“Boruto,” Himawari complains, leaning on her elbows at the table. “When are you going to the store with Mom to get new pants?” She shakes her bangs out of her face, and Boruto ignores her for a moment more to rifle through the freezer. “Those are way too short on you. You look like a girl!”
“Ehehehe,” he laughs, halfway nervous as he fishes out his prize—an ice cream bar wrapped in white cellophane. “Soon! Definitely before school starts.” He shuts the door and looks at his sister. “When’s Dad supposed to be back from his trip out to the city? Mom said he called earlier with a change of plans.”
“Not until next week.” Himawari looks up from her cereal, eyes apologetic, and Boruto is suddenly very interested in how evenly the kitchen tiles are knit together under his feet.
“I swear,” he grumbles, unwrapping his ice cream, and doesn’t finish his sentence.
It’s like he likes being out there more than he likes being with us.
He smiles, despite himself. “Thanks,” he waves, “I’ll see you at dinner.”
In his room with his door closed, Boruto can do anything he wants.
He squats in front of his floor-length mirror, right hand steadying himself against his bed. His knees wobble outward, and he clutches his ice cream a little harder, balancing himself on the balls of his feet. Boruto slides his phone out of his back pocket in one slow, careful motion, wary of losing his balance, and he swipes his way into his favorite app to tap out one quick message:
i have a surprise for you
He returns to the previous screen, staring through the viewfinder to find his proper place. He holds his phone away from his face, positioning it so it covers his eyes like a censor bar, and flops his tongue out of his mouth with a sneaky grin. He drops the ice cream on his tongue; it tastes more like ice than chocolate, and Boruto puzzles at himself in the mirror, trying to find the best angle for his hips, tilting his waist experimentally. No, he thinks, that’s not right, and he edges his feet farther apart, swinging his knees out, calling to mind the pose he’s trying to imitate and shuffling himself around accordingly.
At long last, he feels he’s done just enough, and he snaps the picture before sitting back to examine it more closely—his legs are spread wide, cock just excited enough to show through his too-tight shorts, and his face is a perfect balance of anonymous reticence and coy invitation. His shirt, too, is just a little too tight, buckling around his tummy and flipping up just high enough to show a little skin. His tongue kisses up against the treat he stole from the kitchen, an unspoken wish you were here spilling from his likeness’s lips.
Boruto pops the stylus out of his phone and doodles a bit on the screen, frosting the edges of his body in pink and slicking a few white hearts into the negative space around him. He contemplates decorating his cock with a smaller one. Absently sucking at the tip of his dessert, he decides against it; after all, beyond his busy, grinning mouth and shapely thighs, that’s what he wants on display the most.
Yeah, he thinks to himself through all the nerves, that’s great.
Message sent.
And message received; with barely any delay, a single line of text pings back—
you’re too much
Something tingles into Boruto’s fingers, shaking his breath in his chest and dripping hot into his groin. For a moment, before he can remind himself how sexy the shorts make him look, he hates how they cradle his dick with that suffocating hold; but he can’t bring himself to take them off, not yet, because he knows how much the man on the other end of the phone loves them, and imagining him sweating—touching his cock, even—with his full attention on Boruto’s young, eager body, is enough to push him to endure anything.
don’t do things like that where your father could see. i don’t care if the pictures vanish once i see them. you need to be careful
Yes, anything—even a bit of nagging from a man old enough to be his dad. Boruto rolls his eyes. As if he’s gonna see anything from all the way out there.
you say that but you still saved the pic, Boruto taps back. i can see it.
He snickers to himself, holds his finger down on Sasuke’s words with a grin for just long enough to save them, and swipes away to take another picture.
“So, how about it?” Sasuke asks, warm evening breeze ruffling his hair, “still have it out for the big city?”
The summer air is clear and light as it sneaks in through the windows of Sasuke’s car, and Boruto still can’t believe where he is.
“…Maybe,” he shrugs, taking in his surroundings with a grin. “How much longer ‘til we get to the restaurant?” Boruto asks, swinging his legs. “I’m starving.”
