Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor any of the characters created by them.
Note: Rape, OOC and eventual Sasu-Naru.

Living A Lie
Chapter Ten

Sasuke panicked. It was already ten in the morning, late for him, but that was the least of his worries. He had awakened that morning to find his bed empty except for him and no sign of the spiky blonde anywhere in his room. His first thought was suicide because of what the fox had said and he dashed out of the room to Naruto's fearing the worst. But when he slammed the doors open, all he saw was a peaceful sleeping Naruto not covered in blood and very alive.

At the sound of the doors slamming open, Naruto jumped awake, rubbing one eye while he sat up using his free hand. "Wha…Sasuke?" He yawned, "What's wrong?"

Sasuke stared at him before smirking and striding out the door, calling, "Nothing. You sleep too long dobe, so I finally decided to give you a wakeup call." Then he disappeared down the hall, but he didn't miss Naruto muttering "Bastard…" He smirked and grabbing his robe from his room and went to the kitchen to start breakfast.

By the time he finished cooking; Naruto had finally descended to the kitchen, still half asleep. Sasuke watched in silent amusement as the blonde collapsed into a chair, a pout already on his face for being disturbed. With his hair mussed and disheveled clothes, Naruto looked like someone just picked him up off the side of the road.

Setting a plate of pancakes, eggs and miso soup before the smaller boy, Sasuke took the chair beside him with his own plate in his hands. "Itadakimasu!" Naruto yelled and Sasuke smirked, mumbling his own "Itadakimasu." Naruto didn't speak throughout the entire meal, much to Sasuke's surprise, but he shrugged it off and cleared the table. He frowned when Naruto remained sitting silently at the table and glanced over his shoulder at the blonde.

Naruto was staring at him curiously; a distant look on his face and his eyes searched Sasuke's. "Sasuke…"

"What is it, dobe?" He asked, pushing the plate under the water to wash it off. He waited, but Naruto didn't continue and he finally turned around to look at him.

Naruto was now staring at the floor, finding it much more interesting than Sasuke's piercing eyes. He sighed and glanced at Sasuke before turning away again. "I was wondering… I-I mean…"

"Spit it out."

"Can-you-teach-me-how-to-cook?" He said quickly and then looked away again.

Sasuke cocked an eyebrow in surprise. He really didn't know what Naruto was going to say, but he definitely wasn't expecting that. "You want me to teach you to cook, dobe?"

"Never mind." He said, quickly jumping up to exit the kitchen.

"No." Sasuke said firmly, making him stop. "Why do you want to learn?"

Naruto was looking everywhere except at him and said softly, "All I can make is ramen…no one ever taught me to make anything else."

"I thought you hate ramen."

"I do," he sadly smiled, "but it's all I can afford so that's all I know…" He shook his head, "Never mind, it was a stupid idea anyways."

Before Sasuke could say anything, Naruto dashed upstairs to shower and dress.

When he came back down a half hour later though, he found Sasuke in the kitchen with forty or fifty different ingredients spread about. Naruto stopped and just stared at the scene before him, so many foods, he'd never seen so many in one place.

Sasuke turned around and smirked, "What are you waiting for, dobe? We've got a lot of food to make and you gaping like a fish out of water won't make it cook on its own."

Naruto bristled out of his stupor, "Teme!"

The cold smirk remained, but a glint of amusement could be seen in his eyes. Naruto was just too easy to bait. "You're still gaping dobe."

Hesitantly the smaller boy entered the kitchen and approached Sasuke's side. "Ano…I-I don't know what to do."

"That's why I'm here." He smirked.

The rest of the morning and afternoon were spent baking, cooking, frying, chopping and yelling—mostly on Naruto's part. Sasuke couldn't see how the idiot managed to burn himself twelve times in two hours and cut every finger and knuckle at least twice before they had finished. While Naruto spent the day crying, yelling and burning food, Sasuke spent the day 'patiently' explaining how to cook, but Naruto was almost completely incompetent in that area.

Halfway through the day, Naruto had started a flour fight, actually catching Sasuke off guard with a fist full of flour. It lasted a good hour before both of them were out of 'ammo' and Sasuke found himself laughing for the first time in years, which of course caused Naruto to gawk. Sasuke only grinned and tackled the oblivious blonde to the ground and tickled him.

Naruto begged, pleaded and laughed as Sasuke assaulted him with his fingers. After minutes of suffering, Naruto was finally able to flip them over and discover Sasuke's ticklish spots. From then on, every couple of minutes, they'd turn the tables and were soon rolling around the floor, laughing and shouting out in surprise.

They finally stopped when the smell of another burning cake reached their noses. Naruto gave a dismayed yelp and jumped off Sasuke, praying his cake hadn't burned yet. Sasuke couldn't hold back a grin as Naruto removed a blackened cake from his oven, a pout on his face as he set it down on the counter. "Oi, another one? That's the twelfth one now!"

