Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Sector Five	By : FlairForTheVeil Category: Naruto AU/AR > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 2291 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor its characters. Rightful ownership belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit of this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
Chapter 9: Motor Skills

His eyes pried themselves open and he rolled over, becoming more tangled in blankets and purring into his sleeping bag. Naruto’s eyes wondered over to Sasuke, who looked a bit flustered in his sleep and kept mumbling something to himself. The boy scowled in his sleep and cursed.
Naruto relaxed for a few moments, listening to the raven’s hushed words and sighs before propping himself up on his elbows and sitting on his knees, letting his blankets fall around his hips and shivering in the cold. He unfolded a knot that had formed in his boxer leg and stood up, shimmied back into his jeans and opened the flap of their tent. He nearly shoved his foot into one of Sasuke’s boots before noting that it was black and smaller. He put on his own shoes and meandered over to the alert group that had formed around the fire, laughing and chatting with a few new faces.
Konohamaru was dozing off with his back propped against the log, a forgotten bowl of oats sliding in his lap. The girls of the camp were calmly chatting, probably doing the “girl talk” Karin had wondered aloud sometimes and touching her red hair to exclaim about how long and smooth it was. Karin looked delighted to be in their presence and Naruto felt happy for her that she could have her own little group of friends. Kiba was sleeping on Akamaru’s stomach, his feet outstretched to the fire and snoring loudly. Neji stood up to offer him a granola bar and a cup of orange juice that he gladly accepted and sat next to Shino to eat.
“Naruto?” a plump boy with red cheeks and long brown hair barreled over to him to slap his back and knock him to his knees with the force. “’Ya ass! Thought you were done for!”
He choked and glared at the boy. “W-what the hell!” He wheezed and stood up. “Who the f-“
“Chouji,” Tenten chided and slipped between the boys. “I guess you haven’t talked to Tsunade,” she hissed to him and grabbed him by the ear. “Sorry, Naruto, he’s got something to do!” She yelled and tugged Chouji to the entrance of the camp.
The blond scratched the back of his head and drained his cup of juice, frowning into the leftover pulp swirling around it. He really wished that he could remember these people, but like Tsunade and Sakura said, apparently he had some memories that he’d probably want to forget. But then again, like Kakashi said, only time would reveal their trustworthiness.
He decided that he was feeling a bit alone and when he turned around to go wake up Sasuke, he bumped into a face with sea green eyes with heavy bags under them. The small boy in front of him had fiery red hair that matched Karin’s and a frightening aura that Naruto could practically see curling around him.
“Eh, sorry,” he said and stepped away from the boy, heading back towards the tents when iron fingers locked around his wrist and stopped him in his tracks. Naruto slowly turned his head back, becoming slightly scared when he saw that it was the same red-haired boy he had bumped into.
“Uh… yeah?” He tried to shake his wrist free but the boy didn’t loosen his grip. Green eyes bored into his own blue and he could feel a cold sweat brim his scalp.
“I said sorry,” Naruto said, this time a bit louder and tried to yank his hand away from the boy. “Hey, dude, let me go, I said sorry!” his eyebrows furrowed and this time his voice raised even more.
“Gaara,” a hand rested itself on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed. “I see you found Naruto already.”
Naruto raised startled eyes to Jiraiya and held up his right hand. “He won’t let me go!”
Jiraiya’s knuckles tightened to the point that it looked painful and Gaara let his wrist go. Naruto yanked his hand to his waist and rubbed it with his other, surprised at how tight the boy’s grip had been and glared at him.
“Naruto, I don’t blame you,” Jiraiya said. “I would be startled if he grabbed me like that, too. Knock it off, boy,” he turned to Gaara and wacked him on the back.
“Naruto, Gaara was your best friend during the time that you were here,” Jiraiya announced and crossed his arms. “Gaara, play nice. Naruto has lost his memories.” The man walked away and Naruto was tempted to hug his leg to bring him back.
