This is a strange thought, but it's sort of for the best that Sasuke isn't here, because Naruto's taking a call from Dad.

Dad's started calling him much more often, lately. It can't be just because of Rock or the bombing, because he didn't do this when Naruto was up north fighting a war, or when BEAST attacked the Sabaku stronghold. Sasuke finds it funny, in a predictable way: Naruto's got the attention he always wanted, now that he doesn't want it anymore.

Naruto can feel a certain black humour about it sometimes, but he always knows it's not his black humour really, so it doesn't count.

"Naruto," Dad says, calling for attention. He didn't use to have to do that.

"I know," Naruto snaps. "We took care of Rock, just like I said. I'll leave Temari here to make sure there aren't any snags. No, she's – how you ensure someone's loyalty, you do that by trusting them. I'm trusting her. That's final."

"You're overreacting."

"No," Naruto says. "Or, yeah, I'm upset, but I'm not – it's not an overreaction. I know you think I shouldn't be, but I'm – so pissed off and disappointed. You betrayed me. You betrayed who I thought you were." Dad starts to reply, but Naruto talks over him, which is also new, "Also Sasuke hates your guts, and I can feel him hating you and – it's hard."

Dad sighs, "Surely you can't blame me for looking out for my family, either of you."

"We don't? What you did wrong, you did seven years ago."

"So you're angry with me because you think I wronged him, and he's angry with me because he's angry at the entire world."

"Yeah. Yeah, pretty much." His eyes are burning a little, like he could cry. He doesn't want to hate Dad.

"Well, that's too bad. We'll have to speak again later," Dad says. "I have certain matters to attend to."

So they're back to stock phrases. The conversation's limp, a dead body between them.

"Yeah," Naruto breathes. "Yeah, sure, we'll do that."

Dad's hung up before all the words are out.

There's no point going directly to Sasuke, despite how he wants to. Sasuke isn't sympathetic about Dad, and it's unfair to fight with him about it. Naruto caught him thinking, once, that Minato doesn't yet understand that even if Naruto were to forgive him, which is a doubtful but not impossible proposition, it still wouldn't be the same. Naruto would no longer see the world with the eyes of a child, with a child's unquestioning trust in his parents.

Naruto hasn't had that for a long time, though.

But Dad, damn him, did bring up some salient points, which means Naruto does need to speak to Sasuke after all.

Stepping into the corridor, he can hear Sasuke ordering people around downstairs, and smiles.

"Naruto."

"Hmm? Shikamaru, hi."

"I'm going with you. Back to the capital."

"But Temari's staying here to deal with Rock."

Shikamaru shrugs. "She's an efficient girl, it won't take her long. She'll be better off without me."

"She needs you around," Naruto points out. "If she needs extra energy, if she gets hurt."

"Naruto. I'm a liability. She needs me out of the way to be able to do her job."

"Things have settled," Naruto argues. "Even Sasuke was fine, and Rock bloody hates him."

Shikamaru sighs with some impatience. "Sasuke was fine because Rock was never a threat to him. You might remember that they did attack him. As they would attack me, test the boundaries. And that's fine when it's Sasuke, because he can take care of himself, but we both know that I can't."

The idea of bringing Sasuke to Rock sealed, a Sasuke who could not defend himself – Naruto cringes with the horror of it. He could've never let Sasuke out of his sight or even his arms, he would've had to burn Rock to the ground to defend him. And even sealed, Sasuke's a good deal deadlier than Shikamaru's ever been. "All right. Gotcha."

Shikamaru nods, looking down over the banister rather speculatively. Towards Sasuke, actually.

"Look," Naruto says, pausing mid-step. "I know you're trying to get a handle on him or whatever, but if you bring up Kakashi to him, you won't have to worry about his reactions, because I'll wring your neck myself. Okay?"

"I hear you."

Naruto rewards him with a big grin. "Great."

Sasuke's moved from the atrium to one of the conference rooms, and Naruto quickens his step as he discovers Genma outside it, staring in. Genma can move a little now, in the wheelchair. He still doesn't look entirely like Genma, and probably never will again.