He sniffed and nodded, tears coming to his eyes. "Sorry…I just can't do this!"

"Whatever." Sasuke said, shrugging indifferently. "Come on, I've still got enough ingredients for seven more."

"But I can't!" He snapped.

"So try again, dobe."

"I'm just wasting your time and your money."

He narrowed his eyes and stared directly at Naruto, making the blonde look at him. "If I thought it was a waste of time, I would've left hours ago, but I'm not wasting my time and my money is mine to do what I please with it. And if I choose to spend it on ruined food, so be it. Now come on, let's try again.

Naruto cocked his head, happiness returning slowly to his eyes. "Really?"

"Really."

A soft smiled graced his lips and before Sasuke could move, Naruto tackled him. "Thank you!"

"Heh. Dobe." He ruffled blonde spikes and grinned when the flour came out in a cloud of white smoke. "All right, off. You're not that light." He said, pushing him off and standing. "Once more."

Three cakes later, Naruto finally managed to create a double layered cake without burning it. Sasuke smiled, watching Naruto holler and jump around excitedly and he knew right then, the money and time he had spent had been well worth it. In all honestly, they had managed to make sushi, four different soups, chicken curry, bread, fried squid, fish, a cake, rice and a huge mess, but for once, Sasuke wasn't concerned with that.

"Good dobe, you managed to bake without burning my house down."

His face faltered, "Sasuke!" He whined.

Sasuke smacked him lightly upside the head, "I was just joking dobe!"

"Meanie."

"Baka."

"Bastard."

"Dobe."

"Brat."

"Wonder where you picked that one up from?" He smirked.

"What…?" He scrunched his nose. "Teme!"

He was about to insult him once more, but a high pitched voice calling "Sasuke-kun!" interrupted his thoughts. Both boys turned to look at Sakura followed by the entire 'Rookie Nine', their senseis, Iruka and a couple other people from the village who liked Naruto.

Sasuke glanced at Naruto, then the kitchen, then back to Naruto and lastly to Sakura, who was still calling his name. He growling, thinking of how he must look in slack sweats and his bath robe and covered in flour and whatever else they threw at each other. He stormed out of the kitchen, annoyed that they had just walked into his house and were now actually standing inside of it. "What do you want, Sakura?"

"We wanted to…" Her words died on her lips when she saw a messy, floury and half dressed Sasuke exit the kitchen with an equally messy Naruto just behind him. She blinked a couple times and then spoke again, regaining her composure. "W-we decided to throw a party since you two are leaving tomorrow…ah…" She stopped again when the dark haired boy crossed his arms over his chest, flexing his muscles, and leaned against the door frame. Almost every girl was drooling over the sight of his pale chest and dark hair…well, dark hair flecked with flour.

"Well," he grinned, glancing at Naruto, "we did make plenty of food, right dobe?"

Naruto laughed, scratching the back of his head. "Y-yeah…that's true." Everyone else just stared, not really certain what they were talking about, though Kakashi was giving them that weird eye smile that was only used when he was thinking of something perverted.

"Come on, let's get cleaned up." He started towards the stairs and then stopped, glancing at the group behind them. "No one go into the kitchen, and trust me, I'll know."

Everyone looked at each other curiously as the two disappeared upstairs to change. They could already hear Naruto yelling obscenities at Sasuke and a loud 'thump' as Sasuke slammed Naruto to the ground. Most of the people downstairs just shook their heads and chuckled, those two would never change. Sakura clapped her hands and turned to everyone else, smiling slightly. "Well! Let's get this party started!" Five or six others nodded while the teachers decided they would be more help lounging around Sasuke's living room.

"Naruto, stop pounding on my door and take a shower or I will hurt you." Sasuke growled through the door. He was standing in his room while Naruto pounded on the door, demanding entrance.

"But Sasuke," he whined leaning against the door and Sasuke inwardly groaned, he was getting good at perfecting that whine of his. "I need to clean up!"

"Dobe, there's a bathroom two doors down on the left and your clothes are in your room. Why do you need to be in my room?"

Naruto frowned, "I…I don't know." He sighed and pushed off the door. "I guess I don't have to be." His voice came out with such apparent disappointment that it surprised Naruto more than Sasuke.

Sasuke shook off own guilt—a guilt he had no reason to experience, he reminded himself—and sighed, "Just hurry up dobe, we don't want to keep them waiting, especially in my house."

"Hai…" Naruto whispered and slowly walked away. He couldn't understand why he felt sad that Sasuke had locked him out and even worse, he was annoyed that others had ruined his fun with Sasuke. Naruto groaned and almost banged his head against the wall; he just put Sasuke and fun in the same sentence!

