Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and won't for the duration of the story. Besides, after it's said once, I think it should be obvious for the rest of the fic.

Notes: AU, spoilers, etc, for the rest of the fic as well.

Echolalia
By: TF

Chapter 01: Homecoming and Bar Hopping

Echolalia: n. an infant's repetition of the sounds made by others, a normal occurrence in childhood development. Also called echophrasia

Naruto smiled as he and his two teammates dropped down from the thick canopy that surrounded the eastern end of Konoha, landing silently in front of the gate that the chuunin on guard duty was already opening. As they walked between the thick walls and through the gate he smiled, as he always did, at his return home, and at the expressions of relief and happiness on the faces of his two teammates. Even if they were entering the streets during the busiest part of the day he would still smile, despite being jostled and harassed as his teammates walked ahead of him, occasionally wearing looks of annoyance or anger on his behalf.

Today he walked ahead of his team, diving into the crowd in an effort to get through to the Hokage Tower as quickly as he could so that he could reunite himself with his beloved Ramen before the lunch rush began. He didn't even have to say anything, his teammates knew; together they were shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at his antics as they always did when they weren't trying to get him something healthier.

Once at they were at the Tower Kakashi took over, handing over their mission reports and making sure that Tsunade-sama didn't need them for anything before dismissing Naruto and Sakura, telling them to meet him at their usual spot, at their usual time the next day, even though he was most likely going to be an hour late (but that was an improvement from the three hours of their gennin days). With a whoop Naruto left, speeding towards his favorite little Ramen stand, with Sakura vainly trying to keep up and get her wrist out of his strong grip at the same time.

"You know," Sakura said after they had sat down and ordered, "you are a chuunin now, you don't always have to act like you did at the Academy."

Naruto grinned in her direction, barely flashing a hint of longer than average canines, "But Sakura-chan, then who would teach Konohamaru the joys of pulling pranks, especially ones on Closet-Pervert?"

He wasn't even bothering to protest the attack on his innocence, and they both knew that, but it was the game that they played. Sakura would tell him to grow up, and he would reply that he needed to teach his followers the extent of his considerable arsenal of tricks before something unfortunate, like another extended training mission with Ero-sennin, happened to him.

After Sasuke had left they had become closer instead of falling apart. Even when Naruto came back to Konoha after the three-year training mission they had still been close, as if the blond had never left. Sakura's heart had softened towards her teammate when she went to visit him in the hospital after the failed mission to retrieve Sasuke. He had been lying in the hospital bed, looking small and vulnerable and covered in bandages that still didn't restrain his spiky hair. A tentative grin had stretched across his face before disappearing as he saw exactly who was visiting him.

She could remember clearly the almost fearful look that he sent in her direction before he grew sad and serious and told her that he had failed her and hadn't brought Sasuke back with him, even if the bastard wouldn't have made her happy anyway. Sakura could remember how he cringed, as if expecting her to yell at him, instead of the hug that she gave him as she buried her head into his chest and told him that he had done the best that he possibly could have. After an awkward parting they had stayed close, building the bonds that they hadn't when they first started training as a team.

After Naruto had returned from his extended training mission he, Sakura, and Kakashi had been placed into a three-man team, and despite Naruto being a gennin, they had been sent out on missions. The only pause in their new routine was when Naruto had joined an impromptu three-man team for the chuunin exams, which he passed with flying colors. After the exams they had returned to their routine of taking missions and training during the lull, which evolved into their almost post-mission ritual of indulging Naruto's Ramen addiction before heading in their separate ways.

"Naruto, you're seventeen," Sakura rolled her eyes at Naruto's innocent look, "and Konohamaru is thirteen and preparing to enter the chuunin exams. I think that you can let him cause his own trouble."

"Sakura-chan, that hurts," Naruto whined, pouting until his Ramen was placed in front of him.

"Itadakimasu," they chorused together before starting their meal. Sakura ate at a normal pace while Naruto inhaled his first bowl of noodles and started on his second, then third while barely taking a breath.

"One would assume that he would be able to eat like an adult by now."

Sakura greeted the sarcastic voice with a wave of her hand as Shikamaru came up behind her, watching Naruto eat with a disgusted look on his face.

