Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

The Thin Line Between Love and Hate - COMPLETE	By : kizukatana Category: Naruto AU/AR > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 2093 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Kishimoto does. I make no money from anything I write on this site.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Chapter 2: The wreckage
-xXx- The wreckage of Sasuke - xXx-
Sasuke woke up, his head pounding. He felt like hell. He looked over at the naked woman in bed with him, and felt his skin crawl with revulsion. So this is what a one night stand felt like. He didn't know her name, or anything at all about her. He must have passed out last night after they had sex, because he definitely hadn't been planning on staying the night. His body felt sticky and smelled of sex. It made him think of STDs and other unpleasant things, and he felt his stomach roil. He looked around. At least the bedroom looked clean. Hopefully she didn't have anything contagious. He saw the used condom on the bed. Thank god he'd had the presence of mind to use protection. That was one thing he was pretty sure he would have to be literally passed out drunk to forget to use, given his general dislike of intimacy. He extracted himself from the bed and staggered to her bathroom, locking the door and turning the shower on. He scrubbed himself almost raw under scalding water; there was no way he was getting back into his clothes with her scent still on him. He was glad he had been drunk enough that most of the night was hazy. He tried to shut out thoughts of crabs or herpes that can get transmitted even with a condom. He should have drunk more. Maybe then he would not have woken up sober. Sasuke decided that being sober was the thing he hated most. Second most, he corrected. Second to Naruto.
But it would be worth it. When he had come staggering out of the club with the voluptuous blonde all over him, the paparazzi had been there in full force to capture the moment. He was sure it would be all over the tabloids, if not the mainstream media. He had realized that women were not his taste long ago. They had the wrong shape, wrong sounds and wrong scent. But that had never stopped them from swarming him in the past, and when he had shown up at a popular night club and made it clear he was interested, it had been a fucking feeding frenzy to see who would get to bed him first. And for the first time in his life, he had been grateful for the attention and that all he had to do was just sit there. Because while a drunken sex binge might be slightly looked down on by the business elite, a drunken GAY sex binge could cause his company serious reputational damage. So Sasuke had known that - if he wanted to extract his public revenge on Naruto while coming out of it relatively unscathed - he would have to go with girls. And Sasuke had found that if he drank enough he couldn't really see who he was with or think much beyond the feeling of someone sucking him off or riding his cock, and he could manage to get it up. And right now, that was all that mattered. He wanted it to be front page news that he had moved on, that he was single and reveling in it.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror. Yeah, reveling in it, he thought numbly. There were hickies on his neck, making it clear exactly what he had spent the night doing. To anyone else, he would have appeared classically beautiful and stoic after a night of wild sex. But Sasuke knew better. He was soiled and empty. His theory that he would enjoy sex just as much with someone other than Naruto had been proven hideously wrong. He scrubbed his fingers through his hair. Hopefully it was just women. After a week or two of hitting the major club scenes, maybe he could go to some of the more exclusive gay clubs and find someone he was actually attracted to. But in the meantime, he would just focus on getting his revenge. And he would ignore the hollow feeling inside him.
He couldn't wait until tomorrow in the office. Naruto had been gone when he had returned to the house on Saturday. He hadn't been surprised that the blond hadn't tried to call him over the weekend. Not really. Sasuke hadn't returned the 300 calls that he had left earlier, so clearly Naruto had gotten the message that he was not going to resolve this. But by Monday, if Naruto hadn't already seen the papers, one if their friends would have and called Naruto and told him. Sasuke would get to see how his ex liked having his face rubbed in it.
He just had to kill the hours between now and then. He looked at his watch. It was 11am. Oh, well. It was 5pm somewhere. He let himself out of the woman's apartment before she woke up and called his driver, telling him to pick up a bottle of gin and some orange juice on the way. Breakfast of fucking champions.
. . . . . .
