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Chapter 48 Teaser

I deeply apologize for the delay in posting chapter 48, these past few months have really been unbelievably busy. It’s all been good (mostly), there has just been a lot to do and I’m old and tired :(

Also, the chapter is kicking my ass. But to be fair to you all, who kindly wait, despite my tardiness, here’s the first 8th of the chapter. I hope you enjoy it :)

The Trust Exercise, part 2

It was late when Sasuke heard the familiar sound of Naruto’s feet sliding on the tiles above his window - ungraceful as ever. A familial snort rolled in the back of this throat as he sat up, letting the book that he wasn’t reading slide into his lap. He never worried that it might be someone else approaching - someone that meant him harm - for that person would at least aim for stealth and silence. Naruto just tried to be quiet and failed, impressively.

“Window’s open,” Sasuke said to the curtains, watching his visitor circumnavigate the drapes and the window frame, slip on the thin coating of ice that Sasuke may have encouraged to develop on the outer stool and end up a rather surprised heap on the floor in amongst a healthy pile of blankets and pillows. Naruto blinked.

“What’s all this?”

“It’s too cold to sleep on the roof,” Sasuke told him, blithely. “There’s a pillow, I think; a few blankets. Even a futon - apparently Tsunade borrowed it off a friend or a cousin or something - I don’t know,” he waved a hand absently toward the pile, trying to downplay the fact that he did know. “Just… do what you want with it.”

“Blankets?” Naruto studied the array of bed linen before him as the realization slowly dawned. “Wait, you mean..? You’re gonna let-”

“If you snore, you’re going back home and staying there.”

“I don’t snore.” Naruto said quickly. “Promise.”

“And you can’t wear that dumb hat-”

“Haven’t worn Mr Toothy since I was twelve.” Naruto grinned. If by “twelve” he meant “yesterday”, Sasuke wouldn’t have been surprised. “So… so you’re saying I can stay? Here? Inside? Inside with you?”

“Mikoto wakes at five am.” Sasuke continued. “Sometimes she wants a bottle at two or three. She might be disrupted for the first couple of nights since-”

“I’ll be super quiet.” Naruto whispered as though to demonstrate. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Now keep an eye on her, I’ll be back in a second.”

“Sure, sure.” Naruto bounced his feet, eagerly, before his smile dropped. “Wait, look after her? Where are you going? What if-”

“I’m going to the bathroom. You have, literally, two minutes to fuck anything up.”

With that thinly veiled threat, Sasuke walked out of the room. He tried not to notice how his heart was racing as he made his way to the toilet and, while he did have to relieve himself, he tried to be as quiet as possible, listening out for any sense of discomfort from Mikoto, or stupidness on Naruto’s behalf. It was another trust exercise, something that would go on to greater bridges Sasuke knew they would one day have to cross. He’d planned to count to ten before he walked back into the room, but nerves intervened and Sasuke found himself walking in on the blond as he was attempting to undress as quietly as he could while hawkishly monitoring the crib.

“I’m watching her,” he confirmed hoarsely as he tugged his jeans over his ankles. He’d already set out his bed on the floor and was standing on the comforter as he fought with his outfit. “Um… Is boxers and a shirt ok? Don’t have pajamas..”

“Whatever,” Sasuke said, observing with masked appreciation, the pinstriped boxers and the plain, fitted white tee that seemed to laminate itself across Naruto’s abdomen. Whatever, indeed. He could stand there like that all night if he wanted to. “You don’t need to whisper; she’s asleep.”

“Yeah but,” Naruto grunted, finally freeing himself, “I’m loud.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Sasuke shrugged. “Anyway, she’ll let you know if you’re too loud. Then I’ll hit you and Tsunade will kill you and you’ll know not to do it again.”

Naruto sniffed. “Sounds fair.”

“Pretty much.”

