(closed) everything you feel, and everything you think

[chokuto]

WHO: Uchiha Sasuke & others.
WHERE: Around Stygia.
WHEN: Month of October.
WHAT: Catch-call for event prompts / other scenarios.
WARNINGS: None atm, will updated if needed.


[ ooc — plotting comment for the event here, comment for the general CR meme here. flexible to do things outside of the event as well!]

Comments

[chokuto]

You're the one who put us like this in the first place—

[The familiar, tetchy reply trips off his tongue as soon as he notices Naruto attempting to rearrange their positions. His heart races a little faster; he can feel it in his throat, and he's worried Naruto will feel it too, the smallest physical tell of the impact this situation has on him. Before he can open his mouth to protest — what does Naruto need to see? — the limb of chakra materializes and yanks him by the ankles into a sideways sling of legs over his friend's lap. At once, Naruto's face looms unexpectedly close as he tucks in at a shoulder. The other boy's cheek is warm even through the collar of his shirt. Then there is the hand on his stomach, worse than before; he preferred the arm around his waist to this. He can't ignore this.

Sasuke turns his head away, so at least he can stare at the campfire and surrounding festivities without the distraction of their proximity. Part of it is to hide his own face, which still blooms with color that the flickering shadow of the fire should partially conceal. However, this change means he can see passing strangers — and he can't help but wonder what they think when a few glance over at him and Naruto. He can't even entertain the idea of what they do probably think, knowing it's a betrayal of the simple, innocent camaraderie his friend is surely demonstrating.

Only the drowsy, relaxed state of his own body and mind keeps him from struggling out of Naruto's hold. Only the effect of the food and drink he's consumed has him contentedly idle in that firm, overly warm grasp.] What are you doing... [It's a grumble, but it doesn't come laced with serious grief. Instead...

He feels good. It starts as a vague, staticky tingle across his skin; stiff muscles ease until he's completely slack on Naruto's lap, eyes half-lidded, docile and pliant. Then it settles in the back of his mind, still hazy. He doesn't think much of it. Later, he'll wonder — the wisp of energy is nothing like chakra, and he can't recognize it at all. But in the moment he's content to be held.]

The food we ate was drugged. [This comes at length, in a sleepy and noncommittal voice.] Don't you feel it too? We never do anything like this. It's weird.

[acknowledgement]

So what?

[Firelight dances over them, though Naruto remains largely enveloped within the pocket of deep, grasping shadow cast by his friend’s figure. He doesn’t mind. There’s a space for him here, he thinks—if only Sasuke would let him stay. He’s reminded of his offer to room together in the Netherworld, and the brunet’s careful refusal. “It wouldn’t be a good idea,” Sasuke had said, gaze avoidant.

So what? thinks Naruto.]

I’ve been called lotsa stuff. “Weird” doesn’t bother me. Not when it’s with you.

[Despite everything that’s happened between them, Sasuke still doesn’t understand. No, that isn’t quite right. Despite everything that’s happened between them, Sasuke is still so afraid—afraid to believe that he doesn’t need to be alone anymore, to believe that the strength of their bond is ineffable, that Naruto will always be there for him. Even now in this foreign dimension, Sasuke continues to hold him at arm’s length. Some of it stems from wary self-preservation. Some of it stems from a heavy sense of guilt. Knowing this, Naruto told his best friend that overcast day on the shoreline he would wait. Wait until Sasuke was ready to believe. But the prospect of standing idly by until then while the young man suffers in silence is intolerable.]

No one else gets to decide what’s weird for us. Just you and me. And me? I say this is fine. Better than fine. It’s good. I feel good. [Blue eyes slide upward toward a pale profile, searching.] You’re allowed to feel good too, Sasuke. The future we’re working on…it’s not just for everybody else, ya know. You’re included. [Something dark—soft like velvet, forbidden yet honest—steals into the timber of his dry voice.] If you aren’t? I don’t want it.

[And Naruto burrows his face into Sasuke’s shoulder, breathing in the sharp musk of electrified metal and dusky smoke that belongs purely to his friend. It settles a voracious hunger inside him, one that he barely recognizes as human. But it doesn’t scare Naruto. How could anything he feels toward Sasuke scare him? Regardless of how undefined or amorphous or “weird” those feelings may be—Naruto accepts them without question. Where Sasuke is concerned, nothing is unnatural.]

