Chapter Text
my soul wants its full share of you.
I tell it: endure.
— Dīwān, p. 56, ed. Hudā Wāʾil ʿĀmir (link)
The sun is setting when Naruto feels it.
He's just entering the Hokage Tower for a briefing with Sensei, after having returned from the academy and the endless meetings about changing the curriculum. He pivots on his heel and walks right back out of the door, step by step, until he passes through the gate. That's how long his composure lasts; in the next moment, he breaks into a run.
He feels like he'll burst with excitement, but also strangely settled. The intense restlessness he has been feeling since the afternoon— itching to pace around and do something instead of just sitting and talking— is finally gone.
The sky above him is fiery, the yellows and oranges of the setting sun coloring the clouds purple. It's a beautiful sunset. What's even more beautiful is the vibrance of Sasuke's chakra on the edges of the village, more potent than all the colors of the sky.
Naruto grins, lifting his nose in the air, and runs faster. Soon, soon Sasuke will cross the borders, and Naruto will catch his scent on the breeze coming from the forest.
&&&
It turned out that everything that had felt so easy and obvious when it was only the two of them at the end of the world got a little more complicated when it wasn't only the two of them anymore, and when the world kept spinning.
It was days of circling each other and being torn away to do their respective duties, but through it all, Naruto didn't miss Sasuke because it felt like there was finally time.
And then tension started building in Sasuke's shoulders, head lifting towards the sky when they were outside, eyes closing in pained grimaces. When he finally got pardoned and said he'd travel again, face open and tentative in a way it wasn't since the valley— well, no. A lie. Open and tentative in ways that it was— getting to be, more and more, and making Naruto's chest feel almost bruised, greedy for each time, and so so scared that each time would be the last, it... Well.
Naruto didn't say, can I come with, because it didn't feel like the right moment for him to leave the village, and it felt selfish to abandon it all for Sasuke again— especially without a life-threatening reason— so he bit down the words and said he's happy for Sasuke or something. Actually, he doesn't really remember what he said, but he does remember Sasuke's scent becoming crisp with anger, the air around them almost thick and humid, and the surprise on his face when Naruto came to say goodbye on the day of his departure.
Sasuke accepted their bond. But staying in Konoha made him jittery, incessantly tense in chakra and body language and scent. It was not what Naruto wished for him. Sasuke was caged in his revenge, then with Orochimaru, and then in Konoha, after the war ended. Naruto had understood, back then while awaiting the trial and watching Sasuke bound and his eyes sealed, that he could never cage him again. Sasuke was sitting like a docile animal in a prison he could've easily escaped if he'd wanted, and Naruto promised, if only to himself, that it would be the last prison he'd ever see.
(Naruto's cage, on the other hand, was self -made. There was a story about a bird that doesn't leave its cage even when the doors open. That was Naruto now, he supposed. Sasuke understood that in return, though he didn't always agree.)
So Sasuke was away nowadays too, but not lost. That would imply he had to be found again, but this time it was different. He was just away. Safe. Naruto kept saying that to himself in the moments when the absence would become too much, when the urge would reappear like a second heartbeat, thrumming within him— find Sasuke find Sasuke find Sasuke.
He'd written and come to the village several times since, for a sparse few days every time. He lays off the scent blockers since that time Naruto pitched a little fit for not being able to smell him.
&&&
Naruto can smell him now— nose high in the air, tracking like a hound— as soon as he steps a foot in Konoha. Distinctive scents: three days of journey, when he showered last, the soap he used to wash in the streams, the tea he made and the fire he built and the forest floor he slept on and the bark of a tree he was sitting against. Stale blood in the corner of his cloak, but not his.
And then, below the aromas of life and everyday things, there's Sasuke.
&&&
"We aren't even scent compatible," Sakura told him, once. They were drunk in a bar, all alone after the rest of their friends had disappeared for the night.
"Hm?" Naruto asked, interrupted from his stupor. "Say again?"
Underneath the roof edge, there was black sky like dark ink and shiny moon like pale skin. He dragged his eyes from the crescent, feeling lonely and cold despite the alcohol, down to Sakura.
She was all warmth, flushed high on her cheeks to match her hair. She held her chin propped up on a hand, twisting her glass with the other. "Sasuke. He smells like mud, or a storm," she finished with a pout, the words coming out whiny.
