Skin

Off in his own room, Naruto was preparing for bed.

The idea of a bath had never so much as entered his mind: to him there was no point in coming in from being soaking wet only to get soaking wet all over again. After toweling himself off, he merely stripped off the outer layers and slid between deliciously soft sheets in only his boxers, dark blue with a quirky red leaf-print.

It had been a long day even without their mission that had ended in disaster, miles on the road between Konoha and here just to guard some moron's gold. An annoying bit of moonlight peeked in through the window: the storm had blown itself out a while back. Naruto was just drifting off into peaceful and rejuvenating sleep when there was a sharp knock at the door.

He sat bolt upright.

"What?" He didn't quite yell the word, but close. "Can't a person get some sleep around here?"

The door opened, pissing him off. He had said "what", not "come in". That alone told him that it wasn't a chambermaid checking on the condition of his pillows, but he did wonder who would have the nerve. Crossing his arms over his bare chest, he glared at the door.

Sasuke slipped in, shutting it behind him so abruptly that it slammed. Naruto blinked at him.

"Sasuke? What the Hell are you doing here?" He was still a little miffed after Sakura's earlier gushing, but mostly surprised. The other boy was shirtless too, clad only in a pair of black silk pajama pants that made him look like decadence incarnate.

He shrugged, the motion making his pale skin glimmer in the dim white light. Sasuke had no real idea why he was here either.

Actually, that wasn't true.

He knew, knew as he had always known that if he wanted to make anything more of their relationship than fierce rivalry and grudging but loyal friendship, it would be up to him. Naruto was well-intentioned, kind, loving in his own way, but perpetually clueless. Sasuke was well aware that even if he made doe-eyes at Naruto all day long, he might never notice.

Not that he really minded taking the initiative.

Naruto felt something very close to fright when he saw Sasuke smile, another white glitter that outshone the moon. Sasuke never smiled for no reason, never smiled as a pleasantry. It always meant something revolutionary was going to happen, and what that could possibly be when all he was doing was standing there in the doorway, looking at Naruto as though he were a particularly well-prepared meal.

"What do you want? Stop staring at me, geez." His voice shook ever-so-slightly as Sasuke moved towards the bed, quite silently across the tatami.

"Move over."

The succinct command earned him another blink of astonishment, but Naruto did so. There was a dip in the mattress, warmth and the scent of very expensive soap caressing his nostrils as Sasuke sat down next to him, still on top of the covers. The smile was gone now, the usually-austere face distant again, but none of that explained why he was here, why he was so close. Sasuke's voice sounded, deep in the stillness, but quiet.

"I hated you." The words were blunt and stung slightly despite the past tense. Naruto was tired, didn't really feel the hurt that should have come with it after these years of working side-by-side, the myriad times they'd helped and even saved each other.

"I never did understand why." The soft voice continued, relentless, dull, flowing out as though these were things that had been clawing at his throat to escape. "I hated you back even when I believed I was stronger." The smile quirked Sasuke's lips again. That had been proven untrue many times, not just with Rasengan against Chidori.

Beside him, Naruto was still, not thinking about their endless competitions to settle who was the more powerful, the best overall, and in Naruto's mind, who was more worthy of Sakura and the Hokage title both. His voice was soft, too.

"Then I don't understand."

Sasuke glanced at him. "What?"

Naruto's eyes were large in the dimness, glimmering with blue fire in the dark, warm golden of his face. This was the serious expression Sasuke loved almost as much as the bright and flashing grin that stole his heart every time, the sign that Naruto was stopping to think, something he rarely seemed to do.

"Why did you save me in the Wave Country?" The words were low as the painful memory flooded in, holding Sasuke in his arms as he slipped into unconsciousness, needles piercing so much of his body that he looked like a pincushion. They had both believed that unconsciousness was death at the time, and it made Naruto so furious that the Kyuubi had nearly been unleashed right then and there. But the fact remained that Sasuke had been willing to give up his life to save Naruto with no noticeable hesitation, and the why of that had nagged slightly at him for years.

