Hii, does anyone know if this story is already uploaded somewhere? pls, tell me where if you know thanks! :)

The Long Way Home by Dashel

Part 2

First Impressions

Chapter 1/2

It had been only three days since waking up in the clearing but time seemed to pass slowly for Sasuke.

No matter how hungry they might have been when they had raided the scavenger camp, they hadn't taken much food away with them. The men had looked pretty skinny and so hopeless that Naruto, soft idiot that he was, had taken pity on them and not wanted to take all their food. Not that their pieces of stale bread and some biscuits but was much to take. A few nothing very sustaining. Whatever weird meaty stew they'd had cooking over their campfire had smelt sort of okay but looked revolting. Neither of them had touched it.

Hunting for their own food was harder than Sasuke remembered it ever being mostly due to the fact that he couldn't use chakra and had to rely on his own quickness and cunning. Which would have been okay had they had any means to set up snares or traps but they didn't so their bellies were a little emptier than either, one of them would have preferred right now. Almost all the local vegetation was unfamiliar as well and neither one of them wanted to risk sickness should they eat the wrong berry. Well, Sasuke didn't and although Naruto had been more than willing to act as a guinea pig, his willingness had faded pretty quickly when Sasuke told him that if he poisoned himself, he, Sasuke, would leave him in the woods to suffer rather than carry him.

On a more optimistic note, they had gotten news from a passing traveler who had given them directions towards the town Sasuke knew had to be near on was their second day after waking and if luck held they would arrive there just after nightfall tomorrow. This news made him happier for a few reasons. Firstly, they might map and work out just where they were. Secondly, they could find some food and maybe a bed for the night. Thirdly, and most importantly, Naruto was starting to wear on his nerves and he needed something new to distract him before he strangled the dobe.

Admittedly, it hadn't been too bad at first. No matter how much Sasuke belittled him, Naruto was still a formidable fighter even without his chakra and Sasuke could depend on him to hold up his end of a fight without having to worry as evidenced by their very minor scuffle in the scavenger camp. It was a change from the earlier days in team 7 that was for sure. But even then Naruto had been more or less reliable he supposed in a distinctly Naruto sort of never-give-up way.

He had also been reliable as far as hunting and traveling was concerned. He took his turn to hunt even if he wasn't very good at it and never whined or complained about how far they traveled or the terrain they traveled on. This was surprising considering he had no shoes and Sasuke had already seen the damage, being done to his feet. Naruto didn't pick where to place his feet, he hardly ever looked at the ground while he walked which ended up with him stepping on any twig, stone or insect that came under his feet and generally hurting himself because of it. And it was useless to keep berating him for not looking where he was going because Naruto just wasn't used to having to do it. Normally he'd wear shoes and normally with chakra he would have used the trees to get around when traveling in such long distances. So Sasuke kept his haranguing down to a minimum as far as that was concerned. But his main problem, the constant optimistic chatter, still managed to annoy him.

The people Sasake usually associated himself with when necessary were generally a dark silent lot who probably found it easier to murder their companions than make small talk with them. Sasuke enjoyed the silence, and he was more used to traveling on his own anyway that suddenly being back in such close proximity to Naruto and his inexhaustible supply of stories and idle chatter grated on his nerves. In fact, just about every noise the dobe made seemed aimed to annoy him from his loud and pervading snoring of a night to his happy cheerful voice of a day. Sasuke couldn't understand how someone in their situation could find any reason to be cheery, but then Sasuke had always had a hard time trying to understand Naruto. Probably, admittedly, because he'd never tried.

His favorite part of the day had become late afternoon, just as it was now, when the dying light of the sun cast long shadows through the trees making the air cooler and Naruto a little more travel tired and therefore unwilling to keep up his running dialogue with the same amount of gusto as before. That's when Sasuke's mind ran clearer without distractions, his body got a chance to cool off and the presence of his thankfully now silent companion was oddly reassuring as he kept pace with Sasuke only faltering slightly when stepping on the odd sharp object or twenty.

This particular night, after picking a spot to camp for the night, Sasuke left Naruto and went out hunting/ He was in luck and managed to hit a rabbit with his knife. He cleaned the kill and came back into the camp to find Naruto sitting cross-legged in front of their campfire, eyes closed and concentrating fiercely. It wasn't the first time he'd found Naruto this way, he doubted it would be the last.

