Story Summary: A car crash can change everything. Worlds shift. Naruto is caught between decisions; to move on, or to salvage what he can from the past.

This time: as the Christian holidays die off, the coming of the New Year brings Naruto to Sasuke once again, this time with unexpected consequences.

warnings: long. angst. lots of allusions. dream sequence (one), and intruding memories. Child abuse. Cursing. Hints of Gaara + Naruto, and Naruto-abuse...poor dear...did I mention it's long?
disclaimer: if I owned rights to Naruto...haha, not as many people would be fans!


My Sasuke
killing sunlight...by Taes


New Year's Eve.

The morning was spent with my lost and breaking Sasuke, who would never know the difference between the old year and the new. It seemed almost wasted, that morning, but not because of what happened. More of what was.

See, I came over at, I dunno, eight in the morning to "volunteer" on a project...remodeling the library and washing a hell-of-a-lot-of clothes. This was all well and good, as far as my boss was concerned, seeing they didn't need any night-time cashiers at the thrift shop on account of closing early. I had my own reasons for going, naturally, not being of the charitable sort, per se, just of the dedicated kind.

Of course, I just wanted to see Sasuke.

But you know doctors...therapists, shrinks, masters of their profession by a ten-year-long ordeal called school. Yeah, them? They don't like any kind of well-received, well-controlled contact with the outside world for their patients...see, doctors think if they let the real world into their neat and tidy little institutions, the madness might follow the poor visitors home, or worse yet, an unexpected visit might "disturb" a "recovering" patient.

Well, fuck that, damn it...

...'cause there are sweet tempered nurses, who've lived their ten years or more in the real world, living and breathing hospital or volunteer work like only saints can. They're of another breed entirely, fortunately for me...

...see, they're sympathetic, and they're nice as anything and sweet as birds...

Yeah, I like nurses a lot better than I like the damn doctors.

So, yeah. I came in the scheduled time, giving the lady at the desk a full-fledged wink upon my arrival.

The secretary, I finally did get to know her, despite my early misgivings. And the nurses really do like guys who're regular and nice, even when they're strange ones like me, with a few whacked up problems gone unspoken for courtesy's sake.

So anyways, the secretary says, quick as you please, "Oh, Mis-tah Naruto," with well-emphasized, mostly exaggerated dignity, "I was expecting you, sir," and the laughter sparkles in her voice.

It makes me wonder, how dull answering phones and making appointments and crap can get...but I'm on the verge of laughter alongside her as I reply, "Yes, m'dear, the books await me." A huge smile, all teeth and brightly white of pearl...

We share small smiles next, as I pin a visitor's pass on my dress-up shirt. I pull down my wide-brimmed hat and tighten my long coat...ya know, I wanted to make Sasuke smile, okay? So I've gotten together this "gentleman" costume to box up books and tell old stories.

In the record-books and all, I've been put down as a volunteer, nat'tra'lly, but anyone who knows me won't be surprised to see me strolling down the patients' halls, a small bouquet in hand and a pretty red box bulging from a pocket. Despite it being long 'fore visiting hours, despite stupid rules against non-family members, I'm considered closer to Sasuke 'n his blood...and a hell-uv-a lot more welcome.

As I stroll along the patient corridors, my mind takes a detour down memory's winding alleyways. In my mind's eye, I see the brightly decorated strings of flower and straw, quiet little papers with bold, brilliant script in a foreign, beautiful tongue I've never really known.

It's calligraphy, Sasuke told me with a frown, to welcome the new year or something, his childish voice tries for boredom, but I hear the excitement and resentment hiding in his cute eyes.

Itachi wrote it, he continues solemnly, Mama said we'd put mine up, too, as soon as I got good enough... a sulky, not angry expression flickered behind his eyes, but something deeper lurked beneath a child's pride as he exclaimed, look! as if to discard any doubt I had about his genius, mine is on the kitchen window...where mama can see it every day, he imparted with some measure of happiness.

I had to wonder...Sasuke, will anyone else be able to see?

My footsteps clicked on the stone tiles, clearly announcing my presence in the hospital wing. I called out anyways, not wanting to startle my soft kitten of an ex, "A very happy New Year's Eve to you, Sas—" I began—

—and stopped.

On the door, into the threshold, a mother's touch, a woman's grace was gently woven into a delicately fashioned ornament of woven paper or cloth—I couldn't tell which it was—at the center of the door, the same brilliant bold script of my memory...alongside a curious array of red and white...

Japan's colors, some would say, but that's not it...

The mark of an esteemed and noble clan, the Uchiha, descendents of ninja or samurai I couldn't recall.

A quiet voice greets me, "ahhh, Naruto," and mournful eyes meet mine, "I wondered if we'd see you..."

The broken softness, the shallow smile and the depthless black eyes...

I almost expected to see Itachi again, throat bared and chest bloody...he, the silent, stoic one, bearing a grim, silent and forgiving frown, empty eyes and hardening skin against the foul, rotten stench in heavy summer's air...

fallen on a brother's blade like

too bloody, too

raw

a sliver of meat

under a butcher's knife and

oh-so

white

hands.

I shook my head, wavered a little, and mumbled, "uhhh...happy almost new year..." I began, and rocked on my feet, disturbed by a memory I'd almost convinced myself I didn't have, "I brought these," I say clumsily, sounding foolish even to my own ears, "for Sasuke...but..."

hesitate and they kill you

"maybe you could help me arrange them?"

