(Author's Notes: Remember, if you're reading, please review! Warnings and disclaimers apply to all chapters.)

And the Beat Goes On
Chapter 33: Breaking

Temari looked at Ino, and she felt her confidence, her faith in the ideal that she must be honest with Ino slip away. From the look on Ino's face, she knew that this was going to be a blow, something that would either break them, or at least, force them to work very hard to stay bound tightly together.

Temari bit her tongue. She now didn't want to say what she had bound herself to saying. She had been so sure that the truth would be the way, the right way. She had felt the burden of lying, even though Ino never hinted, and Ino never knew, but Temari always knew, in the back of her mind, that there was a stain on this pure white fabric, and it was very black indeed. She needed to wash it out, and her words, her honesty would lift the stain, or wreck the fabric altogether.

But now, she could see Ino, and she could see that she did not want to tell Ino, and the other girl did not want to be told, no matter what it might be. But Temari had brought the topic up, and peaked her curiosity, and now, she had to say it. Ino would not accept, "Never mind," as the logical conclusion to the conversation Temari had willingly started.

It was now or never, and this would test the bond between them. Maybe this would bond them tighter together; maybe this would tear them apart, but for now, all she could do was try to wash out that stain and see what it would do.

"I've lied to you," the older girl said slowly, her words barely audible over the sound of traffic all around them. She whispered, because she did not want Ino to hear.

But Ino heard. "You. . .lied?" she asked softly, and then, more dangerously, as if she did not understand and she was suddenly unsure, suddenly on the defence. "About what?" she demanded, her voice aggressive and commanding.

Temari felt almost bullied, almost threatened, and it took her a moment to remember that she was in control of the situation. She was not sweet little Sakura, about to be goaded into submission by Ino's bullying.

"It wasn't Lee who told everyone about you two," she said, feeling a smirk, an arrogant smirk take to her features and stick to them.

Ino looked confused for a moment, before realization began to dawn across her features, and Temari saw the look of shocked realization in her eyes. The older girl felt almost smug. She had hurt Ino, and shocked her, rocked her to her core now, and it felt good. She felt like some sort of backstabbing, cheating vixen, the kind that the movies always portrayed with such reverence.

"I told. I told about you and Sakura. I told, so that she'd be gone and I could have you."

There. She'd said it now and there was no turning back. She watched confusion, hurt and anger play on Ino's features, each struggling to win her over, but she could choose no victor, until finally, anger stomped the other two and she screamed, "You bitch! What the hell!"

Temari said nothing, just triumphantly smirking, as if she'd had this entire thing planned for a long while. Ino gave her a half-hearted death glare, and then, looked out the window, away from the older blonde, at the passing cars.

There was a long, drawn out silence, broken only by the sound of the cars rushing past. Temari drummed her fingers on the steering wheel for a few moments, and quickly, lost interest and looked at Ino. "Are you going to run back to Sakura now?"

She could have gone on, but Ino's silence somehow warned her to be quiet, and to let the younger girl think. It took quite a while before Ino replied, and when she did, her voice was very soft.

"No," she murmured, as though her lips were numb. "No, I'm not."

Temari ploughed on. "You're going to stay with me, then?" she asked, and her voice held a tone of curiosity, but also, a note of danger, as if Ino gave her the wrong answer, then Ino might not get out of the car alive.

Blue eyes met blue eyes, the sky met the ocean and Ino stared at Temari point blank for a few seconds. "Yes," she said finally. "Yes, I am."

Temari smiled and nodded, then put the car into shift and drove off, merging back into traffic and continuing on toward her home. She felt a thousand times lighter, and terribly less guilty, and she knew now, that the stain had been bleached and was gone forever. Ino would stay with her, and not go back to Sakura. It was all settled.

Over the sound of the car, of the wind all around them, she heard Ino say, "I don't forgive you, though."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Somewhere, sometime while he was gone, Itachi's physical body had rolled off his bed and onto the floor. He'd come back to himself now, and he could feel the bruises on his back, on his arms and the backs of his legs. It was strange though, for he hadn't felt anything when he'd actually fallen off the bed. Maybe he'd take a bit too much.

Maybe he'd just had a bad trip altogether, because throughout the entire thing, he'd been falling, going from high to low, and somehow, he never seemed to hit the bottom. He was suspended in the air, in time and he never touched the ground, never felt bottom.