Gaara crossed his arms and stared at Naruto some more. Now he was definitely in a cold sweat, he whined to himself and hunched his shoulders. The other boy made no movements whatsoever and stared at him unblinkingly for a few more moments.
Naruto shifted and scratched his arm, looking down at his boot and scuffing the toe into moist grass. Usually, yes, he would be more talkative, but this boy had just started on the wrong foot with him and gave him a funny vibe.
The blond sucked his cheeks in and continued to avert his eyes, digging a small “c” into the ground with his shoe. He praised Kami in his mind when he felt familiar thin fingers wrap around his bicep and looked down at Sasuke, who was looking down at Gaara with a frown.
“What’s going on here?” He grumbled. “Naruto, have you-“
“Oh, dear!” Naruto yelled in his stage voice and held a hand up dramatically. “Your iron is low!”
“What? What the fuck-“
“Oh, no, Sasuke! Nooooo!” He droned and dragged the raven by his waist to the bonfire and shoved him onto a vacant log.
“What the fuck are you doing!” Sasuke swiped at his chest. “Whatever it is, knock it the hell off!”
Naruto pictured a fluffy black kitten hissing with its nails out in his mind and barely prevented the corners of his lips from turning up. Sasuke’s clothes looked a bit ruffled and he well rested, but no matter how good of a morning it was the boy was not one of those people.
The raven stood up and accepted the granola bar handed to him by Karin and pocketed it. “I was going to offer to teach you how to shoot today, but since you just want to mess around-“
“No!” Naruto cried and flailed his arms. “I’ll be good, I promise! Teach me how!”
“You’re too riled up today-“
Naruto pouted and clamped his hands together. “Please?”
Sasuke glared at him. “I’m not kidding when I say that it’s going to be hands-on. We’ll be hunting and handling Katons-“
“I know!” Naruto wheezed. “I’ll calm down and pay attention, I promise!”
“You promise?” Sasuke eyed him and set his lips in a straight line. “It’s not fun and games.”
“I get that!” the blond snapped. “I’ll take it seriously.”
Sasuke was silent for a few moments. “Fine. Meet me by the car and don’t tell anyone where you’re going, just say you’re getting some blankets or something. I’m going to change.”
Naruto discreetly pumped his fist in victory and ambled to the entrance of the camp, remembering that Kakashi had gone straight past it and then turned to the right. He kicked at a few stray gravel pebbles and bathed in his own enthusiasm, anticipating what Sasuke was going to teach him how to shoot and whether he’d be good or not. When he saw another clearing to his right he turned into it, bouncing in his steps when he saw the black SUV hidden behind some brush and jogging over to it.
The blond rubbed his hands together and shivered a bit. The temperature was well below freezing, he noticed. Maybe about fifteen or twenty degrees. He absently wondered why animals hadn’t been holing up in the ground and flinched when a fleck of icy rain hit his cheek and froze on it. He batted it off and looked at the wet spot on his tan fingers, wondering if Sasuke would cancel their lessons because it had started to rain a bit. His eyes widened when a piece of dandruff landed in his hand. Damn!
He shook his hair wildly and opened his eyes to see a bit more dandruff fly out, staring at the white flecks in horror and turning away from them.
But he was met with more white flecks. Actually, they were falling all around the whole clearing. He gaped at the gentle flurry of white and held his hand out again, a single snowflake landing in his palm and melting before he could inspect it. He caught another and studied its thread-like structure before it melted into another small puddle and was replaced with three more. Naruto looked up into the sky to watch a sphere of sprinkles float down and pelt the ground, sticking to each other and looking soft.
Suddenly Sasuke was in front of him, annoyed and brushing past him to open the trunk of the SUV and clamber into the trunk. He had changed into a pair of well-fitting dark jeans, the blond noted.
“It’s snowing!” Naruto cried and poked his friend in the butt, his hand being slapped away to continue rummaging.
