Chapter Text
“You told me you’d be fine,” Naruto complains with a voice that hasn’t one drop of anger in it but is filled with thick worry, threatening to spill over the seams. The hand pushing Sasuke’s hair out of his sweaty face stays gentle and warm all the way through. “I could’ve eaten more of your food when no one was looking—”
“But they were looking,” Sasuke murmurs feebly as another wave of sticky nausea hits him like a wall of ice. His stomach clenches once more on itself before he empties its contents into the toilet, obnoxiously loud—it isn’t much anymore, only gastric acid left to choke on and burn his throat. Ironically, this is the most human he has felt in a really long time.
Naruto sighs, collecting a single strand of black hair that refuses to stay put behind Sasuke’s ear. “Not always, no. I could’ve sent them to get more… I don’t know, more tea or something or—or asked dad to get a few of the photo albums of me when I was younger, he loves doing that—”
“It’s okay, Naruto,” Sasuke breathes as his body comes to rest slowly. He slides the back of his hand over his mouth, then glances sideways at the blonde as he sits back. The porcelain of the toilet is strangely, unusually, cold against his skin. “I’m not dying.”
Naruto pushes air out of his nostrils, annoyed, and now perhaps a little angry, too. “I can see that, asshole. Doesn’t change the fact your body is protesting and making you sick. I don’t think it was worth it at all.”
Sasuke gets to his feet a little shakingly, bit by bit, his head still twisting and turning the reality before his eyes, then turns the water on to wash his face, sticky from the cold sweat. He decides he will take the chance to change the awful taste clinging to his tongue with that from water as he rinses his mouth next.
What he finds in the mirror is something he wishes he hadn’t looked for; his skin is the color of nacre, thin and transparent, shot through with thick blue and purple veins around his eyes. They spread over his face like lightning.
Sasuke pins his bangs away from his face with two bobby pins and catches Naruto looking at him through the mirror, eyes wide and mouth agape.
“What?” Sasuke tilts his head, eyebrows furrowed in question.
"Nothing." Naruto looks away, pouting and with softly burning ear tips. “Anyway, don’t you have to say anything to defend yourself?”
“I don’t think I’m obligated to,” Sasuke answers nonchalantly, crossing his arms and leaning against the sink.
“Not obligated to—you—you absolute, dumb dickhead—”
Sasuke forces down the smile that is tugging at the corner of his mouth and pushes him off the sink to go lay down in his room for a while to give his body some time to recharge. He doesn’t really remember how it felt to come down with flu before he was turned but he bets this experience comes close to the real deal. The second his back touches the softness of the mattress and his eyes are closed, Naruto has followed him with resolute footsteps.
“Don’t you need to go home and tell everybody I’m okay? I’m sure there is still something left for you to eat.”
Some weight dips into the mattress right next to him. “I already let them know I’d stay with you for a while—and that we think that maybe some ingredient didn’t match with one of your new medications and made you nauseous.”
“Didn’t know lying came so easy to you,” Sasuke teases half-heartedly and opens one eye, smiling.
Naruto sticks his tongue out. “There’s a whole lot you don’t know about me.”
Sasuke chuckles softly, slumber pulling at his mind. “I bet.”
“Move a little.”
“Hm?”
“I said, make some space for me.”
“Last time I checked this was my bed, not yours,” Sasuke says but scoots over a little nonetheless, glad for the warmth Naruto brings with him, seeping into Sasuke’s bones and heating him up from the inside like a steaming bath would do after walking in the snow for too long. Naruto’s calm heartbeat is soothing to him.
Comfortable like that, Sasuke slips in and out of consciousness for a little while.
“You’re having goosebumps!” Naruto exclaims, amazed and way too loud, hot fingers running over Sasuke’s arm like tiny flames. “Didn’t know you could do that. Does this mean you’re cold?”
Naruto is right. Cold. Now that he thinks about it, Sasuke feels… cold, despite the physical contact and the fact that, objectively, he can feel the heat coming from Naruto’s body, he freezes.
A hand touches his forehead before he can answer Naruto’s question, but the way he shivers under the touch is answer enough anyway.