"He what?" Sasuke glared at Kiba, his head of HR, daring the man to repeat what he had just told him. His head was still pounding from his binge over the weekend. He had hit the clubs again on Sunday night, leaving with a brunette that time, with similar results. Though he had learned from his first experience. He had done a better job of getting himself completely wasted the second time, and had managed to leave before passing out so at least he woke up in his own bed. He had arrived to work an hour late, and severely hung over. Possibly still a little drunk. He decided that was a much better way to operate. The less time he had to actually spend thinking about what he was doing, the better. Kiba was repeating himself, and clearly taking great pleasure in telling him this news.
"Like I said, Naruto told me when he left for work on Friday that he would be taking a leave of absence, and that I should start searching for a head of marketing, head of creative development, and head of business development to take over for him. He dropped off the job descriptions before he left the office. And said that if I had any questions on specific candidates, I should ask you. He also said that if you wanted a COO, you could write that description yourself and have that person manage these other roles so you don't have to deal with so many people."
Normally, Kiba would have been nervous to be so blunt with him. After all, Sasuke was his boss. But he had seen the destroyed look on Naruto's face when Sasuke had served him with divorce papers in the office. He had watched the man he had admired slowly crumble to pieces and fall apart over the week that Sasuke had been off on his business trip. And he had seen the complete despair in blue eyes that had always glowed with life and happiness when he had told Kiba to look for his replacement. And right now, Kiba didn't give a flying fuck if his other boss was pissed at him. Because Kiba was pissed at Sasuke. And so was the rest of the office. They had seen the tabloids over the weekend.
Of the two co-owners, everyone knew that Naruto was 'the nice one'. He was funny, creative, energetic, and genuinely cared about their employees. He was personal friends with everyone in the office, and new everything about their families, talents, and aspirations. He took on the de facto role of the three functions that Kiba had just laid out for the organization. Sasuke handled the business, finance, and PR side of things. As well as any mergers or acquisitions that the company made. The employees respected Sasuke, and either feared or lusted over the man. Often both. And one of his main redeeming traits that kept him from being labeled a complete asshole was the obvious love that Sasuke showed for Naruto. Whenever Sasuke started to go off on someone, Naruto would infallibly walk in and snake an arm around the man's waist and nuzzle his neck, and Sasuke would roll his eyes in apparent annoyance but his face would soften and the crisis would be over. They would see the soft looks that the stoic, dark-haired man would send the blond when he thought no one was looking. And it made him seem human. They were the perfect pair, and together the organization ran like a machine.
But now it was all falling apart.
"Where. is. he. He can't just walk out on his business obligations. I won't let him," Sasuke looked furious.
Kiba bared his teeth in a fake smile. "I am happy to be able to tell you that I honestly have no idea. I tried to call his cell over the weekend to see if he was ok, but his number is no longer in service. And I have asked every one of his friends, including Shikamaru, and no one has any idea at all on how to reach him. So if you were hoping to enjoy seeing how your huge assholeness has destroyed probably the nicest human being you will ever meet, it looks like you are just shit out of luck."
Sasuke was shocked by the verbal assault delivered from his normally relatively respectful head of HR.
"Oh, and if you decide to fire me for saying this, I honestly don't give a fuck." Kiba turned on his heel and stalked away. Sasuke's eyes narrowed when he saw several people in the office lift their hands to give him high fives as he walked past their desks.
So they think Naruto is the victim in all this? Fuck them. They have no idea. But it doesn't matter. I don't want to be the victim anyway. I am not weak.
He went into his office, shut the door, and called Shikamaru. The man handled their personal and business legal matters. There is no way that he didn't know how to contact Naruto, no matter what that idiot Kiba said.
A few minutes later, the smartest man that Sasuke had ever met was in his office. His brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, his suit pressed, intelligent brown eyes deceptively lazy.
"Where is he?" Sasuke hissed.
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, but didn't bother pretending to misunderstand. "I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't fucking know. He is co-owner of this business, we are in the middle of divorce proceedings, and you are our attorney. There is no way in hell that you can't know where he is. He must have contacted you about the divorce papers, if nothing else."
