three showers he’s going to take when they get home. But—
It’s Naruto.
(He likes to think he’s grown a bit since they were kids. That his impulses have been tempered and he doesn’t fall victim to his whims as easily. He likes to think that he can resist Naruto’s bait now, that he’s grown past the low-hanging fruit that’s bullying his best friend.)
(Unfortunately, as much as he loathes to admit: Naruto is his weakness.)
“Mannn,” Naruto exhales. He drags a wet hand through his hair, ignoring how the dead reeds thread through his sopping strands. “Now I gotta get a new frog. An actual frog, and not a toad.”
He’s going to get sick, Sasuke thinks absentmindedly. In this misty fog, in the on-and-off drizzle that’s been coming and going as often as their absent mentor, in the freezing pond that they’re knee deep and soaked to the bone in. Naruto’s always been prone to illness, his colds being the worst of all. He’s a pain when he’s sick: always sniffling every two seconds instead of honking into a tissue, always coughing up his lungs onto their kitchen utensils, always pushing his popsicle feet under Sasuke’s legs in search of warmth (and stealing the blanket while he’s at it).
Naruto swears up and down that Sasuke’s the blanket hog, but privately, Sasuke knows he only gets the blanket about forty five percent of the time. Naruto is the one who holds the shares on it during the majority of the night.
(The heat comes warmer when Sasuke’s pressed up against Naruto’s back anyways.)
But Sasuke digresses. The main point is that Naruto is going to get sick from the pond and the rain and his sopping wet clothes. He’s going to say he’s fine, holding his frog box and trying to hide his sneezes in his armpit. He’s going to trail water in their genkan and all over their hardwood floors, and spend at least thirty minutes watching his frog before he gets in the shower. And by the time he gets out, he’ll have come down with a full blown fever, attach himself to Sasuke like an overgrown octopus, and Sasuke is going to have to take care of him.
Sasuke will take care of him, undoubtedly so.
Not like he’s going to admit that out loud, of course.
The best course of action, to mitigate the worst of these effects (the sneezing and the fever), is to find Naruto a frog as quickly as possible. So, with that in mind, Uchiha Sasuke, renowned nonbeliever, sends a quick prayer to a god, any god, and plunges his hands into the pond.
His fingers grapple duckweed roots, dirt, lazy reeds. A fish darts past his knuckles, and sand dusts lazily about. Still, he searches blindly.
It’s better like this, he tells himself. Better that he sacrifice his clothes and his hands to get a stupid fucking frog, than for Naruto to come down with a full blown fever.
It’s likely, of course, that it’s far too late already. Still, Sasuke wants to go home, and he also wants his personal space heater working at full capacity tonight, because Naruto definitely owes him after this one.
Even with Sasuke searching, there’s still a distinct lack of the sounds of swishing water. When he looks up, Naruto’s staring at him, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. His hands are still cupped, as if holding an invisible frog in his hands.
“What?” Sasuke snaps, peeved. “If you’re not gonna look, then we might as well go home.”
“I—you—” Naruto blinks rapidly. “What happened to wanting to stay safe and dry on the shore?”
He scoffs in return, plunging his hands back into the murky waters. The duckweed tickles his wrists, and under the leaves, he can feel the tailwinds of something large swimming past. Damn, missed again.
“Dobe, I’m fucking soaked already,” he says, deadpan. “You’re about ten minutes too late for that argument. Now get your damn hands in the water. I wanna go home already.”
Naruto snorts, muttering something underneath his breath, but the sound of his search joins Sasuke’s. The pond waters ripple with their hands, following the push and pull of their fingers.
“Y’know,” Naruto starts. The swish of the water doesn’t cease, but it’s gentler now. “I thought you would’ve wanted the extra time to drown me in the pond yourself.”
Sasuke huffs, pushing a wet strand of hair out of his eyes. “I still plan to do that, don’t worry, idiot.”
“I can hear a ‘but’ in there, Sas, c’mon, spit it out.”
He rolls his eyes. “But you’re going to get sick if we’re out here any longer.”