Sasuke apparently notices him, looking up with a rather sardonic smirk. "Was there something you wanted to say to me?"

"No," Genma says. "No, I don't seem to be having much luck talking to you."

"That's true," Sasuke agrees. Still Genma remains, and finally Sasuke adds, "I don't regret it, if that's what you're wondering. If you step out of line, I won't hesitate to finish what I started." Genma's mouth moves, and Naruto's really close now, he should have time to clamp his hand over it before Genma can say anything – but again Sasuke speaks first. "I understand you have a mate. Think about if this is really how you want them to die before you respond to that."

"Thank you," Genma says stiffly, and rolls away. Naruto will have to talk to him later, but Sasuke's a more pressing concern.

"Hey," he says, stepping into the conference room and shutting the door behind him. "Done terrorising the minions? Isn't that a little beneath you?"

"Hn."

"Yeah, anyway." He rubs at the back of his head, where his hair's already a mess. "Are you okay going back?"

Sasuke looks up from whatever papers he's going through. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"With, you know. With everything. With Orochimaru, and everyone. He'll be around. He'll want to see you."

"Obviously."

"I just meant – given everything you told me in Rock, that –"

"That never happened."

"Of course it bloody happened!" He stares at Sasuke in honest confusion, and Sasuke's staring back – wary, confused too, and Naruto tries to explain how Sasuke is the centre of his world, the axis on which his world turns. There's no possibility of overlooking anything to do with him, or forgetting it: Sasuke's the realest part of his life.

"How weak do you think I am?" Sasuke hasn't been this angry with him in a good long while, his seal visibly writhing and crackling. The incredulous, somehow hurt anger blisters against the inside of Naruto's skin, makes the brand on his stomach burn. "I've handled Orochimaru for years. You were gone and safe, I was still there!"

"I know! That's why I'm – it's all a mess. I don't, I want things to be better!"

"I'm not some helpless little victim," Sasuke sneers at him.

"I know that!"

"Then what the hell?"

"That's not what I meant! But you're all fucked up in the head about him, and it'd be strange if you weren't, but – it's gonna be hard and it's gonna hurt, and I – I wanted to do better. To be better. For you." The lights overhead crack and blink, disturbed by surging energy. Kyuubi responds to the threat of Sasuke's upset, rising through Naruto's skin

"You're delusional."

"What?"

"I should've never told you anything." It looks like he just rests his hand against the table, but the table splinters under his touch, catches fire. The sort of fire that burns so hot, there's not even any ash. "I spent years keeping you safe from him, where the fuck do you get this ridiculous idea that you could ever save me?" This is a cold fury, wielded like a weapon. "You're not my saviour, and I'm not your fucking damsel. I don't need saving!"

The glass lining the walls, fake windows all around the room, shatters. Naruto's jaw is clenched so tight, the bone in it breaks, a sharp crack and then Kyuubi filling his mouth, mending the bone and sharpening his canines.

"I know that!" Naruto screams at him, but subdued now. Because he does know. He tried and tried, and it was never any use. He couldn't even save Sasuke from having to save him. "I do – I do want to swoop in and save you and make everything okay. But that's – selfish, stupid. That's me wanting to redeem myself. That's not… When I say we're a team, that's not just code for wanting you to exorcise for me. It means we get through shit together." He breathes in, in, in. Trying to reach for Sasuke, and Sasuke smacks his hand away. "When Mum died, you were there. You even, you even came to the funeral. You knew they'd beat the shit out of you if you did, and you came anyway. Because I wanted you there."

Sasuke frowns at him. "Do you think it made me feel better to have you there watching?"

Sasuke's foot taken away. Naruto inside that cage, and Orochimaru reaching for Sasuke.

Sasuke did protect him, when Naruto stepped over the lines of Dad's protection. Naruto kind of brought this up with Sasuke once, on a painfully hot day when he could blame teary eyes on the sun, white-knuckled fists on an earlier scuffle with Gaara. It cost Sasuke, to have Naruto insert himself into Sasuke's life.

