Author's note: Sorry for the delay; real life projects are leaving me exhausted, so I had to finish this chapter today.

Thanks to the following reviewers: solitare1; Richon; 666snoopy; Ellasauras

Warnings: Minor zombie gore

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.

I hope you'll like it!


Chapter 13

Gaara's threat lingered in the back of his mind for the rest of his guard shift. No matter how he looked at it, Sasuke didn't understand what the hell had brought on that particular conversation. How exactly was he looking at Naruto that it made Gaara think he had to bring out the protective best friend shtick? What the fuck had even been up with that threat? Could he have been any more violent? The worst thing was that Gaara's threat was most likely not even an idle one, knowing that guy. He definitely would skin and gut Sasuke alive if he ever thought that Sasuke had hurt Naruto.

Which would never happen because there was nothing going on between Sasuke and Naruto, no matter what Gaara seemed to suspect.

By the time his guard shift ended, he resolved to put the whole threat behind him and not think about it again. There was no need to keep thinking about it, anyways, because like he had told Gaara, there was nothing going on between Sasuke and Naruto.

Neither Itachi nor father were home by the time Sasuke arrived at the house, but he hadn't expected them to be yet. Both still had their own tasks to deal with; Itachi should be home in two hours at most, but father had a meeting with the Board and that could take a while. There was a freshly baked bread in a paper bag waiting for him next to the front door; the old lady from further down the street must have left it behind for them. She loved to bake and she was grateful to father for having accepted her into the compound together with her wheelchair bound husband. As a thank you – though father had insisted multiple times already that she didn't needed to give anything – she occasionally left baked goods behind, whether that was in the form of some pastry if they had managed to find enough sugar or bread.

Taking the bread inside with him, he figured he would make a quick dinner with it before going to bed. He didn't have anything else planned and he wasn't in the mood to do any reading.

If he hadn't personally made the sandwich – just some jam, a mixture of strawberries and something else he couldn't identify immediately – he wouldn't have even known what was in it. The whole sandwich tasted like nothing, but he forced himself to finish it, knowing it was better to have something in his stomach than nothing. His glass of juice tasted equally bland and he couldn't be finished with it quickly enough.

Right as he was nearly finished cleaning his glass after having washed the knife, Itachi's quiet voice spoke up from behind him.

"Heard you and Naruto-kun had quite the argument today."

Sasuke's hands halted in the process of drying off the glass and a spark of annoyance lit up within him. Of course somebody had blabbed; the gods forbid that people around here knew how to keep their bloody mouths shut.

He dried off the glass first before placing it on the counter. He turned around next and leant against the sink, staring at his brother. Itachi hovered in the door opening; his thumbs hooked around the loops of his jeans, though the casual posture was belied by the look of concern in his eyes.

"Who ran his mouth? Suigetsu, Kisame or Anko?" Sasuke demanded annoyed. Hell, for all he knew it could have been someone else entirely; he doubted their argument had been particularly quiet.

He spent a moment wondering whether Gaara had babbled, but no, that was very doubtful. While Naruto at least made the occasional effort to talk to others, Gaara was almost completely mum around the rest of them. It was unlikely that he of all people had gone tattling to Itachi.

"Kisame," Itachi admitted easily, throwing his friend under the bus. "I would have managed to figure it out on my own, though, even without his input."

"Yeah? How so?" Sasuke's eyebrows drew together.

One pointed look of Itachi at the necklace on the kitchen table had Sasuke flushing slightly. He had taken it out of his pocket when he had sat down to eat, not wanting the stone to dig into his thigh.

"I know you don't have a necklace and you don't tend to accept gifts like that from the others," Itachi said calmly. "Don't need to be a genius to assume that Naruto might have given it to you. He's one of the few people you spend a lot of time with after all and he's the one who left on that run today."

"He didn't give it to me," Sasuke denied and picked up the necklace again. "This is his stupid idea of a promise, I guess. He lent it to me until he's back from the run. He said this way I know he'll come back." He rolled his eyes even as his fingers curled around the stone.

"I don't think it's such a stupid promise, considering how careful you're handling it," Itachi commented; his eyes uncomfortably sharp.