“You’re having a fever,” Naruto says and if Sasuke wouldn’t feel so unwell he probably would have laughed at the accusatory tone of the blond. “So the food is really kicking your ass, huh?”
“I guess.”
For whatever reason Naruto starts to whip his foot back and forth, unable to stay still. It is impossible to fall asleep like that, even though Sasuke tries to ignore it for a while.
“What is it, Naruto?” Sasuke asks, glaring a little at him.
“Are you—uhm,” Naruto says, scratching his neck. “Like, hungry? Because—maybe your body needs something to nourish on, just like chicken broth or some vegetable soup or something for people that are sick. It would probably warm you too, I think…”
The thought alone makes Sasuke nauseous again.
“No, thanks,” he yawns, a hand covering his mouth while his eyes feel too heavy to stay open any longer. It gets more difficult to ignore the way his body breaks into shivers, to think of anything else but the coldness lining his bones. Maybe he did overdo it today—just a little. “I don’t think I can hold anything in me for more than three seconds.”
A fist collides with his shoulder but it doesn’t hurt. It is more a warning than anything else. “Don’t you think I can’t hear your teeth chattering, idiot. You don’t even have a fucking blanket here and it’s partly my fault you’re in this situation. Don’t say it isn’t because it is. So let me warm you up a bit at least.”
Two arms are slung around his torso before he can open his mouth, not enough time to protest even if he wanted to, and dragged onto Naruto’s chest—warmth blossoming on every little space their skin aligns. At first it feels like being set afire and thrown into a frozen lake simultaneously but after a few moments it grows into the autumnal sun, rare and hidden on most days but when it breaks through the thick clouds, it shines so soft and comfortable.
Whatever Sasuke thought of stills, and he stays.
He stays.
The steady beat of Naruto's heart is like a lullaby sung in Sasuke’s ears, and a hand that isn’t his own combs through his hair, scratching lightly over his scalp. Everything is warm and comfortable and so soft.
“Uh, Sasuke? Can I ask you something before you fall asleep?”
Sasuke hums sleepily, melting more into Naruto’s touch, closer to the sun. “What do you wanna know?”
“I never asked—and like always, just answer if you really want to—”
“Just spit it out,” Sasuke mumbles with a voice that is trenched in sleep and laziness.
“Do you… I mean—I don’t know how those things work…and then I asked myself—were you born a vampire or do you—did you used to be human?”
“I’ve not always been like this.”
They are so close he can feel Naruto’s chin dance over his hair as he nods in acknowledgement.
“How does someone turn into a vampire?”
“I… I don’t know. When I woke up, I was… different.”
“You didn’t have any bite marks?”
“No.”
“So biting you won’t turn me?”
“A little late to be concerned about that, don’t you think? I’ve bitten you multiple times, idiot.”
Naruto laughs, a little breathless. “Right. But what you're saying means… you went to sleep some day and in the morning you were a vampire?”
“I—kind of,” Sasuke huffs, the words knotted on his tongue. “I am not sure that is something you really want to know, Naruto.”
He can hear the way Naruto’s breath is hitching—a clear sign that he is pouting. “Why not?”
“Because it isn’t a particularly lovely story.”
The arm that was loosely slung around his waist tightens, pulling them closer together.
“If you want to tell me I will listen,” Naruto says quietly.
Sasuke gulps and blinks against the view of Naruto’s neck in front of him, a little less drowsy now. Usually he doesn’t like to be reminded of the time before everything changed but he feels like he owes at least some truth to Naruto.
“I wasn’t home anymore when I woke up. I remember losing consciousness in my room, the next thing I know is I was in a morgue, lying on my back with a number around my toe.”
Naruto’s heartbeat fastens. “That sounds really scary.”
“Yeah,” Sasuke laughs bitterly. “It was.”
“What did you do when you woke up? Were you alone?”
“I remember it being night time so whoever worked there probably was gone by the time I woke up, at least I didn’t meet them. I had to break in a window to escape and then—then I just… acted on instinct. Itachi found me hours later, by accident, a few streets away from our home.”
“I’m glad you’re still here, Sasuke.” Naruto hugs him tighter, his mouth pressing something like a kiss onto Sasuke’s head. “I really am. Thank you for telling me.”
“I… Whatever, idiot.”
