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With a groan, Sasuke followed Sasori and Deidara.
It had been a few weeks since the hospital, since Danzo’s death, since Obito had been freed from Madara’s possession. They’d started to move in the survivors, the ones who had made it through and out, and he was already exhausted as it was. “Do I really have to go with you?” he groaned again, sitting in the backseat, and slumping down. He saw the look Sasori pinned him with out of the corner of his eye, choosing to ignore it.
“They have requested you specifically,” Sasori lifted his chin. “As soon as you are able, they said.”
“Why me?”
Deidara snorted, pressing a hand against his mouth as he turned his head to stare out the window. “I know why, yeah.”
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the back of the werewolf’s head. “Why.”
“Because you’re the one who saved their son,” Sasori started the car. “Even with a demon, a sufficiently damaging attack would have killed him. If you had not taken a hit to keep him alive, he would have died just as his parents found him again.” He pulled out of the driveway, taking Sasuke away from his home. Itachi had just smiled and waved them off when Sasori had arrived and asked Sasuke to come with him.
Wait.
“Naruto?” Sasuke sat up, straightening himself out. “What’s happening? Is he safe? Did I miss something?”
Deidara laughed, covering his mouth with both hands. “He’s fine, don’t worry.”
“You did not miss anything,” Sasori looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but there, at that moment, his hands curling around the steering wheel. “Or rather – I do not think you could have been any sort of aware at the beginning, given how you met. Nor could he. Not with everything that happened that day,” he reached over and skimmed the back of his finger over Deidara’s elbow, then put his hand back. “Everyone was out of sorts.”
“I’m one of the people who was the most okay that day, Danna.” Deidara followed his hand with his own, curling two fingers into Sasori’s elbow for a few seconds. “I’m just glad everyone else was okay, yeah.”
His speech impediment was still troubling him, but it was getting better with time. Sasuke watched the two of them bicker quietly, both smiling, as he leaned back in his seat.
The Namikaze-Uzumaki family had requested his appearance in their home, for some reason. It had to do with Naruto. It had to do with something Sasuke hadn’t seen coming, that had to do with Naruto. The demon vessel was just starting to get used to the world again, from what Sasuke had heard. Konan and Nagato came over when they could, getting to know Deidara beyond what little they had kept in their minds for so long.
With them, they occasionally brought the other werewolves – Jiroubo and Sai, apparently – and a fae who refused to let Sai be alone ever again. Yamato was a strange man to get used to, but he mostly just sat quietly and watched Sai interact.
The black-furred werewolf still hadn’t managed to shift back to a human form, though he seemed more settled than before.
Having a pack seemed to settle something about Deidara, as well.
Sasuke let himself drift into his thoughts, staring at his hands as the sky went darker around them. He’d been woken up just at sunset, told to get dressed and be on his way with Sasori and Deidara as fast as possible. When they pulled up to a two-story home, Sasuke looked up, his eyes catching on one window and staring at it until Sasori came around and opened his door. “Please tell me I do not need to carry you,” he arched an eyebrow. “I will if necessary, but I would hope you could walk on your own.”
“I can walk on my own,” Sasuke waved him off with a scowl, exiting the car and continuing to watch the same window. When he saw movement, Sasuke hurried to look away. Something had dragged him to look, made him stare.
His hands were shaking.
Deidara walked on his left, humming as he practically skipped – he was excited about something, Sasuke could tell. He couldn’t figure out what, just yet, but he could tell he was. Sasori was the one who knocked on the door, lifting his chin when it was opened by Naruto’s mother – Kushina, Sasuke corrected himself. Uzumaki Kushina, a lightning bearer. Blessed by a god, the one who had fathered her husband’s student.
He still wasn’t sure how or why Kakashi was Minato’s student, but he wasn’t one of the ones who needed to know.
“Oh, there you are!” Kushina greeted the three of them with a smile, bowing her head. Sasuke bowed in return, as did the other two, then followed them inside when she moved for them to do so. “Uchiha Sasuke,” Kushina stopped him as the door clicked shut, cupping his face between her hands. “The one who saved my son’s life.” Her eyes were bright, sparkling as she stood there, and he felt something twist in his stomach.
He'd done some minor healing, held Naruto’s health in one position so it wouldn’t slip further before someone else could get there, and he’d taken an attack that would have hit his head by simply leaning over.
If you asked him, he hadn’t done anything impressive.
“If you could come with me,” Kushina urged them all further into the house, having prodded them into guest slippers. She stayed next to Sasuke as she walked, stayed at his side, and that felt important. Something about that was important.
“Sasuke?” Sasori’s voice drifted over his shoulder. “Is something wrong?”