Shikamaru sighed. This was going to be a huge pain. They were both such drama queens. He almost smirked at his own pun, but the situation was too messed up to be funny. "Actually, I received notification from Sabaku Gaara's offices over the weekend that they would be handling all of Naruto's legal matters. Something about there being a conflict of interest with me representing both of you."
Sasuke's eyes widened. This was not something he had expected Naruto to think of doing. Fucking Gaara. He was the only person in Japan that Sasuke knew for a fact he could neither bribe nor intimidate nor charm into doing what he wanted. While most of their friends were mutual, Gaara was Naruto's friend, not his. Naruto had met him while traveling with his godfather when he was younger, and the two had kept in touch over the years. Gaara had come to the wedding, and generally had been polite to Sasuke, but his complete loyalty was to Naruto. Evidently Naruto had helped him out with something in his formative years, or some bullshit like that, and they had been tight ever since. If Sasuke hadn't known that Gaara was straight, he would have put a stop to it long ago. He had never really liked the redhead. That feeling had just increased by several orders of magnitude.
"Tell Gaara that I want those divorce papers and the financial settlement papers signed within the week. Tell him to get Naruto's ass in here for a meeting to finalize terms," Sasuke growled.
Shikamaru sighed. He knew his chance of bullying Gaara into doing what Sasuke wanted was exactly zero. But he would go through the motions to get Sasuke off his back.
Shikamaru had no idea what had really happened between him and Naruto. He had talked to Naruto about it last week, and he was sure that the blond honestly had no idea why Sasuke had ended things this way. Naruto had been completely shell-shocked. Shikamaru had been friends with both of them since middle school, and it hurt him to see them suffering. Given everything the two men had been through together, the thought of their relationship being over just seemed... impossible. He sighed again.
He could smell the alcohol on Sasuke's breath, and saw the open decanter on his desk. Sasuke was clearly hurting, though most people wouldn't see it. Naruto always wore his heart on his sleeve, and people loved him for it. Sasuke was closed, keeping everyone at a distance and leaving most people with the impression that he simply didn't have emotions. But Shikamaru had known them both long enough to know that Sasuke had emotions that ran just as deep as Naruto's, if not deeper. He just kept them bottled up and hidden from view, except when it had come to Naruto. The depth of feeling that the two men had for each other had always been a source of almost envy for Shikamaru. He had never seen two people more deeply committed to each other, accepting not only the nice 'good' parts, but also accepting and even loving each other's flaws. Of any couple he had ever seen, he had thought these two would make it. And he had been wrong, which almost never happened to him. Looking at the bleak expression in the black eyes of his friend, he wished like hell he had not been wrong on this one. He didn't know where Naruto was right now, but he was worried. He honestly didn't know if either man could really survive without the other.
"Sasuke," Shikamaru began, ignoring the warning look his friend shot him. "What happened?"
Sasuke's eyes simply shuttered into their usual expressionless mask. "I terminated a dysfunctional relationship. I just need you to do your job and make it official. Go get Gaara to cooperate."
Shikamaru heard the clear dismissal in his friend's voice, and ached for him. Sasuke never knew how to ask for or accept help. The only one who had ever been able to really draw him out was Naruto. "You can call me, if you want to talk."
Sasuke just stood there, then nodded almost imperceptibly. Shikamaru left. There was nothing more he could do. Except call Gaara.
. . . . . .
The meeting with Gaara had gone largely as expected. The man was and always been smart and ruthless, especially when it came to protecting one of the few people that mattered to him. In a way, he was a lot like Sasuke. Which meant this was going to get very ugly.
"I'm sure you know why I'm here, Gaara-san," Shikamaru said. He had always rather liked the green-eyed man, and respected his formidable intelligence and legal savvy.
Gaara had eyed him coldly, and nodded.
"Sasuke wants the divorce papers and financial settlement documents signed and filed by the end of the week."
Gaara had simply raised a hairless eyebrow. "I'll see what I can do, but my client is rather busy at the moment. With matters of importance. I have read through the original proposal, and we will have some adjustments to make. I will work with my client over the next few weeks to get our response to you."
