Title: Infinity
Chapter Title: Let You Know
Summary: AU, Naruto transfers to a new high school and makes new friends, enemies, and runs into an old lover
Who you are, what you do
Makes me burn to be in you
Who you are, what you do
I'm burning to be in you
Let You Know - Hoobastank
Naruto walked down the sidewalk, humming a little tune under his breath. The sun was setting fast and it kept growing darker. Slowly, he knocked on Gaara's door. Temari opened it, and smiled, waving him inside.
"Gaara, you got a visitor," she called up the steps. He came down and saw Naruto, eyes brightening just a tad when he saw the other boy.
"What're you doing here?" he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets, pretending to be angry. Naruto just smiled.
"Come on, goth-boy," he said, "We're going on a field trip."
"Naruto, you don't have a car," Gaara replied.
"Yes, that's why you are going to drive and I am going to give directions." When Gaara still didn't move, Naruto grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of the house to Temari's snickers. When they were in the car, Gaara turned to Naruto.
"Okay, so where are we going?" he asked, exasperatedly.
"You'll see," Naruto said cryptically.
"Naruto, I can't very well drive somewhere that I have no clue where it is," Gaara insisted. Naruto pulled out a piece of paper.
"I'll read you the directions and you can drive," Naruto said with a grin.
"Okay," Gaara conceded reluctantly, turning the car on and zooming out of the driveway. "How do you know about this mysterious place anyway?" he asked. Naruto grinned as he was flipping through radio stations.
"A couple years back I went to a school a little ways away from here. I found it one day when I got lost trying to find my way back to school." Naruto smiled with satisfaction as he found a station to his liking.
Fifteen minutes later they were driving down an old forgotten road. Gaara had the sneaking suspicion that Naruto had no clue where they were going, but didn't mention it. By this time, the sun had completely gone down and it was difficult to see anything past his car's headlights.
"Just a little farther," Naruto said. They were in what appeared to be a long forgotten parking lot. "Here we are." Naruto stepped out of the car. "Wait here, I'll be right back." He grabbed the backpack he'd brought with him from the back seat and walked out into the shadows, flipping on a flashlight he'd brought with him.
Suddenly, a light appeared from behind him, flashing onto a screen in front of the car. They were in an abandoned drive-through theater. Naruto came back, grinning as the old horror movie started.
"What do you think? Did I do good or did I do good?" Naruto asked, spinning around as the opening scenes of violence began.
"Wow, solitude, old horror movies, you've pretty much covered everything. But you forgot the snacks, my little kitsune," Gaara teased as Naruto hopped back into the car. Naruto waggled his finger and opened up his backpack, pulling out a bag of chips and a bottle of soda.
"Never underestimate a fox," he warned, handing over the treats. They both laughed and settled down to watch the movie.
Halfway through they got bored and began to talk about anything and everything. They played rounds of rock paper scissors to see who would have to answer a question of the winner's choosing. Naruto won with a triumphant shout.
"Um…what do you want to do when you're older?" he asked with a grin. Gaara paused and thought.
"I don't know. As a kid, it was always thought I was going to be some sort of psychopathic serial killer. Guess I never thought much past that." They played another round, this time Gaara won.
"Okay, kitsune," he said with a grin at his new-found nickname, "What do you want to do when you get older?" Naruto too paused, thinking.
"I don't know either. I mean, I always lived life as it comes, never really thought much about my future. My dad was this big-shot businessman but that's not for me."
"Was?" Gaara asked.
"Yeah, he died a while ago, when I was really young," Naruto said in blatant reality. "He left all his money, everything, to me, which pissed my mom off so much, that now she can hardly stand to look at me. She just sends me off to random schools about the country so she doesn't have to look at me."
"Harsh," Gaara said.
"Yeah," Naruto agreed. They played again and Naruto won again. Grinning, he asked, "Why did you go out with Sasuke?" Gaara sighed.
"Somehow I knew this was going to come up. Sasuke and I were at the top of our class throughout elementary and middle school, and though we fought a lot, we also had a lot in common. I was the only one he let know that he was gay and a masochist," Gaara sighed. "It was kind of a 'friends-with-benefits' situation, not that I minded or anything.
"One day I was just looking at him as he was talking to me, and I just wanted to hurt him, to break him, knowing he would let me do it." Gaara stopped, pausing to regain control of himself. "I broke up with him after that. I wouldn't, couldn't, risk hurting someone close to me. He seemed to take this the wrong way though, and never did forgive me."
Naruto's hands clasped Gaara's, gently rubbing the backs of them with the pads of his thumbs. "Don't worry," he whispered.
"I want you to know, Naruto," Gaara told him seriously, hand coming up to trace the whisker tattoos. "That I want to be with you. But I can't risk it. Not again. I won't be like Itachi. I don't ever want to do that to you or to anyone else." Gaara leaned forward to rest his forehead against Naruto's.
"I know," Naruto whispered. "And that's what makes you different from him. He gave into the desire, reveled in it, and had no respect for other's lives, so long as he was happy. You, however, you fight it, and treat other's lives as if their more important than your own."
"That's because they are. Their souls can be saved."
"Not mine," Naruto said, "I'm just as damned as you are."