Sasuke rubbed his stomach, caught in an odd dichotomy of anxious and satisfied. The tension bothering him earlier had finally dissipated after his talk with Tsunade and the long, hearty dinner that had begun with dumplings and graduated to a three-course meal had helped. He hadn’t eaten so much since the time he and his brother had been home alone and Itachi hadn’t known how much to feed a six year old, or the times he and Naruto used to gorge themselves before training until they dropped, but he had to admit it felt good to be full. Then Naruto had turned up and even though he expected him; even though he had planned for the other to stay, he was still half-convinced he should just turf the jinchuuriki outside and deal with him in the morning. He wanted the worry to leave him, he wanted to feel safe around Naruto - he needed to. It was just hard being frightened in a space he’d finally settled in as his own. He needed to be safe, but at the same time, he needed Naruto to be there as well. Easing into bed, Sasuke watched Naruto glance toward the cot one last time, stretch, turn around three times before he settled under the sheets. Sasuke frowned.

“Is that a-”

“Fox thing? Yeah.” Naruto said, then grinned. “Nah, joking. I just jump on in like everyone else. Got you though!”

“We’ve camped together plenty of times. I know how you sleep, idiot.”

“Just a joke… Y’know, to lighten the mood.” Naruto chuckled. Suddenly he paused, frowned, then: “Kurama wants it noted that he thinks my jokes are stupid.”

“Kurama is right,” Sasuke raised a brow.

“Everyone’s a critic.”

“Hn,” Sasuke fought the urge to smirk as Naruto picked at the comforter, despondently. “Is he always listening? The Biju?”

“Kurama? Nah, he’s asleep a lot of the time. Or meditating. It’s kinda muffled in there and he can’t hear so well if I’m not talking to him directly.” Naruto shrugged. “Sometimes he pays attention when I’m nervous, but he doesn’t listen in if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried.” Sasuke negated, briskly. “And that’s pretty weird, having him just… there.”

“Yeah,” Naruto rolled on his side and propped his head up on the heel of his hand. “But we’ve kinda figured out our privacy issues.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Well what about you?” Naruto pointed at Sasuke’s middle, hidden mostly by blankets. “Does the baby tell you anything? Or, y’know, communicate sorta?”

Sasuke looked down and pursed his lips thoughtfully. He hadn’t thought about it much, but now that he did he could certainly recount times when the kid became extra wiggly when he was anxious. And how he’d often receive a punt to the kidneys when his voice rose. Mikoto had despised some of the herbs the Kakkou put in their food and told him as much by pummeling his bladder.

“Sort of. Guess it’s to do with how much I move about or the rate of my heartbeat or something,” he mused. “If I had chakra, he might respond to that as well, but I don’t know. I don’t even know if he has chakra himself.”

“He does,” Naruto said. “Lots. So does Mikoto. They’re really strong, you don’t need to worry about that.”

Sasuke knew this, of course. He knew that Mikoto practically oozed the stuff (along with everything else that came out of her) and that his boy had the fruit of his pedigree coursing through his veins. He knew that his chakra was low and strongly suspected that the Kakkou may have crippled his ability to gain more even after he gave birth. But hearing the truth from Naruto’s mouth only served to steep the otherwise joyful information in a well of jealousy. Naruto could sense something about his children that he couldn’t. Naruto knew something about his own flesh and blood that he didn’t. It wasn’t fair. And yet, as maddening a thought as it was, Sasuke let it slide. Naruto could best him at a lot of things right now, it didn’t matter if there was one more to add to the list. His children had power. They could be taught to protect themselves. That was all he should care about.

“I don’t,” Sasuke said at length. Naruto shrugged again, nonplussed.

“Yeah. Well… I’m sure we’ll get your chakra back too, Sasuke. Just have to figure it out, right? Then you’ll be back to the way you were in no time.”

“The way I was…” Sasuke thought about that for a moment. He knew what Naruto meant and if he were honest with himself, he was champing at the bit to get his own form back and feel even the smallest spark of power coursing through his veins again. He’d even be happy even if all he could summon were a couple of Naruto’s half-formed henge attempts from his pre-genin days - the ones that could only pass as human if they were seen under very thin moonlight, during a hailstorm by someone in a very late stage of drunkenness. That would be something at least. But-

“I’m not worried about that right now,” he concluded. The dream of his former self was best left locked away until he had a spare thought to deal with it.