Shikamaru could sense the underlying fury in the man in front of him. "Gaara. I know I am representing Sasuke. But I have been friends with Naruto for most of my life. You don't need to tell me where he is or what you are planning. But... can you just tell me... is he ok?"
Gaara had looked at him consideringly for a moment, then he had imperceptibly softened. "No. He is not ok. And while I respect that you have a job to do for Sasuke, and I am well aware of your intellectual prowess, I want you to know that if I need to, I will utterly destroy Sasuke to protect Naruto. You play by the rules. I don't. I have taken measures to be sure that Naruto will not be found until he is ready to. Tell Sasuke that if he tries too hard, I will put a very public restraining order on him. I will be the only point of contact in these legal proceedings."
Shikamaru had stood there, torn between feeling slightly nervous about what the smaller man in front of him might actually do, and relieved that Naruto had someone like this to protect him from Sasuke. He was going to need it. The two men nodded at each other, and Shikamaru took his leave. Sasuke was not going to like what he had to say.
xXx-
Sasuke was furious. His pounding hangover didn't help. Three months. It had been three fucking months since he had served Naruto with the divorce papers, and he still had not received the finalized documents. They had finalized the financial matters. And that had been just wonderful, with Gaara showing up by himself saying Naruto was too fucking busy to bother to come. And then thrown Sasuke's money back in his face. Again. So the business matters were settled, their bank accounts and assets separated. But the divorce was still not final.
It didn't help that Naruto had retained Gaara of all people to represent him. Gaara had proven that he was still completely impossible to intimidate on any level. The man just raised a hairless eyebrow at the most extreme death glares or threats that Sasuke threw his way. Even when Sasuke had barged into Gaara's office and completely exploded demanding to meet with Naruto to finalize the divorce settlements, Gaara had just told him that public intoxication was against the law, and if he appeared in his office in such a condition again he would have Sasuke arrested. Sasuke hadn't been drunk. Not really. The cold fury that the redhead had shown him had seemed strange. Lawyers shouldn't be that emotionally invested in their cases, even if they were representing their friends. He didn't understand it.
And where the hell had Naruto disappeared to anyway? He wasn't anywhere. Sasuke had made a point to go to all the public places they had frequented together. He would go to the clubs, the restaurants, the gym. And if he didn't bring a date with him, he made damn sure he left with one before the night was over. The tabloids had a field day with pictures of him with his various lovers and his very overt (and often intoxicated) displays of affection. And dammit, he wanted to see Naruto's reaction. He wanted to see Naruto hurting. Or at least humiliated. Something. It wasn't that he missed the blond, missed just breathing the same air and existing in the same place. Of course not. He simply wanted to see that his plan to make the man suffer was working. Instead, it was as though Naruto had just walked out of their house and into another dimension. None of their friends knew where he was (or at least they claimed not to know... Sasuke still wasn't sure he believed them). Sasuke had even hired someone to try to track him down, but the man had come up empty. Gaara had full access to Naruto's financial accounts, and was evidently sending his friend money through his own channels. There were no travel records, no financial trails, no e-mail or phone records. When Sasuke had tried to access Gaara's activities to trace Naruto that way, he had found himself buried under a stack of legal injunctions and restraining orders that had left Shikamaru drowning in paper for the past month. Fucking Gaara.
He wasn't trying to find Naruto for himself. Definitely not. It was their business that was suffering. They were still riding out some of the business development ideas that Naruto had set in motion before he had left, but there was nothing new in the pipeline. Naruto had been the creative force for the company, always coming up with the new ideas to try and knowing just how to market them. Everything was falling apart. Sasuke reeled. He had wanted Naruto out of his personal life. But not out of his entire existence. In Sasuke's fantasy, Naruto would be on the sidelines, pining for him and regretting his mistake. He wouldn't take him back, of course. But Naruto would still be there. He just couldn't imagine a world where Naruto wasn't near him, in some way, even if it was as an enemy. He couldn't just be gone.
