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Growing up with sunshine blond hair, sky blue eyes, extroversion for miles, and the name Naruto means that Naruto has spent his entire life assumed to be basing his whole life off of the character. But he’s not a ninja, just a kid who is outgoing and loves to be the center of attention. And since people assume he’s playing a character anyway, he learns young that it’s a lot of fun to pretend to be other people.
When Naruto: The Original Series starts casting for live-action actors, everyone says that Naruto has to try out for it. Could there be a more perfect fit? Not only is he a physical dead-ringer for the character, but his literal name is Naruto. His parents named him after the character. What could be better?
Apparently, trying out with his counterpart—a pale boy with black eyes and blacker hair—who is not grumpy but far more reserved than Naruto, whose real name is Sasuke, is even better.
They're cast at eleven. The news coverage is insane—two young actors are cast in their namesake roles. Before shooting even starts, they’re bonding—Naruto and Sasuke against the world, each other’s little pocket of sanity in a world gone insane over them.
When they’re twelve, shooting the series begins. Naruto and Sasuke grow even closer than their namesakes, far friendlier offscreen than on. Both of them grew up in loving—if quirky—families, holding none of the trauma of the characters they’re playing. It’s a lot of hard work, and the media is annoying, but it’s also insanely fun to get to play ninjas with their new best friends for a job.
The production schedule is planned so that they can hopefully age accordingly with the characters themselves. The more time Naruto and Sasuke spend together, the closer they grow. They don’t talk about it, exactly, but Naruto knows that—for himself at least—there isn’t anyone who gets him the way Sasuke does. If the character felt even halfway as close to his Sasuke as Naruto does, he can understand why he’d chase his friend to the ends of the earth to bring him home.
Somewhere along the way, Naruto’s definition of “home” has come to include Sasuke.
Something changes when they shoot the Valley of the End. They don't talk about it—not right away—but they both feel it. Something about the intensity of the scene, the desperation, the devotion and obsession—it goes past just acting. They've changed. Their relationship has changed.
They may not talk about it, but they sense it, and when Naruto catches Sasuke’s eye, he can see that Sasuke feels it too.
Shooting separately from one another is... difficult. Even though so much of their respective narratives revolve around one another, they’re rarely on the same site, much less interacting. The fixation Naruto’s character feels about Sasuke feels like it bleeds over into the real world. He’d gotten too used to having Sasuke around all the time—after three years of shooting together, the fourth is the hardest. Not having Sasuke to meet up with, not having him to laugh at bloopers with, not going back to their trailers together.
Naruto feels fixated, even when Sasuke’s in a different city, a different location entirely. He misses his best friend, and the texts and video calls help, but only so much. There’s a longing growing, a need.
Sometimes Naruto wonders if he’s adopting his character’s obsession, but Sasuke is his best friend, his other half. They’ve been inseparable for years. That they would both be stressed by separation just seems logical.
And the obsession their characters have with one another? It’s tangible.
On a video call that’s way later than either of them should be up, Naruto asks Sasuke, “Does it feel like there’s more than just friendship between Naruto and Sasuke, or is it just me?”
Sasuke smiles at him, runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back, away from his face in a way his character never wears it. “Not just you,” he confirms. “How do you want to play it?”
“Before we do anything dumb, we should ask the writers,” Naruto says. Sasuke nods, agreeing.
It takes a few more weeks, but they finally ask the writers—did you intend for this to be a romance?
They had tried to tell themselves they were being silly, seeing things that weren’t there, but they keep reading the scenes, reading their lines, and all they can get is how much Sasuke's identity is wrapped up with Naruto and Naruto's identity is wrapped up with Sasuke, and do they even have any idea of who they'd be without each other?
Shouldn’t the actors know who they are without each other? Naruto doesn’t, and he’s starting to wonder who he’d be without his Sasuke, the real one.
The writers wink-wink, nudge-nudge, this is a shounen program, not a romance.
Neither Naruto nor Sasuke believes them.
Especially not when the reunion scene comes. If Naruto thought the separated scenes were bad, it has nothing on the reunion scene where they're together, where they stand in each other's spaces, where they touch.
Sasuke's arm wraps around Naruto's shoulders, and Naruto inhales the scent of him. There is nothing friendly about Naruto's feelings in that moment. Not in the character's, not in his actor's.
The scene wraps, and Naruto feels like there's lightning—chidori, maybe?—buzzing under his skin. He knows he shouldn't go to Sasuke's trailer, not in his current state. He shouldn't, he shouldn't, he shouldn't—
He doesn't even manage to knock on the door before Sasuke's opening it, dragging him in.
Naruto doesn't know who kisses who, all he knows is he has Sasuke in his arms, and he's not going to let him go until he has to.
Tearing aside the kimono—who the fuck puts a sixteen-year-old in something so tantalizing?—Naruto fastens his mouth to Sasuke's throat. Sasuke moans, and if Naruto weren't ready to come in his pants before, he sure is now.
"Don't leave a mark," Sasuke manages to say.