It raised Sasuke's proverbial hackles for reasons he couldn't even discern. "Go psycho-analyse someone else, nii-san, I'm not in the mood for this," he warned him sharply and muscled his way past his brother.

He hunched his shoulders and stiffened when Itachi placed a hand on his right shoulder, curling around it. "If there's anyone you can count on to make it back, it's Naruto-kun," he said softly.

"That's a lot of faith to put in somebody who's enough of an idiot to drive straight into a herd," Sasuke snapped and shook off his hand, going straight upstairs to his bedroom.

He pushed the pile of books on his nightstand more towards the wall side so that he could put the necklace down in a safe spot, which wouldn't carry any risk of the necklace slipping off and falling onto the floor. He gazed at it for a little while before he tore his eyes away and changed into his pyjamas, paying no mind to the cold air stinging his bare flesh.

"That fucking idiot better not die out there," he mumbled darkly and slipped underneath the blankets.

Sleep took a very long time to arrive that night.


"Want to train with the crossbow again?" Gaara suggested to Sasuke's surprise when he sought him out the next day.

Sasuke had just finished picking up some rations from the storage and was about to carry them home. He had nothing scheduled for today, so he had offered to do the apocalypse form of grocery shopping as Deidara had called it sarcastically. He hadn't expected Gaara to seek him out, let alone with an offer to have some crossbow training. Gaara's threat still in the back of his mind, no matter how much he tried to forget about it, he couldn't help but regard the red haired man a bit warily.

Gaara rolled his eyes at that. "Don't look at me like that, I'm serious," he said. "You wanted to train again today, didn't you? Unless you've got something planned now, we might as well go out and train with the crossbow."

"Let me go put these away," Sasuke said, lifting up the two bags, "and then I'll go tell the guards we'll be going outside the walls for a while."

"Sure, meet me at the gates," Gaara said and adjusting the strap of the crossbow, he turned around and walked away.

Sasuke spent a couple of seconds wondering whether that crossbow was Naruto's or Gaara's own weapon, before he shook his head and quickly returned home to drop off the food. He jotted down on a note that he would be going outside the walls with Gaara for a bit just in case Itachi or father would wonder where he was. He grabbed his katana out of pure habit by now and left again, making his way to the gates.

Gaara was already waiting there, but Sasuke went up the scaffolding first, spotting Iruka close by the opening.

"Hey, Gaara and I want to go outside for a bit," Sasuke said, gaining Iruka's attention. "We'll be training with the crossbow, think you can open the gates for us?"

Iruka pursed his lips, but nodded slowly. "Fine, but no longer than an hour," he warned, signing to one of the other guards to start opening the gate. "You're not supposed to be out there now and I don't want your father to get on our case if something happens to the two of you."

"We'll be fine, I promise," Sasuke reassured him. "We both have enough weapons with us just in case we run into one of them."

Iruka sighed and nodded. "Fine, but no longer than an hour," he repeated.

"Thanks." Sasuke quickly went down again, hearing the tell-tale signs of the gates slowly rolling open.

"We've got an hour," he told Gaara, who nodded and shrugged, following him outside.

"Fine with me, it's not like you're starting from scratch," he said dismissively.

They went back to the small clearing where Sasuke had trained yesterday. They had to kill three zombies on the way there, but they were the straggler kind, barely quick enough to try to grab them, let alone actually attack. With winter really settling in, the cold made all those dead bastards slower, which in turn made them at least easier to deal with.

The bullseye Naruto had hung up yesterday was still there and Gaara handed the crossbow to Sasuke; the weapon already loaded. He walked a bit to the side, closer than he had stood yesterday, but still out of the way that Sasuke couldn't possibly hit him if he fucked up.

"If you keep being that tense, you're going to keep fucking up your aim," Gaara told him flatly after Sasuke messed up the first two shots; the bolts thwacking into a tree on the left of the one with the bullseye instead.

"I know," Sasuke huffed and went over to retrieve the bolts.

"Then stop being tense," Gaara told him in a tone as if he was talking to someone who was stupid.

"Forgive me for being a bit tense after the less than subtle threat you made yesterday," Sasuke said sarcastically and walked back to his spot, aiming the crossbow at the bullseye.