Fugaku, the name of Sasuke's father flies into my head unexpectedly, a memory drudged up from before Itachi's murder or afterwards, I couldn't tell. The man offers a nod of thanks, dressed—as always—a figure of the past and great importance. The man demands a sort of uncalled-for sort of reverence that few priests would receive... "Naruto," he says softly.

I can hear it in his voice; he's not yet forgiven me...for finding his eldest dead.

I nod back, and pull out the red box, turning to my love of lost-time, "Sasuke," I smile softly, and tip my hat to the drifting, falling boy.

In an instant, I can see what's wrong with him, even if his parents can't. Any one of the nurses could tell me he's "dissociating," but...that's an injustice. He's free in his head, just a

fly away me

lost in no time but that which dreams offer, hiding even his smile from the clouds.

But he'll come back...for me. If I ask him to, he'll come, swift and silent and beautiful, a mewl on soft lips.

"Come on, sweetie...you've got visitors..." I proffer the red box with tinsel, and hope.

His eyes flash, to me, and he slowly turns his head...a quiet, child-like smile in his eyes while lips curve downwards in a tiny whimper.

Mixed reactions make me bite my lip. "Here," I mumble, and move the box to his hands, "open it up, see what's inside."

Apparently this is more than some people can stand.

Fugaku scoffs. "Stop treating him like a child," he commands. "That's the reason he's gone onwith this damn façade so long!" He snarls deeply, "you reward him for it!"

I turn, scowl at the older man, and look briefly to Sasuke's mother, Mikoto—I can't even remember hearing her name mentioned, except when it breezed on Itachi's lips, years past...

And it occurs to me...that guy had love for no one but his kid brother.

Her face is clear, expressionless, but her eyes still weep.

I glower again at the father, saying, "quit being such a behaviorist!" I can feel my lips turn upwards, "you know that crap doesn't do shit for him!"

Mikoto cries out softly, "Naruto," she pleads, the voice of a doll, "don't shout...don't curse. You're scaring him." Her voice is even, soft, almost broken.

I turn my gaze back on my sweetheart, and sure enough, he's quivering like a toddler, like a flower.

My anger evaporates in an instant, and I move to place one hand on his shoulder, "shhh, sweetie, it's okay..." I begin, and start talking, eager to distract, "look, see how busy your mom 'n dad've been? All these New Year's decorations, just for you! There's...ah, mostly food, isn't there...?"

Vaguely, I remember Sasuke telling me in an exasperated tone, that the new year is about celebration, feasting, and family bonds...mostly, people get drunk, eat too many good things, and play hanafuda, a Japanese card game that becomes like poker in my family...

"Hmm." I pause a second before saying, "well, there's that stack of white disk-things to make a snowman, see, with that little orange for a hea—"

"—mochi," Mikoto interrupts, "Rice cakes. They're offerings for a good new year..." her voice is smooth, "topped with a sweet mikan, a mandarin orange," her voice was quiet still, almost like a ghost.

"Oh." I replied, coughing a little. "Um..." lost for words. "So you've even got some sparkling-grape juice and a really, really big ol' bento," a Japanese boxed lunch, "with shrimp and noodles—"

"That's soba. For long life," the irritated Fugaku clarified. Our mutual determination to ignore each other seemed to have faded, and his voice was bitter. I know the damn guy would rather bury his son, not 'help him behave like an insolent toddler.'

My frown tightens, and I look around again. Finally, my eyes catch on a tattered bit of so-called "rice paper"—it's actually a thin fiber, having nothing to do with rice, Itachi told me once when I mentioned it—and a messy black basin of spilled ink.

I look to Mikoto with a wordless question hiding in my eyes.

Her eyes flicker to Sasuke.

Black ink stains slender fingers, and my expression softens. "Here," I mumble thickly, emotion caught in my voice. "Let's get you cleaned up..."

Fugaku's smile could almost be creepy... "On and on you go, babying him. You think you help!" he snarls, pained and deadened by his honorless loss of sons. "He's a worthless piece of shit—"

"—dear—" Mikoto pleads, wringing her dainty hands...hands like white birds.

"—hiding from the consequences of his actions." He paced absently in the small confines, "feeding off us, our hospitality, gloating about the removal of a true Uchiha—"

"—shut up!" I hiss, careful not to raise my voice and get an orderly in here. "Just get out!" I command, rising to my feet, threatening. "We're arranging flowers—" out of the corner of my eye, I see the red tinsel present, forgotten on the bed, "—and we're going to love and cherish him." I nod at the blankly staring slip of a human beside me, "no matter

"what."

the word closes my mouth and dries my throat, like some bitterly acidic fruit

I look pleadingly at Mikoto, my back to her husband, and hope she'll hold up my promise.

Head bowed, hair hiding her pretty face—so like Sasuke's, like Itachi's—she trembles silently, and takes the long-stemmed bouquet and exits...

My shoulders slump.

I don't know what to say.

Fugaku looks at me—as I stare out the door, away from him—with his eyes fixed between my shoulder-blades or at the base of my neck, it's hard to say. "You should leave his restoration to the professionals." His voice is quiet, commanding. "You'll only screw things up."

There is quiet between us.

Mikoto returns a few minutes later, to my surprise. She hadn't left for good, as I'd suspected. Her mouth is tightly set, and she clutches three ceramic vases to her chest. As she sets each one on the small desk to the side, I realize each is bigger than the last, but three all are short and squat, with a small grid of spoked metal on which a flower might be placed.

I don't know where she could have found those surely oriental plant-holders, and I try to meet her gaze, try to convey gratitude, but only amazement carries through my eyes.