How had he told that he was truly falling then? Maybe he was going up, and not down, or maybe he was going left to right or right to left, but he would have never been able to tell because of the disorientation. And somewhere, while he was out there, he began to think, and he wondered if he was crazy, or maybe, maybe he'd simply lost his mind. But then, wasn't that the same thing, and no, he couldn't have lost his mind because he was thinking and he needed that to think, and he simply must have lost his body. But how did you lose your body, and what happened if you never came back to it, if that was what you lost, or anything else you lost? What happened to you? Did you stay, forever suspended in this realm of eternal falling where falling wasn't really falling because you weren't going anywhere, you simply felt like it? Did your body rot, and did you eventually fade away into this abyss? What was anything anymore and he knew nothing, he knew nothing and then -

Standing over Sasuke's bed, when he'd gotten sick, just after their parents died, and gods, he'd been scared then, because it was too soon, simply too soon for Sasuke to go. The boy was young, and stupid, yes, but it was too soon for him to die. It was stupid, because he hated his little brother, and he didn't care if he was all alone, because he'd always been alone anyways, but somehow. . .

The little squirt had his endearing qualities.

Somewhere along the endless string of memories and thoughts, he got scared, and he was scared, really scared, for the first time in his life and he came back to himself after what seemed like forever, and then, he was hurting and lying on his bedroom floor.

He got up, very slowly, because the bruises were bad, indicating that he'd hit the floor like a deadweight, and he tried to see if he had landed on anything that might have hurt him more than it should have. He'd just it the floor. That was all. Maybe the drug made him bruise more easily?

He crawled into bed, low, sick and miserable. He cuddled into the cold sheets, feeling stupid, like a small child. He slept, fitfully and uneasily, and in the morning, it showed. He sat and he fidgeted all through breakfast, and he ate little, his veins itching more for the drug than food.

He went to school, and he couldn't pay attention; he couldn't focus. The teacher droned on, and he tuned him out, and zoned back in, and drifted in mind and spirit beyond the plane of reality, lost in himself, in his own thoughts. The words on the page were a blur, and the teacher called him on fidgeting, which he could say nothing to, for when he looked down, he could see that his thumbs were idly twiddling and he had probably been moving more than that before in such a case.

School seemed to drag on and on, and the longer it went, the more he wanted, the more he craved his drug, his release. He hated this waiting. He hated waiting and wanting, because he didn't know how much longer he would last. He would look at the clock and say to himself, "Just a little bit longer, just a little bit longer; then you can go and get it."

He really wasn't sure what had driven him to such lengths. He wanted to say it was the fact that he'd been so emotionally tormented, in his younger years, that he couldn't possibly turn down the chance to forget about the trauma. He wanted to say that it was everything in his life right then and right there, but he couldn't and he wanted to say that it was just his personality, or maybe it was a combination of all three, but he couldn't decide on what it was, or why it was this way. All he knew was that it was.

School ended, at long last, to his relief, but his ordeal was not over yet, because he wanted to see Orochimaru, wanted to not feel the guilt he knew he would feel if he didn't go to see the other boy while he was down and out. He wanted to see Sasuke too, to make sure the boy hadn't given up in the torturous night, and he had to make sure that he was still breathing, still living.

He hauled himself up to Orochimaru's room first, not surprised to find nobody there. Orochimaru and himself were isolated, and they liked to be isolated, and alone. It benefited them, it made them happy and they could be apart, and together, or together and apart. It made no difference, when they were alone.

But no, it was just him, for Orochimaru's eyes were closed, indicating his silence, his death to the world and Itachi was alone, separated from the one voice that he let inside his own isolation. He felt like he needed to sit down, but he didn't, because then he would dwell on things, and he needed not to think about how he couldn't remember just the exact shade of Orochimaru's eyes.

He went to see Sasuke, instead, not surprised at all to find Sasuke in a similar state, with his eyes closed, but at least this corpse moved. Sasuke moved in his sleep, agitated by his fever-induced dreams and Itachi wondered what his little brother would dream about as he sat down, in the chair that somebody had left beside the bedside.