He took a deep breath, closed one eye and released the bolt. This time it hit the bullseye just below the centre point.

"I thought you said there wasn't anything between you and Naruto?" Gaara remarked, raising an eyebrow. "Why be nervous then?"

"People tend to get tense around others who make such explicit threats," Sasuke said dryly and side-eyed the other man before loading a new bolt. "Besides, even if there was something between me and him, what is it to you? Naruto's old enough to decide who he wants to date."

"Sure, doesn't mean I can't look out for him," Gaara said and crossed his arms. "I promised his mum that I would look after him and I'm not going to break that promise, not even for a pretty boy like you."

Ignoring the last part – which with Gaara's tone sounded more insulting than complimentary – Sasuke glanced at him before concentrating on the tree again. "Does Naruto know you made that promise?"

"No, but he probably has an idea," Gaara replied. "I've been looking out for him since we were kids; that shit ain't going to change now that we're older. Kushina-ba-san didn't need to tell me to do that, but I guess she just felt better knowing I would."

Kushina must be the name of Naruto's mother then. He and Gaara truly were close, huh, for the red haired boy to be using such an affectionate suffix for Naruto's mother. The sentiment of the promise was nice, but –

"Naruto can look after himself," Sasuke said and shot off another bolt. It landed next to the first one, a bit further away from the centre. "He's not a little kid anymore that you have to protect."

"I know he can," Gaara said unperturbed. "It wasn't as if he was weak as a kid either; he wiped the floor with a lot of bullies back then. The thing is, Naruto is the type to go all out, no matter what he does. If he likes someone, he'll do anything for them. It's what makes him such a force to be reckoned with."

"But?" Sasuke frowned and lowered the crossbow, staring at Gaara. "Sounds like there's a but following that."

"But that also means that if you know where to hit, it's easy to take him down as well," Gaara said quietly and rolled his shoulders. "That's why I look after him: to make sure that nobody can hurt him like that."

"I can understand that," Sasuke said. It was a sentiment he understood fully, because it was the same way he felt about his brother. It didn't matter that his brother was older; he didn't want him to get hurt if it could be avoided. "But that doesn't explain why you're coming after me."

Gaara's deadpan look made him scowl. "What?"

"Naruto gave you his necklace, one of the very few things he treasures because it came from his mum, and you have the gall to tell me you don't understand why I'm warning you?" Gaara asked unimpressed and cocked his head. "Come on, you have to be smarter than that."

"You heard him, this is just his way of promising he'll come back. There is nothing going on between me and Naruto," Sasuke insisted and loaded another bolt.

"Who are you really trying to convince here, Sasuke? Me or yourself?" Gaara questioned mildly.

The bolt sailed straight past the tree this time. Goddamn it.


"Is there a reason why you baked biscuits for Naruto and Gaara?" Sasuke inquired and rammed his knife straight into the forehead of a groaning zombie, cutting off its horrible gurgling instantly. He wrenched it loose from the spear it had got itself lodged onto and dropped it on the ground, shoving it to the side with his foot.

The cleaning crew would arrive soon to gather the bodies and them on fire a good distance away from the compound. Burying would take too long given the amount of zombies they tended to find during these check-ups and eventually they would reach the point where they would run out of decent ground to bury them in. Better to keep the ground available for their own people in the unfortunate case that they happened to lose somebody.

To avoid having the corpses stink up the place, though, and even potentially spreading some nasty diseases, they had decided early on that burning them would be the most efficient way to deal with them after disposing of the undead.

Ino glanced at him surprised before quickly jamming her own blade straight through the skull of a little brown haired girl who had dragged her rotting body straight into a bed of spikes. Her legs were noting but bare bones at this point and Ino pointedly avoided looking at them, moving on to the next zombie which had found himself trapped in one of their defensive snares.

"How do you know about that?" She shook her head almost as soon as she asked the question and huffed out a quiet chuckle. "Nah, stupid question, forget I asked."

"Why stupid?"