Sasuke had started at him, unable perhaps to speak. Finally he said, I never asked you to.

Which wasn't telling Naruto to stop, and so had to mean that it was worth it, that he paid the price for Naruto's presence and it was worth it. Otherwise, presumably, he'd stop protecting him, and let Naruto reap what he'd sown.

That would be the only alternative, because no matter how Sasuke felt about it, Naruto wouldn't be able to leave him alone. Naruto taking a step back was never a possibility: Sasuke's only choice was protecting him or watching him die.

Only Sasuke never acted like there was any choice, even though Naruto knows full well that Sasuke's let thousands of people die without a second thought.

In the present he demands, "Didn't it? Wasn't it better, to have someone there who was on your side?" It has to have been, his hands are fisted tight and the arteries along his fingers bursting open with how much it has to have been better.

"It's not like that," Sasuke says. Less angry now, but no more approachable. "It didn't help me, having you there when he –"

"It should – I mean. If someone doesn't help you because they can't, they try and try but they can't – that has to be different than if someone just chooses not to."

"The result is the same," Sasuke says.

"Then –"

"Of course it fucking matters!"

"Right," Naruto says. "Good. I mean – right."

"Look," Sasuke says. "You got the boyfriend experience in Rock, but that's not – I don't give a fuck about shifters one way or the other, so whatever. But how I handle the exorcists, that's my business. You'll follow my lead or stay out of my way."

"I don't want to go against my people."

"I don't care."

"That's –"

"No. The exorcists are my concern. I will deal with them as I see fit."

"Right. Yeah. Okay." His mouth spasm into a kind of smile. "Thanks for being straightforward with me."

"Tch. Like there's any other way to get through to you."

"Mmh. Heh." He steps a little closer, until he can kid himself that he could reach for Sasuke and catch him. "I'm your best friend."

Sasuke lifts an eyebrow. "Yeah. And how proud you must be, what with the murderous competition for that title."

"Tch," Naruto echoes. "I'd still be your best friend even if everyone else wasn't an arsehole."

"Unlike you?"

"Unlike me," Naruto agrees. "I hope unlike me."

xxxxx

On the plane, during the night, Sasuke sleeps in the seat next to Naruto's. Naruto keeps staring at him like a creep: they're not on good enough terms for Naruto to touch his face, brush his hair away, without Sasuke snapping away. Naruto's concern insults Sasuke.

"Stupid bastard," Naruto mutters, disgusted to hear his own voice come strange and soft. Sasuke always sleeps like a little kid, curled tightly in on himself. His fringe falls heavy and dark across his forehead, matched by those thick lashes that seem to be the only thing keeping his eyelids down over rapidly moving eyes.

Kyuubi strains heavily inside him, trying to tug him down over Sasuke.

Naruto shakes his head, curling up in his seat, right next to Sasuke. He leans his head on Sasuke's shoulder, letting it be a pillow for Sasuke's own head. This sort of touch, more pragmatic and so less intimate, Sasuke sleeps through. Naruto sighs, letting himself be lulled by the rhythm of Sasuke's pulse, and the flickering beneath it: the rhythm of Sasuke's dreams.

And Sasuke, Naruto discovers, dreams about Orochimaru. And however angry Sasuke got about it, Naruto was right: Sasuke is all fucked up in the head about him.

Drawn into Sasuke's dream, Naruto watches him sit at a kitchen table with what looks like some sort of homework. Piles of books, though older and thicker than textbooks. One of them open in front of him, and Sasuke frowning at the writing. Naruto doesn't recognise the language, or even the letters.

And then Orochimaru leaning over him, Orochimaru's hand covering Sasuke's shoulder, Orochimaru's hair falling into his face.

"What's this?" he mumbles, and his voice comes raspy and creepy but also indulgent, rather teasing. "Don't tell me you're not old enough to know how to read, Shinigami-chan."