"Sasuke," her voice is gentle but strangely strong, redolent of the Uchiha patriarch. "You'll need to water these every morning up to here..." she gestures lightly to a line invisible to me from my vantage point, "and you'll need to pull the dead leaves or petals off with time..." she demonstrates twice, letting him practice on the less-than pristine bundle I'd grabbed from the local grocery.

My face flushes, but no one notices, save maybe Fugaku...and his quiet dissatisfaction seems inwardly poised after all...

We learn the art of flower arranging from a woman with too much time to practice it, and no one to show who'd understand...lost in a civilized world where kimono are eccentric yet odd sleep-garments meant for movies, not as lovingly passed down treasures.

I try to follow and think it through, but my arrangement is a bit jumbled, and too sparse for the large pot, while Mikoto smiles anyways...but her attention is for Sasuke.

Parts of his art...parts of it are beautiful...exquisite, even. But the edges are unskillfully propped up, leaned against one another and split wide up the flowers' fragile stems...it's almost like a snapshot of his crumbling mental state.

Depressing, and hardly reminiscent of the young man he used to be...

Finally, the task is done...and Mikoto's soft, soul-weary voice bids, "happy new year..." and a string of swift, demure words in Japanese.

Sasuke falls back in a stupor, and his father shakes him a bit, with cold, curt words in a tongue I can't understand.

My mouth goes dry, and slowly, I move to my lost love...put an arm around him as his parents fade into the distance...and wish I could press my lips on his, open his eyes and see a flaming scarlet anger of bastardly pride...

Instead, I put my hat on his head, mumbling, "You an' me've got a date, sweetie...you, me, an' the lovely books..."

Beneath the wide brim, Sasuke's eyes close with pleasure while a quiet and simple smile adorns sweet lips. He looks like a child, and he holds my hand as such...

After a minute, I tug my hands free and stuff them in pockets, trying to console myself with thoughts of sea-green eyes and blood-red hair...

...but Sasuke's laughter pulls me back anyways, and I'm back in the past again, walking to school in a noisy argument with my best friend, talking crassly about what kind of teachers our lousy school possessed.

His smile infiltrates my mind, and for a while, I'm lost in it...just walking down the hall like an eerie specter of the past...when we reach the hospital library, the collection of dusty tomes, thin and thick, bright and dull.

It's enough to make Sasuke's bare feet stop that charming ptt k! of callused skin sticking to the stone tile. He looks blankly from books to shelves to chairs, and his small hands tighten a little as his precious companions— bound in leather, cloth and plastic-coated paper— were packed into boxes while shelves were pushed laboriously into an out-of-the-way corner, or into the hall.

His lower lip trembled just before his hands fell, slack, and his expression loosened to that of a boy lost to dreams.

I sigh, touch his shoulders and steer him to a squishy armchair. "Stay here," I tell him sternly, sure he'll listen, certain he's got nowhere to go. I pick myself up then, and start off towards a tall guy, dark of skin and hair, with soft eyes like coffee-colored ice cream...though almost like coal when he's mad or serious, but a sparkling toffee-spiced cappuccino in the sunlight.

When I first met the guy, his hair was long, down to his shoulders and sectioned almost like dreads, but maybe they were those extensions most've my black friends are fond of—with the exception of a sweet, intelligent-eyed girl with shorer hair 'n me and a love for men's shorts even in January...

"Hey, Karega!" I call out with a huge smile, a sparkle in my eyes that matches his, "whas'up, man?"

He laughs appreciatively, turning away from his painter's work with a ready smile. "Oh, Naruto-my-man!" he grins wider than even me, "ahhhh, you know, yeah? Not much!" quick laughter swallows any further comment before his lips catch up with his quick-mind, "We've got this whole half tarped and ready for a clean up! Exciting, huh?" his warm eyes scan the room, catch sight of a small Sasuke, and he lightly touches my forehead, no doubt staining my hair with the same pale yellow paint of the walls, "and you know the rules, m'old friend!" his laughter colors his words playfully, "I'm 'Mister Cooper' in fron'na the patients, okay? And I'll return the favor by calling you—"

"—'Mister Uzumaki,'" I chorused alongside him, "yeah, I know," I smile vaguely, "so, where do you want me?" I ask, swinging my arms wide, as if to embrace the paint-spattered man.

Karega laughs again, as easy-going a nurse as anyone I've ever had the fortune to meet. His eyes sweep down my frame, and he shakes his head. "Geeze, man, you look like you've come in from a costume ball 'r somethin'!" he shakes his head, "my girlfriend made sure I wore my least fav'rite scrubs, and wha'd you come in?" bright laughter seems to pull me in closer.

I can feel heat coming to my cheeks, but I cover easily with a sharp wink as I twirl in my long overcoat. "See, my boyfriend knows I've got a shit-load of clothes, so he doesn't care what I wear," I wag my finger in Karega's face, continuing, "and it's all thrift-store stuff anyways, so it's not exactly irreplaceable."

His smile softens, and he looks briefly to the kid I've left in a chair..."yeah..." he mumbles, "your boyfriend wouldn't mind..." a small, sad smile.

I have to wonder which boy he thinks I'm talking about.

"Why don't you box up books, nevertheless?" Karega suggests mildly, no doubt thinking of ways to help loveable, straying Sasuke find his way out-of-a self-imposed hell...

I retreat with a cheerful wave, going back to my sweet Sasuke with an armload of collapsed boxes and a roll of packing tape.

Sasuke hadn't moved. His hair disguised his face—and I was reminded briefly of his fair mother—while pale lips pressed into an unreadable frown.