“Be patient.” Sasuke doesn’t really answer his question. “It’s connected to the hotel. You won’t have to wait much longer.”
Boruto doesn’t correct him or tell him he means that he’s actually hungry, choosing instead to look out the window of the passenger seat at all the many glittery trappings of the city around them. “It’s… different here,” he says, transfixed. “I can see why Dad likes being out here so much.”
Two lanes away, a man spits a curse out of his driver’s seat window, and Sasuke tightens his hands around the steering wheel. “Boruto,” Sasuke sounds uncertain, as though he’s not sure how to navigate the conversation, “your father doesn’t come out here for leisure, you know.” Sasuke bites his tongue, trying desperately not to put his foot in his mouth. “He’s a very busy man.”
“Well,” Boruto doesn’t look away from the buildings rolling past them, “yeah.”
The radio drones low, almost inaudible as the city’s chatter smothers it, and Boruto fidgets in his seat again, sitting on his hands and staring into a big lick of orange in the sun-worn sky.
“You still haven’t told me what you really thought about those pictures I sent you,” Boruto shifts away from the window and folds his arms behind his head, gazing at the road ahead as it rolls away under the hood of the car. “I wanna know.”
Sasuke is quiet, briefly, but he seems grateful for the change in topic. “You shouldn’t do that at home,” he says after a moment, “and you especially shouldn’t do it on your phone. If Sarada was doing something like this—”
He doesn’t finish that thought, leaving it to die in the air between them, and changes the subject.
“…Anyway, it’s too easy to get caught if you put all this on your phone,” he looks at Boruto for a moment, “no matter what apps you use. If we’re going to do this, we have to be smarter than that.”
“Not in the house, huh?” Boruto almost makes a deeply catty comment, something like, should I do it in the streets next time instead?, but he holds himself back. “That’s not what you said the first time.”
Sasuke keeps his eyes on the road, but Boruto swears he can see a little bit of pink dust its way into Sasuke’s cheeks in the evening light. “You shouldn’t do things like that at home anymore,” he begrudges, and Boruto snickers, for once not complaining at Sasuke’s nagging, because right now he’s here, in Sasuke’s fancy car, with nothing and no one to criticize them if their eyes linger a bit too long on each other’s bodies, if their hands brush together on the center console.
“Good thing Dad always knocks, huh?” Boruto shifts in his seat, glancing back and forth between Sasuke and the exotic scenery, a memory playing over his eyes.
He wonders if Sasuke thinks of it as often as he does—Boruto’s pushy hands scrambling at his belt, knees to the floor at his bedside with Sasuke standing tall above him; Sasuke’s breath coming hot and fast as he stuffed nervous, giddy fingers into Boruto’s hair, as Boruto took his cock as deep down his throat as he could—hardly many meetings after their first, but just enough that Sasuke didn’t push him off, didn’t say stop or try to ask why before emptying himself out onto Boruto’s tongue. Sasuke had finished faster than Boruto usually finished himself at night; with a knock and a jittery “Come in!” from Boruto, Naruto was smiling in the doorway before Sasuke could ask, have you ever done this before?— before Boruto could say, no, never.
“Good thing,” Sasuke mumbles. “Count yourself extremely lucky,” he continues, attention clearly veering elsewhere, “because he wasn’t always like that.”
“What was he like before?”
“Your father?” Sasuke sighs, “He tends to make people feel… complicated things.”
Great. Another non-answer. Boruto tries again: “Does he ever come to see you when he’s out here? In the city, I mean?”
Sasuke doesn’t react. “I wish,” he says, voice plain, and they sit in silence. He keeps driving until they reach the hotel.
Naruto Uzumaki is supposed to be on a business trip, but he can’t keep his mind from wandering elsewhere.
Between meetings and dinners, under the late-setting sun, he thinks about Sasuke. Dusk settles late each night, settling over the city’s shoulders like a thin shawl, and all Naruto can remember is Sasuke’s brother driving them out here for hours every summer. It’s just the right time of year—right between Sasuke’s birthday and what would have been Itachi’s—the worst time, in a sense, because Naruto can’t shake off the memories.
