The rundown house looked like it was ready to fall at any moment. Gray, weathered planks lined the walls. The roof was covered in black tar paper, it's shingles long lost. Broken windows on all sides were blocked with rotting sheets of fiberboard, and grass and seedlings grew up through the front porch, as if no one had been there for months, years.
And yet, he knew.
Nine weeks ago, he happened to be in Tsunade's office giving a report when Shizune burst into the room with a dispatch from Kurenai’s team. They had uncovered more than rumors in the Rain village, and the paper in her hand held the exact coordinates. Soon, he had thought. Soon became later, became maybe never, as Tsunade seemed reluctant to investigate and he was in no position to argue the point.
Finally, he had insisted that she send any volunteers who chose to go despite the danger. To bring him back to the village. She only put up a token fight before crumbling into ascent and tears and he held her hand. I know.
He raised the same hand up now to signal a stop and felt his squad pause. "I'm going first." The pale eyes of his lieutenant bore into his back as he walked away, making the hairs of his neck stand on end. He wondered what Neji was thinking, but didn't ask. He was in there; that was all that mattered.
The door hung mostly by one hinge; it creaked on its frame as he ducked through, sparing a single glance at the team and holding up a hand. Five fingers. Five minutes before they followed.
With every step, the floorboards announced his presence, but the ceiling looked dubious at best for holding extra weight. Instead, he stopped trying to hide and walked slowly in the open, hoping to detect any traps before setting them off.
There were none. He frowned. It means nothing.
He cleared one room at a time, until he stood before what was surely the last door. His heart beat madly behind his ANBU armor; the crow-faced mask was stifling. What would Kakashi think now, if he were alive to witness how the sweat soaked through his gloves slipping on the handle? He did finally turn it, pushing the door, one hand holding a kunai, the other balled into a fist.
His eye fell first on a foot, standard issue shoes. Standard pants stained black with...pale hand, unmoving, scabbed and crusted symbols carved into the palm. The broad shoulders and shirtless back were marked and ruined by the same jagged lines.
Another step into the room, hands trembling. If there were enemies about, he knew he would never get a hit in. Another step and the kunai crashed to the floor altogether, along with his knees and hands and mask and tears; a cascade of silent grief. His vision filled with the back of a matted, bloody head of blond hair and no, I don't believe it.
He whispered "Naruto..." and received no answer. Expected none. They were too late. He was too late. Or worse, too careless. Naruto had probably died less than an hour before; his captors had detected them and fled, leaving their prisoner to bleed to death on the floor of the tumbledown house.
Sasuke closed his eye against the tears.
"Hey, teme, what happens if...I mean, we're both ANBU and it's sorta like a death wish, in a way...what if something happened..."
Sasuke scowled at his lover, but his expression softened when he saw how serious Naruto was being. "If I didn't come back, I'd want you to move on. You would want to come after me, find me, save me, but, listen, Naruto, I don't want your last memory of me to be..." He couldn't say it, but they both understood: a body with a single dead eye, the light gone out of it, blood and pale skin and not at all Sasuke.
"O-okay. I will, for you. And, Sasuke, if I--"
"Shut up, dobe. Nothing's going to happen to you." He pressed his lips to Naruto's, bidding silent farewell and be safe and come back to me and i love you. Then, he watched Naruto walk away, taking to the rooftops with a single wave.
At the time, Sasuke hadn't thought much on the matter. Now, he reminded himself he had never promised the same.
Kneeling in the detritus lining the floorboards, he crawled to Naruto's side, searching his body for evidence, his one remaining Sharingan--Kakashi's, Obito's--running over the marks, puzzling at the pattern. Remembering his team, Shikamaru would be there in minutes, he left the patterns and focused on saying goodbye.
I never told you I loved you. I know that you understood that I did, but I never told you, though you longed to hear it. And yet you stuck by me. You saved me so many times, in so many ways, and when it was time to return the favor, I failed. And now...now what do I do? Without you....fuck...without you...shit, Naruto....Naruto...
He let the tears fall for two minutes, savoring each drop of grief and pain that splashed onto Naruto's emaciated shoulder. Chewed, pale lips brushed a scarred cheek. And then it was over. The tears ended and Sasuke receded behind his masks once more--like Kakashi, the inner mask followed by the outer. As a last gesture, he removed a glove and closed Naruto's glassy eyes, bare fingers tangling one last time in damp hair, nesting there with no intention of letting go.
Except there was a noise and Sasuke remembered, again, the squad he'd left outside.
Neji entered first, Shikamaru and Kiba close on his heels, and all froze to stare at the scene before them. Sasuke leaned over his mate, chest heaving like a feral animal, eye wide, unseeing. Kiba pried Sasuke's fingers from Naruto's hair and helped him stand. Neji cut a few blond locks and tucked them away before helping Shikamaru copy down the marks on his back and hands. They did not tell Sasuke the extent of Naruto's abuse, nor the full spread of the carvings. It would have broken him even before they reached the village. He would read it in the official report, of course, but until then, they could spare him.
Outside, Hinata signaled that someone was approaching form a distance. Neji retrieved a scroll and draped it across Naruto's body.
Sasuke broke free of Kiba's grasp. "NO! Our orders are to bring him back to the village and that's what we'll do. We can't...we have to take him back!"
"Taichou, you know we can't do that. We must destroy...the body. The demon is already gone, but his body carries village secrets that could be used to--"
Kiba flinched when Sasuke threw a punch and yelled, "He wouldn't leave you behind! How can you leave him here?"
In the end, Shikamaru used an advanced form of shadow possession to remove Sasuke from the house while Neji completed the mission parameters and cleared away the evidence of their passing. It was Ino who talked sense into Sasuke and started them on the path back to the village: "What would he want you to do, Crow-kun? You're a ninja of Konoha; control those emotions until you've gotten home. He definitely wouldn't want you to die because you turned stupid."
Quietly, Sasuke said, "Of course. How foolish of me." If his voice was colder, harder than before, no one let on. He was again their captain and a sharply honed tool of the village. It was all they could ask. "Let's go."
I wasn't as strong as you needed me to be. In the end, Sasuke would never be strong enough for this.
...