"What!?" Naruto yelled, dropping his hand on the table and trying to stand up. For what, he didn't know, but he had to—
Sakura's hand came out flash quick and dropped him back into his chair. "Sit!" She looked around with an apologetic face, and then continued, more silent but fast, the flush deepening on her cheeks. "I didn't say it's bad! It's just—there are more appealing scents! Why would you want your house to smell bitter, muddy, and stormy—"
"He doesn't smell like mud!" Naruto interrupted, indignant for reasons that seemed too far to grasp. "He smells like— like a garden! Why wouldn't you want your house to smell like a garden? It's a very comforting scent!"
When he recovered from the rush of the speech and looked at Sakura, she was wide-eyed and gaping, nodding slowly. Suddenly, it didn't seem like such a good idea for her to realise how good Sasuke smelled. Why, she should think it was ugly like mud.
He tried to inhale and check for himself why they'd be incompatible, but Sakura always smelled the same to him, familiar and pleasant. He also couldn't imagine a scent that would fit badly with Sasuke's, but that was an unwelcome thought. Besides, he'd always had a bad nose.
Maybe Sakura meant it because she was a beta. But Sakura wasn't like that, believing that alphas should stick with omegas and betas should stick together. Or maybe she was, and Naruto didn't know. The mysteries were too much for his brain. He patted her shoulder, to scent and soothe and apologise.
"But, of course," Naruto tripped to add, lifting a hand to scratch the back of his neck when the pause had become too long and awkward, "there are better scents. Mine! For example."
Sakura closed her mouth, but kept nodding, comically, like she was stuck in it. "Sure... Sure, Naruto."
&&&
Sasuke's base scent is dirty. Like musk and wet, fresh soil, a place where things grow and life. Warm and deep. When Naruto works with his plants, repoting and watering and nurturing them, his hands smell like Sasuke. It's somehow primitive, reminding him of summer rains hitting perched earth, something that Naruto feels like he'd be able to distinguish even mixed with a thousand other things, and probably not to everyone's taste. Some people smell like candy! But if Naruto could smell one thing until the end of his days, just one, and be scent blind for all the others, it would be—
When Sasuke's angry, something almost electric joins it, lightning and ozone and danger, a storm rolling in. Sometimes it's smoky, a trait which all Uchiha share. On rare occasions, it gets dark and woodsy and minty, an unidentifiable twist that makes Naruto's nostrils flare. He's greedy for knowing all of it, every note, each component, every mood and feeling, cataloguing carefully into his mind.
Naruto himself gets told he smells like a meadow. Like summer's day, sun-warmed skin, vanilla. A pleasant, quiet scent, easy to overlay with another, an empty canvas. Not very alpha-like.
&&&
Naruto almost crashes, tangled in his thoughts as he is.
Sasuke is standing in a clearing in front of him, leaning on a tree. If he weren't breathing just a little quick, and wasn't flushed the barest amount, he'd look like he was on a casual stroll, there by accident.
Naruto has to take a violent stop, which he turns into a flip or three to ease the momentum. When he lands and straightens up, he's right in front of Sasuke, and that wasn't exactly his intention when he jumped, but it makes his chest puff with silly pride.
Sasuke smiles with a corner of his lips, a precious fold that Naruto tracks with his eyes, and then he has to keep tracking all the other things. Sasuke's poncho is peeking out from his pack, the vest underneath familiar and creased from use and travel. He has a tunic sleeve rolled up, forearm unwrapped, bare, somehow thicker than the last time they saw each other. His pants are thinning at the knees. The sword is on his back, he's healthy and tall and uninjured, and then there's his face.
Naruto's convinced he started wearing the headscarf recently to train his hair to stay down. He looks good with it, though, so Naruto won't complain. The Rinnegan is halfway covered, and Naruto is getting used to that, too.
Sasuke is distractingly flushed; he must've been rushing. The stupid jerk, pretending to be aloof as always.
Naruto has been grinning— well, probably for a while, but he grins even harder.
"When did you last sleep?" Sasuke interrupts his appraisal rudely.