It only hurts because it feels so good, and because it’ll never happen that way again.
Naruto’s mind won’t settle on just one piece of the puzzle to mourn, like Sasuke’s refusal to sit anywhere except the passenger seat of the car, all thanks to Itachi’s quiet indulgence of all his whims; he can’t sit alone and dwell on the phantom sensation of Sasuke’s adolescent fingers wrapped around his wrist, dragging him somewhere and grumbling under his breath, or on all the nights he used to lie awake and listen to Sasuke’s soft, sleeping breath in the other bed—the Uchiha bed, he used to think, somehow bitter without knowing why. Now his perspective jerks and fades between the many thousands of small conversations and escaped moments littered throughout his memory, each reminding him of a feeling he’ll never quite feel again—or an experience he never took the chance to have.
This trip is not the first of its kind, and it won’t be the last.
Naruto shuffles his hand through his hair, no longer worried about keeping it manicured; he has work to do yet, but meetings are over for the day, and he’s not present enough to think much about what he’s doing with himself. He sighs and stands, swatting a few wrinkles out of the knees of his pants, and he reminds himself how to smile. He tells himself that it’s fine, that he’s just hungry after a long day of work. He’s married with two children and a beautiful house and he has nothing to grieve for leaving behind. The hotel’s adjoined restaurant, he tells himself, will surely solve all of his problems.
He steps out; the door to the restaurant is in view, and his appetite runs dry.
At first, he doesn’t believe his eyes, because he knows that if Sasuke or Boruto had plans to come to the city, they would have said something. After another moment, he still doesn’t believe, but he can’t deny what’s in front of him for long—just until they round the corner and pass out of sight. Naruto shakes his head and quickens his pace, rushing out in as big a hurry as he can without drawing attention to himself. He sees Sasuke rest his hand at the small of Boruto’s back, fingers not quite pressed flat to his adolescent body; Naruto watches, bewildered, as they leave, presumably on their way to a room, and he doesn’t know what to do.
Naruto knows Sasuke, and Sasuke isn’t an animal; it’s patently clear to Naruto as he watches them meander off that Sasuke wanted to take Boruto to dinner, that he wants to treat him like an equal in so many ways. He’s seen it in other places too, when they’re all home, and never once has Boruto complained of Sasuke being too strict with him or acting against his wishes. Even now, there is nothing unkind in Sasuke’s touch, nothing overtly untoward about his actions, but they’re both here. They’re here, alone, so many hours from home, and they didn’t tell him.
Naruto catches himself then; no, he tells himself, I’m thinking about this all wrong. He shakes his head as if trying to clear it of a strange, disconcerting dream. Sasuke wouldn’t do something like that. Especially not to me. ‘Not to Boruto’, he could have said, but he doesn’t think about that. There’s no reason for me to think that they’re…
And yet.
He flashes back, one more time, to all those lonely summers, because there was one very special night where he and Sasuke did share the bed. And then he remembers every other summer, both before and after that, because not once did Sasuke ever sleep in bed alone.
Something ugly prickles down through Naruto’s spine, and he turns around and heads to the reception desk.
For weeks, Boruto has wondered how this moment will play out—sometimes alone at night, two or three fingers deep, and sometimes at the dinner table with his mother and sister—but he doesn’t have to wait long to find out. Even in the elevator up, he wonders; what are the rules to this sort of dance, both in general and to Sasuke himself? How much time will the two of them have to spend talking or watching TV, pretending they’re here for other reasons?
Is he going to change his mind?
In reality, things are much simpler than he gives them credit for. As soon as the door snicks shut, heavy and final, as soon as Boruto looks at Sasuke to see what’s supposed to happen next, something flashes across Sasuke’s face; it’s like he can see something deeper behind Boruto’s eyes, something he won’t say out loud, and Boruto’s back is flat against the nearest wall before his voice can make it up his throat and into the room.
