Loss is nothing new. It’s familiar, comforting even. The ache of missing, of wanting; some days Sasuke wonders as if he were born into that feeling. Recalling his earlier childhood, though, he knows that is not the case. No, he became accustomed to loss, whether it be of his clan, his village, his brother, his friends.
And now it is an entirely different type of loss, wrought physical unto the body. And yes, it was a choice to maintain this loss. There is not a moment Sasuke regrets foregoing the healing of his arm. After all, he brought enough pain to the village, to those who cared for him—to the one who cared for him entirely too much. For him , Sasuke would endure his own loss.
Looking back on it now, it was perhaps not the smartest decision he could have made. It wasn’t as if he had known when he turned down the procedure that a few months later he would be living with Naruto. He couldn’t have known that he would be spending most waking moments with what the one person who would always insist on aiding when Sasuke struggled to adjust to his missing arm, the one who would always helps despite his protests.
Naruto would brush off his rebuffing of the help with such nonchalance, as if it were not an imposition on him. Oftentimes it was not a task that required much time at all, and for those moments Sasuke only became annoyed on the principle of it. But there were other times where entire evenings in their apartment were spent on such tasks. Once after a brief mission where a branch and torn through Sasuke’s cloak, Naruto had spent a few hours trying to learn how a sewing needle worked before eventually giving in and just holding the cloth in place as Sasuke pieced it back together.
Not once, though, was there any indication that Naruto held any resentment regarding it, any dislike of helping Sasuke as he adjusted. And as the months continued to pass, Sasuke did adjust until he sometimes forgot himself that he had once gone about the world without this loss.
Love is nothing new either. And yet it is unnerving in its presence. The love he knows is that of his parents, but remembering it now is marred with blood. The love Itachi had for him, too, is coated in pain. Even to affection that Orochimaru held for him makes his skin crawl.
So this love feels entirely unfamiliar.
Naruto does not ask of him anything more than company; he pushes but never too far, and only to force Sasuke to attempt and care for himself. It takes months until Sasuke is no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the rug of comfort to be pulled out from underneath him. No, Naruto is unflinchingly consistent.
His help never comes with a price or a favor, instead it is offered up out of what Sasuke can only come to learn is the decency of Naruto’s heart. He is not worth this, though, he cannot be. He cannot be worth this kindness and understanding after years of isolation and violence towards anyone who showed him a shred of kindness.
It feels pathetic, almost to imagine verbalizing it to him, to confess this hollow sense that eats at his chest every time Naruto helps him around the apartment or offers him a bright smile and reddened cheeks. How can he even think of breaking this fragile familiarity when it is the only unmarred love he has known?
Instead, he offers—offers for Naruto to rest in his lap when the bags under his eyes become too dark, offers to deal with the type of missions that would turn the Hokage-to-be’s blood cold. And perhaps that is all that is needed to weave through the unknowns and comforts of love and loss, as tricky and mangled it may be.
For Naruto, Sasuke will be both the weapon he can wield and the person he can call home.