Title: Good Night
Rating: NC-17 (for next two chapters)
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the idea.
Description: Sasuke is terrorized by visions of a blond boy in a painting. He doesn't know what to make of it. Until the boy tells him exactly why he's there. SasuNaru/NaruSasu
Beta: GiantFlyingSquirrel - My hero!! without her, this would NEVER be up here so soon and I also lovingly DEDICATE this story to her!! Hope she loves the rest ; )
Authors Notes: Umm... I know this is confusing, but everything will be explained and also finished in the next TWO chapters. I haven't decided if I should cut the last one into two or not yet, but if I do- I'll tell you guys. : P
Good Night Part I
"Good night, Sasuke-kun. Sleep well, little prince." Sasuke muffled something into his bed comforter as his nanny turned up the heating in the large, blank bedroom, careful not to set it too high for the little boy. She looked around one last time checking if anything was off. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except for a, soon to be, six year old Uchiha Sasuke who held his blankets against his mouth, azure eyes glaring with intent not nearly as tough as he himself thought it was. "Sasuke, stop staring at that photo and go to sleep."
When her client's son didn't look away, yet merely glared harder, she sighed and walked over to the large painting the child had of a country road straight across from his bed. The painting was a landscape, its view reaching across a plain of grass with small white daisies littering the tall grasses. A roll of mountains could be seen in the background, jutting into the pink and orange sky.
"Do you see that boy?" Normally, the nanny would deny such accusations of Sasuke's 'boy in the painting'. He had owned the painting since he had claimed this room as his own, years ago, and
every night before falling asleep would point out the boy. A boy, no one but Sasuke, could see. The vision of blond hair and striking blue eyes had never once caught their attention like it had Sasuke's.
In fact, Fugaku, after becoming increasingly annoyed, had a professional examine the painting. They discovered it was painted in the late 1830's, the artist was well known for landscape paintings
and large interior paintings of mansions and other elegant buildings, and that never once did the artist, known only as Danzo, paint a human subject into his paintings.
So, Sasuke's brutal accusations of the man in the painting went unnoticed with excuses such as he was alone too long during the span of the day; a small white pill, and a glass of water in the morning
and evening should clear these hallucinations up. Yet he never gave up, nor did he allow the movers to take the painting from his room. He clearly remembered peeing in a man's shoe once, a very low move, to make sure he couldn't leave the house with the painting. After more instances of childishness, Fugaku and Mina had allowed Sasuke to keep the photo, not really caring if he was having troubles sleeping.
"No, Sasuke-kun." She looked at the painting in sorrow, noting the pain and frustration it brought the young boy. "I don-" But this time, she did. She saw the little boy walking down the small coble lane towards the edges of the painting with a handful of white daisies in his hand, his spiked blond hair waving in the wind, and his bright blue eyes shining in the summer sun. She blinked, rubbing her knuckles against her eyes. Perhaps hearing Sasuke talk too much about it has put ideas in her mind. All she knew was she was not to look at the photo again, for fear of a heart attack.
Sasuke however, noted her reaction and frowned when he saw her ignore what she saw. She saw him, she did! He wasn't crazy! There was a boy there, a beautiful boy, holding daisies, walking towards him. In the night, sometimes he could swear he could hear word being spoken in soft tones from the painting. But he would never admit such things to his father, who already believed he was a little more than mental. Nor could he ever allow Itachi to think he was any weaker than he already was, he was grown up now; he couldn't have Itachi snickering after him any longer.
"Go to sleep. You have a big day tomorrow, you need all the sleep you can get." Her soothing face returned to stare at his young features.
"You see him, don't you?" She was startled by his words, slightly reeling back from what they meant. Was she going mental from this job?
"Sasuke-kun, please, go to bed."
"You see him! Don't lie to me! You see him!" He was sitting up in his bed again, and she placed shaking hands on his shoulders.
"Please, Sasuke-kun-" she tried to get him to lie down, go to sleep, not start a shit-show. Anything but that. They had successfully gone for four months without a night spasm.
"No! You see him! Don't lie to me!" Sasuke was becoming increasingly annoyed. The woman knew that Sasuke was hung up on the boy, and she was clearly denying the fact that he was indeed there. "Look again! Look!" Her gaze inched towards it again, curiosity filling her to see if the figure was still there. It was. She cringed and looked back.