"One would assume, but they would be wrong," she quipped, continuing her meal as Shikamaru took a seat next to her and ordered his own meal.

"It isn't nice to talk about someone as if they aren't sitting right next to you," Naruto complained, rolling his eyes when Sakura and Shikamaru proceeded to ignore him.

"How did the mission go?" Shikamaru asked as he crossed his arms on the table and put his head down, tilting so that he could still watch Sakura while she was talking.

"It went alright. Three was a little much for a small group of bandits, but that just means more money for all of us," Sakura commented, placing her chopsticks on the table before draining the broth from her bowl.

"That's the life of a ninja," Shikamaru replied before sitting up as his meal was placed before him.

"At least the skirmishes between us, Sound, and Mist have calmed down," Sakura said, watching as Naruto ordered his fourth and last bowl of noodles from the smiling girl behind the counter. "I've done enough patrol missions to last me a lifetime."

"It's calm until we're attacked again, then we all get patrol missions for the next month," Naruto said between mouthfuls, joining the conversation between the medic-nin and the lazy jounin.

"There have been rumors of a slew of A and B-ranked missions that are going to be heading our way here in a few days," Shikamaru made an annoyed face as Naruto grinned. "Trust the Hokage to find a way to work us to death during a lull. Bothersome woman."

"Hey, don't talk about Tsunade-baba like that, she does her best," Naruto said.

"You're the one who calls her a gambling, boozing, old hag on almost a daily basis," Sakura said, watching as Naruto became indignant at her accusations.

"She's the one who started it by calling me an idealistic brat!"

"You are an idiot, Naruto," Shikamaru said, draining the last of his broth with a roll of his eyes.

Naruto's yelling was ignored as Shikamaru and Sakura started a discussion over the likely candidates for the upcoming chuunin exams that were going to be held in the Sand. They included him into the conversation as soon as he stopped ranting, then excluded him again when he started on the subject of Konohamaru and his friends and how they were going to beat everyone else without breaking a sweat.

An irritated yell echoed down the street, causing Shikamaru to sit straight up, much to Sakura's amusement. As Ino's blonde head wove through the crowd in search of her wayward teammate, Shikamaru got up, shoved his hands into his pockets, hunched over and left. Naruto and Sakura shared a look as Ino ducked under the hangings separating the noodle stand from the busy street, searching for her lazy teammate before settling for questioning what remained of the former gennin Team 7.

"Have either of you seen Shikamaru? The lazy bum skipped training again, and he wasn't on his usual slacker hill, so I decided to check here," Ino sighed as she looked around the small stand.

"He was just here, then he left and headed that way," Sakura pointed in the opposite direction that Ino had come from, making the blonde frown.

"He was supposed to start checking in on the graduating class at the Academy to see who may be on his gennin team," Ino looked tired as she always did after she'd been chasing after her brunette teammate.

Sakura took pity on the other kunoichi and waved her to the open seat, calling for yet another bowl of Ramen to be brought forward for the blonde. Ino plopped down with a sigh as Naruto rolled his eyes and got up.

"I'm going to leave you two to your bonding," he said with a minute shudder before grinning cheekily at Sakura. "I'm going to stop by your apartment around 7 tonight, so be ready to go."

"Go where?" Sakura asked, turning away from her fellow kunoichi to view her teammate with suspicion.

"To bars, of course," Naruto replied happily.

"We are not going bar hopping," Sakura said, trying to sound firm in the face of Naruto's buoyancy.

"But Sakura-chan, we never have any fun after missions," Naruto's whining stopped as Sakura raised an eyebrow. "Okay, maybe you don't have any fun. Come on, Sakura-chan, just this once?"

"Oh, go on, Forehead-Girl, you need to have some fun in your life, instead of just watching Lee-kun do push-ups," Ino added from the behind the pink-haired girl.

"Fine, fine," Sakura gave in to the combined pressure of both blondes, "but I'm not going to drag you home like Kiba always does, Naruto."

Naruto grinned and left, slipping into the crowd with a flash of bright orange, leaving the two girls to their discussion of annoying teammates.

Naruto showed up in front Sakura's apartment right at seven, earning a growl from the pink-haired girl as she opened the door and told him to wait a moment before leaving with him.