“I see that,” Sasuke grunted and tossed him two duffel bags, one black and one made of burlap. He crawled out of the trunk to bring a plastic storage box with him that appeared to be full of blankets. “I’ll give you one of Itachi’s old coats,” he said and nodded at the blond to open the container. He hesitated and lifted the lid off of it, Sasuke’s hand immediately diving into it and producing a dark brown bomber coat with tan wool lining it. The raven shoved it into his chest and pushed the container back into the SUV, shutting the trunk door and picking up the burlap duffel bag on the ground. He nodded at the other one and slipped Kusanagi into the duffel bag.
Naruto shrugged the coat on that fit a bit too big and picked up the black duffel bag, nearly doubling over with its weight and wheezing.
“Do you have a body in here?” he grunted and carried it like a baby, grimacing at Sasuke.
“No, they’re guns,” he sniffed and turned to the thick woods away from the camp. “We have a long way to go so they won’t hear the shots. Come on.”
“How much?” Naruto tripped over a thick root hidden under a bush and cursed.
“Hn,” Sasuke shook his hair of snow and scrunched his nose. “I’d say five miles minimum. Sound travels faster in cold air and the ground here is flat, so even then they’d probably have a good chance of hearing us. But, we don’t want to travel too far out in case we get lost.”
“Aw,” Naruto squished his foot on a lush mushroom and paled when it emitted a rancid smell.
“Don’t do that,” Sasuke reprimanded and held his hand over his nose. “Damn.”
The blond snickered a bit and rubbed his sole off on the bark of a tree. “Hey, Sasuke, how do you know what you know?”
“How do I know what I know.” Sasuke repeated and tilted his head to the side, letting Naruto catch up to him to stroll by his side.
“Yeah,” Naruto said and held his hands in the air. “Like what you just said, about sound travelling. And what you’ve told me about animals and what people used to be into.”
Sasuke hummed and stepped over a tree root. “Books. Picked them up from the side of the road, snuck into bookstores when I told Itachi that I was just checking out a dead Katon or something. People had a lot of magazines, too, which just had things like recipes and furniture in them. House furniture, what people decorated their houses with.”
Naruto made a small “o” with his mouth and nodded. “What did guys like us like? Were they perverts like Kakashi?”
The raven frowned. “Well, the only thing I could find was that they liked girls. And sports, they weren’t too shallow.”
“Wow,” Naruto whispered. “That sounds kind of boring. I like being out here. And frogs. Frogs are cool. And talking to you,” he confided and smiled softly.
Sasuke felt his ears turn hot at that last comment. “I like nature, too, and snakes and cats. And, um, I like talking to you, too.”
The blond smiled broadly at him and chattered again. Sasuke’s neck didn’t stop getting hotter and hotter once he saw his straight teeth and his cheeks heated up, but he hoped Naruto dismissed it as a flush of the cold. He cursed himself and willed the damn blush to go down, but it persistently stayed as it was and only his ears cooled down at the gravelly quality of Naruto’s voice.
One of the few times he had blushed like this was when he accidentally walked in on Karin changing her shirt in the woods when they were fourteen, braless and screeching when she saw him. It wasn’t much of a sight to see, but nonetheless it proved the female anatomy he had studied in a science part of a bookstore. The other time was when Itachi had wandered into his area of the woods when he had been taking care of private business over a year ago. The only other time was when they were twelve and he and Suigetsu were the only ones left in an old swimming pool’s showers and the boy had told him about boners and getting rid of them on his own through the curtain of his shower, then had gotten it up just when Sasuke was becoming annoyed and slammed the curtain open. Sasuke had run away like the place was going to explode and complained to Itachi and Kakashi about the vulgarity. Kakashi had just laughed and patted his shoulder, a strange gleam in his eye and Itachi had taken pity on him and given him “the talk.” Frankly, it was a memory he didn’t like resurfacing and one that made his face feel like it was on fire.
