He's not really thinking about anything in particular that day, sitting on the riverbank, as he watches Sasuke bathe.
Alright, yes. He's thinking about corded muscles and flexible limbs and how they let Sasuke strike fast and from almost any angle, flip and twist somewhat like a viper.
Juugo likes vipers. Very straight to the point.
Juugo likes Sasuke too. He wasn't really expecting, or wanting to. Sasuke is his hope, Kimimaro's legacy, that's more than enough weight to hang onto anyone.
He guards his face and his words like he guards his back, like he's all efficiency and purpose, intense the way they are when they burn bright and fast and gutter out much too early.
He didn't want to be touched, that night, but not because he had been hurt before, or didn't feel an interest in the pleasures of the flesh, but they wanted him too much, so because he doesn't care he let them have that. Him.
Juugo bets he isn't the only one pretending he doesn't know Sasuke could have been out of that room in a flash, if he'd wanted it, if he'd hated or been bored of their hands on him at all. It seems they've reached a silent agreement to let Sasuke pretend there was no part of him that reveled in it.
White wet skin and dark seal and black wet locks. Rough old towel, rubbing them dry.
Sasuke's eyes, black as coal, as he watches Juugo watch him.
He climbs back onto the rocky riverbank. Juugo doesn't bother hiding his watchfulness.
His rock is high enough that even sitting down his head is higher than Sasuke's. When Sasuke comes to a stop, almost close enough that his hip brushes Juugo's knee, he tilts his head, to the side and a little rolled back, so he can look at him without staring straight on. It's strangely non-aggressive, for Sasuke values of such.
"... You're supposed to keep watch."
My animals have a better range, Juugo doesn't remind him; he knows Sasuke remembers. It's the subtext he replies to, with a faint smile that acknowledges the lack of actual rebuke in his team leader's voice. "I am."
Sasuke snorts. Like what you see? he doesn't challenge. Why, yes, Juugo supposes he does. Sasuke's body is a perfect, honed killing machine, and it doesn't hurt that his face is beautiful.
They stare at each other, Sasuke standing there with the towel around his neck and his eyes narrowed in thought, Juugo sitting, watching openly -- there's no use trying to hide any of it.
"If I slept with you alone, I'd have to sleep with them too," he says in the end, a thin, barely-there furrow between his eyebrows.
Juugo nods, because he gets it, really he does. "They'd be unbearable." With good reason. It'd be favoritism if they didn't get to, and if they did they'd only feel encouraged to badger Sasuke for an encore and start competing with each other via inappropriate solicitations. Their team is unstable enough already.
He likes it, though, knowing that Sasuke sort of wanted to, even just a bit, or he'd have dispensed with the explanation and just gone straight to "no."
Sasuke doesn't resume walking, doesn't even move to wrap the towel around his waist, hide himself. His body language says he doesn't care who watches, but Juugo knows if Karin and Suigetsu were here he'd have hidden, if only to cut down on leers and horrible come-ons.
He turns to face Juugo, suddenly, with no warning, and his narrow hips fit just right in between Juugo's knees. His stare is hard, dissecting, challenging.
"You can have one kiss."
Juugo doesn't ask what brought this on, what he did right that deserves rewarding (though he knows without false pride he is the only one to be trusted to keep his mouth shut about it.) He knows the simple, bare truth is Sasuke wants to.
He leans in. The kiss is slow and long, leisurely in a way nothing they've done as a team has really been. Their lips are the only place where they touch. Sasuke's hands are holding the ends of his towel; Juugo's hands are behind him, bracing on rock. Any second he could close his knees on Sasuke's hips, trap him there between his legs; the warmth Sasuke's body radiates is a harsh temptation.
The second he tries that Sasuke will be gone, though, and if this is the only kiss he'll get, just here, just for him, he is not wasting any second. It'll end too soon however long it lasts.