"The muse just hit me over the head with a rather large inspiration- I'm gonna go type now." –Kitty Smith
"That felt like some sort of crossdimensional spatial transference!" –Luke in Doctor Who
DISCLAIMER- Naruto is no property of mine and I am not making any money off this enterprise.
-x-
Written so long ago / this story of old / does not quite portray / the skills I have honed. / The plotline is missing / the characters jump about / I have much newer stories / Go check them out.
Naruto sighed as he lay down on his bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling of his more-than-humble apartment. Being all of sixteen, and infamous at that, an apartment the size of the average broom closet seemed better than the other options, namely- homelessness. Naruto sighed again, thinking about the day's events. Sakura, his pink-haired teammate, had decided to take it upon herself to "civilize" him, and he had been subjected to all kinds of torment. The one on his mind at the moment would not surprise anyone who knew him. Eating ramen is an art. If you go about the way she wants, I'd be shocked if you could finish a bowl within five minutes! He growled, remembering the way she had criticized his seamless slurping. "No! You have to stop between bites and chew and swallow! And only put enough in your mouth so you can still talk without being rude! And wipe your mouth! You'll be meeting our new teammate soon!" And on and on and on…Naruto rolled over onto his side, hoping some sleep would put the matter out of his mind.
"SASUKE-KUN! I'M SO GLAD YOU MOVED BACK TO KONOHA!" Sakura bounded over to a dark-eyed, pale-skinned youth. "I can't wait until you meet Kakashi-sensei! And well, I guess Naruto too, but he's not really as important and- OH! I can't wait to see the look on Ino-pig's face when I walk to the bridge with you! My god-" The afore-mentioned Sasuke Uchiha drowned the babbling girl out, unconcerned with her words. He inwardly rolled his eyes, You'd think meeting me once meant we were the best of friends.
He cut her off impatiently, "Sakura-san." He stressed the honorific, "I need to go unpack. I haven't been in the manor since- for years."
Sakura immediately adopted the look of pity that the dark-haired Uchiha despised over all others, "Oh, I'm so sorry, it slipped my mind! I'll give you some time alone…" She very nearly sprinted away, over-eager to please the love of her life, although some may argue it was a shallow love indeed to have grown from a meeting and a half.
Sasuke took a deep breath when she had gone, and, carrying his bags, walked determinedly into the house. He barely managed to keep his bags in hand when he walked in. It was exactly how he left it. Bloodstains and all. Biting his lip, he wondered how he would remove the stains. They looked large enough to merit assistance, but he couldn't think of anyone he could ask. Well, there was one person- No. Sasuke shook his head firmly, as if trying to dislodge an irritating idea by force alone, He can't even exist. I couldn't ever pour my heart out to anyone in this world, so it makes sense that he-it-does not exist, at least out of my head… He rubbed his temples and tried to focus on the cleaning supplies he would need, but he soon had enough of that and headed for one of the guest rooms- at least they would be blood free, if a little dusty.
Naruto opened his eyes, only to see white stretching in every direction. He felt both apprehensive and a little excited. His reoccurring dream had tapered off a bit over the past month, leaving him relieved and upset- a most confusing mix of emotions. You see, for as long as he could remember, he had had, at least five times a week, a dream of total white. Of having everything around him be blank, and for as far back as the dream went, there was always only one other person there with him. They had never exchanged names, both afraid and unwilling to discover the other truly did not exist, although neither would admit they believed the other did. Naruto ran a hand through his blond hair and waited for the other to arrive. His bright blue eyes closed as he remembered the very first time they had met in this blank, empty world.
Naruto threw himself into his bed, sobbing profusely, and creating a large wet spot on his pillow. Why does everyone hate me? What did I do wrong? Why can't I fix it? These musings were too much for the five year old, and his crying escalated. For hours, he drifted in and out of awareness, although he continued to weep, and finally, his body decided his state of mind for him and he fell into a deep sleep. In his mind, he created a haven, not realizing another was doing very nearly the same thing, an empty world, with no one to scoff, or ridicule, or harm him. A place where he was just himself, and no one would judge it. He sank deeper into this dream, and soon opened his 'eyes' to a blank world. No up, down, left or right. No buildings, no people, nothing but himself. Except- far off, or perhaps close by, for distance has no meaning in the mind- was something like a black dot. As he grew closer, not sure if he was walking or swimming or flying, he realized it was a boy his age, with jet black hair and matching eyes that swam in his pale skin. When he realized the boy was also crying, his own tears were stopped by the instinct to help the other boy. He put a hand on his shoulder, and the boy jumped, startled. The dark-haired boy said the first thing that came to mind, "Who are you?"