I drop my load, pocket the tape, and put my arms around the boy, "hey, m'man..." I mumble, bashful all the sudden, "we're gonna put some of these books away, okay? We'll box up a few and move 'em into the hall, understand?"

No change of expression.

I release him with a frown, and slowly assemble the first of the boxes. The cardboard itself's not big, seeing that books are damn heavy...but it's big enough to require some shifting for a guy like me. I scribble on the box the name, Alan Moore on the right, to denote which section of the library I was subjecting to imprisonment.

"So," I murmur quietly, trying to get the Uchiha clan out of my head. "I ever tell you the story of Peter Pan?"

No flicker of recognition for me. No smile to ease my hurt.

I press on anyways, hoping to find a spark of a kid I used to know. "So, Sasuke-m'dear...in all the world, there's only one boy who will never grow up...and his name is Peter." I smile softly, just before a grunt of exertion tears my lips, and subsequently, my words. "Peter Pan..." I grin into the armload of books.

"He was just a little, little boy, really, Golden hair and green eyes, the perfect imp, with a fairy-partner called Tinkerbell, to boot."

Thdddd, the books fall into the cardboard easily while I neatly squish the tomes into clearly distinguishable rows, spine up so the titles can be read.

I steal a glance at my lostling, but he's looking at his hands again...

With a sigh, I begin to relate the tale, taking great pleasure in description of flight, and a little girl called Wendy, who the ill-named "lost" boys wanted as a mother...

...but those adventuring brats weren't really lost. Not like some people...not like him.

Not like my Sasuke, who doesn't move an inch to show he's listening, who sits, more still than a statue, glazed eyes under a borrowed hat...and I can't help it. My patience

snaps.

My voice is not my own as the words fill me, dripping like rain from an unknown source, and I clear my throat anxiously, ready to begin. "So this is the story she tells them, those poorly dressed kids of bratish disposition and greedy, begging hands..." my eyes have lost track of the brightly lit, paint-smelling atmosphere, and my words tumble against each other in my hurry to get them out.

I can feel my breath catch, my eyes fill.

"Mister Fox."

The story is partially remembered from my childhood, when one of my foster-sibs took me and her friends into the basement, situated dully on old, dusty mattresses that we sometimes played on, and it was her voice that scraped my throat. "Well Lady Mary was young, and Lady Mary was fair...with more suitors than she could count on the fingers of both hands."

In my memory, the basement light rocked back and forth, a poorly fastened thing with a playful manner that seemed to me quite ominous.

My memory failed me, so grasping for words, I sought out something more suitable, something that might shake my love up and out of the stupor he'd slipped into. "She was a quiet, skillful lady of keen wits and

"sharp

"senses...and to her there was a certain English gentleman," my tongue caught in my throat, choking me, so that the lack of air left me near blind and aching with too much weight, "...whose pale blond hair and ice-blue eyes spoke of cool boredom almost unheard of in good countrymen's blood."

Straight from my memory.

This figure, this slight and slender waif of a man, he's old. Far older than me or mine, older than anyone I've seen in a long time...but his skin is young...his eyes, clear, but watered down. Long, fair and smooth hair frames his doll-like face, and a twisted, tilted

smile

adorns the humorless mask he passes for a face.

"His voice was a careful drawl, his smile never faltered, and his fingers ckkkted on the table, like petrified wood on cut and polished lumber." The story-book figure was replaced with my mystery-watcher...the flat man put to words so that I might startle, scare, distract.

But Sasuke doesn't flinch.

My voice is low, near the pit of my range, and softly enunciated words alone are the keys to the riddle of my speech. "The man treated everyone as though they had invisible wires attached to their limbs, and he alone had the capacity to make the

"puppets

"dance."

Sasuke looked at me, now, but I was too far gone to realize it.

My voice trembled as I related the tale that had left me shivering, in that basement of old. "'My sweet, my treasure...' the words are lovely on his lips, and roll off like so much dew on a leaf. 'Tell us a tale...bring some light to our monotonous, deadened lives...'"

The books thudded into their cardboard grave, and I swiftly assembled another, not wanting to leave for the hall just yet.

The words came easily, just as my foster sister's had to a seven and eight-year-old audience, she at a lofty thirteen.

My voice was softer still, "Lady Mary replied with a smooth nod of head, as though on cue from the puppeteer. 'As you wish, my dear...my darling Mister Fox...I shall tell you of a dream I had, lost in the cold, empty nights of yore.' Her sweet voice was like ice, but the company took no notice.

"Huntsmen all, they chuckled gruffly, offering lewd remarks as to what a young damsel could do to fill her nights."

Sasuke's breath came short, and his little hands trembled.

"The lady smiled, a thin, hard-to-see wire attached to her full, luscious lips. 'In my dream, love, I received an invitation from you...to journey to your house and at last see the sights.' She ducked her head behind a wave of chestnut curls, embarrassed.

"'Oh, the sights I could show you!' Mister Fox replied, licking his lips and smoothing his pale, white-gold hair without removing icy eyes from

"faintly blushing

"red

"cheeks.

"Once again, the company laughed with dark, red-tinged thoughts. Huntsmen, you see, are very cruel, and their lives are driven by dirty thoughts unsuitable for polite company. But Lady Mary enjoyed their tales, or perhaps the protection they offered, so she kept them close by.

"The pretty Lady smiled behind pale fingers, saying, 'Indeed,' her laughter was cool, like the ringing of church bells...funeral charms... 'm'lord found his choice in the easiest of manners, to

"cut

"the throat of a sow, a carelessly fattened pig grown large, and mark the path most simply for his blushing bride-to-be.'

