A/N: I'll try and update this every Saturday.

Regarding this AU...hm. Konoha is way bigger than depicted in the series. Somewhere between 30 and 60 miles. The Hokage mountain is huge, a few thousand feet high. The term 'village' is archaic here, a throw back to when Konoha really was little better than a village. People call it city, town, or village, as suits them. Mmm, can't think of anything else right now.

Beta: None.

2. Unwanted Intrusions

It was a pure relief to have that kid out of his truck. The air had been too thick to breathe with the brat's presence. Now he felt relaxed… well, as relaxed as he ever felt when stuck in town.

He made his way to the street that led out of town, toward the Hokage monument. It was deserted, no homes or shops along it. No street lights either. It led to a large, military-grade steel barricade. It was approximately five feet thick, and thirty feet high. Built right into the side of the mountain, there was no getting around it. There was a camera high up on the side of this barricade that was equipped with facial recognition. The man leaned out his open window enough to let his face be scanned. Once accepted, the barricade unlocked and rolled slowly open. He drove through a fifty-foot tunnel that let out onto the winding road that would take him up to his clearing. Motion sensors activated when he passed over them that allowed the barricade to roll shut again and lock on its own.

The road up the side of the mountain was long, dark, and steeply sloped. Having lived on this mountain for twenty-three years, since he was sixteen, he could navigate every turn and corner in his sleep. He made it to his house without incident, and breathed a sigh of relief at being back in his bubble of isolation.

His relief was spoiled at entering his house and finding the ANBU agent in his kitchen. She was putting food away in the fridge.

His attempt to ignore her was in turn ignored. She straightened and leaned against the fridge, arms folded. Her mask was off, sitting on the counter beside the fridge. "Naruto."

He walked past her and set his bags on the table.

"Naruto," she said again. When he continued to ignore her, she gave up trying to get his attention. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I forgot, okay? I had this assignment that ran for three days. The squad wanted to stop for drinks afterward and…I just forgot. Naruto," she pleaded when his silence continued.

She was one of the two people he associated with, a friend he'd known since childhood. Since…before. As such, she knew of his aversion to social situations and contact, and took it upon herself to do his grocery shopping twice a month, and get rid of his trash. She usually took his truck and had the tank filled as well. He never asked her to, and on a few occasions he was forced to do it himself, if she was on a lengthy assignment, but she felt it was her duty.

"Naruto-"

He spun and pinned her with irate eyes. "You had no right to make me take that kid home, Moegi, no right."

So that was his problem. "I had every right! How you behaved in that store was inexcusable! Do you know the parents of those kids demanded that you be brought in to face charges? I had to notify the Hokage herself to step in. Only the clerk's testimony that the boys had indeed been guilty of harassment and misconduct saved you from being brought in for questioning. Taking that kid home was the least you could do."

Naruto had turned away halfway through her tirade in disinterest. If he was listening now, he didn't show it. Moegi wearily watched him storing the ramen packages in the cupboard in precise rows. Four packages to each stack, three stacks to each row. The rows themselves were organized according to flavor. Beef, chicken, shrimp, pork, repeated from left to right, over and over.

He would speak to her when he wanted to, she knew. Tired from her mission, she left the few groceries she'd managed to buy on her way over here on the counter, and went to sit at the kitchen island. She dragged the ponytail holder off the end of her braid and dragged her fingers through the braid itself to open it. Her hair sprang free in a fierce red cloud, wavy from the braid, to settle around her face and shoulders. With her hair loose, she felt the knot of tension sitting at the base of her skull likewise loosen. She sighed in contentment, watching Naruto work.

Uzumaki Naruto was a marvel in economy of motion when he was busy. He lined the Barbican bottles up in his fridge just as precisely as the ramen, grouped according to flavor. The food she'd brought was treated similarly; all green veggies were placed on one shelf, all red ones on another, all orange ones on yet another. Afterward, he took a rag, wet it at the sink, and wiped down all the surfaces three times. When he was done, he carefully selected a package of pork ramen. When it was cooked and prepared, he set it on the island, took up a pair of chopsticks he'd had his entire life, and proceeded to eat.

