Archive of Our Own

Sasuke had truly expected this to be the end.

When their hands met, his chidori colliding with Naruto's rasengan as it had time and time again, the blinding light that followed swallowed every sense in his body. It made him believe this was it. They had finally put an end to each other's lives.

There was a foreign sense of peace in the thought. Maybe he could finally be free of his burdens. Maybe, after everything, this was the only place the two of them could have ended up.

Sasuke thought he would never open his eyes again, but life seemed determined to keep surprising him. When he came back to it, slowly blinking awake despite how heavy his eyelids felt, he was lying on the ground, and the first thing he saw was the moon, full and bright in the night sky.

"You've finally come to, huh?"

Naruto's voice was weak and somehow distant, as if it had to travel a long way to reach him. Sasuke tried to follow it, but flinched at the sharp pain that tore through his left side at the slightest movement. He turned his head carefully, eyes widening at the sight in front of him.

"As you can see," Naruto continued, his voice surprisingly steady, "if either of us moves too much, we'll bleed to death."

Naruto was right next to him, staring up at the sky. His face was unsettlingly serene, as if the space between them wasn't empty, as if there was no blood pooling out of where their arms used to be, staining the rock beneath them a deep crimson.

Sasuke couldn't breathe.

This was not how any of this was meant to go. Sasuke was meant to kill him, and if he had failed yet again, the least Naruto owed him was to end his life. The least Naruto could do was let him go.

"Why would you go that far?" he asked, his voice coming out weak despite the anger building violently in his chest. "Why do all that just to get in my way?"

Naruto didn't answer, his eyes still fixed on the stars above them.

"I gained the power to enter darkness and sever all ties. Everyone tried to cut their ties to me at some point," the words began pouring out of him before Sasuke could stop them. "Except you. You never once tried to cut me off, no matter what I did."

His voice kept rising, cracking at the edges.

"Why do you keep involving yourself with me?"

There was a long pause before Naruto finally mumbled, "Now that your body can't move, your mouth sure is moving a lot."

Sasuke wanted his fucking arm back. He wanted to grip Naruto with both hands and drag the words out of him, cut them out if he had to.

"Answer me," he demanded.

"You already know, don't you?"

Sasuke didn't know. Naruto might have said small, meaningless things over the years, but none of them had ever been enough, because to Sasuke there was nothing, nothing, that could justify any of this—

"Because you're my friend," Naruto said at last.

The word echoed in Sasuke's ears, and the fire inside him flared into a blaze.

Naruto still wouldn't look at him, still wouldn't give him a real answer, and Sasuke wanted to kill him for it. Wanted to, and couldn't, and hated that he no longer knew which of those two things hurt more.

"You've said that before," he said, struggling to keep his voice level as the poison on his tongue threatened to choke him. "But what exactly does that mean to you?"

Naruto didn't answer right away, and Sasuke was ready to push again when he finally spoke.

"You ask me to explain it, but honestly… I don't really get it either," Naruto said. "It's just that when I see you take on all this stuff and get all messed up, it kinda…" He paused, like he was searching for the right word. "It hurts."

Sasuke felt the air leave his lungs. Of all the things he had expected Naruto to say, this wasn't one of them.

"It hurts so much inside that I just can't leave it alone," Naruto finished, his voice honest and raw.

It felt like an eternity stretched between them, the words hanging heavy in the air. Sasuke waited for the lie in them, the crack in the performance, and found none. Naruto had never been able to lie about this kind of thing. That was the worst part.

"Though today I'm in a ton of pain everywhere," Naruto joked, trying to ease the tension, a grin splitting his face.

Sasuke looked at him. He studied the creases at the corners of Naruto's eyes and the way his lips twitched upward with the smile. Naruto's face was beaten and bloodied, purple bruises and cuts covering almost every inch of his skin.

Sasuke had done that.

The anger drained out of him slowly, leaving space for a sinking feeling in his stomach that he vaguely recognized as guilt. He felt at a loss for words.

He suddenly remembered the moment he first realized Naruto was all alone, an outcast just like him, back when they were children. He remembered the way Naruto acted like a fool, doing stupid things on purpose, hoping for a shred of attention from someone, anyone.

At the time, Sasuke had thought of him as nothing but a loser. A weakling begging to be noticed. But the more Sasuke watched him, the more he found he couldn't look away. He had wondered if Naruto's weakness was rubbing off on him, but there was nothing he could do to shake it, and somehow, somewhere along the way, this strange, loud boy had started to remind him of the family he had lost.

At first the thought had filled Sasuke with a warmth he hadn't felt since before the night his family was murdered. But he had learned to associate that warmth, that softness, with weakness. It was something he had to escape if he wanted to grow stronger and take his revenge.

Being placed on Team 7 with Naruto had felt like a curse, like fate was determined to keep tying his life to the boy he couldn't stand. But the longer they worked together, the more missions they completed, the more Sasuke found he couldn't help it. Watching them grow stronger side by side, that same glimpse of his family burned itself into his mind again, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't put it out.

And every time he saw Naruto suffering, it hurt Sasuke too.

Understanding Naruto's pain was the push he had always needed to see him as a comrade. But Naruto kept growing stronger and stronger, at a pace Sasuke struggled to match, and Sasuke couldn't help the bitterness that took root inside him because of it.

It didn't matter that he felt better knowing someone like him was out there. It didn't matter how happy he was to have such a bond, or how badly he wanted to talk to Naruto, to simply be near him. The jealousy poisoning him wouldn't allow Sasuke to see Naruto as anything but a rival, a goal.

Naruto had a strength Sasuke never had, one that made him feel as if all he had ever done was chase after him. And now, as he bled out beside him, Sasuke felt a certainty down to his bones that he would never stop chasing after him.

As consciousness began slipping through his fingers, Sasuke finally accepted that, in a way, he had been right. This was the end.

[…]

The next time Sasuke opened his eyes, the deep blue of the night sky was slowly giving way to the first lights of morning. This time, it was Naruto who was unconscious.

Panic flashed through his chest, his weakened heart skipping a beat at the thought of Naruto, his last bond, his only bond, being gone because of him. Then he noticed the ever so slight rise and fall of Naruto's chest, and the breath he hadn't realized he was holding shuddered out of him. Naruto was still alive. Somehow, against all odds, they both were.

