Fate's Garden

Part 1 - Anomalistic

Chapter 4 - Salt Water Taffy

"So I'm really a loser…? You and I are on the same level in this world?" Sasuke asked, in total disbelief.

Naruto grunted in the affirmative. Their alarm had just gone off. Currently they were in their separate beds, remaining snuggled comfortably under their blankets. They had a while before breakfast, well, a while being ten minutes. He'd realized something after a few minutes, and that was that they had their test today. Sasuke would be meeting this different Sakura for the first time. He'd actually see some of his peers, and this would be a problem. While Sasuke wasn't used to being an outcast, the rookie nine of this world were used to a Sasuke who didn't fight back. Granted, duck-butt did stand up for his brother in a sufficient enough manner. He just didn't really strike against the enemy with any great deal of venom in his bite. Naruto knew, and didn't particularly care, that he wouldn't be able to stop Sasuke from lashing out verbally. He was both afraid, and excited about the resulting scenario. This Sakura had never dealt with a Sasuke like this before. She also didn't like him, and none of her 'friends' did either. As far as Kyuubi had told him, she'd never been subjected to her earlier isolation as Naruto's real Sakura had. She and Ino had been friends from the start, and ruled their generation at the academy with an iron fist. Meaning, her insecurities (including her large forehead) had never been brought to light. Naruto smirked evilly.

"Ugh. It's a blessing and an insult at the same time."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Naruto snapped.

"Exactly what it sounds like it means."

They'd both sat up straight, staring over their respective headboards at each other. Two sets of narrowed eyes locked onto each other as they glared. Their staring contest was cut short by a sudden exclamation that had both boys stiffening (though for entirely different reasons).

"Boys! Come down here and say goodbye to your mother before she goes on a long mission!" Came the indignant holler.

"Coming Mooooom!"

Naruto still found that his breath hitched every time the word left his mouth. While all other words in his vocabulary rolled easily off his tongue, the words Mom and Dad were ripped off like duct tape. It was either the quick excruciating pain of just forcing the familial jargon out, or the suffocating feeling that his tongue was made of cotton balls and his mouth a cave of peanut butter. Both sensations were extremely unpleasant, and surprisingly difficult to choose between. Either way, Naruto got out of bed, and followed Sasuke out of their bedroom. Kyuubi, whom had remained oddly quiet, hefted himself up off of the floor and tagged along as well. Naruto glanced back at him as a sort of 'good morning' look. Kyuubi didn't make any sort of gesture to acknowledge him however; he was probably asleep on his feet. Down the stairs they shuffled, shrugging off sleep and nearly making a wrong turn. They needed to start looking like they knew their way around their own house. Not knowing was both suspicious and slightly embarrassing. Their mother was in the living room, waiting expectantly on the couch. She beckoned them both over, and Sasuke was of course the first to answer the subtle hand gesture. He maneuvered across the short distance easily and fell into place next to the woman on the couch. Naruto watched as Sasuke blithely obliged this stranger's plea for a hug, and a kiss on the cheek. He even told her he loved her and that he hoped she didn't die. Though the second remark was rather sarcastic, there was some sincere meaning behind it. Sasuke gave Naruto a pointed look.

Naruto stiffly, as though he were made of lead, strode over to his mother. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders somewhat robotically and applied pressure. Then, he kissed her on the cheek and tried to say the words. He tried. He really did. But all he felt was that his tongue was swelling up and that he might just swallow it. He pulled back and thought that the pressure of her looking at him might provide some encouragement. Instead it only worsened the situation. Her concerned gaze was resting on him, probably meant to be a soothing action to blanket over his odd behavior. It only made him slightly ill. He probably looked ill because his mother opened her mouth and words came out. Words of worry. He knew they were. But for some reason he couldn't hear them. Sasuke took him by the arm and dragged him out of the room. Duck-butt and mother were conversing in panicked shouts across the house. But it sounded more like 'blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah' to him. Sasuke performed a series of trial and error before finding a bathroom and directing Naruto to the toilet.

When it came time for him to actually vomit, it was like someone had blocked up his esophagus. There was a growing pressure from his stomach, it made his body lurch forward and fall back, and go forward again. But nothing came out. His eyes began to water, his throat hurt, and all the while his tongue was a cotton ball. Sasuke started pounding on his lower back. At first Naruto wanted to kill him, but then, suddenly there was a method to his madness. The block disappeared. He seized the edges of the toilet bowl and heaved. It was amazing that his stomach had that much to get rid of. Heave, gasp, splutter. Spit. Rinse and repeat. This lasted several minutes while Sasuke stood in the corner away from him, eyes settling dispassionately on his back. When he felt that he was finished he shakily pawed at the flusher. It worked after the twentieth try. Then he fell back onto the tile, staring at the ceiling. Sasuke was giving him that look. The one that told him he was an idiot, and he didn't know it, and he would never understand why (supposing he did figure it out). Naruto knew this look well. Sasuke had given him this look a few moments before he'd killed him. He shivered. It probably looked more like a spasm.