A long sigh escaped Sasuke, a rare expression of all the things he never spoke of that just stayed inside, year after year, chewing at him. He knew he was taking a risk here, that it could verily come back to bite him on the ass with little delay. He didn't care.

"Because I loved you."

Those three words. The ones he had lived his life out sure he'd never hear. Naruto was sure he had hallucinated that, that his brain had invented them even though he would never have expected Sasuke to say them and should know better.

"Wh...what?"

Sasuke smirked, still emotionally vulnerable but nevertheless pleased by his ability to get such a reaction.

"I loved you. Still do."

Naruto gaped. They were one thing in the past tense, but...

"How?"

It was a simple word, the meaning obvious enough. Here was where it got complicated, as Sasuke knew well. It was one thing to love someone as a comrade, but his feelings had been more, had been much more for a long time. He rested his chin on his knees, uncharacteristically childlike, and gazed off at the tapestry of deer in the forest that hung on the wall opposite them.

"As a friend, at first." Although expressions of love from Sasuke were rare, Naruto didn't mind hearing it even for something so simple and obvious after their years of fighting together. But Sasuke went on.

"I don't know. It's more than that, but hard to explain. I love you as Naruto." He glanced over, watching for the response in the blue eyes he loved as much as the rest of the being he spent so much of his time with, the man who was Uzumaki Naruto. He was being candid here, more than in the whole rest of his life put together, vaguely expecting that nothing good could come of it.

Naruto didn't blush or get angry or ask more questions. His quiet words were all that he could ever feel after being told that he was loved, after being given what he had yearned so terribly for his entire life, what had gnawed away at him until he cried tears of unbearable emptiness into his pillow each night.

"Thank you."

Somewhere in the back of the mind, Sasuke realized that his mission in coming to Naruto's bedroom had somehow shifted from seducing him. Though he still desperately wanted to feel the warm lips against his own, experience pleasure wrought from the hands that clutched at the top sheet and comforter now, it had transcended that. He spoke again on a sigh.

"I never said anything because I didn't think you'd understand, not the kind of love I feel." The words flowed freely now, almost dangerously, he thought, like a wall somewhere had broken before the force of a river with the power of his soul behind it. All the love he'd had no one to give, watching Naruto's silent suffering and suffering himself, both of them too stoic to reach for anyone else no matter how keen the pain. The cobalt eyes shifted into his gaze, trying to assemble the puzzle that was always Sasuke even when he spilled his heart like this. Naruto was quiet for a long time before he spoke again, still thoughtful as only he could be, however infrequently.

"Then...you love me the way I do Sakura?"

The words were a stabbing pain for Sasuke, almost enough to make him wince. That had been the other reason he had kept quiet for so long, held in his emotions and started fight after fight with his 'rival'. As dedicated as Naruto obviously was to winning over Sakura, it wouldn't be right for him to try to disrupt that. But ultimately it would come down to this very conflict, and he had known it.

It still hurt.

"Yeah." He spoke softly, but his voice was hollow. Sasuke had never been naïve enough to expect anything out of the situation to begin with, but somehow it had turned into something akin to despair now. There was a long pause.

"That means you want to have sex, then?"

The bluntness almost made Sasuke choke on his inhalation. He knew Naruto was always straightforward, never pretended about anything or minced any words, but that had been unexpected even for him. They both flushed, considering the possibilities.

Sasuke managed to speak, with difficulty.

"That's part of it for me, yes." Hearing Naruto bring up the idea of sex with him in a sentence without any sort of adverse undertone gave him butterflies in the stomach, a feeling he wasn't used to. What came next would give him a far stronger feeling a bit lower.

"Then what's stopping us?" He couldn't believe he was saying these words, that he was suggesting sex to Sasuke out loud. He had been furious with him two hours earlier for impressing Sakura too much, annoyed at him for being a bastard a week earlier, hated him somewhere back there a really long way, but it was still something that poked at his brain as he spoke.