Naruto sniffed and wiped the remaining tears off his face. He opened his mouth to answer but found he had no desire to see this boy react in the same way the ones at his kindergarten class had, "I don't want to tell." He frowned, as he had not meant to say that out loud.
Surprisingly, the other boy nodded, "I know what you mean." He, too, wiped the tears off his face, but much more discreetly, "Whenever I say who I am, people look at me funny. Then, they either try to be friends with me 'cause they wanna see my nii-chan, or they make fun of me for not being as good as nii-chan." He hung his head, "I'm trying, though…"
Naruto sat down and said, "Whenever I'm around people look at me like how they look at yucky bugs. I think I did something wrong, but I don't know what it is!" Naruto's voice rose a bit in volume at the end, and he pounded the whiteness in frustration. "I tried asking someone once, but they wouldn't even look at me!"
The boy, unsure of what to do, copied the blonde's earlier gesture and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Maybe you didn't do anything…?"
Naruto thought this over, but quickly bounced back from his melancholy, seeing as his concentration was much worse as a child, "Maybe, maybe not, but I'm not gonna think about it 'cause I'm just gonna prove them wrong anyway!"
"…How?"
Naruto stood up and thumped his chest, "I'm gonna be Hokage!"
And the other boy just couldn't help it. He burst out laughing.
Naruto smiled at how angry he had gotten, and then how furious when the boy had explained that he thought it was ridiculous, and very unlikely. When Naruto looked around, since he had finally come out of his memories, he noticed that very same person he had been remembering was sitting next to him with his head on his knees.
"Teme?" He asked hesitantly, using the (rather insulting) name he had given the teen when they were younger.
Teme groaned and leaned into Naruto's side, responding in kind, "Dobe."
"What's wrong with you? Last time you were thiiis close to jumping up and down and giggling fiendishly!" Teme shot a Glare Of Doom, patented by none other than himself, at Naruto and dug his face back into his knees. "Come on, tell meeee!" Naruto wheedled, "I'd blackmail you but I know everything about you except your naaaaaame! Which is rather detrimental to the blackmaaaaail!"
"… Do you even know what detrimental means?"
Naruto huffed, "It means bad for!"
Teme laughed into his knees, and then turned his gaze on Naruto, who noticed the signs that he was trying not to cry. "I went back to my house today."
Naruto winced and another flashback, compressed into a second, hit him,
For the first time in two years, Naruto had arrived after Teme in the dream world, and he was shocked to see Teme on the ground in the spread eagle position, sobbing his heart out. He was next to him in a second, "Teme, what's wrong?"
Teme didn't even try to stop crying and Naruto found himself gathering the taller boy into his arms, somewhat fearful the brunette would push away. His worries were squashed when Teme held the blonde in a dead man's grip, crying even harder into Naruto's shoulder. Naruto rocked back and forth, vaguely remembering Iruka-sensei, one of his old teachers with brown hair and a scar across his nose, doing the same for him, and how it had helped to calm him down. Teme's sobs became quieter and quieter until they were merely snuffles, and he tried to push away from Naruto, who didn't let go. "Let go of me," he sniffed.
"No." Naruto stated firmly, "Not until you feel better."
Burning with embarrassment at having cried and then clung to the blonde, Teme relaxed in Naruto's grip. "Aren't you going to pester me for details like always?"
Naruto shook his head, even though the other couldn't see this movement, "Not until you're ready. Remember that time you helped me when those guys burned down the place I was living? I won't force you into telling me unless I get too impatient."
Teme laughed weakly, "Honest to a fault…" He sniffed, and took a deep breath, "My family's dead. My whole clan, just gone, and all of them were killed by nii- by Itachi."
This was the first time Naruto had heard the name of Teme's nii-chan, and he felt he would hate it and its owner through all of time for hurting his best- and only- friend. Sure, Sakura didn't hate him, but she sure didn't like him, so he put her out of his mind when the word friend came up. This made the increase in his anger monumental compared to if he had had many friends and this was but one of them, and he swore for the first time in his life, "That asshole! He should be forced to die a million deaths for every person he killed and for every second he made you cry!"
Naruto's flashback ended in the time it took him to blink.
"It's exactly how I left it…" Teme mused angrily.
Sasuke noticed the Dobe pale at his words, "The… Bodies?"
Sasuke shook his head and the blonde sitting next to him regained some of his color before Sasuke continued, "Just the bloodstains."