"Mister Fox's eyes widened, and he tilted his head to the side, silent amusement in curiously large eyes. 'Oh,' he murmured with a simple, provocative grin, 'and in your dream,' his voice was cold, like bone too-long weathered, 'you found my house without

"'difficulty?'

"The girl smiled, nodded, and spoke again—"

"—but" the voice interrupted, and it took me only an instant to realize who spoke.

My heart slowed, my head spun.

Sasuke's voice was cold, dead, and a streak of blood-colored anger tinged his words, "But it is not so, and it was not so." He laughed, dark and cruel, a fell shadow across his neck and stealing upon gorgeous features, "...and God forbid it should be so..."

I turn to look at him, mouth slightly open. "Sasuke," I say tentatively, "you know this story—?"

His voice is grim, tight, and hoarse against too soft a throat, "—in the last of the rooms, beyond the corridor with its ghastly message—be bold, be bold, but not too bold

"lest your heart's blood

"should run cold—she found a slaughtered man, red eyes to match the blood—"

My stomach fell, my eyes widened and my head felt too heavy, too cold. I clutch at the bookshelf to keep myself standing, unaware even as I speak, "...a warrior's blade through his stomach, across his throat, the blood soils even the costly tatami mat, seeping through the fibers like only liquid can...leaving a dark, blackened and ugly stain where too-white flesh meets the ground,

"and everything goes red, red, red like the lie of the blood on the other's hands, screaming like a lost child and like I'd betrayed him for not—"

A quiet mewl broke the spell, and I look up hurriedly, to see tears filling black eyes, white skin gone translucent in shock or fear, I can't tell.

God, I thought I'd buried that memory...I never meant to say it...to tell anyone that I saw a corpse with a lovely little frown and smelling of death, decay and

broken promises.

I take Sasuke by the hand, and without saying a thing to Karega, I leave the library for brighter rooms...

"How's the story end?" Sasuke asks, quiet, afraid.

I laugh, low, "Mister Fox is a murderer, and the huntsmen cut him to pieces..." I think of my foster-sister, her, me and a friend on the dusty old mattress.

"'And it served him very well right.'" I quoted.

Sasuke leaned into me on our way to the laundry...murmuring, "oh," like a small child.

Eventually, I breathe easier.

...I can outrun the triggers...

...distract my eyes with graceful figures and small tasks...

...but I can never rid myself of that god-awful

smell.


My charity-work ended with a couple of hours of laundry, coddling a sweet-tempered lostling who seemed to have forgotten his brief outburst, and trying to bury phantom-senses with coffee, detergent, and multiple washings of hands.

Eventually, Karega came by to see how I was doing...I jumped at my name on his lips, and whirled around too quickly...so he might have guessed.

I doubt it, though. He's got enough on his mind.

Instead of returning home, I head for Gaara's, seeking out the more luxurious apartment and his strong hands...and, of course, not wanting to break a promise I'd made the evening before...

I began to strip as soon as Gaara's heavy door ckkd behind me, tossing aside the overcoat, vest, shirt, shoes and socks before hastily unbuttoning pants, shedding myself of the cold-stiffened layers with a feverish need to get warm.

Sasuke... I thought, not hearing Gaara call out at me, asking about my day, no doubt. Why can't I just forget?

I realized my boyfriend was in residence just as he stepped into my line of vision.

"Naruto," Gaara frowned, putting warm hands around my cold skin. "You're cold." He noted, and made as though to pull me closer.

"Bath?" I pleaded, turning around to wrap him in my arms...feeling his soft hair between my fingers and relishing in the texture.

He nods slowly, saying, "I'll get your clothes..." a pause. "...and I'll brush your hair when you're done, if you'd like."

A small smile twitched at my lips, and my eyes—at last!—closed. Some of the tightness melted away, and I nodded, grateful. "Absolutely," I grinned...and he pushed me behind a pair of white doors and into a bath large enough o spell luxury to a poor kid like me...

Ya know, growing up, I'd never been allowed such a 'womanish' treat...

Laughing, I removed the rest of my clothes, calling, "I'll be out in a little while,"

...to which he replied, "no. Take your time," no change of pitch signified a switch of emotion, but I sensed he was preparing himself for meditation...the closest the bastard seemed to get to sleep.

First, I decided, a shower...to cleanse myself of dirt and sweat—

and blood, the thought came unbidden, but I brushed it aside as easily as I drew the plastic-lined curtain.

The water was cold, at first, chilling me to the bone and offering no hope of warmth...I'd forgotten to let the faucet purge itself of icy liquid, so it vomited frosty water on me with a vengeance.

I shivered, thinking to myself of another shower, surely this large, and the equally intimidating woman it contained.

In my memory, Sarah sang sweetly, her voice echoing down the large, empty home where children had once lived... grown then, the aging wife of a traveling businessman, she'd felt useless, without any kind of fulfillment in her life...so she and her husband, Bill, I think, agreed to foster me...a kid of eight, and in I'd come, like a fox-kit instead of a fluttering chick.

Sarah hated me instantly...

...every one of those state-picked, too-well-paid families did.

I wasn't well-behaved, smart, or charming like her kids. I could care less about football, acting or TV...preferring instead to play with ninja dolls or make up my own games, pretending to be a magnificent shinobi who everyone looked up to, loved, and secretly wanted to be.

Her lack of imagination put me off at first, but I thought maybe that melancholy melody was meant for me... her shower-tune meant as a sweet lullaby she'd never been able to express before.

In the meantime, the hot water burned my skin, prickling like needles on tender flesh, but I'm slow to turn off the heat.

