Bastard, Friendship & Fire
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor do I own it's characters. I make no money with this.
Author's Note: Somewhat random, but hey, I'm trying not to bore you. ;D The slightest SA-warning imaginable for Part 27 -- it's there, yes, but really, just barely. xP The two other parts are kind of self-explanatory, I guess. So that's that.
____________
Part 27 - Bastard
____________
Really, Sasuke was one pricky bastard. That was a fact. And Naruto failed royally at getting used to it – Sakura could lecture him all she wanted, she wasn’t the one at the receiving end of Sasuke’s general assholeness.
In the past, Sasuke had at least been an asshole for certain reasons. One, he’d wanted to keep people at arm’s length, two, there had been a time when his vehement dislike of Naruto hadn’t been faked – not a long time, only a few seconds every now and then, but who cared? – and three, he’d been young and inexperienced and utterly incapable of dealing with his own emotions. Sucky reasons, yes, but reasons.
Nowadays, he was just being an asshole for the fucking sake of being an asshole...!
They were kind of seeing each other – what sane person would spent the better part of the whole day thinking up insults for the person they were fucking!? What made Sasuke’s attitude even more incomprehensible was the fact that they weren’t only fucking – Naruto knew Sasuke loved him in his own (sometimes not quite so logical) way. Why was he still so bent on making Naruto kick his face in?
Naruto didn’t get it. But that wasn’t something he would be losing sleep over – what made him scratch his head and wonder was the fact that while he still hit the roof every time Sasuke crossed The Line, it didn’t bother him anymore. Not much, at least.
What sane person got goose bumps from hearing his kind-of-lover throw insults at them!?
____________
Part 28 - Friendship
____________
Naruto knew friendship wasn’t something clearly defined.
With Sakura, friendship meant listening to each other, helping each other in every way possible. It meant cuddling and teasing each other about things no one else would be allowed to even talk about. It meant spending nights sleepless because of the other, worrying about them, and it meant talking over the phone for hours on end.
With Sakura, friendship was calm and quiet and filled with soft laughter and gentle smiles.
With Kiba, friendship meant sitting together, drinking beer that they technically weren’t even allowed to buy yet. It meant talking about everything and nothing, meant honesty and devotion, meant punches to the shoulder or slaps across the head. It meant laughing about jokes that weren’t even funny and watching films that they shouldn’t spend their money on.
With Kiba, friendship was loud and restless and full of barking laughter and head-splitting grins.
With Shikamaru or Neji, friendship meant letting them enjoy their peace most of the time and occasionally emptying a bucket of cold water over their heads or something equally brainless. With Kakashi, friendship meant stealing one of his books once in a while and then reading it out aloud in front of his new genin team. With Konohamaru, friendship meant teaching him useless and not so useless jutsu to impress his other friends with. With Hinata, friendship meant letting her watch him and poking her whenever he had the chance. With everyone else, friendship was different yet again.
With Sasuke, friendship was the thing that kept him from ripping his head off whenever he was being too much of a jerk. It also kept him from jumping him in public whenever he wasn’t.
____________
Part 29 - Fire
____________
Sasuke’s face was completely blank as he watched the single drop of blood run down the edge of his kunai to gather at the tip, then drip to the floor after a moment. The small, almost inaudible sound of the impact echoed though his head like thunder.
Across the room, the single candle on his night stand wavered. For an instant, it almost seemed like the darkness would win and swallow the tiny flame, but a flame never died without a reason. It kept fighting its hopeless fight against the shadows filling the room.
He blinked, then slowly tipped his head to the side, inspected the cuts on his wrist with detached fascination.
On his pale skin, the blood looked darker – thin lines of almost black liquid reflecting the warm light of the candle flame. It burned, pain buzzing up and down his arm with every heartbeat, but it probably wouldn’t kill him. He was fairly sure it would heal before he bled to death.
He sighed, the candle wavering again, and simply dropped the kunai.
That one candle was nowhere even close to being strong enough to actually lighten up the room. But Sasuke didn’t want the light.
He wanted the fire.
He needed the fire, just like he needed the pain, needed to feel he was still alive. He needed to know he was still here and able to fight on.
Sasuke needed to burn, because he needed to know he was still able to be like that candle, giving off fire when his light was too weak.