Stripping off his clothes, he stepped into the shower and quickly washed all the flour and whatever else he had in his hair out, shaking his blonde head vigorously and scrubbing the locks. He let the water flow over his body after that, just savoring in the hot water and steam. It had been his first shower since he fell into a coma two months ago. Even in the week he lived here with Sasuke, he had only doused his hair and washed his face. The first three days, Sasuke had given him a basin of water and a sponge to use since he was still in bed most of the time. Then when he felt safer, he began to wash his hair and face, not wanting to admit the real reason for not showering was because he still didn't want to be naked.

Yet now it was different. Stripping off his clothes still proved an indecisive act for him and he kept glancing around, expecting someone to suddenly jump him, but for the first time he was actually able to stand naked and not shake in terror. It was a secret he had kept from Sasuke, he didn't want the black haired shinobi to worry even more about him, but every time he changed clothes he would begin trembling and twice had broken down crying when he couldn't control his hands. If it got bad enough he couldn't hold anything at all, but on a regular basis he just took twice as long to get dressed.

After what seemed an eternity, Naruto stepped out and shook the water out of his hair before towel drying it. He quickly toweled off and wrapped it around his waist before cautiously opening the door. Naruto frowned, his room was too far away from the shower and he began to quake. What if someone sees me? What if Sasuke sees me? Will he hate me? He stared down at the scars on his wrists and arms, cringing at the memories, and bit his lip. He didn't want anyone to know what he had done, especially Sasuke, if he knew; he'd hate him and throw him out because he was weak.

"Naruto?" The clear voice echoed down the hall and Naruto jumped, turning to look at the one person he wanted to see the least at the moment.

"S-Sasuke…" He stuttered.

The prodigy narrowed his eyes, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" He laughed and darted into his room and then slammed the door before Sasuke could say a word. Inside, Naruto leaned heavily on the door, his head downcast and his eyes fixated on the old scars. He had been desperate then, desperate for anything other than his life and decided any other life would be an improvement over his. That was when the molesting had begun; he must've been ten or eleven when it happened for the first time and it was why he began disappearing on his birthday as that always seemed to be when they were worst.

The first molesting had been just after dark. He had gotten out of school late because Iruka insisted they speak about his life and how he was doing with living alone and being ignored and hated. Iruka was the only soul to ever see the childish mask slip from his face and see the true child behind it—hardened from the hatred and ignorance of the villagers. Naruto, when he actually showed his true emotions could be as ruthless and cold as Itachi, but usually he was just sad and angry and Iruka was the reason Naruto kept trying to improve his life before Sasuke.

After convincing Iruka that he had come to terms with living alone and being hated because of the Kyuubi—yes, Naruto knew about the fox for years though he kept that a secret—he headed home. He couldn't even react when someone grabbed him from behind and dragged him into an alley. He was thrown against the wall, banging his head against the bricks, and felt the calloused hands running up and down his body lightly before someone grabbed his crotch harshly. Naruto yelped in surprise and pain, now out of his daze, and began struggling, but one hand held him against the wall while the other began to massage his crotch. Naruto could do nothing, he didn't know how to use his chakra, let alone the fox's chakra and so he was helpless against the large man. The man kissed him harshly, forcing his tongue into Naruto's mouth and immediately, Naruto bit down. The man cursed in pain and hit Naruto upside the head before stalking off in the opposite direction.

Naruto bit his lip to keep conscious and slowly stumbled home, ignoring the stares and whispers. Once he reached his small apartment, he collapsed on his bed and cried. He didn't know exactly what had happened, but he knew he didn't like it and what the man had done hurt. He wanted the pain to go away and so he grabbed the closest object near him, his shirukin holster, and slit his left wrist. Almost immediately he had felt relief and euphoria as the blood ran down his arm to drip to the floor. He slit his other wrist carefully, slower than the first and watched in avid rapture as the blood flowed up and welled around his wrist before also falling to the floor in a slow constant stream.

Naruto couldn't remember exactly what happened next because he passed out, but he had awakened in the hospital with Iruka next to him, his eyes red from crying and his body heavy with exhaustion. Apparently, Iruka had come to drop off a book he had forgotten at the academy and when Naruto hadn't answered the door, Iruka immediately panicked and forced his way in. He had found Naruto half dead on the floor and covered in blood. He rushed the fox holder to the hospital and had saved his life, but that wasn't the last time he had been molested nor the last time he tried to kill himself.

Though the first time death had not been his intention, he found himself addicted to the feel of death coming for him and so began the cutting. He knew he couldn't cut as deep as he had the first time, but the small shallow cuts that gave him a sliver of that rush he felt the first time and that was enough to keep him going. But the molestings became more frequent and soon Naruto found himself backed into a corner or alley every day and the cutting became more common.