"I think if you were going to be able to draw in nature energy you would have done it by now," Sasuke told him setting about securing his catch to a makeshift spit.

"Yeah, I know. I wasn't trying to do that. I gave up an hour ago."

"The fox?" Sasuke asked raising an eyebrow. He'd thought Naruto had given up on that too.

"Yeah, know he's there. It's like someone is standing right behind you, you can feel their presence like a breath on the back of your neck. But then you turn around and there's nothing there." Naruto opened his eyes, put his head into his hand, and sighed. "I really wish you could take a look to see what's going on."

This was a sore spot for Sasuke. His Sharingan wasn't working and he couldn't even get it to activate let alone actually use it. If it had been working he might have been able to see inside them and figure out what was wrong.

"It's your pet, you find it."

I wouldn't call him a pet," Naruto told him wincing slightly.

"A parasite then."

"Ah I think he'd use the term 'prisoner'."

"Whatever."

"I did manage to draw in a bit of nature energy though," Naruto said in an annoyingly off-handed matter. Why didn't he say anything sooner? This was a huge deal!

"But lost it before I could do anything. It was like trying to hold onto smoke," Naruto continued grasping at the random cloud of smoke rising from the campfire.

Really it was pretty amazing that one person had so many different forms of power to rely on and perhaps a touch scary that every one of them had been essentially taken away from him all at the same time.

"Moron."

"Bite me Sasuke, at least I'm trying."

Since Sasuke had failed to activate his Sharingan he hadn't tried to use his chakra again. He knew it was still gone and trying felt like failing. He'd rather just concentrate on what he could do. Besides even though he could normally turn the Sharingan on at will, sometimes his body would just react unconsciously depending on the situation. But because it wouldn't activate now, every time it even tried to activate he got a sharp pain behind his eyes that made his vision blurry for a few seconds. He hadn't even known it was because of his Sharingan until they'd heard a noise on the trail behind them and Naruto had seen his eyes change color for a second just before the pain had hit him. When Naruto had told him what he'd seen he'd known he would, have to train his body to not react to things like that anymore. He didn't want to get into a fight just to have his eyes tear up and be unable to focus on anything. He figured not trying to actively use his chakra at all might help him with this as well.

"I think you mean 'failing'," Sasuke corrected putting his newly made rabbit spit over the fire.

"You don't have to be so..." then Naruto looked up and his eyes widened. "Sasuke, watch out!"

Naruto bounded across the fire, grabbed Sasuke's shirt and attempted to roll him away to the right, Sasuke had seen the danger just as Naruto had called out to him but had been surprised when Naruto had moved to save him. Their roll stopped with Naruto lying over him, protecting Sasuke's body with his own but Sasuke managed to get an arm free just in time to receive the snakebite on his forearm before it bit the body on top of him.

Sasuke first pushed a horrified Naruto off him then sat up and grabbed the snake behind its head while it pumped him full of venom. When the snake let go of his arm he killed it quickly and threw it in front of the campfire casually. One thing was for sure; they would both eat well tonight.

"Sasuke, I was trying to stop it from biting you!" Naruto exclaimed getting to his feet and moving around to Sasuke's injured arm to take a look at the wound.

"What by letting it bite you instead? That's less saving me and more killing yourself. It was also stupid."

Naruto sank to his knees next to Sasuke and grabbed his arm, bringing it up to his lips like he was about to suck out the poison. Sasuke stopped him with a hand on his forehead.

"It won't kill me dobe. Let's just say I'm venom proof."

Naruto halted, his mouth inches away from the twin punctures on Sasuke's arm. "Orochimaru?" he asked with a wince.

Sasuke nodded.

"You can't be venom proof to every single snake in the world."

"I would be very surprised if I wasn't."

"But it'll make you feel sick right?"

"A little maybe. Depends on the snake."

And before Sasuke could stop him again, Naruto lent forward and put his lips neatly around the wound, sucking and then spitting out it out into the fie.

"Moron!" Sasuke exclaimed pushing him away.

"You can still get poisoned that way. Why do you care so much if I get a little sick?"

Naruto looked up at him from where he'd landed on his ass, wiping Sasuke's blood from his lips. "I guess I just do," he replied softly before he recovered from his slip up by getting angry instead. "You're such an ungrateful bastard, you know that!?"