"YOU SEE HIM!" In a flash, the small boy's raised voice alarmed the security outside, in turn notifying Fugaku and Mina. In a moment's notice the boy's parents and older brother, were in the room.
"What has happened?" Fugaku questioned, the nanny looking in disbelief at the small child.
"I-I-"
"We don't have time for your rambling, what happened?" She looked at her boss, stood from the bed and bowed deeply.
"Gomen, I cannot stay. I fear of losing my senses." With that she left, walking swiftly out the door and heading to the safety of her car outside. She would never see the interior of the Uchiha house again.
Fugaku looked at his youngest son as Itachi sat on his bed and lightly placed a hand on the quivering boy's shoulder.
"What happened, Sasu?" Sasuke looked at his older brother, respect and love brimming his still emotional eyes.
"She saw him! She saw him!" he yelled, little body shaking in anger.
"Saw who Sasu?" Itachi answer, calm as ever.
"She saw the boy in the painting." Mikoto looked at her husband, silent tears tracking down her face as she listened to her son talk about ghost tales. Fugaku bore at the picture, begging to see what his son saw. Yet, as always, he saw nothing. Just rolling hills in front of towering mountains and a stretch of grassy fields covered in daisies cut with a single cobble stone road. That was it. No boy.
"Mikoto, shall we return to bed?" She nodded her head, leaning into her husband's cold embrace as he showed her to the door. Before leaving he turned to his eldest son. "Watch over him, will you? We need him to have lots of rest for his birthday tomorrow." Itachi stared, unemotionally towards his father, barely nodding his head in agreement.
"Yes, father."
"Good, get some rest too, goodness knows how much energy you'll be using tomorrow as well." As Fugaku left the room, Mikoto in tow, Itachi turned back towards Sasuke who had his small arms wrapped around his torso in frustration.
"Otouto, what do you see?"
"I told you Aniki..." The smaller raven's voice was soft, almost sad, "he's a boy, small, with blond hair like the sun and three whisker-like markings on each cheek..." Itachi looked at the painting, carefully examining its contents.
"Is that all you notice about the painting?" Sasuke looked at his hands, feeling even more embarrassed at what he could be possibly telling Itachi. He already made it seem to his family that he was insane, but Sasuke felt he could tell Itachi, he would understand, he understood everything Sasuke told him, as if he were in the same situation before. Itachi was seven years older than Sasuke, and often showed his maturity, having been the first child in the country to skip three years in school within one school year he was nothing short of a prodigy, setting the standards for Sasuke higher than any child his age had ever seen. And although Fugaku wasn't impressed with Sasuke's more than average grades in...grade one, Itachi found Sasuke more than interesting and marvelled in his innocence. What hurt him most was seeing his innocence in jeopardy.
"No..."
"What else do you see?"
"That... with each passing year, he gets older..." Sasuke felt stupid for spouting such words, if Itachi was like his father he would have been cowering in fear, but he wasn't, and Itachi was looking at his younger brother in interest.
"Older?"
"Yeah, like he's growing, like a normal boy would. And not only that but-..."
"But...?"
"He's also getting closer. He started out at the very back of the painting, very small and hardly noticeable. Then... almost as if each day he grew just the tiniest bit closer to along the cobble stone path, towards me." Itachi watched his younger brother wiring his hands together, their pale complexion slowly becoming an itching red.
"Okay... tomorrow I'll remove the picture-"
"No!"
"Yes, Sasuke, It won't bother you anymore." Itachi noticed Sasuke's almost desperate look that swirled within his eyes. "You can have one last night with it." Sasuke looked back down to his hands and stopped squirming, a small smile on his lips.
"Okay." Itachi stood from the bed, placing a last kiss on his younger brother's forehead before leaving him to sleep. "Go to bed, Otouto." Sasuke nodded and lay back in his bed, watching the painting from afar as Itachi left the room.
Sasuke had troubles sleeping, with each passing minute he wanted to keep his eyes open, painfully watching to see if he himself could witness the boy in the painting move. Yet every night, out of sheer exhaustion, he would pass out, sometimes in the most uncomfortable situations.
