***

Moulin Rouge

***

'Here he comes fellas! A man fresh from his bed, but probably not his own!' Suigetsu bellows the minute he sees him coming.

For a second there Sasuke has the urge to turn and run. He does not want to deal with this in the morning, beautiful though it is. They're all so…loud. He keeps walking for the sole reason that he's hungry as hell, and what's on the table is positively mouth-watering. The men scoot aside as he walks over and Juugo pulls out a chair for him. He nods his a little, and flinches at the hurt is causes him. Thank god he's got his back to the bright sun right now, it would be hell on his eyes.

'So,' Suigetsu starts, and slaps him on the shoulder amiably while Sasuke tries to pour himself a glass of tee, spills, scowls. 'Tell me Sasuke, what was the little demon that got you in its bed? Kicking and screaming.'

He laughs out loud, evidently unbothered by hangovers, or those of other people. Sasuke scowls and starts buttering his bread. He refuses to accept what happened last night, and last evening. O god, how can alcohol make such beasts of respectable men. He looks around at the boisterous yelling and feeding, okay, respectable man…

'Don't be such a prude, I bet I already know just what your type is.'

Sasuke glares at him and sullenly refuses to speak, would rather choke himself on his croissant instead. Suigetsu leans backwards and his chair scrapes against the stone floor. The restaurant is busy, but their group is making the most noise by far. They occupy a long table by the windows, which are open to let some air in. The street sounds of Paris buzz in the background and the rapid French tongue is all around.

Suigetsu combs his fingers through his hair and takes a deep breath.

'Blonde probably, blue eyes, a sweet freckled face, little tan right…' Sasuke coughs, chokes on his croissant, for real now and blushes at how close to the truth Suigetsu really is. Then the shame turns to indignation. Suigetsu is now moulding a shape in the warm summer air.

'Tiny waist, big tits and a mouth like a hover!' He laughs again, superciliously indifferent to the surrounding customers, among them two local French ladies who eye him suspiciously.

He slaps Sasuke on the back again, harder than necessary, but it does the trick and Sasuke coughs up the piece of bread he was choking on. He thinks: Why does he even have lunch with these people? Why did he come to Paris at all? Was the need to escape his brother, his brother's shadow, that powerful? It better be, because if he can't sit through one meal with the people he calls his friends, then nothing remains of him. He'd be stranger, all alone it a city that threatens to swallow him whole.

He doesn't go in on their invitation for that night, which would be some more of what they did last time. Sasuke doesn't think he'd be able to stand the repetition. The Moulin Rouge was a dream, and that's all it should remain. Also, he's afraid that once he'll go through those golden doors again, and enter that devil's paradise, he won't be able to leave.

The moment he set foot in Paris, he could smell the opium in the air, and accompanying that, the smell of sweat, poverty and weakness of the flesh. He's not that confident , he doesn't trust himself to be strong enough to resists whatever's pulling. He was never a will to be reckoned with, not like his brother at least. Again, it's his father's voice in his head. 'You're weak. You'll never make anything of your life. May god bless your soul boy, because you need it most of all.'

***

It's the next day and Sasuke, who almost drowned in misery, self-pity and loneliness the last evening when he refused to get drunk, laid and most likely, robbed, last night, finds himself in the market square, squinting in the bright sunlight. Place Maubert is filled with people and horses, carriages and merchants.

He looks around, feeling slightly lost. His French is not nearly good enough to make conversation with a local shopkeeper, but he feels obliged to at least try. He was never gifted at talking, in public, in privet, to friends, colleagues or his parents even. He just kept his mouth shut most of the time and prayed nobody asked his questions he couldn't answer with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. And if they did, he kept to short, polite responses. He was lucky people tended to interpret this horrible shyness as a form of deep, melancholic intelligence. The ladies in England all fawned over him and his dark, sorrowful eyes (he heard them say that once, by accident of course when he was being quiet in the room next to theirs).

But he's in Paris now, and the ladies are far away, across the channel. He's twenty years old, for god's sake, he has to start living! Not, that is, like that night at the Moulin Rouge, that's not living. What he wants is to visit all the houses of famous French writers, philosophers, and he wants to sit by the Seine and draw the other side. He wants to discover places. And when he's done with Paris, he'll go to Rome, Athens, maybe Istanbul if he's feeling adventurous.

'Regard ou tu-vas eh! C'est lourd, ce que j'ai ici! Espece d'imbicile touriste…'* A man, big enough to fill a doorway, yells at him when he bumps into his hairy chest and roughly awakes from his daze.

