Author's Note: Really tired. – yawns – Anyway, hope you guys enjoy!

Warning: YAOI (Content will be more explicit in later chapters), some swearing.

Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto' or any of the characters from the anime/manga.

Bold and Italics flashbacks

The Art of Fabrication (cont.)

(now also known as 'Taof' – brilliant idea of JD01)

By: Nine1991

Chapter 7: Stoic Apologies

"Yeah, and don't go ballistic and start killing everyone," Naruto said airily, before chuckling at his own joke. A few seconds later, his lighthearted laughter died down to a few sheepish coughs when he realized he seemed to be the only one finding it funny, counting by the grim expressions on the faces of the few council delegates that had extracted themselves from their stuffy meeting rooms to see the Kazekage off. Temari and Kankuro looked away uneasily, casting quick, nervous glances on their youngest sibling, who seemed quite unperturbed by what the blond had said. Tsunade sighed and shook her head.

Naruto continued, "Ah…and maybe the next time you come over or when I go over for a visit we can spar! You know, since we didn't get the chance to this time." He shot a glare in the Hokage's direction, and it was clear who he thought was directly responsible for that. He grinned widely at the Kazekage, giving him a friendly punch on the shoulder. "I guess this is goodbye for now then."

The edges of Gaara's lips quirked slightly, even though his voice remained unchanged. "Goodbye, Naruto." His face reverted back to its blank expression as he turned to the Hokage, nodding curtly in her direction, and then doing the same to the council elders, before turning around and walking out Konoha's gates with his siblings in tow.

Naruto waved a couple of times as the three sand-nins disappeared down the road until they were out of sight. He smiled, placing his arms behind his neck casually as he turned around to flash the Hokage a grin.

She quirked a brow in question. "What're you so happy about, gaki?"

Naruto shrugged, smile still as bright as the sun. "Nothing. I'm just glad, baa-chan."

"Glad about what?"

"That I have friends." His gaze lingered on the direction that the sand-nins had disappeared. He turned to look at the retreating figures of the council members, two of which were giving him ugly, open looks of disgust, one with carefully concealed distaste and another who refused to meet his gaze entirely. He said, voice barely bridging a whisper, "Thanks baa-chan. Thanks for everything."

Tsunade couldn't suppress the sad, gentle smile that crept its way onto her face as she lifted a hand to ruffle those forever messy blond spikes. "You're welcome, Naruto."

They stood there for a while, watching in companionable silence as the sun started to rise and bask the skies around it in shades of soft red and orange, chasing away the shadows and dousing the ground underneath their feet in gleaming light, signaling a new day to all who saw it. The familiar creaking of opening windows and doors and the sounds of sleepy, shuffling footsteps grew steadily louder as the villagers of Konoha woke up to yet another morning. Dazed 'good mornings' and muffled yawns preceded friendly conversations between neighbors and somewhere on the roofs a rooster crowed, loud and shrill, acting like some sort of catalyst as the noise seemed to urge the villagers of Konoha to wake even faster, the sounds of bustling life soon taking over.

Tsunade's hand moved from its resting place on Naruto's golden locks, sliding down to settle on his shoulder. When he glanced up at her, she brought up her other hand and playfully flicked his forehead, her expression light and cheerful. "By the way, gaki, you owe me a report for your last mission."

Naruto pouted, a hand rubbing his forehead, more out of reflex than any actual pain. "What mission report? All I did was pick weeds for some stupid old lady who's too lazy to get off her own a-"

"I don't care. I still want that report. I want to know everything, from every weed you plucked to every flower you thought was a weed and plucked anyway."

"What?! I know the difference between a weed and a flower! Honestly, you have no confidence in me whatsoever-"

Tsunade smiled as the young man beside her continued to rave and rant.

-LineBreak-

Sasuke glanced up when the sound of the door opening and closing signaled Naruto's return from seeing the Kazekage off. His gaze switched back to the paper in front of him and the unfinished diagram of the jutsu he had been trying to create, feigning a look of contemplation even though all his senses were trained on his roommate.

Naruto shrugged off his Chunin vest, placing it over the back of one of the chairs before walking to his bedroom. After a minute or so of the loud sounds of shuffling paper and rapid successions of drawers sliding open and close, he returned into the living room, a blank scroll in hand. Naruto walked pass Sasuke's spot and sat himself down at the opposite end of the table, unfurling the scroll across its wooden surface, pen twirling lazily between his fingers while the room lapsed into silence.