Sasuke scowls at him, mute and mutinous but not moving.

And it's so strange – Naruto sees threat in Orochimaru's fingers closed around Sasuke's shoulder, violence in the brush against Sasuke's clavicle. Sees sexual innuendo in Orochimaru leaning over him. But if he'd just happened upon the scene, hadn't known…then he might have just seen a grandfather or someone, pulling out a chair now and teaching Sasuke to read whatever language the book's written in.

He does know that it was Orochimaru who finally broke Sasuke of his Japanese accent, who pulled perfect RP English out of him at last, although when he's tired or upset or talking fast some extra vowels still slip back in.

Sakura had said something about Sasuke maybe wanting to keep the Japanese private, but Orochimaru speaks Japanese too, so that would've been pointless. Pointless!, Naruto screamed at her, blowing up completely, utterly out of line. Iruka – he'd stayed with them so much, at that point, that he'd started thinking of Sakura's dad as Iruka rather than as just Sakura's dad – had had to step in. They hadn't thrown him out though, even though he'd probably deserved it.

In the present Sasuke keeps dreaming, and Naruto's dreaming along with him.

Sasuke in a hospital bed, too injured to move as Orochimaru enters the room. Maybe it was Orochimaru who did this to him, hurt him so badly he can barely breathe, but he comes in now and sits on the bedside. Strokes Sasuke's hair out of his eyes and kisses his forehead. There's nothing weird in it, nothing painful or sexual. There's – this tenderness. He stays there on the bedside until Sasuke falls asleep, stroking his hair.

Naruto – doesn't know what to do with that, and is relived, so foolishly relived, when the dream moves on.

Moves on to a Sunday evening, which is to say a jenga evening on the pale purple carpet in Orochimaru's office. Sometimes Kimimarou joins the ritual, sometimes Kabuto, but usually, like tonight, it's only Sasuke and Orochimaru. These weekly Sabbath hours, between eight and eleven, are a breathing space: something normal.

Sasuke's not punished for not playing, and not rewarded for doing it.

He's sitting now in front of an impressive tower, unmoving. He's just barely twelve years old and this is when he gives up.

He's struggled every moment of every hour of every day for a long time. Now there's nothing left: he's hollow, drained, empty. He doesn't have any more fight in him.

Naruto's been gone for months, and slowly, with the inevitable slowness of a glacier, Sasuke lies down on his back on the carpet. He does this meeting Orochimaru's eyes, in clear invitation: make me feel.

He remembers Sakura reading to him, long ago: He had hated and he had loved, he had hoped and he had ceased to care, and it was all so far away.

Orochimaru kneels over him, touches the base of his throat. It's awful, obviously, Sasuke's still with dread and with this grey emptiness, but he's also waiting with a sort of sick anticipation.

Orochimaru runs his hands through Sasuke's hair, soft comforting strokes interrupted by sudden sharp tugs. Kisses him, holding his jaw open even though Sasuke's not trying to bite anymore.

Still kissing Sasuke, he undoes his belt. It's a rather thick leather belt, the same one he once closed around Sasuke's neck and pulled him to the floor with. Dragged and strangled until Sasuke was forced to crawl across the floor after him like a dog, gagging on outrage and the desperate lack of air. It was a relief when he finally whipped him with it instead.

None of that matters anymore.

In the end Orochimaru does that thing he likes, pushing in only to pull out completely. Entering again and again and again, just as Sasuke's body clenches tight shut. Driving home the fact that Sasuke can't keep him out.

He's not trying to lock him out now. He's denied and raged and bargained: there's nothing more to be done, this is his life. Orochimaru tilts his hips, forcing Sasuke's legs wider. Sasuke doesn't fight him, knowing: this is his home, this is his family, this is his life.

And Naruto cringes away, sits up straight and awake in his seat. His heart beats so it hurts. Sasuke!

His most precious, most favourite person in the world, who doesn't even think of this as a bad memory.