The hospital was oh-so white, and he hated how the doctors, the nurses, in their white pristine uniforms looked like saints, and judged him, and saw all that he did wrong, saw all the black painted upon him. He hated the lights pouring down on him, making him feel put upon, as if he was in the spotlight, in their eye and they always knew, and they always did.

He'd only been sitting there for a few minutes, but to him, it felt like much longer than that, and then, Naruto had joined him in the room, looking somewhat ashamed and lost. He did not notice Itachi, and Itachi did not know how he could not notice him, but somehow, Naruto managed it.

The blond boy had always been oblivious like that.

Itachi didn't like Naruto. He was too loud, too busy and too vibrant, the perfect antithesis to everything that Sasuke was, and he knew, he knew in the back of his head, that the two boys were too different to ever hold each other together, without frustrating and tormenting each other to no end.
He had never liked Naruto. He remembered, vaguely, the blond joining Sasuke's class when his brother was eight, when he himself had been thirteen. He remembered Sasuke's dislike of Naruto - the blond's bragging and boasting, and then, his utter failure at everything and anything, put Sasuke off.

Sasuke had been put off humanity at that point though, and somehow, Naruto took this to new levels and sparked indignation and disgust in Sasuke, feelings that had been absent in the little boy since their parents died. Sasuke had hated everybody the same way before, and treated everyone alike, as if they were indifferent, but that was untrue. He'd suddenly discovered that he hated Naruto more.

He had always kept a keen eye on his little brother, watching him struggle everything out, just as Itachi had, though with some more obvious problems. Sasuke had no guidance, and he had not the marks that Itachi did to make schoolwork a distant drag.

Sixth grade had started Sasuke's internal hell, and all the confusion had built up until the boy attempted suicide, unhappy with the way things seemed to be going wrong. They'd doped him up for a while after that, calling him 'depressed' and 'unstable', but Sasuke had been, truly, more unhappy on those drugs than even after their parents had died. It almost scared Itachi, that the boy could smile so - the drugs made him - but say such unhappy things.

It was a stupid thing. It really was. Sasuke had tried something he shouldn't have, and he had been experimenting with the girls, feeling the pressure to be one of the crowd, and never, ever wanting to be left out like Naruto. Of course, they'd always invite him, even after, and even if he turned them down coldly, even after, they still invited him. Naruto tried too hard to be part of the crowd, and Sasuke didn't even have to try to fit it. It must have seemed frustrating, from Naruto's point of view.

It took a long, long time for Sasuke to get off the drugs, and then, the doctors were all over him, trying to make sure he didn't try it again. After all, Sasuke was part of an important, but missing family. Sasuke had resolved the problem within himself, and any hope that the girls had ever had of being with him was slowly burned away, because Sasuke just did not want them.

But back to Naruto. The boy was pacing about now, his eyes darting and he looked at Sasuke with such fever that Itachi was almost felt that the blond would jump the unconscious boy while he slept.

Naruto finally happened to notice him and they stared at each other for a moment or two, before Naruto, forgoing all formality, said, "You look like hell."

"Thanks," Itachi muttered, giving Naruto a rather dark look.

That was another reason he had never liked Naruto. The kid was just too blunt for his own good, and he always spoke his mind, for good or for bad. "Has he woke up?" he asked, looking in Sasuke's direction, and then, forgetting that Itachi was there at all.
"No," Itachi said, knowing that Naruto wasn't really paying attention to him at all now.

The blond stood terribly still for a few moments, and from Itachi's perspective, it almost looked like he had stopped breathing altogether. Then, in an almost violent movement, Naruto turned to face him, saying softly, "Could you leave us alone?"

His face was so pained, and so vulnerable that Itachi didn't know what to say. He rose from the chair without a word, looking at Naruto all the while, warily, as if to make sure he was genuine. He didn't know if he was, or whether or not this was an act.

But what did he care. He was free now; he'd been dismissed, and he could go home. He could go home and. . .and go from low to high, and last night didn't matter now because it was a new day and he needed it. His mind called softly for it now, told him he needed it and that voice grew in volume with every passing second. So, he went home, and he went from low to high, and then back again in a matter of hours. But it didn't matter then; he was free.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Naruto sat there, in the hospital room, just looking at Sasuke and wondering if he'd made the right choice. It was hard to say, and he couldn't be sure until Sasuke woke up that he'd made the right choice by not going with Gaara.