“Guess you can’t really, huh.” Naruto said, almost as ruefully. “So how much longer until the baby’s done?”

“He’s not a cake.” Sasuke grunted. “And three months. Round about.” He punched a nearby pillow a few times to revitalize the stuffing, then shoved it under the blanket to prop up his knee - an trick Nuja had taught him to sleep more comfortably. It worked wonders on his damaged ligaments as well.

“Look,” he said as he lay down. “I get the feeling you haven’t thought all this through, Dobe.”

“Thought what through?”

“You know that being associated with me looks bad. Especially since our past is so…”

“Involved? Complicated?”

“Public.” Sasuke brushed a few dangling pieces of hair out of his eyes. “With me out of the picture, you’re a hero. When I’m in it… Use your head, idiot, you can’t expect to retain the same type of support from the village when you’re speaking out for someone like me. I’m still referred to as a criminal.”

“We all said it before, Sasuke; we know what we’re doing. You just gotta let us do it.”

“Do what?” Sasuke hissed. “Help me… what? Fight against the system? Criticize the work of four generations of beloved leaders? There could be serious repercussions for you all! It’s bound to affect your shot at becoming Hokage. Some of those guys could be disowned for choosing the wrong side! You don’t know what clans are like, you were never part of one.”

“And you were only part of one,” Naruto replied, coolly. “Pretty sure not everyone hated the Uchiha. And same the other way.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Maybe it is? Maybe that’s why having you let Miss Naoko publish that story is so important. Maybe everyone is so busy looking through the eyes of their own clan, they don’t realize what’s going on either. So if they did, they might change their mind. Might even want to help. When I’m Hokage, I’m gonna make sure everyone knows the truth too, so that everyone can make their own decisions. I think it’ll make our village stronger.”

“Stronger?” Sasuke sighed. “But if you become Hokage through some horrific lapse in judgment-”

“Hey!”

“- what happens if you’re pushed into reinstating the same system we have now? I can’t support you if that happens, Naruto. I won’t.”

It was then that Naruto suddenly became very aware of a wrinkle in the sheet by his elbow. He batted at it, trying to knock it smooth. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, who said I would?” He muttered. “I’d change it. I’d make it better. I’m not a liar, Sasuke. I can be Hokage and change things too.”

“Try saying that with the damn hat on your head.”

“I say it now, I say it always. Hat or no. Why wouldn’t I? I said I loved you, dummy. I said I’d stand for you. You know that when I say things, I mean them.”

Sasuke glanced at his fingers, studying his nails. He’d said things too, once. He’d meant them. He still meant them, only-

“Sometimes things change.”

“I know.” Naruto said, pulling his blankets up over his shoulder as he rolled to face the wall. “And some things stay the same.” There was a pause. Heavy. Contemplative. When Naruto spoke again, his voice had lost its humor. It had dropped low, deep and resolute and his words hung in the air, too large to be considered in one conversation, but too poignant to remain unsaid. “Some things must always be the same, Sasuke. Even if they die. Even if the stars burn out and the world crumbles away. There are some things that can never be anything else.”

Naruto could fall asleep at the drop of a hat and could remain unconscious through anything from fire alarms to major cataclysms, but Sasuke wondered, after a comment as emotionally convicted as that, whether sleep would be on the cards for either of them. He wondered how often Naruto thought about the tsukiyomi - the life that he’d fabricated for the both of them. His lie. His trap. Did he wake at night, convinced he’d watched his lover dying in his arms, unable to be saved through any of his many, many talents and means? Was he sickened by the memory of his rampage; the lives he took, the earth he scorched as he sought to throw the world into a level of despair that could only match his own.

Could he still look at Sasuke, knowing that the man he said he loved had forced him to destroy everything he ever stood for. The man who drove him past sense and meaning. Sasuke, who was the only one to turn Naruto into the beast he’d spent his life rejecting. As much as Naruto said he loved him, Sasuke wondered how much of that might have been pure or simply worn down obligation.

#The Makeweight #the makeweight fanfiction #SNS #sasuke centric fics #sasuke au #naruto au #mpreg

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