Sasuke watched the sky for a while, the way the light painted it pink and orange, slowly consuming the darkness. The moon, so bright only hours ago, faded as the first rays of sunshine crept over the horizon. It struck him as absurd that the world could look like this after what they'd done to it. That morning still came for people like them.

Beside him, Naruto stirred, the brightness of the sun rousing him. He opened his eyes slowly, confused.

"Where are we?" he asked, his voice rough. "This isn't heaven, is it?"

Sasuke found it amusing, the idea that Naruto could wake up next to him, still on the brink of death and missing an arm, and somehow think this was what heaven might look like.

"Looks like we fell asleep and slept all night," Sasuke said. "We failed to die again."

Naruto groaned. "I still can't move my body," he complained. "I was hoping to clobber you and make you finally, really open your eyes!"

The amusement in Sasuke's chest built at the insanity of it, bubbling all the way up his throat until an unfamiliar sound escaped his lips. Naruto turned to him, his expression so comically puzzled that Sasuke couldn't hold it back any longer. His whole body shook with laughter, hurting every wound he had, and he didn't care. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed like this. He wasn't sure he ever had.

"W-what's so funny?" Naruto asked, still confused.

Sasuke stopped long enough to glance at the boy beside him. "We're both wrecked, and you still want to fight?"

"Of course!" Naruto replied, indignant. "No matter how many times it takes—"

"I admit it," Sasuke cut in, and to his surprise Naruto actually stopped talking, eyes wide as he struggled to grasp what was happening. "I… I lost."

The words left him more easily than he ever thought they would, and it felt as though an immeasurable weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Sasuke had lost.

He waited for the shame to come, and it didn't. What he felt instead was quiet, and clean, and so unfamiliar he almost didn't know what to call it.

"You fool!" Naruto's face twisted in disbelief. "This isn't about winning or losing! It's about punching a sulking friend until he snaps out of it!" he shouted. "The real match I want comes after that!"

"Naruto," Sasuke called softly, closing his eyes and ignoring the outburst. "I've acknowledged you now. If I die here, the long cycle of destiny the Sage of Six Paths spoke of will probably end with me."

When Naruto said nothing, Sasuke went on. "This is a kind of revolution, too. You can undo the Infinite Tsukuyomi after I'm dead by transplanting my left eye into Kakashi, or someone else."

He paused, taking a steady breath, already at peace with what he was about to say.

"I… will put an end to myself."

He was never meant to have lived this long to begin with. There had never been a plan past avenging his clan. Past killing his brother, past killing the council, past trying to destroy his village, past doing whatever would satisfy his need for revenge. Every time he achieved a goal, another wrong demanded to be righted, another reason rose up to drive him towards hatred. Towards loss, and blood.

Sasuke was tired of it. Even if some of his fire still burned deep in his bones, crying out for justice, he was so, so tired.

"Don't you dare," Naruto hissed. "You dying isn't going to settle anything. If you're willing to go that far, then live and help me instead!"

Naruto's blue eyes shone with determination as he looked at him. "I want to get all the shinobi to cooperate with each other, and that includes you."

"Just because you want it doesn't mean everyone else will agree to it," Sasuke argued.

"Fine, go ahead and keep sulking and whining," Naruto shot back. "I'll beat you up again!"

"There's no guarantee I won't stand against you again," Sasuke tried.

"Then I'll stop you again," Naruto said easily. And then, softer: "Actually, I know you won't do that kind of thing again."

He said it with such conviction that Sasuke went still, something twisting in his chest.

"How can you say that?" Sasuke asked, his voice steadier than he felt. Something was brewing inside him, an unfamiliar burn behind his eyes. "How can you be so sure?"

"Don't make me repeat myself," Naruto whined. "Do you still not understand anything? Now that I think about it, you were always kind of stupid too—"

Sasuke barely registered the words. He was overwhelmed by the feeling blooming in his chest and spreading through his veins as he looked at the boy beside him. The same boy, now almost a man, who had chased after him time and time again, who never gave up, never doubted. Naruto was impossible, still trusting him, still believing in him after everything—

The tears spilled before Sasuke could stop them. He turned his face away, trying to hide this moment of weakness, but Naruto noticed anyway. He had suddenly gone quiet, and Sasuke could feel his gaze on the back of his neck.

Naruto didn't say anything. He didn't tease or mock him, only waited until the tears dried. It wasn't like he could go anywhere, not in their state, but even then Sasuke knew Naruto wouldn't have left. He would stay by his side, unwavering, as he always had. Sasuke turned his face back to the sky.

"Shut up," he said, even though Naruto was no longer talking, just so he could hold on to the last thread of composure he had. He pretended not to see the smile on Naruto's lips, or to notice the way his own curved slightly upward. "You buffoon."

[…]

Sakura and Kakashi found them shortly after. Sakura's green eyes filled with sorrow as she took in the sight in front of her, but she didn't waste time on it. She got to work immediately, doing everything she could to minimize their injuries.

Naruto thanked her, grinning like he wasn't missing an arm. Sasuke watched Sakura for a moment before trying to force out the words stuck in his throat. The apology felt heavy on his tongue, and Sakura didn't seem interested in hearing it, even as tears streamed down her face. She only demanded to know if they were finally done acting like idiots and trying to kill each other.

"Yes," Sasuke said, and it was the closest thing to a promise he knew how to give.

When they had enough strength and chakra to work with, they broke the Infinite Tsukuyomi together, their hands joined in a seal to end this for good.

Sasuke wasn't sure what the future held. But for now, he could finally let go of some of the past.

[…]

Being back in Konoha after all these years felt unsettling.

A part of him wished it could be easier, but Sasuke's hatred for the village still ran deep, and at times he felt like he could drown in the storm inside him. He didn't have it in him to forgive or forget, not yet. He wasn't sure he ever would.

The villagers, people he had once called comrades before betraying them, seemed just as disturbed by his presence. Truthfully, Sasuke had expected to be thrown into a cell and have his eyes taken from him. Maybe he'd be killed or left to rot, the last proof of Konoha's dark history buried and forgotten as they slowly rebuilt their lives. This was their chance to be rid of him, while he was too weak in body and spirit to fight back.

Instead he was brought to the hospital to have his wounds properly treated. Naruto was assigned to the same room, mostly because he refused to leave Sasuke's side for even a minute.

