1Rape! - 2296

It had been happening all morning.

Oh, he'd expected it to be a fairly decent day, no lingering pains in his ass, no fox-induced headache (and he was talking about the demon people, not the network - though, if one thought about it, both were interchangeable global monsters bent on destroying humanity, execution being the only noticeable difference) and just enough after shave to cover him until he bought more that afternoon. Yes, a fairly decent day indeed by Naruto standards.

Except it all went to shit as soon as he'd stepped out the door.

People kept staring at him. Not the usual 'I-hate-you-demon-kid-just-go-on-and-die-already ones he'd get for breathing in certain places, but almost -

pitying. Like they knew some sad, guilty secret in his past he didn't even know about, which was a little weird considering how those same people had spent the better part of his adolescence ignoring the fact he even existed. Eh, now the angst comes, he silently groaned. Okay, okay, so Naruto was a pretty forgiving individual for the most part, but even he couldn't hold back a tiny bit of bitterness. It's sort of the natural process as one grows older -

that and liver spots. Naruto giggled insanely at the idea of himself and the rest of ex-team seven with gray hair and brown splotches. Come on, even Shino get a kick out of that one. Sakura hitting him with her walker and Sasuke throwing his false teeth at him, all of them crapping their Night-eez diapers ("for the geriatric Ninja on the go!") He was laughing so hard someone had paused in their journey to pat his shoulder and murmur reassurances about his strength and courage in the face of such trauma!

Naruto stopped short, feeling a little uneasy, and not just because it was weird (even to him) to be laughing like a maniac in the middle of a crowded street. What the heck was up with everyone today? Did he have a 'pity me' sign stamped in the middle of his forehead? Or -

gulp, god help him, had Sasuke finally gone through with what he'd threatened and proclaimed that Naruto was getting his ass pounded daily by the one and only Uchiha? And not in the 'Ninja sparring' sense. Naruto tugged a little at the collar of his Jounin uniform, a cold sweat breaking out across his back. He really didn't feel like incurring Sakura's wrath today. And Ino's.

And just about every girl in a twenty-mile radius.

But then, he glanced around nervously, looking for the swing of long hair and the angry whisper of fillies, where were they if Sasuke had gone and pulled an asshole? Maybe, he should just -

sneak away to Ichiraku. Have a little ramen and consider the possibility of hunting Sasuke down and asking him point blank if he'd said anything. Over the years Naruto liked to think he'd grown somewhat mature and was no longer prone to immediate conclusions, because it seemed that only got him into more trouble than anything else. So, hunching his shoulders protectively, he scooted off at a fast clip from all those suffocatingly concerned eyes. Who knew the attention he'd craved all his life would blow up in his face like this?

"What's wrong Naruto-kun?"

Naruto looked up into worried brown eyes, picking idly at his soup. Ayame was a nice girl, and he appreciated her interest, but, dammit, if he had to deal with one more person looking at him with concern he was going to -

"Dead-last."

Chopsticks snapped between his fingers. Feeling unreasonably sulky, Naruto turned his face in the opposite direction and proceeded to ignore his -

boyfriend. He cringed. That word still made him feel weird.

"Tch. Keep trying."

Frowning now, Naruto shoved away his bowl of ramen. He turned back around to glare, blue eyes brightening to a fiery beryl.

There Sasuke stood in all his good looking, impassive glory, a stingy little smile on his face. Naruto found he really hated that smile, because it was so much more gorgeous when Sasuke wasn't cheap. It made him look like his modest twenty two instead of a forty year old with far to many things weighed upon his shoulders. He looked like someone Naruto would want to call his boyfriend.

All that base attraction aside though, Naruto was still pissed off, because he wanted to know what the hell was going on and if Sasuke had anything to do with it. So (because he wasn't quite as mature as he often put himself and a perfectly good day had died a nasty, brutal death) Naruto leapt from his seat and grabbed Sasuke by the front of his flak jacket. Eyes narrowed, he got up real close, lips almost touching. Something in Naruto's head sighed, because he was more angry than amorous at the moment.

