Tee-hee. This will be my first long running story for the Sasuke/Naruto pairing. I have to admit, though, I'm almost afraid to take the plunge into such commitment. I hate to think of those I'd be letting down if I didn't get this done, so I hope you'll keep faith in me, no matter how long it takes for me to update.

This chapter has gone through major rewriting. The following chapters that have the bolded writing have also gone through the same treatment. Last edited – 23. 06. 09.

NOTE: This story was influence by Just Like Heroin (written by VanityWantsYou) and is not a rip-off or re-post of her story. It does have its similarities, many now that I've gone back and re-read, but it goes in an entirely different direction and has a different background. Please do not say that I've stolen the plot or characters. Just give it a try, you might even find you like it. – 18. 7. 09

A/N: You know the drill. Mi-chan, you'd better call me or text me or whatever or I'll kick your butt…and I'll quit dedicating these to you. (cries)

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or its characters, merchandise, plotlines, or sexy gay ninjas. Kishimoto-sama does. I wish I did.

"Blah"-talking
'Blah-thinking
Blah-flashbacks
A/N-author's note

Warning: AU, Un-beta, much angst, needless guilt, OOC, rape, and lots of yaoi goodness

You no likey, you no stay!

--U R Darkest's Pawn--

Going through this life looking for angels
People passing by looking for angels

"Looking For Angels"-Skillet

Chapter 1: Rescue Me

"Appearing this weekend at the downtown Tokyo Mega-plex, Uchiha Sasuke's new movie—" With that, the television shut off, leaving the occupant of the room blind.

He sat on the couch fuming. The only thing on at midnight was soap operas, pornography, hour-long advertisements, and the occasional commercial for Uchiha Sasuke's new movie.

Naruto practically growled as he got up off the couch, internally cursing the handsome actor and all of his wealth, and climbed the staircase. He hated men like that. Those who had such easy lives, who could afford to live carelessly. They were not a part of the world normal people lived in. That simple fact caused selfish emotions to burst forth quite aggressively.

With a sigh, he stopped short when he arrived at the first door down the hall. Slowly, he pushed the door open, revealing his seven-year-old son, Akito.

The child's soft breathing lightened his mood slightly. He sat on the edge of the boy's bed and gazed at the calm visage, Akito's black hair caressing his face with each breath. He tucked in his son and closed the door soundlessly behind him.

When he arrived at his room, he fell onto the bed; his previous mood now absent. Naruto rolled onto his side and gazed at the picture on the side-table beside his bed. It was a picture of him, Akito, and Akito's mother after the latter's birth. Depression washed over him like a tidal wave.

The blonde sighed as his memories of his would-have-been wife, Airi, flooded back into his mind, like a broken dam reigning terror on a small city below.

At the stable age of seventeen, he'd gotten his steady girlfriend pregnant. Unlike most boys his age, he remained with the girl, despite his friends jeers, and took full responsibility for his action, swearing that he'd find a job capable of supporting a family. He'd long known that working for minimum wage at MacDonald's would not due long.

After Akito had been born in August, and they had paid off all bills, the wedding was set tentatively for next June, close to the child's first birthday.

Naruto had found small odd jobs that paid enough, and they had managed throughout the winter and spring, but when May came around, their situation grew wearisome. The realtor who had hired Naruto was retiring, leaving the blonde yet again unemployed.

Mere weeks before their wedding, Naruto came home with Akito from the park to find a note from Airi sitting on the kitchen table. Its contents, though using common words found in the language, felt like gibberish each and every time he read them. It was impossible to comprehend that their relationship, which had seemed so strong, could suddenly break.

That wasn't the only thing to fall apart, however. His sanity joined the rest of his broken world. The only woman he'd ever loved had left him because he'd made a mistake. It hadn't mattered that they were in love; their naïveté had cost their relationship and family.

For weeks afterwards, Naruto had cursed his son, ignored the child's needs, and tried to forget about what had happened to his life. It was a plague sent upon him. It had caused his life to fall to bits when he finally had prayed that it would be pieced back together. It had cost him his happiness; he was simply returning the favor. But the house grew deafeningly silent as his son drifted further and further away.

He had stared down at the pale child, whose sunken eyes dared to call him a horrible person. Whose barely conscious sight found the ability to tell him that he should die for taking out his pathetic and immature emotions on an innocent life.

Innocence. Something that he lacked.

Something that suddenly drove him to let out a horrified shriek as he realized that his son was dying.