It was currently day two of Naruto's and Sakura's hospital run and Sasuke's concern hadn't abated in the slightest. If anything, it might have even grown a notch. In spite of the conversation he and Gaara had had yesterday, he had actually been able to distract himself well enough with the crossbow practice as aiming and shooting had required all his attention. A dispatch mission like this one, however, didn't require as much concentration as wielding the crossbow did and his mind was constantly whirling with thoughts about what might be happening right now at the hospital, whether Naruto and Sakura were close to arriving there already and how bad the herd situation was currently. It was enough to drive him mad and he shoved his knife into the next zombie's forehead with a bit more force than he intended. The squishing sound of the nearly completely rotted through head of the undead man had him grimacing.

"Because of course you would know about the biscuits, why wouldn't you?" Ino snorted and dragged the corpse of a young guy onto the ground, finishing him off with her blade. "Did either one of them tell you about it?"

"They shared some with me actually," Sasuke answered, deciding to ignore the first remark. "So why the biscuits? I never took you for the type to like baking."

"I don't," she admitted easily and smiled wryly, brushing a lock of her blonde hair out of her eyes. "But I wanted to get to know them better and people are kind of obligated at least to let you in if you come bearing food. Social etiquette is a bitch to shake even in the apocalypse apparently."

"Why the sudden interest in them?" he asked curiously. He switched to his katana in order to stab a zombified woman straight through her forehead; she had fallen into one of the deeper pits they had dug out specifically for this purpose.

Ino scoffed and tossed her long hair over her shoulder. "What, I'm not allowed anymore to be interested in the new arrivals? That's harsh, even coming from you, Sasuke-kun."

"They are hardly new arrivals anymore considering they have been here for more than two months already," he pointed out.

"They're new still to basically everybody but you," she riposted unimpressed. "I know you're not stupid nor blind, Sasuke-kun, so you have to realise that you're the only one they actually talk to. They're not exactly as chatty with the rest of us."

He shrugged in lieu of responding, because what could he say to that? He knew that neither Naruto nor Gaara were exactly buddies with the rest of the people at the compound, but he still couldn't explain why neither of them had any real issues talking with him. He didn't mind, however. A teensy part buried deeply inside of him might even feel somewhat smug about the fact that he was the only one Naruto, and to a lesser degree Gaara, were willing to open up to.

"And did you get to know them better?" he questioned after a bout of silence in which they managed to get rid of five more zombies.

"No," she sighed annoyed and stabbed her knife with more force into the skull of an elderly man than required. "They were polite, well, Naruto-kun was; Gaara-kun was mostly quiet. But goddamn it, trying to get either of them to talk is like pulling teeth from a damn shark or some shit like that. I never thought I'd say this, but man, they are both more reticent than you are! I never thought that was even possible!"

"What's with everyone constantly comparing them to me?" Sasuke mumbled and shook his head. Yes, he wasn't much of a talker; he didn't need everyone to constantly remind him of that.

"Well, you can hardly be called Chatty Cathy around these parts," she smirked before furrowing her eyebrows. "They are definitely worse, though. Especially Gaara-kun. I couldn't get either of them to say much. How do you do that?"

He shrugged half-heartedly. "No idea. We just talk; it's not that difficult, really."

"Not for you at least," she muttered and eyed him shrewdly. "Although I guess Naruto-kun at least likes you the most, huh."

He stared at her bemused. "What's that supposed to mean?"

A harsh snort escaped her and she bumped their shoulders together when she walked past him. "I heard about the necklace, you know. It's like the biggest news we've had in weeks around here."

"That's just because he used it as a stupid promise that he will return," he replied irritated. "Don't you all have better things to do than gossip about a damn necklace of all things?"

"You don't think there's a reason why he gave you that necklace, you dumbass?" she shot back.

"What are you on about?" Sasuke demanded annoyed.

She shot him an incredulous look. "Sasuke-kun, Naruto-kun never lends out anything! Hell, he barely even shows his weapons! Suigetsu wanted to see his dagger two weeks ago, because you know that idiot loves anything that's sharp, and Naruto-kun refused. Mind, he was polite about it apparently," she amended quickly, "but that was a very clear no Suigetsu got to hear. Meanwhile you here get to carry around his necklace."