Sasuke tests him first, bending down and kissing him only with his lips, a hand slinking down to Boruto’s waist; when Boruto doesn’t hesitate or push him away, when he leans into the kiss, Sasuke slips his tongue past Boruto’s lips and tilts his head to get a better angle. Boruto sighs into Sasuke’s mouth, then moans as Sasuke’s knee nudges his legs apart, settling against Boruto’s cock as his hands slide back up to cup Boruto’s face and draw him closer. The kiss devolves, darkening and twisting a little more with each second they spend pressed so close together; by the time Sasuke can finally pull himself back, Boruto’s lips are plump and rosy from all of Sasuke’s attention, and neither of them can breathe.
“Bed,” Sasuke manages, finally, and Boruto thinks about protesting, about trying to pull Sasuke back on top of him, but Sasuke’s orders are absolute in the aftermath of that kiss—fuck, that kiss— and Boruto allows himself to be led over the threshold, the backs of his knees sending a jolt through him as they hit the bed. The plush comforter buckles under his weight, and then further still under Sasuke’s, and he hardly has a moment to breathe in before Sasuke is back on top of him, hands trembling as they slide up his lithe, fresh body.
“You were thinking about arguing with me back there,” he whispers, “weren’t you?” Sasuke nearly growls into Boruto’s mouth, pushing his shoulders deep into the mattress, “I didn’t bring you out here to play games, Boruto,” he murmurs, “I brought you here to fuck you.”
Boruto groans through his teeth, helpless and all at once supremely overwhelmed by the situation. He leans up into Sasuke’s mouth, tongue washing across Sasuke’s lips, a clumsy imitation of Sasuke’s earlier ministrations. Sasuke allows it for a moment and returns the favor, savoring Boruto’s inexperienced touch, but he pulls back quicker than either of them want.
“Well?” Sasuke tries not to show it, but Boruto can tell he’s waging war with himself, struggling to stay lucid enough to form coherent sentences. “Do you want it or not?”
Boruto doesn’t say yes in so many words, whether because he’s out of breath or because he knows that’s what Sasuke wants him to do, but he grinds his cock against Sasuke and digs his fingers into Sasuke’s shoulders by his jacket, struggling to push it off of him, and now it’s Sasuke’s turn to gasp for air—he twists out of his coat one arm at a time, never allowing Boruto enough free range of movement to sit up or shift his body until he’s fully unwrapped.
Impatient and dissatisfied with their lack of progress, Boruto reaches for Sasuke’s groin, grabbing his cock through his nice pants and letting slip a small gasp at how hard it is. It’s harder than it was the first time they were together, and all Boruto can think is how beyond want he is; they’ve both crossed the border into need, and they did that long before ending up in bed together.
“Fuck,” Sasuke groans at the touch, forcing Boruto’s wrist away and up beside his head and bending in close. “Not yet,” he manages, breath ragged, hair curtaining Boruto’s face on either side. “Did you do what I told you to?”
“Uh-huh,” he whines, scrambling to pull Sasuke in closer. “Every night,” he pants, and he barely manages the words before Sasuke’s tongue is in his mouth again, coaxing a beautiful, desperate sound from him through their shared fever, wanton sweat slicking his brow as he tongues back at Sasuke’s lips. Boruto’s patience is nearly gone, self-control slipping away into vapors as Sasuke handles him with less and less care, and he realizes that, at this moment, getting Sasuke inside him is more important than his pride. “I did it every night,” he says again, close to breathless, “So please—”
“You know it feels different when someone else does it, right?” Sasuke’s voice sinks deeper into his chest, fingers trembling and settling with a twist into Boruto’s hair, a twist he doesn’t strictly intend but can’t restrain anymore. “It won’t be like your fingers. This is your last chance, Boruto,” he almost lunges back into the kiss, this time with a bit of teeth, and Boruto’s hips jerk up underneath his, hands still fisting into Sasuke’s shirt. “I can’t promise you I’ll be gentle.”
