It was getting dark and the sun was bleeding reds and golds. Sasuke wasn't talking much, but he was Sasuke and everyone knew Sasuke only spoke in grunts and bitter, piercing retorts, so it was generally accepted that that was fine.

Kiba wasn't feeling much for talking either, content with resting his back against his chosen fencepost and nursing his questionably-acquired bottle of gin.

Naruto was Naruto so he'd yet to shut up for more than a few minutes, like a broken water main inexpertly shut so many times the threads were stripped bare and it would take some alien, horrifying tool that no man was meant to possess to shut him up for good. That or a sufficiently large sandwich.

"You ever wonder, like…" Naruto drifted off for a moment, clunking his head back against his post. The sun was falling down in front of him, blinding golds and yellows and shadows stretching like taffy. "The fuck's this all for, man."

Kiba took a long, clearly painful draw from his bottle of gin. "Bulg-" He shut his mouth and took to swallowing for a few seconds. "You mean… Like, life and shit?"

"Naw, man." Naruto shook his head, "All this… stuff here..."

Sasuke said, "Naruto that's corn." They were in a field.

"Hm? Oh… Oh yeah. Shit nevermind."

"You're so stupid, Naruto." Kiba said. "Also I may vomit."

"I wanna see how far you can vomit, if you do." Naruto said, not turning his head from the sunset. "Now that that information is potentially available to me, I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight if I don't find out."

"I am also curious pertaining to that - thing that I just made noise about." Kiba said. "Also I am definitely going to vomit, one hundred percent chance of vomit."

"Forecast for this evening:" Naruto said, "vomit with a chance of Sasuke eating his own dick. More later tonight."

"…Shaddup." Sasuke said absently.

"I'm betting like four feet if you put your gut into it." Naruto said.

"Naw man I could totally do six, seven easy. I just gotta – lllb…" Kiba took a moment to collect himself. "-just gotta, uh… Shit what was I saying?"

"Look I'm gonna level with you guys," Naruto gestured around them broadly, "I don't know where we are, or how we got here. I am the most lost that I have ever been in my entire life."

"Omigod, me too." Kiba snorted, "I didn't want to be the first to say it."

Naruto started laughing. "What the fuck even. Where the hell are we?"

"Are we in a goddamn cornfield?" Kiba coaxed something back down his throat for a moment, "Where the shit even are cornfields?"

"Sasuke do you know where we are?" Naruto asked. "Also fuck you and stuff but really though."

Sasuke shook his head. "I don't."

"You don't?"

"I don't."

"Ninja-jesus - are we in space or something?"

"Guys I'm gonna vom."

"Clench your buttocks." Naruto said, "the power comes from the buttocks."

Kiba took a moment from scrunching up his face in nausea to say, quickly, "noitdoesnt"

"Yea but it does though. I think I'm the expert on vom here, guys."

Kiba said, quickly, "yournot… blak…"

"Look deep within yourself, past your egos and biases and silly fantasies and open your heart and mind to the sound of you eating your own dick, Kiba."

"Kiba said, quickly, "-ack," and chased something down his throat with yet more gin. It seemed to work, because he followed it with, "Fire with fire, right?"

"That's the only way to fight fire," Naruto said, "also where'd you even get that stuff?"

"Oh I-" Kiba glanced at the farm behind them. "I think I like, walked in and took it."

"Wow. Was there a dude there?"

Kiba shrugged. "I dunno, man. I guess we'll never know."

"There was." Sasuke said, "He handed you the bottle."

"Nevermind. But are you sure we didn't have a ninja battle?"

"You did kick his table. But only because Naruto bet you wouldn't."

"bullg" Kiba tossed back another mouthful, teetering over the line of 'realizing that he was only digging himself deeper' and 'succumbing to the all-consuming apathy swirling around in his head.' He idly scratched his thigh, and swept off the ornery grasshopper mid-coitus with his pantleg. "Not a bad day."

"Not bad." Naruto nodded, head metronoming off the post at his back. "Not good. Not bad."

"I think it's good."

"Well you're wrong."

"Ok." Kiba was far too drunk for his own good. Unfortunately he didn't have enough experience to realize this. "I –ullk" More gin.

"Guys shh. Look." Sasuke pointed. A deer wandered out of the field. As it saw them it froze: waves of undulating gold at its back, its fur glowing like fire, eyes wide - but not with fear, there was a curiosity, a wonderm – Naruto kicked the deer.

"'The fuck outa here you fuckin' deer! I've had enough of your shit!" The deer head-butted Naruto in the gut and hurled him into the fence, where he got caught in the wire. "Guys I think I need to go to the hospital."

"I also think that hospital." Kiba slumped over onto his side. He saw the deer coming closer, two or four of them meshing and splitting and meshing again until nausea turned his head. "Sasuke help me this deer's gonna kill me."

"Good."

"Nice deer. Ni – balglge"

"Good." Sasuke said, an eerie smile working over his face. "Good." He started cackling, head tossed back. "All according to –ohshitno!" The deer kicked him in the face and then sort of wandered off.

This was how Kakashi found them five minutes later: Sasuke in a pool of his own blood, Naruto bent over the fence, Kiba passed out, deathly-drunk on his side; the bottle of gin they were supposed to retrieve a few feet away and empty.

Naruto feebly raised his head and said, "deer… Sasuke… Sucks... eugh…" He collapsed, unmoving.

Kakashi sighed.

END

an: I will admit that this whole thing was an excuse to use "that's corn." in context. Also like hi and shit, i don't know. Uh. hm. Maybe more failed-missions to come, not sure what my brain is doing with itself.