Sasuke felt nervous. How on earth do you start what he was planning to do? He shifted in his seat and tensed when the sound of fabric over wood seemed gratingly loud to his ears. He stopped moving completely.

Silence.

The ticking of the clock hanging on the wall beside him never seemed so loud.

Silence.

The momentary scratching of pen on paper as Naruto wrote something down.

Silence.

From outside, faint 'thump's of metal on timber as some form of construction took place.

Silence.

Tick…tock…tick…tock…

Silence.

Scratch-scratch-scratch…

Silence.

Thump. Thump. Thump…

Silence.

Tick…Tock.

Scratch-scratch.

Thump. Thump.

Tick. Scratch. Thump.

"Uh, Naruto…"

Time seemed to stop, all sounds muted, and Naruto looked like a frozen statue, the pen in his hand poised mid-twirl. Tension built like a pile of sand in an hour glass as Naruto frowned, head still turned down to the scroll he was writing on. All of a sudden, Sasuke quite regretted opening his mouth.

'Oh, what the hell.'

-LineBreak-

Naruto was confused. For a moment, he had thought that someone had said his name. And that someone had sounded like Sasuke. Which, of course, was completely impossible since he and Sasuke never talked to each other unless Naruto was going out and even then, the reply he received was always either a curt nod of the head or a grunt if he was lucky. Not that he enjoyed the silence. But it had, in a way, become a barrier they had subconsciously put up, a safe-zone if you may, where neither of them would have any excuse to blow up.

So, therefore, Sasuke had not said anything, and Naruto was most likely hearing things. Yep. He was hearing things. The constant silence must be playing with his head, that's all. No biggie. He'd ask Tsunade baa-chan to look into it tomorrow. Now, how many rose bushes were there in all…

"Naruto."

The blond blinked. Hmm. There it was again. Jeez, his case was more serious than he thought. Maybe he should consider going to Tsunade baa-chan right now.

"Naruto."

Not believing that he was that far gone, Naruto looked up, and didn't know whether he should be wary or relieved at the irritated expression on Sasuke's face, indicating that the dark-haired nin had indeed been calling him. Being at quite a loss on how to react to this new predicament, he replied simply, "Sasuke."

Was it just him, or did Sasuke actually look somewhat nervous underneath that solemn glare of his?

Sasuke seemed tense, the clench in his jaw barely discernable except for the slightly more severe angles of his lower face. "Naruto…I…uh…" he started, but slowly fizzled out, his brows drawn into a frustrated frown, the tick in his jaw going a mile a minute as he seemed to lose his words.

Naruto waited patiently, perplexed and bemused. What was he getting at?

Sasuke took a deep breath. "Naruto. I…ah…that is…"

Naruto's brows seemed to rise up his forehead as he waited for Sasuke to spit out whatever it was he wanted to say. If he wasn't so worried about his bodyguard's sudden strange and uncharacteristic actions, he would have found this situation very amusing.

"Uh…so…I..." A huff of frustration. "What are you doing?!"

"What!" Naruto yelped, dropping the pen in his hand, palms wide, "I'm not doing anything!"

Sasuke sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and waving the other dismissively at Naruto's defensive posture. "No. I meant," he took a deeper, calmer breath, and gestured towards the partially filled scroll in front of the blond, "What are you doing?"

"Oh." Naruto deflated, his hands falling back down onto the table. "I'm filling out a mission report for baa-chan."

Sasuke raised a skeptical brow. "Mission report? You never did a mission."

"Yeah, of course I did. Don't you remember that time where I had to weed that old hag's garden?"

"Dobe, that's not a mission-" Sasuke stopped, wanting to smack himself, and it was Naruto's turn to tense.

"You. Are. Pathetic." A shallow breath. "Dobe."

No one said a thing as the room was once again plunged into awkward silence. The only thing discernable was the sound of their breathing, the rhythm choppy and forced, as if either of them were afraid that anything too loud would shatter the increasingly fragile atmosphere. Naruto wordlessly bent over his scroll and proceeded to put pen to paper. And just when Sasuke had resigned himself to another day of practical isolation with only the ticking of the clock beside him to listen to, he heard Naruto murmur, "You think I didn't try telling her?"

