Pairings: SasuNaru

Disclaimer: I don't own a lot. Costco, Home Depot, Sex Depot and Naruto among other things.

Does anyone still remember the Sex Depot suit with Home Depot? It -was- quite a while ago.

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Naruto's back hurt from pushing his car down the desolate road, as his ear hurt from hearing his cell phone repeat its shrill mantra. The sun overhead spilled its last ink into the world, throwing its swan song haphazardly into order. There hadn't been a town for miles and it had been hours since his car first sputtered. Several times the wheels veered and wound him into a near ditch. More than several times, one heavy push left him fallen in the dust. And finally, salvation came in form of a shadowed horizon of a small dim town.

It was bridging nightfall when Naruto arrived. He threw his dusty cap in the car. It landed on the backseat, mute, like this town. Yet, there were the usual background sounds of the cacophonous fairy violinist strumming their legs together, the hearty croak of some bullfrog in a marsh. The lights were all off in this town, excluding the mountain of streaked yellow electricity running from a Victorian-esque house. And then, a sharp whistle blew them all out.

He turned, ready to spend one more night in his car. Even though his watch pointed to around nine o'clock, it would be pointless to come knocking now. Things were too dead. He could wait for morning. The blonde's body protested loudly at the beaten upholstery while his mind fled to sleep along with the city.

A spring was poking into his back. Nasty thing it was. The smell of dust and good times was stifling the entire car, choking his breath. Somewhere off into the distance a rooster crowed. The sunbeams happily bounced into that orange bug. Naruto yawned, stretched and with a click led himself out of his impromptu bed. The trademark jacket he wore fell to the floor as the boy rubbed sleep residue from his eyes. It was early yet, but there may be a chance for some breakfast, and hopefully a cheap inn.

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Soft fine dust made up the road to town. The place had a quiet nursing home air too it. Something that time had remembered terribly and all to fast. Several stained houses lined the path. At the end dwelled a large oaken monstrosity.

Last night, when Dark's cloak fell, it had seemed deadened, shooting a macabre feel into one's heart but, now, as Naruto stood looking at it from the distance, it was crawling with children. Little urchins roughhousing and kicking all over the place, making it seem homier.

On the south edifice there was a tousled headed brunette reaching toward the dawn, legs clamped around one of the beams connecting to some other intricate part of the steeple roof. His fingers pushed it back a little then tugged the sunbeams into place. The light pushed back, pushing him off the roof completely, and now he tumbled forward with only screams to catch his fall.

The boy crashed to the floor, toppling over his arms. One of them were twisted at some unsightly angle, bending to the right rather than to the left. The elicited cry resounded in Naruto's head and would resound till his death day. Then, everything became a blurred mesh of vivid strands of light bobbing and weaving.

It hurt visually to watch the kid land with a teeth-grinding crack on the ground. But, when he stood up wobbled a bit and ran into the house everything seemed all right. The spell grim and horrible things hold over us was a pathetic one at most, merely cemented by suspense.

Now longer fixated, Naruto shuffled to an old general store lying a few steps to his right on this talcum-y path. It was the kind of shop that had everything in one place like Home Depot and Costco combined. The shelves were somewhat barren and dusty. Not much held places on them. The entire store was unkempt and blasted with dust, even the cobwebs held mountains on them.

There was one of those old-fashioned outmoded engraved table bells reposing up on the polished counter. They seemed to be the only clean things in the store. He gave the bell a great whopping slam and was disappointed when it only offered a small solid 'thunk.'

Effects like that were weird.

A foot step- Was it a footstep?- tapped from the backroom. It came from a door camouflaged by being as dark as the wood surrounding it and surprised the hell out of Naruto when it opened. An old wrinkled man stepped out onto the tiles dressed in blue flannel and soiled overalls that swished and crinkled together when he walked.

"Can I help you?" Downy streaks of gray drifted over his ears as he slumped forward on the counter, staring the blonde straight in his eyes.

"Yes, my car broke down and I need a place to stay for about two weeks. Are there any hotels around here or a bed and breakfast place? And maybe a mechanic too, to look at my car."

"I don't suppose you could call anyone to come pick you up? This little thing here isn't quite that ready for visitors. Are you certain you wanna waste two weeks of youthful moral digression here? Speak up boy."

Naruto fidgeted anxiously with a piece of lint in his pants pocket. He didn't want to spend time in a boring place, but, with his car broken and having no one willing to pick him up until they all got back from their vacations, there was just no other choice. He nodded his head in slow acquiescence to fate.

