Title: White Dream

Rating: PG

Pairings: SasuNaru, SaiSaku, (mild) NaruSaku

Warning: A vaguely friendly Kyuubi D:

Summary: Kyuubi shows Naruto the future. Is it real? Kyuubi says everything is real.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. But I'd sure like to fool around with him.

Notes: It's supposed to take place around the same time Naruto is learning to slice waterfalls in half. This story was written around the time that was being published in the manga. I'm just getting around to posting it.

Also as a note, Kyuubi talks in italics. It was going to be bold, but that distracted from the story. So yeah. Italics. Kyuubi. Go for it.

White Dream

The fox came to him in a white dream.

It was small, scruffy, and that reddish brown color that all foxes are. But its tail did not end in the usual creamy tip. It spread backwards in a fan of brilliant, unnatural orange. The tail bubbled into a completely different fox—a demon made of pure, compressed chakra that howled noiselessly. He could feel the air boiling, churning, writhing about him, though he did not feel particularly beset by these winds. It was as if he was standing in the eye of a great storm.

The small fox bowed to him with closed eyes and put its black nose between its dirty paws.

Naruto preferred it this way. In his waking dreams, he was the small creature, bent before the wild chakra that poured from the nine tailed demon, caged as it was. In the dreams while he slept, however, the demon was tiny and shaken by his humanity.

What do you desire? The fox asked him.

"Love," Naruto said simply. He crouched before the fox, still wearing nothing but boxers painted with swirls. "Praise. Strength. Family."

I can give that to you, the fox said without words. I can give you anything you want, child.

Naruto lifted his chin skeptically.

It is in my interest to satisfy you. Should you be pleased, my prison will become more bearable. The fox did not say that he thought Naruto might one day release him but the unspoken longing hung between them. The fox looked up at the boy, its eyes simple and warm. The demon that thrashed on the fox's tail looked down, its pupils slitted and furious. I will show you how it can be. Come with me and see your future.

Naruto stood and he was suddenly clothed in the white of their surroundings with a formal white hakama around his waist. He was much cleaner than he had ever been in the waking world, and the fox thought he smelled like fresh linen. There was something that fell against his leg when he stood, and when the fox looked, he was surprised to see a fan of the deepest blue tied to the boy's waist. It dragged at him like an anchor, slowing his movements noticeably. Naruto seemed to shine, too, with a golden light that radiated from just under his skin. The boy, who teetered between plain and ugly in the real world, was angelic here.

The fox shut his eyes against the light, and they suddenly stood on a hill covered in waving grass. To the left, the sun was setting, and everything had turned almost golden. The hill was just outside Konoha. Naruto had come there previously with Sakura and Sasuke to train. The thought made him sad, and his fingers brushed the heavily hanging fan. The fox sensed his feelings and pressed against his leg briefly before walking forward.

Suddenly, there was a shout of delighted laughter, and a child tore past them.

Naruto turned, and there was a boy standing with hands on hips, howling his triumph. Shaggy, dark hair covered his head, and a distinctive doggy odor permeated the air. Behind him, two others rushed up—two girls with the white Hyuuga eyes, long hair and wide, laughing mouths. All three wore the shining forehead protectors that marked them as recently graduated genin. The boy had his properly strapped to his head while the girls wore theirs around their necks like Hinata.

And behind them, stood himself.

The older Naruto was taller even than Naruto was now, but he was still a bit short for a grown man. He moved with the casual grace of a fully realized shinobi and wore the marks of a jounin. His face was still broad and striped and he had a deep scar that ran down his right cheek, but he looked calm and happy. Looking at himself in this unrealized world, Naruto felt a longing to be him. "Slow down!" shouted the adult Naruto, but he was smiling at the children.

The genins turned and laughed at their teacher. "Slow poke!" the Inuzuka boy taunted.

"How'd he ever become our teacher, sister?" asked one girl.

"I have no idea. Maybe dumb luck," the other one replied, but both girls' voices held a measure of pride for their teacher. One of them even blushed.

The older Naruto planted a hand on each girl's head and growled, "What's that supposed to mean, you slacker genin?" But the young Naruto could see the amusement in his own face as they both squealed in excited half-terror. "And you!" The jounin whirled on the boy. "I'd kick your ass, except that your mommy wants you home for dinner."

All three of the children groaned. "We're ninjas!" protested one of the Hyuugas, her arms folded across her chest.

"Yeah, we don't have to go home to mommies!" the boy added.

"Oh yes you do. I know your mommies, and they will skin you alive if you don't come home on time." Adult Naruto held up a hand to stop any arguments, and young Naruto was surprised to see his hand was so large. It made sense, of course, that when you got older you grew, but he'd never thought his hands would change. "Come on, you brats. We have a mission tomorrow and in case you hadn't forgotten, I have a life outside of taking care of you terrors." A smile that reminded young Naruto of Kakashi spread over his older face. "Now, shoo!"