It was Sasuke's turn to gape at him now, the slightly exotic eyes wide and dark like bits of the same moonlit night that peeped into the room. Then he closed them.

"You don't have to humor me, Naruto."

Naruto blinked. He hadn't thought of it as humoring. Honestly, as weird as it had seemed at first, the idea of trying the same kinds of things he'd been doing with girls recently with Sasuke didn't sound unappealing at all, even though he didn't quite understand it yet.

"I'm not."

"Heh." Sasuke closed his eyes, trying to block out the feeling that something had been ruined by this conversation. "You said yourself that you love Sakura."

That created another pause, as he had expected. It stretched out, and Sasuke knew that it shouldn't take long for Naruto to say that he was right and that there never could be anything between them.

"So what if I do?" Sasuke opened his mouth to reply, to say that he didn't see how they could ever do anything if Naruto felt so strongly for their teammate, but the blonde wasn't done.

"So what? I love you too." The words came out easily, words he'd always wanted to say throughout the lonely years. In turn they pierced Sasuke's heart, beautiful in a way nothing else ever had been. In all the years since his mother had held him, since his grandparents had smiled at him, since his father had played silly ninja games with him, he had never felt this warmth. For so long he had only been vaguely able to remember what it was like to feel protected and loved, and grasping onto those memories for so long even as they slipped away from him forever had taken it's toll.

To have this here and now...

Naruto wasn't done yet, was still trying to sort everything out in his head after hearing all these new things and being forced to look at what he hadn't been saying over all their time together.

"I don't really know the way I love you." He paused. "Except the way you said it: I love you as Sasuke." He noticed that something new shone in the moonlight: the delicate trails of moisture seeping down Sasuke's face.

Sasuke didn't cry. Sasuke never showed any emotion, because he was Uchiha Sasuke, great ninja and ice-bitch extraordinaire. But he was now, and somehow that affected Naruto as much as anything else he had seen and heard here tonight. He reached for him.

To his surprise, Sasuke fit well in his arms, a warm and comfortable presence. He smelled good, not heavy cologne but the soap and underlying man-smell that Naruto knew he had himself but never really noticed. Tenderness filled him, and he tilted Sasuke's chin up to soak up the tears with his fingertips, looking into the shimmering dark eyes.

The silk-and-velvet lips on his surprised him. Naruto supposed he should be indignant that Sasuke had taken advantage of him like that, but found himself not minding in the slightest. The kiss felt good, the lips firmer and more aggressive than those of all the girls he'd bedded.

And yet the feelings Sasuke's kiss stirred weren't very different. If anything, they were more intense. The warmth brought out the familiar hunger that always lingered in him, the ravishing desire that always left the kunoichi moaning beneath him. He threaded his fingers into the silky black hair, holding Sasuke's mouth beneath his as he explored it with his tongue, making him moan in just that way.

This was that same familiar lightheaded feeling, as though all the blood had rushed to his cock, leaving him brainless and unable to do anything except search for new places to caress. Sasuke didn't mind that in the least, arching and rubbing against Naruto's hand as he reachewn awn and found the hardness in his shorts as well, not bothering with any pretenses. Naruto was surprised how natural this seemed after thinking about Sakura for so long, how good Sasuke's lips tasted after hating him as he once had. He pressed the slim body back against the luxurious bedding, pausing to admire the ravishing beauty beneath him.

Another long moan escaped Sasuke as the almost too-sharp teeth tested his neck and shoulder, a slight pain that stung but was utterly delicious, made him throb even harder. Their hips pressed together, the friction stimulating them both despite the slippery silk of the pajama pants. Unable to bear the teasing a moment longer, Sasuke reached out and slipped his fingers under the waistband, his fingers finding and closing around Naruto's shaft as if by instinct. He got the desired reaction, Naruto letting out a soft growl into the skin of his collarbone as he stroked and squeezed. The expression on his face was pleasure, yet so intense that it could almost have been pain, the Kyuubi's marks seeming even darker over the hot flush that kissed his cheeks.