Sasuke looked down at his hand, itching frantically in the middle of his chest. He hadn’t even been aware he’d begun doing that. “I don’t…”
Kushina reached over and pulled his hand away, flattening his fingers out and sighing. “This is why we were worried.” She turned to look at Sasori and Deidara. “Thank you for bringing him here.” She nudged Sasuke into sitting down at the table, across from Minato. The magic-user had a handful of papers, more of them scattered across the table in front of him. With his other hand, he was sipping from a mug of tea, his eyes focused on the papers until Sasuke was fully sitting down. “Minato?”
“There he is,” Minato smiled, though there was something like worry glinting in his eyes. “If we had known, we would have warned you. I can’t imagine that the past few weeks have been easy. Not for you, nor for anyone in your Grouping.”
“He’s been a little frantic, yeah!” Deidara dropped down to sit next to Sasuke when Kushina nudged at him and Sasori. “We’re all a little worried.”
“Why have I been frantic – What is everyone talking about?” Sasuke turned to look at Sasori, who sighed, then closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. If this had been a year ago, Sasori would have been more likely to snarl, and then possibly stab someone rather than talking through what was bothering him. Just because he pretended to be saner than some of them didn’t mean he was. “I have not been in the best of moods, lately, because people won’t tell me why they’re suddenly treating me differently—”
“Sasuke, you’ve been driving all of us insane by waking up in the middle of the day and trying to wander out the door,” Sasori interrupted him. “Obito has had to drag you out of reach of sunrays multiple times.”
“…What?”
“That’s why we asked that you be brought here,” Minato’s smile was a little warmer, now, when Sasuke turned to look at him. “We heard of the trouble you were having, of the trouble they were encountering, and we realized we were having similar problems.”
“At least yours isn’t deadly for him, yeah.” Deidara shrugged, elbowing Sasuke. “Too much sunlight and you burn.”
“Exactly,” Kushina leaned in, setting heated mugs of blood in front of Sasuke and Sasori. She set a mug of the same tea Minato was drinking in front of Deidara, who grinned and nodded his thanks. “Naruto has been having the same troubles since you two met at the hospital,” she sat down next to her husband. “And when we figured out the reason behind it, we wanted to arrange a meeting to see if we could figure out a solution.”
“A solution to what?” Sasuke felt his voice waver, his hands clutching tightly to the mug she’d set out for him.
“After you left the hospital, Naruto complained that his chest itched,” Minato took a deep breath, his hands shaking before he copied Sasuke and held onto his mug with both of them, his papers set down. “We panicked. We’d just gotten him back, we couldn’t lose him again, not so soon—But it wasn’t something medically wrong.” He met Sasuke’s eyes, took another breath, then continued. “It was a distance issue.”
“A distance issue.”
“Who else do you know who has a problem exiting a certain distance?” Deidara took a sip of his tea. “And, y’know, why?”
Sasuke glared at him, opening his mouth to say something, then stopped short. His entire body froze, his mouth hanging open as the answer rang through his mind. He knew four people who had trouble – two sets of two.
Konan and Nagato were a false soulmate bond, an experiment Madara had done so that he could try and cut off Obito’s soulmate bond and control it. Obito and Zetsu were the other set, unable and unwilling to be parted now that they had found each other again after so long. Sasuke fell back, his entire body shaking as he let himself think about what that meant. About how it would be.
“We’re soulmates?” He looked up to see Minato trying to reach over the table to steady him, his hand just a little too slow. Kushina hurried to his side, pulling him into a hug.
“It’s difficult, I know,” She whispered. “Naruto had a rough reaction to it as well. We just want to find a solution that allows the two of you to go your own ways, if you do not wish to be tied to each other. Past a certain distance, it eases up.”
“But that means countries away,” Minato held up the papers he’d been studying. “And we don’t want to uproot either of you just for the sake of making it easier to ignore. Not without discussion and both of you having an opinion about this.” He sighed, rubbing at his face. “We can’t choose without informing you both. Kushina was the one who had the idea to invite you here, though we can certainly relocate if necessary. Either a neutral space or a space that is familiar to you.”
That was why Sasori and Deidara were with him.
In the absence of his brother, Sasori was the one to make sure Sasuke was safe. With the addition of Kisame, he was pretty sure there would be a few small changes, soon, but that was how it had been for centuries.
Sasuke stared into the papers Minato held, not really seeing them, as Kushina kept holding him. “I don’t…” he hesitated, his teeth clicking together as he heard footsteps from upstairs. “Does he know?”
“We told him what it is. We told him what it means.” Kushina rubbed a hand soothingly across his back, his head tucked under her chin.