No matter how much he wanted to stay up, to watch the painting as much as he could before it left, to stare wide eyed at the small boy in the painting, he felt pulled in by sleep. And so he fell, visions of the little boy, daisies in his hand, as they walked down the cobble stone road together.
*
When he woke up his mother had not woken him yet, and the picture was still there. Only this time, for the first time in his life, he didn't see the boy in the picture. At first he thought he was seeing things, probably missing him from the quick glance he threw towards it. But upon realizing what could be missing he immediately rush over to it, climbed onto the dresser using the chair beside it and took the painting off the wall. Upon reaching the ground once again he laid it on the floor and stared at it with a scrutinizing eye. Yet, as much as he looked, the boy wasn't there. As much as his family thought he was mentally unstable for seeing the boy in the first place, Sasuke felt absolutely insane for not seeing him there at that moment.
Like any other boy his age, he let the world know of his horror. He screamed, at the top of his lung, so that every person working in the Uchiha mansion and anyone else in a five mile radius of the screaming
boy, came running. Sasuke sat in the middle of his room, painting in hand, screaming to his poor heart's content. Why? Because Uchiha's never cried. At least they fought until the last moment not to. Immediately his mother came running, quickly followed by her husband and Itachi. Mikoto bent down and gathered the small, pale boy in her arms, his voice simmering down to a whimper.
"What is it? What's wrong?" He shook his head, burying it into the juncture between her shoulder and neck.
"He's gone." Mikoto knew what this meant, she knew exactly the boy he was talking about, but in hopes that he meant something else, she was compelled to ask.
"Who's gone?" A small, silver tear fell for her son's azure eyes as he looked up at her own.
"The boy in the painting..."
*
That day was Sasuke's birthday, and having been born into a rich family, showered in many appraisals and media downpour, the Uchiha's set up an elaborate birthday party for their second son's sixth
birthday. Their Grand Hall was decorated in blue, black and silver tinsel and their large dining room had many bright colors to set a more age appropriate theme for their youngest son. Many prestigious and well know names, as well as their children, were invited to this party and the guest list almost fell to the ground with a surprising number of 1,200 guests. All to celebrate the guest of honour's sixth birthday.
However, there were a couple things wrong with having this party, to Sasuke especially. One, the main focus was for their parents to converge and talk about boring things like their stupid businesses.
Two, the kids that were invited were stuck up snobs that, for the life of them, wouldn't know what fun was if it ran into their shins, stole their wallet and wrote 'HAVE FUN' on their forehead before leaving
with a happy joyful laugh on its way out. And third, Sasuke was having a mental war between himself and the painting. Why was the boy not there? Was he truly imagining everything he saw for almost six years straight? He couldn't remember his early years, but he couldn't remember a time without the boy in the painting as well, so he couldn't complain or argue.
The dining hall had filled with people in the span of an hour, hundreds of people filling what was once a calm empty room. Sasuke hated gatherings; it called for girls to flock and boys to play
envious pranks on him. It all ended in his misfortune and unhappiness in the end. Sasuke didn't understand why his parents didn't just let him have a birthday dinner with just the four of them for the
evening.
Mikoto found her youngest son standing on the edge of the crowd, arms crossed over and an arrogant pout shoved onto his lips. She gracefully moved through the masses of people until she approached him, slowly squatting down to his level.
"Sasuke, go join the children. Have some fun, ne?" Sasuke glanced at his mother, anger and hate laced into his heated glare. It didn't faze her, however, and she brushed it off almost as if it were a wanton look.
"I don't want to." Mikoto frown lightly, however not hard enough to damage her makeup.
"Sasuke, these people are here to celebrate your birth and you will have fun. If you don't go and try to socialize we will have you attend more of these parties with your father, Itachi-kun and I." Sasuke immediately dropped his glare and hands to his side, walking towards the other kids as if on a mission. He didn't have to go as far as to socialize with the children, he just had to find one, make him stand with him at all times during this drab party, and ditch the kid at the end. Plan made, now plan in motion.