Naruto sniffles, tries to unclench his hand and can't, so wipes the snot with his fist.

Tries to digest the fact that Sasuke really doesn't think this was so horrible: thinks of it, rather, as learning to reclaim sex as something he could decide to have, rather than as something uncontrollable that was done to him.

Naruto blows his nose in his sleeve.

Sasuke wouldn't thank him for waking him up now.

"Hey," Naruto tells him, in this low rusty voice shredded by Kyuubi's fangs. "I need you, okay?" He closes his hand around Sasuke's wrist, and it's Kyuubi's huge hand brimming with energy. Sasuke's lashes flutter, his nose scrunching up, but he doesn't wake. "Okay," Naruto says, putting his head back on Sasuke's shoulder. "I've got you."

And he could never stay away from Sasuke, so it's a given that he slips back into the dream. The dream in which Sasuke's now in a night-time kitchen, fumbling with a glass. Whether it's alcohol or pain meds affecting him, he can't be entirely sober, because he drops it and curses. Moves to pick it up, and steps on broken glass.

Sharp fluorescent light suddenly hits his eyes, leaves him squinting at Orochimaru in the doorway. Orochimaru shakes his head, stepping into a pair of slippers before entering the room. "Hop up," he says, and Sasuke levers himself up on the counter. He's finally stopped squinting at the light and is giving Orochimaru a bad-tempered look through his lashes. "Hmm." Orochimaru brushes the glass away before kneeling on the floor, taking Sasuke's bleeding foot – Sasuke's human foot – in his hand.

Naruto cannot stand this. Steps in, forces himself more solidly into the dream, until he takes Orochimaru's place. Until it's Naruto kneeling on the floor holding Sasuke's foot, acting out Orochimaru's role.

He strokes the sole of Sasuke's foot, along the grainy patch of his heel, along the subtle curve of bone and under his toes. Sasuke stares at him as he takes hold of the glass shard, pulling it out sharply. Cutting Sasuke's foot more open in the process, provoking a hiss from Sasuke. Still meeting his eyes, Naruto leans forward and licks along the cut, until the bleeding stops.

Sasuke never looks away from him, leaning back now on his hands. His knees are open and he wants him.

Naruto stands up between his legs and pulls him quickly off the counter. Sasuke hisses again, the cut reopening as he puts weight on it and Naruto grabbing his hips, turning him roughly around and bending him over the sink. Naruto crowds him, biting the nape of his neck even as he pulls down his trousers, exposing his arse, the tops of his thighs. Gets his own trousers down too, grinding against him.

Sasuke leans on his elbows, panting into the sink.

Naruto reaches around, pinching his nipple through his shirt.

"Do you want this?"

Sasuke doesn't answer.

Naruto slaps his buttocks. "Such bad manners." Another slap, Sasuke's skin flushing red. "You will speak when spoken to." He grinds harder, then lets up in order to beat him. "I suppose you'll have to be punished. Maybe that's what you really want, hmm?" He grinds again, letting his cock drag against the cleft of Sasuke's buttocks, then pulls back to hit them, then rubs again, hits again, rubs, hits, until he ejaculates all over Sasuke's arse and thighs.

Sasuke stares at him over his shoulder, eyes half closed, mouth half open. Naruto's sperm glistens white in the sharp light, dripping down the curve of his arse.

Naruto reaches forward, pinches his buttock, smearing his seed against Sasuke's entrance. "Wet for me, hmm?"

Already he's getting hard again, and Sasuke still is.

"Go up to your room," Naruto orders him. "Wait for me. Don't wash."

Chest shuddering with his panting, Sasuke steps out of his clothes and walks past him out of the room, tracking bloody footprints.

When Naruto's followed him up the stairs and into his room, Sasuke's on all fours on the bed.

"Ah," Naruto sighs, sitting down just behind him. Stroking proprietary hands over Sasuke's hips and arse and thighs, touching flaking sperm and inflamed skin, his own handprints clearly visible. He leans forward more. "I'd better clean you up, hadn't I? Such a dirty boy." And he starts licking, long intrusive strokes of his tongue, sucking his own spent pleasure from Sasuke's skin.

