So here goes. Again. 200 reviews? Yes-no-cookie? 200 means time for another Sasuke-angst-dream next chapter, in which one fierymetis appears (I'm pretty sure she caught my 200...and if I counted wonky...then I suppose she's just lucky XD). She's one of many amazing-ing reviews. Disclaimers apply.

It was his fault.

All his fault.

And Gaara blamed him exclusively.

That stupid, stupid lizard.

"Shut up! I knew you did it!" Sakura shrieked. "You took him!" She hugged Lee to her bosom and cuddled him. "See? You're so cruel and bloodthirsty and-- he didn't hurt him, did he? He didn't make you cry, did he?"

"Reptiles have no tear…ducts…" Neji trailed off. "What? This isn't my fault!" He whined. "See? He was psychotic on his own! I didn't make him crazy! Not even the tiniest bit." Ah, sanity, it is elusive in its own right.

"Thanks, Neji. Really. Honestly." Gaara paused. "I'm being sarcastic, you know that, right?"

"You need to explain that?" Ino wrinkled her nose. "You guys are all made of fail. In other news…I have no other news. I'm out." She padded away, ditching Sakura, Gaara and Neji alone in the clearing. Well, technically, Zabuza was there too but no one cares about that really because he never says anything and he only talked to Haku and sometimes Temari, because Temari is amazing and everyone talks to her. It's like a rule. An unwritten rule.

There were a lot of unwritten rules floating around. They included, but were not limited to:

1) It's your fault. Doesn't matter who the 'you' in question happens to be, it's always 'your' fault. Oh yes. Always. Skank whore, go die.

2) It is never okay to shirk your duties. So shall you be shirking, so shall you be shank...ing...

3) Rules 1 and 2 always apply.

Neji had been in charge of keeping those in order, since he was the one in charge of rationing and government and such. Only, unlike many of the worlds modern governments, he was not the brains behind everything. OMGEH THE POLITICAL LEADER IS ACTUALLY THE ONE BEING POLITICAL! Not that it was really being political, since Temari was the unrivaled ruler of the small island socialist dictatorship.

Give me Temari or Give Me Death, '08. I'd vote for her.

Neji leaned against a tree to watch the Gaara and Sakura interaction. He decided to sum it up in a few key words: 'shout', 'kill', 'fuck', 'lizard', 'disgusting'.

Everything else sort of fell in between the cracks.

And it continued on like this, this incessant arguing. Neji started quoting Catch-22 in his head.

Not even metaphorically.

Literally.

"They were the most depressing group of people Yossarian had ever been with. They were always in high spirits. They laughed at everything."

Well, that quote was totally irrelevant. Totally and completely. All the way. However, Neji was oddly thankful for this moment because, honestly, he had a chance to contemplate Gaara. Mostly because he was being a 'really-good-friend' and riding out the wave of insanity. Always a good thing to do. Wins you points.

"'Hasn't it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence?'

'Yes, sir, it has.'

'Then why do you do it?'

'To assuage my subconscious fears of sexual impotence.'"

And then it occurred to Neji that he wasn't promiscuous.

'Catch -22 sucks.'

Sort of.

Sasuke leaned against the side of the shelter. He was still insanely tired, even if his fever was almost entirely gone. Naruto sat opposite him, watching with bright blue eyes that had grown wide and spacey from too long looking at nothing.

"What do you want?" Sasuke demanded. "You've been sitting here for at least a half hour." In all honesty, Sasuke had no idea how long they had been sitting there but that didn't matter. That didn't matter at all. Naruto was still being annoying.

"I…you…Te…" Naruto shook his head violently to clear it. "Um, yeah. They asked me to make sure you're okay and everything. Besides, I'm really bored and stuff. You should talk to me." He beamed until the dimples on his cheeks showed up. Sasuke had to tear his gaze away and focus it on something else. This something happened to be the fire place.

That sucks.

"I don't want to."

"That's what SHE said!"

Sasuke rubbed his temples. 'If only,' he mourned quietly. 'if only Naruto wasn't so damned annoying.' If only he wasn't so annoying what? If only he wasn't so annoying, they could be friendly? Friends? More than friends?

Sasuke realized he had never had a friend before.

'Fuck, that's just sad.'

"Oh please," Sasuke growled, "that's what HE said and we both know it." He bit his lip. He had never made a joke like that before, not so pointedly. Naruto's mouth hung open in almost-fury. The blond screwed his eyes up.

"Yeah…well…" He opened his eyes again, "at least I'm getting some."

"Sure you are. Really." Sasuke rolled his eyes. It was almost comfortable, laughing and joking like that. Or, at the very least, snickering and making badly constructed jibes at each other's sexuality. Sasuke grinned behind his mouth (which, technically, couldn't exist but he didn't care so much) and raked his fingers through his hair.

They sat in silence after that, which looked sort of awkward on Naruto.

"So," Naruto muttered, "we should get to sleep, yeah. Long day…tomorrow…yesterday…"

"And tomorrow, and last week, and next year."

"Change is a constant."

There was a long pause while Sasuke tried to come up with something to say.

"True, Uzumaki. Very true." Sasuke lay down and shut his eyes. "It's kind of cold," he muttered. "Even though it gets hot at night." It wasn't 'I am cold', it was 'it is cold'. Because cold is weak and weak is cold. Things break when they're cold. Rubber in nitroglycerin is only one example.

Sasuke blamed the inertia of the bounding rubber tennis ball, only he didn't play tennis.

So that was sort of a stupid analogy.

'My head hurts,' he thoughts dully. 'I'm officially losing coherency.' He winced and shivered. It really was cold, the biting and nipping kind that longed to rip off his skin and feed it to the wolves of the world, wolves that were hell bent on--

"Come here then." The voice was airy, soft but juiced with energy.

"What?" Sasuke could feel his eyes widen, expose themselves further to the frigid air.

"I said, come here then. What, you half-deaf Uchiha?"

"Why?" Sasuke's head jerked up, his breath catching. 'No wolves?' He knew what the blond child was saying, just not…what he was saying. Assuming that makes very much sense.

It didn't.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders and propped himself up on one elbow to survey Sasuke. "It's warmer over here. Knowing Sai, he's going to want to snuggle…assuming he ever does get back from wherever he is right now. Go figure." Sasuke could see Naruto's smile flash in the dark. Even in the dark. Especially in the dark. "Personally, I think I'm a better choice since I neither randomly comment on people's bodies nor act as if I have no emotions.

"I'd rather freeze," Sasuke grumbled. 'No, liar, I is liar child! Shush, shush!' he scolded himself. 'Stop it, you cold, he has warm, go to him, silly boy, survival before pride.' But it had never been survival before pride. His parents, dead in the ground, could attest to that. Their selfish pride had driven Itachi into a rage that, ultimately, had killed them.

"Sure you would. Sure you would."

Sasuke wouldn't admit it, but he was pretty sure he had scooted just a little closer to the blond boy at that particular moment in time.

Because, you know, it is pretty damn cold in drift-wood structures. Palm fronds just don't cut it.

And so, in a flurry of snail-paced-ness, SasuNaru begins to rear its head.

And Lee comes back.

And I listen to Haemoglobin by Placebo whil pwning n00bs who deserve it. Man, life is good. Gooooood.