Hey everyone! Here's chappie 12!
god...when I checked my email and saw 12 review alerts...I almost had a heart attack.
Dualism: Thank you SOOO much for your praise!°squeals° Though I'm really gaining weight from all those bribes...
heh. Randomness: Lordi. "Deadite Girls Gone Wild".
Thank you all soooo much!
here you go: more GaaNaru(I hope!)
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Whore Street
"BY THE FUCKING MOTHER OF GOD! COULD YOU GUYS CALM THE FUCK DOWN ALREADY!"
Silence fell over the hospital room, and Naruto fell back into his uncomfortable pillows, relieved. The Konoha crowd, Kakashi and Gai stared at him, mouths open slightly in shock.
"What? Your babbling was driving me up the wall." He grumbled.
Tenten and Ino had been wondering – and of course bombarding him with questions about it – why he got a single room (How the fuck was he supposed to know that? Probably Iruka pulled some Force strings. Huh...Iruka on the Force...He still needed to get used to that...), Kiba had been snarling at him as to who did it – hell, of course he didn't remember that --, Kakashi had been asking Gai – that scene had really scared Naruto shitless; was the pervert shopkeeper really that far gone? Who asked Gai for love advice? -- for advice on Iruka, and Sasuke, though he hadn't been speaking, had been staring at Naruto in a really weird way. The only ones who were blissfully quiet were Shino, Akamaru and Shikamaru. Those three were lounging at the window. Lee was off somewhere, getting snacks for all of them.
Naruto just wanted quiet. He needed to think and calm down, and this commotion wasn't helping him at all. He growled again and pulled his blanket over his head. Hopefully they'd halfway shut up now.
Sasuke was feeling like a cross between dog shit and a used condom, for all the attention he was getting from Naruto. He still hadn't slept, and was pretty sure he looked like a zombie. He sat in one of the dingy room's hard chairs, staring at Naruto – well, where Naruto would be if he wouldn't have the blanket over his head.
Once the medic had gotten Naruto patched up enough, she and her partner had gotten him into their van and taken him to the hospital. The Konoha crew had had to follow with the bus, and once they arrived they'd busied themselves with leeching information out of a distinctly unresponsive and irritated Naruto. Sasuke had been too numb to join in, and he still perceived the others only as a dull roar around him.
Somehow, that simple gesture...Naruto, so instinctively reaching out for the redhead to help him...in Sasuke's current state, it became an obsession. He turned the image over and over in his mind, trying to brush it off and ignore the voice that taunted, He trusts him more than you...
That was ridiculous; Naruto had only known the dude for two days! He was interpreting too much into it...
But the stare.
Naruto had looked...comfortable? Safe? Happy, the mocking voice supplied. Sasuke snarled under his breath and shook it away. No matter how optimistic he was, though – and he truly wasn't inclined to optimism at the moment --, he couldn't deny that there had been something significant about the way the two kids' eyes had locked onto each other.
And thus, he continued thinking in more and more depressing circles. The way Naruto didn't ever tell him what actually happened at the Force car...The trusting, yes, he admitted it to the voice, it had been trusting, grab for support...The stare. And it started over again. And over again.
By the time Lee gently touched his shoulder and told him that they should be leaving, he was pretty far into the dark gray helplessness of utter depression. As he slipped out of the room, the last person to leave, he cast a glance at the form still hidden under the blanket, begging for Naruto to peek out and say something, anything.
Of course he didn't.
Naruto breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the door close for the last time. He pushed the blanket off of himself and glanced at the clock on his bedside table. 7:56, it blinked greenly up at him. He rolled his eyes – the others had arrived at eleven. Outside the window, the sky was a darkening bluish grey. Someone in the Konoha crew had had the sympathy and the sense to turn off the shrill overhead light.
He relaxed and began to puzzle things out. He was completely confused. Who was this Green-Eyes dude, anyway? Why was he always hanging out with Iruka? And, fuck, Iruka was in the Force! Why did Sasuke and Green-Eyes always get so riled up around each other? What the fuck had that been this morning, with the touching? Why did Naruto love his eyes so much? And...Naruto still had to kind of process yesterday night.
He shook his head. Too much. He'd go to sleep and hope it organized itself overnight. Wincing a bit at all the little bruises and stabs on his aching frame, he tried to get comfortable. Sakura, the medic, had stitched him in so many places that he felt like a fucking rag doll(well, okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but still), and had told him in her horribly cheerful voice that he'd be fine within three days if he took it easy and did nothing to restart the inner bleeding. Then she'd gotten even more smiley and announced that those three days didn't count for the stitches, and at least one week of being careful would have to pass before they could be pulled.