"Sasuke!" He could only groan the word. For all the times he'd yelled it in anger or frustration, it came out with a different tone now, his consciousness consumed by the way the clever fingers toyed with him. Expertly. His own palm slid down Sasuke's belly, pushed aside the silk until he found what he wanted as well. The tables were turned, then, the other boy pressing hard against his fingers and whining softly with the pleasure. Naruto turned his head to nuzzle beneath Sasuke's left ear, nibbling delicately at the lobe.

Almost without any thought of his own, Sasuke wrapped his legs around Naruto's hips, pulling him closer to savor the sharp tingling delight of the unknowing thrusting motions cou could feel warm wetness on the silk, knew that his excitement had made him leak hot stickiness. Both of them had, and it soaked through the layers of material separating them that were very thin but felt like an endless chasm right now.

Now he twined his arms around the strong neck, rubbing his cheek against Naruto's. They were both hot, feverish with passion and desire for what was coming, feelings so intense that no mortal body could hold them in forever. Sasuke's voice was a whisper, sweetly tormented, husky and pleading.

"Naruto...I want to..." His cheeks flushed even pinker. Sasuke wasn't ashamed of what he wanted to do, but somehow had never imagined himself here and now asking for it. Naruto nipped at his tongue, grinning inwardly when it earned him another moan and more writhing of the beautiful body under his.

"You want to what?" He could guess, actually- he wasn't anywhere near that naïve, although he had never thought about doing this specifically before. It sounded really good, though, especially with his cock swollen almost to the point of discomfort and Sasuke's prettiness in the paleness of the moon's light. The equipment might be different, but beauty was beauty- Naruto was realizing it now, but thought somehow that he had known it forever. He cupped Sasuke's cheek in his fingers, pausing to look into the black eyes before kissing him again, softly this time.

He had intended this one to be long and slow and gentle. It was at first, but as Sasuke kissed him back with an eagerness he had never expected even after the whole confession and declaration of love, Naruto found that it very nearly turned his blood to steam. The Kyuubi, it seemed, wasn't at all particular about sex. Naruto breathed deeply of Sasuke's earthy-clean scent, fighting to control his fiery wanting even as both demon and lover egged him on.

Finally, he broke away from the kiss. Naruto's breath was fast and hard, almost panting, his body pressed into Sasuke's. He was crushing the less muscular boy with his weight, but it was ecstasy for both of them.

"Please." A breathless whimper, a word he'd never heard Sasuke utter. The legs about his waist were clinging, the shaft rubbing against his hard and hot and speaking eloquently of what he was begging for even before he said it. "Please fuck me."

The utter eroticism of those words, dirty words that pricked at his ears and might have even made him blush under other circumstances, shot through Naruto's body like flame and lightning. Any inhibition he might have had before was gone, re, replaced by simmering lust that threatened to boil over. An evil thought twinged in is mind, taking even him so off-guard that he was sure it had to be that damn demon-fox again.

Naruto kissed Sasuke again, long and slow and penentrating. Their lips parted, and he moved up to brush them over the high forehead, sprinkling butterfly kisses.

"Any way I want you?" His voice was a whisper too, the thoughts his brain had dared to give him making his whole body twitch with little spasms of delight. Sasuke ground against him, demanding, but his eyes were dark and sincere and almost calm.

"Yes. Anything you want." Sasuke turned his head to nuzzle under Naruto's chin, planting tiny kisses. "I'm yours."

Two more words to reverberate through Naruto's being like powerful earthquakes, reminding him once more of the earlier ones.

I love you as Naruto.

The black silk slid away, winding up in a crumpled bit of softness beneath their bodies. Na kis kissed him again, slowly and wetly, a mingling of tongues that was open-mouthed and gasping with their mutual desire. He wriggled out of his own boxers, moaning as he felt the warmth of the pale skin against his golden, making delicious friction as they rubbed together. Reluctantly he untangled Sasuke's legs from around his waist, grasping him by his lean hips, his fingers caressing to the inner thighs as he did so. Sasuke whimpered, squirming against him.

