A/N: After you read, feedback, reviews, and criticism would be amazing!

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Sasuke, to his utter horror, found himself in his family home, back like it was before the murders.

He stood in the sitting room, the pool door ahead of him, open. Everything was immaculate, the way his grandfather always insisted it was, not a hair out of place. The leather couches were spotless, the room's colours autumnal, exotic souvenirs lining the walls and sitting neatly on mahogany bookshelves. Table lamps were on. It was dark outside.

There was the photograph on the table of his family. He picked it up, felt the burning sensation of tears threatening to come on. Still, setting it down, he looked around, wondering at the opulence of the place. Being in what he still thought of as the real world made him understand just how stunningly wealthy his family had been. The pool outside, for instance, was gigantic. He could see the unnaturally blue waters beyond the doors, the lights turning the patio into a glowing heaven. Blue reflections played along the wood, wafting out into the night.

This was not a cozy sight at all. He sat down on one of the couches, picked up the photograph again. Itachi, the young boy looking darkly into the camera; Sasuke the tiny moppet clutching his mother's legs, their grandfather the pillar of sternness on the right. Had this photograph always been in sepia like this, or was this his imagination?

His shoulders were shaking, but he didn't think he was crying. He hadn't cried in a long time. Long time.

He wanted to leave the room, to get back to his crumbling old home in a small town far from here. This was, after all, the only room that had been untouched by Itachi's violence. This was where Sasuke had hid.

Still, though, that statuette on the bookshelf must be worth a fortune. Behind it those leatherbound books looked like first editions; each could easily boost a man up a tax bracket. He imagined Naruto's childhood, shuffled from one filthy abusive foster home to the next, brushing his teeth above a rusty sink, Mizuki and Zabuza snatching at him from within broken mirror. Well, Sasuke thought; I'll have to spoil the boy a little bit.

He rarely tried to regret things. Leaning over, he yearned for a cigarette. He hadn't smoke in a year; had barely smoked that much to begin with. He started during his climb up the social ladder, and halfway through cigarettes fell out of vogue, relegated only to when the Popular Kids drank. Only the socially awkward kids smoked openly now, on breaks outside of school. Sasuke had quit in a day. There was really nothing he couldn't do if he put his mind to it. Except kill Itachi apparently.

He didn't want to miss home. There was only darkness down that path, and a sort of cutting pain that used to paralyze him. There was the present to think about, and Naruto.

"Yeah Sasuke," a voice said, coming from the direction of the pool. "I like him too."

He expected Itachi. He was surprised to see the tall slender silhouette standing just beyond the pool.

"Why can't everyone leave him alone?" Sasuke shouted, going to the pool door. "Why can't you leave me alone?"

"Maybe I will. Maybe I might turn my attention elsewhere."

Sasuke advanced out into the night towards the pool. "No. You stay away from him."

"Aw, Sasuke, you know how it is. These things have a way of escalating."

"You're supposed to be dead!"

"I get that from everyone."

Sasuke looked down. Naruto was on the bottom of the pool, looking up, blood flowing out of his eyes, twin red clouds billowing up. Sasuke shouted his name and pitched forward into the pool, scrambling through the water downwards.

Naruto opened his mouth and died the way Sasuke's mother died. The pool turned scarlet--

Sasuke woke up, kicking out, nearly falling out of his bed.

It was dark still, rain pattering against his bedroom windows. The room smelled strongly of garlic. "God," he said.

Naruto was a deep sleeper, nestled beside him in the bed, unfazed by Sasuke's crying out. Sasuke watched him, watched the covers raise and fall with his breathing. What a nightmare. Well, it was only two days after the incident at the school, so it made sense for some nerves to be a little flustered.

Something was tapping against the balcony doors. Sasuke got out of bed, approached them, watching the rain make rivulets of shadow fall down the glass. He opened the doors and a raven tumbled into the bedroom, soaked from the rain. It stumbled along, shook out its feathers and said, "Master Sasuke-"

"Christ," Sasuke said. "You found where I live."

"Erm. Sorry-?"

"Not a good time for this."

"My master requests that you and your friend Naruto join him for dinner."

"I refuse. Get out."

"He won't like that."

"He doesn't exist. Get out."

"What should I say?"

"That I refuse this and every other request he sends."