“Hey,” Naruto called and frowned down at him. “Are you okay? You’re all red…”
“I’m fine,” he managed and nearly choked at a horrible continuation of the memory when Karin had told him and Juugo about female functions. The tall boy had thrown up on Kakashi’s leg and Karin had only sniggered and made fun of them for being so skittish.
Naruto made a worried sound and paused in his steps before a massive tree trunk that was at least a good five feet tall, scratching the back of his neck and looking a bit uncomfortable as well. “Are you… constipated or something? ‘Cause if you need any privacy or something, I can-“
“No,” Sasuke deadpanned and rolled his eyes heavily. “I was just… remembering things that I’d rather not. Ever.”
“Oh,” Naruto dragged out and grinned. “Well, are you ‘gonna spill?”
“No,” Sasuke repeated and scowled. “I just said I don’t-“
“Please?” the blond whined and gave him a pleading look. “You’re the only one that talks to me around here, the others treat me like I’m-“
“Oh, stop with the guilt trip. Fine,” he grumbled and stared at the tree trunk in front of them. Naruto swung a leg over the trunk and hoisted himself over it, grunting when he landed and setting his elbow on the top of it. He held out a hand to Sasuke and he grabbed it with his own clammy one, digging his foot into the bark of the trunk and leaping over it. Naruto supported his weight when he landed and they continued walking, the forest becoming thicker in growth and lusher.
“Well, I was thinking about several things, but…” Sasuke started, and then relayed the memory of Karin first, Naruto grimacing the whole story through.
“I kind of figured that when she sent me out for her stuff,” he scrunched his nose.
“Yeah, yeah, I was there.”
“Don’t get so smart. What else were you thinking about?”
“Yeah, whatever,” he grumbled. He was about to open his mouth to tell him about Itachi walking in on him relieving stress, but decided to keep that story to himself and told the one about Suigetsu.
That ended up with Naruto throwing his head back in laughter and stamping his feet, catching snowflakes in his mouth and gasping for air. He doubled over and clutched his stomach, cackling and struggling for breath.
“Shut up,” Sasuke said and tucked some of his bangs behind his ear. “I was only twelve, I literally almost died of embarrassment.”
Naruto stood up and let out a soft wail, rubbing a single tear from his left eye and catching his breath.
Sasuke sniggered a bit despite himself and realized the hilarity of his prudishness during his preteen years. He laughed at himself along with Naruto’s rebirthed chuckles when he remembered Itachi’s deadpan face during the whole lecture.
He smiled softly when Naruto’s shoulders gently shook with suppressed laughter, stepping over a peculiar large rock.
They walked in silence for a few more minutes until Naruto almost looked nostalgic for memories that wouldn’t resurface. “Hm,” he murmured and studied the moss handing over their heads. “Um, speaking of that, have you ever… you know…”
Genuinely forgetting their previous banter, Sasuke said, “What?”
“Had sex.”
The raven was a bit taken back but he answered honestly nonetheless. “No… there was never any time for those kinds of things, and never any space.”
Naruto scratched the back of his neck. “I’d like to think that I haven’t done it either. I don’t… expect it from myself?”
Sasuke nodded and slung the burlap bag higher on his shoulder. “I-“
A rustle far in the thick growth in front of them froze the two in their tracks. A section of bushes about sixty feet in front of them rustled violently again and Sasuke shoved Naruto down onto the ground, spluttering and flailing his limbs. He clamped his hand over Naruto’s mouth and tried to tell him to shut the fuck up in a single glare.
Sasuke reached behind him and into the lip of the burlap duffel, extracting a lightweight bow and a metal arrow. He elbowed the blond in his side and shoved the items into his arms.
“Hands-on lesson,” he murmured and eyed the chubby brown rabbit. “Bow and arrow edition.”
“What?” Naruto half-whispered, half-yelled. The rabbit’s head shot up and it perked its floppy ears, munching on a berry and twitching its nose. It hopped over to a different bush and yanked a full branch off of it with its teeth, chewing the leaves with nearly one go.
