[fic] Cracks in the Sidewalk, part iv
Title: Cracks in the Sidewalk
Pairing: SasuNaru
Genre: AU, Multichap, Angst
Rating: Eventual R or NC-17
Summary: Naruto is a young high school student with a passion for music. From Bob Dylan to Sex Pistols to Elliott Smith, he buries himself deeper and deeper his records with every passing day. Head in the clouds, he dreams of forming a rock band of his own. Enter Sasuke, a rigid transfer student with a knack for composition. Although trained classically, he holds an untold love for rock and roll. While their love for rock n' roll brings them together, will their passions also tear them apart?
Disclaimer: Naruto characters belong to Kishimoto. Lyrics featured, unless otherwise noted, belong to their respectful artists (usually mentioned somewhere in the story).
Warning: Only imaginary people can smoke! Do not smoke! I am not glamorizing smoking! Everyone I know who has gotten hooked on cigarettes is trying to quit or has quit already! It makes you ugly and yellow up your teeth! Only in imaginary worlds does this not happen! In addition to NO SMOKING, also don't DRINK (especially if you're underage) or have anonymous sex.
Comments: I'm so sorry that I haven't updated in...4 months! So sorry everyone! I really didn't mean to neglect this story for so long. I'm sorry to say that even with the 4 month gap, this chapter is still rather short. I wrote it over several days so it's sort of disjointed in some parts. Still, this song by Kings Of Convenience inspired me to write more of this fic. I know that I said that Gaara would make an appearance in this chapter, but...sorry! I'll try to fit him into the next one!
Songs: This is the song featured in this chapter. It's called "Sorry or Please" by Kings Of Convenience! Definitely an awesome band with great lyrics. Easy and mellow listening for people of all ages ;). Here is the link (good for one week): link Please delete after 24 hours as this is for trial purposes only!
Past Chapters:
part i
part ii
part iii
Morning pierced Naruto like a blade. He groaned as he cracked open his red-rimmed eyes, the skin around his eyes still flushed from the alcohol of yesternight. Slowly, like a geisha, he rose from his position on the floor, rubbing the spots where the carpet had offered its rough caress. He stretched his arms, one at a time, each extending gracefully over his head until his joints locked. A yawn erupted from his lips, dry and peeling from dehydration. He sat in that position for a long moment, frozen in the task of counting the streaks of light running across his bare chest.
Then, as if the play button were suddenly switched on, Naruto leapt to his feet and scurried across the room. He rushed down the narrow hallway with the bruised plaster and headed directly to the tiny bathroom at the end. He slid hastily into the room where he wasted no time in kneeling over the toilet and emptying the contents of his stomach. His violent heaves shook his petite body. He whimpered as he finished vomiting into the toilet and slumped into a corner of the room, completely spent.
“Just wait until the headache sets in,” came a deep voice. Sasuke stood at the door casually sipping a mug of coffee. Naruto caught a whiff of Sasuke’s cologne through the foul odor of alcohol. The scent wasn’t unpleasant. It was a blend of salty ocean air, infant tears, Eve’s poison apples, and tender sin. Elegiacal.
Naruto scowled, “You took a shower.”
“Didn’t know it was a crime,” replied Sasuke as he sipped his coffee. His pale complexion untouched by the poison of the previous night save for the redness in the corners of his eyes. “You should try it sometime too.”
“Why aren’t you down here with me puking your guts out?” demanded Naruto as he helped himself to his feet. He swayed slightly as his brain adjusted to the change in balance, his legs momentarily turning into noodles. Naruto grabbed onto the plastic of the sink to steady himself and helped himself to Sasuke’s medicine cabinet.
Sasuke shrugged as he lit a cigarette, “I’m not a lightweight like you.”
“Shut up,” retorted Naruto as he grabbed an outdated box of aspirin from the row, “And don’t smoke in the apartment, bastard. You’re stinkin’ this place up.”
Sasuke blew a smoke ring in his direction. Naruto watched with fascination as the gray puff wreathed his face and faded until the formation dissolved completely, melting until it was just air again. Sasuke watched Naruto watch the trail of rings leave his dusty-pink lips. Sasuke thought of the soft kisses of the night before, his lips trailing down the other’s neck, attaching to the sensitive spaces under the chin, behind the ear, his mouth sucking greedily on the other’s collarbone. He thought of the whimpers and groans that ripped from virgin lips and the predatory growl he had given in return as he wrapped his arms around the other’s body. He thought of the grinding of hips, one slow and teasing, the other wild and eager and desperate.