Oh, of course, Sasuke was pretty enough to look at, even in his comatose state and Naruto was quite content to leave him like that, but then, it was more a case of having a piece of artwork or a trophy if Sasuke stayed comatose, and Naruto wanted a partner, a person he could talk to and touch, and be made real to through the physical world.

He reached out and touched the side of Sasuke's face, and the boy emitted a soft sigh, and he let his fingers rest there, stroking and petting, soft skin under them, and to him, Sasuke had never been more real, more there, than in that moment. He could reach out and touch him - he was not a memory, or a stranger, but Sasuke, and he was truly. . .there. Real.

He had wanted to go with Gaara, He really had. Part of him wanted to get out of Konoha, and go with Gaara, learn more about the outside world, and more about Gaara, more about his family, more about his half-brother; more about himself.

He wondered why Gaara had extended that offer to him, if he hated him so. It made very little sense to him, because if you truly hated someone, you did not invite them somewhere with you. Then again, that was what Naruto had been taught, and he did not know Gaara all that well. Gaara had raped Sasuke, and that, clearly, showed some difference in their thinking.

Still, he had wanted to go with Gaara and now, he found himself thinking things that seemed, not only to himself, disturbing. He wanted to scream at himself for even thinking about it. He thought about how intense Gaara had been, how strikingly cool, and then, how angry he'd been last night, and he wanted to. . .

He wanted Gaara in ways that he shouldn't have, but it was not because it was Gaara. He did not like Gaara's fiery red hair - it reminded him of blood. He did not like Gaara's green eyes - they reminded him of envy, of jealousy. He liked Gaara because of how he resembled Sasuke, in attitude, in demeanor. Cold and confident and utterly an electrifying mystery, waiting to be unravelled and explored. He could have been missing Sasuke, and the way they'd been before all of this had happened.

But! He did not like boys, not as a genre, not exclusively. He was not gay, like Gaara had said his father had been, and it wasn't every boy, it wasn't every cute boy that he wanted, like some girls were, and it was just one, that made him feel. . .

Just this one, and he looked down at Sasuke's sleeping face, the pale skin, made paler by all the white that surrounded him. The only antithesis, the only answer to all the white was the dark raven of Sasuke's locks, and somehow, the lights managed to wash that out too.

Just this one. This was the only boy he liked; the only boy he could ever stand. Iruka was not a boy; he was a man, and so was Kakashi. Konohamaru was a child, and Sasuke. . .

Sasuke was something else entirely. He was something so fantastic that everybody wanted one, but there was only one, so the person who got him was both lucky and cursed. Cursed to live with all that jealousy, just mere inches away from crushing you under the intensity of it, and then, lucky for having such a rare and wonderful thing.

Naruto didn't think that Sasuke quite comprehended how wonderful he was, how lucky Naruto was to have him. Oh yes, Sasuke was terribly bright, smarter than most of the people Naruto knew, but there was no way he was brilliant in matters of the heart.

Sasuke was a bit. ..retarded, in that respect. He knew nothing of what it was to be in love, to want love and why he needed it. He shut it off, tried to be completely independent and hurt himself in the process. He tried to kill anything that lived inside him, tried to be an empty shell.

Naruto's being an empty shell for so much of his life had not been of his own making, but others'. They had called him enough names, said enough about him and hurt him enough that everything inside broke down and rotted under their dreadful words and then, he was gone and lost to humanity. He was like a puppet when that had happened.

But Sasuke. . .Sasuke! He made his heart beat again and the world seemed a brighter and sunnier place, although Sasuke was not a creature of the daylight. Sasuke was bitter and sour, like a lemon, but to Naruto, he was sweeter than sugar, and smoother than honey, better than chocolate and ice cream and fresh strawberries with whipped cream.

He was even better than ramen, and that was saying something, especially when it came from Naruto. Sasuke was something purely indescribable, something that was both tasteless and tasteful at the same time. He tasted like glacier water, something raw and untouched by the world, something truly pure, and at the same time, he tasted like something more, maybe a hint of lime, or lemon, or orange. Something citrus, something with tang, something with zip and it was just that subtle hint that made Naruto crave to taste him more.