Mama? I called, quiet.

She shrieked when I opened the door to the bath, screaming at me to close it! Get out of here!

And as I smooth shampoo scented of lavender-and-spice—maybe Temari picked it out for her little brother, because I can't imagine him wanting it—another memory bleeds into the last...

Surely the baths had been different, but years later, I couldn't distinguish between the two. I'd just been transferred—for the last time—to a new family...and now, the two rooms are identical in recollection, even the singing that lured me closer bearing the same mysterious tune...though Sally, a younger, fatter mother of high-school aged kids, liked classic rock rather than classical.

Naruto honey, her voice is nasal, grating on my ears as

in reality, I lather vanilla-and-brown-sugar scented body soap into my skin...thinking lazily that my Christmas-gift to Gaara was used more than the sweet-pea body-wash someone else had given him...

can you bring me my Pepsi, darling? I think it's on the stairs... her voice is muffled by the white doors, and I can hear-- could hear—the churn of water as she flipped the pages of the latest teen magazine...

Damn Sally. Always wanting to be younger than she really was...to be 'hip,' or beautiful like the girlfriends her boys brought home.

Can't you get it? I complained from the hall, remembering the previous foster mother, Sarah's embarrassment and horror at living with a "peeping Tom."

I'm in the bath, /i Naruto...I can't track water everywhere/i she called back.

Irritated, I retrieved her glass of cola, opened the doors with my eyes squeezed shut. Fine! I said to the self-induced darkness, I'll put it on the counter, and you can get water on your rug. I began, oblivious to her laughter and well aware of my red cheeks.

Don't be silly, Naruto-baby! I'm your mother now, of course you can handit to me, like a good little boy, hmm?

When I opened my left eye—just a peak—I saw a red mound of flesh, barely covered by foamy bubbles...Here, I squeaked, and the ice-cubes clattered against each other as I shoved the drink into her hands.

There now, that wasn't so bad, was it? she chuckled. It's just like the pool, right? No harm done.

Except there, I could see the brown circles of her nipples, the heavy sags in her flesh and too-round limbs with hints of black, curly hair between her legs...all beneath the white foam of bubble-gum smelling soap.

In real time, I tilt my head backwards to feel the falling water, open my mouth and cleanse it of the foul taste brought on by nasty memories.

Sometimes, I gotta wonder if it was that old hag who turned me off women...

She, who constantly brought me into the bath while she was naked, daring me to comment on her developed body...slowly losing the bubbles while I turned steadily redder by each encounter.

Her family put up with me 'till my high-school ended, no doubt thanks to dear ol' Sal and her piteous cries to leave the kid alone, he's never known better! as I started dating a boy more popular than any of their sons had ever been...

But I was outta there to room with Sasuke as soon as I had my diploma, with my boyfriend, rival and best man 'till...

...a bloody car crash.

Shit. That sounds like some cheesy novel's excuse for a plot, if you ask me...

Sally...god, I hate her.

I scrub my skin thoroughly as I think.

She used to ask me to rub this "icy-hot" cream into her back, in order to get rid of shoulder aches or what when she'd been working too hard...with her, moaning just lightly as I pressed my knuckles into her stiff muscles or stepped lightly on her back.

It's a wonder I'm not more fucked up than Sasuke is...

Slowly, I sink to my knees, and plug the drain...

Cleaning up first, then relaxing into hot water...that's a habit I picked up from the Uchiha family. I spent the night there, once, when their parents had left for unexplainable business...

It had seemed strange, at the time, for all of us to go into the strangely designed shower-bath, but neither Sasuke nor Itachi mentioned it, so I brushed it off—rightly, as research later showed it—to be a cultural thing.

As I stepped into the fully tiled, faintly slanted room, I noticed there was a drain at the corner, between the bath and next to two plastic stools. The shower-head was attached to the wall, with no curtain, just the same frosted-glass door the whole place was enclosed in. The bath—or at least that's what I assumed it was—had been covered with a plastic cover, to keep the heat in, or the dust out, I wasn't sure.

Itachi's eyes were black, his face void of expression, even as he instructed me to stay out of the small pool...shower first, then rinse, he admonished, nodding at the plastic bowl meant for a pail, then we'll relax in the water.

Together? I asked, amazed.

Sasuke laughed at my expression while Itachi nodded, and finally, I gave up on tension.

My best friend—eight years old, like me—taught me what Itachi meant while squirting me with soap or shampoo, and virtually playing all over to 'attack' me with a warm shower...

Presently, "Gaara..." I call out, eager to clear my head of more useless memories. The warm water had filled the tub up to my ears, laying down, and I could barely hear anything.

His voice was muffled by water and doors, "yes?"

I don't know how I understood. I blinked, having expected him to walk in as casually as Itachi might have.

"...do you wanna come in?" I tried again, and immediately wished he had a tub big enough to comfortably admit the two of us.

The door opened, and a pajama-clad, faintly smiling Gaara walked over...he rolled up his sleeves and dipped his hands into the water to trace circles in my pinkening skin.

I thought of Sasuke, and wanted to hold someone so badly my fingers shook...so I found myself sitting up, the downfall of harsh, hot water filling my ears as the faucet attempted to drown out all life.

I switched it off.

Looked at Gaara, and pulled with all my might.

The resounding wave of water covered his indignant surprise, and I wrestled him onto his side, pulled him close, and felt the warm folds of wet cotton...I collapsed on his strong arms and bubbled into the warmth.

"Owww..." I say after a while... "my arms hurt..."

