Fish Bird
魚鳥
Naruto was in a bad mood as he trudged heavily down the stairs, his hair was in delightful disarray as he slammed against the hallway wall, his shoulder taking the brunt of the impact and he grunted, scowling heatedly.
There had been no sleep after... After the… dream or … perhaps it had been more like a nightmare.
Naruto's limber arms reached up and over his head, his fingers curled into streams of morning sunlight.
He paused for a moment considering as he caught sight of himself in a reflected surface, he could still feel parts of it- the indents on his skin from Sasuke's fingertips. His lips felt slightly tender this morning as he ran his finger across his lower jaw, rubbed raw and bitten. The mirrored reflection blushed, the scenario was entirely impossible. It had been nothing more than a dream – a fleeting and vivid conjuration of an overactive imagination.
And yet… and yet there was a nagging feeling chipping away at the back of his mind. Fleetingly his hand drifted over the eye that Sasuke had struck, recoiling with his fist like a piston as his face had contorted into a beautiful yet feral expression. There was no bruising, no black mark, no blood, no puffy tender skin around the ocular orbit.
There was nothing.
"That's because it was a dream you moron." Naruto muttered to himself, as he raked his fingers through his blond hair distractedly.
His wide cornflower blue eyes were anxious, long blinking lashes fluttering as he let out a long long sigh. There was a feeling of relief but also something underneath it which Naruto did not care to analyse for too long. All feelings towards Sasuke at the moment seemed to signal danger. He would be in wise company to steer clear of it.
He shuffled blearily down to the kitchen, his hands following an automatic routine and after a few minutes he found himself seated with a bowl of cereal and a glass of ice-cold milk. Some months ago, Sakura had threatened him with chopsticks in certain orifices if he continued to eat ramen solidly for every meal; and Sakura when she wanted to be was every bit as wrathful as Tsunade and Naruto deciding for once to take his own mortality into his hands, had complied.
She was pretty hot when she was angry, but equally terrifying.
Naruto looked down glumly at his food, he did not feel much like eating this morning, unusually he did not feel like doing anything much. His stomach was churning away like an old furnace as if to bring old heat back up to the boil again.
His emotions were currently swirling in confusing eddies around his head: anger, agitation, fury… but the foremost part of him was disappointed.
Disappointed because he had wanted so badly to avoid this.
Almost in desperation Naruto rubbed a closed fist over his eyes, for a moment he felt the strain of last night descend back down upon him. For a moment the word monster played on repeat in Naruto's mind, the words forming and dying on Sasuke's perfect flushed mouth.
He pulled himself out of it, blinking quickly. There was no dignity in this, no dignity at all. A heavy feeling had settled between his ribs, like a long rod of steel, rammed in just beneath his heart, jarring against the ceaseless motion of living, reminding him of the hurt with every movement.
Unenthusiastically he swirled his spoon about the cereal bowl, watching as the contents clung together, reformed to then cluster again. He felt listless and drained.
It was a silent admission of defeat as he pushed away from the table and took the bowl over to the windowsill and poured the glass of milk into Virginia's plant pot.
He murmured a muted: "Good morning and how are you?".
She looked prickly today, spines almost quivering in the early morning light; Naruto supposed she must feel the tension too and sighed heavily.
"Monster." the small malicious voice in his head repeated.
Naruto braced his hands against the sides of the kitchen counter and looked down into the soap-suds of the basin. His distorted image frowned up at him, whisker-like scars today were etched deeper than ever into his skin, little linear discolorations reminding him of this role as a vessel, the marks were all jagged and wry against his complexion. This always happened when the Kyuubi's power rose a little too close to the surface for comfort.
What had he thought when he was younger… that these were the marks left by some savage beast?
The thing that had left him and devoured his parents?
Naruto laughed humourlessly, his skin was the constant reminder of the foxes outward claim on his vessel. Somewhere inside of him, in this universally close space of atoms, molecules, cells, tissues and organs that made up his body: an infinite chasm with impenetrable walls and hooked iron spikes existed, keeping this creature in.
Part of him hated it, part of him accepted it, and another piece just didn't care anymore.
Naruto knew to keep it subdued, under control, as long as he was proficient at this he would be tolerated. As long as he kept the box bolted tight they would not be afraid of him. Long ago he had experienced constant nightmares of the fox breaking its bonds whilst he slept, how it happened to Gaara. He had constantly been afraid of waking up one morning amongst blood, rubble and chaos.
The fear of killing everyone dear to him in his sleep.
For a moment a vision of Sakura flashed before his eyes, her limp body lying next to him. Her neck broken clean in half, torso split from sternum to abdomen. Because…because…
Naruto stared down at his hands, half expecting to see talons breaking from the tips of his fingernails, but a quick glance in the mirror revealed his eyes had remained an endless lake of blue.
He shuddered.
Once Sakura had held him mid-nightmare, softly caressing his hair and had hummed him a lullaby as the visions of violence had bubbled and broken in his minds eye. He felt a painful twinge in his chest at the memory. He had come a long way since then- nothing was going to force its way out of his body as he slept.
Bringing himself back to the moment he poured the dirty water down the drain, watching as the last swirls of liquid were sucked down into the dark mouth of the plug-hole.
His mind drifted back to his current houseguest.