His voice is distracting too, deep and husky, and then he clears his throat like he hasn't spoken for a while. His scent is the most distracting, and Naruto sways forward from where he can't help bouncing on his toes—
Naruto only remembers the question when a thin eyebrow lifts to enunciate it. He lands back on his heels, which shouldn't feel like it takes effort. "Last night," he replies cheerfully, because Sasuke didn't ask when he last slept the full night.
Sasuke scoffs and then makes a step, which brings them to only a step apart. He raises the thing he must've been holding all the while, which Naruto can't be at fault for not noticing, because there was a forearm above it. "A pen," Sasuke says, pushing the parcel into Naruto's hands.
Naruto is finding it hard to look away from his face, now very close and glowing from the sun exposure, so his fingers clash with the box, bending awkwardly. "A— what?"
Sasuke looks away, tilting his chin towards the ground, so his hair falls and covers his visible eye too. "A pen. You wrote that you hated the one you have because of the leaks. It's a good pen. I know the man who made it."
Naruto stumbles over the words, unsure how to talk around the warmth that rises from his stomach. "T— thank you. I— I really needed this," he says, pulling it close to his chest, barely stopping his hands from clenching around the filmsy wrapping. The gift is breakable! Sasuke must've wrapped it himself. "Soon you wouldn't even be able to read the words from the old one, what with the smudging. I meant to replace it, but I—"
"It's fine," Sasuke cuts off, neck straightening with something pleased, scent going lighter and pooling all around them. "You said. I got it."
"Yeah, yeah." Naruto grins, flustered, trying not to sway into him. Has he always smelled like this? "Anyway! It's only fair that I buy you dinner! Come on, come on. We have places to be!" He folds a hand around Sasuke's elbow to tug him with, unable to endure the distance anymore.
Letting his wrist brush the tender skin there is just another indulgence, as their scents mingle.
&&&
The late night finds them on the training grounds, after they've had dinner and left Sasuke's scant stuff in Naruto's apartment, put his laundry to wash, and done basic weapon maintenance. Sasuke doesn't have property in Konoha; he didn't want it anymore. His clan grounds are now a newly built orphanage, he said it's a good use of the land, as his people didn't want to live segregated in the first place, and there's no need for it to sit empty.
These days, they spar whenever Sasuke returns, but it's not fighting for the sake of fighting. Just connecting, or— reconnecting. When he was younger, Naruto didn't know, couldn't put into words what he wanted from Sasuke when he would say fight. Now he knew; it was just this— a way to connect and communicate and bond. To know each other's hearts. To reaffirm: I see you. I know you. I understand you.
Most of the time, it's taijutsu only, on Naruto's great pleasure and bane. It allows them to take notice of the ways their bodies change, apart and together. Sasuke's style shifts every time they meet now, as he grows more and more adjusted and comfortable with one arm. His shoulders grow broader and his chest stronger, compensating for the lack. He shoots up again. His thighs fill up the pants he wears. Sometimes he even changes into shorts, and Naruto has to take care not to get distracted.
They're similarly built, but Naruto is still broader, if only a little in the torso area, and it would make him preen if he had the time or the brain capacity. Old habits— as he was posturing with Sasuke before he knew what posturing was.
Now, to have Sasuke in front of him like this, he thinks it's a luxury he'll never get used to. His body reacts in strange ways, but he can't even blame it. And the longer he has Sasuke close and there for inspection, the worse it gets.
Naruto doesn't get to see and catalogue at first because he only has the time to feel and respond. But it gets easier as they grow into a rhythm. Then he does notice the subtle change in Sasuke's centre of balance, in his footwork. Each time Naruto thinks Sasuke's body can't get any more honed, and each time he's wrong. Sasuke just gets better and Naruto always has to be on his toes.
Taijutsu isn't very demanding, but they tire over time. As the hits slow and the strength behind them diminishes, Sasuke's calculations stop and he gets reduced to instinct alone. It's a satisfying push and pull, meeting each other halfway, hit for a hit. Eventually, it turns into simple wrestling, and they end up rolling around on the ground, trying to get the upper hand. Sasuke is very slippery, and Naruto isn't easy to hold in place either, so they keep falling to get the upper hand too.