“Hold the bow up with your left hand,” he whispered. Naruto glared at him, but he did as he was told.
“The gap at the end of the arrow is where you fix it on the string…” he continued and glanced at the boy to make sure he was paying attention. The blond fastened his arrow on the bow and his fingers naturally fell into place around it, and he drew the string back. “Which eye do I use to aim?”
Sasuke frowned and racked his brain for which side was Naruto’s dominant. He recalled the blonde fiddling with things with a specific hand and whispered, “Right. Shoot.”
“Aw, but I don’t want to kill it! It didn’t do anything!”
“It’s for food. There’ll be millions of others of those things to replace one.”
Naruto sighed, fixed his aim, strengthened his grip and let the string loose. As soon as his fingers weren’t touching the wire anymore he closed his eyes but he could still hear a tiny whimper and a few sniffles from the rabbit.
The raven stood up and jogged to where he had seen the arrow land, grunting in victory when he saw its limp body perfectly speared with half an arrow. He picked up the clean part of the arrow and motioned Naruto over. The boy looked all but miserable when he saw the bunny dead on a stick but he accepted it to trade Sasuke for the burlap sack. The boy set the sack on the ground and pierced the arrow through it, rummaging through the bag before he clamped a round rubber tip on the arrowhead and handing it to Naruto.
“I’ll carry the guns now,” he offered and held out his hand.
“Good,” the blond grumbled and hunched over when he took the sturdy bag of artillery off his shoulder. “They weigh almost as much as you.”
Sasuke pursed his lips and slung the – not heavy at all – bag over his shoulder and shifted Kusanagi. “We’ll keep on for a few more minutes, and right now I’ll show you how to work a shotgun. Then we’ll find a buck or a Katon and shoot it.”
Naruto felt the bead of nervous sweat run down his neck and freeze. There was a paper thin blanket of snow on the ground now, soft and sparkling in his steps. The sky was ashen with stories of volumes that opened to let a thick flurry through. He hiked along with Sasuke, branches snagging at the sleeves of his new coat and shifting his ankles over marled roots. He dimly heard the clinks and grinds of metal guns against each other, the rich patter of ammo in its box.
They trekked farther into the thinning green growth of the forest for some long moments. A strong gust of wind rushed past them and brought a heavy glob of snow in its wake. Although Naruto was warm in his newfound coat and Sasuke’s cheeks were flushed with heat, a different kind of chill poisoned his veins and infected his bones. It was like a realization of something dawning over him, but he didn’t know what. It turned his blood cold and made his limbs stiff, his shoulders tense and his stomach flutter.
Sasuke held his arm out to stop the blond and shrugged the gun bag onto the ground, landing with a heavy thump and hollow clanks. He unzipped it to reveal a multitude of lacquered and matte black and silver guns, hand-sized and some nearly as long as his leg.
“Okay,” Sasuke mumbled to himself and rummaged around the bag, tossing a heavy red box towards Naruto and yanking out a long, matte black gun with some sort of grip on its nose and a long magazine.
“Shotgun,” the raven pointed towards the gun and raised an eyebrow. “Pump shotgun, to be exact,” he set the nose on the ground and moved the grip down, flicking a safety button off hiding under it. “You would use your other hand to do this,” the boy abruptly shoved the gun into the air and quickly jolted it down, the pump loudly clicking into place and making a ringing metallic sound. “When it goes up, it’s pulling a round to get ready to shoot, when it goes down…” Naruto nodded to Sasuke’s instruction and fumbled a bit when the other boy lifted the gun his uninjured shoulder and held it straight out. “Aim with your right eye. And I mean it when I say tense up, these have a lot of recoil.”
The shotgun was pushed into Naruto’s arms and he fiddled with it for a moment, intimidated of the obviously military-exclusive weapon. “Keep your eyes open for anything and you’ll have target practice on that anything.”
