Fandom: Naruto
Author: Snow Tigra
Pairings: SasuNaru
Warnings: Horror, as usual and Alternate Universe. The rest is up to my muses
Iruka's house was depressingly empty when Naruto finally managed to make his way home. He opened the door and slammed it behind him, hard enough to shake the pictures on the wall, then dropped into the couch in the living room. Time seemed to slow around him as he finally let himself breathe, and his lungs and body screamed at him for the mistreatment. He didn't know how far away that house was, but he knew it was a ways, and he'd just run the entire way home. He'd just completed a marathon when he'd never run for more then a game of hide and seek in his life, and his body was now painfully reminding him of that fact.
Meanwhile the silence around him was reminding him how alone he was.
Time passed and he heard several cars drive by before he finally sat up and inspected his feet. Luckily none of the skin was broken, but his feet were red and throbbing and not at all happy with him.
"Well it beats dealing with freaky ghosts and little children who don't know how to buckle their own fickin overalls." Naruto limped his way across the living room and stumbled into the bathroom, running the water and just sat in the warm tub, not even caring that he hadn't bothered to slip out of his clothes. Screw the rules, he deserved the ability to relax for a second, in an un-haunted house!
After a long and very comforting round of warm bath therapy Naruto wandered to his bedroom and dropped into the bed, barely giving himself time to strip out of his soaked clothes before he just collapsed from exhaustion. The bed sheets covered him in comfort and Naruto even let out a sigh of relief, finally perfectly warm and safe.
The house around him was empty, he knew that without checking for some sort of note from Iruka. Iruka had already told him that he'd be visiting his new boyfriend and he'd left Naruto a phone number should an emergency occur. A phone number which Naruto considered calling right now… but what would he say?
"Hi Iruka. Yeah, I ran out of the house I was sitting because some freaky kid and shadows scared the crap out of me. No I'm not going back. Yes I'm acting like a 2 year old who's afraid of the monster under his bed…" Naruto's mocking voice faded into the darkness of a room wallpapered with ninjas and shelves filled with books from childhood and current classes. Yeah, right, that would really sound mature.
Naruto rolled over in bed, and snuggled closer to his pillow, frowning more. Across from him, sitting on the bedside table, was a hastily taken picture of him and Sasuke. Sasuke had never been the type to enjoy camera or hot summer days outside rather then in front of a video game console. So when their class had taken a biology field trip to the local Botanical Gardens, Naruto had literally bent over backwards convincing one of his classmates to smuggle with a camera and get a picture of both of them. After much begging the resulting picture showed Naruto with his hand around Sasuke's shoulders, grinning in to the camera with triumph, while Sasuke looked away, his normal bored look on his face. Still, in the picture and preserved for all time, was the smallest of smirks on Sasuke's face, as if he were conceding that Naruto had outsmarted him and he was actually impressed by it.
Naruto looked at that picture now and he felt his stomach drop another couple floors. He missed Sasuke.
Sasuke had run out of the house and had been a heartless moron about Naruto's feelings. But then, that was just how Sasuke was. It was obvious now that the idea of ghosts had scared the crap out of Sasuke, and Naruto couldn't help but feel like a heel for not noticing that in the first place.
"Maybe if I'd noticed that then neither of us would have seen what we did in that place… I hate that house."
Naruto grumbled a few more choice words, then closed his eyes to try and get some sleep.
Sleep and dreams didn't come easy for Naruto, and while the familiarity of his own home helped, the small noises of the house settling and whatever sound managed to sneak through his closed window didn't help. Instead of actually sleeping, Naruto dozed in and out of consciousness, not able to really stay in either state long enough for it to matter. It was almost as if he were caught in some sort of limbo, but he was too tired of everything to complain.
Somewhere, around midnight, he did manage to start to slip into a sleep that was actually worth something. So, if course, it only made sense that he was woken up a couple minutes later by the feeling of something on his bed, as if it had been waiting for him to hit just the right state of unconsciousness.
The sheets around Naruto's legs shifted, slowly pooling at his feet. He could feel something crawling along beside his body, slowly nearing toward his head. Most people would have been scared and for a second it crossed Naruto's mind to have the normal horror movie reaction, but then he just decided not to.
He was sick of all this crap.
Naruto sat up in bed and yanked on the covers. "Get the hell away from me and leave me the hell alone!!"
There seemed to be a soft thud as the ghost boy was tossed to the ground, landing hard on his bottom, if such a thing were possible for a ghost. Then the little boy curled up on the floor and silently started to cry.
"I hate children," he muttered as he slid out of bed.
He did his best to ignore the crying child, moving over to the closet to get dressed. He was still being haunted and he didn't feel like sleeping, not after remembering what the second thing looked like from the house. Instead it was time to get dressed and then stay by a door, in case that thing showed up again.