“I trust you,” Boruto groans—because it sounds better than I don’t care about that, just do it— as Sasuke’s mouth slips down over his jawline, teeth catching against the soft flesh of Boruto’s neck. “But—ah! I-I,” he stutters, “I don’t have any shirts that come up that high, and—”
“Take this off, then,” Sasuke shoves the hem of Boruto’s shirt up past his ribs. “Let me see your chest.”
Boruto obliges, shuffling out of his top and throwing it somewhere between both of the beds. Sasuke’s mouth is on him before he can return to his spot on the bed, and the sensation is more than electric, all hot and merciless against his virgin flesh.
“Hnn,” Boruto whines as Sasuke’s lips tease at his nipple, an area he’s never even thought to give attention to for self-pleasure, “Sasuke—”
Sasuke groans at the sound of his name, burying his forehead in Boruto’s neck and shifting a free hand to play with Boruto’s other nipple. He rocks against Boruto’s warm, shaky body and shifts down again to suck a dark, tingly mark into Boruto’s chest, then another, and Boruto whispers something about how he can’t take it anymore before Sasuke pulls back and throws his head back, wresting himself from Boruto’s body with a strained noise.
“This is nothing,” Sasuke shakes his head as he strips his pants off, desperate to free his cock from its prison. “Stay there,” he waves his hand and pulls his cock out, crawling up on his knees to drop it on Boruto’s cheeks and lips. “Use your mouth for a bit, Boruto.”
Boruto listens, tongue lolling out to try and catch Sasuke’s cock. He sucks the tip in, and Sasuke twitches in his mouth, letting out a soft noise above him; Boruto looks up at his face for a moment and thinks Sasuke looks like he might be enjoying this even more than he did the first time—maybe because they have more time to savor it, or maybe because his dad isn’t feet from them in the other room. Boruto clumsily pushes his tongue against the underside of Sasuke’s cock as he sucks, careful and attentive but lacking in experience, and Sasuke’s breath hitches at the contact.
As Boruto’s tongue slips against his foreskin, Sasuke realizes all at once that he won’t last if this keeps up; Boruto makes a sound as he does it, something Sasuke swears he’s imagined a thousand times before, and he pulls back just before it’s too late, a sticky line of pre-ejaculate tethering them together briefly before he can retreat. As though sensing Sasuke’s intentions, Boruto wiggles out of his pants and kicks them to the floor before collapsing back into the bed, and Sasuke reaches into his discarded jacket pocket for a shapely red bottle.
Boruto shuts his eyes for a moment and sighs softly, only opening them once he feels Sasuke’s finger twisting and prodding at his entrance, and he sucks in a breath. “You were right,” he groans, “yours are nothing like mine.” And then, suddenly worried that Sasuke might stop, he rolls his hips down against Sasuke’s hand, trying to guide him to the right spot, and Sasuke slips deeper, first with one finger and later with a second, stretching Boruto just wide enough to prepare him for what’s to come. Sasuke shifts on the bed and kisses the side of Boruto’s cock, never withdrawing or stilling inside.
“It feels really good when you do both at the same time,” he kisses again, this time with a bit of tongue and an extra curl of his fingers, “doesn’t it?”
Boruto can’t think enough to do anything but nod, but he knows Sasuke is watching him, so he knows it’s enough.
Neither of them can tell how long it takes for Sasuke to give in and slick his cock with lube, nor how long it takes for him to press his way inside; it happens equally too slow and too fast, almost torturous in how good it feels for both of them. Sasuke can’t keep himself quiet as he seats himself inside Boruto—Boruto is far tighter than he expected, close to too tight, and Boruto balls his hands into tighter fists with every inch Sasuke gains inside him, moaning in a senseless, babbling language that Sasuke can only understand with his body.
Still, neither of them stop; Sasuke thinks about it, once, and realizes with a sinking feeling that he can’t stop or pull back, not even if he really wants to. Even if he’s asked to.