And then stillness. The feeling of the soft body beneath him shuddering, slamming into bliss at a million revolutions a minute.
Naruto’s clear eyes followed the ash as it fell from Sasuke’s cigarette, the edges of his world still shimmering lightly around him. He stared at the refuse of Sasuke’s vice, watching as the grains spread like contagions over the tiles upon impact. He studied the particles for a while, picking out the silver against the gray, silently counting the burned hardships lying stark and naked on the linoleum-completely and utterly spent.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” said Sasuke, his brutal eyes boring into Naruto.
“What the fuck are you doing?” retorted Naruto as he wrenched open the bottle, face flushed, fingers trembling. “Making a goddamn mess all over the apartment.”
Naruto popped two pills into his mouth as he turned on the faucet. He bent over the stream of water and sipped the liquid deeply, relishing the cold-coppery taste. He swallowed the medicine, savoring the cool sensation of tap sliding down his throat temporary parting the haze of his hangover.
“It’s too quiet in here,” grumbled Naruto as he wiped his mouth dry with a sleeve. Sasuke made a face at the gesture but didn’t comment. “And what the fuck happened last night anyway?”
The smaller boy pushed past Sasuke, squeezing through the narrow doorway with some difficulty. The dark-haired boy tensed as their bodies collided clumsily, limbs crammed and rearranged to accommodate the tight space. For a moment Sasuke wanted to curl his forearm around the slim waist jammed against his ribs, to possess what he had briefly indulged in the night before.
But he clenched his fists instead and let the other boy pass quietly, slipping past him like a ghost that was already beyond his reach.
Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut as he heard the ruckus of the blonde sifting through his records, plastic clattering against plastic like artificial rain falling over a glass roof. He leaned heavily against wall and shuffled his memories as cigarette smoke wrapped around him like a fatal womb. Images flashed across his eyelids as music trickled into the room.
Five weeks in a prison, I made no friends
There's more time to be done, but I've got a week to spend
I didn't pay much attention first time around
But now you're hard not to notice, right here in my town
Where the stage of my old life meets the cast of the new
Tonights actors: Me and You
Naruto had come.
Sasuke recalled as he breathed in mint-fire. His head rolled limply against the wall, his neck stretching, his mind reeling. He remembered the white-hot feel of the other boy’s semen as it spurted into his hand, its sticky-sweet fragrance filling the room. He heard once more the stuttering cry as the other pressed earnestly against his palm, the flesh there burning and red.
Each day is taking us closer
While drawing the curtains to close
This far, or further, I need to know
Your increasingly long embraces
Are they saying sorry or please?
I don't know what's happening, help me
Naruto didn’t remember.
Sasuke grimaced as he relived the innocent blankness of the boy’s eyes as he awoke. The blessed ignorance of sin that marked Naruto like a scar. The ignorance of evil, of suspicion, of lust, of passion. Of love.
Through the streets, on the corners, there's a scent in the air
I ask you out and I lead you, I know my way around here
There's a bench I remember, and on the way there I find
That the movements you're making, are mirrored in mine
And your hand is held open, intentionally
Or just what I want to see?
Sasuke was confused.
The truth glared at him as he clutched the butt of his cigarette to his lips, inhaling charmless air through the yellowed filter.
Sasuke was never confused.
Because Sasuke was always the one who knew the rules of surviving best. He knew how to wake up and walk away better than anyone else, how to stare blankly at adoration and shake his head. He knew how to bite his cheek and let the millions of might-be’s parade before him as he sat naked and silent in the rumpled sheets. He knew to stop believing in might-be’s and may be’s, and to just start touching. He knew how to touch but never feel, to want but never need.
Your increasingly long embraces
Are they saying sorry or please?
I don't know what's happening, help me
I don't normally beg for assistance
I rely on my own eyes to see
But right now they make no sense to me
Right now you make no sense to me
And because he knew how to live but never hope.