Gaara, remembering my schedule more clearly than me, it seems, replies, "Good," with a quiet, "that's because lifting clothes all day's more strenuous than one might believe."

Silence, except for sloshing of water.

Then Gaara spoke up again, splitting the silence as easily as one breaks glass. "You got my clothes wet."

My smile could have cracked ice. "...who said you needed clothes, hmm?"

Laughing, I got out of the water, pulled him and his clothes off, and toweled the two of us semi-dry...and we managed to distract each other from blood-filled thoughts...with massages, kisses, and soft embraces...

At last, we drift to sleep in each other's arms.


My eyes fluttered open with the dawn, and I woke with the happy realization that I was not alone...that someone'd wrapped me in strong arms while simultaneously burying their head in the crook of my neck, finding soft comfort there, no doubt.

Stirring quietly, I stretched a little, fumbling for the light by my bed—

—but a husky, smoke-filled voice stopped me. "Don't." The tones were too rich to be Gaara's, too deep and too seductively full of emotion.

My throat tightened, eyes wide with disbelief. "Sasuke?" I mumble, and pull the black-haired man's face into the soft light of dawn. "Sasuke?"

He laughs at me, scornful and amused, but not without a certain sweetness, a soft love no one but me can see. Arrogance sets his features apart from the core, and similar pride keeps his arms around me, where dislike or hatred would have them snake away.

"Expecting someone else?" he asks wryly, and at last pushes away to tilt his head in a clear show of deference to such a thought, but I saw something sharp and angry flash in my lover's eyes.

Awed, I shake my head, touch my lips to his cool skin, and find warmth there—he is no phantom, no dream. "You're...you..."

His laughter surprises me, irritates me, and tells me how strongly I've missed the guy's arrogant, bastardly princelyness. "I see," he remarks dryly, touching my cheek and pushing aside a gold lock of hair I hadn't felt, hadn't seen.

I whacked him sharply on the head, eliciting a curse muffled by the stillness of the air—I dared not breathe—and heightened by Sasuke's confusion.

"What the hell was that for?" he demanded, eloquently slanted eyes sharp with annoyance. "You're the one waking up with another person's na—"

I lean in, take his face in one hand, and kiss soft lips until his trembling mouth opens. Slide past white teeth to touch a rough, warm tongue, while claiming it as my own.

When we break apart, amusement dances in Sasuke's eyes, after that he remarks, "well, something's up with you..."

Thrilled, ecstatic even, I pull him close, trying to mask my harsh breathing and closing throat with laughter. But I can't wipe all traces of exhausted, relieved tears away.

Sasuke sits up, pulls me into his lap while I protest against the evidence of my weakness.

"Hey," he murmurs, "hey," sharper now, rocking me back and forth like I've seen do to himself, time and time again at the hospital...

"Sasuke..." I breathe. "Don't you ever fucking leave me again..." my voice was meant to be commanding, stern even, but there's too much pain for that. "Or I'll break every bone in your body..." my voice quavers as I shake my head violently, trying to dispel a tension-induced headache.

Baffled, but trying not to show it, Sasuke pushes me back a little, a small frown adorning porcelain features. "What happened?"

I shake my head violently, mumbling, "it's stupid...just a dream...a really long, damningly real dream."

Sasuke scoffs, and rolls his eyes. "So that's why you're such a wreck?"

My breath catches in my throat, and a sob comes out like a hiccup. I glower at him, not wanting to explain, but he draws it out of me with careful smiles, warm, wet kisses and a hunger for answers that chills me...

Finally, we lay together, entangled, quiet, and simply entranced. I'm happy, content, even, and in the back of my mind, I dread morning's eventual peak...and outside commitments.

My stomach growls before I'm ready to leave, but embarrassed, I bite at his ear, playing at amusement. "Wha'd'you want f'r breakfast?" I tease.

Sasuke smiles against my treatment, and I have to smirk back at him.

"Not yet..." he breathes, moaning a little. "I don't want to leave...I've still gotta sort out what you said," he shakes his head, and black hair swishes in the air. "I can't believe I'd murder Itachi..."

Annoyed, I half-close my eyes and turn away. "You have to admit, Sasuke...that...detailed...a dream's damn freaky. But it doesn't mean anything."

Something pulls at my consciousness, but I push it aside as Sasuke tightens his embrace.

"Don't worry. It's just a dream..." he murmurs again, nuzzling into the crook of my neck he's so fond of...

I moan softly, and stroke his smooth, Asian hair.

Beside me, Sasuke muses, "but why would I kill Ita—"

My eyes flicker. "Don't.

"I don't wanna think about it—"

Sasuke shrugs, and experimentally tickles my lower stomach, just to hear me laugh and groan a little. "...mmm..." Sasuke breathes, "I like that noise..."

Playful touches and a deep, heartwarming massage ease me out of the anxious state, and I press my lips against his cheek, branding him with a warm kiss. Sasuke rises to the challenge with a laugh...

An eternity later, just as I start to drift asleep again, Sasuke ponders, "you didn't want me to kill him, did you?"

Dazed, tired, I grumble into my pillow, "no...Itachi never did anything to hurt either've us...he was kinda nice, in a silent, bastardly kinda way..."

"Jealousy?" Sasuke probed, smoothing circles in my hair.

Tension departs with the swift movement. "...don't stop doing that..." I slur, intoxicated with respite. "...waitasecond...are you implying I like your big brother?" I demand, snapping away with a horribly audible crk! of my neck.

As I rub the offended muscle, Sasuke glowers. "Dreams, Naruto, hold the answers to our waking problems."