Sasuke left the office early. There was no point in pretending that he was going to get more work done today. After two months of one night stands with both women and men, Sasuke had come to the realization that it didn't matter what the gender was of the person he was fucking. He had thought at least the casual sex would fill the void of physical contact that Naruto had left. Naruto had always been a very affectionate person, even outside of sex, and the small touches and hugs Naruto had 'forced' on Sasuke all the time had made Sasuke feel human. He had never admitted it, but in a way they had been even more important to him than sex. And he missed the contact now. But he had no desire to show such a weakness to his friends or colleagues. No desire to let someone else get emotionally close enough to fill that void and potentially hurt him again. So he had sought contact out with strangers instead. But none of it worked. They were all the same. He had always hated his fangirls, who knew nothing about who he really was but liked him only for his looks, image and money. Any hint of 'bad behavior' on his part was overlooked or swept away, its existence ignored. Because why try to understand the faults of a fantasy? They had no interest in who he really was.
The only one who had taken the time to break through his walls and understand who he was at his core was Naruto. And Naruto had not ignored Sasuke's faults. A small smile ghosted across his lips as he recalled the number of times Naruto had outright tackled him after he had said something condescending or cruel. No, Naruto had not overlooked his faults. But he had taken the time to understand them, accept them, and even help him reduce them, to a certain extent. When he had had sex with Naruto, he knew that Naruto was thinking of him, of all of him. Accepting him with all his faults, not just what he looked like or how much money he had. Naruto had embraced Sasuke as a person, the light and the dark sides of him. At least, that is what he had thought until three months ago. But everyone else was just fucking an image, an idea, not him as a person. And Sasuke was tired of that. It just made him feel worse, and more alone. He'd given up going out to the clubs, and had just kept his home bar stocked instead. At least alcohol dulled his brain enough that he didn't keep obsessing about it. At least that was what he told himself.
. . . . .
"No." He picked up the bottle of bourbon and threw it across the room, watching it smash against the wall of his study and the red liquid splash over the floor.
This isn't how things are supposed to be. I need to hurt him. I need to SEE him suffer. I can't be the only one feeling like this. He can't just disappear and start over. He can't just be... gone.
It was late. He was drunk. But there was only one place he could think to go. And he knew that even though it was past visiting hours, they would let him in. He called his driver.
. . . .
Sasuke laid his head on the hospital bed where his brother rested, unmoving. It had been two years since the car accident that had put Itachi into a coma. And every week, Naruto had come with him to visit him in the hospital. He had never realized how much that support had meant to him, feeling Naruto's silent strength and love for him while he grieved for the brother he idolized and missed. Sasuke had no one now. The only two people who had meant anything to him in this world had left him alone. And he was drowning. He felt wetness on the blanket, and realized it was from his own tears.
"Itachi," Sasuke whispered brokenly. "Please wake up." His throat closed up. He hadn't cried since his parent's death more than a decade ago. Hadn't needed his big brother so desperately since then. "I need you, Nii-san." He clutched his brother's limp hand. He didn't notice when he fell asleep, or when a nurse came in an hour later and draped a blanket over his shoulders. The rest of the world might view the Uchihas as cold, ruthless, and arrogant, but the doctors and nurses who worked in the wing where Itachi was cared for had seen the love and devotion that the younger brother had for the older one. And while they were puzzled by what they saw in the papers, they knew that it was not the whole truth in the matter.
-xXx- The wreckage of Naruto - xXx-
Naruto smiled wanly at Gaara, seeing the man's worry and anger, but not having the strength to hide his emotions better to prevent it. He had just left the house he had shared with his husband, and knew he would never go back inside again. He was emotionally exhausted. He needed to get out of sight of everyone so he could fall apart in private. He had turned over the divorce papers and all his financial and business statements to Gaara, knowing the man would know what to do. He gave him the address and phone number of his godfather's place, and asked him to give him a call when he got the paperwork figured out. Gaara had not been happy when Naruto had told him he just wanted to get out of the finances what he had either put in or earned. There had been no prenuptial agreement, so Naruto knew he could take Sasuke for a hell of a lot more than that, but he had no interest in it. Gaara clearly thought Naruto should rake Sasuke over the coals, but Naruto had just shook his head sadly and said that he didn't want to. Gaara had growled something about 'idealistic blond children', but there had been no heat in it.