Naruto didn't hesitate once to defend him from anyone who so much as looked at Sasuke the wrong way, shutting down every discussion of punishment before it could start. Sasuke was too exhausted to join the conversation. He lay there and listened to Naruto argue for him, and it felt strange to be defended by someone he had spent years trying to destroy.

He didn't want forgiveness. He had never asked for it, and he knew he hadn't earned it. But Naruto seemed determined to move heaven and earth to clear Sasuke's name, even if he deserved none of it. And after pretty much saving the world, there wasn't a soul who dared to challenge Naruto.

Sasuke didn't know what to make of Naruto's undying loyalty, so he decided not to dwell on it.

[…]

Sasuke was no stranger to nightmares.

Almost every time he closed his eyes, he was haunted by the ghosts of his past and the destruction that seemed to follow him everywhere. His nightmares had changed over the years, from the night his clan was murdered, to being taunted by his brother, to the things he had endured under Orochimaru.

But since returning to Konoha, they had all become the same. Always Naruto's blood on his hands, and his closest friend's lifeless body in front of him. Always his own doing.

Each time he woke with a start, heart pounding, drenched in cold sweat. The fear of losing Naruto burned through the very fabric of his soul, and even after he had managed to get himself under control, he still struggled to make himself look over at the other bed, terrified that he might not find Naruto there.

Eventually, when his breathing had steadied and his heart no longer threatened to break out of his chest, he risked a glance at Naruto, only to find the other staring back at him, forehead pinched in concern.

"Sasuke—"

Sasuke looked away quickly, trying to ignore the way his face burned with shame, and turned so that his back faced Naruto. The knot in his chest was impossibly tight. He hated this. He hated being vulnerable, hated that Naruto was always the one there, always the one witnessing his weakness.

He was so caught up in his own head that he didn't notice the shuffle of Naruto getting up, or realize he had moved at all until the mattress dipped under the weight of another body.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Sasuke hissed, turning to look at him.

"Getting in bed," Naruto answered, pushing at Sasuke to make some space.

"No,” he pushed back. “Go back to your own bed."

"Stop being difficult, bastard. Neither of us can sleep," Naruto said, annoyance in his tone. "This will help."

"I don't see how you snoring next to me will fucking help," Sasuke argued.

Naruto stopped moving and stared at him instead. Sasuke felt his cheeks burn under the weight of those eyes. Something inside him finally gave way. He swallowed the lump in his throat and slid to the side, begrudgingly, letting Naruto sneak in beside him. The bed was too small for both of them, and they shuffled around awkwardly before finding a position that worked.

"Was that so hard?" Naruto teased once they had settled, a smirk on his lips.

"Shut up. Don't make me regret this."

Naruto chuckled. "Try not to steal the covers. Wake me up if you need me."

Sasuke watched, perplexed, as Naruto closed his eyes and went to sleep. For a moment he wondered if his mind had decided to give him a break from the nightmares just to mess with him. His heart hammered in his chest as he stared at Naruto, unsure what to do with the fact that Naruto trusted him enough to climb into bed beside him and sleep as if Sasuke weren't the same person who had once tried to kill him.

Eventually, Sasuke couldn't keep his eyes open anymore, even with the thoughts still racing through his mind. He focused on the steady sound of Naruto's breathing, the heat radiating off him, and bit by bit, the knot in his chest began to loosen.

It didn't surprise him that sleep came so much easier with Naruto beside him. He just refused to acknowledge it.

[…]

Naruto healed long before Sasuke did.

It made sense, given that he still had the Kyuubi inside him, the beast's chakra speeding up his recovery as it always did. He was discharged after just a couple of weeks, and Sasuke tried to hide his disappointment at knowing Naruto's presence would no longer be a given, especially when the medics were still unsure when Sasuke would be allowed to leave.

Sasuke was sure he would lose his mind left alone in that room, but he should have known Naruto would never let him be lonely again.

Naruto had no obligation to him, but that didn't stop him from showing up every single day as early as he was allowed, and staying until he was practically kicked out.

Sasuke hated how comfortable it felt, how easy. He hated the way Naruto always seemed capable of finding a place for himself underneath Sasuke's ribs and staying there. He hated that there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"You don't have to keep showing up," Sasuke said the next time Naruto walked in.

He was in a bad mood. The nightmares were worse now that Naruto wasn't there when he woke, and he blamed Naruto for all of it. For making Sasuke pathetically dependent on him, and for having done it since they were children.

Naruto raised an eyebrow and set the paper bag he was carrying down beside Sasuke. When Sasuke didn't reach for it, Naruto sighed and opened it himself, pulling out a tray of rice balls he'd bought on the way in and setting it on Sasuke's lap.

"Would you rather sit in silence staring at the walls all day?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke didn't reply, and his silence was answer enough.

"Didn't think so," Naruto said. "Now stop complaining and eat the damn rice balls. The medics told me you haven't been eating."

Sasuke glared at him, but Naruto didn't budge. Eventually Sasuke looked away and picked up one of the rice balls, ignoring Naruto's triumphant smile. He didn't say anything else for the rest of the day, but he ate every single one.

[…]

Sasuke didn't so much realize he was in love with Naruto as simply accept it.

There was no great catalyst, no special moment or words. Lately, Naruto had picked up the habit of showing up with different ways to pass the time, as the weeks stretched on and the medics still couldn't give a straight answer about when Sasuke would be allowed to leave. He'd started with games, but quickly gave up on shogi, too impatient for it, and dealing a deck of cards turned out to be harder than it looked with only one hand.

Sasuke was content to entertain him, even if he complained and pretended to find it annoying each time Naruto came up with a new idea. That day, Naruto had shown up with a pile of books and manga, and Sasuke rolled his eyes but picked out one of the books anyway.

He pretended to read, when in reality he spent most of the time watching Naruto flip through the pages of his manga. He watched the way his eyes moved across each panel, the way he pressed his lips together in concentration. At some point Naruto let out a small laugh, smiling to himself, and Sasuke couldn't breathe, because Sasuke loved him.

The thought slipped into his mind and spread through him as though it had been sitting there all along, because it had.

Sasuke had loved Naruto for so long he didn't know anything else. He had pushed those feelings away, so far down it was as if they no longer existed. But now Naruto was here, within arm's reach, content and relaxed in Sasuke's presence as he read a stupid manga like it was the most natural thing in the world—

"Sasuke," Naruto called, his voice laced with concern.