He started by walking around the masses of people, looking for a suitable kid to make his 'friend', pushing through large sleek silk gowns and sliding around straight pant legs, looking for that certain kid. The group was more of a hassle than a party. Sasuke found it absolutely irritating, that he had to celebrate something as great as his sixth birthday with these people, that didn't even know how to move out of his way so he could walk around his own house, a 'fun' occassion.
In his anger a small flash of blond caught his eye, slowly revolving his head to look at the doorway to the Grand Hall. For a moment, the noises around him blurred, their mindless chatter becoming a gooey mess of sound waves in his ears. For a moment, the people around him paused, their tall silky forms stalling in mid motion, as his eyes trained on the one thing they had yearned to see all day.
Through the massive crowd, Sasuke trained his sight on the blond sticking out from beneath the heavy wooden doors, revealing the boy from the painting. In a single heart beat, Sasuke's direction turned, fixed on his new destination; the door. The boy's surreal blue eyes scanned the hall, their glistening colour searching, searching. Sasuke sped up, want to reach it in time, wanting to confirm his queries, to prove to himself that the boy was, indeed, real! To blond looked crest fallen as he quickly left the door way and exited the room.
"Wait!" Sasuke shouted, small voice ignored by the adults. However it didn't bother Sasuke as he rushed towards the closing door, nor when he flung it open as fast as he could to reveal the blond in the hall. "I said, 'Wait!'"
The other boy turned at the sound of Sasuke's voice, vast oceans concentrating on silky black. For a moment they stood, heavy breathing finally sound as the oak door closed once again, shut off the sounds of the guests in the room.
Sasuke wanted to ask so many questions, but he felt silly, stupid even to think that the boy in front of him was the boy from the painting. He didn't want to scare away the boy when he first met him. His stomach turned into a knot as he worried about the other boy leaving. What if he was the boy and Sasuke hadn't said anything? Would he regret it forever?
But he needn't worry as the blond walked towards Sasuke, hand held out, three white daisies clenched in tan, shaking fingers. A petal from the one of the daisies fell to the floor and the blue eyes fell, following the slightly crumpled piece of velvet petal.
"I-I'm sorry..." Sasuke looked back up at him, confused as to why the boy was apologizing.
"What for?"
"I broke it..."
"Broke what?" The small blond dropped the white flowers, soon following onto his knees, hands pushing to his eyes to dry them. Sasuke instantly felt bad for the boy, whatever it was that he broke, it sure was important.
"The flower, I picked them for you but... it broke." He answered solemnly, looking at the flowers laying on the ground, more petals detached from their yellow insides.
"That's okay, there are more outside." He made it sound like it wasn't important, like the present was nothing, and that made the blond even more upset, glistening his eyes with white hot tears. "We can pick more!" he quickly burst, not wanting the blond to cry. For a moment he stopped, looking down at his failed attempt at a present before looking up at the dark haired boy.
"Really?"
"Yeah, Kaa-san has a garden with tones of big flowers. I can take you there and we can pick them together." He knew he shouldn't go to the garden, his mother often scolded him for trampling on the freshly planted seedlings and his father was even worse, he was scolded for even wanting to be in a garden in the first place. But Itachi liked to take Sasuke there when he was feeling upset to look at all the pretty colours and smell the natural scent of life. He loved it in there. It was free from the strains of this life he lead.
The blond nodded his head and Sasuke dropped his hand down, helping the boy to a standing position. When the boy stood erect Sasuke didn't let go, allowing his eyes to catch the blonde's once again.
Sasuke felt this strange, yet welcome warmth in his palms as he held the boy's hand, leading him to the back yard. He couldn't understand any of it, but he knew he was happy where he was. He was
just... happy.
The boy staid out in the garden while the party raged inside, no-one clearly taking a moment to check up on the boys until hours later when Sasuke could hear faint foot step from the open backdoor which lead to the garden. The blond had a small collection of both his and Sasuke's favorite flowers in hand, as he looked around the lamp lit area of the garden.
"Careful of the roses, their my favorite because they have thorns. But that's also why you need to watch out!" Sasuke told Naruto, showing Naruto the large blood red roses that rose high above their heads. Neither boy was tall enough to grasp onto those flowers now, but Naruto silently vowed that one day, when he was tall enough, he would come back for them.