Sasuke lit another cigarette and puffed silver-lined clouds toward the ceiling.
Pairing: SasuNaru
Genre: AU, Multichap, Angst
Rating: Eventual R or NC-17
Summary: Naruto is a young high school student with a passion for music. From Bob Dylan to Sex Pistols to Elliott Smith, he buries himself deeper and deeper his records with every passing day. Head in the clouds, he dreams of forming a rock band of his own. Enter Sasuke, a rigid transfer student with a knack for composition. Although trained classically, he holds an untold love for rock and roll. While their love for rock n' roll brings them together, will their passions also tear them apart?
Disclaimer: Naruto characters belong to Kishimoto. Lyrics featured, unless otherwise noted, belong to their respectful artists (usually mentioned somewhere in the story).
Warning: Only imaginary people can smoke! Do not smoke! I am not glamorizing smoking! Everyone I know who has gotten hooked on cigarettes is trying to quit or has quit already! It makes you ugly and yellow up your teeth! Only in imaginary worlds does this not happen! In addition to NO SMOKING, also don't DRINK (especially if you're underage) or have anonymous sex.
Comments: I'm so sorry that I haven't updated in...4 months! So sorry everyone! I really didn't mean to neglect this story for so long. I'm sorry to say that even with the 4 month gap, this chapter is still rather short. I wrote it over several days so it's sort of disjointed in some parts. Still, this song by Kings Of Convenience inspired me to write more of this fic. I know that I said that Gaara would make an appearance in this chapter, but...sorry! I'll try to fit him into the next one!
Songs: This is the song featured in this chapter. It's called "Sorry or Please" by Kings Of Convenience! Definitely an awesome band with great lyrics. Easy and mellow listening for people of all ages ;). Here is the link (good for one week): link Please delete after 24 hours as this is for trial purposes only!
Past Chapters:
part i
part ii
part iii
Morning pierced Naruto like a blade. He groaned as he cracked open his red-rimmed eyes, the skin around his eyes still flushed from the alcohol of yesternight. Slowly, like a geisha, he rose from his position on the floor, rubbing the spots where the carpet had offered its rough caress. He stretched his arms, one at a time, each extending gracefully over his head until his joints locked. A yawn erupted from his lips, dry and peeling from dehydration. He sat in that position for a long moment, frozen in the task of counting the streaks of light running across his bare chest.
Then, as if the play button were suddenly switched on, Naruto leapt to his feet and scurried across the room. He rushed down the narrow hallway with the bruised plaster and headed directly to the tiny bathroom at the end. He slid hastily into the room where he wasted no time in kneeling over the toilet and emptying the contents of his stomach. His violent heaves shook his petite body. He whimpered as he finished vomiting into the toilet and slumped into a corner of the room, completely spent.
“Just wait until the headache sets in,” came a deep voice. Sasuke stood at the door casually sipping a mug of coffee. Naruto caught a whiff of Sasuke’s cologne through the foul odor of alcohol. The scent wasn’t unpleasant. It was a blend of salty ocean air, infant tears, Eve’s poison apples, and tender sin. Elegiacal.
Naruto scowled, “You took a shower.”
“Didn’t know it was a crime,” replied Sasuke as he sipped his coffee. His pale complexion untouched by the poison of the previous night save for the redness in the corners of his eyes. “You should try it sometime too.”
“Why aren’t you down here with me puking your guts out?” demanded Naruto as he helped himself to his feet. He swayed slightly as his brain adjusted to the change in balance, his legs momentarily turning into noodles. Naruto grabbed onto the plastic of the sink to steady himself and helped himself to Sasuke’s medicine cabinet.
Sasuke shrugged as he lit a cigarette, “I’m not a lightweight like you.”
“Shut up,” retorted Naruto as he grabbed an outdated box of aspirin from the row, “And don’t smoke in the apartment, bastard. You’re stinkin’ this place up.”
Sasuke blew a smoke ring in his direction. Naruto watched with fascination as the gray puff wreathed his face and faded until the formation dissolved completely, melting until it was just air again. Sasuke watched Naruto watch the trail of rings leave his dusty-pink lips. Sasuke thought of the soft kisses of the night before, his lips trailing down the other’s neck, attaching to the sensitive spaces under the chin, behind the ear, his mouth sucking greedily on the other’s collarbone. He thought of the whimpers and groans that ripped from virgin lips and the predatory growl he had given in return as he wrapped his arms around the other’s body. He thought of the grinding of hips, one slow and teasing, the other wild and eager and desperate.
