SN

When Sasuke finds the house -- he recognizes it by the fire escape, still rusty and dangerous-looking -- there is no shape on the roof. No, he thinks, and his body seems to move of its own accord. No, he told Neji he was coming back, maybe the boy thought he meant Sasuke would come there by himself, maybe he had actually told his uncle this time. maybe his uncle had forbidden him from --

“Sasuke.” Neji sits up from where he’d been lying on the blanket as soon as Sasuke steps over the last ledge. His hair is less than perfect now -- a little mussed, falling in his eyes, and while Neji tries to brush it out of his face, Sasuke takes the opportunity to pretend to cough into his sleeve to hide the enormous smile spreading across his face.

“Neji,” he answers as soon as he’s regained his composure. “May I…” he gestures towards the blanket.

Neji waves dismissively. “You don’t need to ask. Come sit.” He eases himself back down, and Sasuke joins him on the blanket.

“What are you doing up here? Besides waiting for me, I mean.” Sasuke winces internally. Wow, that sounded idiotic. Like he’s only here for you.

But Neji doesn’t roll his eyes. Instead, he gestures upwards. “Look.”

And so Sasuke does. And --

There have never been so many stars. How could he have missed them?

“It’s so peaceful,” Neji’s voice is barely a whisper. “Up here. In the dark.”

Sasuke cannot speak. It is so beautiful, unspeakably so. He hasn’t looked at the stars since… come to think of it, when was the last time he looked up?

Neji inhales, barely audible over the thudding of Sasuke’s own heartbeat in his ears. “Comets, importing change of times and states, / brandish your crystal tresses in the sky.” he whispers, and Sasuke is suddenly dizzy with the familiarity of the words. He sits up, head spinning, because this is almost too much again -- the proximity, the poetry, the stars that are endless and yet somehow also dancing in Neji’s eyes as he sits up to face Sasuke. “Are you all right?”

Sasuke has no clue if he’s all right or not. “Did you write that?” he asks in a small voice, so tiny against the universe and the infinitum of memory and time that feels as though it is suddenly descending on him.

“Um.” Neji bites his lip a little, and -- there is no mistaking it, his cheeks are growing darker -- “No, I, um,” he clears his throat. “I read it. In a book.”

“Oh.” Sasuke is gripping the blanket, but he still feels unanchored somehow. Like at any moment he could float away into the vast night sky and be lost. He needs someone to hold him down, something to bring him back to earth, but at the same time, he desperately doesn’t want Neji to know what’s happening to him. I thought I left this behind when I started high school. “What book?” he asks, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

Neji seems oblivious to Sasuke’s struggle. “Um… it was a play, actually. Henry VI.”

Sasuke needs something to anchor him. He needs something -- anything -- “Do you like plays?”

“Well, I… like reading them…” Neji’s face is pretty, up close, Sasuke thinks almost dreamily. His skin is smooth, unblemished, and his nose turns up at the end a little in a way that makes Sasuke think of Temari. Boop.

“Uh, Sasuke…?” Neji’s eyes are darting nervously back and forth over Sasuke’s face, and Sasuke realizes then that he is leaning forward, leaning way too close, and his hand is drifting up a little because Neji’s skin looks so soft and Sasuke needs to touch something, needs to hold onto something and --

WHAT IS HE DOING???

It hits him like a freight train, and Sasuke throws himself back so violently his teeth snap together. “AAAIMSOSORRYAAAAIDIDNT--”

“Sasuke!” Neji is lunging at him, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and yanking him forward and Sasuke’s face collides with someone’s chest for the second time within a span of four hours, but this time with enough force to make a white hot burst of pain explode in his nose. The two of them tumble back across the roof, and Sasuke comes to rest on a (thankfully) soft part of the blanket and lies there for a moment, eyes squeezed shut.

“Owww…” It takes Sasuke a moment to realize he isn’t the one groaning. Slowly, he opens his eyes, and realizes that the “soft blanket” is actually a certain Hyuga boy, looking extremely pissed off.

Oh. Their faces are inches apart.

1. Their faces are inches apart.

Sasuke barely manages to restrain himself from flying backwards again. He shoves himself away from Neji, hands shaking. “S-- Sorry --- I didn’t -- I ---”

Neji sits up, rubbing his head and scowling. “You were about to fall off the roof.” He glares at Sasuke, but his anger quickly turns to concern. “Is your nose okay?”

Sasuke’s hand flies up to touch his nose, and comes away covered with blood. The sight makes him suddenly dizzy. “Uhhh…”

Neji sees the way the blood drains from Sasuke’s face. “I think you should come inside,” he says quickly, and before Sasuke can argue, he has a firm grip on his elbow and is leading him down a small set of stairs, half-hidden in the shadows.

Sasuke wants to argue, to pull away from Neji’s grip, but the simple act of standing suddenly makes the rooftop lurch under his feet, and only by seizing Neji’s arm is he able to stay upright. Right, he thinks as small white pops of light flicker across his vision. The dizziness, the nausea, and the disorientation. I really should have gotten more sleep last night.