They aren't beyond dirty fighting— the dull ache in Naruto's kidney is a testament to that— so when he has to dig a knee into Sasuke's stomach to break free, he doesn't feel too bad about it.
It's a bit later, when, almost by an unspoken agreement, they pull away and fall on their backs next to each other. Their last two fights had ended in a draw, too, so this time Naruto hoped to win. He isn't even that fatigued that he couldn't continue, but there's a pleasant feeling coursing through his body, a calmness after movement well made, an earned ehxaustion of used muscle. It's a good time to stop, even if it means a third tie.
Naruto sits up, sweaty and panting, too hot in his shirt. It must've been hours, and the nights are still somewhat warm with the last traces of lingering summer. He pulls off the garment and tosses it aside, leaning his forehead on a knee to catch his breath.
Sasuke's scent abruptly changes. New tones showing up, rich and alluring, reminding Naruto of training and fight, of trees zinged with dragon fire jutsu, and Sasuke's skin smelling of smoke. Before Naruto even realises it, he's hard and salivating, and the rush of blood and desire leaves him lightheaded. He inhales again, and it's indecent; he wants to drown in it and never arise again.
When he twists around to look at Sasuke, not fully grasping what's happening, he's dishevelled and breathing hard, staring intently at Naruto's bare back. His eyes trace the lines known to him alone, leaving behind pathways of heat and fire which Naruto shudders with. It lasts for a moment, and then Sasuke rises on his hand and leans forward and—
Sasuke kisses him.
Naruto's mouth opens and catches on a moan and there's tongues and then they're kissing.
It's too short because the pheromones on his tongue are too rich and too strong; he can't suppress a growl as he feels his hackles rising. His instincts war between drawing back or leaning forward, and he's suspended in a moment where something very precious hangs in the balance. They both go still.
The next breath Naruto takes is painful, Sasuke's scent acrid in his nostrils, like all other scents were when he first presented, and he stops breathing immediately because it hurts like it's eating at his throat and windpipe. He didn't notice when his hair started standing on end, when his lip lifted to bare a tooth, but it's all happening and Naruto suddenly doesn't know if he wants Sasuke that close to his vulnerable mouth.
But it's Sasuke, and the thought of him pulling away makes something inside of Naruto shrivel in panic. And that something is a lot stronger and louder. Naruto inhales again, forcibly, drawing air in through his nose. The cloying new scent is still there, mixing with familiar confrontation and aggression. He almost feels a zing as the reality of it connects; the smell in the air and the taste in his mouth are all the same and all Sasuke, and that decides it as he unintentionally sways into the addictive source, his nose still burning.
Sasuke isn't ready to hold them both up and his elbow buckles. Naruto follows him down, wrapping an arm around his waist to slow the landing, laughing into his scoff.
He cups Sasuke's face in a hand and kisses him more, growing bolder when Sasuke lifts a hand to drag his wrist all over Naruto's neck, scenting him there. Scenting him there! They kiss and kiss and kiss, it occupies all of Naruto's brainpower. He moves his hands wherever he can reach, discovering what makes Sasuke shift and bite and hiss and moan and sigh and what stops his brain too and pauses the movement of his mouth. They kiss until it becomes too wet and uncomfortable, until their fangs have sharpened and started hurting, and then they kiss more.
When Naruto's knees start protesting the hard ground, he drags away with some difficulty, can't help nudging their noses together on the way, and finally looks at Sasuke. He's breathing hard and it takes him several moments to focus, hand clenching and unclenching on Naruto's nape. Beads of sweat glisten on his forehead, the wetness in his armpits obscene in Naruto's nose, directly linked with his dick, which throbs. Sasuke's Sharingan activates with a blink— lazy, indulgent spins of tomoe— and disappears in the next.
Naruto waits for the strangeness he's felt before, with a handful of other people, to come, but his body knows what to do in relation to Sasuke's, even here, even now. He gives himself to it and finds that the impulses all come naturally.