He isn’t asked to, though, and he doesn’t want to. At one point, between Sasuke’s bruising thrusts, Boruto pulls him closer and closer to his chest until they both feel something hot and slick escape into the space between them. Boruto groans, back arching; Sasuke himself isn’t far behind, and he collapses over Boruto like a wave at shore once he’s through, mind too blank for him to chastise himself over not pulling out.
For a minute after, all is silent in the room save for the sound of their labored breathing. Not even the sheets dare to crinkle beneath them. Boruto stares up at the ceiling through Sasuke’s dark, messy hair, catching his lashes on it every time he blinks.
“That… That was…”
He can’t get the words out.
After that, neither of them say anything until their breathing levels out. Sasuke sighs, and Boruto thinks he sounds more distant than ever.
“You remind me so much of what my life was like when I was younger,” Sasuke murmurs, half drunk with orgasm, far too close to cutting himself on the deadly edge of vulnerability. “Of your father and I, a long time ago… back when my—”
Before he can finish, the sound of a knock on the door shakes them apart. Sasuke is out of bed and at the door before Boruto can blink.
“What is it?”
Sasuke peers out through the peephole and blanches a deathly white. “It’s your father.”
“…What?”
“You heard me!” Sasuke wheels around, voice hardly above a whisper but edged with the sharpest of knives. “I don’t know how he knows we’re here, but he might not know you’re with me. Make yourself scarce!”
“I—” Boruto can hardly process the situation. He lowers his voice. “I’ll hide in the bathroom,” he stammers. “He won’t find me if I go in and close the door.”
“Don’t you dare go in there,” Sasuke vehemently shakes his head. “That’s just asking to get caught. Go out on the balcony or something!”
“There’s no time!”
“Pick up your clothes,” Sasuke hisses, “now!”
In his panic, Boruto decides that the only place for him to hide is inside the floor-length curtains on either side of the sliding glass door; if the bathroom is off limits, he thinks, going directly out to the balcony will be suicide. Stuffing his discarded clothes between his arms and his ribs, he slips between the curtain’s bunched folds and swallows, knees knocking together as Sasuke dresses himself and heads for the door.
“Sasuke!” The lock hardly has time to click open before Naruto’s face crams itself into the vacant space. “You’re really here,” he says, something like disbelief in his voice—but something quieter, Boruto thinks, not disappointment—but something closer to bewilderment. “That’s, hah,” he steps back, “wow!”
“Naruto.” Sasuke sounds exhausted, Boruto thinks, and from more than just the sex.“It’s good to see you, but I wasn’t expecting you. What brings you here?”
“Ah, yeah!” Naruto laughs, nervous and bad at hiding it, and Sasuke tries not to see Boruto in him, toes curling into the floor. “Well, normally they don’t put me up here for work, since it’s so nice and all, but I guess the client is kind of a big deal this time around, so…” He rocks back on his feet a little, and Sasuke pretends he doesn’t notice. “…Why are you here, Sasuke?”
He doesn’t ask why Sasuke didn’t tell him that he was back from overseas, but he doesn’t need to. In a sense, Sasuke knows he’s being punished for not saying anything—punished for more than that, perhaps. He does his best with it.
“They gave me the chance to leave early. I just got off the plane, so I haven’t had much time to myself.” A lie, but not entirely. “I was going to call you and Sakura about it later tonight.” Plainly false.
“Well, uh,” Naruto scratches his head, “I have work to do, but… could I come in? Just for a minute?”
Boruto clings to the curtain he’s hiding behind with shaky, clammy hands, then thinks better of it, terrified that one wrong move might send it crashing down to expose them both. He twists his body around so his breath won’t hit the curtains and disturb them and he stands there, trying to quiet his breath, body naked and petrified against the wall.
“Sasuke, what’s wrong? You look like you’re about to—”
“I’m fine, Naruto. Really. It was just a very, very long trip. I’m sorry if I worried you.”
“No, no,” Naruto says, “you don’t have to be sorry.”
