In keeping with canon (okay, okay, I didn't want to dwell), Naruto heals really fast. I've never gotten heatstroke, but one of my friends did. Her body temp was off for weeks, but she was pretty sturdy and recovered fast enough to be normal in like, four days. So…Naru-chan recovered Uber-fast (he'll still be a little messed up though). Also, if you're reading along, and I've got some part about religion wrong, please PLEASE bitch at be until I make it better. I implore thee. It has it's purpose, Chasmodai swears.
I was the gal in the gas station. This chapter's insert has it's own purpose though! Doesn't really show up, but she's mentioned. I swear to god…my friend dared me to buy it. I swear.
OHMIGAWD I HAVE OVER 200 REVIEWS! And over 10,000 hits. And 6 C2s!
I don't on Naruto or Qqraqalpoghiston.
It was all Temari's fault. Her and her stupid 'I want to be an anthropologist' stream of thought. Oh, it could have been great, brilliant, just a normal day. Naruto had pretty much recovered from heatstroke during the driving, and that night they arrived in New Mexico.
Temari had a thang for reservations. We don't mean the hotel kind. Oh no.
We mean the hot sweaty kind. The kind with people. The kind that have trailers and such. The kind with culture. Apparently one of Temari's Anthropology teachers, who had left a year prior, lived on a reservation in New Mexico and was studying the oral traditions and history of reservations. So there Temari ended up, with her friends in tow, in a dusty gym basement. With her friend. Who is this friend, you may ask?
His name was Baki.
He worked on the reservation as a gym teacher and lived in the basement of the school. Gaara disliked this very much. Actually, he disliked the way certain people were eyeing his car. In fact, he really hated the way they were eyeing his car.
"Can we go?" he asked. "Please? They're…touching my car."
"So? They'd touch your car in Santa Fe too. It's the stupid Fabulous Rainbow Car Detailer. It's all their fault," Kiba said dramatically. "It's just a car."
"Oh shut it," Gaara snapped back. "You know it's more than just a car. It's Murphy."
"Guys," Temari said pointedly. "This is Baki. Baki, this is my brother, my friends and my--"
"Lover!" Kiba shouted.
Temari glared. "You need to be very, very quiet right now, or I will find you and I will hurt you badly."
"What happened to you loving me?" Kiba asked, looking mildly hurt.
"I swear Kiba! I'll tell them how you lived! It'll be up to someone else to dig up your remains goddamn it!" Her bright eyes narrowed and she looked more than just slightly angry. No, she was far into one of those creepy 'I'm-not-kidding-I-shall-kill-thee' modes.
"Ookie…" Kiba squeaked.
"So, Baki, how is it here?" Temari asked, turning her attention away from the attention whore.
The talk about the Native people who lived on the reservation extended far into whenever, and it was only interrupted once. This once occurred very loudly, and Baki briefly wished he had pretended he wasn't home.
"Baki!" a redhead teenage girl had shouted as she stormed down the basement stairs. "BAKI! SHE CALLED ME WHITEWASHED!" This was followed by the girl being shoved by a taller, blonder girl.
"I did not!"
"Yes you did!"
"Well, you are!"
"Bitch! You have blonder hair than I would ever have the gall to call my own!" And so the redhead punched the blonde square in the face, as if to back this up. The blond girl screamed loudly.
"You stupid bitch!" she shrieked as she clutched her nose and made a kick for the redhead girl's stomach.
"Iiiiiiii!" was the war cry of the crimson haired girl. Blood spurted. Even normal girls will eventually snap and just hit the nearest object, whether it be locker, computer, or classmate. So it was that Baki's student had her episode. Temari, Gaara, Neji and Sasuke watched in horror. Kiba and Naruto watched in a state akin to awe. Baki looked sort of unimpressed.
"Break it up," he said, shaking his head. "You're not allowed to fight on school grounds. Save that for kickboxing club."
"I don't think you understood," said the redhead girl. "She called me whitewashed."
Baki blinked before turning to the blond. "Did you call her whitewashed?"
"She des--"
"No, she didn't. I need to have a discussion about this." He turned towards Temari and her friends in annoyance. "I'm sorry, we'll catch up later, okay?" Then e marched both teenagers up the stairs and disappeared through a door.
"You don't suppose they hurt Murphy, do you?" Gaara asked.
"How did you know him again?" Kiba asked. "Wait, he's not the guy from Ame--"
"NO!" shrieked Temari. "He was my Native Studies 201 teacher sophomore year!" she shook her head frantically. "And he so kindly offered to let us stay in the--"
"If you say cafeteria…"
"No. Storage area. It's not our fault we're in the middle of nowhere. If someone hadn't distracted us when we passed the only gas station, then maybe someone and his friends wouldn't be in this situation!" she glared at Kiba directly.