It's my turn to snort, now. "You sound like a fucking shrink."

Sasuke glares daggers, and replies, "So what do you think?"

I shake my head dismissively, "Sasuke—in my dream—" eerie, how those words chilled me...like the Lady Mary's must have—

"—yes?" Sasuke broke the thought with a soft punch to my aching shoulder.

My brow furrows as I try to recall why my muscles ache. "Sasuke, I need to go to work—"

"—it's Tuesday. Your day off."

Quiet.

"Sasuke, I love you..." I tease.

His eyes grow grimmer. "Naruto," he presses.

I shrug, and offer, "...maybe 'cause Itachi told 'im to..." I open blue eyes, and cock my head, listening for a reply.

Naruto! the voice pricks at my sleep-muddled brain, and slowly, killing sunlight, dawn, like a monster's horrible growl.

I turn to face it—

—and black hair fades into white-gold, with blue eyes the color of ice.

Shocked, I whirl around, expecting to see Sasuke strangled on the floor—

—but only darkness greets me, and the harsh city lights of outdoors. Gaara's apartment complex, with its high rising glory and packed rooms, isn't exactly as I remember it...for one thing, last I recall, I've never been to the roof.

Don't even know how to get there.

My throat goes numb as the words float on a nighttime breeze.

"Be bold," the puppet master whispers, "be bold..."

Eyes wide, I look over the dark city life, and wonder at the pale, silken kimono— yukata, my mind whispers, kimono are heavy silk, with layers—around my form.

"...but not too bold," the faint smile, the odd tilt of his head. He challenges me with his ice-blue eyes.

I looked down slowly, and my heart leaps. My feet are planted firmly on the ledge, leaning against a guardrail no one could reach without a ladder...

...and Gaara calls up at me, dressed again in cotton pajamas, red hair aflame in fluorescent light.

Emptiness fills me so quickly I don't' know what to do, and in a fury, I whirl towards Sasori—how do I know his name?—with a snarl. "You tricked me!" I wail, for his ears alone.

"Sa," he replies, dead white in the uncomplimentary, flattening lights. "I gave you what you wanted."

I tried to back up, but my feet touched air alone, and there was suddenly nowhere to go.

"Naruto," the puppet master's smile widens, "...you would make an exquisite addition to my collection..."

I close my eyes, and scream.

I can't help it...I'm angry, hurt...

...terrified...

When I open them, Sasori is gone.


Gaara had to call security to get me down...and the guys got some maintenance ladder, cursed me and their luck, while Gaara explained things below.

His voice was too low to hear, but I can guess what he's saying.

'His ex is committed to a mental institution...and he's the only one who bothers to visit.

It wears on a guy.

But I know his explanation will fall flat, like the noise of a pin dropping...lost in a crowded subway station.

To my side, I see the burly guy come upwards, feet positioned firmly on the ladder. He spits in my direction when he realizes he's gone as high as he can go, and sees me in my white shift. He calls out to me, "all-righty, lover boy. Get yer ass over here!"

I don't move, eyes frozen to where I'd last seen the tall man in a black robe...

"Hey, you on drugs 'r somethin'?" the guy demands.

"I can't." I croak, my lips barely moving.

"Can't jump?" the guy laughs, dark and spiteful. "Good! You know how much time it takes to clean up a suicide?"

I don't reply.

Encouraged, he continues. "You gotta bag the guts, zip up the body, and spray the whole floor with high-power water...and even then, sometimes there's still a stain on the ground." He pulls himself onto the ledge carefully, taps me on the shoulder. "Listen, kid, you gonna come peacefully, or do I gotta carry your ass down?"

I shudder.

He laughs again, hoists me over his shoulder, and manages to get me on his back, piggy-back style. "Don't let go," he warns, "or I'll make you wish there was a hell."

I thought of Sasuke's dark eyes, then of Gaara's.

Below us, the nighttime manager-or-whatever was talking pretty loud...his voice carried up to me easily, "...that's the guy who found 'em? The blond kid? And his ex...he's the kid who bloodily murders his brother and gets away with it?"

I'd forgotten...

...the trial...it was discussed on the news...and only Sasuke's family influence and age kept his name from entering childish nursery rhymes for macabre humor...

Lizzy Bordon had an ax...and gave her husband forty whacks...and when the job was

neatly

done, she gave another forty-one.

The guy holding me jerks a little, and when his feet touch cement, he unloads me gently, like I might break. There's a certain air of sympathy about him that's less palatable than even his anger.

I fall to the ground, my knees just folding in like so much tin foil.

Gaara rubs circles in my shoulders, pulling me to my feet. "Come on," he says, without any hint of surprise, distress or anything.

...Gaara's got a damn good poker face...

Our retreat inside goes unmarked, except by the quiet pity and shock of two old men...who aren't quite old enough to stop being surprised at youth's brutality...

Finally, when we're in his bedroom again, under blankets and with lotion rubbed into each of us, do I begin to wake.

"...Gaara?" I ask, quiet.

He smiles encouragingly, and I find the expression charming on his honey-and-cream colored face. Like before, he replies, "yes?"

I shake my head ruefully, and lick my lips. "Happy new year."

Laughter fills the air...Gaara's.

I'm surprised, but only vaguely. All my emotions seem to come through a filter of ice.

I close my eyes, but I do not sleep. Gaara's presence is nevertheless reassuring, warm, and very real.

"Happy New Year, Naruto."

"...happy new year..."


tbc...

thoughts? Please? This is as draining a story as anything I've ever written...so feedback would be...replenishing, to say the least.