"You did it, didn't you?" he hissed, "Admit it!"

Sasuke blinked at him. Naruto blinked right back. It was silent for a while until Naruto licked his lips, inadvertently brushing Sasuke's. He really wished he wasn't so damn angry because they could've been, you know -

doing something funner.

Finally Sasuke glanced at the ceiling. "No," he paused, smirking wryly, "it was Mrs. Peacock in the kitchen with the lead pipe."

Naruto blinked at him again, growled and abruptly let go. Sasuke just cocked an eyebrow, unaffected by the mercurial moods his boyfriend was wont to have. It was like trying to control a thunderstorm in his mind, both pointless and annoying.

"People keep staring at me."

It was spoken with irritation but (despite everyone's inclination to label him an emotional retard) Sasuke was able to pick out the undertones. He grunted a little as he sat down, the sudden, unexpected urge to leave and beat up every single person in the village better squashed when he could grab onto something.

He knew the feeling, because being stared at was invasive, embarrassing, like a bug light had sprung up over one's head.

Sasuke watched as Naruto sipped a little of his iced tea. He smirked at the grimace. It was too sweet, Sasuke decided, because he'd come to know Naruto's expressions like they were his own instead of the clinical panorama of someone who'd lived with another person for a long time. And it frightened him more than he liked to admit.

"-but, you know, not like usual. Like they feel sorry for me." Naruto turned and gifted Sasuke with another vibrant glare. "Did you post it on a billboard somewhere that you're poking me? I swear to god if you did -"

Sasuke slapped a hand over the other boy's mouth. "Chill. I'm waiting until you're ready."

Even under the broadness of Sasuke's palm, the blush was visible nigh up to Naruto's forehead. It practically burned his hand. Sasuke found it -

amusing (and perhaps a little pokeable).

After the blushing had died down and a minute of companionable silence had passed, Naruto crunched a piece of ice in his mouth and began again.

"So then, why the hell -"

"NARUTO! Naruto, oh my gawd it's not true!"

Naruto immediately ducked anticipating a possible head shot, as it was something he'd anticipated since Sakura's thirteenth birthday. To his surprise she only dragged him out of his seat backwards and flung him around to look at her. At least he still had a good two or three feet on the girl. He gulped nervously. Not like that would help him much.

Cringing, he flicked his eyes desperately to Sasuke who only continued ignoring the whole exchange. Blissfully unaware, or just being an asshole and pretending he wasn't there, so he didn't have to deal with Sakura either. Grr, and he couldn't make that bastard beg for it tonight either, because christ that was such a bitch move.

And Uzumaki Naruto was no bitch, believe it!

God, he thought he'd grown out of that one too. Sakura whimpered and he winced as he looked down into her sadly worried green eyes, making him wonder (yet again) what the hell was the problem.

"Christ what the hell is the problem?!" He'd really never had any kind of tact.

Sakura just grabbed his hand and gently patted it, an empathetic tear rolling down her face. Naruto felt even more uncomfortable, embarrassed and confused. He was also starting to feel worried himself.

Had Baa-chan diagnosed him with some debilitating incurable disease that he couldn't recall? He remembered the annual physical last May, but he was sure she hadn't said anything -

oh god, what if between the 'your chakra flows improved in your knees,' and 'stop breaking that arm or it's going to fall off,' and 'ha, look at that, if I stick a kunai in it heals almost as I pull it out - in, out, in, out, oh, ha ha, this is fun,' she'd told him he was dying of a terminal cancer of the stomach and he could never eat ramen again.

Naruto stared blankly a foot above Sakura's head. Dear lord, he thought, the world is ending.

"Oh my god, Sakura-chan. Am I dying? Is the world ending!?"

