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Driving to his house took me past a number of sad old casinos where you can find haggard gamblers trying their luck at 6a.m., the lights from the slots lambent in their expressionless eyes.
- The Third Wave of Therapy
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Naruto was still stumbling over his own feet when he walked; too young to reach much over his mother's knees. She strolled beside him, her heavy brown purse nonchalantly slapping his head as she glanced back and forth at the slot machines and card tables surrounding them.
His hand was tightly grasped inside hers, but she regarded him with a casual sort of indifference. As if she didn't really notice that he was there. She moved like it was dream; entranced by all around her and holding more wonder than natural for it all.
The woman started suddenly towards a rollet machine, the brightly painted images reflecting in her eyes. Her son hurried after, almost falling as he fought to hold of her.
The jingle of falling coins hypnotized her, called to her. It was a song she could hear and almost sing to.
She stopped before one large metallic masterpiece of a slot machine (one of hundreds), and pulled a quater from her purse like it was a piece of pure gold. She let the shiney surface of the change catch the glow of the florescent lights above her before kissing it once - for luck - and dropping it into the machine with her eyes closed.
She said a prayer and half smiled before pulling the lever that started the machine. The turning wheels clanged echoingly; too loud for the boy's ears - he covered them with his hands and shut his eyes.
The screams from winners and losers - patrons sitting on cold round lighly cushioned stools - sounded barbaric and feral to him. They reminded him of his father. He didn't know why. He didn't remember his father.
He opened his eyes; he suddenly wanted to hug his mother's legs. He loved the way she smelled. For as long as he could remember she had smelled that way: open and light as a breeze.
But she was gone.
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Regrets are as personal as fingerprints.
- Margaret Culkin Banning
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Fifteen years seperated Itachi and his older brother, Sasuke.
Itachi worked in a dance hall on the edge of town - near the red light district. When nearly seven, he performed every night, and had a solo in almost all the numbers. By eleven years of age, he was teaching his own classes. He was professionally taught, and could show it in every move he made.
Itachi was the pride of the family, and everyone knew it.
Sasuke, on the other hand, had no talent for dancing, and quite frankly couldn't be worse off for it. Despite being the lead singer in a popular enough band, he could not do the one thing his family was famous for.
So, in his own mind, he was in peril.
He hated Itachi, he hated that his job was considered less than his brother's in the eyes of his family, he hated the way he got glanced over whenever his brother was near. It slowly started growing in his mind like a disease, this jealousy.
Sasuke got kicked out of the house when Itachi auditioned at, and successfully landed a gig for the Open Umbrella. He was on his own now, and could fail or succeed as he pleased.
Itachi was thirteen or fifteen now .. Sasuke wasn't sure. He was sitting at a bar, and more than over the legal drinking limit. He couldn't even remember where he parked his car. (Or what it looked like.) The contents of his glass swirled in his hand and he thought suddenly about his apartment, wondering if he had left the heater on all afternoon or not.
The rain was coming down outside worse than ever, and he was late for practice with his band.
He swallowed the drink in one gulp, nearly choking on an ice cube that snuck down his throat. The drink slammed on the smooth bar, and he leaned over it, resting his elbows on the counter and covering the rim of the cup with his forehead.
The bell over the door of the bar clanged once, twice - in opening and closing. A tall man - dressed too expensively for the other side of town - walked briskly to the corner where Sasuke was hiding, his shoes clipping sharply against the floor.
He cleared his throat, and reached into a pocket of his jacket - adjusting the fabric almost unconciously as he pulled the letter out.
"Wha-t?" Sasuke dragged the word out, letting it fall off him. He didn't look up at the man; preferring instead to press his face even more firmly into the rim of his glass.
The man cleared his throat again, seemed to contemplate something, then set the letter on the bar. But Sasuke refused to move. He glared at the tall, nicely dressed man from a corner of his eye, the shadows at the edge of his vision preventing him from seeing properly.
