La Belle Dame Sans Merci: 28:
"Truth or Dare"
"Well," Shikamaru says when the last mumble of the Murder Bunnies' voices has finally died away, when they are safely hidden inside the house. "That was exceptionally disturbing."
"Definitely," Temari agrees, her face carefully blank. "If I hadn't already walked in on Kankurou giving Gaara the Talk I'd say I'm scarred for life."
"The – Talk?" Shikamaru repeats in a voice completely inflectionless with sheer horrified glee. "With Gaara. I see."
"It was…really quite pedagogic," Temari adds with pretend casualness, and now she has to be joking. "With dolls and everything, since Gaara is supposedly not very gifted in abstract understanding of human interaction."
Her voice is carefully cold and amused when she speaks her brother's name. The name of a boy who of course needed a semi-practical demonstration because frankly he doesn't get jack shit of emotion that isn't pounded into his thick head. Shikamaru has never been quite certain whether the redhead is a psychopath or a sociopath, but the grave mental damage has always come through loud and clear.
"I want you to know," he says, lightly too, speaking gingerly, "that come what may, you have put your mark on me for always with that sentence."
They go collect Naruto shortly afterwards, hoping to high heaven they are not about to interrupt anything. As it turns out, in a turnabout so abrupt it becomes absurd all by itself, the scene is domestic: Naruto is drying his hands, presumably after washing off the blood, eagerly looking over the shelves in search of late breakfast. Sasuke's – making tea.
"Excuse the intrusion," Shikamaru says, politely calling attention with his lazy drawl.
Naruto turns towards them, presenting a surprised but glad expression painted over weary features and darkened eyes; Sasuke, already facing the doorway, doesn't move.
"Shikamaru," Naruto says. "Temari-san." He does blush a little at the second name, which is – is more than Shikamaru had dared count on, actually. The worst of the probable prospects to be considered left Naruto too far removed from the wedding and the awkward bet to be still in any way affected by them, but there you have it. There's blood under his nails and the famous light in his eyes has dimmed considerably, but he's still…reachable. Shikamaru hopes (you'd better be).
Even though Shikamaru keeps his eyes open, and knew Naruto has stopped smiling and stopped talking even before he saw what he saw today, just outside.
"Naruto," Temari smiles, winks. "Uchiha."
Naruto doesn't react this time, possibly because he's lifting a cup of tea; Sasuke nods curtly.
"We're here regarding a mission," Shikamaru discloses with an apologetic shrug. "Had assumed you'd come back yesterday, in fact. Tsunade-sama instructed me to bring you and Temari along on this A-rank as soon as possible."
And fucking Murphy strikes again, because shouldn't that very ranking excuse him from the misery? Shouldn't he get some benefits from not being technically qualified for it, the sole Chuunin in the group he's ironically expected to lead and coordinate?
'Should' really ought to matter more.
"Right," Naruto says, slumping into dejection. Of course, he can't have slept for quite a while. Nevertheless he simply reaches for some bread and starts stuffing his face in the most efficient manner possible. "What kind of equipment?"
"Nothing fancy," Shikamaru says. "As far as A-ranks go, this one looks pretty soft. We won't be long."
"Great," Naruto says, or rather mumbles around a mouthful of food. Turns to Sasuke as he swallows, and Shikamaru has the tactile impression of being ignored so completely he feels he hardly exists (a wonder naruto turned out as alright as he did, with this for a childhood). "What'll you be up to?"
Sasuke shrugs a little, sipping his tea. "Nothing much. I'm not going on an A-rank alone, and I'm not teaming up with incompetents." The quick brush of a hand against his stomach seems very unconscious.
Wise decision, though, and with Naruto and Kakashi both otherwise occupied Shikamaru assumes that that leaves Sasuke with some easy jobs – a conclusion Naruto shares, judging by his lightened smile.
"Yeah," he mock-grumbles. "Some of us can afford to be lazy."
Sasuke shrugs again. "You know where the money's kept."
Naruto looks like he's been clubbed over the head with an impossible insight.
"Are you almost ready?" Temari asks, apparently agreeing that the interesting points that come with being stuck in this nuthouse are fast ceasing to be worth exposure to the madness.
Naruto nods, stuffing the remnants of the bread into his mouth and collecting his stuff.
"Bye, then," he says to Sasuke, and Shikamaru averts his eye from the blatant display of emotion, so much more intimate than the earlier sex.