"We're going to go to one of the ninja-owned bars closer to Hokage Tower," Naruto said, offering Sakura his arm in an overly exaggerated manner that she rejected.

"Why not go somewhere closer to our apartments?" Sakura asked following Naruto through the crowded streets as they headed closer to the center of the village

"Because in the regular world we're still under age," Naruto said, catching Sakura's hand and dragging her into a brightly lit doorway that led to a dimly lit interior.

Kiba's grin had always been wolfish, even when he was twelve, an effect that was accentuated by the fur lining of his sweatshirt hood and his tawny eyes. At the mention of beer, or alcohol of any kind, his smile spread across his tanned face until he looked like the cat that had eaten the canary and had its mate trapped under a large, clawed paw.

Now, when it came to Naruto and booze Kiba knew that he had two options: to either challenge the blond to a drinking contest and lose, or to just get the blond drunk and deal with taking Naruto back to his apartment after they were good and sloshed. After a good mission Kiba generally chose the latter, and then woke up face down on Naruto's floor with Akamaru's sleeping form draped across his back.

So, when Naruto walked into the bar, dragging Sakura behind him, Kiba knew that he had one choice to make, and that was to get Naruto drunk out of his mind and maybe Sakura as well. Kiba's grin spread across his face as he made the move to intercept the teammates heading to the closest open section of bar.

"Naruto, Sakura, good to see you back from your mission safely," Kiba's voice, normally loud, was pleasant, earning himself a raised eyebrow from Sakura.

"Kiba, man, what have you and your mutt been up to while I was gone?" Naruto asked, seating Sakura between himself and the grinning dog-boy.

"I've been amusing myself pretty well," the smile that graced the tanned boy's face made Naruto smile as well.

"I don't doubt that," Naruto muttered, smiling as he waved to the bartender to get a round of drinks for the three of them.

"Sake for all of us," Kiba said when the bartender came over, ignoring Sakura's protests that she didn't want anything to drink.

"The point of going to bars is to drink alcohol, not to just drink tea," Naruto said, smiling hopefully at his teammate until she finally sighed and gave in, raising her cup along with the boys to drain its contents.

"Is that good enough?" she asked, taking a deep breath after her initial drink.

"Go Sakura! I didn't know that you could drink that way," Naruto's grinning face loomed in her vision, making her squint he was so close to her face.

"She's much better at this than Hinata. Must have been taking drinking lessons from Hokage-sama herself," Kiba said, barely ducking the swing that the medic-nin aimed at his head. "Shit, don't take my head off woman."

"Don't worry, the only things that Sakura learned from Tsunade-baba was how to hit and medical stuff," Naruto quipped, yelping as Sakura's slap hit its mark on the back of his head. "Sakura-chaaan, why are you so mean to me?"

"Because you're an idiot," Sakura said before draining another cup of sake from the flask that had been placed in front of her.

"She's right about that you know," Kiba said, grin growing larger as Naruto started to whine. "You are kinda dumb."

"At least I'm not a flea-bitten mutt," Naruto snapped, then yelped as Kiba knocked him off of his barstool with a well-aimed punch followed by a command to Akamaru that set the young dog to slobbering on the blonde's face.

"You are both sooo mature," Sakura commented, rolling her eyes as Naruto sat up, lifting Akamaru off of his chest and scratching the dog behind his ears before reclaiming his overturned seat.

Naruto grinned as he poured himself more sake, watching Sakura down her third cup. The three of them sat in silence for a few moments, just thinking and taking sips of their drinks, and occasionally greeting other ninja or starting small fights within the group.

"Why do they allow you two to beat on each other?" Sakura asked after watching yet another small scuffle break out between the two boys.

"This is a ninja bar, things like this are accepted as long as nothing is broken and no jutsus are used," Kiba explained after he righted his sweatshirt from where Naruto had nearly choked him with it.

"So you two are allowed to get away with this?"

"Pretty much. We also leave a nice sized tip," Naruto added, steadying himself against the bar.

"Ah," Sakura murmured as she watched her blond teammate down the beginnings of their second bottle of sake. She was feeling a little unsteady, in a pleasant, buzzing way, although it did take more concentration than normal for her to speak clearly.