Sasuke only then realized his whole body was shaking. He looked away quickly, scared that Naruto would see straight through him and know the truth he had spent his whole life outrunning.

"Sasuke—"

"Leave," Sasuke said, his voice coming out choked. He hated himself for it.

"Sasuke, what's wrong—”

"Naruto,” Sasuke fought to stay calm. "Leave."

"Why?" Naruto pushed, beginning to sound desperate. "What's wrong?"

"Leave. Now," he said, one last time, his voice sharp, his chakra beginning to simmer dangerously under his skin.

Naruto must have sensed it, because Sasuke felt his chakra flare in response. Naruto looked like he wanted to argue, like he didn't want to do what Sasuke was asking.

"Sasuke...”

"Is everything okay in here?"

Naruto paused as one of the medics on duty stepped into the room. Sasuke made no move to acknowledge them, still focused on steadying his breathing, on stopping the burn in his eyes.

"Yeah," Naruto answered quickly. "Everything's fine."

The medic looked apprehensive, but nodded and left as quickly as they had come. Naruto turned back to Sasuke.

"I'll be back tomorrow, okay?" he said quietly.

Sasuke nodded, still unable to meet his eyes. He waited until Naruto was gone to let out a shaking breath, and then he threw the book in his lap hard enough against the wall that a crack split the plaster in its wake.

He stared at it, trying not to notice how perfectly it mirrored the feeling splitting his chest down the middle.

[…]

Naruto showed up the next day like he'd said he would, but he didn't bring up Sasuke's outburst, even though his eyes flickered to the spot on the wall Sasuke had damaged.

A part of Sasuke was grateful for it, because if they could pretend it never happened, he could carry on pretending nothing had changed.

[…]

The first time Naruto didn't come was the day the funerals were held.

The hospital was quiet that day. The air felt different, heavier. Naruto had asked Sasuke the day before if he'd like to attend, but Sasuke simply shook his head. For once, Naruto didn't fight him.

Sasuke felt it would be hypocritical of him to show up. He didn't know any of these people, nor did he care for them. Or so he told himself.

The hallway outside his room emptied as the morning went on, footsteps fading one by one until the silence was almost unbearable. From the window he could see a slow line of people in black moving down the street, and he turned his eyes to the book in his lap instead. He read the same line three times without taking in a word of it.

He kept thinking about the names. Some of them belonged to people who had died holding a line while he was busy deciding whether the world deserved to keep standing. He had never met them, and it didn't matter. They had died all the same, and he had spent part of that war on the wrong side of it.

It wasn't guilt. He refused to call it that. Guilt would mean he owed them something, and if he owed them, then he owed everyone, and there was no paying that back from a hospital bed.

So he stayed where he was, alone with the quiet, and let it sit on him like a punishment. It was easier than admitting some part of him had wanted to go.

When Naruto showed up the next day, he was unusually quiet, with heavy bags under his eyes. Sasuke didn't know how to comfort him. Naruto had always been the one who knew the right thing to say. He tried to focus on the same damned book instead, hoping that maybe just sitting next to Naruto would bring him some sort of consolation.

"I just hate that I couldn't stop it," Naruto's voice cut through the silence eventually, and Sasuke turned to him. Naruto's gaze was unfocused.

"I don't think anyone could have stopped it," Sasuke said.

Naruto hummed. "Then I should have made sure no one died. I should have protected everyone. I should have stopped Neji—" he cut himself off.

Sasuke's chest felt tight at the sight of Naruto's face twisted with grief. He wanted to reach out, maybe hold his hand, as crazy as it sounded. He wanted to do something, but his body refused to move.

"Naruto, you saved the world," Sasuke reminded him quietly.

"I could have done more."

Sasuke knew the feeling well. The certainty that you were the only one who could change something if you took matters into your own hands. That if you tried hard enough, became strong enough—

It wasn't fair. Naruto shouldn't have to carry that burden. He shouldn't have been the sole recipient of the shinobi's hope, the so-called chosen one. Sasuke shouldn't have had to carry the burden of being the last Uchiha, either. They never asked for any of this, and none of it had ever been fair.

Sasuke swallowed the lump in his throat, doing his best to remain composed, because the least he could do was not fall apart. Not when he needed to, for once, be the one to hold Naruto together.

[…]

That day shifted something between them.

It was almost as if a wall had finally crumbled, and they no longer danced around things that had once seemed too fragile to bring up. Naruto still did most of the talking, and he talked about the three years he'd spent training: the toads, the rasengan, the way he'd dragged himself back onto his feet every time he was knocked down. He complained about all of it, but his voice was gentle whenever he mentioned Jiraiya, who'd never once let him quit.

Sasuke listened, and instead of bitterness he felt something closer to an ache. Naruto had spent those years building something. Sasuke had spent his tearing everything down.

When it was his turn, it came out in pieces. He spoke about what he'd endured under Orochimaru, and he didn't dress it up. Somewhere in those years he had simply stopped carrying things. Grief, loneliness, the memory of what Team 7 used to be. He'd set them down one by one until there was nothing left but the need for revenge, first on Itachi, and then on the village.

"It was easier that way," Sasuke said. "If you don't feel anything, nothing can slow you down."

Naruto didn't interrupt. He didn't look at Sasuke with pity, either, which Sasuke wouldn't have been able to stand.

Sasuke felt a little lighter every time he opened up to Naruto, even if he still struggled. He wondered if Naruto felt the same way.

"I just don't want to witness this ever again. Any of it," Naruto said one day. "The loss, the divide, the hatred. I used to want to be Hokage so the village would finally love me, accept me, but it's so much more than that now."

He paused, looking out the window. Sasuke watched him, the way the sunlight caught his blond hair and made his eyes sparkle. Naruto looked ethereal. At times like this, Sasuke struggled to associate the man in front of him with the scrawny boy he used to be.

"I want to be Hokage because I want to change things," Naruto continued, his gaze lost somewhere Sasuke couldn't follow. "I don't want the next generation to go through what we did. I don't want anyone to grow up alone. I want to stop what happened to your clan from ever happening again, I want to make sure the Hyuuga's cursed seal is never imprinted on another child—"

"Seems ambitious," Sasuke cut him off, even though he knew that if anyone could do it, it would be Naruto. "Do you really think you can change the village?"