His case wasn't full-blown OCD. More borderline than anything else. He had a few OCD behaviors, nothing more. His anti-social behavior stemmed, without a doubt, from the incident that had transpired when he was fifteen. Prior to that, he'd been as different from his current personality as it was possible to be. Outgoing, friendly, a prankster. He'd loved people back then. She'd even entertained a small crush on him, before it had become clear just what his preferences were.

She ached for all that he'd lost, but he didn't want or allow pity. He seemed relatively happy here by himself, but she suspected that he was lonely sometimes. She waited, watching him savor his ramen, until she judged that he was relaxed.

"Why'd you save that kid?" She could not have been more shocked when she'd heard that. "It's unlike you."

Naruto paused in his chewing, staring down into his bowl. "He asked me for help."

Moegi stared. Helping someone who needed it was the old Naruto, not the man he'd become. She didn't know what to say. He wasn't someone who liked a lot of noise and conversation, and she respected that. Unless she had something to say, she generally honored his long silences.

He got up to clean his dishes and wipe down the table where he'd sat. He stood at the sink, head bowed, and waited.

She got the hint. Picking up her mask, she fitted it over her face, and left his house silently. This was the extent of their friendship now; they didn't go out and have fun together, or go to movies, or spend entire nights gossiping about mutual acquaintances. She brought him food, filled his truck, and he let her. End of story.

-oOo-

Naruto knew a brief moment of regret when she left. Sometimes he missed her. Missed when they'd laughed together. He missed a lot of things, but he'd been alone so long now that it was easier than changing. He sighed. Then he got to work wiping down where Moegi had sat.

Sasuke was in the process of gingerly peeling off his shirt, when his brother walked unannounced into his room. He saw the way his bruises were taken in with compressed lips, flared nostrils, and cut off the questions he knew were coming. "Don't. It happened, I'm okay, let's just leave it at that."

His brother ignored him. "Who did it?"

"Itachi, come on, man-"

"Were the authorities called in? Who was that guy who dropped you home?"

"I said-"

"And I said I want to know who the fuck did this. Was it a man? An older man?" Itachi asked suspiciously.

Sasuke, who'd turned to find a clean shirt, turned back around now and frowned at his brother. "What? No. Some jerks from downtown."

"Who? Where?"

"I don't know them, okay? I was coming out of the museum and they made a comment about emo fags. I said something back."

"And then?" Itachi's voice was sharp.

"And then nothing. I said I didn't need their shit and walked off. They followed me. I went into this gas station to call for help-"

"Where the fuck's your cell? You know I would have come."

"Battery died."

"Nice. I'm paying for you to have that thing so I can keep track of your wandering ass, and you let the Christing battery die. I think today was a perfect example of why it should be charged at all times." He snatched Sasuke's bag off the bed where it had been thrown and dug through it until he located the phone. He plugged it into the charger on the night stand.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You want to hear the rest or not?" He rarely saw his brother. Now that he was having a proper conversation with him, he wanted it to continue.

"Regale me," Itachi drawled. He straightened up and leaned against the wall, arms folded.

"Okay, so I get in there, but those douche bags followed me in." He was getting into the tale. "Then the guy, the one who drove me home-"

"What's his name?"

"Don't know. He comes in and starts shoving people and shit. I mean seriously knocking people over like he doesn't see them. I think he's totally insane. It was awesome. Okay, so then…"

Itachi listened to the rest of the story without interrupting. His attention sharpened at hearing mention of ANBU. "Did they get your name?"

"No. First name only."

"Prints?"

"I only touched the door and phone, and the door is shattered. I touched the phone with my sleeve." At seeing the prolonged stare, he added, "Itachi, come on. I know better."

After another moment of staring, Itachi reluctantly nodded and listened to the rest of the tale closely.