He grabbed her shoulders and shook until her eyes went dark with anger instead of woe and she hauled off and punched him in his stomach. He groaned and held in his bruised guts, Sakura glaring down on him, the kanji for evil flaring in the middle of her forehead.

Yeah, he didn't get it either, only that it started appearing after his three year absence.

"No you idiot! You were raped!" She screeched before abruptly slapping her hands over her mouth.

You could hear a pin drop it was so quiet. Even the patrons who'd been carefully edging to the door had paused and stared at him (only to blink and dash for the hills a moment later).

Naruto gaped at her for a full ten seconds. Then he scratched his head, and felt sure something burnt out in his brain because he smelled the smoke -

wait, that was the old man burning all Ichiraku's glorious soups.

Finally his mouth started working again. "I - I was?"

Sakura looked at him strangely. "W-well that's what everyone's saying. Naruto, how could you not know if you were -"

Splisht, whirr, splat.

Naruto held up a hand, looking a little cross-eyed. "Sakura chan, I think my brain just exploded."

"But -"

"Sakura chan, I have not now, nor have ever been, raped. And christ if that was what all this shit was about, then go spread it around the village."

Naruto whirled around flopped onto his stool and signaled for another bowl, feeling a resurgence of his usual hunger. He listened as Sakura squeaked a couple more times before slowly walking off, her steps measured like she was just as dumbfounded as he was. Christ, this had to be the stupidest day he'd ever been awake for (and that included their 'get Kakashi-sensei's mask' adventure).

He felt so insulted. Okay, so maybe he'd had piss-poor chakra control as a child, but even before learning Kage Bushin he'd been a wild card and had alternatively beaten and been beaten by other little kids at the school grounds. And even if someone had tried, there were so many laws and statutes and ways of tracking that sort of thing (especially in a Ninja village) it would've been on the edge of an impossible crime. Maybe if a mass infiltration of level-S criminals had occurred, but even then, geeze, he wasn't really that pretty in the first place -

Sasuke had more of a chance. Okay, that thought was just disturbing on so many levels.

After a few moments of loud slurping, Naruto turned to his boyfriend, noodles hanging out of his mouth. "Hey (gulp) Sasuke? Have I (slurp) ever been (belch) raped?"

Sasuke turned to look back at him, bored, annoyed and confused by the entire situation (as it was). He'd almost fallen out of his chair when Sakura had said what she'd said, but as he knew for a fact he was the first (and only, dammit) to be intimately involved with Naruto, the whole thing had seemed -

stupid. Like a fanatic's nightmare of innocence being marred by the callous disregards of childhood. Seriously, Naruto had a fucking demon prowling around inside him. Who the hell would rape that?

Well, besides him, of course.

He felt dirty for even thinking it. Seemed he'd be singing a couple hail-Mary's and getting yelled at by the priest tomorrow. He really hated church, but hey, it was something to do on Sunday.

"No," Sasuke shook his head, "I don't think you have. Now, sodomy on the other hand..."

"Don't even go there, Sasuke. We all know you pwn my ass." The sarcasm practically dripping from his words.

Sasuke smiled (not the cheapy kind, Naruto was pleased to say) as he sipped delicately from his own ice tea. "Damn straight."

A/N - It amuses me that Sasuke's somewhat 'Ghetto' in this. Plz review, because this made me laugh while I was writing it. Originally it was intended to be an angry piece over the amount of fandom dedicated to raping Naruto and having Sasuke or (insert random character here) 'pick up the pieces' afterwards, but it sort of veered off towards the end. I can't stay angry for long. Now, don't get my wrong I've seen some well written 'raping Naru-chan' stories, but most of them...erg, it's disappointing to see an obviously powerful character reduced to...well victim status. I'm not trying to be provocative, but you know, it's my own opinion written at the bottom of my own silly story, so plz don't be too offended.

Shits and giggles kids, I've gotta go read a chapter for woman lit and bio. Ah, the joys of schooling.