He'd been walking with his eyes glazed over and now he has to stop and look around. To his great relief he's not lost, but he finds himself trapped in a big mass of people that push him to the side. He allows himself to be shepherded into a line of people waiting for something. He looks past the impatient, waiting faces and realises it's the grocery shop, that has moved outside because of the fine weather. It takes up half the space in the street, but nobody seems to object.

He searches for some change in his pocket and decides that he'll just buy an apple. When he comes closer and closer to the vendor, he can see the veins in his neck bulge whenever he shouts something. It's a big man. Sasuke vaguely doubts the things he's heard about France before he left England, how French people are small and petite.

When it's his turns and he faces the vendor, something bumps into him again, no hairy-chested Frenchman, but someone slightly smaller than him with a mop of blond hair peeking out from under a shapeless, felt hat. The boy looks up. It takes Sasuke a while to recognise the face, but when he does the flush that creeps into his cheeks rivals the colour of the apples themselves.

Last time he saw those eyes, they were looking at him through a smoke filled corridor, surrounded by kohl-shadowed lids and luring on. Now they're wide in surprise. Recognition sparkles in their blue depths as well, but they lack the fear or the shame.

Instead, a sudden smile blooms on that face, and before he knows it he's pulled out of the line and onto the sheltered sidewalk behind the vegetable stall. The boy's still got an iron grip on his arm and Sasuke whips his head around frantically to see if anyone's watching. There's no need. They're practically invisible to the people on the street. No one pays any attention.

His eyes flash back to the boy in front of him, whom he feels he knows at once very personal, and not at all. He's dressed rather dull in shades of brown and black and white. Gone are the clothes that lit up his face and made him shimmer in the half-light whenever he moved. Sasuke wills himself to forget the picture, but the image burns on his retina.

Right now, in Paris sunshine, only his eyes seemed to have retained their initial brilliance. No amount of make-up can fake a shade of blue of that gorgeous. Under the eyes the mouth curls into a devilish smile. He raises his eyebrows questioningly, brings up a hand and pumps it in mid-air, a poignant gesture.

The image breaks, shatters. In front of him nothing but a common whore. A common whore with uncommon eyes. Sasuke feels like screaming and curses the eyes for ever having led him on. It's all a façade, all an illusion. Nothing is genuine.

He spins around and runs away, faster it seems, that his breath can cope with. Once he's in an small empty street he stops, rests his hands on his knees and spits on the ground. Catching his breath, he clutches his throbbing side and looks around furtively. It's residential street, small, a little grubby, but pretty in a very unique way now that it's sunlit and empty.

'What's your problem?' A voice sounds behind him in understandable English.

Sasuke startles and flinches violently. He thought he lost him. The boy's still there, tired as well, but not nearly as breathless as Sasuke is. He looks at him funny.

'Are you okay?' He asks and holds out an arm gingerly.

Sasuke steps out of reach and groans.

'Just leave me alone, you fucking whore.'

'Ah, voic-ci, la politesse est mort.'** He mutters, the least bit fazed by Sasuke's angry words.

'A no will suffice you know, usually.' He adds with a slightly haughty smile.

How he manages to look haughty, Sasuke will never know. He shakes his head and tries to stand straight. He's only just getting his breath back.

'I should have known you were one of those.' The boy continues.

'You got the look.' He laughs again, a little breathless and takes a step forwards.

Sasuke takes one backward, like they're doing some absurd dance, and now he's up against the wall and the boy is too close for comfort. He feels hot again, in the wrong places. He can't speak.

'Still though, beady little eyes ignored, I'd give you one.' And the moment he says it he reaches out his arms and tucks them inside Sasuke's jacket, around his waist, chest up against his and the way he looks up is unforgettable, cheeky and daring.

Sasuke shrieks and pushes him off forcibly. The boy stumbles backwards, having expected the outburst but there's still a smile on his face that, if Sasuke hadn't been so freaked out, would have concerned him. Right now, all he's thinking about is how things moved where they shouldn't have moved and how there's no excuse this time because he's not drunk. So he does what any confused, bothered, confronted twenty year-old would do: he legs it.

It takes him twelve blocks to realise his wallet's missing.

***

Naruto sniggers and suppresses the urge to skip. He feels a little guilty at having ripped off the same guy in two days, but his delight at all this easy money nullifies the unpleasant feeling. He laughs aloud and throws a coin high in the air so that it catches the sunlight and shimmers like a second one. Since he's already paid his lease two nights ago, when he met drunken Jiraiya in the hallway, all these lovely coins go directly to his savings.