"I reckon there would be quite a place up on the lane therein. You could ask around the tables at Mary's for the full spects', I suppose. Tell her Steven sent you", he offered.

"Thanks…I think I'll go to check it out now." And as Naruto turned around so did the old man. And if he had but curved his flaxen haired head for a final glance, Naruto would have seen the backside of an English gentleman dressed to the nines for some social function in the ton. Unfortunately, he looked too late and the man slipped behind the door with a click that spoke volumes of finality, leaving Naruto with a question on his lips.

"What the fuck is Mary's?"

Mary's turned out to be a diner around the corner in this strange town of garbled accents and old people. Which was true, oddly enough. Everyone he had seen were either touching their second childhood or having their first. And when he first entered the diner, there was nothing but a sea of elderly to meet the eye.

The place was quaint enough, not exactly sensational. What diner was?

'It's clean too.'

Naruto slid on a leather-cracked stool by the counter and waited. A waitress popped up behind him with notebook in hand. Her gray-white hair was piled up into a messy beehive atop her head. There were no hollows in her face, everything filled with sagging fat or wrinkles. And yet, part of her seemed like all the other waitresses droning along in the building; low deaden eyes. A polished plastic nametag shone out from the conformity of her uniform.

'Mary, that's the woman. ', Naruto recognized.

"Um, excuse me. Yeah, over here." He signaled the waitress over. "Hey, my name is Naruto and I…my car crashed. So, I went down the road to the genera store. Steve's?" A pause as the waitress nodded affirmation. "He told me to come over here and ask about the house up the lane. "

"I see… Well then, sit down. Here. This might take a while."

"I've all the time in the world, at least until Spring Break is over..." A wry smile was exchanged between the two.

"Ah, well there's not much to say about the house." Mary started. She twitted a strand of salt and pepper hair around a thick stubby finger. "It's in okay condition. Bit old, so you may want to watch out. I was the proprietor of this grand establishment before I gave it up to the public. Memorial-like, you know?"

"Something big happen there? Like what" Naruto leaned forward obviously intrigued. Her eyes lit up as if she was waiting for the cue of her only solo.

"You could say that, I suppose. See kid, there was murder there. A lot of deaths. And it all started when this Boston man came. He bought the house and brought his two sisters and younger brother to live there. The blonde sister was a musician. She was a good woman, not like one of those rambling pale artist that can't say boo to a goose…not like her sister Sakura. Her name was Ino."

Mary paused a moment to scratch the side of her head.

"Sakura was a writer, I think. Can't really remember. She had the most mincing condescending walk I ever saw. That one was born a lady, I could tell with her curled pink hair and fair skin. Never saw her outside without a parasol and she always fawned over her brother, acting like she couldn't walk on her own.

"Then the youngest one of the group. He was a looker, nicely bronzed and muscled from waiting in the open air for a pretty sight. Yeah, that one was a painter. Used to kid about painting me when I was young. They were happy living there…then one by one each member of the household started dying. Without reason or rhyme. And after them rich folk were gone the killer still had an itch, I guess. 'Cause then he started picking off the towns people, good-looking ones first and them all teenagers at that. Now, some forty years down the line we younger sisters and brothers are all that's left, sweetie. Us, and the young ones that just moved here." Her eyes teared and she held a stare contest with the table for a moment.

"….Wow, that's quite a story. Are you alright?", said Naruto.

"Yeah, it's just that I lost my sister in that. She was found dead without a scratch. Not one scratch on her body like the other victims. My folks and I were grateful for that at least." With that she stood up.

"So, what'll it be for breakfast. You've got to eat breakfast." Naruto closed his mouth to protest, amazed at her bounce back time. "We've pancakes, waffles soaked in syrup, French toast snowed in with powdered sugar, eggs, sausages, extra spicy for the adventurers. Omelets to fit your every desire, biscuits smothered with gravy. And for a little sweets there's more pie than ever dreamt of and all served with a piping hot cup of coffee. The special for today would be the butterscotch pie. So what'll it be?" Mary primed up her mouth and snapped a pen and pad out from inside her pocket.

"Uh…" The torrent of menu options left the blonde temporarily speechless. "I guess... I'll have the pancakes, sausages and a piece of that butterscotch then."

Mary left the table to place the order. He hunted in his pocket for his wallet, reassuring himself that it had not fallen out during his sleep. His fingers touched the leather at the same moment a steaming plate of fluffy pancakes swimming is dribbled syrup and thick sausages on the side slid onto his table.

After an hour of slow dining, Naruto rose to pay for his meal. As he turned away from the diner, it collapsed into spider webs, decaying stone and fairy lights.

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(…) Yeah.