Minato sighed, setting the papers down again. “But he wanted, as we both did, to have you involved in the choice. If you feel you can ignore it and find a solution to the problems both sides have been having, then we are willing to work with that. We cannot continue on, putting both of you, but specifically you, in danger.” He stood up and moved around the table, kneeling in front of Sasuke and Kushina. “If we can protect you in this as well as our son, we will. The bond is demanding some sort of resolution, especially since it is new. It will demand you drag yourself to him, even if that puts you in danger, because it just wants the two ends to be together.”
“A little like magnets,” Sasori offered. When Sasuke glared at him, he shrugged and slipped his hand into Deidara’s, both of them drinking slowly as they watched what was happening.
A scent drifted into the room, followed by footsteps, and Naruto appeared.
The itching in Sasuke’s chest got worse for a moment, then stopped entirely as Naruto crouched next to his father. “Hi!” He offered a hand. “You’re Sasuke. I remember that.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t…I don’t know what to do about this.”
He still had a child’s understanding of the world, Sasuke realized.
It would be monstrous to simply seal the bond.
Taking Naruto’s hand, Sasuke nodded. “You’re Naruto. And Kurama.” He greeted the fox with a small nod, watching a flash of orange go through bright blue eyes for a second. It took a second, his hands shaking, but Sasuke managed to sit up. Kushina let him go, supporting him until he was upright. “What do we even do about this sort of thing?”
Naruto shrugged, glancing at his parents. “It’s dangerous though, you’re apparently trying to go out in the sunlight.”
“Too much sun and a vampire will die. It’s not immediate,” Sasuke hurried to add when Naruto’s eyes widened. “It just…” he shrugged in return. “I guess I’ve been driving them insane, if that is what I’ve been doing.”
“More than a little,” Sasori added.
A pair of legs drifted into Sasuke’s view and he glanced to the side. A man with a scar across his nose and dark brown hair pulled into a tail smiled down at him. “You must be the reason Naruto’s focus got better a little while ago.” He put his hand briefly on top of Sasuke’s head, then stepped away. “Ah, Kushina, if you could sign off on the lesson plan for tomorrow?”
That was something he could focus on.
“Lesson plan?” Sasuke turned back to Naruto.
“To get me all caught up,” Naruto pouted. “I’ve been out of school for thirteen years. Apparently, I kind of need that stuff.” He shrugged, watching as his mom stepped away. “That’s Iruka, though. He’s really good at teaching things, even if I don’t always get it right away.” He smiled, turning to meet Sasuke’s eyes. “But soulmates. Even as a kid, I didn’t really know about them.”
“They’re rare,” Sasuke studied him.
If this were an ordinary situation, he’d probably offer to…Romance him? Date him? Propose he move in?
But it wasn’t normal. He’d been held captive for more than half of his life, emotionally a child even if he’d grown up aware of the worst evils in the world. Twenty-two now, physically, but just…So far behind.
He let Sasori and Deidara take the lead on the conversation. Naruto was easy enough to distract, Sasuke realized. They were good at distracting.
Even if they were soulmates, it didn’t always mean falling in love.
As everyone kept talking, Sasuke knew what he would do. It was the only solution. The only way to keep it fair. The only way to make Naruto’s life better, make it easier and safe.
Kushina and Minato had mentioned that it took countries.
Sasuke stood up when everyone was distracted and made his way back to the door. He dimmed his connection to the Grouping, putting his shoes back on and slipping outside. Without the need to transport Deidara, he could just run. That was entirely why Sasori had gotten a car in the first place.
With the first wash of cold air, Sasuke gasped, closing his eyes as he sped up.
He made it home fairly quickly, avoiding going near his brother’s room. Itachi would think he was still further away, thanks to his dimming of the connection. Obito and Zetsu wouldn’t know he was even there, Zetsu not yet decided on joining the Grouping or not. The others who had already been moved in were in the other building across the courtyard, asleep and healing after everything that had been done.
In his room, Sasuke shoved clothing into a bag, grabbing very little other than that. He had accounts he could use that even Itachi knew nothing about, so he wasn’t worried about being tracked.
Naruto would be better off without him.
Maybe one day, in the future, he could come back and see about becoming friends with him – when there were better solutions, and he was mentally able to understand everything on the same level as those around him. Sasuke could come back when he understood all the options, including the ones that involved a romantic attachment. When the idea of sealing a bond with him was not something that repulsed Sasuke simply because he was too…Innocent. It wasn’t exactly the right word, but it would have to do.
He slid open his window and dropped down. Reaching up to close his window again was easy.
Sasuke ran.