Naruto had hugged him (he was probably the only person on the planet other than Gaara's wife who would dare do such a thing), then boarded the plane to Athens. He just needed to get out of here, away from Sasuke. He swore he would never let that person see how much he had hurt him. He would never, ever leave himself open to this kind of pain again. Jiraya moved around a lot, so Sasuke would have no way of knowing he was currently in Greece, if he even thought to look for him. There would be no one there to connect them. Naruto could rebuild himself. Once he was ready.
When he landed in Athens, it was a surreally sunny day, setting the buildings and greenery around him ablaze in color. Naruto got into a cab, feeling strangely detached and disconnected to this vibrant world around him. His head felt heavy, and his body ached. He tried to remember if he ate on the plane, but couldn't. He didn't feel hungry, so he supposed that was ok. The trip to his godfather's villa was more than an hour, but he wasn't aware of the time passing. He simply stared out the window in silence, thinking of nothing.
Jiraya walked out of the front door to greet Naruto as the cab pulled up. He stopped in shock as he took in the appearance of his godson. The usually bright blue eyes were dull and hooded. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his shoulders were hunched. Naruto tried to greet his godfather with his usual enthusiasm, but knew it failed miserably. He avoided the man's concerned gaze, and just said he was feeling jet-lagged from his trip and needed to rest. Jiraya took him to his room and promised lunch would be ready in an hour. Naruto nodded absently, and mechanically unpacked his clothes into the small dresser in the room, showered, and climbed into bed.
. . . .
Naruto vaguely was aware of time passing, but he didn't really know how much time. Jiraya would sometimes come in to try to talk to him. Sometimes a random, scantily clad girl would materialize in his bedroom (courtesy of his pervy godfather). Naruto would just look at them, and tell them he was tired and just needed to rest a bit more. Was he eating? He wasn't sure. Was he bathing? Not so much. But his body just seemed so tired. He knew that it had been too much time to still be jet-lag. But every time he tried to face what it really was, his consciousness would crawl back into the cave of sleep and hide. There. He'd said it. At least to himself. He was hiding. But he wasn't ready to deal with what he was hiding from yet. He needed more time.
. . . . . .
How much time had passed? Someone was in the room with him. Gaara? When had he come? The light hurt his eyes.
Gaara's eyes widened in shock when he saw his friend. It looked like he had lost at least twenty pounds. His usually golden skin was pale and drawn, and there were deep shadows under his eyes, as though he were not sleeping.
"Naruto." Gaara waited for the dull blue eyes to focus on him.
"Gaara. What are you doing here?"
"You haven't been returning any of my calls. It's been three weeks. I decided to come and see if you were still alive." It was meant to be a bit of a joke, but Gaara realized it actually wasn't. He felt fear and anger form a cold knot in his stomach. Fear for the well being of his friend, and anger for the bastard who had put him in this condition.
"Three weeks? I thought... I thought it had been only a couple of days. Sorry..." Naruto tried to smile. "I guess that without having to be at work, I kind of lost track of the days."
They both knew that was a lie.
"Naruto, you need to sign some of these papers. They can hold us in contempt of court if we refuse to sign."
Naruto nodded numbly, and took the stack of papers that Gaara handed him. He flipped through, skimming them, and signing where he needed to, then handed them back to Gaara. The smaller man looked through, then paused at the final pages.
"You didn't sign the final divorce consent. You signed all the financial papers. But you have to sign the final divorce document."
Naruto just turned his head to the side. "I'm tired. Get the financial settlement done. That's the most important anyway."
Gaara sighed. He knew he couldn't force Naruto to do this, not because Naruto would dig his heels in, but because he might break.
Gaara pulled out his phone, and called his office. "Set up a meeting with Nara Shikamaru regarding the final negotiation of the divorce financial settlement when I get back."