There was a small grin on the blonde's face as he glanced up at the Uchiha. And for all of Sasuke's self-control, he couldn't hide the slight twitch of his lips as his eyes met those of the truest blue.

Naruto turned back to his report, and Sasuke looked back on his incomplete chakra diagram. No one talked, but it was a different type of silence to the one that had transpired not ten minutes ago. It was comfortable. Content. And like all such silences, never lasted very long.

"Neh, Sasuke, do you remember that flower that was next to the jasmines? What's it called?"

"There were ten jasmine pots, dobe."

"Well," he paused to consult the scroll in front of him, "It was next to the wall of the house. And it was a really cool orange colour. And don't call me that, teme!"

"Idiot, there were at least twenty pots lined up along the side of the house."

Naruto frowned, turning the scroll this way and that as if trying to make sense of something on its surface. "I don't know. I think it's next to the water pipes…"

Sasuke sighed, pushing his project to the side and gesturing to the scroll in front of the blond. "Give it here, moron."

"Damn it, teme, you gotta stop calling me names! I already got one. It's Naruto. Na-ru-to. Come on, it ain't that hard."

Sasuke snorted, curling his fingers and gesturing again towards the scroll. Naruto rolled his eyes and slid the scroll across the table. Sasuke caught it easily. As he turned the scroll around to study the simple ink diagram of the garden layout of the blonde's previous client, Naruto moved over to his side of the table, pulling out a chair and straddling it back to front, looking at Sasuke expectantly. Sasuke looked up from the diagram. "Your scale's off."

"Pshh! My scale's fine."

"There are at least twenty pots along this wall. You've only drawn in ten."

"Jeez! Whatever! It's not like she'll know the difference! My diagrams are fine."

"Really. And who told you that? Your homicidal boyfriend?"

Naruto looked confused and slightly offended. "What?! I don't have a boyfriend!"

Sasuke didn't look persuaded. He pointed a finger to his left temple.

"Huh? You're talkin' about Gaara? He's not my boyfriend…" And then there was a rapidly growing blush on Naruto's face as the blond seemed to remember that particular incident.

Sasuke gave him a look as if to say 'Yeah, that. Who do you think you're kidding.'

Naruto was about to protest some more, but paused, a slightly worried look crossing his tanned features. "Wait, what do you mean 'homicidal'? Oh shit, he tried to do you in, didn't he?"

Sasuke's face was blank.

"Shit, he did! Aww, man, I'm so sorry. Gaara's just like that. He can get a little crazy at times."

The dark-haired nin raised a solemn brow, not confirming and yet not denying.

Naruto crossed his arms on top of the back of the chair he was straddling, creating a make-shift cushion for his chin to rest on. He casually blew an annoying strand of golden hair away from his eyes. "You know, he used to be even worse than this," the blond remarked mildly.

Sasuke grunted. "He said something about you saving him."

"Oh?" Naruto grinned. "Gaara's just being dramatic. I kicked his ass a few years ago, before he became the Kazekage. He just needed some of those homicidal tendencies knocked out of him."

"And you did that, did you, dobe?"

"Hell yeah, I did! A couple of punches and he was all bright hopes for the future." Naruto tapped his chin thoughtfully. "You know Neji, right? Yeah, he used to be all depressed and angsty as well, but more of the fate-is-so-unkind horoscope part and less of the I-will-bleed-you-dry thing that Gaara had going on. I beat him in my Chunin exams and now he's all determined and stuff." Naruto beamed, bringing a hand to rub the back of his own head, a faintly nostalgic look on his face. "Yeah, I guess some people just need to get it pounded into their head that they can choose a different path, you know? Sometimes, it takes a bit more for some people to see that their life ain't all that crappy."

Sasuke listened, and observed every subtle change of emotion that flitted across Naruto's face. So many. So, so many emotions. He was sure that he'd never met anyone so full of emotion before, and vaguely wondered how the blond ever became a shinobi with such an expressive face. For some reason, he didn't find that thought all too important. What mattered now was that he liked this current expression on Naruto's face. Liked how his eyes sparkled subtly with contentment, a genuine smile on his lips that spoke of more happiness than any of his loud, wide grins could ever portray. Bluest of blue eyes that gazed away on something that Sasuke himself couldn't see.