Sasuke, younger by six years, was a loner. He worried about the kid, but knew the boy could generally take care of himself. He'd run into some bad luck today, obviously, but it had the effect of turning his usually moody antagonism into chatty animation. He hadn't heard Sasuke speak this much in ages. When his brother wound down, he went to him and ran his hands over the bruising on his back. "Take your pants down," he said when he was satisfied.

"Hell no! I-"

"Let me see the damage or I take you to the hospital."

"Fuck you." But Sasuke shucked his jeans down his thin legs and let them bunch around the tops of his boots.

Itachi eyed the bruises critically. They didn't seem serious. "Five, you said. I know you could have handled them. You didn't give yourself away, I hope?"

Sasuke didn't answer, embarrassed and angry.

Itachi tried to touch the cut on his brother's lip. Sasuke jerked his head away. "Fine, be like that. Money for dinner's on the couch. I'm off to work."

"It's only 8:30."

"Working two shifts tonight."

Sasuke pulled his pants up and waited until he heard his brother leave. Then he dug his laptop out of his bag and turned it on.

Naruto had a routine. Upon waking, he showered, dressed and ate. He would then spend a few hours tending his garden and checking his house over for repairs that needed to be made. He would spend an hour eating and drinking lunch on his back porch, before spending the rest of his daylight hours hiking in the vast, rolling forests outside the city walls. His mountain faced into the city, but the back of the mountain let right out into the forest. There was a perimeter maintained by the Barrier Team, of course, but he knew how to get through it. More importantly, he was allowed through it, so it was never a problem.

At night, he would light candles and read for hours. He had one room in his house lined with shelves from floor to ceiling. Each shelf was crammed full of books from every city on the map. He'd read most of them several times. Moegi frequently brought more from her trips with her squad. He usually only went to bed well after midnight, and slept for three or four hours.

He fell back into this routine easily, and enjoyed a week of nice quiet days. Moegi came over two Saturdays a month, that was all, or to drop off books from her travels. She always came at night. The knock on his front door before noon on a Wednesday had Naruto freezing where he'd been wiping down his bathroom. The knock came again.

His mountain was inaccessible by anyone but himself, Moegi, and the Hokage. No one had been to his clearing at its summit in the twenty-three years he'd been living here outside of himself and those two. As the knocking continued, he went to the bathroom doorway and peered down the hall, toward the living room. In utter puzzlement, he walked slowly down the hall, stood for long moments in the doorway joining living room and hall, then crept across the living room itself to the front door. The knocking was continuous now, rapping away without pause. After at least five minutes of frowning at the door and hoping it would stop, Naruto reached out and twisted the knob. He never locked his door.

He recognized the kid.

Hard not to, really. He spent a moment taking in the black T-shirt (this one had gray sleeves), black jeans, and black boots. The bag was on his back, some kind of knapsack, and he had a shopping bag dangling from one hand. Naruto could see a brown paper bag folded closed inside the shopping bag, but that was it.

He did not want to talk to him. Naruto felt a deep sense of shock, and a violation of his space that his home had been located and was now public knowledge. He felt exposed. As if his sanctuary was now a fishbowl that anyone could peer through and gawk at him. "The fuck do you want," he growled. "How'd you get here?" This seemed more important than how he'd found out where Naruto lived.

"Walked."

"Get off my property."

"But I-"

"I said to get the fuck off my property!" Naruto erupted in a furious bellow. "Now! Before I rip your fucking heart out. Don't you ever come here again, do you hear me? I never want to see you again!"

He slammed the door shut hard enough to make his ears ring and leaned his shaking hands on it. He found that he was breathing heavily. After a few moments, he heard something set down on the other side of the door. The faint rustle told him it was the shopping bag the kid had been carrying. He heard his footsteps thumping down the porch stairs a moment later and peeked out the small window beside the door. The kid was walking towards the dirt road that led out of the clearing, head down, hands in his pockets.