Naruto had closed his eyes. Gaara wasn't sure if his friend was actually sleeping or just shutting out the reality of the papers he had just signed. Gaara still had his phone in his hand, and quickly took a photo of Naruto. While Sasuke would probably be gleeful at seeing the damage he had wrought, Gaara had a feeling that Shikamaru would be swayed by it. And if it could help keep his friend from being slapped with a contempt charge, then it was worth trying.
. . . . .
"I am not sure I fully understand," Shikamaru was saying. "You are telling me that Naruto rejected our original settlement agreement because he wants less?"
Gaara scowled, clearly not happy with that. But it was his job to follow through on his client's wishes, as much as he would much prefer to drive a legal steak knife through the heart of the black-haired bastard sitting silently in front of him.
"That's right. Naruto was quite clear that he wanted only his original investment, and his share of the profits that have been generated by the company that he and Sasuke jointed created. He wanted no portion of the broader Uchiha fortune or business empire, and no portion of the jointly owned property other than what he had already collected as his personal affects," Gaara looked at both Shikamaru and Sasuke in turn. "I take it there are no objections to this revised set of settlement terms?"
Sasuke looked completely frozen. "Why isn't he here himself?"
It took all of Gaara's willpower to not punch Sasuke in the face. "He has more important matters to attend to. So he has delegated this task to me."
He turned to Shikamaru, missing the raw pain that flashed across Sasuke's face at his words. "I will leave these documents for you to review. When they are signed, you can file them directly with the court and send me a copy."
Sasuke stood stiffly, and left the room.
Shikamaru flipped through them one last time. "Gaara... I don't see the final agreement to the divorce included here."
Gaara looked after where Sasuke had exited, then turned to face Shikamaru. "He didn't sign it."
Shikamaru sighed. "Sasuke will file contempt of court charges against him if he doesn't file."
"What if there were medical reasons for the delay?"
Shikamaru looked at Gaara, anxiety creeping into his stomach. "Is Naruto ok?"
Gaara answered the question the same as he had the last time that Shikamaru had asked it, but this time he pulled out his phone and showed the man the photo he had taken. "No. He is really not ok."
Shikamaru put his head in his hands, shaken more than he cared to admit at the photo of his friend. He was hardly recognizable. "Oh, god. Where is he? Can I see him?"
Gaara shook his head. "He doesn't want anyone to know where he is. He would be furious with me if he knew I had shown you this."
"Then why did you?" Shikamaru asked, though he already knew the answer.
Gaara just looked at him, not even deigning to answer the question. "Do what you can to stall Sasuke. But just so you know, if Naruto doesn't get better, I will come after Sasuke. And I won't necessarily stick to legal channels. Naruto might be a nice guy. But I'm not."
Shikamaru nodded mutely. He had never felt so morally conflicted in his entire legal career. He wondered if he was going to end up quitting.
. . . . .
There was a soft, steady beeping that Naruto didn't recognize. What was that sound? He felt so tired. And the bed felt strange. Where was he? Naruto opened his eyes. He took in the white walls, white sheets, and metal rails on his bed, along with the IV taped to his left arm and the bag of clear liquid attached to it through the small plastic tube.
Hospital? He thought a little groggily. Why was he here? A woman with short brown hair and a white medical jacket came in.
"Mr. Uzumaki? I'm Dr. Shizune. How are you feeling?"
"I'm... fine I guess. Why am I here?"
"You don't remember? You overdosed on sleeping pills." She paused, clearly waiting for a reaction.
"Overdose? I just... took a few to get some sleep. A friend brought them over."
"You took 10. And your friend brought you to the hospital and dropped you off, though he didn't stay to fill out any of the paperwork. But he definitely saved your life."
Naruto thought about that. Jiraya had been leaving on some business trip. He vaguely remembered the young man that had come to his room. Evidently his godfather had thought that if female hookers didn't work, he would try male hookers. Naruto had told the guy to leave, that he needed to rest. The man had said Naruto could use his sleep medication, since he also suffered from insomnia. So Naruto had taken some. 10? He didn't think so, but maybe. He really couldn't remember.