"Like really care," Sasuke replied dismissively. "Don't fawn all over me like I'm an invalid or something."

"Don't worry, I'm not one of your moon-eyed groupies, teme," Naruto replied savagely getting up and wincing.

Sasuke sighed, "What have you stepped on now?"

"Why do you care so much if a get a little cut?" Naruto retorted smugly.

"Don't be a child. Sit down."

"Make me."

So Sasuke grabbed his ankle and pulled. Naruto landed for a second time in the dirt and Sasuke swiveled 'round and picked up one of Naruto's feet to inspect. As he'd pretty much figured Naruto had stood on a particularly sharp stone that had cut into the arch on his foot.

"Stop moving," Sasuke ordered when Naruto tried to jerk his leg away. "Your feet are filthy," he remarked as he picked the store free and changed to the other foot to inspect that one too.

"I've been walking on them, genius."

"Wear my shoes tomorrow, give your feet a rest."

Naruto gave him a weird look like he'd just spontaneously grown another head.

"Don't confuse 'nice' with practical'," Sasuke told the look. "You're useless to me if you can't walk. You don't seem to be healing any faster than me with the demon on holiday. You can't shrug off injury like you used to."

"Yeah, yeah, I-"

And then Naruto's foot jerked and he fell onto his back laughing. "Stop, Sasuke, stop!"

Sasuke's hands stilled inches from pulling out a fair sized sliver of wood. Naruto stopped laughing and propped himself up on his elbows.

"Please let my foot go now."

"Ticklish?" Sasuke asked in surprise.

"Apparently. Just let go, okay?"

Sasuke wondered what 'apparently' had meant. How could you not know if your feet were ticklish? When he was little his older brother had managed to find just about every ticklish part on his body just so he could randomly attack him when he felt his little brother was being a pain or just sometimes to see him laugh.

But of course, Naruto didn't have any siblings, no parents and probably wasn't into tickling matches with his friends. He wasn't quite sure in that second whether his following feeling of melancholia was because he'd thought of Itachi, his family or the fact that Naruto had never had one to begin with.

"I want to get this bit of wood out before it gets infected. Don't move and try to cope. It's a wonder the pain still allows you to feel ticklish."

Naruto didn't look happy but nodded. He was on his back again in seconds trying really hard not to laugh and even harder to keep still. When Sasuke was done he flicked his finger across the bottom of Naruto's foot for good measure and then let go.

"You did that last One on purpose, asshole," Naruto accused sitting up and wining tears from his eyes.

Sasuke smirked at him. "You're such an ungrateful bastard, you know that?" he mimicked mockingly.

But it only caused Naruto to smile just before his stomach rumbled loudly. He must have smelt that the rabbit was close to being done.

"I sure won't be ungrateful on a full stomach. Let's eat!"

As it turned out, Sasuke's estimation on when they would arrive at the town was a little pessimistic. They beat nightfall by a full three hours though they did have to walk around till they found a gate in the massive wooden wall that surrounded the town. But now that they had found one, they were eyeing off the gate guards as they checked payers presented to them by every single person that walked in through those gates.

"'We could say we got robbed, that's true enough," Naruto suggested.

"That could lead to a lot of questions," Sasuke responded.

"What's the worst they could do?"

Without looking, Sasuke pointed up toward the high walls around the gates. He'd seen the staked corpses before they'd stopped just off the road leading to the gates but apparently, Naruto had missed it.

"Oh," Naruto said softly.

Not that Sasuke assumed failure to present papers might lead to a possible staking, and even if it did he figured they could fight their way through the three gate guards without breaking a sweat but assuming things was a bad habit to get into in places like this. A place like this obviously enjoyed drastic punishment and a lot to judge by the amount of bodies displayed. Plus they also seem to like reminding visitors coming into their city about these drastic punishments.

So Sasuke instead took advantage of the daylight to look at the wall surrounding the city. For two ninjas, these walls were like a small stone to step over. But without chakra it would be a difficult climb with very few handholds.

"Why are we so desperate to get into this place again?" Naruto asked.

"Maps, mainly," Sasuke replied.

The person they had encountered that gave them directions to the city hadn't heard of Konoha. More distressingly he hadn't heard the five great nations either which made getting their hands on a map all the more necessary. Without even the vaguest idea of which direction to walk in they might end up walking for weeks the wrong way without knowing it. Sasuke hated wasting his time like that.

"Medicine for our wounds wouldn't go astray either," Sasuke added thoughtfully, watching a traveler as they left the town and walked down the road towards him. His eyes narrowed on the man but his concentration was completely broken when Naruto placed a warning hand on his shoulder.

"We aren't robbing people for their papers," Naruto told him firmly.

"Borrowing," Sasuke corrected.

"I don't care what you call it to tell yourself it's okay. We're not doing it."

"What kind of a ninja are you?" Sasuke questioned sharply. "No wait, don't bother answering that. Besides, just because you say 'no' doesn't mean I won't do whatever the hell want anyway."

Naruto seemed to realize he had a good point and looked wary all of a sudden. "If you think they'd stake us to the wall for not having papers, imagine what they might do if they think we have stolen papers."

"You're giving gate guards a lot of credit," Sasuke told him sneeringly.

"And as usual, you're not giving anyone any credit. Lots of things can go wrong with your plan, we're better off sneaking in."

"How? Are you going to wait for the walls to rot? I'm a good climber but even that wall looks tricky to me and it's a far way to fall if you slip."

"Wasn't thinking about climbing," Naruto said with a grin. "C'mon let's find somewhere to hide till nightfall."

Just after dark, there was a cry that went up around the guards on the north wall. Soon after, thick columns of smoke could be seen blotting out the torches across the wall. The gate guards who were just getting ready to close up the gates for the night heard the yell of "Fire! Fire!" and since the gates were almost closed ran off to see if they could help putting out the blaze. Their walls had been treated to help stop it burning but it didn't make them fireproof and if part of the wall went up in smoke it would start to endanger a lot of houses too.

Just before the gates closed completely, two figures slipped inside, masked by the shadows and their own silence. Nobody seemed to be around to spot them, the gates themselves being pulled closed by oxen and not men. The two shadows flittered across the square and disappeared between the buildings.

Credit where credit was due, it hadn't been a bad plan. People leaving the city never seemed to get their papers checked so it wasn't even like they were trapped in here either. Sasuke just hoped that the gates were the only place they did want to see your papers.

Considering it was after night had fallen there were no shops open so maps, shoes, and medicine would have to wait till the next day Instead they sought out some hot food and a place to stay. The food as it turned out was meat, and a lot of it. Back in Konoha, beef was a little on the pricey side, a treat. Here big chunks of meat were sold at just about every food shop for a couple of coins only. Naruto sat by Sasuke at a counter eatery happily ripping hunks of meat off the bone with juice dripping off his chin.

"You're going to make yourself sick," Sasuke warned him disdainfully.

"Don't care. Too hungry," Naruto replied in between big bites.

After dinner, they sought out the cheapest hotel they could find which unfortunately wasn't quite cheap enough to afford them a room each if they wanted to try and conserve what little money they'd taken from the scavengers.

But Sasuke hadn't really expected much different and asked for one room instead. He'd been sleeping out in the wilderness with the dobe for a few nights now so if he had to do it here too he could at least find some comfort in being able to bathe and have a bed to help him cope.

For some reason though the manager seemed to have a bit of difficulty with the request.

"You just want one room, for two people?"

It was the third time he had asked and Sasuke was doing all he could not to completely lose his cool at the man.

''Yes."

"But you're both ah..."

"Tired," Sasuke cut in a little more sharply.

"But aren't you... worried?" The man asked in a low voice. "It's unseemly and the violence it could cause..."

Sasuke was about 16 make some offhand remark about losing his Will to actually smother Naruto to stop his snoring after the second night of sleeping near him but stopped himself. This man seemed really agitated about something and not because he feared violence between his two guests happening in his rooms. What possible problem could he have with two men sharing a room for the...

Sasuke frowned. "You're joking with me, right?"

"Um, what's going on?" Naruto asked.

"Even if I did bring him to a cheap inn with the sole intention of fucking his brains out, why should that be any of your business?" Sasuke hissed at the man darkly.

Naruto managed not to laugh or punch him for the comment, but he looked plenty pale anyway. Thankfully though he stayed quiet.

Most people shrunk away from Sasuke when he was angry and this man was no exception. He looked quite fearful. "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"About the laws. You must be travelers. Look you two aren't really going to um..."

"No, we're definitely not going to 'um'," Naruto told the man decisively but also a shade desperately too.

"My brother and just don't know the local laws, that's all. We've traveled a long way."

"Brothers?" the manager asked hopefully before allowing himself to smile a little. "Well, that's a bit different. You must understand you don't really look alike."

"Different mothers," Sasuke explained shortly. "We didn't realize we had to give you our life story just to share a room."

Sasuke couldn't be sure but the man seemed on the verge of asking for their papers as some kind of proof but the look on Sasuke's face warned him not to hassle them any more than he already had.

"Well if you're interested, there is a copy of the codes in every room for visiting guests. Not that we get, well, anybody really who don't already know. I'll just ah, go get your key."

Up in their room, the first thing Sasuke did was fill up the tub to soak his feet in warm water. His feet were a little on the sore side from going barefoot through the woods all day and he figured a good soak would do them good.

He was sitting on the edge of the tub, thumbing through the codebook when Naruto came in and joined him, sitting on the edge beside him and easing his feet into the tub with a long drawn out sigh. Sasuke's own feet had already made the water grey, Naruto's made it go almost black.

Sasuke gave him an unimpressed look.

"They hurt okay?" Naruto told him defensively. "Besides, I want to know what these laws are."

Sasuke turned his eyes back to the little codebook he was holding. "Well, I think I found the one that the manager thought we were about to break. Apparently, it's illegal to have sex before marriage in this country."

"Okay, so that's really harsh. But why did he assume that..."

"Dobe, use your brain. We're both seventeen but could easily be mistaken for twenty which fine, where we come from it isn't that old and most people our age aren't married. But then if you lived in a country where you needed to marry someone before you could have sex with them you might imagine that people would get married a lot younger even than we appear to be now. The chance that we are two unmarried men who just happen to want to share a room seems odd. Plus there is also a law That states only a man and a woman can get married."

Sasuke could almost see this one being worked out behind those open but confused blue eyes. Eventually, Naruto frowned. "So because we weren't wearing rings or whatever the local thing is and we're old enough to want to be married but instead are hanging out in the same room as each other the guy assumed we were..." And that's when Naruto's eyes bugged out It was pretty amusing.

"Not interested in getting married," Sasuke finished slowly and diplomatically.

"That's so wrong!" Naruto exclaimed.

"What, I'm not good enough?" Sasuke teased. He didn't know what came over him; Naruto's outrage was almost comical.

"That's not what I mean," Naruto clarified.

"So I am good enough?"

"Sasuke, shut up! That's not what I was... wait, are you actually making a joke?"

"Well, I'm certainly not propositioning you."

A slow smile crept over Naruto's face. "You made a joke. And it didn't sound sarcastic or mean or anything!"

"It can happen."

"Since when?"

Sasuke sighed, "You were saying?"

"Oh right, well the whole thing just sucks. What happened to free will?"

"I don't think it exists here," Sasuke replied flipping through the book. "It's not just marriage they're really strict about and just about everything seems to incur the same punishment."

"Staking?"

"It's hard to say It just says here that: 'you can be held at the local field office for questioning for an unspecified amount of time of which is to be decided at the discretion of the arresting soldier.' It doesn't talk about fines or even being released. It doesn't even talk about extended imprisonment. I just assume that if you live through the beatings they give you, that's when you get the spike."

Naruto swallowed thickly. "So just what do we have to watch out for?"

"Well for a start I guess we'll have to forgo the sex," Sasuke began.

"Teme!"

Apart from that, it's mostly common sense stuff Anything that was frowned upon in the five nations is still considered a crime here. Though there are a few odd social things we might have to watch out for."

"Like?"

"Don't meet the eyes of a high born, don't get caught sleeping in public spaces, don't wear bright colors on the last day of the week..."

"Seriously?"

Sasuke nodded and continued. "Don't fight, don't spit, don't congregate in groups of more than ten people and the list goes on. Oh and by the way, apparently it is illegal to own rodents inside the townships."

"This country is crazy."

"I concur. I also think we should leave it as soon as possible, ' Sasuke agreed, closing the book with a snap.

TBC