“Please,” Sasuke says, and Boruto can’t read his tone at all, “come in. Just for a minute.”
Boruto strangles back an ‘Are you crazy?’ and bites his tongue, remembering suddenly to clutch onto his clothes, terrified of dropping them from under his arms. He stands still and silent, hoping the coast will clear soon, but he nearly breaks as he feels something warm and wet start to run down his thighs—Sasuke.
“Wow,” Naruto says, “you have a beautiful view from this high up,” and Boruto shivers; his father must be looking right at him, he thinks, and he’s immediately grateful that he didn’t try to hide outside.
Sasuke gets dressed so much faster than I do, he thinks.
“They keep you on the lower floors?”
“Oh, yeah,” Naruto laughs, “I mean, someday I’ll stay at the very top! For sure! But, heh, not right now.” Things are quiet for a moment. “D’you mind if I use your bathroom?”
“Not at all,” Sasuke answers, and Boruto wonders if they always sound so estranged from each other, if they always leave so much unsaid. This time, Boruto is happy he took Sasuke’s advice, but he doesn’t dare stir for even a moment to adjust his position or clean himself off.
Eternities pass as they both wait without speaking—at some point, Sasuke turns on the TV, cycling idly through channels that all talk equally about nothing, and Boruto stands stock-still in the corner, waiting without an end in sight as Sasuke’s semen makes weak, itchy tracks down his legs.
A door swings open again; Sasuke says something like ‘that was fast’, and Naruto laughs it off in that same guarded, skittish voice. Boruto holds his breath as they exchange farewells, trying to read them both without seeing them or revealing himself.
“Thanks for having me,” Naruto smiles, and it doesn’t mask the melancholy taste left behind in his mouth. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too,” Sasuke nods. “I’ll see you back in Konoha.”
And the door shuts.
Boruto strains to listen for his father’s receding footsteps, muted by the plush carpet lining the hallway outside, and he doesn’t relax until Sasuke does. Sasuke sits on the edge of the room’s second bed, yet unblemished by their shameless bodies, and Boruto follows suit, crawling out from his hiding place to park beside him in silence.
“You should go,” Sasuke whispers, eyes wild with something Boruto can’t quite put to words. “You really should go.”
“But,” Boruto looks down at the floor, trying to find words that might make it hurt less for Sasuke. “I don’t have anywhere to go,” he gives in. “Not without you.”
Sasuke doesn’t say anything for a moment. Without opening his mouth, he reaches to put a hand on Boruto’s thigh. To Boruto, it looks like Sasuke may have preferred elsewhere, like his shoulder or his hand—or a different elsewhere, somewhere he isn’t quite sure of; he thinks Sasuke might not be so sure either, with the unsteady look that graces his weary features.
“Come to bed with me, Boruto.” He doesn’t say what they’re both thinking—that Naruto must know, that he had to have seen the two of them together to know Sasuke’s whereabouts—he just looks away, pretending it’s early enough for them both to be ready to sleep. “Come here.”
And, of course, Boruto does.
A little under a week later, Naruto Uzumaki is home, and his children greet him like nothing is wrong.
Hinata is the one who suggests they have a homecoming get-together with Sasuke and his family; an Uzumaki tradition, at this point. As usual, Naruto doesn’t object, and Boruto is more than happy to see Sarada—and Sasuke, of course, no matter how much he tries to hide it.
In his excitement, wandering off to chatter at Sasuke like a puppy, Boruto leaves his cell phone in the bathroom.
Naruto tells himself that he won’t look, at first. There’s no way it can escape his attention, a dark, empty square staring back at him from the countertop, but he won’t look inside. He tells himself that there’s nothing there for him to see, nothing to know—that peering through the mirror like that would be disrespectful to his son, somehow in violation of his rights.
Besides, it’s locked with a passcode. Naruto knows that much.
Purely out of curiosity, he picks it up—slowly, like it might be an animal with teeth at the ready—and the screen lights up. Naruto punches in 0723, close to laughing at himself as he does; it’s a really silly idea, he thinks, that Boruto would remember Sasuke’s birthday, let alone use it for something like this.