The three children jumped up on their teacher, wrapping their arms around him and hugging him until he bellowed that they'd better get off him or else! Then they ran down the hill, the two girls veering to the left towards the sprawl of Hyuuga houses, while the boy headed straight for the center of the village.

Adult Naruto sighed and smiled expansively. And with his hands behind his head, he sauntered back towards home.

The fox pressed against Naruto's leg. Follow yourself.

So they did.

The streets of Konoha had changed in subtle ways that Naruto could not at first put his finger on. But then he realized that everyone was smiling at him. The tense faces that currently filled the streets were gone, and people were laughing out loud. There were even ninjas from other villages sharing meals and stories with Konoha's citizens. There were posters up advertising tables for sale or free kittens to a good home instead of missing ninjas. The people they passed all smiled and waved at his adult self as they passed.

Naruto glanced down at the fox. "You can make this happen?"

And more, the fox said. If you let me free, I can make your world better than you could imagine.

The house that adult Naruto turned to enter was not huge, but it was more impressive than the small apartment he lived in now. And, wonder of wonders, Sakura stood in the doorway, her arms full of folded white sheets.

She had grown to be more beautiful than Naruto ever imagined. Her hair was long again and she had tied it over her left shoulder. It made her look more feminine and somehow, more adult. Her legs, long, smooth, and white were crossed slightly. Her figure was the epitome of womanhood, but oh! Her face was like the unfolding of a long-awaited flower. Naruto found himself suddenly in awe of his teammate.

"It's about time," Sakura said as she threw the pile of sheets into older Naruto's open arms. "I did the sheets and put stuff in your refrigerator. For heaven's sake, don't you two eat anything but ramen and whatever that glop in there was?"

"Hey, there was… a vegetable. You might have missed it because it was in the rice cooker," the jounin Naruto defended himself.

"I found a wrinkly carrot behind a two-week old jug of milk. That hardly counts." Despite a sour expression, Sakura reached around to put her arm around his shoulder in a quick hug.

"Wait," the young Naruto said. "We aren't…"

Hush.

"Thanks, Sakura. I couldn't get along without you."

"Neither of you could. You may be insanely strong, but you're completely helpless," she sniffed and then nervously pressed her hands to her belly. The young Naruto noticed with a sudden shock that it was slightly rounded. A gentle flush rose on her cheeks and she was blindingly beautiful. "I'd better get home. Sai will be back soon, and I want him to look at the baby. It's a bit hard to do it myself. The chakra gets tangled with two of us."

"Sai?! Baby? What is this, fox?" young Naruto bellowed at the demon.

The fox sat back on his heels and sharp teeth glinted in a growl. It happens there are more people than Sakura in this world, and ones who like you more than she does, at that. Then it tilted its head. Did you know you are greatly desired?

"Wha-what?"

The older Naruto kissed Sakura on the cheek before taking the armload of laundry into the house. She smiled at him and turned to leave.

Go into the house. The fox followed Adult Naruto into the house with a twitch of his tail that Naruto felt was unnecessarily saucy.

"I don't want to see any more of your stupid future," Naruto said loudly. The fox didn't listen to him, and of course, no one else in the dream world could hear him. So he stood outside and fumed until he was bored. Then he tapped his foot. And picked at his fingernails. And sighed loudly before entering the house.

The fox was waiting patiently, curled up on a chair where the laundry had been abandoned in a crumpled pile. Adult Naruto was in the shower, singing something unrecognizable in deafening tones.

"Just get this over with. This is no real future if I'm not married to Sakura-chan," Naruto scoffed.

Everything is real, the fox said enigmatically.

Just then, the door opened and in came Sasuke wearing civilian clothes. He was taller than when they had last met and taller than the adult Naruto. His face had narrowed in all the right places and his hair was still somehow scraggly but perfect. If anything, his skin seemed whiter when in contrast with the simple black shirt and short pants that he wore. He was carrying something in a paper bag. The young Naruto suddenly felt tears welling up in his eyes. He scrubbed his face with the back of his arm and pretended to shake his fist in anger. "That bastard even looks better than me inside my own head," he said, and his voice trembled.

The fox said nothing, but hopped off the chair and pressed against his leg comfortingly.

"Naruto?" Sasuke called—bellowed.

The sound of off-key singing increased from the shower's general direction.

Sasuke's face relaxed into a look that startled the young Naruto. He smiled. It wasn't a smirk, nor was it the delighted but angry grin that he got when he surpassed someone else in battle. It wasn't even the mocking smile that he reserved for Naruto (and occasionally Sakura). Instead, it was this brilliant look that lit up all of his featuresand made Naruto suddenly realize why all the girls in the village tripped over their feet to get to the dark haired shinobi. He turned to the fox, eyes still red from being rubbed. "Couldn't you make him uglier?"

Then he sat down on one of the chairs in his own mind and burst into tears.

The fox wound around his legs sympathetically.