He'd never met anyone so hellbent on being happy about delivering bad news.
Naruto shifted again and closed his eyes. The sound of the door opening and the bright light being switched on got an angry groan out of him. What was going on now? He opened his eyes a bit, and sighed. Well, he owed him attention.
Iruka looked uneasy as he pulled a chair up to the bed and said, "Hey, Naruto."
Naruto nodded slightly. "Hey."
"I've got something serious to ask of you. I'm very aware that... painful experiences... can be traumatizing and that one often doesn't want to talk about them, but I need you to tell me all you can about the person who did this to you."
Naruto laughed. "Iruka-san, you've got to be kidding me. As if any client with tastes like that would let me notice anything worthwhile about him."
"Naruto, this isn't a laughing matter." Iruka sounded grim.
The blonde shrugged. "I still can't help you, man. The only things I really registered about him were that he was taller than me – not a hard thing to be, that he wasn't fat, and that his cum tasted like --"
"Naruto!"
He shrugged again. "You asked."
Iruka frowned at him. "Well... if that's all, then..sleep well."
Naruto shook his head. "Wait. Can I ask you some things?"
The man sighed. "If I'm allowed to answer them...sure."
"Who is the dude?"
"Gaara?"
"I guess. I mean, there is only one eyeliner-wearing, lasercuff-escaping redhead out there, isn't there? At least I hope so."
Iruka smiled weakly. "Yeah. Well...Gaara is, as you've no doubt picked up from the cuffs, a criminal." Naruto waited for him to continue, but nothing else came.
"Yeah. I did pick that one up. And?"
The Forcer – it felt strange to think of him that way – ran a hand through his hair. "He was the terror of the City a few years back. Have you ever heard of the Sandman?"
"Of course. Wait – stop right there. He's the Sandman?"
Iruka nodded, looking as if he was just about to be executed.
"B – but...he's...barely older than Kiba!"
"He isn't. He's twenty-two. They're the same age."
Naruto was quiet for a few minutes. Wow. The Sandman... he'd known the dude was insane, but that he was that crazy...
The Sandman – everyone knew about the Sandman. He was like the City's very own bogeyman. Naruto had forgotten most of the details, but he knew there had been some kind of missing-persons wave, and after three years or something they caught him. God, he forgot everything!
"Uh... Could you maybe – tell me what he did, exactly?"
Iruka leaned back in his chair. "Hmm. Well. I guess so. Detailed or abbreviated?"
Naruto shot him a disgusted look. "Abbreviated."
Iruka smiled dryly. "Hey, you deserved that for the semen comment. Okay, so basically -- we're still not sure about how many people he actually...did away with, but currently the number stands at around seven hundred. Gaara somehow kidnapped them – he had a couple favorite ways of doing it – and dragged them off to...well, plainly said, to kill them as slowly and painfully as possible."
Naruto digested this in silence. He shifted slightly, feeling the wounds on his back rub against the hospital gown he was wearing. "And why?"
Iruka shrugged. "Anger? Unhappiness? Maybe he just likes it...No one knows. It isn't as if he's a great talker."
The blonde snickered. "No, he really isn't. So why is he hanging out with you? And what were you doing in the parking lot?"
The Forcer winced. "Now it's getting to the Classified data. I'll put it into the most specific terms I can, all right?"
Naruto nodded.
"Gaara is...helping me... figure out some stuff that's happening on Whore Street. We're looking for hints on it wherever we can. Thus the parking lot."
"And what does all this have to do with your interest in the client who did this last night?" Naruto asked, gesturing down at himself.
Iruka smiled apologetically. "Nope, Naruto. That question's deep down in the Classified basement."
The kid grinned. "Oh well. Was worth a try."
The Forcer stood up and moved toward the door. "Yeah, maybe it was. Sleep well, and get better."
"Of course."
After the light had turned off and the door was shut, Naruto closed his eyes. Well, those answers had just brought up more questions, and intensified the need to know the replies to others. So much for a good night's sleep.
He frowned out the window, opening his eyes again.
"The Sandman, huh..." he murmured under his breath.
The black sky didn't answer. Unsure of how to take that, Naruto did the easiest thing.
He fell asleep.
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
hehe...good SasuNaru angsting and GaaNaru angsting in here!
oh, and I hoped that answered some of the many questions about our favorite loony toon Gaa-chan.
Randomness: Subway to Sally, "Das Opfer".
review!I mean it !