He removes his headwrap, pulling a hand through the hair as it immediately sticks up at the top, even though it's sweaty and wet. It's very soft to the touch, softer than Naruto would've imagined. Not that he had imagined! He tucks the strands covering the Rinnegan behind a red ear, though it's not really long enough yet to stay there, and smiles when Sasuke's entire face is revealed. He's the most beautiful thing Naruto has ever seen, with his swollen, wet lips and half-lidded eyes and deep color on his cheeks, debauched and smelling divine. He lost his scarf in the fight and his tunic is skewed, his collarbones sharp and the tips of his shoulders sun kissed. He's so hot that Naruto forgets himself, just keeps staring. Like a revelation, he can now magically understand all the corny, embarrassing phrases from icha icha. Kisses did make your chest flutter and moans could sound like wind chimes and scents absolutely made you forget your name.
Until Sasuke frowns and snaps, "What?!" His upper lip stiffing with irritation, he orders, "Kiss me."
Naruto does. He kisses his uncovered eye and then the other one, and then can't not kiss an eyebrow and a temple and a cheekbone, warm beneath his lips, as Sasuke's scent blooms all around them…
Sasuke bucks, out of nowhere, and flips them over while Naruto isn't expecting it. "You're— too much," he says, on top of Naruto now.
Naruto opens his mouth to argue, but then Sasuke follows it up with a slow, dirty grind that brings their dicks into contact through the clothes, and his brain short-circuits. He's been hard maybe since they kissed or maybe since they fought or maybe since Sasuke licked the sauce from the corner of his mouth at dinner or maybe since Sasuke's scent reached his nose or maybe since Sasuke's chakra brushed the borders of Konoha. Or maybe his entire life. He can't tell, and it's not important.
It all gets blurry after that; they just rut against each other, movement becoming more and more desperate.
"Good?" Sasuke asks, taunting and smug.
It is good, good enough that Naruto is finding it hard to rise to the challenge, so he settles for dragging Sasuke back down and shutting him up with tongue. They kiss and then they can't anymore, and then it's just Sasuke panting and drooling into Naruto's open mouth. Naruto is getting very close, when something suddenly changes.
He doesn't know what it is. He shuffles, grinds, fucks up, squeezes Sasuke's neck and ass too hard with hands that grew claws. It's all useless. He feels like the heat will swallow him whole. He growls, bares his teeth into Sasuke's face, overwhelmed with unfamiliar need to— to— to what? The growl tapers off into a whine, his movement growing too erratic and shuffling Sasuke, who loses his balance and crashes on top of Naruto. They both yelp.
"Squeeze it," Sasuke mumbles into his shoulder. "Come on, you gotta—" he says, trying to rise on his hand again. "Squeeze it, dumbass, squeeze, come—"
It takes time and effort to focus. "What— what?" Naruto mumbles, moving his arm automatically to hold onto Sasuke's and help prop him on his elbow. The whine won't subside in his throat and his toes curl into the ground as his hips continue snapping up on their own, uncoordinated. His hipbone collides with Sasuke's sharp one and Naruto whines again, louder, and he needs— he— something's missing! He has to—
"Squeeze it!" Sasuke snaps, his voice getting low with it, his scent sharp and prodding with the urge to soothe, fix the problem. "Get your hand around it, squeeze."
It's instinct to snap back, but it only further muddles Naruto's too muddled thoughts. "Get my— what? Get your hand around— bastard! What?"
"I don't have another hand! Idiot, idiot—" Sasuke snaps again, and Naruto growls in warning and then stops when Sasuke brings his hand in front of Naruto's face and… spits.
Then Sasuke's hand does disappear between them, but it causes his full weight to fall right back onto Naruto. They crash hard, even harder than earlier, and all the air seems to leave Naruto's lungs when Sasuke's shoulder hits them.
"Aren't you a ninja— bastard— where's your balance—" he tries to wheeze out, and then. Can't.
"You're good," Sasuke replies nonsensically, sounding dazed and distracted, voice mumbled from where his face ended up in Naruto's neck.
It is good— because Sasuke wraps a clumsy hand around his— his knot! That's what it was— and squeezes, it feels too good. Naruto moans and, at the same time, tries to inhale so much that he chokes on it. The wave of pleasure that crashes over him is like nothing else he's ever felt in his life. He sticks his nose into Sasuke's sweaty hair and rides it, rides it for what feels like eternity, shaking and tingling all over.