Sasuke mutters something, offers a mean smirk and splutters furiously when Naruto presses a chaste kiss to his mouth.
The three of them walk briskly without speaking, Naruto an uncomfortable, glaringly orange presence between Shikamaru and Temari. Enough so that it is mostly a relief to reach his team waiting at the village gates.
Naruto and Temari both step back – Shikamaru had not expected decorum from Naruto, but assumes the blond has learned at last that people aren't nice.
"Take care," Ino says, and hugs him.
"Yeah," Chouji agrees, patting his arm.
"I'll be fine," Shikamaru assures them breezily. "I've got good backup."
"Let's hope so," says Ino, quite ostensibly not looking at the pair who'll go with him.
She's never liked Temari, he knows. Supposes it's not surprising: Temari is older, stronger, richer. Has connections and experience, expertise. Is the young and blond and pretty master kunoichi Ino's always wanted to be.
Shortly they are off, moving through the forest landscape, Temari quite obviously making an effort to slow down in order to save her resources and taking up the rear, Naruto barely visible far ahead of them.
It's a strange trip in many ways, equally as disturbing as the scene they walked into in the Compound.
When they fight Naruto kills, Shikamaru telling him roughly what to do beforehand and Temari reluctantly hanging back in even more reluctant awe.
Because Naruto moves with an entirely feral grace that goes completely beyond the scope of human comprehension, smooth and primitive as instinct. His are the movements of a demon god. Of a damaged child.
He clearly steels himself afterwards, reluctant to look at the corpses Shikamaru studies for details, checks the pockets and packs of.
Killing isn't immoral, anymore, by Naruto's hands. It's apparent enough his power has gone beyond morality.
Temari and he talk but little – she studies him discreetly, taught irreversibly by her Gaara experiences that jokes and sarcasm and even dryly witty companionship are not suitable methods for communication with carriers of the Tailed Demons. There can be only apprehension, all the unsaid words.
"How's Gaara?" Naruto asks once, and she hurries to assure him that he needs not worry about it.
Shikamaru speaks to him rather more often, and every time he wishes he hadn't.
"You're not so good at taking a hint, huh?" he says one evening when they are gathering wood for a fire. "That's called date rape, what you did."
Naruto's look at him goes from startled to sardonic in very little time. "If you saw that you must've noticed he wasn't exactly trying to stop me."
"Elbowing someone and telling them to quit it usually count as trying to stop them," Shikamaru contradicts, not letting his voice rise.
Naruto gives a bitter little sound that falls somewhere between a snort and a short laugh. "If you think of that as trying to stop someone then it's obvious you don't know Sasuke."
"Look," Shikamaru says, pushing twigs out of his way. "It was plain enough he didn't much like it."
"He wouldn't have let me if he disliked it." The 'obviously' is quite clearly implied.
"So," Shikamaru says, allowing his brow to furrow, "as long as he doesn't actively and violently mind it's fine by you, even though he doesn't actually want to?"
Naruto stops in his tracks for a moment. "Do you have a problem with Sasuke's and my relationship, Shikamaru?"
"No," Shikamaru says lightly. "I think you do, though."
Another time, whether in a continuation of this conversation or as a new one, Naruto tells him that, "No doesn't always mean no, with Sasuke."
"Yes always means yes though, I take it?" Shikamaru replies with scorn.
Naruto looks at him as though he were the genius and Shikamaru the retard. "Are you stupid or something? Of course not."
Shikamaru glumly supposes that that has to count as a relief.
He still announces in frustration, a day later, as part of another argument: "Naruto. How the hell is it that you can't see there's something fundamentally wrong with a relationship in which you beat your girlfriend so badly you put her in the hospital and sleeps with her when she tells you to stay the hell away from her?"
"Sasuke's not my girlfriend."
He is, however, pregnant, which prompts Shikamaru to demand on a different occasion: "You do know who the father is, right?"
"No," Naruto says, and forestalls Shikamaru's reply by adding: "I don't want to hear that, not from you."
Why does Naruto's honorable streak always latch on to the inconvenient things? How is domestic violence alright but receiving important information from outside sources is not?
"You don't get that you're letting people down?" Shikamaru rages at him, in so far as Shikamaru does rage.
Naruto, who does overblown drama much better with his face twisted and dark, instantly cries back, "He let me down first!"
Shikamaru abandons all outward emotional displays, clings to lethargic disgust with the world's frustrating stupidity. "So now there are punishment issues as well in your sex life, in addition to the obvious tendencies towards violence and unhealthy possessiveness? How nice."