And then stillness. The feeling of the soft body beneath him shuddering, slamming into bliss at a million revolutions a minute.
Naruto’s clear eyes followed the ash as it fell from Sasuke’s cigarette, the edges of his world still shimmering lightly around him. He stared at the refuse of Sasuke’s vice, watching as the grains spread like contagions over the tiles upon impact. He studied the particles for a while, picking out the silver against the gray, silently counting the burned hardships lying stark and naked on the linoleum-completely and utterly spent.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” said Sasuke, his brutal eyes boring into Naruto.
“What the fuck are you doing?” retorted Naruto as he wrenched open the bottle, face flushed, fingers trembling. “Making a goddamn mess all over the apartment.”
Naruto popped two pills into his mouth as he turned on the faucet. He bent over the stream of water and sipped the liquid deeply, relishing the cold-coppery taste. He swallowed the medicine, savoring the cool sensation of tap sliding down his throat temporary parting the haze of his hangover.
“It’s too quiet in here,” grumbled Naruto as he wiped his mouth dry with a sleeve. Sasuke made a face at the gesture but didn’t comment. “And what the fuck happened last night anyway?”
The smaller boy pushed past Sasuke, squeezing through the narrow doorway with some difficulty. The dark-haired boy tensed as their bodies collided clumsily, limbs crammed and rearranged to accommodate the tight space. For a moment Sasuke wanted to curl his forearm around the slim waist jammed against his ribs, to possess what he had briefly indulged in the night before.
But he clenched his fists instead and let the other boy pass quietly, slipping past him like a ghost that was already beyond his reach.
Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut as he heard the ruckus of the blonde sifting through his records, plastic clattering against plastic like artificial rain falling over a glass roof. He leaned heavily against wall and shuffled his memories as cigarette smoke wrapped around him like a fatal womb. Images flashed across his eyelids as music trickled into the room.
Five weeks in a prison, I made no friends
There's more time to be done, but I've got a week to spend
I didn't pay much attention first time around
But now you're hard not to notice, right here in my town
Where the stage of my old life meets the cast of the new
Tonights actors: Me and You
Naruto had come.
Sasuke recalled as he breathed in mint-fire. His head rolled limply against the wall, his neck stretching, his mind reeling. He remembered the white-hot feel of the other boy’s semen as it spurted into his hand, its sticky-sweet fragrance filling the room. He heard once more the stuttering cry as the other pressed earnestly against his palm, the flesh there burning and red.
Each day is taking us closer
While drawing the curtains to close
This far, or further, I need to know
Your increasingly long embraces
Are they saying sorry or please?
I don't know what's happening, help me
Naruto didn’t remember.
Sasuke grimaced as he relived the innocent blankness of the boy’s eyes as he awoke. The blessed ignorance of sin that marked Naruto like a scar. The ignorance of evil, of suspicion, of lust, of passion. Of love.
Through the streets, on the corners, there's a scent in the air
I ask you out and I lead you, I know my way around here
There's a bench I remember, and on the way there I find
That the movements you're making, are mirrored in mine
And your hand is held open, intentionally
Or just what I want to see?
Sasuke was confused.
The truth glared at him as he clutched the butt of his cigarette to his lips, inhaling charmless air through the yellowed filter.
Sasuke was never confused.
Because Sasuke was always the one who knew the rules of surviving best. He knew how to wake up and walk away better than anyone else, how to stare blankly at adoration and shake his head. He knew how to bite his cheek and let the millions of might-be’s parade before him as he sat naked and silent in the rumpled sheets. He knew to stop believing in might-be’s and may be’s, and to just start touching. He knew how to touch but never feel, to want but never need.
Your increasingly long embraces
Are they saying sorry or please?
I don't know what's happening, help me
I don't normally beg for assistance
I rely on my own eyes to see
But right now they make no sense to me
Right now you make no sense to me
And because he knew how to live but never hope.
Sasuke lit another cigarette and puffed silver-lined clouds toward the ceiling.