Blindness
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor do I own it's characters. I make no money with this.
Author's Note: This is the first 1000+ words chapter. Like I said in the summary, every 10th (original) chapter, meaning every 4th 'Mexx chapter, will be around this length, mostly because I had so many oneshots lying around which were to short to go as a stand-alone, but to precious to me to just put them away and forget about it. So yeah. *laughs sheepishly*
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Part 10 - Blindness
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‘Old habits die hard’. Sasuke couldn’t even remember how often he’d heard that line.
“You never learn, do you?” Naruto asked amusedly.
“Shut up,” he growled back, waving his hand in front of his own eyes a few more times before closing them.
It had started a few minutes ago with colors losing their brightness, movements looking faster than they were supposed be, distances appearing shorter than they really were, objects slowly losing their focus. Of course, he hadn’t payed it any attention at that time, because Naruto had been laughing at him – Sasuke just knew – and he would have looked ridiculous if he had stopped then. Now, all he saw was infinite blackness.
He was blind. Again. His eyes had totally given in under the constant abuse of him using his sharingan for way longer than it was originally designed to be used, Naruto forcing him to keep it activated for over half a day.
And while Sasuke wasn’t that concerned anymore after he had learned that his eyesight would return after a while, Sakura would kill him, she really would. It was the second time in less than eight weeks and the strong-willed medic had made it perfectly clear that the more often it happened, the harder it was to cure it and the higher his chances of doing some real, serious damage were. And whatever people tended to say when he pissed them off, Sasuke knew that he was precious to Konoha because of his eyes.
“How comes this never happens on missions, bastard?” Naruto wanted to know from behind him and Sasuke mentally cursed himself. Naruto’s movements were hard to follow even with the sharingan. It was close to impossible to follow them now. And the asshole knew that perfectly well! “It only happens when we train.”
Sasuke refused to answer to that – even if he wanted, he couldn’t. The answer was something he wasn’t ready to admit yet. After all, there had to be a better reason than ‘only Naruto was strong enough to push him far enough for his eyes to overload’.
“It told you to shut up,” he snapped into the direction where he assumed Naruto. The answering laugh came from behind him again, which was annoying. He hated that Naruto was able to move without him sensing it.
“Anyways, we made it quite far... It’ll take a while to return to Konoha.” Naruto said thoughtfully, completely ignoring Sasuke’s poisonous glare. But he was right. It had been quite some time since they had left the training grounds, deciding that the grounds were just too small. So they had extended their training area towards the woods south-east of Konoha – the ones that were so dense that both shinobi and civilians avoided them like the rumors about the woods being haunted by ghosts were actually true... Here, they could train perfectly undisturbed and without having to worry about damaging things and persons that happened to be in the way. They had spent most of the day chasing each other back and forth through the whole area and Sasuke had no idea exactly how far from Konoha they were right now. “Can you walk?”
“It’s my eyes, you moron. Not my legs.” he snarled back.
And it wasn’t even so much the fact that Naruto treated him like he was injured – Sasuke would never, never let himself be injured in a fight against the dobe! (Please ignore the actually not so few times it still happened, thank you very much...) – that irked him to no end, it was the fact that it had happened. He had ignored the warnings his body had given him, pushing himself past a certain limit that he had been ordered to keep away from and this was the result. It was his own fault that now left him blind and helpless without his most important sense.
“I’m just saying that the last time this happened to you, you tried to walk back on your own and you know Sakura almost skinned me alive when she saw you, right?”
“I can fucking take care of myself, moron. It’s not my fault you can’t protect yourself against a medic.” Yes, Sasuke knew Naruto was right and he knew Sakura wasn’t something – or rather someone – he was able to protect himself against, but the idiot actually being right was something that wasn’t allowed to happen! Especially not when it made him look like an idiot himself.
“I’ll just ignore you even thought of saying that and pretend you agreed with me. Now, here, take my hand, I’ll guide you,” Naruto replied in a voice dripping with sarcasm and Sasuke felt Naruto’s warm hand slide into his own, a firm, yet gentle movement meant to ground him without startling him – because Naruto knew how Sasuke depended on his eyesight and how jumpy he was without it.
“I’m not going home holding your hand!” he still snapped, pulled his hand away and took a step back, swaying ever so slightly because it wasn’t all that easy to keep his balance without seeing.
“Of course, I could always just knock you out and fucking carry you back, bastard!!”
“Just come here and try, you moron!”
“Don’t act like I won’t, ‘cause I will if you don’t shut up! No, wait. Why am I even arguing with you!? It’s not like you could do anything, blind as you are!!”
And then, he knew that Naruto was right in front of him and planning something and the blond’s hand landed on the back of his thighs, just below his ass, and pushed him forward, against Naruto, only that Naruto wasn’t where Sasuke’s hands shot up to brace himself against the blond’s chest, but further down and it threw the raven off balance – and then he fell forward, arms flailing helplessly as he tried to hold onto something – anything, really. He toppled over and Naruto stood up and suddenly Sasuke found himself thrown over Naruto’s shoulder, his hands fisting the back of the moron’s shirt, his feet kicking air and Naruto’s front.
“Fuck you!!” he yelled, hating the way his voice came out audibly higher than usual.
“Stop struggling, you fucker! You’re breaking my ribs!!” Naruto yelled back and Sasuke punched him in the back, but tried to still his feet nevertheless – he’d already landed a pretty good hit on Naruto’s ribs earlier that day and he knew that it still had to be tender.
“Put me down right now!” he demanded angrily, missing the way Naruto’s posture changed beneath him as he readied himself for a jump. “I said put me—Naruto!!!” When Naruto pushed off the ground and took off into the treetops, starting to make his way into the general direction of Konoha, Sasuke couldn’t suppress the surprised yelp nor could he stop himself from curling up around the blond, clinging to him, panicking. Being blind was bad enough, but Naruto had just taken his last connection to the ground and was moving now, and he couldn’t say why it scared him, but it did – it simply did. “No, Naruto, really – put me down, okay? Put me down! Naruto, I mean it, just—“
“Fuck, Sasuke! Just trust me, okay!?” Naruto interrupted him, sounding pissed, but Sasuke felt that he slowed down. “I’m not gonna drop you or anything, bastard, so what the fuck is your problem!?”
Technically, Sasuke knew he was right, but...
“I-I can’t see,” he finally forced out when he managed to stop biting his tongue to keep from screaming, his forehead pressed against Naruto’s back. His voice sounded strained, scared and he hated, hated it.
“I know that, asshole. Trust me.”
And whether it was his voice just then – warm and gentle – or the way he slowed down again – his movements becoming less abrupt and more flowing – or the way the hand that had been resting on his thigh until now suddenly started rubbing soothing circles, Sasuke would never know, but something Naruto did that moment just reached Sasuke.
And it was enough to calm him down.
He was still blind for the time being and Naruto was still carrying him like a damn bag of cement, but it wasn’t as bad anymore. He wasn’t as scared anymore.
It was strange to trust someone as much as he trusted his own eyes.