He had to think of a way to get this ghost to stop following him. Weren't ghosts supposed to only stick with whatever they were attached to or some crap like that? That's what all the movies said; something about unfinished business.
Naruto frowned and glanced over to the kid who was rubbing his knee and wiping away his tears.
"I can't believe I'm doing this." The tossed on a shirt and a boring pair of jeans, then walked over to the kid, kneeling down in front of him.
"Hey… Gaara, right?"
The boy silently sniffled and looked up at him.
"No hard feelings ok? I'm just really sick of being followed by ghosts especially since you're big brother is pretty scary looking. So do me a favor and help me figure out how to send you guys toward the light or wherever the hell it is that you're supposed to go."
Gaara blinked and tilted his head, looking at Naruto in confusion.
Naruto just groaned. "How am I supposed to get rid of you?"
That question seemed to be the magical one, because at those words the boy's eyes lit up. Scrambling to his feet he looked around the room, then spotted Naruto's book shelf. Smiling brightly, the boy ran over and started pointing.
"With…. Biology?"
The little boy frowned and shook his head, immediately pointing to another book.
"With… biology and algebra?"
The little boy frowned and shook his head again, moving to another.
This little game continued until the boy seemed to get so frustrated he was jumping up and down and nearly glaring at Naruto and by this time they were out in the living room looking at Iruka's books from the classes he taught. Yet still Naruto couldn't make sense of what the boy was saying. He just seemed to point at random books that made no sense at all…
Then the boy pointed at an empty book shelf and made the motion of putting the books onto the shelf in the air.
"The… library."
Well of course! That had to be it! Books everywhere, it didn't matter what kind, and shelves empty and full of books. That had to be what the ghost was talking about, or rather pointing about. And Naruto couldn't help but grin as he finally figured it out.
"Well, I guess you're in luck kid, because I'm the only person who has a key that can access the library at this time of night."
The library was an older building, just off the main campus from the school. Sometime long ago it had been a government building of some sort, so now it sported pillars in the front near the door and managed to somehow look much older and grander then the state's budget actually allowed. In contrast Naruto knew all the shelves inside were cheap and warped from age, barely able to stand the weight of the books constantly being shifted back and forth.
It was barely two blocks to the library in the middle of the night and Naruto walked there as quickly as he could, not worried about the ghost boy at all. Ok, no that wasn't the truth. Naruto could tell himself over and over again that he didn't care about the ghost boy, but he still kept glancing over his shoulder to see if he was there and always found the thing just a step behind him, as if it were attached to his back. He didn't stop to think about how other things might also be attached to him like the little boy, and instead just walked faster, eager to get this all over with.
Only minutes seemed to pass and he was standing in front of the library, shuffling through his pocket for the keys to the side door. He knew for a fact that in spite of the security sign on the window, the security system hadn't worked in years and there were only one or two librarians watching the library floors after it was closed. Whatever this ghost boy wanted in the library had to be easily findable without disturbing them.
"You aren't searching for some like demonic relic that I'm gonna have to dig up, are you? Because that I'm pretty sure I can't do. I'd like to keep my job."
The ghost boy just looked at Naruto quietly and Naruto threw his arms up in the air in frustration, giving up and walking over to unlock it. Whatever, there was no point in asking that kid anything, it wasn't like he could speak an answer any way.
Naruto stood in the middle of the library, looking at all the bookshelves before him, then grinned as he headed for the most obvious section in existence: ghosts. To be more precise, it was the horror isle, right next to New Age and a shelf away from Science Fiction. It was a small section, but he knew from exploring on his own time that there was an even smaller section contained within that told local ghost stories. Old books, bound in cardboard and canvas with numbers worn off the sides told him how often the section had been touched and he just hoped that what he needed hadn't been checked out or lost.
"So kid, which book is it?" Naruto turned back to regard the ghost boy, only to find him turned in the other direction, staring off into space. The boy wasn't moving and the air around them was completely silent. Naruto frowned and stepped toward the boy, then the air around him seemed to pop, and the boy disappeared.
"Damnit kid no! You need to come back because I am NOT dealing with your freaky big brother!"
Naruto's voice echoed around the library, filling the silence for a moment before dying away, and something about that just made him even more angry. He didn't want to deal with any of this! He wanted Sasuke! He wanted to be at home, with the money from the job and just out of all of it! He wanted-
"Hello?"
Naruto jumped as a flashlight hit him and a person was suddenly standing across from him. It was obviously one of the night librarians following the sound of Naruto's upset yell and he knew how to explain this well enough.
But his voice died in his throat when he saw the boy's name tag.
It said 'Gaara'.