By the time Sasuke's clean, Naruto's aching with how hard he is, and Sasuke's moaning faintly, unable to keep entirely still.

"Such a dirty little boy," he repeats, positively purring. "Tell me now, do you want it?"

Sasuke still doesn't answer, but Naruto can't wait anymore. Loses that contest of wills, and it only makes him harder, makes him get up on his knees behind Sasuke, grabbing Sasuke's hips to pull him back onto his cock. There's little need: Sasuke's body welcomes him, open and hot and slick.

"Scream for me," he whispers, slamming into Sasuke's willing body. Sasuke disobeys, but he does choke on his climax, which hits him like a bullet train. "My, my, my," Naruto mumbles, watching his dick fill Sasuke's impossibly tiny hole, the overwrought, wretched expression of Sasuke's face, knowing he has taken possession of this, and –

He sits up in an airplane seat with cold sweat soaking through his clothes, caught by Sasuke's wide-awake eyes.

"What the hell, Naruto."

He keeps swallowing. "I'm so sorry."

Sasuke punches him in the face, hard enough that Naruto's on the floor before he's fully registered what's happening. He's barely up on his elbows before Sasuke descends on him. Sits heavy on his chest, one hand locked strangling around his throat, the other punching his face again and again.

Naruto's skull has fractured and healed half a dozen times when finally he manages to get his legs under him, buck up and roll.

But he's lost momentum, and can't regain it. Sasuke beats the shit out of him, again and again.

It must've been an hour before Naruto heals and doesn't immediately get injured again, and can eventually crawl into a sitting position. Sasuke too is sitting, his back against the seat.

"Ouch," Naruto mumbles, and the corner of Sasuke's mouth quirks.

Still, this was less about Naruto stepping into the relived memory and more about Naruto suggesting, earlier, that Sasuke might have issues seeing Orochimaru.

Maybe that even makes sense. Naruto's already seen and second hand-experienced Orochimaru straightforwardly raping him: physically overpowering him, taking him violently and against his stated will. This was… more complicated.

"You – let him, or – wanted – or – would you let me? Do that?"

Sasuke lifts his eyebrow, face tilted sideways in that birdlike way he didn't have as a child, didn't have before Orochimaru, but which is integral to him now. "Would you want to?"

Naruto breathes out, looks down at his hands fiddling restlessly before meeting Sasuke's eyes again. "Part of me does."

Another impression Sasuke wouldn't want Naruto to glean: Sasuke lying naked on Orochimaru's chest, Orochimaru's pubic hair tickling his leg. Midmorning light across an enormous bed, and they're talking in teasing tones and touching each other with the relaxed expertise of long-term lovers.

"Of course," Sasuke drawls.

"Don't." It's said sharply, like prayers are when they count.

Sasuke scoffs at him. "Tell me again how you're nothing like him."

"I didn't groom you for it since you were little!"

"No," Sasuke agrees. "You're just happy to reap the benefits of someone else's dirty work."

"That's not true," Naruto says, miserably but with conviction. "You doing it when you have a choice and you doing it when you don't have a choice, that's not the same."

Sasuke shrugs.

And Naruto should stop now, he should. He hears himself blur, "Did you, um. Did you do stuff like that with other people? With, like…"

"With Kakashi? No." Sasuke snorts, looking away briefly. "No, he would've been horrified."

"Oh. I mean – yeah. Of course."

Sasuke makes an impatient gesture, frowning at Naruto's confused distress. "That's not – sex and violence don't connect for him. They do for you."

Naruto tries to keep his face from crumbling. Needing to remember what Kyuubi did the night Sasuke locked Naruto away inside his own head, and not sure he could live with the memories.

Sasuke shrugs again, a bad-tempered movement. "Stop obsessing about it."