"That's my line," Gaara said.
"We share."
Kiba inched away. Then he paused and started up with that insane grin. "Take me to your storage area," he said in a high, controlled, alien-like voice. Temari arched one eyebrow and shook her head in what looked like exasperation.
Temari led them down passages as Baki had instructed her.
"I thought I would tell you all, we're staying here two days. I promised Baki I would--"
"WHAT?! NUUUUUUUU!" Kiba sunk to his knees. "Please no helping."
"It was Gaara's idea."
"No it wasn't!"
"Why didn't Baki tell us?"
"Because he was upstairs breaking up a fight between a couple of hormonal teenagers. Apparently they have a love hate relationship. A love hate relationship." She nodded knowingly. "That, and I can handle you better."
"Sure Temari. This coming from the lush female white rapper. Tupac was only funny the first thirty times."
"But hey, that's just the way it is."
"Okay, the first thirty one times."
Storage area was cold. Really, really cold. Naruto lay awake, staring at the basketballs against one corner, and debated whether he should go outside or stay in there. It wasn't a matter of which was warmer, considering even he was freezing no matter where he went. 'Can't be much colder than this,' he figured. 'Besides, the concrete is probably holding all the cold.'
Flunking science vocabulary anyone?
Naruto let himself out of the storage area and onto the basketball court. It had to be roughly five in the morning, seeing as the sun was just starting to brighten the sky, though it was far from rising any time soon. It was pretty, he thought, sitting under a basketball hoop and watching the sky. There wasn't much to do, watching a sky, but that was alright.
"Hey," a voice said. Naruto's head swiveled. Temari picked her way across the asphalt, her shoes clicking over the ground. "Nice out here, huh?"
"Yeah," Naruto said absent-mindedly.
"Contemplating the universe?"
"Yeah. How much do you know about world religion?" he asked. Temari shrugged.
"I took a class or two. Why do you ask?"
"Just wondering about the whole being gay according to world religions. Not that they'll sway me." He shrugged. "So…what does the great fountain of knowledge have to say, oh cup bearer?"
Temari blushed and giggled. "Which religion?" she asked.
"Voodoo."
Temari shot Naruto a very strange look. "Well, I don't know much about voodoo, but it's accepted according to voodoo tradition, assuming Roman Catholicism hasn't been foisted on the people due to being conquered by Spain or France."
"Buddhism?"
"Huge array of points of view. On the whole, they don't condemn it."
"Shinto?"
"No definite ruling, but it's had its ups and downs. Modern Japan views it differently than fifty years ago Japan versus a hundred years ago Japan versus Edo period, if you know what I mean? It's so decentralized you can't really get a straight ruling."
"Wicca?"
"According to the Charge of the Goddess: 'All acts of Love and Pleasure are My rituals'. That sums it up in big neon letters."
"Taoism?"
"Hm…" Temari contemplated. "Taoism covers a lot of space. Usually it's about female and male energies, with the yin being female, and the yang being male. Heterosexuality would be viewed as balanced, with a yin energy and a yang energy. Homosexuality would be a relationship of two yins or two yangs and therefore unbalanced. But hey, Taoist nuns exchanged love poems in the Tang Dynasty."
"Informative. Scientology?"
Temari made a face. "I just kind of pretended I spoke only Thai that week."
"Unitarian Universalism?"
"They have a long-standing tradition of accepting all people, regardless of sexual orientation."
Naruto bit his lip. "Hinduism?"
Temari clutched her head and pulled the collar of her pajamas over her eyes. "No," she cried with mock horror. "Don't make me outline it! It's complicated! Well, not really, but it's late, so just look it up later."
"How very unhelpful," Naruto said with faux hurt. He gave his friend a light push. "What about Ásatrú?"
Temari raised one eyebrow very high. "Why would you want to know about that? That's just a little obscure, at least in relation to you. I mean, it was there in the books, but if you're asking me questions about religion, avoid the ones that are trying to be revived from the dead and look for ones that weren't dead in the first place. I never paid much attention."
"I'll remember that."
"Shopping for a religion?" Temari asked. Naruto shrugged.
"Thought I would ask. It can't hurt to know."
"Whatever. You have your reasons, no need to share them with me," Temari said offhandedly. "Any other religions you want the explanation on?"
"What about atheism?"
Temari just got up and walked back into the storage locker.
The next part was Kiba's fault. That much was clear from the start. When they woke that next day, you could just smell it. It was so inherently Kiba. Temari knew it was Kiba. She had Kiba-senses, and she always knew when Kiba was going to make trouble for the occupants of Murphy.