His bottom lip quivered at the thought of shooting another animal down. If it was rabid and doing something bad, like, a raccoon nosing through their food, then yeah, he’d be okay to shoot it for being a pest. But if it was just hopping around in its habitat like the bunny on his back and munching on growth, then he’d rather just leave it in peace. The blond contemplated closing his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see any approaching animals. He actually did and set his mouth in a line, following the crunches of Sasuke’s feet and swallowing roughly.
They continued on like that for a good five minutes before he heard the raven let loose an exasperated sigh. “If you really don’t want to shoot any animals, we can turn left into the town and look for Katons. It doesn’t matter either way because they’re both productive.”
Naruto pursed his lips and gave Sasuke a sheepish look. The other boy’s face was neutral and he looked somewhere around being bored.
“We don’t have to…” he said, maybe a bit quicker than he would have preferred. He rubbed the rubber padding of the shotgun against his shoulder. They honestly didn’t need to go that far out of the woods just because Naruto didn’t want to shoot a few damn bunnies or deer. He could deal with it, honestly. Especially with Sasuke’s injury, he didn’t want to put any more strain on the boy than there already was.
The raven stared at him for a bit and strolled to the right. “There’s enough snow for a bit of tracks, but you have to look closely.”
And they walked. How long, Naruto didn’t know, but he was alerted when Sasuke practically pounced on him and hushed him from his upcoming protests. The boy pointed at a small family of reindeer, whose father looked especially intimidating with humongous horns and visible, rippling beef under his hide. His children grazed with still-shaky knees and made strange clicking sounds with their throats. The mother’s character, the blond fantasized, would be the kind of caring stay-at-home mom but at times could turn into a vicious demon. She certainly looked it.
Sasuke nudged him and nodded to the gun, quickly turning back to observe the family with hawk eyes. The two baby reindeer were already jittery enough and if Naruto didn’t take a shot soon, then they would see the pair.
He made slow, quiet movements. The gun was light and already loaded. He pressed the butt against his shoulder and remembered that Sasuke had said to tense up seriously. He did just that and aimed at the father’s stomach with his finger that was cuddled into the ironically small trigger of the gun.
Even with his heavier body weight and tensed position, when he pulled the trigger he jerked back slightly and winced when metal dug into the meat of his shoulder painfully. The bullet grazed the father’s back and rung volumes into the atmosphere, rippling through miles and trapping the terrified ears of his children and their mother.
The buck didn’t move. His family was a blur in the forest though, ruffling plants and upchucking dirt and leaves and snow. A drop of blood slipped down its brown hide and he turned his head ever so slowly to stare at Naruto and Sasuke.
For a few moments, they stared at each other. Naruto didn’t know what was going on. Sasuke tensed up and tried to foresee if the buck was going to run away, or…
The buck didn’t run away. It did something similar, though. It stood up on its hind legs, nearly seven feet now, swung its monstrous, branchy horns in the air and waved its front hooves in a declaration of war. A high, loud keening call escaped his throat and he thundered to all fours and dug them into the dirt.
“Oh, shit,” Sasuke hissed and grabbed the blond’s arm. “Run!”
He screeched when the boy nearly tore off his arm and earned a screech back from the buck just a few feet behind him. “Oh my-“
“Run!” Sasuke yelled this time and sprinted ahead of him, darting under branches and maneuvering around rocks and leaping over snarled roots. Naruto grimaced and followed in his lead, arching his back when he heard skittering hooves and deep pounds in the dirt behind him as well as heavy, misty breathing.
And damn, Sasuke was a fast runner. He was sure the boy ran in his free time. The raven was at least five feet in front of him and looked like he was restraining himself.
“Why did we do that!” He yelled and picked up his pace, not daring to glance behind him and be met with plant root horns and spitting nose.
“We?” Sasuke questioned and waved his arm in the air. “You’re the one that shot! You should have aimed better!”
“It was my first time!” Naruto argued. Now they were sprinting side by side and the reindeer made another whiny sound deep in its throat. “The real question is, why is it chasing us?”
“You pissed it off!”