"Do you know what day it is?" Shizune continued.
Naruto shook his head, he had no idea. Shizune handed him a newspaper. And he was shocked to see the date. It had been more than two months since he had left Japan.
"How long have I been in the hospital?"
"Two days. It was close for the first 24 hours, but you pulled through. We were not able to contact the man whose house you were staying at, but we found contact information for someone named Sabaku Gaara on your phone, and he said he was your attorney and would handle things. Your body is considerably weakened by starvation. You will be need to undergo phych evaluations and will probably not be able to leave the hospital for several weeks. Mr Sabaku was here earlier this morning, and had all medical records and reports sealed. He evidently was very concerned that nothing leak out about this to the press. He terrified the staff, then stormed out saying he had some business to take care of back in Japan as soon as he was satisfied that you were out of immediate danger of dying."
He had almost died? Naruto waited for some sort of reaction to that information to surface inside him. It was accidental. If he had really wanted to kill himself, he would do something much more foolproof than pills. Did he want to kill himself? He thought about it for a while. No... not really. But the thing that really surprised him was how apathetic he was about it all. He had almost died. And he really didn't care.
Did he want Sasuke back that badly that he couldn't live without him? He realized slowly that the question actually needed to be taken into two parts. Did he want Sasuke back? If Sasuke walked through the door of Naruto's hospital room right now and begged for forgiveness, would Naruto take him back? He fantasized for a minute about the sight of Sasuke groveling, but in the end he had no real interest in that. The answer was no, he didn't want him back. Sasuke had apparently gotten tired of him and moved on. While it hurt, that in and of itself was not the unforgivable part. People changed. Love faded. It happened. Part of Naruto had always expected it to end at some point. What Sasuke had said was true... what did Naruto really bring to the relationship? It had always been unequal. No, Naruto didn't blame Sasuke for tiring of him, as much as it had hurt.
The part that had been truly unforgivable had been the way in which he had done it. While Sasuke could be cold, and even cruel at times, it was usually for a reason. The people that Sasuke had been the worst to generally deserved it. Sasuke wasn't mean, he was hard. And there was a big difference between the two in Naruto's mind. Naruto had always believed that at his heart, Sasuke was a good person protected by a hard shell. And that core of goodness was what made piercing through that shell worthwhile.
But a good person would not have done what Sasuke had done to him. He would have found a way to let Naruto down gently, or at least tried. It still would have crushed him. But it would have at least showed that Sasuke had enough respect for him as a person, as a fucking human being, to take the time and explain what had changed. But Sasuke hadn't done that. Hadn't cared beyond the end of his own attachments. Even their past friendship, which had been such a gigantic fixture in Naruto's life, had evidently not meant enough to Sasuke for him to spend any time talking with Naruto rather than just evicting him from his life via the most expedient path. And no matter how interesting or beautiful Sasuke was, no matter how amazing the sex, without basic trust and actual liking for a person there was no relationship as far as Naruto was concerned. Looks fade, and sex can be found pretty much anywhere, with much less pain.
So if it were really true that Naruto didn't want Sasuke back (and his brain did keep tripping on that seemingly unbelievable conclusion), then the real question he had to answer was whether there enough of 'just Naruto' that would make living and battling out of this hell of depression worth it. At some point in most people's lives, they hit a spot so low that this question comes up. And of course, there is no real answer. It all comes down to the resilience of the human spirit that dwells in that particular being as to how the answer will come.
And whatever else Naruto had lacked in his life, he had always had an indomitable spirit. Slowly, he felt it flicker back to life inside him. He was not just going to lay down and die because his lover had left him. He almost laughed at how stupid that thought even was, but he realized how close he had come to actually doing it. But that was over now. He didn't know if he could truly separate his past identity from Sasuke. The core of who he had been was just too inextricably tied to his lover. While it felt like half of who he was had been ripped away, he knew that he would just have to build out the rest of himself and become whole again. Even if it meant starting from scratch - he would recover from this. On his own. He would start over.
-xXx-
to be continued
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The Thin Line Between Love and Hate - COMPLETE