Naruto watched until he was out of sight, and only then let out the breath he'd been holding. His tense fists unclenched slowly. He started to turn from the door, but remembered the bag on his doorstep. No. I don't need anything from anyone.

He turned and went back to cleaning his already clean house.

But as was the case with him, once a thought or image took root in his head it was hard to get rid of. He dwelled on it constantly, while trying hard not to do just that. So, though he scrubbed and washed, swept and washed some more, wiped and washed yet some more, the thought of that shopping bag on his clutter-free porch twisted like an auger in his mind. Finally, long after the time he would have been hiking, he went to his door and wrenched it open.

The bag was still there.

He looked around carefully, but could not detect the presence of anyone. The boy had truly gone. He hooked one finger through the plastic handles and quickly retreated with the bag to his kitchen. He set it on the table and proceeded to open it. The brown paper bag was unfolded just as urgently; he'd spent hours telling himself to leave the bag where it was, while his mind turned ceaselessly with speculation on just what it could be. His hands shook with the need to know what was inside.

Ramen. Two Styrofoam containers of still-warm, fresh ramen.

Two days later, another bag arrived on his doorstep. There was no sign of the kid or anyone else, but when he went outside to tend his garden, there it sat, plastic arms fluttering slightly in the breeze. He'd taken it inside immediately, ripped open the brown paper bag around the containers and ate the contents in great gobbling mouthfuls. It was still hot.

For the rest of the week his routine was shot to hell. He would get up, forgo his shower, and spend a large part of the morning waiting at the small window beside his front door. He would see nothing, no one, and give up that the kid was coming. How the…Sasuke, Naruto reminded himself. How Sasuke consistently managed to find his way up the mountain, past the barricade, was a mystery, but one Naruto privately admitted wasn't quite as pressing as whether or not he would be eating fresh ramen on a given day. This uncertainty, and the subsequent disorder of his days because of it, made his obsessive habits more pronounced. He woke up one morning and decided that he would reconstruct his routine no matter the provocation to do otherwise.

He needed his routines. They gave his days meaning, kept him from thinking too much. Above all, they were his talisman against chaos, against things he couldn't control. He'd broken routine to get food and gas, and look what had happened. Store trashed, people hurt, and some kid finding where he lives and leaving packages on his porch. This last was an intolerable breach of his privacy, one that exacerbated his need for order.

He had some measure of success. For a few days he cleaned and went hiking, read and slept as usual. But then one day when he was returning from his hike he found another bag on his porch. He found one the following day, coming from hiking again, and the day after that. By the end of that week, he realized a new routine had been established.

That went on for some time. Less than month, but long enough for Naruto to expect his delivery of fresh ramen to be waiting for him when he got back from his hikes. They hit the spot after hours of hiking, and put his instant ramen to shame. In fact, he hadn't touched any since having the fresh ramen to look forward to. Moegi stopped by with more groceries and a new book. She stayed awhile, but he didn't mention the kid or the deliveries. She was gone quickly.

He was not an unobservant man. He was aware of himself and his surroundings, enough to know that Sasuke was no ordinary kid if he could consistently get past the barricade and up to his front door without him sensing him. He knew the kid must have hidden himself nearby and watched Naruto for some time in order to pin down his routine and leave the ramen when he did. That kind of intelligence and stealth wasn't common. It screamed Academy, but the kid did not look or act like Academy. And no one reached such an age without making Chuunin or Jounin, not if they were Academy. There were no dropouts from that institution. Not allowed. Once you were Academy, you were Academy for life.

Naruto did not lock his house, either. He didn't need to. After the first few deliveries made while he'd been hiking, he'd checked his house from top to bottom. Nothing had been missing or displaced. He didn't think it had been entered in his absence at all. He would know; he knew every inch of his home and would be able to tell instantly if some foreign entity had been inside. Another oddity. Why wasn't Sasuke tempted to go into his house while it was unattended? And why did he keep bringing ramen? That it was ramen and not something else was not lost on Naruto. The kid had noted his purchases that night in the convenience store. More evidence of the kid's intelligence. It tightened Naruto's shoulders to be the recipient of such scrutiny, but he craved the ramen. He had to have it, and so he let the new routine continue undisturbed.