“It’s not my fault! Maybe he’s just a pissy reindeer. Are you a pissy r-“
“Don’t talk to it,” Sasuke growled, contemplated punching Naruto in the face to leave him behind and glanced behind them. “Shit. He won’t be slowing down for a while.”
“What the fuck!” he yelled and pumped his feet faster, almost tripping over a rock. “Shouldn’t we distract it?”
“Just wait for him to bleed out, it won’t take that much longer-“
The buck whined in protest to that statement and pounded his hooves more heavily into the ground, albeit slower than they were before.
“Kami!”
“Naruto,” Sasuke groused and scrunched his fine eyebrows together. “If this is how it ends for both of us, and we get speared on his horns… I just wanted you to know…”
His own eyebrows untangled as he awaited those words from the raven. Would it be some of their friendship? Or thanks for his heroic acts, or his awesome personality? Or when he stood up for him against Itachi? And distracted him from Kakashi’s scarring perverted remarks? And kicked Suigetsu out of the showers when he-
“That this is your entire fault.”
“Eh?! It’s not my fault! I swear it’s not!”
Sasuke didn’t reply and he winced when he felt the cold against his straight teeth and numb his cheeks. Snow was falling into his eyes and melting on the areas of his skin that his clothes didn’t cover. His breaths were becoming increasingly heavier and his throat felt like broken glass, but on the positive side his shoulder was throbbing from his running and shifting. Great. He hoped the damn reindeer tripped over a root and broke its damn legs.
And they were already halfway back to the camp. The buck obviously wasn’t giving up his chase, and Sasuke glanced back to see a generous amount of blood pouring over its sides and matting its hide. Once he got a closer look, he discovered that the buck was meaty, but it was mangy and had various bugs crawling in its fur. He sneered and turned around to let Naruto lead their party.
“There’s a big branch up there,” the blond panted. “I’ll hold it up for you, and then you duck under it so that he gets stunned. I’ll count to three.”
“Okay,” he breathed. “Keep running after that, too. He might chase us again.”
Naruto seemed to ignore him in favor of yelling, “One.”
Their feet pounded against the ground and their exhausting breaths mingled with those of a frustrated reindeer.
“Two.”
The reindeer keened again and its hooves sounded like they were making foot-deep craters in the earth. Sasuke’s lungs were numb, but at the same time they felt like they had been lit on fire.
“Three.”
He ducked, squatting and nearly tripping his own feet when the frozen ground in front of him focused for the first time in a while. Sasuke heard a screech and a thump before recollecting himself and following Naruto through the dense woods.
They ran for a few more minutes until their steps retreated to a jog, then a prance, and finally they were walking. Naruto fell to his knees and rolled over to his back, wheezing and closing his eyes. The raven set his right hand against the rough bark of a tree and set his forehead against it, panting and trying to will the throbbing in his shoulder to stop.
Sasuke’s throat burned as he dragged oxygen through it, telling himself to breathe slower and to calm down. His brother had put through his head that everything that was remotely risky was a close call to death. He stuffed his face in his sweater and tried to get some feeling into it. His lips were surely blue and the fact that the wind had picked up against them didn’t help.
He hugged his arm closer to himself as his heartbeat settled to a heavy throb in his throat and ears. He tried to think of something else rather than how his whole body hurt, and that it was too cold. The raven focused on Naruto’s slowing breaths and hoped that the idiot wasn’t falling asleep or something like that.
Sasuke slowly turned and leant on the tree, letting his head fall back and sliding down the trunk. Naruto had his forearm over his face and a hand on his stomach, with his chest rising at a normal pace.
“Ready?” the raven grumbled.
“Yeah,” Naruto replied and rolled to his stomach, lifting himself up and standing shakily. Sasuke used his cramping thighs to stand up and shuffle towards the blond, raking a hand through his hair to dislodge some flakes of snow.
“Let’s head back.”
“Okay.”
- 9
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- 11
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Sector Five