"Ah."

"And tell him to stay out of my dreams."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Get out."

The raven staggered over itself and launched into the rain with a cry. When it had vanished into the night, fork lightning lit up the horizon. Thunder rumbled. Sasuke stood watching the storm.

After a while he shut the door, latched it, went back to bed. As he sunk beneath the covers, Naruto flopped over and snuggled into him. Sleepily Naruto murmured, "Frequent flyers get lazy..."

Sasuke smiled. He lay back and tried to get back to sleep. He had heard a proverb once that all men talked in their sleep, but all Naruto ever mumbled was the nonsense-language of all sleep talkers. Sasuke wondered what he said...

He tried to get back to sleep. Soon it would be daylight, which would be good.

The night had some scary things out there.

ooo

Sunlight turned the town park to glimmer and gold. Naruto leaned against a tall oak, sitting on the grass, Sasuke sitting between his legs, leaning back against him.

"Sasuke," Sakura said, throwing a frisbee to Ino. "Question for you."

"Shoot."

"What'd you want to do with your life?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, after school -- what are you going to do? Job-wise."

Sai, sitting under another tree, looked up from his notebook and snickered. "Nothing," he said. "Sasuke's a trust-fund kid. Doesn't need to work."

"Travel," Sasuke said. "I want to travel." And kill a man, he thought.

"I want to be a social worker, I think," Naruto said. "Like Iruka. I could help kids like me, you know?"

"Very noble!" Sai said. "I commend you."

"I want to be a train engineer," Sakura said. "Not the kind that builds trains, but the ones who drive them."

"A what-?" Ino said, tossing the frisbee back.

"A train engineer! I want to drive trains."

"Sounds like a need for a pretty big penis substitute there," Sai said. "Freud would have a field day with you."

"I'd have to move to Europe though. North America's rails suck."

Sasuke laughed. "I'm -- I'm just trying to understand -- why trains."

"Penis substitute," Sai said.

"I don't know," Sakura said. "I just like the idea of driving them. Seeing that landscape speed by. Yeah."

Ino caught the frisbee. "You guys are so certain. I don't know what I'm going to do. Go to college, I guess. Get a job."

"You're going to be an office drone?" Sai asked. "Ew. Way to give up."

"Well, I don't know. Doesn't sound like giving up to me. Giving up is, like, going and working at McDonald's your whole life."

"Wasting away in an office sounds just as bad to me."

"Well, what do you want to do, little Miss Crossdresser."

Sai looked up. "I don't know. Actress-- I mean, actor."

"You can't act, can you?"

"Ever seen me?"

"Where would I have seen you?"

"Well, that's the problem with the school. Terrible drama section."

"I was in a play once," Naruto said. "I played a tree."

"Maybe it was written by the same guy who wrote the one I was in," Sasuke said. "I was a hedge."

Sai laughed. "Parts suited to your thespian abilities, I'm sure."

Sakura caught the frisbee, and threw it back to Ino, who didn't catch it. Ino stared off at Hinata, who had appeared next a thicket of trees, the wind blowing through her black dress.

"Hinata?" Sakura said.

Hinata blushed, looking overwhelmed. She blushed and stammered. "I-i-is Sasuke there?"

Sasuke looked up. "Hinata!" He got to his feet, brushed off his feet, looked back at Naruto. "I'll be right back."

"Oh," Naruto said. "Okay."

Sasuke made it across the park to Hinata, who looked up at him, blushed fiercely and said, "W-w-we should go by a river."

She led him to a part of the park where it connected with the outskirts of the town, where the trees stood so tall and proudly around them that it was practically a forest. Here the light was dappled green and golden where it filtered through what little leaves there were left on the trees.

"T-this is a time of death for the forest," Hinata said, setting her messenger bag down next to a creek and sitting down on a rock. "It's not a bad kind of death. Just nature curling back within Gaia for the next season."

"You know more about this stuff than I do," Sasuke said, sitting down on a rock opposite him. "I just want to know how to kill him."

"Y-y-you shouldn't speak like that," Hinata said, looking at her feet. "You're a living being. You shouldn't want to destroy things."

"But he's already dead."

"So then it's useless to talk about killing him, right?"

"Garlic keeps my brother away. Mirrors do too. Holy symbols melt when he's near. There has to something to keep Orochimaru away."