A day came as Fall was drawing near that no ramen was waiting for him after his hike. He actually stopped halfway up his front steps and looked around the porch, searching for it. A feeling of panic immediately set in with this break in the routine, and he ran around to the veranda out back. Nothing. No ramen anywhere. Thinking, hoping, that Sasuke had grown bold enough to enter the house, Naruto searched inside. No ramen in the kitchen. None in the living. Bedroom, bathroom, closets all empty. Nothing!

Naruto stood on his front porch, heart thudding, as he stared toward the dirt road.

Sasuke looked at the few coins left to him and grimaced.

"Hey."

He glanced up to find his brother leaning into his doorway.

"Working first and second shifts for the next two, three weeks or so. You cool?"

"Yeah. I'm out of money."

Itachi came a little farther into the room. "I give you money every week, and you never spend it on anything. Did you buy something?" He looked around, trying to spot a new gadget or more supplies.

Sasuke shrugged, ducked his head. Turned aside. "Been eating out a lot."

Itachi eyed his brother's thin frame. "Huh. Well, I get paid end of the week. I'll give you some then, same as always. Later."

Sasuke listened to the front door close. He heard Itachi lock it and flopped onto his bed. It was only 9 pm, but he was beat. Weeks of making that long trek up the mountain back and forth had wiped him out. He slept like the dead.

Days went by. Enough so that Naruto knew the new routine was gone. Gone, not experiencing a snag or temporary lapse. Gone. And the old routine seemed too distant and inadequate, despite having been performed for twenty years.

Naruto waited all day on his porch, every day. Sometimes he tried to read. Sometimes he tried to work in his garden. He always ended up sitting on his porch, and staring across his clearing to the dirt road. Where was he?

Finally, while tossing and turning one night in bed, he thought, I know where he lives. I can…go there. Ask him…

What? What would he ask? Naruto blinked in the dark, his obsessive cycle of thoughts at last broken by this question. He'd told the kid to get off his property, and the kid had. He'd come back, but he'd made sure to stay out of sight, also as instructed. What would he accomplish by going to his house? Especially when you could just buy ramen yourself from any restaurant. He recoiled from this thought. Buying it himself wouldn't be the same. He'd have to go into town, instead of having it conveniently delivered to his doorstep.

There in the dark, he recognized another reason buying it himself didn't appeal to him: he liked the idea that someone had taken notice of him enough to discern what he liked. There was a deep appreciation for Sasuke's continued adherence to his preference of avoiding actual contact when leaving the ramen. The boy had neatly inserted his offerings into the routine of Naruto's days, a seamless addition that, by virtue of their anonymity, did nothing but bring Naruto pleasure. Someone going out of their way to please him. It was this he craved, more so than the ramen, he realized. Therefore buying ramen himself was not acceptable, was almost abhorrent.

The blackest night often held the brightest disclosures, Naruto mused. He felt the anxiety he'd lived with for the past week recede a bit. But he knew that tomorrow it would come back.

-oOo-

A few mornings later, he stood in his living room after cleaning his house and allowed himself a small smile of congratulations. He'd successfully kept himself from setting foot on his porch even once. He was just turning for his car keys, in preparation for driving down the back side of the mountain for his hike, when a small noise caught his ear. It was outside, on his porch.

Naruto walked quickly across the room and pulled open his door. He had eyes for nothing but the shopping bag.

Sasuke said nothing. He'd been about to set the bag down, but straightened up when the door opened. He waited, but no invitation to enter was made, nor did the man reach for the bag.

Finally, the guy stepped aside. Sasuke carefully walked across the threshold, acutely aware of the fact that he was probably one of very few people to do so. He waited just inside the door, not wanting to go anywhere unless given express permission. Nothing else happened for a moment, but then the man turned and walked deeper into the spotless house. Sasuke followed quietly.