Sasuke went to the door, opened it a crack and called something down the hall. It sounded like, 'he's fine, mom! Go ahead and go!' Thanks, Sasuke. Naruto thought wearily. Or, at least, that's what he thought till he got a kick in the ribs. He gasped, curling up on his side, facing away from the teme.

"What the hell was that?!" Sasuke exclaimed.

"I-I-I don't know!" Naruto cried.

It was the truth. Mostly. He really didn't know 'what the hell' that was. He'd never had a mother before, or a father. While he'd largely suspected who his father was, he still didn't know his mother. No one had ever told him who they were. The fact that they were here, in this world, living and breathing and very much alive was a lot to take in. For him, anyways. Sasuke seemed just fine with it. Naruto didn't understand it. Sasuke didn't have a mom or dad either. But he did have them, once. Naruto sighed. This was frustrating. While Sasuke could very well just tell anyone he wanted pretty, nice things and not mean them, Naruto had a lot of trouble with that. He said what he meant, and meant what he said. That included the 'L' word. He didn't know these people. He wasn't really their son. How was he supposed to just lie to them? Naruto rolled onto his sore side and turned his eyes up into Sasuke's perturbed face.

"I…this isn't as easy for me as it is for you."

"Obviously."

Naruto felt a chill wash over him as something became very apparent to him. Sasuke had a good deal of practice with lying to people about his nonexistent affection for them. He'd practiced for quite a while on him and Sakura and Kakashi-sensei. Then he'd come out and said, 'oh yeah, I hate you' and run off to be Orochimaru's groupie. Then…then he'd stabbed Naruto in the chest and killed him. In a shining example of karma, and poetic justice, Sasuke then promptly was killed by Sai. Funny how Sai was like a Sasuke working backwards, and how he was the one to kill him. While Sasuke strived towards being emotionless and without bonds, Sai was starting to learn feeling and wanted to try and create bonds of his own. It was perfectly suitable that one would be the end of the other. The point of all this, Naruto figured, was that he was trapped in an alternate universe and the only 'friendly' face was that of the one person Naruto had ever tried so hard to protect, to save, and to keep. The one person Naruto had considered one of his most precious people. This person hated him, and had killed him. Now, after all of that emotional energy spent, time wasted, he was all Naruto had.

"C'mon, let's eat, and then we can go take that test." Naruto pushed himself up off of the floor.

He couldn't let anything slip; he couldn't let Sasuke see his distress. The teme would probably figure it out anyways, but if he wasn't acting too sulky, he wouldn't mention it. So Naruto did what he did best. He put on a smile that was thoroughly unfelt and marched out of the bathroom and down to the kitchen. Once there he set about making ramen for himself. Sasuke could find something else for his stupid avenging self. Naruto paused, he sighed inwardly. Relying on a knowledge he didn't understand, he found some dumplings. They were Sasuke's one true weakness, though he would never admit it. Naruto set his ramen aside and instead focused his attention on the dumplings until they were finished. Then he set them out on the bar for Sasuke and returned back to his ramen cup. Naruto heard Sasuke take a seat at the bar and start to eat his breakfast.

The room was utterly silent save for the swishing of Kyuubi's nine heavy tails across the tile floor, and Sasuke's chewing. It seemed that the fox was waking up just to follow Naruto to his new location before collapsing in exhaustion again. As Naruto watched the glowing numbers on the microwave dwindle down to zero, he grew immensely uncomfortable. Now that the relief of having someone from his universe with him had worn off, he figured out it was the worst possible person to have with him. A train of thought Naruto often entertained within the privacy of his own head at night had returned to him full force. Why exactly was he going after Sasuke? Why?! Sasuke hated him, if he cared enough to hate him that is. He didn't want his friendship, he didn't want him around. Naruto didn't matter to him. Yet, as little as he may have mattered, Naruto knew that Sasuke meant the world to him. He was the dobe, and Sasuke the teme, they were rivals, brothers, best friends. At least, that's how Naruto had seen it. But during those two long years of training with Jiraiya, there were days when he would stop working long enough for him to seriously consider what he was doing. What was the point of going on with his endless mission of bringing the teme home if he would hate him for it? Or, there were the nights where he would stay awake all night long working on what he was going to say to Jiraiya and how he would get home. He would also think about when the next chunin exam would be and if he could perhaps enter it alone or if he would have to join another team of genin. Of course, the next day he would go up to Jiraiya and lose all of the courage he'd built up to tell him he was giving up and keep going. In the haze of training he would forget his depression and carry on with his usual fierce determination.