Naruto finally looked at him, blue eyes fierce.

"No," he replied. "I think I can change the world."

Sasuke believed him.

[…]

Kakashi was the one who delivered the news that they were finally letting him go.

He had healed enough, and having refused the prosthetic arm, there wasn't much else that could be done for him. Sasuke asked if that meant they were moving him to confinement instead. If they'd hold him prisoner until they knew what to do about his crimes, or maybe his sentence had already been decided.

Even though punishment was no longer discussed in front of him or Naruto, Sasuke wasn't naive enough to believe there would be no consequences.

Kakashi sighed, looking tired. "Well, to be perfectly honest, someone like you would normally be imprisoned."

Sasuke looked down, the knot in his chest growing tighter.

"But," Kakashi continued, and Sasuke's head snapped up, "you have been fully pardoned, Sasuke."

The words didn't quite land. Sasuke simply stared, unsure he'd heard correctly.

"I hope you understand the magnitude of this decision — the fact that all of your past actions were pardoned speaks to the enormity of your help in undoing the Infinite Tsukuyomi."

Kakashi leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms. "But also, my becoming Sixth Hokage and the wishes of Naruto, the key figure in ending the war, helped. Don't forget that."

Sasuke waited for relief to arrive. It should have. A pardon was more than he'd ever expected to be handed, more than he thought he deserved. Instead there was only the same knot, pulled tighter, and he kept his eyes on the floor as if the answer might be written somewhere down there.

Kakashi watched him for a long moment. "You don't look like someone who just received good news."

"It's fine."

"Sasuke."

There was no pressure in it. Kakashi only waited, with the same patience he'd had when Sasuke was twelve and refused to say what he was thinking. He had never pushed then, either, and somehow that had always been worse. "If there's something you want to say, now is the time."

Sasuke's jaw tightened. It felt strange to be asked.

"I want permission to leave," he finally said. "I… I want to know how the shinobi world, this world, looks like to the current me. And… there are things weighing on me, things I need to make up for."

"And is there anything I could possibly say to change your mind?"

When Sasuke didn't answer, Kakashi hummed.

"Very well," he said after a moment, letting out a sigh. "Your wish will be granted. But it does not mean you are free of your duties. You are once again a shinobi of the Leaf, and if we need you, I expect you to do the right thing."

Sasuke nodded, not quite trusting his words.

"And on top of that… try not to cause too much trouble from here on out," Kakashi said, stern in a way Sasuke hadn't heard since he was a child. "It'll fall on my shoulders."

"Yeah," Sasuke looked down. "I'm sorry about that."

Kakashi didn't really acknowledge his apology, but even through the mask, Sasuke could see the faint shape of his smile.

[…]

When Naruto walked into his room next, there was a storm brewing in his eyes.

"You're leaving," Naruto said, as a statement rather than a question.

Sasuke felt the knot in his chest tighten. Realistically, he'd known this moment would come eventually. He was sure Naruto would be the first to know once Kakashi granted him permission to leave, and he'd even prepared himself for it, but that didn't make this confrontation any easier.

"Yes."

There was tension in Naruto's jaw, his lips pressed into a thin line, like he was doing his best to hold back the words gathering at the back of his throat. Sasuke knew the confirmation wouldn't have surprised him. But knowing Naruto, knowing his endless, stubborn optimism, he'd probably hoped for a different answer anyway.

"Will you come back?" Naruto asked eventually, his voice coming out small.

Sasuke wanted to say no. He wanted to say there was nothing for him in Konoha, wanted to make it clear how much he hated this village and its people, the corruption that poisoned everything from the inside out. He wanted to say he'd never forgive any of them for the pain and loss they'd caused him, even if he'd caused just as much in return.

He wanted to say there was no future for him here. There would never be one.

But the look in Naruto's eyes, the emotion shining bright and clear, the same blue Sasuke saw every time he closed his own, made the words falter in his throat. They always did, when it came to Naruto.

How could he say no, when Naruto's eyes were filled with what Sasuke almost dared to call hope? Hope that everything they'd been through wasn't for nothing. Hope that maybe, someday, Sasuke would choose to come back on his own. Hope that there was a different future waiting somewhere — a better one, with enough room for both of them in it.

Sasuke knew better than to believe in a future like that, even if every bone in his body ached for it. He knew exactly where he stood, what he deserved. But he still couldn't bring himself to disappoint Naruto again — not right now, not like this.

"I don't know," he said instead.

The disappointment on Naruto's face was impossible to miss. It seemed Sasuke had given him the wrong answer anyway.

Maybe Naruto had believed they had truly mended their relationship in the last few months, maybe he thought their bond was stronger than ever before, strong enough to make Sasuke stay. And it was — but that was exactly why Sasuke had to leave. Because he couldn't do this, he couldn't lose himself in Naruto, not when he had just started to live for himself again.

He needed to leave, to get away from this cursed place, to see the world for himself with a new perspective. To find the goodness Itachi had believed in, the one he had sacrificed everything for.

Sasuke needed to find a way to make up for his sins. He knew that wasn't something that could be done in this village, or even this country. But despite the honesty he'd shared with Naruto over the last few months, he couldn't bring himself to say any of it.

When Naruto walked out first, for the first time in their lives, Sasuke didn't stop him.

[…]

Naruto didn't see him off at the gates.

Sasuke hadn't expected him to, but a small part of him had hoped for it. Maybe some of Naruto's endless optimism had started rubbing off on him.

He said his farewells to Kakashi and Sakura, even though it felt foreign to simply talk to them, to hear their well wishes as though he were an old friend. He had been, once. Maybe one day he could be again.

A part of him didn't want to leave without seeing Naruto one last time, but he knew that was selfish, and these days he was no longer selfish enough to inflict more pain on Naruto for his own benefit. So he made himself turn away, ignoring the way something in his chest pulled back toward the village with every step.

The gates were almost out of sight when he saw him. Naruto was leaning against one of the trees, a pout on his face, as if he didn't want to be there.

"I didn't think you'd come to see me off," Sasuke said.

"Who said I'm here to see you off?" Naruto muttered, pushing away from the tree. He dug into his pocket with his one hand and held something out, and it took Sasuke a moment to understand what he was looking at.