"It's not as though sex is some sphere separate from our normal lives," Naruto says. "What's there's there. Anyway, I missed the part which made any of this your business."
When next they touch upon the issue he's short and immediate, filled with self-righteous anger all the sharper for the underlying shame: "It's not like Sasuke's being nice to me!"
Let's see – betraying you, cheating on you, lying to you, beating you up, giving you a Tsukiyomi, treating you like you're not worth his attention much of them time. No, guess he's not. What a shocker, because didn't we all expect that little ray of sunshine to grow up a caring and well adjusted man?
"That's what I expect from a traitor," Shikamaru tells him. "I thought better of you."
Naruto has nothing to say to that.
Two days before they reach Leaf Shikamaru calculates he will allow himself to snap, and summarizes his findings: "It'd be real easy to attribute this exceptionally crude method of communication to the fact you have the vocabulary and Sasuke the emotional maturity of a developmentally stunted toddler, but I don't think it's about that at all. I think it's about how you didn't take a no when it counted, which neither of you are prepared to psychologically admit to, and which behavior you are now trying to normalize. Just thought you should know."
Because he's turning his back on this now.
Naruto's mouth opens and closes, his face goes white, and they do not speak again.
xxxxx
After Naruto has left everything is very calm. Sasuke drinks his tea and washes the dishes. Gets his space and can't help doing some thinking.
The last of which means things are more – realistic, if not necessarily more harmonic, even when the blond's back.
The return itself is a climax, though – how could it not be? Naruto is Naruto, and Sasuke is Sasuke, and they are what they are to each other. Explosive, reaching too deeply.
Sasuke has just seen Tsunade, given the required clarification of how much he's willing to work at this stage. Which is a fair amount, so she should be pleased.
(it's something to do)
For as long as he can remember there has not been a time when a nigh impossible goal did not lie pressing over him, and he has never quite managed to decide how he feels without it.
First there was the need to be a genius, be the very best, because he knew it was the only way for him to survive, for him and his mother both – with snake's eyes and the pale smirk of death you don't make it far in a ninja village tense and insecure from upcoming conflicts if you are not invaluable.
So he made it through the insults that went from screamed to hushed as he sky-rocketed through the Academy, skipping year after year. Several kids did, during times of distress, when chances were they would be needed faster than they were ready, but unlike the majority of them he had objectively earned the special treatment.
And then – finally security, of a fashion. Making the prodigy team, with bitchy butch Tsunade and the idiot monkey boy Jiraiya with the monstrous brute strength, pampered by Sarutobi, the Third.
He thinks they may have been as close to being liked by him as anything ever has.
But time passed and war is – war. Blood flooded over his hands, his own and his enemies', his comrades' and his victims'. And blood's a good deal thicker than the water you try and wash it off with, in the end.
His mother died when he was fourteen, and people said it was suicide but the fact the only handprints on the kunai were her own doesn't prove much of anything, in a ninja village.
That was when it was brought into irredeemable focus, the realization that had been ghosting his thoughts for some time – that it was all meaningless. That they were all future food for the worms, nothing more than that. Living on borrowed time that always runs out.
And that was when he said, No. I'm not accepting this. I'm changing the rules, I'll cheat if I have to – I'm going to win.
Maybe he couldn't be meaningful, but he wouldn't be snuffed out. He had time, still. He'd get the forever jutsu right.
Unsurprisingly they found him out eventually, and some things happened and some did not, and he still couldn't feel, or at least didn't, but he was getting closer, all the time.
Then there was the other beginning – knowing since almost the moment he could know things that there was Itachi. A goal, a challenge, an ultimatum.
One that turned out badly, and there was so much blood and so many endings and only one way forward and no way out.
Pursuing that madly, being mad, and then that ended too.
With more blood, Itachi's this time, and seed.
Finally another kind of finish, when the main characters of both these lives abruptly ceased to be.
Leaving him here, growing heavy with child, making his way from the Hokage Tower, inside which he's told Tsunade he's fine working as long as he's at all able. Won't take unnecessary risks, of course, but he doesn't mind low ranked missions.
(it's something to do)
Naruto corners him on a sunny street, whiskered cheeks coloring from what must be upset rather than exertion in a face more pallid than it ought to be. The eyes are too large, too dark.
Too much like my own when I stare back.
Under curious, judgmental stares Naruto grabs onto him, breathes hot flushed pants into his face.