Right, they have to shoot tomorrow. Sasuke’s costume is slutty and alluring, and if Naruto leaves any kind of mark, someone is going to see it, and make-up is going to have to cover it up.
Naruto sucks harder. Let everyone see that Sasuke is taken, is his. He'll claim it and damn the consequences.
Sasuke moans again, clutching at Naruto's shoulders, but he makes no effort to push him away, doesn't tell him not to mark him again. Apparently Naruto isn’t the only one who has felt the pull that he can’t stop. Especially when they’d been so close after so long apart.
Naruto needs him naked, needs to see Sasuke beneath him.
They stumble to Sasuke's bed, banging into things, earning bruises that the makeup crews are going to hate them for in the next few days on top of the ones Naruto’s leaving shamelessly. They don't care.
As soon as they're on the bed, Naruto claims Sasuke's mouth, thrusting hard against him, finding Sasuke just as hard and needy as he is. But they're sixteen and inexperienced—and neither of them lasts long as they grind against one another, not even managing to get out of their pants.
Sasuke hits his limit first, and Naruto swallows down Sasuke's cry as he comes. The sound of it, muffled as it is, hits him in places that he knows will fuel fantasies for a long time. A few more thrusts, mewling whimpers from an oversensitive Sasuke, and Naruto comes in his own pants as well. Wardrobe is going to hate them both when they see this.
He should be embarrassed, but he's not. All he can think about is how he could drown in Sasuke's eyes, how beautiful he is, lips kiss-swollen, cheeks pinked from exertion, and he has to kiss him again. They kiss long and deep and slow, tracing one another's mouths like learning a new home.
Not a surprise, really; Sasuke has been part of his definition of home for a while now. Being back together, back in the same place, puts something to rights he barely knew had been wrong.
Though they’re both painfully inexperienced, the upside of being sixteen is their refractory period isn't long. The downside—what to do about it?
"I want you," Sasuke murmurs against Naruto's mouth. It's part plea, part whispered wish.
"How—?" Naruto starts to ask, but Sasuke opens his legs wider, and they don't have to speak.
Clothing is peeled from one another with care, hands and eyes running over every revealed inch of skin between kisses. Naruto leaves more marks on Sasuke’s skin, and he can feel the bruises Sasuke’s leaving. He’s rather proud of making Sasuke unravel so much that he can’t help himself. Like his character, he tends toward being self-contained, and watching him come apart beneath Naruto’s hands and mouth is a heady feeling.
There are things that should be done, Naruto knows, but both of them are slick with come, and Sasuke doesn't seem to care about making sure they’re as careful as they can be.
"Inside," he whispers into Naruto's ear, arms wrapped around Naruto's shoulders, holding him close.
Naruto could no more deny him than stop the sun from rising. He slicks whatever come he can down his dick and presses forward.
They don't know what they're doing, not really, and it hurts Sasuke, but he bites Naruto and holds him tighter every time he tries to pull away until they're joined, Naruto buried to the hilt.
It's a dream, more perfect than any fantasy Naruto has had because this isn't a fantasy. It's real. Sasuke is in his arms, they've made themselves into one, and Naruto wants never to let him go. But they can't stay still forever, and Sasuke's body relaxes its stranglehold. Sasuke sighs, a soft, content sound, then begins to roll his hips.
There are little whimpers, little whines, but the way he clings to Naruto, his erection hard between them, tells Naruto it's okay, that Sasuke isn't doing this because he wants to please Naruto. He wants it too. Sasuke adds scratches to Naruto’s back as he clings to him, but knowing that Sasuke is marking him just as Naruto has marked him just makes Naruto even happier.
It's slower this time, less urgent, but no less powerful. They're nearly the exact same height, which makes it so easy to kiss and cling as they rock together, find their rhythm. Naruto's orgasm almost sneaks up on him, drowning as he is in all of the sensations of being with Sasuke. One moment, they're just moving together perfectly, the next, he's thrusting in, hard, fast, running toward a precipice.
Sasuke's cries and whines hitch higher as Naruto's thrusts grow sharper, and he doesn't actually know if Sasuke comes first or he does, but in the end, they come together. It's like grabbing Sasuke's hand and leaping off a cliff, knowing that when they reach the bottom, they'll still be together.
"I love you," Naruto rasps into the quiet between them, trembling from all of it. The words are true and real. He’s still in Sasuke, even though he’s softening, he doesn’t want to leave this feeling, and with the way Sasuke is staying as still as possible, he thinks that Sasuke feels the same way. Sasuke moves a hand to tease at the hairs on Naruto's neck, looking soft and content in a way that Naruto has never seen him. He wants to burn the expression into his memory.
Using his grip on Naruto's neck, Sasuke pulls himself up a little, then against Naruto's mouth, says, "I love you too."
Naruto kisses him again.
They're going to have a lot of explaining to do in the morning, and Naruto could not care less. Whether the script was written to be a love story or not doesn't matter. Naruto loves Sasuke, and Sasuke loves Naruto.
It's the heart of the story.
It's all the story is really about.
Their love.
And when the series ends, Naruto knows that their love will continue.