"What are you planning Kiba," she had asked when Baki banged on the storage room door. "Because what ever it is, I don't like it."
No one paid heed though. They had risen, double checked Murphy, and showed up at Baki's office. Baki looked mildly surprised to see them. When Temari, who actually paid attention, asked why, Baki replied that he had assumed they would have left to see the town.
She knew he was lying.
'More like hoping,' she thought. 'After all, it's Kiba…'
It was Kiba's doing. Anyone would have wanted Kiba out of an understaffed high school he didn't attend as fast as possible. She shrugged it off, however, and managed to drag Kiba into the sun, into the car, and into the town.
The town was tiny. It must have had a hundred people tops, a cemetery, and a supermarket Temari had never heard of before. There were a few more buildings, but all in all, no one would have really cared if the sands of time were to cover this town. Except maybe the people of the town.
"Hey Temari," Kiba asked as they sat in the car. It was parked in a field and they were just sitting. "What do you know about the Navajo creation myth?" He looked around. Temari narrowed her eyes. 'Why would he care?' she wondered briefly.
"Why?"
"Just wondering…" Kiba said sweetly. Kiba wasn't sweet. Temari didn't like sweet.
"You don't wonder about stuff like that Kiba. You don't wonder. Where's the ulterior motive?" she demanded. "I want to know why you want to know!" She shook her head wildly. Gaara looked on in mild concern.
"Temari, are you alright?"
"No! I KNOW KIBA IS PLOTTING!"
Kiba blinked. "Or I could just be wondering about the Navajo creation myth," he countered. "Never mind. I don't want to know anymore." Temari ignored him, clutched her head, and crawled under a seat.
"I promised Baki we'd clean up the drama room in two hours," she called, her voice muffled by stuff.
"What do we need to clean up?" Naruto asked. Temari shrugged as best she could.
"I don't know. It's currently doubling as a boy's locker room."
Off to a running start.
It was still Kiba's fault. Though he hadn't known it before, Sasuke knew now why.
Kiba had gone and gotten himself relegated to sitting in the van because he made Baki angry. So that meant more work for everyone who was not Kiba. So hence, Sasuke having to pick up dirty, disgusting, moldy green-and-fuchsia boxers off the floor and filing them away by the last name written on them on the waistband in really hard to read handwriting was actually Kiba's fault.
"I am not touching those," Gaara said dully. "Look at them. There's fungus growing on the sleeve"
"You had a mushroom farm in fourth grade," Temari pointed out. Gaara shot her a death glare.
"In dirt. Besides, you volunteered in Kakashi's classroom back when you were in ninth year and you have no desire to have excessive amounts of contact with obnoxious snot nosed sixth years!" His green eyes bored into his sister's head.
"You're right. I'm sure glad I'm just mopping." Then the blonde girl bustled away. "Come on Naruto, I need someone with lots of energy to run all the boxes back and forth into that locker over there." She pointed to the grey-green locker in the distance. "After it's been packaged and sprayed with cologne." She looked pointedly at Neji, who just looked miserable. Really, really miserable.
The underwear in the corner was gross. It was blue and thin. When Sasuke teased it out from under the lockers with a broom handle the odor that hit him was like someone had smacked him with a sack of manure that had been roasting in the sun for a week after being sprayed with cheap perfume and 'aroma of deceased aquatic vertebrae with gills'. Sasuke held his nose (and ignored the screaming from Neji) and prodded it. A cockroach fell out. Dead.
"Sweet Mother of a Million Demons," Temari screamed. "What on earth is that?!"
"It's a…" Sasuke picked up the strange article of clothing with a now-gloved (with an extra strength super endurance kitchen glove to be exact) hand. Then he recoiled in disgust, dropping it. "I think it's a--"
"IT'S A THONG!" screeched Naruto from behind Temari.
"Who in their right mind makes a blue cotton thong and wears it in a high school boys locker room? Moreover, who leaves it there?" Shikamaru regarded the thong with distaste. Okay, so distaste is such a bland word to describe the look on Shikamaru's face. He was a genius after all. Revulsion, disgust, loathing, repugnance. Absolute hatred? Take your pick.
"It's not a blue cotton thong," Temari said, prodding it. "That blue stuff is mold. It's actually…a pink lacy cheetah print thong sold at Macy's that appears to have been sitting hear for quite a while."
"You know this how?"
"One of my friends has one."
No one said a word. Even the mold stopped growing.
Thong. Like...oh my god, thong. Ew. Anyways, I have my...me-ness in there. So, enjoy chapter.
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