But then he needs more. Sasuke's grip is awkward at first, too hard, and then not firm enough. It certainly doesn't help that Naruto's hips keep jerking up and shaking them without his control. Then Sasuke shifts and finds more liquid— now leaking from Naruto in steady amounts— returns and twists his wrist, and all at once it's perfect.
Sasuke smells smoky and victorious and smug, possessive, and Naruto wants to smack him over the head, but instead his hand tangles in the mess of his hair and he drags it closer to his face. Sasuke's palm is calloused from the sword and his dick is a hot weight on Naruto's thigh and his wrist is awkwardly poking into Naruto's belly and he's using Naruto's chest as a shoulder prop to gain leverage and it's all too… real. Naruto feels like he'll shake apart with it, so he drags Sasuke closer closer as close as it can get, and when Sasuke's canines graze and then close around his collarbone, it's like something else locks too.
That must be Naruto's knot fully forming, and his dick starts feeling too hot and too full, like it'll explode. Naruto makes noises that he didn't know his throat could produce.
Sasuke's harsh breaths cut off, he makes a tinny sound, like it's torn from him, and in two shakes of his body there's wetness spreading on Naruto's thigh. It matches the drool on his neck, which he feels only then as it trails down, tickling, coating his scent glands. The scent hits him next, sharp and bitter, of Sasuke's cum, and that's what drags his own orgasm to the surface.
He trashes with his full body and comes. It does feel like an explosion, because he comes and comes and comes. It's never-ending.
And Sasuke is Sasuke. He's a fucking dick who smells like he won a competition or a prize, and fucking laughs. This new, grown, mature Sasuke with skin goldening in unfamiliar ways doesn't mean the old one has ceased to exist. That the one from Naruto's memories is a hallucination. This new Sasuke and that old Sasuke are still just Sasuke: the one Naruto knows, has always known, will always know.
Naruto feels delirious with the knowledge, and also vaguely like he might cry. He settles for nosing into Sasuke's temple. "Sa-suke," he croaks there, and it comes out broken and a little strangled.
He feels like the world fell apart around him, and then all the pieces shifted around to accommodate Sasuke in the middle of it. But also not, because the world had Sasuke at its center since Naruto had known it.
"Hn. I know," Sasuke agrees around a mouthful of collarbone.
&&&
The first time Naruto had smelled Sasuke after they'd both presented, they were in Orochimaru's destroyed hideout and Sasuke's blockers must've broken underneath the stress.
He remembers catching the whiffs of Sasuke's scent as it happened, Sasuke standing too close and Naruto grabbing his bicep, pulling it even closer. He opened his mouth to taste as he needed more of it, but it was only just breaking through and too faint to identify as anything other than the way Sasuke should smell. There was also his sweat, sharp and distinctive.
And then… things got complicated, as they often did with them. Sasuke only later wrinkled his nose, having not even realised that everyone could smell him, like his own scent was unfamiliar.
One day, when he's in a good mood, Naruto will tell him that story, so he can find it funny and not guilt-inducing or something.
The point is: ever since that time, Naruto has wanted to know. To know all the nuances of that scent.
As they're catching their breaths, so enmeshed they're almost indistinguishable from each other, Sasuke smells the best he ever has. Naruto can't resist tucking his nose into his neck, and he doesn't even flinch! Sniffles a little, and continues scenting Naruto back.
&&&
It's an undetermined amount of time later when Naruto remembers.
The sky above them is lightening towards a dawn. They've wiped and dressed and tried to get back in order and sat next to each other, breathing. Then Sasuke started smelling like he's stewing in something, while Naruto only had pleasant thoughts, which then turned unpleasant too, and it was like the shutters lifting.
"Shit, anyone could've seen!" Naruto says, too late.
He didn't sense anyone, and something in his brain was agitated that they're out in the open, but he's realising all that only now. And what if ANBU—
"There was nobody," Sasuke says. "I wrote a note to Kakashi when I decided to come, I didn't drop in unannounced. Nobody's watching us."
Naruto believes him. It was still stupid, and he makes his thoughts known. "It was stupid anyway. The next time—"
And well. Naruto may not have been thinking of the implications when he said it, but Sasuke has no reason to turn around and look at him so venomously.
Also, it's kinda counterproductive because if Naruto's dick could possibly get hard after all that, it would at the look. Like this, it gives a feeble twitch. He can't mask the excited spike in his scent, though.