"Gods, please no! Don't…don't let him leave me! He's all I have left!" he begged, clutching the underweight boy to him. He'd prayed for understanding and had sworn to place his child above himself. He had sworn to give his life up, if that would atone.

Though he'd never told anyone about that time, it remained with him and was a constant reminder of his life. He would not fall back into that again.

By the time Akito was four, Naruto had managed to get a fair paying job as a bartender at the local club. His best friend, Haruno Sakura, baby-sat his son during his shift and vehemently refused the thought of having the blonde pay her.

"I'm not going to take the only money you have from you, Naruto." She had said. Though she was in no better position herself, working at Seven Eleven, she insisted in doing him the favor, claiming that Akito's adorableness made up for the entirety of the ordeal.

It had been three years since Airi had left him, and he'd managed to move out of the run down apartment that held so many horrible memories, into a two-story house. His secure job had finally blessed him.

But life is always heaven with hell in its midst. At the bar, there were always those few women who were willing to go ahead and give themselves to any guy. This was something that the blonde did not particularly enjoy, but the more he was able to provide for his son, the better.

With Akito now in second grade and the educational expenses that came with the territory, he was working overtime much more frequently and giving in to the wasted women more often as well. When he'd arrive home at three in the morning, Sakura would always shoot him a reproving look. But she could do nothing more than advise her close friend, praying that he wouldn't get hurt again.

Naruto sighed and placed the picture back on the table. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. This had been his day off and yet he was still exhausted.

The black came quickly, a comforting note for him, but he fell into a restless sleep.

--U R Darkest's Pawn--

The blaring music of the club would normally burst a person's eardrum, but for Naruto, this was nothing new. Having endured those years with the noise in his ears, he was all but immune now. He stared lazily out into the crowd of non-discernable club-goers, snickering on the inside at all of the idiots foolish enough to be tricked into a one-night stand.

"Oi!" A voice called from down the bar.

"Coming!" He called back, reluctantly dragging his eyes away from the rather livelier part of the building. Hardly glancing at the man, he questioned his wants.

"Rum and Coke." The voice said in an almost rude tone. The blonde nodded absently as his hands mechanically reached for the ingredients.

"Here you go, sir." Naruto said a few moments later.

"Thanks." The stranger said. He finally looked towards the blonde with hesitant onyx eyes. Those orbs had only set on the kit's for a moment, but it was long enough for something to settle in him.

Awkwardly, the blonde was about to ask why the man was looking at him so intently, but those words drifted away from him when he realized just who he was dealing with: it was Uchiha Sasuke.

"Uchiha Sasuke…what're you doing here? Don't you have some big party to get to or some extra money to spend? Your friends ditch you because you're too rich for them?" Naruto asked, with malice dripping heavily. He couldn't understand why he'd been urged to allow that to spill out of his mouth.

He'd dealt with actors before, the infamous, famous, and AV's (1). Why couldn't he just keep that mask on right now?

"Trying to avoid them…" He replied so quietly, that the blonde wasn't sure he'd heard him correctly. His eyes took one quick overlook of the boy behind the counter, in a seemingly discreet way. "I suppose that now you know who I am you'll want an autograph?"

Naruto snorted. "As if…"

He was about to tack on another smart-ass remark, but the soft protests coming from the other bartender, Sai, at the opposite end of the bar halted him.

"Come on, just one little one, I promise I won't hurt you." One of the men harassing the other raven grabbed his collar and pulled him forward. There were five beer bottles in a messy pile in front of both him and his partner. Drunkards…

The raven's distaste for alcohol was written all over his face. He turned his face slightly to beg Naruto for some assistance. It was somewhat of his fault though. If he hadn't been dressed in clothes that would make a whore blush, then he wouldn't have looked so vulnerable.

Naruto turned away from the pleading face. "Excuse me for a moment." He said to the actor.

Sasuke waved his hand, signaling that the blonde was dismissed, his sight lingering on the back of the retreating kit.

Naruto quickly turned and practically ran to Sai. He wrapped his arms around the raven and said loud enough for the men to hear, "Sai, I thought you promised to meet me later tonight? If you're going to be leaving with them at least kiss me goodbye."

"Hey! We're busy here!" protested the other man who didn't have his hand on the latter just yet. He hiccupped and struggled to keep his eyes focused on the newest addition to their private session.

Naruto ignored them and forced the man's hand to let go of Sai, before spinning the raven around and placing his lips against former.

He licked Sai's bottom lip, requesting admittance, which the other gladly granted; their tongues battled for dominance, whilst exploring the warm caverns, and relishing the taste.

Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto saw the two men exchange looks of defeat and a few words that sounded something to the effect of "Fucking fags…" They threw down some money and walked away. The blonde finally let go of his grip on his friend.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun." A slightly flushed Sai said.

"No problem." Naruto said before pecking the raven on the lips again. He walked away to tend to another customer, while Sai just stared after him.

At that same secluded end of the bar, where Naruto had been only moments before, an audacious onlooker found himself wondering who it really was he'd seen change in the blink of an eye.

--U R Darkest's Pawn--

"Thank you, Sakura-chan." Naruto whispered as he checked on Akito.

"You're welcome. Naruto, are you sure that you can be here? Don't you normally work until midnight?" She whispered back. "I can stay a little longer if you'd like?"

"It's alright; Sai said that he'd go ahead and handle the rest of the night." He replied. 'He didn't have to pay me back this way, though. I feel kind of bad for him, having to deal with men like that. I suppose being bent does sort of have its disadvantages, but is it really written right on his face?'

He walked her to the door and said goodbye, then turned to shut off the light and stumbled up the stairs to his room. His tired body met the soft comforted and he sighed, losing his sight in the blankness of the ceiling.

The sound of the door opening caused him to look up. There stood Akito with a solemn look on his face.

"Can I sleep with you, chichiue? I had a bad dream." The crow looked at him with piercing blue eyes that could be seen even in the pitch of night.

Naruto gathered the child in his arms and lay back down. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Akito buried his face into Naruto's chest. "It was about…" The child's words were drowned out by a short sob. The kit felt so guilty watching his child breaking down, but he felt defenseless in that situation. He patted the child's hair until he calmed down. Akito regained control and asked a question that didn't require much of an explanation on his part, and much rather beat the monstrosity of curiosity that was gnawing away at him.

"What was kaasan like?"

Naruto paled. This was a subject he'd been hoping to avoid for a while. The wound was raw and its stitches were still to new to be roughed up.

"Well…" He began slowly. "She had black hair like you," He paused to rustle his son's hair. "And she had black eyes."

The blonde could feel himself becoming more and more affected by his ex-girlfriend's memory as he struggled to maintain an even voice.

If nothing else, Akito understood that his father was in pain. Being of hardly seven years of age, experience wasn't really on his side. He hugged the blonde closer to him, hoping to take away his pain for even a second, wanting to see his dad smile again.

Naruto inhaled sharply, realizing that his lack of caution had made his son aware of a burden he had no place in carrying.

"Why don't you go to sleep now? I promise I'll be here when you wake up."

The child obliged, but he wasn't worried about his father disappearing while he slept, he was concerned for his father's happiness. His nightmare was of one particular blonde crying alone, deaf to his son's alarmed inquiry. Akito shuddered into unconsciousness.

--U R Darkest's Pawn--

When the sun finally arose to shine through the closely set blinds, a groan interrupted the serenity that had once dominated the atmosphere.

As the raven sat up in the empty bed, the room spun. He groaned again as he glanced at the clock, it was seven-thirty in the morning, an obvious non-morning person. Sasuke rolled on to his side and pulled the blankets over his head.

He was so tired due to the lack of sleep. Last night's scene in the club continued to play repeatedly in his head; something about the blonde irked him.

He wracked his brain for any logical explanation for this, but found none.

'It was nothing.' He tried to reason with himself.

Despite the conviction of not wanting anything to do with any person he'd seen or heard in the last 8 hours, Sasuke found himself caught up in the blonde's expression. It was so familiar.

In searching his mind for any sort of explanation, he unearthed some sort of memories that had been meant to be locked and chained for all of eternity. His former life, full of idiotic mistakes so simple they could have been avoided with only a little attention, flashed back to him. An empty face, mute as well, but the presence felt so warm.

It had been a while since any emotion had conjured up any memory of his, but like a pebble wedged between two massive boulders, the minute it was removed, everything came crashing down on him.

Loneliness and lament ripped through his chest. The promise undone was never encouraged to succeed, nor was it ever given much attention.

--U R Darkest'sPawn--

Gomen nasai!! I swear that this is a SasuNaru story!! I just had to add that bit in there. If this is going too slow for you then I advise that you leave. I have a few landmarks that I need to establish before the smut begins. But please bear with me and have faith in my writing capabilities.

Reviews are much appreciated. And flamers will meet their doom. Please review.

Next chapter: Upon the porch sat crimson and white, painting the scenery in mockery of the future's plans.

1 – Adult videos, like porn stars