His hitai-ate. The metal was worn, and the scratch carved through the Leaf symbol was still there, the line that was meant to sever every tie he had. Naruto had carried it all this time anyway.

"You kept it?" Sasuke asked, his throat suddenly tight.

"I knew you'd need it back one day," the corner of Naruto's mouth curved up. "I'm finally giving it back."

Sasuke smiled despite himself, reaching for it.

"Sure. I'll hang on to it," he said. "Until we have our real fight."

Naruto grinned, and the sight eased the tension inside Sasuke. He should have been embarrassed at how easily anything about Naruto made him feel better, lighter.

Sasuke left, still unsure of what the future held for him. But at the very least, he was willing to find out.

[…]

As it turned out, it was hard to find something when you weren't sure what you were looking for.

It had been well over a year since Sasuke had left the village, and almost two since the end of the war. He travelled, visiting corners of the earth he had never thought he would see and trying things he'd previously had no interest in. He learned new things, experienced different cultures, ate food he couldn't name. He could admit that he found most of it enjoyable. But nothing quite filled the hollow space in his chest, and it followed him from country to country like a shadow.

He kept trying to find meaning somewhere. He helped strangers and stopped trouble every time he came across it. He took down groups of mercenaries who taunted small villages, and he helped those who couldn't help themselves. Whenever possible, he did it all from the shadows, because gratitude was not what he was looking for.

Occasionally, Kakashi would send him missions, and Sasuke never refused them. They were mostly intel gathering, and Kakashi had always been content to simply accept Sasuke's reports without asking him to return to Konoha. Maybe he wanted that choice to always be Sasuke's. Even if that wasn't the reason, Sasuke appreciated it all the same.

When he left, there had been a moment when he wondered if he was just creating a new kind of distance between himself and Naruto by walking away again. But to his surprise, Naruto never faded away.

The first letter found him in a border town, folded small and creased from weeks in a courier's bag. Naruto's handwriting was worse than he remembered, the letters sliding downhill across the page, a smear where he'd probably dragged his sleeve through the wet ink.

Sasuke,

Kakashi-sensei said I'm not allowed to use the whole page for one letter but I don't care. Teuchi raised the price of ramen at Ichiraku AGAIN. Sakura punched a training post into gravel. I have to sit in meetings now and they're so boring I fell asleep on a stack of documents. Write back, bastard. Or at least tell me you're alive.

Naruto

P.S. Eat something that isn't a rice ball.

Sasuke read it three times. Then he folded it along its creases and put it away, and told himself that was the end of it.

It wasn't. More came, one after another, chasing him across borders. Naruto wrote about everything and nothing, about Konohamaru's terrible crush, the meeting where an elder actually agreed with him, about a dream where Sasuke had shown up at the gates with a giant bag of ramen. He never once asked Sasuke to come home. He only made it clear, page after page, that there was a place waiting for him whenever he wanted it.

For the first few months, Sasuke didn't reply at all. His replies, when they finally came, were never as long. But once he realized the distance did nothing to lessen what he felt for Naruto, he gave in to the need to keep him close somehow, in the only way he could.

The first one was a single word.

Alive.

Naruto's answer was three pages long.

After that, Sasuke wrote a little more each time. A line about the sea. A complaint about the food in a mountain village. Once, hesitantly, a description of a sunrise over a valley that had made him stop walking. He never said why he'd wanted to tell Naruto about it.

There were times Sasuke thought about going back, especially when Naruto wrote about the old ways slowly giving way, and the changes being proposed that made the future feel like it might actually be different. Naruto was still years away from taking on the mantle, but he already seemed determined to leave the world a better place than the one he'd inherited, just like he'd told Sasuke.

Maybe one day he'd be able to. Sasuke no longer thought it impossible, but he was not quite there yet.

For now, he'd simply keep on living.

[…]

Every few months, Sasuke had fallen into the habit of lurking at the edge of the Land of Fire.

He never crossed far enough to be noticed. Some nights he rented a room in a border town and listened to the locals gossip about the Hokage and the village beyond the trees. Other nights he simply camped around a small fire, a few days' walk from Konoha's gates.

He told himself it was convenience, or that the roads happened to run this way. The truth was simpler, and more embarrassing. He wanted to go back, but he couldn't make himself take the last step.

This time, he was fishing by a river not far from the Land of Hot Water’s border. He didn't really care about the fish, but he needed something to do while his mind went around the same circles it always did, and the water was quiet.

"So this is what the great Uchiha Sasuke does with himself these days," someone said behind him. "He goes off the map to fish."

Sasuke didn't startle, but his grip on the rod tightened. It took him a moment to place the woman standing at the treeline as one of the kunoichi from Kumogakure. Karui, if he remembered correctly. He remembered her hostility well from the months he'd spent in the Land of Lightning, taking odd missions and trying, in whatever small ways he could, to make up for what he had done to the country.

The Raikage had eventually pardoned him as well, but a pardon wasn't the same as a welcome. The air had stayed tense the entire time, and Karui had made sure he never forgot it.

"I'm not looking for trouble," he said simply.

Karui scoffed. "You'll find some, lurking this close to the border."

Sasuke kept his tone even. "I'm no longer an enemy."

"You're not a friend, either."

"Very well,” he stood and began reeling in his line, deciding this wasn't worth the effort. "I'll leave, then."

He had barely started walking when she spoke again.

"Making your way back to Konoha after all this time?" she asked, out of the blue. "You're only a few days from the village."

Sasuke stopped and looked back at her. He wondered why a stranger seemed to know more about him than he knew about her. He didn't like it.

"Is that where you're returning from?" he deflected. "You're in casual wear. No hitai-ate. Was it an unofficial visit?"

"My business in Konoha is none of yours," she replied sharply.

He didn't answer, only stared at her, wondering why the hell this conversation was happening at all.

"Then let's stay out of each other's business."

"I see through you, Uchiha," she snarled, stepping closer. "You may have been pardoned, but you haven't changed."

"You know nothing about me."

"I know you abandoned your village and your comrades. Do you know how many times I've heard people say you'd be back by now? Two years, and you're sitting in a river, fishing."

Sasuke's jaw tightened, and Karui pushed. “Why are you still wandering the world after everything?"

"I don't owe you an explanation."

"What about Naruto?"