Sasuke's face only goes surer, the venom in his eyes turning into sharp daggers. "The next time?"
"Well… yeah?" Naruto says, ignoring the cold reality trying to settle around him. It doesn't work for long, as Sasuke only keeps staring, so he sighs and tucks his knees close to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "Why did you come today, Sasuke?"
"I couldn't... wait anymore." He sounds like the words cost him, but he soldiers on. "I sensed your chakra and I missed you." He turns his head away from Naruto again.
Naruto is left staring into the back of it, where a dry leaf has tangled into the strands. He doesn't remove it, squeezing his fist instead. He was in the forest yesterday, in sage mode. It's like a muscle that he occasionally has to stretch, but it probably left behind a lot of chakra. Sasuke is no sensory ninja, and yet they've always felt each other.
"I went around that place ten times trying to catch your scent, but you were on blockers, and then— To keep drawing these pointless lines in the sand is to keep lying to ourselves and each other. I won't do that anymore. I wanted to try to make it clear what this is. To me. So that if you chose something else, it's undeniable."
Naruto thinks, irrationally, that he felt less pain when Sasuke put a hand through his chest. He imagines, then, that it's normal that he feels short of breath, like he might faint or throw up. It doesn't stop him from arguing. "Sasuke... When have I ever—?"
"No. I want you to think about this. It's— important to me. I don't want you to decide in haste. There are things— this village chokes me, you know this. In the same way, I know that you want it to be your home. We'd have to compromise on many things, probably. You should consider yourself and your future. If you say no— you won't... You won't lose me. I'll always protect you. When you're Hokage, I'll protect your legacy. I'll do whatever you need me to. I'll be your... friend. Forever."
It's admirable how his voice remains steady through that, when Naruto feels like he could hyperventilate and die any moment. He twists the words in his head hoping they'll start making sense, but that doesn't happen. "And if I say yes?" he asks, voice coming out impatient, as that was the thing he fixated on.
"If you say yes," Sasuke starts, smirk forming as he looks sideways at Naruto.
Naruto doesn't know what his face is doing, but when Sasuke lays eyes on it, the smirk dies on his lips and he looks away, abrupt.
When he speaks next, he sounds practiced, in that particular way like he's trying to detach from the words as he's saying them, to seem unfazed. "If you say yes… There is— there won't be anyone else for me. That's obvious. I want the same."
He wants it all, Naruto deduces. Courting and playing and biting and mating.
Sasuke's scent is the only thing betraying his aloofness, blooming all around them like new growth and hope and all the other beautiful and dizzying things.
That's what gives Naruto the confidence to nod.
They return to Naruto's apartment. Naruto has to go to work as soon as he showers, and Sasuke has to report to Kakashi-sensei and finish some jobs in Konoha. Replace weapons, stock up on food, all the regular things. He'll come to say goodbye when he's about to leave, which he has to— as he told Naruto back while they were having dinner— because he's attending a meeting with some merchants in Suna in two days. He wasn't even meaning to stop in Konoha for this detour.
It takes a couple of hours. Naruto stops by the orphanage and grabs breakfast, meets with Shikamaru to take some documents from him, holds a lecture at the academy, and returns to the Hokage tower. He doesn't think of Sasuke. He reads a million papers feeling in a daze, all before Sasuke finds him.
He comes to say he's leaving. As per their agreement. Of course, he'll come back. Naruto knows this, because Sasuke tells him in Kakashi's office. Neither of them notices when Kakashi leaves the said office.
Naruto gets a necklace pendant and a kiss that leaves him vaguely dazed and makes his knees buckle. He's holding onto the desk not to fall, when Sasuke's rinnegan flashes and he disappears, the warmth of his thumb fresh on Naruto's cheek.
Showoff.
Naruto had made Sasuke a new blend of calming tea from his apartment garden, which he meant to give to the reclusive, jumpy bastard, and couldn't be at fault for forgetting. He puts the new pendant on a chakra-resistant thread, and ties it around his wrist. Inside are strands of Sasuke's hair, smelling very strongly and mouth-wateringly of him.
If Naruto gets to sitting and working with his elbow on the table and his chin propped up on his hand, it's nobody's business but his own.