"When you said you didn't remember," Naruto says, and his lips are trembling around the words racing each other horrified and inevitable over his tongue, "about what happened outside the inn – did you really not? Did I…" He bites his lip, looking furious and on the verge of crying. "I mean I remember doing it, but I also remembering killing you and I don't know what's real anymore!"
Sasuke wants to kill him to shut him up. His mind is a fog, red darkness eating the world.
"Shut up," he hisses. "Don't talk about that. I can't remember that!"
"Sasuke! If you're scared to remember – doesn't that mean I did?"
His voice is rising in fear now. The spectators can probably hear what he's saying.
"I don't know!" Sasuke roars back. He's very, very carefully not letting himself know. "Why are you asking? No really, say you didn't – fine, that's one hurdle cleared, and we'll always remember we both thought you could've. Or say that you, that you did. What does that change? Why do we want to try and deal with that if we don't have to?"
"I," Naruto starts, then exhales. "Yeah, alright." The relief is palpable, though unease does not entirely leave him.
"And I'm not scared," Sasuke sneers, even though he can't remember being this frightened. Not this version of him.
They very empathically do not need an audience, so he grabs Naruto's wrist roughly and hauls him off. The demon chakra is extremely immediate beside him, the child's weak inside him, and his mind is crowded with everything he absolutely won't remember (massacre night valley at the end the merging itachi's death when naruto broke and broke us both).
I hate being pregnant, want my other body back, the independence I can feel at home in.
It churns through him, leaving him desperate enough for distraction to hazard a bad-tempered inquiry about the mission.
"Yeah," Naruto says, walking too close, brushing against Sasuke's side. "It wasn't so bad, mission-wise. Just, Shikamaru was really aggressive, for being him, about us having a sick and twisted relationship."
Sasuke isn't listening. "Really?"
"Mmh," Naruto shrugs, clearly too disturbed by the subject to simply let it go. "He thinks, um, he thinks I'm date raping you and like, abusing you and stuff."
"Imagine that," Sasuke mutters. "Stupid voyeur asshole."
"You could, like, say he's wrong," Naruto prompts plaintively, clearly growing increasingly uncomfortable. "Anytime now."
Sasuke startles, his insides clenching painfully. He says, voice tight and light, "How could you date rape me when we've never been on a date, idiot?"
Technically Naruto shouldn't be able to coerce him into anything, because Sasuke should stop him. Things are just never that simple: isn't every intimacy a degree of violation? He doesn't think Naruto's any surer about where to draw the lines than he is (if you say no but mean yes? if you say yes but mean no? if you don't care anymore?).
I do know I want Naruto, much of the time, in different ways.
(that is what he feels the keenest, worst violation of them all)
"Yeah. Right." And Naruto's smile is pure relief. "So, wanna go on a date, then?"
Sasuke gives him a quelling, incredulous stare.
Naruto shrugs, brilliant smile rather brittle. "You were right we never have. And I figure, we've got some time, yeah? So why not?"
"Sure," Sasuke says shortly, lets Naruto chatter on and drag him away to the ramen stand for a late lunch. Classy.
It's obvious enough Sasuke doesn't much listen, but given the kind of shit Naruto's sprouting that might not be entirely disadvantageous. It's enough that he's here, warm against Naruto's side, with a little bit of a smirk every now and then. With a knee bony against Naruto's own, and a shoulder and a hip, the last of which is finally starting to fill out, if only a little. Still, he can't help thinking with a suppressed wince that designing the female body with boyish proportions will turn out to have been a Bad Mistake when the kid decides it wants out.
Between his second and third helping he realizes he doesn't know how a date is supposed to be done, doesn't think Sasuke does either, and gets the bright idea they should play Truth or Dare.
"Truth or Dare?" Sasuke repeats skeptically, and for a moment Naruto is certain he will have to explain the concept, but then Sasuke adds, "Most of us outgrew that game when we were about seven."
"You've played it?" Obviously, but the surprise merits an exclamation. Then again he supposes Sasuke was pretty normal, all things considered, before Massacre Night, and certainly Sasuke would not have encountered any trouble finding playmates.
"Once or twice," Sasuke admits reluctantly.
"Really? Cool."
Deadpan, with just a hint of a smirk to ruin the innocent expression, Sasuke asks, "Did you know Jiraiya used to have a crush on Tsunade's mother?"