Something sharp twisted in Sasuke's chest.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

She hummed, unimpressed. "I just imagined you'd be more considerate of him, after everything he's done for you."

After everything he's done for you.

Sasuke knew exactly what Naruto had done for him. Naruto had never given up on him. Sasuke knew about the arguments Naruto had won on his behalf while Sasuke lay too tired to speak. He knew about the hitai-ate carried all that time, about the letters, about the door Naruto never stopped holding open. He had spent two years carrying that weight across the continent. He didn't need a Kumo kunoichi in a river clearing to tell him how much he owed.

"I know what he's done," he said, quieter than he intended.

"Do you?" Karui's eyes narrowed. "Because from where I'm standing, he’s still waiting for you to come back like a kid at a window, and yet here you are. Your boy deserves better than that."

"He's not—" Sasuke started, and stopped, because the end of the sentence was somewhere he couldn't go. "I never asked him to wait."

"No. You didn't have to,” she crossed her arms. "It's the least you could do, after he got down on his hands and knees and begged our Raikage for your life."

Sasuke froze.

The river kept running. A bird called somewhere in the trees. He heard none of it. His eyes widened, and the fishing rod slipped half an inch in his hand before he caught it.

Karui studied him, and her expression shifted in curiosity.

"You didn't know," she said, tilting her head.

Sasuke stared at the water, but he wasn't seeing it. He thought of Naruto laughing over a manga, of Naruto climbing into his bed because neither of them could sleep, of Naruto saying I know you won't do that kind of thing again with that terrible, stubborn certainty. He had thought he understood what he was being given, but he hadn't understood half of it.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked finally.

Karui was quiet for a moment, looking at him as though she were weighing something.

"Because I watched him do it," she said. "And because I think somebody should make sure you understand what you're walking away from."

Sasuke opened his mouth, and for once nothing came. No deflection, no cutting remark.

"He's not my boy," was all he managed.

The words came out wrong, defensive and a little desperate.

"Sure," Karui said, rolling her eyes. "The two of you are truly something else."

She turned around and left, her footsteps fading into the trees, leaving Sasuke standing there as if she hadn't just set his entire world on fire.

[…]

Sasuke couldn't shake the new piece of information he'd learned.

He had always known how far Naruto was willing to go for him, how deep into the darkness he would chase him if that was what it took. But to know Naruto had brought himself to his knees for Sasuke's life, forehead pressed against the ground in front of a man who had every reason to want Sasuke dead, was something Sasuke didn't know what to do with.

Naruto had never told him. In all those months in the hospital, all those quiet afternoons of rice balls and manga and stupid games, he had never once mentioned it. He had simply gone on defending Sasuke, and asked for nothing in return.

The guilt sat in Sasuke's stomach like a stone, and it only grew heavier with every mile he put behind him. He kept picturing it: Naruto, who bowed to no one, who had never begged for anything in his life except to be seen, kneeling on the ground for someone who had spent years trying to kill him. Someone who hadn't even said thank you.

He wanted to go back. The need came suddenly and without mercy, a pull under his ribs that he could no longer pretend was only the road. He wanted to apologise, for that and for everything else. He wanted to become someone worth that kind of devotion.

But that was the problem. Sasuke knew what he was, and he knew what he'd done. Naruto deserved so much better than a man who had needed to be begged for, and Sasuke couldn't see how any amount of atonement would ever close that distance.

He was still battling the storm inside him when another of Naruto's letters caught up to him. This time it came by hawk, which meant the matter was urgent. A sense of dread tugged low in his stomach as he unfolded it.

Sasuke,

It's been a while since I last heard from you. I'm not mad, I promise. I figured you were busy brooding on a mountain somewhere. Things here are the same as always.

Sakura still hits me every time I open my mouth, Kakashi-sensei still shows up late to everything even though he's Hokage now (I don't know how he gets away with it). I've also been told by three different people that I "need to learn to read the room" in meetings, which I think is unfair, because I always know exactly what the room is thinking. I just say it out loud.

But that's all boring stuff, and it's not really why I'm writing. The truth is I've been thinking about you a lot lately. More than usual, which is saying something. I wonder where you are right now, whether you're sleeping okay, whether you're actually eating real food or just surviving on whatever you can catch in a river. I wonder if the nightmares still follow you wherever you go. Sometimes I look at the moon and think it's stupid that we're under the same one and still so far apart. Mostly I wonder if you're happy, or at least a little less tired than you were.

You don't have to tell me. I just wanted you to know I think about it. Every day, actually, and it's been a while since I could say that without it feeling like too much. Which brings me to the thing I actually need to say, and I'm sorry in advance for how long this is going to take me.

That day, after our last fight, when we were lying on the ground bleeding out, you asked me why I kept involving myself with you, what all of this meant to me. Everything I told you was true. You're my friend, and your pain is my pain. You were the first real connection I ever made. But you're also so much more than that, and I didn't have the words for it then.

You are, and have always been, the most important person in my life. My best friend, my rival, my goal. The one I've loved for as long as I can remember.

So this is the truth you asked me about so many times. I love you. I always have. I was scared that saying it would only push you further away, and I couldn't stand the thought of losing even the little of you I had.

But lately I feel like these words are going to choke me if I don't finally let them out. I promised myself I'd tell you the next time I saw you, but the right day never came. I think I was waiting for it to stop being scary. It never did.

Anyway, I'm probably rambling now. I'm not good with letters. I've written about a hundred versions of this over the last couple of years. Some I crumpled up halfway through, and some I finished and shoved in a drawer, because I never meant to send any of them. Writing them was the only way I could say it out loud. Honestly, it would be so much easier to say this to your face.

In three days, I'll be at the Valley of the End. If you don't show up, I'll know your answer. I'd understand, and I promise I'll never bring it up again. But whatever you choose, I'm not going anywhere.

Naruto

Sasuke put the letter down, his hand shaking. He inhaled sharply, trying to keep himself in check, but the words swam in front of him and he had to read the middle of it again, and then again, before they would hold still. I love you. No joke followed it. No grin hid behind it. Just three plain words, in Naruto's terrible handwriting.

He didn't quite believe what he'd just read.

He looked at the letter again, analysing every detail. It looked like Naruto's handwriting, and somehow it sounded like him. A little more mature, a little more polished, but still Naruto underneath it all. Sasuke wondered if this was some kind of mistake. Maybe it was a misguided prank, or a desperate attempt to finally get him to come home. But Sasuke knew Naruto. He knew his heart, and he was certain Naruto would never do something so cruel.