Over half an hour later all three were sloshed enough that Kiba and Naruto were attempting to sing while Sakura made song suggestions. Together they staggered into the street, happily clinging to each other in an effort to stay upright. At the Inuzuka compound Kiba's sister greeted them, steadying Kiba as she observed the pair wobbling in the street.

"Thanks for bringing Kiba home for once, Naruto," she said, rolling her eyes at the huge, drunken grin that spread across the blonde's face.

"No problem…uh," he trailed off, going a little cross-eyed as he tried to remember her name.

"Go home Naruto, and drop your new drinking buddy off at her home on your way."

Naruto waved goodbye as he helped Sakura stagger away, laughing with her as they nearly toppled over an imaginary pothole. They made it to her apartment without falling over, only running into a couple of walls and the occasional trashcan and couple walking the streets.

"Here's your apartment," Naruto slurred, clutching the railing like a lifesaver as he tried to keep the world from tilting sideways and taking him with it.

"Thanks, Naru-chan," Sakura sighed, draping herself across Naruto's shoulders as she maneuvered him to the door, then used him as a support so that she could unlock her door.

"No problem, Sakura-chan," Naruto smiled as he stumbled with her through the doorway, managing to kick the door shut behind them before toppling over, landing on the hardwood floor with Sakura on top of him. She smiled happily then rolled off, her pink hair cascading over his shoulder as she leaned on his arm.

"Why don't we do this more often, Naru-chan?" Sakura asked, smiling up at Naruto.

"Because you don't drink with me," Naruto whined, sitting up and grinning when Sakura whined and clung to his arm. "Come on, we need to get you to bed Sakura-chan."

"Why are you better off than me?" Sakura slurred, wrapping her arms around Naruto's waist as they stumbled towards the bedroom so that Sakura could go to sleep.

"Because my alcohol tolerance is higher than yours," Naruto said, smiling down at Sakura's pout. She was different when she was drunk, not as serious, not as violent, not as controlled, but then again, that was the effect of alcohol.

"Naru-chan," Sakura's voice was soft, slurred as she pushed open the door to her bedroom before she let go of Naruto and fell forward.

"What, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, smiling as she turned over then sat up and pulled him forward.

Her pull knocked him off balance, sending him toppling onto her, and sending both of them back onto the bed. Naruto pushed himself up onto his forearms, looking down at Sakura before blushing and rolling himself off of her.

"Sorry, Sakura-chan," he murmured, leaning into her shoulder just long enough to catch the cherry scent of her hair before rolling off of the bed.

"Naru-chan, why did you leave?" her soft voice floated down to him.

"Because we're drunk, Sakura-chan, and you're dating Lee," Naruto answered, his voice wistful.

Sakura's head peered over the edge before her hand reached down to help him to his feet. He wobbled a little before catching his balance, and headed towards the door before Sakura's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Sakura-chan-" Naruto protested, but he was once again knocked off balance and toppled on top of Sakura, sending them to the floor.

As they landed Naruto was acutely aware of their position before alcohol impaired senses took over and he kissed her. Somewhere in the back of his head he was telling himself that this was wrong, but then Sakura moved and all protests went out of the window as she pressed her lips even closer to his.

With a gasp he pulled away from her, then rolled off, just lying on the floor for a few moments. He pushed himself up onto one arm so that he could look down at her sprawled on the floor next to him for a moment before getting to his feet and turning towards the door. Sakura got up after him, scrambling to her feet in an effort to catch up with the fleeing blonde.

"Naruto," her voice stopped him, turning him around to face her. She looked into his brilliant blue eyes, and for a moment saw someone else before she reached out to Naruto again. "Sometimes I wish Sasuke was here, and that he hadn't left."

"So do I," Naruto whispered back wistfully, his eyes locked onto hers.

For a moment his figure shimmered, then solidified until a black-haired boy with spinning red eyes turned to face her. The only thing that marred the picture was the six whisker-like markings across the figure's face as he bent down to kiss the green-eyed girl standing in front of him. All he had ever wanted to do was make her happy, and this was the only way he could think of at the moment.

TBC

A/N: I know, kind of cliché, but there will be a plot, I promise. Until then, I'm working on chapter 6 of Human Nature. Sorry, yet again, for the wait. Whoops.