[chokuto]

[Weirdness aside, Sasuke isn't so far gone in his thoughts — in the stewing, contented warmth of the moment — not to recognize there is nothing normal about the way his friend treats him. He has known this for some time. Faced with Naruto's undying pursuit of him, even at his lowest and darkest, of course he has questioned why. Anyone else would have given him up. Everyone else had given him up as lost. Yet there Naruto continues to remain, stalwart and resilient to the forces of the world against them. Of course he's wondered. Some of those questions were answered through their final battle, through the similarities of their past and the losses they've both endured, through the undeniable connection of their ancestry.

But not all of it.

Naruto cradles him in his lap, nuzzles into his shoulder, speaks to him in that low, scratchy voice promising him a future together — that if he isn't there, "I don't want it." He recalls the vow Naruto had made to follow him into death if it meant they could restart anew. And now, telling him that he deserves to feel good, with the pressure of Naruto's cheek on his shoulder and the ticklish suggestion of hair and breath... It's not normal. Confusion is a wellspring inside of him. It flows, at first a trickle then a fast rush, in time with the pace of his heart. He keeps his head turned away, unwilling to bear that closeness on top of everything else.]

I don't know why you say those things. [Of everyone important in his friend's life, Sasuke surely deserves them the least.] ... It wasn't a future I imagined for myself. Even after I lost to you, I could only see how you wanted to change the world as someone outside of it. I've committed too much wrong.

Don't you see? I can't exist there and ignore everything that has happened to me, everything that I've done. I can't return to the way it was. [The words are slippery off his tongue; the confession seems to ache.] So I don't know what's going to happen now. If we truly are dead, but there's still a way to amend it, I'll do all that is within my power to return you home where you're supposed to be. I care less about myself than that. You're the reason I have any future at all.

[acknowledgement]

[“I’ve committed too much wrong,” insists Sasuke. There’s a sharp intake of breath, like Naruto is about to interrupt and heatedly argue the point. This is a subject he feels passionately on—one that Kakashi, Yamato, and even Gaara had to repeatedly talk him down from confronting the Council about during his best friend’s year of imprisonment. Sasuke had been a convenient scapegoat in the aftermath of the war. Meanwhile, the truth about the Uchiha clan massacre remained quietly buried. The village elders would never face judgment for their dirty secret. What else have they done to ensure the “safety and prosperity” of Konohagakure? As Hokage, will Naruto need to make similar decisions?

Can he? Right now, Sasuke thrusts him into the direct path of one such decision.]

You’re such an idiot.

[Except, for Naruto, the choice has already been made.]

Sasuke. Listen, would you? [His voice is sharpened to a point of polished steel, prepared for a duel to the death on the subject.] There is no future for me without you. You return me home? I’m gonna tear open the heavens to get you back where you belong.

[ᴡɪᴛʜ ɴᴀʀᴜᴛᴏ.]

You better start caring. ‘Cuz we’re a package deal. And that ain’t changing. We can figure out the rest as we go. So if you can’t return to how things were, we’ll make a place for you. Got it?

/fin

[chokuto]

[There is no arguing with that tone of voice. He might have, if he were not so warm and content to be held, buoyed by whatever is in his system. Later he'll wonder at the things Naruto has said to him. That undying promise, cousin to an outright threat — surely Naruto knows they can't stay close to one another forever. That is not the world they live in. His friend's judgment is clouded by whatever obstinacy has claimed him in light of their bond and all they've endured to forge it. Sasuke was in a dark place; he felt it was his duty to bring him back. And he did. And it's done.

The future Naruto is talking about... He can't begin to imagine it. He sees himself outside the village in amelioration of his wrongdoings, and Naruto within it, with all of Konoha's precious people to fill the space.

𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥. He can't tell whether the thought means himself or Naruto.

He lets out a deep breath, falling to silence, feeling the fire on his turned cheek. Selfishly, for however long this lasts, he'll enjoy it.]