He goes past another grocery shop, picks up what he needed and heads back to the Moulin Rouge, which by day, looks a lot less glamorous. He's an errand boy most of the time. He fixes the stage, the clothes (which he likes doing, in front of a fire in the winter, or in the courtyard by summer, surrounded by all the women and the homely gossip), does some shopping for the chefs, sells tickets, distributes posters, cleans the rooms. He's not a prostitute most of the time.

So why did he take it so personally, when that boy called him a whore? He's been called names plenty. More than he's ever been called by his real name. He's learned to let it slide of him like water. Stupid English bigots, he thinks. When it's dark and they're drunk and rich, they're a real laugh, but approach one in daytime and he'll most likely hiss and cross his fingers at you.

He waves at Kiba and Tenten who are playing a card-game in the ticket booth , they wave as he passes by. By day the Moulin Rouge is closed to customers and there's always someone by the gate to keep unwanted visitors out. It's really quite an important job. There's a surprising amount of people, drunks, addicts, general love-sick romantics, who insist on hanging out in front of the gate, living a half-life until night falls and the Moulin Rouge breaths back the life into them.

Today the steps are empty though. It's the good weather that discourages men to sit and mope. Under the bright sky everyone feels like taking chances.

Naruto crosses the sandy courtyard and smiles at the ladies who sit there sowing. It's a little strange, to have these sweet old women sow bright pieces of cloth back together to fix daring outfits and costumes that, anywhere else, you'd be afraid to show your mother. At the Moulin Rouge it's all part of life, it's a necessity, like water. The clothes are the magic, they are the illusion, and in the brothels of Paris, everyone depends on that illusion to hold fast, or else they'll pay for it with their life.

Naruto enters the large welcoming hall passing through the foyer. He climbs the big wooden stairs to the second floor, taking two steps at a time, and continues to climb the tall building with the smaller, narrower stairs, hidden from sight behind doors the same colour as the wall.

When he's in his room the first thing he does is take the money out of the wallet, and hides it under a loose floorboard. Then he gets up and enjoys the glow for a second. You'd never expect it, but Naruto takes enormous pleasure out of saving money. He likes to have something secret and growing, something that may offer a way out if ever he needs one.

Not that he has it in his mind to leave the Moulin Rouge. It is, first and foremost, his home. Regardless of the prostitutes and the shows, the vanity, the competition, the seediness of it all. He's always been welcomed here, if only because he's one of them.

He straightens his back and turns his attention to the empty wallet in his hands. Empty? A piece of white paper peeks out from what looks like a tear in the leather. Naruto sits down on his bed and plucks at the paper, which he fears won't come out unless he rips it.

Right at that time Jiraiya pushes open his door, nobody knocks on his floor.

'Cherry wants you.'

***

'Can I help you with something?' the Chinese girl asks him, squinting her eyes suspiciously.

A muscular boy, sitting wide legged on the bench next to her, turns his head.

'I need to see someone.' Sasuke says between clenched teeth and he heads for the big double doors.

'I don't thinks so sugar.' She answers at once and Sasuke stops abruptly when the boy, who was sitting next to her just now, appears in front of him.

He stares menacingly at him with two small black eyes, but Sasuke, looks over his shoulder and he can see the red lettering as beacon, inevitably drawing you eyes. He has to get in, but for some reason he has the feeling that every step to the side he'd make, would be mirrored by the man in front of him, and frankly, he doubts whether he has the stamina to get beat up by him and continue to the Moulin Rouge, crawling. The girl, dressed in a skin-tight, red Chinese dress, moves to the door opening, leans against the wall there and crosses her arms over her chest.

'She don't want to see you love.'

Her long-fingered hands move to light a long, black cigarette and she sucks on it from where it sticks to the side of her lips.

'You don't get it I-' really need that wallet back. He tries to explain, but her sweet voice cuts him off.

'I do, I really do. You think you're the first? We don't not open until seven, alright? That's when you can come.'

Sasuke opens his mouth and closes it again, like a fish, while shaking his head. They don't understand, he needs that wallet. It's a vital tom him as a heartbeat. The man in front of him makes a miniscule movement that suggest he'll fall on him if Sasuke doesn't take a step back, so he does and that's the beginning of his humiliating retreat. He's half-turned his back to the grinning pair, when the girl calls after him:

'Hey, you know it's all fake right? They don't really mean what they say…'

The boy sniggers, but Sasuke feels strange and numb. He looks up at the sky, where the sun makes the shadows small and sharp on the pavement. It's almost noon. Seven more hours until opening time. He will just have to come once more, to the Moulin Rouge, and pray it'll be the last time.

* "Watch where you're going, this is heavy what I got here! Stupid tourist..."

** "Looks like politeness is dead."