She gestured at his pocket where the outline of the stone was visible slightly. "Maybe you should think about why that is," she remarked; her blue eyes intense.

She broke off their gaze after a moment and turned around to stab the next zombie through the head.

Sasuke glowered at the back of her head, hating the way his stomach twisted oddly at her words. What did she even know anyways? Why was she on his case as well about Naruto? Why did everyone seem to be under the impression that they knew everything about him and Naruto?

Bunch of nosy bastards, the lot of them.

The gurgling zombie that crawled towards him had his skull shattered underneath his boot.


The loud roaring of an approaching bike two days later had Sasuke running out of his home, paying no attention to father's surprised look or Itachi's annoyingly knowing one. He waited impatiently near the gates, scrutinising them as they opened agonizingly slow. Nerves thrummed in his body and his nails dug into the sensitive flesh of his palms when he curled his hands into fists.

The grumbling of the bike died out when the bike drove through the gap in the gates. Sakura was holding so many bags it was a miracle she hadn't fallen off the bike from the sheer weight alone. It proved the run had been very successful, but Sasuke wasn't interested in her or the bags.

The one he was interested in was getting off the bike, cheeks smeared with zombie gore, his jacket and jeans drenched in black reddish blood. The way he stepped swiftly off the bike appeared to indicate that the blood wasn't his, but Sasuke's concern hadn't completely abated yet.

Naruto looked up and a grin unfolded across his face when he spotted Sasuke walking over to him; the necklace clenched in his right fist after he retrieved it from his pocket. The only times he hadn't had the necklace on him was when he had been asleep. He had never worn it – he could already imagine the comments that action would have elicited – but it had been in his pocket or his hand the entire time.

"Told you I'd be back in four days," Naruto told him smugly and wiped the back of his hand across his nose. He only succeeded in spreading out the gore further, making him grimace in response.

Other people hurried to the bike, surrounding Sakura, who started talking about the supplies immediately; her voice high pitched with excitement. Sasuke probably should listen as well, but he couldn't bring himself to pay her any attention. He figured that if anything really necessary was said, he would hear it from others later on.

"Guess I don't need to kill you then," Sasuke snorted, taking stock of his body quickly. He couldn't immediately find any injuries and Naruto didn't appear to be favouring any side over the other, so the blood must be all from the undead then. It set him more at ease.

"No kiss?" Naruto pouted in jest and fluttered his eyelashes.

"You reek like the dead themselves," Sasuke retorted unimpressed. The stench was so bad, it was as if Naruto had rolled around in the gore; quite the disgusting thought and he hoped that hadn't been the case. Knowing what he did about Naruto and Gaara, though, that was actually a possibility.

Naruto lifted his left arm and took a sniff. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Yeah, had to kill quite some fuckers," he sighed. "Couldn't stop for a quick dip at the lake, because they were crawling there too. I'm going to take a shower; this stench is bad even for me."

"You can take one at my house," Sasuke blurted out the offer.

They both blinked at each other in surprise. "Erm, I wouldn't want to mess up your shower, though," Naruto said slowly and made a move as if he was going to scratch the back of his head before remembering his hands were bloody as well. He scowled down at them, making a half-hearted attempt to wipe them off on his jeans.

"Yes, because my shower clearly hasn't seen some blood and gore before," Sasuke said sarcastically and Naruto snickered. "No, I mean, the water got shut off in your apartment building today; they're working on it while Gaara is glaring them down last I saw him. Don't know whether they're finished already."

"Ah, that explains why Gaara isn't here." Naruto tilted his head to the side and furrowed his eyebrows. "Well, I suppose if you don't mind, I'll take you up on your shower offer, dude."

"Don't call me dude," Sasuke retorted automatically and beckoned for the blond man to follow, oddly gratified when Naruto complied immediately.

He would think about why that gratified him later on. Now he was just happy that Naruto had somehow managed to survive his idiotic stunt unscathed.


AN2: Fun fact: the ending of this chapter was actually chapter eight in The Long Run. Gaara's presence really adds to the story, huh? LOL Prepare yourself for an even longer story than The Long Run, guys.

Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.

I hope to see you all back in the next chapter! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!

Cuddles

Melissa

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