Sasuke is dimly aware of entering a room, of low ceilings and a bed, and then he is flat on his back and has no idea how he got there. Someone is yelling, somewhere, and the noise is making his head ache. A strange but not unfamiliar buzzing in his ears. The white lights again, but this time so dazzling that Sasuke has to close his eyes, only they’re behind his eyelids too, and then, he hears Neji’s voice, at a volume he’s never heard it at before.

“Because he was alone! That’s why!”

And then darkness takes Sasuke like a swooping fall, and he is grateful.

. . .

When he wakes up, his first impression is that the bed is soft.

Extremely soft. Soft enough to make Sasuke double-check he isn’t dreaming about a giant marshmallow by rolling over and licking the pillow.

“Sasuke? What are you doing?”

The suddenness of the voice startles Sasuke so badly he flips over and chucks the pillow halfway across the room, because the last time he checked, he is the only one living in his house.

There is a long silence, as Sasuke tries to catch his breath, and Neji stares at him from across the room, where he is perched in an armchair. The pillow lies on the floor, a good two feet off target.

“Um. Ahem.” Sasuke clears his throat. “Where am I?” It’s a perfectly valid question, he thinks, but Neji is staring at him, disbelieving.

“You’re in my room.”

It takes a moment for Sasuke to process that. In his room. I’m in Neji’s room. In his house. In his bed. Wait. In his bed…

And then he remembers. The rooftop. Neji grabbing him. Nosebleed. Dizziness, the return of that feeling in his stomach, that feeling from right after --

And then he ended up here. Oh God, Sasuke thinks, feeling a hot flush of shame spread to his cheeks. I fainted on his arm, like a stupid Southern belle. And now I’m in his room, in the middle of the night (there’s a window on the far wall, displaying the dark rooftops of the city and the night sky). And I -- a second realization is dawning on Sasuke quickly, and a wave of horror sweeps over him -- I’m wearing nothing but my underwear.

Neji is approaching him, now, and stupidly, Sasuke’s first instinct is to yank the blanket up to cover his bare chest. Stupid, because who do you think undressed you? whispers a tiny voice at the back of Sasuke’s brain, and if a giant cavernous maw opened up in the floor and swallowed Sasuke whole right about now, it probably wouldn’t be as bad as suddenly remembering that not only did he invade Neji’s personal space something like three times over the course of the last two days, not only did he pass out in front of Neji, not only was he currently lying in Neji’s bed in nothing but his boxers, but Neji Hyuga had seen him lick his pillow to make sure it wasn’t a marshmallow.

Sasuke likes to think he isn’t embarrassed easily. After all, wasn’t he the only one to sit through the fifth grade sex talk with a straight face (notwithstanding the fact that Itachi had already explained to him where babies came from)? Isn’t he the one who handles, with a stoic face, the ongoing stream of girls who gush and flirt with him? Then why does Neji, and the concerned way he’s looking at Sasuke, suddenly make him feel like his entire body is on fire?

He probably has a fever.

“Here.” Neji is holding out a glass of water, and Sasuke accepts and guzzles it, grateful for a reason to avoid eye contact with him. But he still happens to glance over at Neji and then he is choking, coughing hard enough that Neji asks, with some alarm, “Are you all right?”

Sasuke is trying hard not to look at him. “I’m fine,” he wheezes out, because how do you tell someone that you’re choking to death because they are wearing a nightgown?

Neji tugs self-consciously on the hem of his pajamas. “It’s my cousin’s,” he mumbles, which really does not explain anything, but Sasuke nods and acts like he understands why Neji is wearing his cousin’s too-big pink t-shirt (up close, he sees it actually isn’t a nightgown).

“Ahem.” Now it’s Neji’s turn to clear his throat, and Sasuke notices that his cheeks are slowly turning a shade that rivals his outfit. “So. Are you feeling okay?”

“Um. Yeah.” Sasuke scratches his head. “What happened, exactly?”

Neji sits down on the edge of the bed, and Sasuke flinches but forces himself not to scoot away -- He’s just sitting down he tells himself, relax.

“Well.” Neji crosses his arms. “You were acting a little strangely. And then you stumbled back, and I caught you before you fell off the roof, but then I um,” he looks embarrassed, “accidentally gave you a nosebleed. A bad one, I think, and when I suggested we go inside so I could help clean you up you kind of looked pale, and then we barely got inside when you, uh, fainted. So I,” (it’s definitely not Sasuke’s imagination -- Neji is full-on blushing now, which is good because he’s not looking at Sasuke so he doesn’t see that Sasuke is also blushing at what he knows is coming next) “I carried you over and lay you down. And there was blood all over your clothes so…” Neji makes a vague gesture. “They’re drying in the bathroom. Um. It’s kind of late… well, early I guess… are you feeling alright?

“Yeah… Thank you…” Sasuke knows his family doesn’t like to be indebted to anyone, and certainly he must owe something to Neji now, but he is suddenly exhausted and the bed is so soft, and his parents aren’t here anymore anyway, and Neji’s room is warm and quiet and dark, and suddenly Sasuke can no longer keep his eyes open. “I think I’m gonna… close my eyes…” he mumbles, even though this is weird, and the small voice in his head is telling him that he needs to leave because he has way overstayed his welcome and he should leave, middle of the night be damned, and besides, Neji is still sitting on the bed, but God, it’s been so long since Sasuke felt this

safe.