"No," Naruto says pathetically. "And I was quite happy not to." Jeez, talk about unwanted information. Still, after another few mouthfuls of soothing ramen he adds, "Then we can play."
"Has anyone ever told you that you have the maturity of a grade schooler?" Sasuke snorts. Grade school is when you generally learn the truth jutsu, and Truth or Dare has always been a popular way to train it – evidently even the Sannin practiced it. "Fine, whatever."
"Great," Naruto announces smugly. "So, um, let's see, the consequence when you don't want to answer my questions anymore will be – you'll have to propose to Jiraiya. In public. Giving the impression you actually want to."
Sasuke looks predictably disgusted. "You do realize he'd probably figure it was Orochimaru talking and accept in a misguided attempt to heal me?"
"Oh, gross."
"Anyway, why are we playing by the girl rules?"
"Girl rules? These are the ones Sakura-chan taught me."
"Figures. Your consequence will be…" Spiteful is a good/bad/terrifying look on Sasuke, chasing shivers up and down Naruto's spine. "When you tire of answering questions you will go have a little chat with the Third's brat. Tell him you've given up on your Hokage quest in order to concentrate on your career as a child murderer. Make him believe it."
The truth jutsu is fast done away with, leaving an unpleasant tingling in his skull.
"Prepare yourself," Naruto warns, deciding he should get to start since it was his idea. Hmm, didn't Sakura-chan say there was a standard opening phrase? Oh, yeah… "Here goes. First question: who was your first crush?"
"Sarutobi-sensei."
"Huh? Look, I was talking to you. Fine, as you want it, about Sasuke."
"I'll remember." They both know the rules stipulate that the same question can't be asked twice.
Sasuke has replied, and Naruto wants as much as possible answered before Sasuke breaks and it's his time to be humiliated, but he needs to think, needs to gather his thoughts.
"Who'd you play this with?"
It would seem an almost ridiculously innocent inquiry, but Sasuke's face smoothes out into expressionlessness.
"Itachi."
"Shit! What did you talk about?"
Proposing to Jiraiya is apparently worse by a narrow margin (humiliation levels equal, one horror public and the other not). Naruto realizes Sasuke was seriously considering the other option only when the Uchiha is already speaking, with an ironic air that makes it none the less obvious the words fairly burn his mouth.
"I asked him whether he still liked me now he had Shisui for his best friend. He said I was a silly child, and I thought that meant he didn't want to be around me anymore, but then he said I was silly for ever doubting that, and that I'd always be what he cared about the most."
The punishment for being careless, for underestimating Naruto, is as bitter as deserved.
"Ah," Naruto says uncertainly, reaching for his hand, in plain understanding things have gone too far (sasuke moves it without looking at him). There is no regret in me, though.
His moves are quicker than usual when he forms the few seals necessary, presses coarse fingers to Sasuke's forehead to release the truth jutsu.
His grin is lopsided as he turns back to his ramen, eventually remarking, "That was three questions. Wanna ask me?"
"Not really." He rises, pushing the empty bowl away from him and dropping a modest heap of money on the counter to pay for it.
He is half a district away when Naruto catches up to him, jogging steps hitting gravel and splashing water behind him. Sasuke contemplates increasing his speed but decides he has been quite childish enough today.
"Hey," Naruto calls, level with him in another step. "Wait up, would you? Look, sorry, but you agreed to the damn game."
"I am quite aware of that."
"So, then," Naruto says when they've walked a in silence for a bit. "Been seeing Kakashi?"
"I'm not blind."
Naruto looks hard, jaw clenched. "I still have questions left. Too chicken to answer them? How would you feel if I slept with someone else?"
He is not chicken and perhaps he owes Naruto a bit of bitch-slapping truth.
"I don't know," he says, still walking, looking steadily forward. Fascinating buildings to see. "If you didn't care about them I guess I wouldn't care either. Least so long as you kept clean of venereal diseases. If you did care about them I suppose I would – kill them and beat you up."
(and watch the fundament of the world rock asunder under his feet, and realize life was mostly over)
(shut up)
"You wouldn't be happy about it," Naruto summarizes. "Yeah well, neither am I."
Sasuke does stop now, mainly because he had no idea where he was going anyway, and this is getting ridiculous, and why can't we just stop?
"Last I saw Kakashi," he says, fixing his gaze on Naruto's chin, "Anko was chatting him up."
(you're doing this for the wrong reasons)
(do you even know why you're doing this?
(this isn't fair to you)
xxxxxxxxxx