Naruto sobbed into his hands. He knew he had embarrassed himself at Orochimaru's caves by crying like this in front of Sakura and Sai—that bastard—but he hadn't been able to help it. Sasuke was, to him, someone who was as important as the moon is to the earth. Sure, the moon is manipulative and pulls the earth's tides (and all the girls on the earth think the moon is sexier and more romantic than the sun), but somehow you miss it when it's gone and it drives you mad until it comes back. It should have bothered him more that he was crying out his loneliness in front of the very demon that made him lonely, but it didn't. And the fox even seemed to feel sorry for him, just a little. As Naruto cried, he thought that it would be all right, everything would be all right if only Sasuke acknowledged him. If only when Sasuke had pressed their cheeks together—had put his white arm across Naruto's neck—if only it had been a hug, Naruto thought he could have let Sasuke go kill his brother.

He trembled, the fox said, remembering.

Naruto wailed and the walls burned white.

Stop that, the fox growled, and it nipped at him. I didn't bring you here so that you could lose yourself in reality. I came so that you could see what you might have if you let me go.

Naruto lifted his face from his hands, and it seemed to the fox that there were spider webs of light shooting from the floor where his feet touched to the place where the adult Sasuke was standing. He looked more tired than the demon had ever seen him. More tired than the demon had ever made him. "I just keep fighting and losing to Itachi."

You are the only thing that distracts him from that vengeance. You are the only thing. Should Itachi die, you will be where Sasuke turns his eyes. It may have been a lie. But it was comforting one.

"Why did you tell him not to kill me? You'd be free, then."

The fox said nothing.

Adult Naruto suddenly pounded down the stairs, shirtless and barefoot, wearing a pair of jounin-issue pants. "Ah! Sasuke!" His face lit up. And then his mouth curled into a fox-like smile. "And dinner!" He clapped his hands like he was still a child.

Sasuke kicked out a pair of chairs from the table and sat in one of them. "It's getting cold. You took too long, dead-last."

The older Naruto sniffed and flung himself into the other chair. "Last week you complained I didn't shower enough, and now you're complaining when I do? Make up your mind, bastard."

Though they flung insults at each other as they ate, the young Naruto got the feeling that they were friendly nicknames. At one point, he even thought uncomfortably that they sounded remarkably affectionate with each other. When they finished, Naruto blew the empty food boxes into the trash with a focused blast of wind that made Sasuke look at him approvingly. Sasuke would never, never, never admit that he was impressed by anything Naruto did. But the boy knew his friend. He knew when Sasuke was admiring someone's technique.

And then something happened.

Sasuke got up out of his chair and walked behind adult Naruto. He smiled down at him at first, and then yanked on the golden hair so that Naruto faced the ceiling. "Oi," the jounin protested mildly.

Sasuke bent down and kissed Naruto's mouth gently, familiarly.

The scene vanished into nothing, and Naruto and the fox squatted next to each other in the white world again. Naruto was breathing hard, furious, his hand pulling painfully at the fox's red fur. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!" he roared, jerking the fox's head around roughly.

A future. A happy future.

"That was a joke. That was a stupid, dumb demon joke," Naruto snarled. "And it's not funny. You think you're so funny, don't you—you—you—"

The fox extricated himself from Naruto's grip by disappearing. The huge nine-tailed demon blew about him again and then the little fox reappeared across the room, disgruntled. I said I would show you a possible future. One where you were happy.

"What exactly is happy about that?" spat the little ninja.

You were loved. Sakura adored you and took care of you. You were praised. Sasuke saw your power and acknowledged you. You had strength. The children followed you, and you were seen fit to be jounin rank. You had a family. Sasuke was your family. Isn't that what you wanted?

"Not like that, you stupid fox!" Naruto moved across to the fox and bopped him sharply on the head. "Isn't it torture enough that I had to kiss that bastard once in my life? I want him to come back, not to… ugh…" His face was scarlet.

The demon looked cheeky. The damn nine-tailed fox demon that boiled over with chakra looked cheeky. And the brown fox said, I told you there were people who desired you more than Sakura, didn't I?

Naruto rocked back on his heels, stunned. "Wh… wh… Sasuke?" was all he managed to get out.

You're the only person he genuinely cares about, the fox replied. That's why he wants to kill you. The fox seemed to stop and consider for a moment. I will rip him limb from limb and bathe your stinking flesh in his red blood.

"You're… the sickest person I ever met. And that includes Gaara!" Naruto said with disgusted awe.

Suddenly the fox lunged forward and pressed his furry forehead to Naruto's. But just as the boy was feeling the bone under the flesh under the fur, the fox disappeared into a burning red maelstrom of chakra. Do not die yet, the demon rumbled. Feed off your angry desire. Let me go.

Naruto was small before the demon now, like a tiny child.

Set me free, and you will have all this and more.

"No."

When you wake, you will remember nothing, and I will try again tomorrow night.

But the demon was wrong. When Naruto woke, the sunlight full in his face, his mouth tasting of old ramen, and his shoulder aching, he remembered a strange satisfaction. And the feeling of being loved.

After that, he redoubled his efforts in training, hoping to reach Sasuke faster.