He leaned in and he could feel Sasuke's shallow breath, brushing softly against his cheek, like the spring breeze that had sprung up outside, just a few hours before. He closed his eyes and brushed his lips gently across Sasuke's, loving the smooth softness of them, the silken slide of them against his own.

When he pulled back, he opened his eyes, very, very slowly, as if he was trying to remember a dream, and found himself staring into deep black pools, that were somewhat reminiscent of an abyss, or the sky on a starry night.

"Sasuke," he breathed, and the older boy looked at him, as if he was confused.

"Naruto?" he murmured, and before Naruto could pull fully away, Sasuke had placed his frail, weak hands on either side of his face.

Black eyes studied him intensely. "Oh," he murmured. "It is you."

They smiled gently, if a little bit shyly, and Naruto leaned forward to brush their noses together, closing his eyes happily. His Sasuke was awake. That was good. Now, he could tell if he'd made the right choice; now he could forget all about Gaara.

"How long have I been out?" Sasuke asked, moving slowly, then sitting up gingerly, wincing a bit as if he was sore.

Naruto shrugged. "Not too long," he said, reached out to placed his hand on Sasuke's cheek.

"How long?" the dark-haired boy growled, wanting an answer that obviously gave him something more accurate than "long" or not "long."

"Two days," Naruto murmured with a shrug. It wasn't long by his measure, but knowing Sasuke, who was such a workaholic, it was probably forever.

"Two days?" Sasuke mumbled softly. "I suppose. . .that's not long at all," he relented with a sigh, and looked at Naruto.

The blond smiled at him, then suddenly, flung his arms about the older boy's neck, and hugged him as tight as he could. "I was so worried about you!" he near-shouted. "Don't you ever get sick again, you asshole!"

"Asshole?" Sasuke muttered darkly, eyeing Naruto angrily. "Like it was my fault. And please stop shouting, dunce."
"Hmph!" Naruto huffed and sat back, frowning and crossing his arms. "Dunce?"

Sasuke smirked, just a bit, feeling still too weak to have a full-blown argument with Naruto, but well enough to antagonize the blond. It was so easy to do. All he had to do was act superior, and he did that very well. He'd made the rest of society feel inferior to him for the past seven years.

Naruto grinned, seeing that smirk, and closed his eyes in that strange, slanted way he had, and gave Sasuke a playful punch in the arm. "You -" he started but stopped, when Sasuke winced and clutched at his arm.

"Ow," the older boy said, gritting his teeth to stop himself from whimpering, like a baby. "That hurt, you jerk."

"Sorry," Naruto mumbled, having completely forgotten that Sasuke wasn't well. "You're feeling better?" he asked, almost innocently.

"I was," Sasuke grumbled. "Until you punched me."

"Sorry," Naruto said again, then slowly, took the arm in question out of Sasuke's grip and examined it. It was already starting to bruise, becoming a dark blue colour. He scratched the back of his head slowly. "Erm, sorry. I guess I hit you harder than I thought."

Sasuke retracted his arm, rubbing the bruised area slowly, self-consciously. He frowned and looked at the spreading abrasion. "Don't worry about it," he said, not really paying much attention to Naruto now.

They were silent for a few minutes, and then, Sasuke spied the shabby old teddy bear Naruto had left on the bedside stand. He made a bit of a face. "What's that?" he asked.

"What?" Naruto asked, as clueless as ever, and looked at the table, then coloured up instantly. "Oh, um, that. . ."

Sasuke glanced between the worn old toy and Naruto, waiting patiently for his explanation. When it came to Naruto, he could wait for a long time.

The blond, still blushing, shrugged a little bit. "I . . .erm. . .brought I. I had it when. . .I was little and. . .I thought maybe. . .you might need some . .er. . .support."

"I'd rather have you for support," Sasuke grunted, unamused by Naruto's sentimentality. He was deeply touched, but he was damned if he'd show it, and even more damned if he'd gush or squeal like a girl.

"I meant. . .when I wasn't here. When I couldn't be here."
Naruto was a terrible shade of pink and Sasuke felt almost cruel for making him blush so much. He sighed, and inwardly, he smiled. He was touched that Naruto would give him something so dear to him. "Thank you anyway," he murmured, trying to sound and look as grudging as he could.

"You're welcome," Naruto said softly, then tossed the torn teddy to Sasuke, who rolled his eyes, caught it and cuddled it, all the while, glaring at Naruto while the blond 'awwww'ed.