Naruto leaned down to kiss his nose, smiling, a curve of bright whiteness in the room's dim atmosphere.

"You said anything I want, Sasuke." Then Naruto flipped him onto his stomach, pressing his body into the silk and fine linen beneath them.

This was almost the most vulnerable Sasuke had ever felt, exposed and on his hands and knees. It didn't come close to the emotional vulnerability of looking into Naruto's eyes as he told him he loved him and just what those feelings meant, but it was still there. And delicious. He pressed his cheek into the coolness of the pillow, feeling his stomach knot up a bit.

Although he had never done anything like this before, and in fact, really, nothing like it, Naruto wasn't concerned. The feelings he got looking at Sasuke spread out before him like this told him just about everything he needed to know, although he was taking deep breaths to calm himself from the passion that threatened to overwhelm him.

Sasuke purred, pressing back against the welcomed touch as warm fingers cupped his ass, squeezing hard but pleasurably. He knew he would have nail marks in the morning but didn't care. That same hot touch spread him apart now, leaving him even more open, making him moan and dig his own fingers into the sheets, his whole body hot from lust and anticipation.

What if I hurt him? The thought bothered Naruto momentarily, and he hesitated. Then Sasuke's voice, a groan muffled from the pillow, floated up to him.

"Please." This was more than begging. It was a demand. Unwilling to argue with that kind of desire, Naruto pulled the sweet ass back onto his hips. His fingers snaked forward between Sasuke's thighs, grasping his shaft and stroking it the same way he would pleasure himself, knowing that it had to feel good at least somehow. He was rewarded by Sasuke's mewling cry and rubbing into his fingers, the wetness that seeped between them, and the rock-hardness. His own cock ached and throbbed in response.

A tremor of fear gripped Sasuke for a moment as he felt the hard tip pressing against him, hot and eager despite Naruto's carefulness. Naruto felt his response and stopped.

"Sasuke, I don't want to hurt you...we can stop."

"No." The word was gasped out, breathless, and Sasuke meant it sincerely. He had never actually done this himself, knew it would hurt, but also knew that it would feel wonderful and he wanted it, truly, more than anything else in the world right then.

Gritting his teeth for control, Naruto pressed forward. The thick and warm wetness they had both been leaking in their excitement lubricated his way, but it was still amazingly tight. He knew it had to hurt, hated that fact, fondled Sasuke with more pressure and shorter strokes as he pushed in. He felt his response in the trembling of his body that Naruto could tell wasn't fear, in the way the hot tightness clenched around him even more, making him moan.

Torn between the delight of the fingers caressing him and the odd but somehow wonderful feeling of slowly being filled, completely penetrated by Naruto's hot hardness, splitting him apart in a way that made him want to feel nothing else for the rest of his life, Sasuke let out a soft sigh of pleasure that dissolved into a whimpering cry as he felt the hips pressed flush against his ass. He was full to the brim with the man he loved, the years of emptiness and solitude disappearing in that first instant of total completion.

Naruto felt it too, as different as it was for him to be the one surrounded and somehow stroked by the velvet tightness, this part of Sasuke he had never known before, couldn't have even imagined. No dalliance with any pretty girl had ever made him feel like this, as though he had found the answer to everything within himself with someone else. He closed his eyes.

As perfect as their joining was there, as good as it felt to be crammed full of burning pleasure or squeezed by it so hard it stole the breath, they couldn't stay that way. Sasuke whimpered again as he felt Naruto pull out, the sound turning into a gasp of hungry need as he thrust back in. Naruto was sweating with the concentration it took not to lose his senses and cut completely loose on the pliant body beneath him, the moisture beading and glistening on the bronzed skin of his chest and stomach and hips. Sasuke pushed backwards, forcing himself closer to that wonderful heat he had craved for so long.