But, ah.
It seems that he does.
That in and of itself doesn’t answer any of Naruto’s questions, though. It doesn’t actually mean anything, he tells himself. It proves nothing. Really, it could just be a coincidence. If Boruto is hiding anything, it’ll be in his text messages, but Boruto has nothing to hide—just as Sasuke also has nothing to hide, nothing to keep secret from Naruto. He swipes his way around Boruto’s most frequently used apps, and stumbles completely by mistake onto—
don’t do things like that where your father could see
This time, in his sensible, rational mind, Naruto must know that this crosses a line; even though most of the other messages are gone, he doesn’t really need context. Whatever they may have been talking about at the time, just by virtue of the secrecy surrounding it and the dirty undertone to Sasuke’s words, can’t be anything but inappropriate. Even so, Naruto instead finds himself wondering exactly what “things” Sasuke could be talking about, recoiling at the image that springs to mind—withering back from it further still when he wonders, but could I do them better?
He looks away, almost tempted to close out and lock Boruto’s phone while he still can, but he reminds himself that it can’t really be that big of a deal. It can’t be what he thinks it is.
He keeps reading.
you’re too much
And Naruto pauses there; this time, his heart rattles cold in his chest, because this is Sasuke he’s dealing with—since when has Sasuke spoken like that to anyone, even to his own wife?
He might, Naruto thinks, if Itachi was still alive.
He could still be saying something else, though, couldn’t he?
It’s not out of the question.
He’s about to lock the screen again and set it down. He really, really is.
i’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk straight around him when he comes home
Naruto’s stomach sinks into the floor, blue and bruising with bile, and he nearly drops his son’s phone.
And there it is.
In the kitchen, Naruto first thinks that Sasuke’s biggest mistake was his dishonesty, his not telling Naruto that he was back in the country—and he quickly amends that to no, his biggest mistake was sleeping with my son , but the thought comes just a second too late, and he barely cuts it off in time before it turns into—
sleeping with my son before sleeping with me.
In a sense, he still hasn’t fully processed it. He doesn’t know how to manage what he’s seen, even as it swims sick circles into the cold center of his belly. Naruto slips his hands into his pockets, afraid someone might look over and see them trembling, and looks out the window.
He knows he should say something to someone. Anyone. Sasuke and Boruto are just across the room in the breakfast nook, backs turned to him, talking about something he can’t really make out. His wife is closer still, drying dishes with a hand towel embroidered with their family crest.
It’s almost Sasuke’s birthday, but he could still say something. There’s nothing stopping him, and he knows it has to happen.
Just maybe not right now.
Just a little longer, he thinks. Maybe it’s not the right time. I have to think about how to do this.
Still, isn’t this what any parent would want for their child? For their children to surpass them, to experience all the things their parents missed out on? Isn’t that supposed to be the driving force behind the next generation?
Naruto looks down to see Himawari tugging at his pants leg. “Is something wrong?” she asks, perceptive eyes picking at Naruto’s face. “You’re being really quiet.”
In his heart, Naruto knows he should say something—it would be the right thing to do, wouldn’t it?—but he looks over at Sasuke, standing by the window with Boruto, and he knows he’ll lose both of them if he does.
To speak up would mean, undoubtedly, that Naruto could never hope to have a relationship with his son.
I might never see Sasuke again.
And—the last little forbidden thought rises inside him like a bubble, the one thing he’ll never admit, even to himself—if he leaves things as they are for just a little bit longer, then he can watch Sasuke spend time with Boruto. He can reminisce as much as he likes—and he can imagine.
He’ll pretend for a little while longer. Sometimes it hurts to pretend, but it’s better for everyone. He’s made it this far by doing exactly that, hasn’t he?
He’ll speak up. Of course he will.
Just not right now.
Naruto looks down at his daughter and grins. “Nope!” he says, crouching to ruffle her hair, “everything’s great, Himawari. Don’t worry.”