Sasuke gently frowned, and if his mind was any clearer he would have been horrified with himself at having such a childish thought. 'I want him to look at me.'

He found himself wanting that smile to be directed at him, those blue eyes on him. Right now. With that exact expression on his face. How could anyone have such a brilliant shade of blue for eyes, anyway?

"Sasuke, what are you doing?"

All thoughts came to a screeching stop and Sasuke blinked, realizing all too late that his face was now only a few inches away from the blonde's, who was wearing a very confused expression on his face. With his intelligent brain going into emergency overdrive, he veered himself off course slightly, making a big show of leaning over to grab the scroll in front of the blond (as if that was what he was aiming for all along) and bringing it in front of himself. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, we might as well get your report finished. It's going to take a while to make sense of your crappy diagram."

"Oi, don't look at it then if you think it's so crappy!"

"I want to be able to go to sleep tonight without hearing your pen scratching away."

"Wear some frickin' earmuffs then!"

"You mean earplugs."

"Whatever!"

-LineBreak-

Two hours later, Naruto proudly rolled up and tied his finished mission report, a big grin on his face as he stretched his arms and legs wide, letting out a satisfied groan as he relieved his aching joints. He slumped, boneless, onto his chair, and Sasuke crinkled his nose at the blonde's overly dramatic display.

"Thanks, teme." Naruto said, getting up from his seat and cracking his neck a couple of times. He attempted to muffle a giant yawn. "I'm gonna go take a nap. I don't think my body agrees with me waking up so early."

"Hn," Sasuke replied, refocusing back on his unfinished project now that there were no distractions.

As Naruto shuffled towards his bedroom, Sasuke's voice made him stop and turn around. "You know, Naruto…" Sasuke said, even though his eyes seemed to be focused on the paper in front of him, "I…I'm…" He paused, before continuing, "Your fighting's not half-bad."

Naruto waited for him to say something else, but when it became clear that that was the limit amount of words that Sasuke was willing to partake, he smiled. "Yeah? Well, your fighting's not half-bad either."

"Hn."

Naruto chuckled, and continued walking to his bedroom. What a day it was indeed.

As the door closed and Sasuke was left with only the silence for company, he allowed himself a small smile. Perhaps he wasn't so bad at this apology thing after all. Not that he'd ever do it again, though.

Inside, Naruto splayed himself out on his bed, enjoying the cool feel of the sheets against his exposed arms as he smoothed them over the mattress. He smiled, eyes drooping shut. Really, Sasuke couldn't apologize worth shit, but it was the effort that counted. Yeah, the effort…

-LineBreak-

Many hours later, in a completely different setting filled with the harsh, punishing heat of the sun and the strange, arid beauty of the desert, a Chunin guard entered a vast office. The room was cold, cold and impersonal. The table in the middle was empty of any objects or trinkets that would show any sign as to the personality of its owner. 'What a weird guy,' the guard had thought, but shrugged that thought away almost immediately. Because, really, it wasn't his place to judge. He was just a guard, after all.

"Welcome back, Kazekage-sama. You asked for assistance?"

The figure by the window remained silent for a while, and, for a moment, the guard considered repeating his question. However, he was cut short before he could utter another word.

The Kazekage's cold voice seemed to echo through the room, even though it was really just barely more than a whisper. "Send for Baki. I want to see him immediately."

"Of course, Kazekage-sama."

-TBC-

-LineBreak-

-Sigh- Only four reviews for last chapter. I guess that would teach me for not updating consistently. -Sobs- I don't really want to think about how many readers I must have lost. Am I boring you guys?

Anyway, for the four of you who reviewed, thank you very much. You have no idea how much I appreciate feedback – whether it be long or short. I hope you continue to enjoy the story!

And as a last note, I rushed to finish this chapter for you guys since I'm leaving tomorrow for holidays. I'm not sure if I'll be able to access an internet connection where I'm going, so I just wanted to update this chapter just in case I wind up not updating again for a month or so. I'll try my best to update though, join an internet café or something.

Thank you again for all who reviewed. And for the people who're still reading this story, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Please review! I like to know that I'm writing for someone, and watching the 'hits' count rise isn't nearly as satisfying for an author as getting a real live review! Because, you know, just cause someone clicked on the story doesn't mean they liked it.

Hope you guys have a great holiday!

- Nine1991 -