I've written about a hundred versions of this.

Sasuke thought of Naruto alone at a desk, crumpling page after page, and something in his chest gave way.

In the end, there was only one way to find out.

He folded the letter gently, carefully, and slid it into his pocket, as if it were the most precious thing he owned. Then he turned around and ran.

[…]

Sasuke made it back in two days.

It was still the early hours of the morning when he finally reached the valley, the daylight not quite breaking through the horizon just yet. The place was still in ruins.

The two great statues that had once guarded the falls lay broken where they had fallen. The river had carved itself new paths through the rubble, and the cliffs still wore the craters of their last fight like old scars. But time had done what it always did.

Moss crept over the fractured stone, and thin green shoots pushed up between the cracks in the rock, stubborn and small. Nothing had been rebuilt, but the place was quietly healing all the same.

Even though this was where Sasuke had finally come to his senses and accepted his shortcomings, he still associated it with loss, with endings and decisions that felt so final he was once sure there would be no turning back. He wondered if Naruto felt the same, if that was why he had chosen the place where they fell apart over and over again to be the one where they reunited. A way for them to take back the past and rewrite the future into something different, something better.

Maybe Naruto wouldn't show up. A part of Sasuke still thought this could be nothing but a joke, or some twisted prank. He didn't know what he'd do with himself if that was the case, the humiliation perhaps too much to bear.

But for probably the first time in his life, the small glimpse of hope blooming in his chest felt more powerful than his fear or shame. And even if Naruto did show up, Sasuke had no idea what would happen next. Where they could possibly go from here. Despite all that, Sasuke wanted to try.

He put down his sword and sat on the ground, in the same spot that had once been stained with his and Naruto's blood. He watched the sky, focused on the sound of the waterfall, and simply waited.

He felt Naruto before he saw him.

It was a warm, restless flicker at the edge of his senses, the chakra Sasuke would have recognized anywhere, in any crowd, in any darkness. His heart beat hard against his ribs. Every muscle in his body tensed, and he kept his eyes fixed on the water because he didn't trust himself to do anything else. If he turned around too soon, he would lose his nerve. If he turned around at all, this would become real.

The footsteps came closer, quick at first, almost running, and then they slowed. And then they stopped altogether.

Silence stretched over the valley, broken only by the falls. Sasuke could feel Naruto standing somewhere behind him, could practically hear him not breathing. He had the absurd thought that Naruto had prepared himself for an empty valley. That he had walked all this way ready to sit alone until the sun went down and then leave without a word, and hadn't planned for anything else.

"You're here," Naruto whispered, out of breath, almost as if he didn't quite believe his eyes.

Sasuke met his gaze, his pulse ringing in his ears. Naruto had grown up.

He seemed taller now, or maybe it was the way he carried himself, no longer hunched under the weight of everyone's expectations. Or maybe he really was finally taller than Sasuke. His hair was shorter, wind-tousled and gold in the dim light, and the roundness was gone from his face, leaving the line of his jaw sharper than Sasuke remembered.

But his eyes were the same. That same impossible blue, wide and bright and fixed on Sasuke like he was the only thing in the valley. Sasuke's stomach flipped, and he understood with a helpless sort of clarity that he’d always be in love with this man, and that no distance, no miles or months, would ever make even the slightest dent in it.

It occurred to him then that maybe he should have come up with some sort of plan. Figured out what he would say to Naruto.

"Didn't you ask me to come, you moron?"

Sasuke tried to deliver the words in the closest thing he could manage to annoyance, hoping this would be easier if they could just bicker and banter like they always did. But Naruto simply chuckled, the sound coming out a bit disbelieving, and didn't say anything else.

It was odd, seeing Naruto at a loss for words. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but nothing came out. Sasuke couldn't blame him. He didn't know what to say either.

Sasuke gestured to the spot next to him, and Naruto approached slowly, carefully, as if he were trying not to spook a wild animal. He sat down at Sasuke's right, far enough that they weren't touching, but close enough that he could reach out if he wanted to. The air felt charged between them, but neither said anything. Eventually, Naruto risked a glance at Sasuke.

"Sasuke," Naruto hesitated, visibly swallowing the lump in his throat, "are we…"

"We're watching the sunrise," Sasuke said simply.

Naruto nodded, turning his face back to the horizon. Sasuke could feel the tension radiating off him, a restlessness that matched his own, though Sasuke was much better at hiding it. He glanced down at Naruto's hand beside him, at the way his fingers were twitching anxiously, fidgeting with the edge of his clothes in an attempt to ease some of the tension.

Sasuke reached out slowly and hesitantly took Naruto's hand in his own. He heard the way Naruto's breath hitched, and he was looking at him now, blue eyes wide, but Sasuke's gaze remained on their interlaced fingers. He brushed his thumb over Naruto's knuckles absentmindedly, savouring the feeling of finally being able to touch him gently, the way he had always wanted to.

The words from Naruto's letter echoed in his mind, and there was an ocean of emotions Sasuke wished he could express, but he had never been able to use his words the way Naruto did.

"Me too," Sasuke said eventually, so quietly he wouldn't have been sure Naruto heard him if it weren't for the way his fingers tightened around Sasuke's.

He finally lifted his gaze to meet Naruto's, something warm spreading through him as their eyes met. The morning light was finally coming through, illuminating their skin, and Naruto's eyes shone in a way Sasuke wanted to commit to memory.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

"Naruto, I—" he tried to force the words out, but they were still stuck in his throat. "Me too. All of it."

Sasuke braced himself and waited, hoping this was enough for now. Hoping Naruto knew what he meant.

And Naruto, his one and only, the one who had always known his heart, seemed to understand exactly what he was trying to say. His eyes softened, suspiciously shiny, and he smiled, soft and bright in a way that made Sasuke's heart soar. Naruto leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Sasuke's, and Sasuke couldn't help smiling back.

Sasuke knew that, eventually, he'd have to say more than that, because Naruto deserved to hear all of it. He knew they would have to talk about it, about what this meant, about where to go from here. But all of it could wait a little longer. For now, they could just sit here in each other's presence, quietly, peacefully.

When the sun came up, Sasuke finally allowed himself to hope for a better future.