And there was no arguing with that.
By the time they got home, it was ten o'clock. Gaara dropped Naruto off at his apartment before heading off to his own house. He parked the car and hopped out over the door without opening it, glad once again that he chose the convertible.
He opened the door, swinging it open and about to head upstairs when a voice stopped him from the kitchen.
"Hey, Gaara," Kankuro called. Gaara turned to glare at his elder brother.
"What do you want?" he asked, and he saw the flinch and the fear in his brother's eyes. There was no mistaking that Kankuro feared Gaara. In that respect, the boy was smarter than most people. Not everyone would know just by looking into Gaara's eyes that he had no qualms about killing, or anything else for that matter.
"What are you thinking, Gaara?" he asked, and though his voice shook, you could tell he was determined.
"What do you mean?" Gaara asked in return, leaning languidly against the banister, half-lidded eyes looking dangerously at his brother.
"Naruto. You know you're just going to wind up hurting him. Even if he wants it, it's still not fair to him," Kankura persisted, but was cut short by the look in Gaara's eyes. Gaara seemed to have dropped all his guards, all his facades, and he seemed completely broken-hearted.
"I know," he whispered. "I know." With that, he headed up to his room, the attic. It was the largest room, which he had only gotten because Kankuro and Temari were too scared of him to sleep on the same floor as him. The walls were painted black and on them hung paintings he himself had done, of death, destruction and turmoil. All in all, it was not a room conducive to good sleep. Good thing he was an insomniac.
He sat on his bed, picking up his sketchpad and beginning to draw a picture. Most of the time, he wouldn't know what he was drawing until he lifted his eyes to look at the paper. Most of the time, he drew how his emotions were at the time. But now, he sketched the profile of Naruto's face, its laughing charisma.
He flipped to an earlier page in the sketchbook, looking at the profile he'd drawn of Sasuke. Looking back and forth between the two pages, he ripped them both out and threw them in the trash bin in his room.
Sighing, he slipped on his headphones, sighing as the heavy metal music engulfed him. It was just like before, he thought to himself. The person just had a different face. He looked up as a knock startled him. Temari stood there, smiling sadly.
"Hey, Gaara," she greeted in her best older sister voice. She wasn't the best older sister, but she managed, even if by ignoring him most of the time.
"Hey," he replied in confusion, slipping off his headphones. Temari usually made it a point to avoid Gaara at all costs.
"Listen, Gaara, Naruto likes you. I mean, I know others have tried to be with you and," she gulped, "failed. But Naruto," she smiled and ruffled his hair, ignoring his growl of protest. "He's strong."
"How would you know?" he asked her. "You spent all of, what, two minutes with him? I hardly think that's enough to judge someone's character."
"You could tell it in his eyes, Gaara," she confessed. "He had the strength to confront me, and completely bypass Kankuro. You know how much we scare normal people," she said with a smile.
"Sasuke was never afraid," Gaara sighed, leaning back and closing his eyes. He just didn't understand. He wanted to be with Naruto, but didn't want to hurt him. And now Kankuro and Temari were trying to get involved. It was far too confusing.
"No, but you were able to hurt Sasuke, no conscience problems until that one moment of sanity," she reminded him. "That's what makes Naruto different from the others. He's strong, and willing to do whatever it takes for the people he loves. And you can't hurt him, ne, little brother?"
Gaara just stared at her in awe. She chuckled and left his room, flicking off the light on her way out and leaving him sitting in the dark, alone.
She was right, he thought to himself. Sure, he wanted to hurt Naruto, but less than the others, so much less. Naruto was too pure, too unblemished despite all he'd been through to hurt. Still, he couldn't risk it. He knew temptation from his own experience, and knew just how much it could make you do.
He rolled over in bed and slipped back on the headphones. The heavy metal ebbed around him as he pondered his situation.
In his mind, he pictured all the others. He'd had around seven boyfriends in the past, and all of them had ended up getting hurt almost fatally and Gaara in turn had had to send them away, except for Sasuke. He'd stopped himself before he'd hurt Sasuke fatally, but there was that risk there still. That one moment of control meant nothing in the grand battle that was his consciousness.
But you enjoyed it, a mutinous voice he'd carefully avoided telling his psychologists about whispered. You wanted to kill them, to feel their blood in your hands. Just like you'll do with Naruto. You're kitsune. It mocked him, laughing demonically.
No, he shouted back at it, feeling drained and yet unable to sleep. I won't! He ripped the headphones off his ears, as if they were the source of that voice. The voice still raged in his mind, and he cupped his hands over his ears as if to block it out.
Naruto sat in his apartment, humming to himself. Ramen was on the stove, his date with Gaara had gone better than expected. Gaara had revealed some things about himself, that Naruto never could have hoped for.
A song on his lips, he began to eat his ramen when a knock sounded at the door. Smiling to himself, he got up to answer it. Happy though he was, he was a little confused as to who would be visiting him at this time of night. He opened the door and nearly fell backward as he looked up into the face of his nightmares. And of his dreams.
"Hello, Naruto," Itachi greeted.
End Chapter 4
"As long as I have you there is just one other thing I'll always need - tremendous self control."