Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Soft, soft the moonlight beams down, softer than any feather. She's grateful because he’d snap to full wakefulness at the barest touch of down.

There are lines around his eyes now--just small creases--and a ridge in his forehead that wasn’t there before. The frown lines are the worst of all to behold though. These changes are so minute--likely too minute for even the ANBU. Warm possessiveness fluttered through her veins. He might not even have realized for all his observational skill, but she had a fuuinjutsu master’s perfect recall. It’s a bittersweet blessing.

The peace they have between them now dredges up memories of when they would snap awake at the smallest movement of the other--a nudge, a minute noise. For ninja, intimacy is a difficult thing. It’s learning to let down your guard--to trust someone explicitly. It’s more difficult for the men than the women, she muses. They have to let themselves be helpless, blindly trusting their partner in that moment, whereas women could fake that trust.

Softly, slowly, she shifts closer to him, smiling when he doesn’t truly wake, but pulls her closer. Kushina’s smile turned wry as she smoothed the lines on her husband’s face with fingertip brushes lighter than fleeting moonlight. (Isn’t that ironic? The day they met, she thought she’d only touch him to plant her fist in his face. She still wants to sometimes, but only very, very, very rarely.) The look in her eyes is as soft as her touch, but the eyes themselves are incandescent like the sun for all their dark color. It is as if he was her sun, and his proximity and radiance causes her world to shine. She hopes that light is reflected back twofold because she shines too, if only dimly. Here in the dead of night, illuminated only by the moon and cloaked by the night, when his responsibilities don’t weigh as heavily over him--but he can never shed them completely; that was just the way he was--she could protect his sleep and carry his burdens for a while.

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They don’t talk about it--or besides the bare facts for a mission report--for a long while, too unsure of the foundation between them, but Naruto does ask Hinata about the genjutsu dream eventually. By then, he’s sure Hinata really knows all his silly traits. She’s aware of how much of the village idiot, or at least academic idiot is still there, real beneath the label of the village hero and she’s still there and still loving him.

By the end of the conversation, Naruto realizes just how much of himself Hinata’s seen, noticed, remembered--just how long and well and deeply she’s loved him--and a feeling heavier than Kurama’s chakra ever was seems to weigh him down.

It soothed that inner darkness--the change in the rest of the village’s opinion he still didn’t, couldn’t, bring himself to trust, but Hinata’s love is altogether a different thing. She loved him for being a failure: for him, his efforts, long before those efforts bore fruit. He’s not sure what the expression on his face was, but Hinata smiled her soft smile and, simply said “Aishiteru.” (Naruto swears right then, he’ll say “Koishiteru” to her first. He just pulls her tightly to him and buries his face in her shoulder for now.) It’s just taken him this long to notice her. He whimpers a little at just how many years he’s wasted being an idiot. He’s never really minded his stupidity outside combat, but he suddenly regrets not being as astute as his father was reputed to be.

Hinata holds him and rubs light, soothing circles into his back--despite his physical nature, Naruto still hasn’t quite become accustomed to physical affection. He’s skittish when he’s not initiating it. Her consideration--or the realization of her consideration--makes Naruto feels like an absolutely terrible boyfriend.

He’s not sure why Hinata’s fine with ramen dates when Sakura, Ino, and TenTen all splutter and call him baka for it. He’s not sure he deserves Hinata, despite what Sakura said. He’s not sure he confessed to her because he thought of her as more than a precious friend and not because he wants to be wanted and thought Hinata was the girl who wanted him (and not his reputation or achievements). (He's damn sure he doesn't want to examine how selfish his motivations were right now though, for justified fear they outweighed everything else. He doesn't want their relationship to be marked by that, maybe someday when it's much stronger he'll build up the courage.) He’s pretty sure she knows that last part too, and the thought is lowering.

So he pulls her even closer and mutters an apology into her neck. Hinata makes a soft, soothing sound and her hold is just a hair tighter.

Naruto swears it again he’ll say “Koishiteru” first--and mean it as a declaration of absolute truth.

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The presence of someone who loves you and is loved by you in turn does much to alleviate the terrors of the night.

Not that all the terrors are banished, of course. Sometimes Sasuke wakes up a little unsure--did he dream it all? Was part of it a dream? Which part? The now or the past? Would he wake up to find Itachi? Would he be a boy running to his parents? But then he feels the body beside his, of Sakura’s eyes on him, and he calms down. This is the reality. Yes, everything happened. The past is the past; he’s learned that dwelling on it just brings disaster.

There is nothing in the past but decisions made and their ghosts. Here and now he’s found a home again.

Sasuke resolves to allow Naruto one moment of uncommented-upon stupidity for beating some sense into him all those years ago. Really, he should up it to two, because that baka just kept running through his graces too fast. Some things never changed--but some things did and do.