BEEP. He took out his ramen cup and pulled back the paper lid so that it could cool for a few minutes. Naruto watched the steam rise from it in soft tendrils, almost invisible but for a small plume of white. He knew why he hadn't dodged. In that single moment when Sasuke had landed before him, Naruto had realized that he'd wasted little over two years of his life. He'd wasted it on this person who didn't even want him. He could have stayed home, trained, formed a new genin team maybe and gone on with his life. If he tried to give up on Sasuke then, it would have been nearly impossible to do that, to move on. So what was the point of dodging? Why not give Sasuke some bit of happiness by just dying? Naruto broke apart his chopsticks and started picking at the food he suddenly didn't want.

"Dobe, when did Kakashi-sensei say we were supposed to show up?" Sasuke asked him.

"Ten."

"Ah, so we have a few hours."

Naruto glanced at the clock which had just struck ten o'clock. He snorted knowingly. Kakashi wouldn't even start heading towards the chosen meeting place until nearly noon. They could lay around the house still. Naruto picked up his ramen cup and poured its contents down the drain. He twisted the tap and flipped the switch on the garbage disposal. A few seconds later he turned both off and pushed himself up onto the counter. Briefly he mulled over the possibility of killing himself. But, then there was always the chance that he'd just be thrown into another universe with another Sasuke, most likely to be followed by this one. Naruto felt his shoulders lift up and then sag down as a heavy sigh escaped him. It just wasn't fair. Sasuke hopped down from his seat at the bar and took his empty plate over to the dishwasher. After closing it up he turned to look at Naruto with a mildly interested gaze.

"Hey…I know it's not easy for you to try and act like you've had parents all your life. I, at least, have the advantage of having had parents once, even if it was a long time ago." Out of the corner of his eye Naruto saw Sasuke shrug. That was the closest thing to sympathy, or an apology that would ever leave Sasuke's lips. Naruto knew it. He also knew it was completely and entirely artificial.

At this point in the game their destruction and survival was linked to each other. They needed to work together to survive this. It wasn't that Sasuke wanted to work with him, it was more that he needed to. Working with someone was easier when they were happy. If offering a sort of truce made Naruto happy then why not give it to him? Naruto had learned to translate the falsely human traits of his friend a while ago.

"So…you know how Sakura was always getting on you for having manners around the adults?" Sasuke started.

"Yeah?" Time for me to play along, Naruto thought bitterly.

"Well…try and use everything she tried to beat into you. Combine that with how you act around Iruka, just pretend this 'mother' is him."

Naruto nodded. That did make sense. He would try his best. For the moment however, he wanted to sleep. His grim admission, even if it wasn't aloud, had exhausted him. He also wanted to be as far away from Sasuke as he possibly could. There was, too, the bizarre urge to wrap himself up in Kyuubi's tails. Vague memories of doing that as a child were swimming about in his mind. They were fast as lightning, and as uncatchable as air in his hands. He slipped off of the counter and out of the kitchen. He padded down the hall and into the living room, over to the far side beneath the tall windows revealing the side yard to him. There was a garden out there that his mother dutifully cultivated several roses and a cherry blossom tree in. She read stories to him under that tree when he was little. Naruto shook his head. He didn't know how he knew that. He didn't care. Never mind. He laid himself down against the curve of Kyuubi's ribcage. Long bushy tails lifted up and over him like one big warm blanket. His head rested itself on the fox's shoulder, his knees tucked into the dip of his belly, and arms wrapped just under his front legs. The position itself was immensely comfortable. It also had an oddly soothing effect on his state of mind.

The feeling reminded Naruto of when he was only four years old, in his universe. After a long day of unrelenting glares, being spat at, and verbally abused he would return to his apartment in tears. Then, despite his own hatred for his jailor, Kyuubi would offer tendrils of his chakra as comfort. In his own mind Naruto would curl up in the hallway, allowing himself to be cocooned in red energy that was so warm. Even though Naruto was the prison in which the fox was a captive, he could not help but offer some comfort to a kit in distress, human though he may be. In fact, Naruto was back there, now, in that hallway with the warm blanket, the glowing red chakra, and the condoling thoughts. But suddenly it was all shattered as a familiar chakra entered the living room and disrupted his peaceful moment.

"Dobe, c'mon, we should get ready to go. It's almost eleven thirty." Sasuke's voice announced.

Naruto tensed, he wondered how that much time could have passed when it felt like only a few minutes had. Yawning widely Naruto stretched before disentangling himself from Kyuubi. He stood up and let his eyes fall to Sasuke's face. The teme was watching him. He was beginning to wonder what was wrong with him. Naruto could feel it. Why not let him figure it out? Naruto thought idly. Because he would find it hilarious that you're in so much distress over his apathy towards you. He would lord It over you forever. He answered himself.

"Okay." Naruto felt himself saying, "Let's get ready then. I call first shower!"

After pasting a thoroughly counterfeit grin upon his face, he hurried past a confused looking Sasuke and up the stairs.

TBC…