"You're so cute," Naruto said, the smile on his face so clear in his voice and he planted a kiss in the middle of Sasuke's forehead.

The dark-haired boy didn't even blink, but just kept glaring like there was no tomorrow. Naruto grinned cheekily. "Can I have that back if you're quite done with it?" he asked.

"Yeah, whatever," Sasuke muttered and tossed the bear at Naruto, purposely missing and hitting the blond in the head with it.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The last couple of weeks, in Shikamaru's opinion had been quite boring. Even the sky was nothing special to see, as the clouds flocked all together and blotted out the sky with their bland grey. He couldn't find any special shapes in them when they were just one massive blob like that.

School was tiring, his social life, which was practically non-existent, was tiring and basically, he felt as if he'd have been better off not getting out of bed that morning. Of course, he was still on talking terms with Ino - they could never be mad at each other, because Ino needed someone to gossip to, and Shikamaru found it too troublesome to be mad - so he was practically caught up in everybody's life but his own.

He was walking beside Akimichi Choji, toward their next class. They were silent, as good friends knew how to be, except for reasons other than they were good friends. It wasn't that they weren't good friends, but simply because Choji was stuffing his face and Shikamaru found it too troublesome to bother talking.

Choji whined suddenly, and looked at the empty bag of chips, turning it upside down and his face crinkling up in worry. "Aw," he whimpered. "They're all gone."

Shikamaru glanced at him lazily. "Don't you find worrying about that troublesome?" he asked, quite exasperated. He was tired of being bored, though most things bored him. What he wouldn't give for a decent game. . .

He almost wanted something to happen, something exciting, but then again, that would be entirely too troublesome. No, it was better off for him, for everyone around him if things just stayed simple, stayed dull and boring. Stayed routine. Even routine was troublesome, so something out of routine would be incredibly troublesome.

He and Choji walked into class, just as the bell rang. They sat down, they opened their books and the teacher began to teach, a dull, boring math lesson. The sky outside stayed dull, stayed boring and threatened rain.

The math was entirely too easy for Shikamaru, but he was just too lazy to bother with it and so as it typically befitted him, he went to sleep and ignored the teacher, ignored the math. Everything was so troublesome.

Outside, it started to rain. Shikamaru slept through it.

It was better if the sky just stayed grey.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bang, bang, bang!

All in a row like that, like shots, came the noise, and Itachi wondered what was making such a racket, as his temples pulsed and his headache raged behind his eyes. It was then that the door swung open and in stormed Orochimaru.

The door slammed shut behind him.

They looked at each other, Itachi confused and Orochimaru fuming. "I called you!" he cried, at long last, fury evident in his voice.

Itachi just looked confused. "What?" he murmured, unable to summon his voice, his emotion.

Orochimaru huffed. "I called you, half an hour ago. I told you to come and get me. They let me out of the hospital."

"Oh," Itachi mumbled, then found a string on the sleeve of his shirt and proceeded to be fascinated by it. "I don't remember that."

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed, almost dangerously, and he looked at Itachi, angrily, worriedly. There was something completely off here, and this was not Itachi-like behaviour at all. "Are you mad at me?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

He sat down on the bed beside the younger boy, watching him curiously. "Mad about what?" Itachi asked, finally losing interest in the string and turning over to look at Orochimaru. He intertwined his fingers in Orochimaru's hair almost immediately.

"What is wrong with you?" the older boy growled, leaning over Itachi, looking at the glazed, confused look in the other boy's eyes.
He stared for a moment or two longer, and then slowly, remembered, vaguely, a time when Itachi had looked like that before. He was lucky he could remember anything at all, he supposed. "You're high," he said at last, finding the only true statement he could make about Itachi's condition.

"Yeah. . ," the Uchiha boy drawled, enthralled with trying to braid Orochimaru's hair from the end up. Unfortunately, that wasn't working so well, and he was getting frustrated.

Orochimaru sighed and wondered what had been going on exactly while he was in the hospital. Trust Itachi to find a new way to get in trouble. "Okay, time to sleep," he murmured, and Itachi gave him a rather cynical look, for being so baked.