There’s a pause. A soft intake of breath. It’s then he realizes the enormity of his statement, the raw honesty twined in with the deadpan.
Too much, he thinks frantically. His heart is suddenly too loud in his chest, pounding away like a bass boosted jackhammer.
He was too honest, too open, it was too much and Naruto’s going to—
Naruto is—
“I guess you’re right,” Naruto says softly. His hand brushes Sasuke’s in the water, his pinky twining around his. “And then who’s going to be your space heater in bed?”
“Still you,” he mumbles. Naruto’s pinky squeezes his gently. “You owe me, dobe.”
“I do,” he agrees. "But y’know, your hands are really cold.”
"It’s like we’re knee deep in a pond with our hands in the water. Who would’ve thought?”
Naruto kicks a bit of water at him, but he pulls their linked hands out of the water. When Sasuke braves the thrum of his heartbeat to meet his gaze, Naruto’s gaze is terribly fond, and so, very—
He’s—
“You don’t like being cold,” Naruto says simply. “So let’s come back another day.”
He says it like it’s a fact of life, says it as simply as when Sasuke had reminded him that he gets sick easily. Like how the sky was blue and the grass was green. And maybe it is a truth, one that belongs to them only.
Sasuke straightens. He doesn’t pull his hand away. “I thought you wanted a frog to bring home to Gamakichi.”
“I still do,” Naruto agrees, but he’s leading them back to the bank where their bags are scattered. “But maybe when it’s warmer out, so your stupid ice-block hands won’t fall off.”
Heat prickles the back of Sasuke’s neck.
“Says the one who shoves his feet under my knees every night.”
“And you stick your hands under my shirt, so we’re even, asshole.”
Their soaked feet are sticky on the reeds of the bank. It’s somewhere between borderline freezing and slick with sweat, and Sasuke sets to digging in his bag for a towel. At the same time he grasps his, Naruto’s throwing one at Sasuke.
“Take mine.”
He raises a brow, pulling his towel—albeit smaller—out of his bag. “I brought my own. Use it on your stupid hair before you catch a cold.”
“Mine’s fluffier,” Naruto says. His damp fingers nudge the towel further into Sasuke’s chest. “You take this, and I’ll have yours.”
Before Sasuke can argue or agree, he’s snatching the smaller towel out of Sasuke’s hands and rubbing his hair into it, much like an overgrown cat.
Huffing, Sasuke wraps the towel around himself, pulling it tight around his collar. It’s dry, annoyingly warm, and irritatingly enough, smells like Naruto’s detergent. He pretends to wipe his face dry, if only to inhale the musk of his soap, before he reaches for the towel in Naruto’s hands.
“Gimme that—”
“Hey! I gave you mine! Fair trade—”
“Dumbass, let me dry your hair. You’re doing it wrong,” he snaps back, and Naruto relinquishes the towel without a fight.
Sasuke rubs at his hair gently, making sure to towel off every damp strand of hair. For the first time, Naruto isn’t squirming or restless. He’s sitting perfectly still—a first for him.
“You don’t have to, y’know,” Naruto says. It’s rushed out, as if he’d said it without much thought. Or maybe he thought about it too long.
“Stupid,” Sasuke says, feeling so horribly fond. “I want to.”
Naruto turns to peek at him. His eyes—wide, blue like summer skies, so terribly blue—glimmer with something warm. “You do?”
Maybe he has changed, he thinks then. Maybe he’s still the same boy who gives in too easily to Naruto’s recklessness, but now, he’s someone who can take care of him in the same breath too.
“Don’t make me say it again,” he mutters. His cheeks feel hot all around, and from the widening of Naruto’s knowing smile, he can tell that it hasn’t missed his best friend’s notice either. “Though, we didn’t have to start packing up. I’m not a baby, I can handle the cold for a few more hours.”
“Yeah, but…” He plucks duckweed leaves off of Sasuke’s shirt, flicking them back into the water. When he looks back, he’s got that wide open gaze, the one that threatens to splay Sasuke’s honesty across his sleeve for the world to see. “I wanted to take care of you too.”
And maybe Sasuke’s not the only one who’s changed either.