Kyuubi's – Naruto's really – tail whispers against Sasuke's foot, and Sasuke pretends not to notice. Naruto manages to smile a little. Feels himself stupidly blushing, overwhelmed by being here with Sasuke. "That's, um, not going to happen? I mean, they're all going to be there. Your whole family."

"I handle my family a damn sight better than you do yours."

Naruto pulls his legs up tight against his chest, leans his cheek against his knees. "Mmh." If by family Sasuke means parents, and if by handle he means remain untouched by, it's sort of true.

Naruto's said some shitty things to him about his mother, and he heard from Sakura that even Shikamaru kind of did – the sort of talk that Sasuke would've never allowed, except that Sakura was there.

But he hardly reacted when Naruto bitched about his parents, and he clearly wasn't bothered enough to immolate Shikamaru after Sakura had left.

Sasuke and his parents learnt to turn their back on each other a long time ago.

"I'm surprised you're not arguing about that," Sasuke tells him, his voice soft and sleepy.

Naruto shrugs. "I never really – got them, I guess. I love them, but it's more like… Mum was more like Sakura, sort of? You know. Reasonable. And Dad's how he is. Of course they're my family and I love them, but. They're not my kind the way you are?"

"Reasonable isn't very you."

"Reasonable's overrated."

"Yeah."

"Mmh," Naruto says again, and curls sleepy and close.

xxxxx

The Sabaku stronghold is both sterner and more luxurious than the bombed Hokage building: more reminiscent of Orochimaru's compound, or for that matter Sasuke's family home.

Naruto's horsing around with his brat brother, and Kushina catches Sasuke's eye. He lifts an eyebrow, but why not? Nods absently at Naruto, and follows Kushina up the stairs and into a library. The walls are covered by the kind of heavy, leather-bound books that wealthy people who don't actually read buy in bulk to furnish this type of room.

Kushina sinks into an armchair. Sasuke leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

He'd have believed this woman was Naruto's mother. She has Naruto's impatience and Naruto's intensity, an utterly different species from mousy Yui.

Kakashi's said once or twice how she never bothered raising Naruto. Looking at her now, Sasuke has to disagree.

"I want to be straight with you," Kushina says, clearly also sharing Naruto's sense of tact and subtlety. "I don't care about you personally, you know that, but you're family now and that matters to me."

"You're not my family."

She snorts, pulling at thick red curls that seem to have got stuck in the zipper of her fleece jacket. "I'll take that as a compliment." She sobers then, gives him what Naruto describes as her stern mum face. "You're my family, though. I'm not going to lie, you're not who I would've chosen, but it's my experience that you don't get to choose these things."

"Naruto's not your family."

"But he is, though. It's messy and we're not close, and – I'm certainly not his mother. But we are family. I've lived with him as long as I've lived with Minato." She shifts in the chair, finally getting her hair loose. "Anyway our bond's more open than yours, and you can't doubt that Minato loves him. It bleeds over."

"My condolences," Sasuke says dryly.

"Hmm?"

"That's horrible."

She makes a thoughtful face. "Sometimes it is. Usually not. Well, but of course my standards are different."

"If you're going to give me a speech –"

"Fine. I'll give you the speech." Her mouth purses, in a movement decidedly unlike Naruto. She doesn't try to hide the ugly, complicated expression, which is very like Naruto. "You know I supported the idea of Naruto and Temari Sabaku. Obviously, everyone knows that. But have you thought about what it means?" Sasuke chooses to interpret this as a rhetorical question, and shortly she continues, "Naruto bonded to Temari would mean Naruto inheriting. A joint Namikaze/Sabaku pair, there's no way they wouldn't, no matter who his mother was. In those circumstances, I would've supported him inheriting over Konohamaru. It would've been in the best interest of my people."

"Anyone can see Naruto would make a better Hokage than Konohamaru."