Their rhythm was slow at first, drawn-out and luscious, both savoring every second of the hot pins-and-needles pleasure that suffused every micron of flesh. Naruto, reveling in his control, drew the strokes out just to hear the way Sasuke moaned and pleaded with him for more. He couldn't resist leaning forward, resting his cheek against the sleek back as his hips flexed, pressing forward of their own accord. He was buried again in that delicious heat, surrounding and squeezing him. His moan vibrating against Sasuke's skin made him press back again, delighting in the control he had despite his vulnerable position.

But he was still the most vulnerable one, the long and strong fingers working him over faster and faster, rubbing his deprived flesh against the callused palm, the roughness infinitely exciting. At the same time the fingertips somehow found every sensitive spot from the tip to the base, caressing Sasuke's cock in all the little super-sensitive spots he never thought anyone else could find.

The ecstasy that had been building over the fast strokes of both Naruto's hand and his cock suddenly exploded, an overload of intensely pleasurable sensn thn that he was sure would kill him right then and there as he cried out and writhed under this person he loved the most. As if by some great cosmic mystery, Naruto knew how to hold and when to squeeze, milking Sasuke dry of every drop, the hot wetness spilling out onto his fingers and making them slippery as he continued to stroke, guiding the moaning body beneath him through the aftershocks.

"Nnngh...Naruto..." Sasuke's voice cracked on the words, thick with release so powerful it was still pleasure. He was still being stimulated, lightning crackles of delicious almost-pain-pleasure still jolting through him, only intensified by the hardness buried so deeply within him that he couldn't tell where he began and Naruto ended. But that was the way he wanted it, the way he had wanted it all this time, and even now in the infinite liquid-heaviness of his body as the pleasure slowly lapped away and left him drained, he was never more glad for anything than he was for this.

Seeing Sasuke's orgasm, feeling him shudder and hearing his long cry of ultimate pleasure, had somehow only made Naruto feel his own need even more, the tightening around him and the hot sticky fluid spilling onto his fingers intensifying his excitement. Although Sasuke was still wonderfully hot and sleek and gripping, he knew now that he wasn't hurting him, that all those moans and whimpers truly had been ecstasy. He almost couldn't control himself now, fucking Sasuke harder and faster with each stroke, feeling his body twitch beneath him and his renewed cries as the hard tip of his cock hit that second sweet spot deep inside, creating new pleasure.

Naruto shoved himself in hard, as deeply as he could go, wrapping his arms around Sasuke's back and stomach. He leaned forward to bite down on the back of his neck, pricking with his teeth and branding the softness as his own. Forever. In the same moment he lost himself there, filling Sasuke with white-hotness, a surge of his essence. If he bit too hard as he yelled Sasuke's name at the very apex of his peak, the other boy didn't complain, just turned to nuzzle him. Their lips met, tongues sliding and stroking even as Sasuke was still full of Naruto's cock, and Naruto still consumed to the core with the delicious tightness.

They stayed like that for a long moment, joined by burning ecstasy and the wet eroticism of their kiss. Then, as one, they collapsed, a tangle of damp flesh and finely-muscled limbs, mouths still battling with sensuous slowness, golden hair mingling with midnight.

It was just the tiniest bit cold in the room despite the heat of their bodies pressed together in the aftermath. Naruto sighed, reaching for the sheet and pulling it over them both. They lay entwined, closer than either of them ever could have imagined or hoped for before that night. Nuzzling into Sasuke's collarbone, Naruto slept.

Sasuke stayed awake for a while longer, gazing off past the long lashes resting against the whisker-marked cheeks and still-spiked hair. He reached up to smooth his fingers through its slightly coarse texture, Naruto purring and nuzzling him in his sleep. That made him smile, that smile that hardly anyone ever saw.

After this, it almost seemed as though the years alone had been worth living through. Sasuke closed his eyes, surrendering to sleep as the moon outside set.

What the world lacked in light was made up for in love.