Naruto comes out of the bathroom after his bladder woke him from his sleep, feeling dangerously close to bursting. Dozing, in Sasuke’s bed, with Sasuke on his chest and his arms around the other boy. It still feels a little unreal; thinking of hugging him without him protesting or winding himself out of Naruto’s touch makes his heart flutter funny. Naruto is not sure but it did feel like Sasuke was snuggling a bit closer. Ah, he probably won’t like to hear that once he is awake again, huh? Sasuke seems like the type of person who is embarrassed by cuddling. Heh.
Now… should he go home or go back to Sasuke?
It is pretty late already, he didn’t intend to stay in bed for so long, so going home probably sounds like the better idea.
The fact that Sasuke might kill him when he wakes up adds a little to that conclusion.
Then the door opens itself when Naruto lays his hand upon the doorknob.
“Itachi!” Naruto realizes, taking a step back to let Sasuke’s older brother in. Itachi’s face is blank, his mouth stretched into a thin, hard line. In his hands are some of the leftovers from today.
“Sasuke feels a bit better, he’s sleeping like a baby now. Actually, I was about to leave, didn’t wanna stay so long but, eh, maybe I did fall asleep as well.”
Itachi’s eyes fall upon his face, they lack their usual warm tone; now they are hard, like stone or iron. Something feels off.
A shiver runs down Naruto’s back, creeping from there to his fingers and toes.
“What do you want from my brother?” Itachi asks as the door falls behind him into its lock, and Naruto freezes.
Naruto gulps. “What?”
“I don’t like to repeat myself, Naruto,” Itachi says, his voice sharp in a way a fresh carved knife is. He doesn’t let Naruto out of his sight when he puts the food down on a rack next to the door. Now Itachi has his hands free. “I am sure you heard me just fine.”
“I—I don’t understand,” Naruto answers, eyebrows put into tight knots. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
Itachi takes a resolute step toward him with balled fists, forcing him to walk further back into the apartment, away from the door.
“You happened,” Itachi whispers, quiet and dark, and a long fingernail bores itself inside Naruto’s chest. Next his back hits the cold of the wall behind him. Naruto is cornered. His heart beats so loud he can hear it drumming in his ear. “This is your last chance: what do you want from Sasuke?”
“I… N-Nothing, I want nothing from Sasuke,” Naruto stummers, unable to break through the intensity of Itachi’s eyes, dark and unrelenting.
A cold hand slings around his throat like a serpent.
“If you hurt my brother, I swear by all gods, I am going to kill you if I have to.”
“No,” Naruto croakes, trying to stay calm even though adrenaline is pumping through his veins. “I won’t hurt him. I want Sasuke to be—to be safe. Just like you do.”
Itachi huffs, incredulously. “Why? You think it’s cool and fun having a vampire under your spell? Did you tell anyone about him—”
The pressure on Naruto’s throat rises as Itachi’s thin fingers curl around his skin, making it hard to breath, let alone speak. He knows the situation he finds himself in is compromising at best, life threatening at worst; the things he will say in the next seconds might decide Itachi’s following actions and he is absolutely sure Itachi will do everything to keep his little brother safe—even if it means ending a life.
“Of course not!” Naruto squawks and suppresses the urge to cough. He needs the oxygen. “I would never tell anyone about his secret. I am not that dumb! I want to stay by his side as long as he wants me to.”
“Why?” Itachi huffs, clearly not understanding. “Why would you risk your own life for him?”
Naruto has to swallow, it hurts; the realization that hits him does not. It doesn’t come surprising, it is rather something he quietly acknowledged whenever his pulse quickened seeing Sasuke’s rare smiles, every time he wanted to know more about Sasuke—as a person, what connects them, he was never interested in the ways they differ.
“Because I… I have feelings for him.”
Itachi’s eyes widen, the black orbs consuming the white, his rigor disappears from his stance and with it, the hand around Naruto’s throat as well.
Then Itachi looks tired, really, really tired but a warm smile returns to his face.
“I can’t believe it, but you’re telling the truth,” he says, the hand that has been crushing Naruto’s throat now runs over Itachi’s face. “That’s… well, it is an answer I can live with, I think.”