The second time he tried to actually kill himself, he had been pressed against the wall and some man was grinding against him harshly, panting and moaning in his ear with every thrust of his hips. Naruto never fought back, the second time it had happened he had, but just as the beatings, when he fought back it became worse so instead he stood still and let it happen. He retreated back into his mind and tried to block out the harsh grinding, the wandering hands, the tongue slipping into his throat and the humiliation that came with it. Yet this time, Naruto found himself forced to his knees and the man before him suddenly forced his engorged member into the blonde's mouth.

Naruto stiffened and tried to move away, but the man just grabbed his head and pushed him back down on his shaft, making him deepthroat the man. Naruto gagged, but the man didn't pay any mind as he pushed Naruto against the wall and started thrusting into his mouth. The man was whispering incoherently and soon climaxed much to the young boy's surprise. Then he was being shoved away and beaten by not only the man who molested him, but also by three bystanders.

Naruto limped home and cried again. He didn't want the life he was given and once more grabbed a shirukin and viciously slashed open his wrists. Seconds later, after he saw what he had done, he called Iruka with trembling hands and cried into the phone for help. He couldn't tell Iruka why because all feeling in his fingers disappeared and he dropped the phone while his body crumbled to the floor in a crying heap.

Not even seconds passed before another figure appeared in the room, one that was not Iruka. Naruto immediately began screaming, thinking it was another man coming to molest him or beat him, but the silver haired jounin just smiled and knelt down next to Naruto. Slowly he gathered the blonde into his arms, careful of his wrists and rushed him to the Hokage, knowing the hospital would do nothing for the boy.

That had been his first meeting with Kakashi-sensei and one of the main reasons he was placed on Kakashi's team. Since that day, he had been constantly watched by Kakashi, Iruka and a couple Anbu, but the molestings weren't always stopped and more than once, Naruto found himself having a hard shaft forced into his mouth and then beat until the molesters were satisfied.

The third time had been when they fought Haku. Naruto hadn't moved because he wanted to die, didn't care if he died or not because no one else did, but Sasuke had taken away that pleasure. He had taken away the death Naruto yearned for by jumping in front of him for no reason at all and so instead, Naruto made Haku pay, or had meant to before he saved Zabuza and died.

Naruto was so distraught over the two deaths, Sasuke's confusing behavior and his own yearning for death that he hadn't even thought twice about slitting his wrists again, but he had only slit one wrist before a hand reached out and stopped him. Sad blue eyes gazed into gray and Naruto immediately dropped the bloody shirukin as Kakashi wrapped his damaged wrist.

Kakashi didn't ask why he had done that or who he should see, much to Naruto's relief, but instead, Kakashi made the blonde promise to never attempt suicide again. He thought it wasn't a promise he could keep, but he did promise the jounin that he wouldn't unless his life became so unbearable that death was the only way to feel joyous. Kakashi had accepted the answer, almost understanding why Naruto wanted that, and then walked away, certain Naruto wouldn't try again.

And it was true, those were the only three times Naruto tried to kill himself…at least truly kill himself. He knew Kyuubi wouldn't let him die, but those three times Kyuubi couldn't help him. The first two times because they couldn't fuse their chakra and the third time because he had depleted his chakra reserve to almost nothing. Somehow he kept it a secret that he still continued slitting his wrists and just let Kyuubi heal them before he bled to death, but he had a feeling that Kakashi knew anyways. He wasn't breaking his promise, not entirely, he said he would never try to take his life unless the pain was unbearable, but he never said he would stop cutting.

Naruto sighed, rubbing the old scars and slowly dressed, ignoring the slight tremble in his hand from all the old memories. Even as he slipped on the long sleeved shirt he could see the rapists hovering over him, getting ready to take him again. It was a miracle that Naruto didn't try to kill himself right then, but the promise he made to Kakashi and the friends he had made for the first time in his life kept him from taking his life. He wanted to keep his friends and though he still hated the life he led, he found he didn't want to place the pain of losing a friend on them.

A knock came to the door and Naruto jumped. "Naruto?" Kakashi whispered through the door, "I'm coming in, okay?" He didn't have a chance to say no before his sensei appeared before him. Naruto stumbled back, trying to put as much distance between him and the jounin as possible. "Naruto?"

"J-just stay over there, please." He whispered, his heart rate quickening despite knowing Kakashi was a friend.

"I'm not here to hurt you, I just wanted to check on you. Sasuke said you were acting weird and ran to your room. He was worried."

He smiled, "I'm fine, just…reminiscing." He rubbed his wrists so Kakashi would understand and then walked passed him. "Thanks Kakashi-sensei." He said before walking out.

Dhampir
Page 8
2/3/2005

Note: Next chapter is a long flashback that includes a very torturous rape scene. Obviously the rape scene will be cut here, but if you want to see just how bad it is, you can find it at AO3 under Dhampire (someone already took Dhampir!)