The man paused - then slid the paper under Sasuke's chin with two fingers and tapped it, before turning sharply on his heels and leaving.
Sasuke closed his eyes and went to sleep. In the morning he would have a hangover. In the morning he would open the letter. And his head would hurt all the worse for it when he did.
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And when I looked / The moon had turned to gold.
- Blue Moon, We Belong Together
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Kiba slept it off.
He always slept it off, he mused silently, resting his head on the hard surface of his bed. He glared through the open bars at the end of his little room, watching the guard sort through his belongings with all the interest of a second-grade teacher: too used to mischief to care.
He dusted off a few pieces of glass that still clung to his shirt from where he tried to dive out a window in a bank. The problem hadn't been that he dove out the window, but rather where he fell - the top of a police cruiser.
He was lucky not to have fallen from too far up; the roll off the roof was the most embarrasing thing he could say. He hadn't even had a chance to get his feet into a good run when he was tackled and handcuffed though. Pity. And that job had been going so well too.
He grinned and started humming.
From the other side of the room, Neji glared at him. He would barrate Kiba - not just yet. He'd wait until their bail was posted before letting it all out. (They didn't even get to the damn cash registers before Kiba jumped - he started yelling at the people and when the security guard pulled out his gun, the boy dove away. Kiba claimed it happened differently though.
But Neji blamed Kiba. Kiba had started screaming about what they were going to do and suchforth - really such a nusciance. When the guard started firing his gun, Neji really blamed Kiba.)
Kiba was competent, when he wanted to be. Neji wouldn't have partnered with him if he wasn't. The problem, though, was that Kiba was only competent in what he could do, not what he could say. Neji once remarked that his mouth was like a 'loose trap; always open and never catching what it should'.
Put Kiba in a laser grid and he could come out the other side without a scratch. Put him in a situation like this morning and - well, it always happened. That's what Neji was for. That was what Neji did. Talk.
Oh well. They'd try again tonight anyways. Just as soon as Neji's little cousin came and posted the bail. Hinata should have been here an half hour ago.
Neji resumed glaring at Kiba. He hated delays.
(Kiba, on contrast, started tapping his feet in time to the tune he hummed.)
Hinata would be another half hour late, apologizing about the traffic that kept her as Kiba's dog tried to jump out of the 'Seeing Eye Dog' harness she strapped him in to lick his master's face - who would be just as eager to see his pet.
But no one would take a second glance at her as she held the handle of the dog akwardly and lead the two boys out of the station to where she parked the car. They played it off nicely, Kiba happily opening the door for her before she got through it, and Neji trailing carefully behind.
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Even in a crowd, still you are a stranger.
- Are You Lonely, Ann Mortifee & Valerie Hennell
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Naruto opened the door, naked, and leaned against the wood frame - half-asleep and with eyes so lidded, they could barely be called open. He yawned until his jaw cracked.
Inari sighed and rubbed the skin of his own forehead, where a band of cloth wrapped it's way around from top to bottom, ends dangling over his shoulder. "Don't you own any pants?" He cracked the bones in his neck with his hand, and looked up at the slightly taller one.
Naruto glanced down himself, seemingly noticing for the first time the .. 'breeze' and his lack of clothing, before lifting his head to meet Inari's eyes and grin a smile that lit his face like a latern.
"Apparently not, it seems." Naruto was almost laughing - his eyes shut tight in humor as he fell further into the framing of the door. Inari wasn't by the joke, and scratched an itch on the back of his head while he waited.
"Please," Naruto stepped back into the still-open doorway, "enter my humble abode." He mock-bowed and swept his arms out in a welcoming gesture.
Inari snorted and pushed him out of the way.
Note: I don't much like the Kiba/Neji scene. It just .. won't come out right. So this is a modern fic, that's supposed to be loosely centered around this casino that may or may not get robbed later in the story.
I'm having lots of trouble writing this one.