He ignored it and dragged the covers over Itachi, noting the chaotic state of disarray in Itachi's normally pristine room. With Itachi somewhat safe in bed, he set about the room and trying to find whatever the Uchiha boy had hidden in the mess.

- - - - - - - - -

Iruka felt bad about leaving Konohamaru at home by himself, but Naruto would be home very shortly, with Uchiha Sasuke in tow. Sasuke had practically leaped at the chance to go to Naruto's house, rather than his own, as he'd heard Orochimaru and Itachi had a major fight and he predicted that they'd still be making up. He'd gone, even though Kurenai and the old lady had bickered with him to no end, insisting that he come home, but to no avail. Sasuke was not to be swayed.

Iruka felt kind of guilty, saddling Naruto with both Konohamaru, who was hyperactive, and with Sasuke, who was sick, and evidently needed some TLC. But this could not wait.

He was at Kakashi's, trapped in the tiny apartment, but it was cozy and it was comfortable. He wasn't quite sure when this had become official, but both he and Kakashi had felt some sort of reason to celebrate their being together, no matter how informal and unofficial between them it was.

They'd shared a bottle of wine between them, and they'd settled in to watch a movie, but neither one of them was really paying all that much attention to it. Kakashi was making idle chatter with him, and he was responding, albeit slowly, but that was because he was thinking very hard.

"Kakashi," he said at long last, forgetting all about the silver-haired man's earlier question. It had been something stupid about the weather, no doubt, so he could ignore it.

"Hm?" Kakashi said, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

"I'm just. . .wondering. . .how you feel about me?"
Kakashi looked confused. "Isn't it rather obvious, 'ruka?"

Iruka blushed a little bit at the pet name, and winced a bit. "W-well," he stuttered. "I wish it was. But what I see isn't always what it is, so if you could just. . ."

Kakashi silenced him, kissing him softly, but firmly. "Not another word," he whispered. "I love you very much, and don't you ever doubt it."

There was an awful, awkward silence that followed that statement, and Iruka mulled it over for some time, trying to read Kakashi's face, his eyes, but nothing would come. Kakashi was a closed book to him. He sighed; he'd just have to trust what Kakashi told him for now.

He settled back against the couch, settling in to watch the remainder of the movie. It turned out to be a very bad movie, though Kakashi seemed to think it was hilarious in its atrociousness, and he ranted and raved about it for hours after it was over.

All in all, for a celebration, it was a very dull night, and Iruka almost wanted to be somewhere else, though he really couldn't think of another place he'd rather be than right where he was - in Kakashi's arms.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

TenTen sighed and glanced sideways at Neji, wondering if he was still awake. It was well after midnight, and she was terribly sure she and he both should be asleep, but she was almost positive that neither of them were.

In TenTen's case, it was because she was terribly uncomfortable. She wasn't sure why she had suddenly become so intensely uncomfortable in her own skin, or when it had happened, but she was tired of her body. She didn't want to be in it anymore.

Glancing sheepishly at Neji again, she confirmed that he was not asleep. He merely had his eyes closed. "Neji?" she asked timidly, hoping she really was right in her assumption.

"What?" he replied, as monotone as ever, yet annoyed all the same. She must have disturbed him.

She turned away, wondering what he'd been thinking about when she'd spoken. Neji liked things to be silent, and she hated to interrupt his thinking, because he always became slightly, and then, increasingly irate when that happened.

"Did you have something to say?" he asked, his voice holding a pin drop more anger in the pool.

"Erm," she started, a little bit of a blush creeping to her features in embarrassment. She'd nearly forgotten that she'd said anything to him at all.
Neji's patient silence held a silent question: "well?"

"I was wondering if you could rub my feet?" she blurted, completely forgoing the other line of questioning she'd been going to bring up, concerning Hinata and Kiba.

Neji gave a sigh, obviously annoyed, and she sat up, looking at him and murmured, "Please?"

"Fine," he grumbled, obviously not liking the task she'd offered him.

It was his own fault, and the least he could do, she supposed, since he was the one that had gotten them into this mess. And then, no, it wasn't just Neji, but it was both of them, and they were in this together.

They had done this together, they had fumbled together, and now, they had to serve the punishment to the crime they'd both committed, both of them, together. And settling back into the sheets, smiling, TenTen was quite sure that was how it should be.

That was how it was, and that was how it should be.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -