Chapter 17: Carousel
Parings : Naru/Sasu….duh.
Rating: K-T (first) M-NC-17 (later)
Disclaimer: I do not own the sheer genius "Sasuke"; Shippuden of other. The honours go to Masashi Kishimoto and his genius brain that created this masterpiece.
Summary: Remember the summer camp you went to; that quaint place out in the woods, by a lake, sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories and eating s'mores? Well this summer school, sure as hell, isn't that. Three months, Sasuke, teenage delinquents, illegal alcohol, prescription drugs, annoying shrinks, escape plans, a Shitzu from hell, and new relationships; welcome to camp. NaruSasuNaru.
Announcement: This chap is dedicated to 'thehotnerd' for her awesome artwork; find it here; ' /0jOYGGW.' #squeals.
Long ass Author's Note:
A/N: Sorry for the late update, I've been battling a head cold for the past week and a half; you might ask; how the hell does someone contract a head cold in sunny-as-the-freakin'-sahara Jamaica; my life is a mystery like that.
AND: I love all the feedback and the nudges for more chapters that I'm getting for this story; but be warned, I'm not going to rush to write a chapter that comes out as total bullshit and has no damn sense whatsoever which in happenstance I think was the impetus for J.K.R to pair Harry with the little weak as shit weasel-ette; summarily pissing off like 99.99% of her fandom; me included.
Let me address an issue with Sasuke and his convenient blindness to his illness. I base Sasuke on a particular problem I myself had; which was the ability to spot everybody's problems except my own; like my chronic anaemia. I was spectacularly blind to the things going wrong with me; but just like I did, he'll realize eventually.
Oh: and to not confuse ya'll; I'll be referring to Ryuu as Renjii until the appropriate time.
"You." Sasuke said blankly.
"Me." Renjii said smiling while lounging on the wall as he ran a hand over the wall. "Let me tell you Uchiha... You're... impressive. I've been trying to locate Agent Pein from the moment I was stationed here; you found him in what...a week. I've got to admit," he said knocking the deteriorating wall; "...you've done an admirable job so far breaking him out."
"How did you find him?" he asked tightly.
"By following you, of course." came the nimble reply while examining his nails. "I just thought you should know."
"Who the hell are you really?" Sasuke asked his stomach clenching.
"Mizu Ryuu; actually...C.I.A junior operative..." the guy said, "Renjii is just my code name..." he smiled, "I've been trying to tell you that we have more things in common...like this game of shadow chess we're playing...you found the king piece; I found you..." he leaned forward, "...checkmate."
"Don't freak out Uchiha," Renjii said, "Two months ago C.I.A intel received information on Orochimaru's plans to orchestrate Agent Pein's escape and reinstate him back into his syndicate. I was then posted here to assist Agent Pein to break out before the snake bastard got to him but apparently I was a little late."
Renjii walked to the spot on the wall that directly separated Pein from the basement and knocked, "Agent Nagato Uzumaki, status report."
A tidal wave of shock crashed over him, Sasuke quickly grabbed the wall beside him for support, eyes wide like saucer plates, what the hell was really going on here.
"And you didn't know that either, did you?" came the question.
"No," he snapped, "I didn't."
The lightly accented British voice cut in, "Chidori, please...calm down. Ryuu ranked in the 99'th percentile in all our training exercises, in fact he shadowed me on many missions, he can be trusted."
"I understand that," Sasuke grated out in the direction of the stretch of wall, "What I don't understand is, since Ryuu here has apparently made you aware of what's going on upstairs, why you haven't told me you're related to my bunk mate, Uzumaki Naruto."
A clean sigh emanated from the wall, "You have to understand, the Uzumaki clan is large and ancient, and this Naruto you speak of is possibly the child of one of my cousins."
That was a probable explanation.
Sasuke leaned on the wall, arms crossed, "So Renjii...Ryuu, whatever your name is; how exactly are you going to assist me?"
"To do this you are going to need things from the outside, I can probably procure it for you, but first of all, you need to know what exactly you are going up against." Renjii said tone shifting to dead serious, "Be warned; you're not just going up against Orochimaru and his local gang, you're going up against the Triads; the threefold rulers of the underground criminal empire that compasses Iwagakure, Kumogakure and Sunagakure. Each nation has their own mafia head, 'daimyo' if you will, and they employ underlings like the snake bastard."
"Figures," Sasuke snorted, "I realized that he wasn't as independent as he tried to pull off. But what exactly does he was Pein, Nagato, out for?"
"I think he should answer that for you."
A shuffle; "When I was working for him he sent me to gather information on a presumed fabled biochemical drug that is just known as the 'Trojan Horse'. It is airborne and sleeps under your skin until it mysteriously breaks out and kills you without any kind trace residue left in the body. Just after I had gathered the information he sells out Sasori and imprisons me; but the thing is; I never told the information to anybody or recorded it on anything, but the thing is he still wants it to cement his way into underground notoriety, and trust me, he will kill to get it."
"Do you have any idea who the Triad bosses are?" he asked after digesting the information.
"That's the problem; nobody really knows," Renjii said grimly, "... the agency has been trying to track down and identify them for the last six years; nothing."
Sasuke went quiet for a minute then after sighing, scrubbed a hand though his hair. What the hell did he get himself tangled into; it was like jumping from the frying pan into the damn furnace. Renjii allowed his silence for about two minutes before he asked;
"Knowing you Uchiha, you have formulated about five escape plans by now, each one off tangent to the other; will you inform me of them?"
A quick piercing look scanned over the mocha form standing easily before him, "At this point I think I'll keep them to myself, thank you very much."
The deadlocked teen shrugged, "Can't blame you; but you need to be armed...literally." He then reached down into his boot and pulled up a sheathed five inch knife. The raven tensed until Renjii flipped it over and handed the knife, handle first, to him. Not even asking how he had managed to smuggle a weapon in the camp, Sasuke warily took the blade noticing the unusual weightlessness.
"What is it?"
"It's a 'Wasp knife'," Renjii answered, "Normally used by divers and hunters in an emergency; it's loaded with CO2; once stabbed the gas releases and blows up the target."
Ripping off the sheath, he glanced at the blue-grey steel glinting in the low light; on the handle was the small button to release the gas.
"Useful." Re-sheathing it and shoving it into his own boot, he nodded. Glancing down at the watch on his arm his eyes widened a smidgen, "We need to get back; it's an hour to cali." Turning to the wall he said, "Pein; we need to talk later."
"Certainly."
Outside in the lightening atmosphere Sasuke turned to Renjii and said, "We did not have that conversation."
Cool amber eyes looked back at him, "What conversation?"
(*)(*)(*)
At breakfast while sipping his tea he thought over everything that happened in the few days especially his mysterious illness. Mentally he ran down his symptoms; shortness of breath, acidosis, fatigue, weakness, irritability, lapses in judgement, headaches and nausea.
He was damn sure he hadn't come in contact with anything or anyone who was sick so how the hell was he ill?
'Airborne pathogens.'His mind supplied in the next second. 'Shortness of breath because lungs are the most vulnerable.'
Placing his cup on the table his eyes narrowed. Slipping a hand under his shirt exactly above his lungs he took a deep breath he held it in as he pushed his fingertips into his sternum and felt around for the five seconds.
His eyes narrowed even further. Directly under his rib cage was a small protruding mass that felt spongy and malleable. That was not normal. How could he have developed a cyst without the accompanying pain. He hadn't noticed any swelling or anything to imply retention of fluids so again, what the hell was going on?
His thyroid hadn't swelled, he wasn't bloated and he wasn't consuming more salt than normal. The most likely answer was his low protein levels; his albumin (1) was obviously low.
"It's a cypher." The dual voices rang out; Kin and Shikamaru's. The two quickly glanced at each other and then back to the board. Sasuke hadn't even glanced at the board in favour of mentally going over the info Renjii had told him.
"It's called a mono-alphabetic substitution." The Nara supplied; voice surprisingly not lethargic, "Each letter of the alphabet is replaced according to the key with another letter of symbol. Kind of juvenile and tame though...if you want a real cypher try an eternity code."
The history teacher nodded, "But where have it been used in the past?"
"According to chapter five; Mary, Queen of Scots," Kin answered for them; "...it was what led to her capture and execution."
"Excellent. Now most cyphers use a kind of replacement system, as is to substitute the letter presented to them with the one directly behind it, to decode messages and communicate over militarized zones. One notable example was when an American spy actually made it across occupied Germany to deliver a message to the Allied forces about the invasion of Poland and the-"
"FUCK!" Sasuke cried out all of a sudden grabbing his belly after the cutting pain that had just slashed through his abdomen.
"Uchiha?" Hayate asked brows furrowing making his way over to the teen, "Something wrong?"
"No." He replied marshalling the pain, "I'm f-" he slapped a hand over his mouth and bolted to the door way, bursting into the sunshine where he let go the deluge of vomit in a nearby bush. Leaning back he tilted his weary head against the wooded column.
"Uchiha," Hayate said, "You're obviously not fine; I've just notified Tsunade, go to the infirmary right now."
He smiled grimly, "Yes Sir."
(*)(*)(*)
"How long have you been feeling like this?" Tsunade asked, blond brows almost meeting in the middle of her face.
"About three days," he admitted, "It wasn't that bad really, just an upset stomach and one incident of vomiting, I honestly thought it was acid reflux... acidosis...something. I tried eating more alkaline stuff but apparently it hasn't worked."
She smiled tightly, "Self-medicating huh, I applaud your efforts but the next time this happens you come straight to me, got it kid."
"I am not a kid." He bristled.
"To me you are," she answered curtly not even looking up from her clipboard, "I'm old enough to be your grandmother."
"Trust me," he murmured, "I believe you...all that time with Orochim-" he slapped a hand over his mouth; what the hell was it with him and all those Freudian slips?
The blond woman turned to him slowly, brown eyes narrowed, "What did you just say?"
"I did some research before I came here," he lied smoothly, "I know that you, your husband and he were partners."
The eyes were still narrowed suspiciously but the released slightly, "That man is a pit-snake, Uchiha and about as deadly as one too. He's a conniving bastard of the highest order. You know the reason I kicked him out of our partnership; he tried to run tests on children Uchiha, kids, not older than ten."
"That's sick." He replied.
Her laugh was hollow while measuring out a cupful of milky white liquid, "No what was sick was when I caught him with a seven year old girl, strapped down to a table about to be drugged."
He took the cup and swallowed wincing at the concentrated sickly sweet peppermint taste, "Anti-acid, right?"
"Yes," she replied, "It should start working in about fifteen minutes, so until then you're staying here until the burning subsides, get it?"
"Okay."
She left after grabbing a sheath of papers and mumbling to herself about some other patients with persistent diarrhoea.
Head leaning on the cold tile behind the chair his eyes slipped closed. Now Sasuke wasn't a stranger to change but even he could reason that his current circumstances were utterly ridiculous.
It was like his life had just gone ape shit. Under four weeks, after being dumped unceremoniously into camp full of juvenile criminals (which statistically eighty-five percent after reintegration into society will just continue to be) he had come in contact with one person he would have sworn he would have killed in cold blood upon seeing again, he had met with a mob boss, was strong armed into finding and freeing a prisoner who in actuality is a government agent, had met his father's missing star student, his brother begun a...relationship...with the older brother of another inmate, who's younger brother coincidently, happened to be a C.I.A agent. He had become insanely protective of a member of the female sex to the point of acting like a dictatorial older sibling; and then the attraction; the damn unprecedented attraction.
After the crippling pain that riddled his mind and body just after the end of relationship with Neji about three years ago he had convinced himself he was asexual and was just a monolith looking snidely at the stupidity of the majority of mankind.
But now he had become so attuned to the blonde's presence was insane; it was like he had become intensively hypersensitive to everything about Naruto Uzumaki; the pulsing heat his tan body produced, the deep husk of his voice; his blue eyes that put the northern lights to shame, the rock hard muscl-
"Uchiha." Shizune's voice called through the doorway, "time's up; you can go back to class now."
Shaking himself out of it he got up and left.
"So, according to the E.H. Weber and his research on sensory responses to stimuli leading to his work in psychophysics, he was then considered the father of-"
"Aburame, right?" Ino cut in walking up to him, popping her gum and totally ignoring the Uchiha.
Shino's mouth slammed shut so fast his teeth clicked. Sasuke's brows furrowed in confusion as he watched fascinated while a haze of blanch white and sickly yellow washed over the Aburame's face.
"Here," she said bland eyes level while she handed him a yellow note, "Anko-sensei wants to speak with you."
The flush just got worse with every word Ino said, leading to every eye around the table being plastered on Shino. A bleach blond eyebrow arched perfectly, before she sniffed and turned away.
Silence. Shino's head met the circle of his arms. Exactly fifteen seconds after she left Shino murmured, "Shut it Uchiha."
This time all the gazes swivelled around to Sasuke's. "Dude." Naruto asked, "What's he on about?"
"He has something called 'Select mutism(1)'," Sasuke answered idly turning back to his textbook, "It like pathological shyness but really means he can't speak to sexually attractive women without being drugged, pharmaceutically or recreationally like with alcohol."
"You can't speak to women?" Kiba cut in eyebrows disappearing into his hair, "...how the hell are you gonna have sex?"
"Oh no," Sasuke cut in again, "His condition has absolutely nothing to do with sex, two words, 'deaf prostitute'."
"Oh no," Kiba sniffed, "You don't want to go that route...crabs are nothing to play with."
"And here I was thinking that all that scratching was because of your subcutaneous fleas." Shikamaru yawned to be met promptly with a smack to the arm.
Sasuke took in the scene smiling slightly; he actually was comfortable in group had a lazy genius hacker who if he didn't have to move would happily became a slab of stone, a chop shop thief who couldn't talk to women, two attempted murderers, a severe paranoiac smuggler, a pyromaniac, a nympho-
"UCHIHA-KUN!"
Sasuke stopped dead, why in hell was Lee calling him.
"Yes?" he answered stonily.
The bowl hair cut sixteen year old grinned striking his signature pose, "The beautiful Sakura-chan has graciously asked me to tell you to meet her at the library."
A snicker broke under a coughed 'girlfriend' and 'whipped' but was quickly stifled under the face-melting poisonous glare Sasuke delivered to the general vicinity. Calmly getting up he faced Lee and smiled while out of the corner of his eye he noticed the cohesive shiver that ran over the faces of everyone present like they had just witnessed a zombie resurrection.
"Guys," he said pleasantly, "Give me five minutes."
They had just reached the blooming almond tree in the quad when Sasuke struck and forcefully shoved Lee against the bark of the tree.
"Listen you bushy browed, bowl cut freak," he growled, "I don't like you, I don't know what you are; or what your intentions are. I don't like anything about you and I sure as hell will not tolerate you sniffing around Sakura. My advice; if you want to keep the majority of your organs intact, your precious Sasquatch eyebrow beard and if you have any notions of being a father in the next fifteen years Stay. The. Hell. Away. From. My. Sakura. Understand?"
Lee stood there slightly dumbfounded for about ten seconds before his eyes narrowed, "Is that a challenge, Uchiha?"
"Not a challenge," he countered walking off to meet the pink-ette; "...it's a promise."
****psychiatric session Naruto****
"So," Iruka asked, "Naruto...how do you find your roommate?"
Blue eyes squinted, "...you're talking about Sasuke...right?"
Iruka did a silent double take upon hearing the blond utter the Uchiha's personal name. "Yes, I am..." He assured, "...how do you find him?"
"Oh," Naruto shrugged, "He's okay...if you ignore his bitchy moods. He's obviously brilliant but has absolutely no idea how to lighten up at all..." he snorted, "...once after I called him out on his attitude he said, 'sarcasm is my body's natural defence against 'stupid'...other than that, he's okay," he said head meeting the back of his chair eyes closed, "smoking hot though."
Iruka's pen and writing pad met the floor as his eyes flew open, "...You find Uchiha Sasuke...attractive?"
"Well yeah," Naruto replied, "He's frikkin' gorgeous."
"Naruto," Iruka asked mentally castigating himself for not asking this question a long time ago while picking up his pen "...tell me...what physical attributes do you look for in your partners? I mean...do you have a type?"
A paused, "I never really thought of it that way..." he trailed off eyes dancing to the right, "..but come to think of it...I think I do...everybody I've been with was had dark hair and dark eyes, Aaliyah had raven hair down to her waist, Hakim had short black hair, Serai had short dark hair and black eyes...so I guess I'm attracted to brunettes."
"Yes," Iruka replied shortly, "but what about Sasuke...what exactly about him do you like?"
"He doesn't stand for bullshit..." the blond replied, "he's not fake...or what's the word...pretentious...I can't stand fake people...they piss me off."
His tone in the latter part of the sentence indicated something else...something deep that clearly irritated him. Iruka grabbed unto it, "Tell me Naruto...what else makes you angry?"
Sasuke ran his eyes over the notes before him. After balancing the equation and sorting through the problem he settled upon it: cyanide pellets and sulphuric acid to make hydrogen cyanide gas, resulting in hypoxia (3). He just needed a crucible, a flame, a sealed container and about thirty minutes of undisturbed time.
Shifting over to the other set of notes he frowned slightly as he glanced down at the scribble 'EMP'. This was another problem he needed to sort out; the thing was he knew biology and chemistry but advanced physics was definitely not his forte. Who in here knew how to build an electromagnetic pulse device (4)?
Running though the list of people he lighted upon one name and grinned: TenTen.
"You've never played basketball before?" Naruto asked bouncing the ball on his palm, blue eyes wide.
"No." Sasuke replied, body immeasurably tense with the less than a foot of space between them. "Didn't I just say that?"
"Then some 'one-on-one' is in order." Naruto declared and without warning heaved the ball towards the raven. Swiftly snatching the ball out of the air he flicked the sphere up and rotated it on one finger.
"Do you know what F=MA is?" he asked idly.
"Ummm, no." the blond returned, "should I?"
"Newton's Second Law; force equals mass times acceleration," Sasuke said dunking under the blonde's raised arm and with a jump dunked the ball. "And you are so easy to distract."
"Cheat!" the blond snarled playfully quickly robbing the ball from pale hands. "First to thirty."
"Let's go."
(*)(*)(*)
It was official; Naruto was a damn cyborg. The chilled night air was half way freezing his lungs but he didn't care; flopping down on the gritty court while breathing hard and brushing the wet hair out of his eyes. He slipped his eyes open to view a cocky mischievous smirk.
"Giving up?"
Sasuke snorted, "No Baka, I'm just conserving energy."
The blond flopped down beside him, "Yeah...also known as punking out."
Sasuke aimed a kick towards the soaked navy blue shirt beside him; "Screw you."
"You sure about that?" Naruto asked leaning over him, arms bent over the raven's head.
Sasuke went still; the look in the blonde's eyes was like...fire. Naruto leaned in closer inches away from his pale face. Sasuke's pulse skyrocketed.
"...You don't want this." Sasuke said heart beating a mile a minute, "You're confused."
"No," Naruto said, pupils so fully blown a bare rim of blue surrounded the black, "I'm not the one confused here. Admit it."
He was right.
Futilely Sasuke pushed against the stiff body that he knew he couldn't budge for his life. Tan fingertips brushed across his cheekbone. Something dark and primitive identified as molten lust snaked up his back and contracted his belly until he couldn't breathe deeper than short pants.
"It's not allowed." He tried again tightly.
"Really?" was the terse answer he got before broad lips met his and a rough tongue flickered over the seam of his lips. Halfway out of his mind his own lips opened and the foreign mobile muscle was then inside. Pleasure twisted in Sasuke's mind and before he knew it he was reciprocating; more pressure was exerted and Sasuke's hands found themselves buried into coarse golden locks and seeking after the tongue sweeping through his mouth now. He groaned and sought after the tongue, found it and suckled hard, insanely proud when his actions earned a deep guttural groan and then reality kicked in and he shoved the blond off him, terrified.
"Sasu-"
"NO! Don't." he said scrambling up and shoving off the ground only to have his arm caught in a strong grip, "Don't...I can't. Leave it...this is insane."
"Why?"
Sasuke swallowed pulling his hand out of the grip and whispered while backing away; "Because I'm toxic Naruto."
It was obvious that something had imploded between them but nobody said anything in deference to the bone marrow freezing glare Sasuke would deliver to any hint of a comment. His stony silence was enough to propel stifling quiet within his boundaries.
As auto shop petered out he caught TenTen's eye and mouthed, 'Stay'. Confused she took longer than usual and even volunteered to stay behind and clean up the iron shavings on the floor.
In the empty room she ditched the broom and approached him, eyes curious.
"What do you need, Uchiha?"
Straight to the point then, fine. "I need your help; but you have to keep it under wraps because it is immensely illegal."
She grinned, "'Illegal' is my middle name; so again what do you need?"
"I need to build an EMP."
(1) 'Albumin': the most abundant blood protein, if it gets too low swelling occurs.
(2) 'Select Mutism': an anxiety disorder in which a person who is normally capable of speech does not in specific situations or to specific people.
(3) Hypoxia; the deprivation of oxygen
(4) EMP- short for electro-magnetic pulse device; it's used to short out anything electrical within its range.
AND; REVIEW DAMNIT!
XD