"Orochimaru isn't like your brother. He's something-- he's something very different. H-h-he's like when life goes wrong, or when death goes wrong, I don't know. He's just this force of... not anger, but-"

"Sadism?"

"I don't think the Earth would create something that evil."

"It created my brother."

"L-let's called Orochimaru misguided? Is that better?"

"How do I keep him away?"

"How we keep anything away, I guess." She clutched at the Celtic cross hanging from her neck. "With symbols, I suppose. We give symbols power. They keep evil away."

"I think he's coming into my dreams. I don't know how."

He became aware of how much the forest was exploding with life around him. There was moss on the rock he was sitting on, incredible amounts of cells and life drifting in the sunlight, and the grass beneath him, and the sun sparkling off the water as it ran by. The trees swayed in the wind. And then there was him, wanting to kill so badly. So badly.

"They want you because they see themselves inside you," Hinata said.

"Just give me a talisman or something."

"No talisman is going to stop Orochimaru, Sasuke. But he won't want you anymore if he can't see the darkness in you."

That darkness has to be there, he thought. It kept that force out, that dark crackling pain that hovered at the edge of his sight, ready to come in when he lost focus of his goals.

"Thanks anyways, Hinata," he said, standing up.

"W-wait!" she cried, grabbing at his hand. "There are-- there are some things you can do. Protective spells."

He looked down at her. She withdrew, frightened of him, frightened of the intensity in those eyes. The forest creaked around him.

"Put a jar of water out on your porch by the full moon," she whispered. "Sprinkle it around your doors and windows. And, most of all, believe in it."

There was no change in his eyes. She could see it there, that razor-sharp slice of energy that animated him, the need to kill those who hurt him.

"Thanks, Hinata," he said.

The wind began to get harder.

ooo

That evening Iruka made a pot of coffee for himself and Kakashi. He peeked in on the boys -- Sasuke and Naruto sat in the living room, watching some zombie movie on television. He came back into the kitchen, poured some coffee for Kakashi. "Milk? Sugar?"

"Nah," Kakashi said. He peered into the distance. "Think this is a precedent broken?"

"Which? Naruto and Sasuke?"

"Oh, their little romance? Nah, they're just adorable. No, I mean Gaara. That boy. Getting powers from the spirit-world."

"I certainly don't understand it." Iruka sat down at the table. "I can only imagine what his parents are going through."

Kakashi looked up at Iruka, saw the slashes and deep scratches tearing up the young man's face and arms, and said, "Yeah. His parents."

"I don't think moving here was a good idea," Iruka said. "Vampires and psychopathic students-- you being here--"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

"But we can't move away," Iruka continued. "Naruto's made friends, met Sasuke. It'd crush him to-"

"Me being here isn't all that bad, is it?"

Iruka smiled. "No, I guess not. I just-- I told you I'd stay away."

"Long time ago."

"I also told myself I'd stay away from the old life."

"I think we all did."

"I became a social worker."

"At least you didn't become a highschool teacher."

"I heard you haven't passed a single student."

"Nah, just a rumour I spread around to keep the kids on their toes."

"Clever."

"I am that."

Iruka laughed. He got up and went to the kitchen sink.

"That's jazz playing from the living room, isn't it?" Kakashi said.

"Yeah. Gershwin."

"You never used to listen to jazz."

"No."

"You used to listen to the Smiths a lot. And Blur. Lot of the British stuff."

Iruka turned around, shrugged. "Just part of trying out the new life. Had to get away from those memories."

"I still listen to the Pixies now and again."

"Of course you do. You're one of those cool highschool teachers." He sat back down at the table, sighed. "We have to figure out a way to get that kid out."

"I'll figure out something."

"That's what you always say. Used to make me angry."

"Making you angry now?"

"No."

They looked at each other.

"This is good coffee," Kakashi said.

"You haven't drank any yet."

"I can smell it."

Iruka nodded.

"I preferred the Smiths," Kakashi said.

"Gershwin is excellent music."

"Never said it wasn't."

Iruka shrugged, smiled. He laid his hand on Kakashi's, looked away. A pause. He realized what he did and took his hand away sharply, getting up. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Iruka. It's all right."

"All right." He leaned against the kitchen sink, ran a hand through his hair. "All right."