She makes a face but doesn't deny. Maybe she does love Konohamaru, she at least acts as though she does, but then setting up a weakling for leadership isn't doing anyone a kindness. "And now, with Naruto bonded to you… Well, there's nobody in the world who could give Konohamaru a stronger bond than that. The odds of him getting a crusader are astronomically small, and even if he did, he'd just die." She shrugs. "Maybe Kakashi would take pity on him, come to that, but. What I'm saying is, this is where we are. What I'm trying to say is – are you on his side?"

Sasuke stands up from his slouch, and Kushina makes herself not tense. This is where it counts. Certainly Sasuke's been responding far better to her than he ever has to Minato – as she keeps saying, you know what usually sounds like the truth, Minato? The truth – but this might blow up in their faces yet.

"I'm sure you heard about Genma," Sasuke says.

"I did. About the other people you wiped, too. I certainly know about Jiraiya. Well, to be fair – this might be condescending, maybe you did make the call, but looking at it from the outside, the one I blame for Jiraiya is Orochimaru. But the point is – I know. I'm not pleased about it, but these things happen."

Sasuke tilts his head sideways, in a movement disturbingly reminiscent of Orochimaru. "What must you think of me."

She tries a grin. "What is it they say? Some men just want to watch the world burn."

That's her first mistake, but it only takes one: that's when she loses him. She certainly wouldn't have said he was approachable before, but it's so obvious now how he closes himself off. Maybe he thinks she doesn't understand him, which is true, or that she doesn't take him seriously, which unfortunately isn't.

God, he's fifteen. It's impossible to believe that she's ever been that young.

Naruto quoted that line to him once, when they were kids: Naruto could say it in a certain tone of voice and could make Sasuke laugh. Naruto alone can presumably still say these insane things to him.

"Look," she says. "My bad. I just wanted to say – this is me. What you see is what you get. You have trust issues or whatever, I suppose we all do, but this is it. No hidden depths." She tries a smile. "Well, I'd like to clarify I meant there's nothing hidden about them."

But Sasuke's cut himself off from her.

Later, when Naruto finds him, he's perched on a windowsill in a corridor. One of the private ones, where the cleaning staff isn't allowed, so there's dust clinging to his jeans.

"Hey," Naruto mumbles, climbing up beside him. "You disappeared."

"You're such a brat." He cocks his head sideways, leaning it against the wall. "You could've had a mother."

"I did have a mother."

"Technically so do I."

"Do not compare Mum to your freak mother." He bites his lip, breathes out. "And I don't want to be an also-run." He's never wanted to be embraced because of pity or obligation, or bleedover love, or because he was being favourably compared to Konohamaru. As the saying goes, he did not want to be loved enough. He wanted to be loved overwhelmingly. "I want to be picked first."

Sasuke snorts. "Unlikely."

Naruto scrunches up his nose at him. "You'd pick me first."

Sasuke lifts an eyebrow, his smirk rather quizzical and not without warmth. "I hate you."

"Yeah," Naruto admits. "I'm still your favourite person."

Sasuke's exhalation is heavy, bordering on being a sigh. He looks across the corridor, through an open door. "Were you aware of that?"

Following his look, Naruto discovers Gaara.

Only it's not really Gaara at all.

In the blink of a horrified eye, he's across the corridor and beside Gaara, who sits stiffly in a chair. He smells so strongly of drugs, his scent is barely recognisable. Eyes wide open, with only Shukaku's impotent rage reflected in them: no understanding, no personality.

Naruto grabs him by the shoulders, shaking, and the contact sizzles through his palms. Gaara is what Sasuke once called a monstrously strong shifter, and Shukaku bristles and burns under his touch. "What the hell!"

"Naruto. Naruto, calm down, please." Shizune's voice, and Shizune's faintly pained face. "I'm very sorry, but he's too heavily medicated to respond. Don't – please. You know he's been letting Shukaku out a lot. We're one or two episodes away from him going beastmad." From losing control permanently, becoming only a host for Shukaku. "We can't have that. Even his father – his father insisted we take preventive measures, until a more permanent solution could be found."

"This is not a solution."

Sasuke behind his shoulder then, a sharp spike of solidity and warmth. "So let's wake him up."