"Otouto, where are you...?" Sasuke knew Itachi well enough to know, that even though his brother's voice sounded bored and forced, deep down -very very deep down- Itachi was worried.
"Aniki! We're in the garden!" The raven called, summoning his brother to the garden area. When Itachi arrived, the blonde boy's eyes widened almost animatedly.
"Are-are you here to take me away...?" He sounded frightened, almost scared of the older boy he had literally just met.
"Who's your friend, Otouto?" Sasuke's face cracked into a smile, thrusting his hand towards his new friend expectantly and opened his mouth to introduce his brother to his new friend. That was, if he knew the boy's name.
"Wait... what's your name?" the blond chuckled, scratching the back of his head absently as he shrugged.
"Naruto."
"Naruto? That's it? No family name?"
"U-Uzumaki..?" He answered, almost asking if that was the right answer.
"Uzumaki Naruto? Why is it that I haven't heard of you, or your family name, hn?" Sasuke was about to protest when Itachi stepped in front of his little brother, effectively cutting Sasuke off from Naruto.
"Hey! Aniki! Don't worry, he's my friend!" Sasuke tried, pulling and tugging on Itachi's nice, expensive suit.
"That's why I'm worrying, Sasuke." The raven flinched at the cold use of his name, looking past Itachi's left arm to watch Naruto cower away from his older brother.
"Don't scare him away, please, he's... he's my only friend." Sasuke begged, looking up at his older brother. Reluctantly Itachi brushed Sasuke off him, looking back to Naruto before leaving in a swift movement.
"Who's he?" Naruto's voice was almost silent, and the words he spoke barely reached Sasuke's small pink ears.
"My brother..."
*
Time flew by for the boys and eventually the party died down, people went home to sleep off their hangovers, and the children fell asleep in their parents warm arms as they were carted to their chauffeured cars.
"Naruto..." The blond boy looked over at his friend, smile shinning as bright as the day.
"Yeah?"
"Where... where are your parents...?" Naruto looked down at the blocks he had finished pilling on top of each other making a small cottage like structure. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly, hoping Sasuke wouldn't ask again and quickly changed the subject.
"This place is nothing like where I'm from. I really like playing here with you!" Naruto looking longingly at the flowers all lumped together in a pile on Sasuke's floor. The flowers to two had picked together.
"Naruto..."
"I'm so sad it won't last too long."
"Naruto-"
"I don't want to leave at all-"
"Naruto!" the small boy looked up at Sasuke, taking in his dark, contrasting features. When he was sure Naruto had stopped talking Sasuke spoke up. "What are you talking about? You can always come back here, but don't your parents want you back for the night?"
Naruto looked over at Sasuke, his eyes glazed over in distraught and naive contentment. "I... don't have parents... here." His last word added on as if he had to clarify that they were around somewhere, just not in the vicinity.
"Is it okay with them if you stay here?" Sasuke crawled the small length to sit next to his new blonde friend. Naruto turned to Sasuke, large lopsided grin almost ripping his lips apart.
"Yeah, they don't mind!" Sasuke nodded and got back to building his castle, the two moving back into a silent phase of construction. Minutes passed, and the boys moved on, building their rainbow castles, their colossal walls much large in their imaginations than laid out before them and eventually heavy eyes fell onto pastel cheeks. Naruto's smaller body curled into a ball against Sasuke's front, as the raven curled his pale fingers around a bit of the blonde's shirt. Both boys slept with smiles as they basked in each other's warmth.
*
In the morning Sasuke woke, yawning as he looked around his lightly lit room. At first, Sasuke felt no different other than a little colder than he felt last night. Upon closer inspection, however, he noticed the empty bed. And suddenly he felt distant, empty, and oddly depressed. He felt as if all the joy he felt last night with the mysterious blond boy, Naruto, was sucked completely out of him. All hope and happiness... suddenly were missing from his world as he looked over his completely barren room.
He didn't hear his crying, his screaming, his moans of pain- he felt it. He felt it all, weighing down upon him. He felt heavy, tired, and absolutely done as his screaming faded into soft whimpers. People surrounded him, his mother's arms encased him, and he fell asleep- not noticing the paper Itachi took with him as their parents swoon over the youngest Uchiha.
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