Dobe seemed to ignite with righteous fury, his blue eyes flashing against tanned skin, "WHO WOULD LEAVE BLOODSTAINS FOR YOU TO COME BACK TO? WHY WOULD-"
Sasuke cut him off, feeling drained, "Ninja have more important things to do."
"I'm a ninja too, you know, and I woulda!"
"Would have," Sasuke corrected automatically, sounding weary and depressed, "And no, Dobe. I doubt you would've."
"Te-meeeeee!" Dobe whined somewhat angrily.
"You're telling me you'd scrub away at bloodstains for who knows how long so someone you don't even know who left the house abandoned wouldn't be scarred on the off-chance that he'd return?" Sasuke shot Dobe an irritated look and buried his face in his knees again, still leaning against the Dobe.
"I…" Sasuke could feel Dobe take several breaths before continuing, "I just wish I could actually be there to help."
Sasuke opened his eyes.
Naruto rubbed his throbbing head and took in his surroundings; blue walls and a sad excuse for a kitchen jammed up against the twin bed. The bathroom, at least, was not jammed into this space but connected to the room and filled with a toilet, shower stall, and sink. The little window to his apartment showed Naruto the sun was already above the horizon and he groaned while throwing his clothes on. Teme waking up had forced him out of the dream, and he wished that Teme could have slept longer, at least for the blonde's benefit if not for his own. They had discovered that if one of them left the dream, both of them left the dream, even though the boys were still not sure the other existed out of their own mind. Naruto pulled on a clean-ish outfit, grabbed a banana, and hurried out the door and down the steps to the ground floor. If I can't have ramen, a banana's the next best thing. As he made the trip down, he couldn't help but worry about Teme, before harshly reprimanding himself for fussing about a figment of his imagination born from his own loneliness. So what if Teme constantly surprised him, Naruto had an overactive imagination, and that was that.
Belatedly, he remembered there was supposed to be a new addition to the team today, and he quickened his step. He all-out ran when he saw that ot was 11:46 AM, as he was supposed to meet his team at the bridge at noon.
Sasuke waited impatiently for his new team leader to show up. He scowled, Being late better npt be one of their habits. He had begun tapping his foot when a silver-haired man with a mask over the bottom half of his face appeared, in that all too silent way that ninjas do.
"You must be Uchiha! Welcome back to Konoha!" The man grated on Sasuke's nerves, or maybe it was just in Sasuke's nature to be annoyed.
"Hn." He muttered noncommittedly.
"I'm Kakashi, your teacher. Shall we introduce you to your new team?" Without waiting for a response the tall Jounin spun on his heel and strolled leisurely away, his nose buried in a book. Sasuke wasted no time in following the weirdo, although he was toying with the idea of running as far and fast as he could in the other direction. Trying not to think about it, his mind wandered to the subject of Dobe and he gave himself to trying to decipher that last comment. Yes, he knew that Dobe wanted to help, but… Did it mean he wanted to meet in real life? Or that he was admitting that he didn't exist, and therefore could not help? Or maybe, he was in a coma somewhere, and returned to his comatose body everytime Sasuke woke up. Sasuke mentally shuddered at that thought. He couldn't imagine being trapped inside himself and never wanted to have that experience. The walk seemed to fly by as they walked down the busy street, chock to the brim with people and animals, although a few ninja could be seen. Sasuke eyed the hitae-aes(?) and remembered that he hadn't worn his because his brother had. Shaking the unpleasant thoughts out of his head, he spotted a steaming pink-haired ninja girl pacing back and forth on a bridge and a blonde with messy hair trying to calm her. He could only see the blond boy's back, but his heart skipped a beat. What is- His clothes! They look just like- I can't believe this- No. It can't be him. It just looks like him from behind. He isn't real, and even if he was real he sure as hell wouldn't be in the same team as him, that would be nearly impossible, a trick of fate. As he grew nearer, though, his heart grew surer, while his brain rambled off reasons why it couldn't be so. Some of his inner conflict must have shown on his face, and the man next to him raised the eyebrow that wasn't hidden by the hitae-ae over his right eye. Sasuke immediately schooled his features to apathy and rose his own eyebrow right back at the weirdo. Kakashi shook his head at his new charge's stubbornness and hollared to his others, "HEY! I'M HERE!"
"YOU'RE LATE!" Two heads whipped around with murder in their eyes and in that moment Sasuke knew. How many times had he had that look directed at him? Dobe, and Sasuke was sure it was him at this point, suddenly froze as he locked eyes with Sasuke.
"TEME?"