Sasuke… Sasuke never really said anything unless each thought had been weighed, calculated and measured against a long list of possible outcomes, gains and losses. Very rarely had he ever acted on impulse, Naruto thought, taking a step back and glowering at the ceiling.
Not ever.
Sasuke had never had a moment of passion, when half unguarded words had come tumbling from his mouth, mingled with fear, simplicity and truth. Everything was evaluated, preordained and edited. It was like talking to some intelligent machine, utterly inhuman, inevitably frustrating and totally pointless.
That fact made what he said worse, an act of senseless anger it would be much easier to forgive, but the fact was- the fact was simple: it was not a random slip of the tongue.
Naruto shook his head, still scowling, and made his way towards the door. He opened it, meaning to leave for work, the unappealing call of paperwork was looming ahead, and he could already see that old hag grinning at him from behind piles and piles of things he's neglected to do.
He paused at the door looking at the empty table.
For a while he considered whether or not he should bother making Sasuke breakfast.
Sasuke was ill after all, even if he was the world's biggest Pain-In-The-Ass. A small sneaky smile trailed up the side of Naruto's expressive mouth.
"Okay Sasuke." He said to no one in particular, "Why not have breakfast?"
Naruto pulled open a cupboard and fetched out the cereal box, a china bowl, a spoon, the milk and then- his hand lingered for a moment over what seemed to be a white sugar bowl. But one could swear that his blue eyes were sparkling too merrily for this to be the entire truth. He carefully sprinkled a spoonful of it liberally all over the cornflakes, reasoning to himself that the Uchiha was probably too busy sulking anyway to eat this.
Probably.
Naruto walked out the front door whistling, slamming it loudly behind him.
But before he left on his customary journey to work he stopped, checking the house boundaries, to an ordinary passer-by it looked as if he was feeling for an invisible line that ran along the perimeter of the building.
After a moment he turned briskly with wide satisfied grin that revealed the sharp tips of his canines which glinted in the morning light, and he laughed, arms up over his head, before he seemingly just… disappeared.
The door slammed hard shut, and Sasuke Uchiha took time to reflect that this time the idiot didn't even take the time to yell a hurried: "Goodbye."
Not that it mattered, nothing mattered of that element anymore, not to him anyway.
Sasuke had been reasoning with himself since the day before yesterday, going over and over exactly what he's got to do…but the problem was he just doesn't know the how.
Normally, if he were able to use Chakra, this job, this mission he had set himself would have already been completed. But now, instead of a fallen tree blocking his path, someone has relocated mount Fuji. And he didn't even know where to start climbing.
He has to… the objective is to….
Again, Sasuke opened his mouth and tried with the delicate slip of his tongue to form a word. Although the thought registered, something actively prevented him from annunciating it. The syllables were swallowed violently by magic and it was like fighting with a burning moth inside his head and throat.
He gritted his teeth and snarled in fury, trying hopelessly to grind the words from between his molars. But all that came forth was a wrenched cry, like someone in anguish, which he supposed to an extent he was. The black things on his wrist and the one dead centre of his chest pulsed and burned coldly into his flesh and he hissed at the dull pain.
He forced himself to stand.
For a start he could begin by exploring the whole apartment undisturbed now that Naruto was gone for the day.
The idea of this task lightened Sasuke's mood, it reduced the odd collision of thoughts and memories inside his mind. It cut everything into pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle, something that he could assemble and disassemble with the view of a clear logical outline. It took the human element out of it, and it was something he could handle, easier than breathing and twice as natural.
He began by opening the door and stepping lightly out into the hallway. The boards creaked underneath his weight, and he winced at the noise despite being the soul inhabitant of the flat. It was out of habit that he trod lightly, as if every movement was being followed by an invisible eye.
Sasuke moved methodically, trying in turn each door handle and cautiously looked inside. Sasuke was more than surprised to discover that Naruto's room was unlocked and unprotected from his invasion… he didn't know why but he was slightly perturbed by this.
Because he expected resistance maybe? Some concern from the kitsune to keep objects from his clearly prying nature was surely sensible? But there was no such barrier.
The second cause for surprise was at how small the room was, it was be half the size of the one he was sleeping in, it was of course as untidy and cluttered as he'd imagine it to be. There were empty bowls on the floor as well as comics sprinkled liberally every few feet; a t-shirt sprawled in a puddle of absent material, forlorn and miserable in the middle of the space.
Sasuke had to try hard to squash the impulse to march straight in there and clean it all up, if only to give himself piece of mind. He could feel it gnawing away at the back of his skull even as he forced himself to concentrate on things above floor level.
But this did not help: inevitably, Naruto's room was filled with what Sasuke could only describe as nostalgia. There were… pictures everywhere, not always in frames, but scattered here, there and all over and subconsciously his expression changed to become something very ugly.
It was a weird thing, Sasuke thought absently as he stepped artfully across the floor, his feet finding spaces between the comics and scattered socks. He didn't quite know why he was possessed by an interminable desire to search around here in the first place. He didn't like to think he was nosy, it was more like an objective: know your enemy and you can never be caught off guard.
He's known - or he did know Naruto, for a long time. But, though few of their encounters so far had shaken him… he felt as if the blond-haired idiot still had some unbreakable hold on him: an invisible grip on his arm that no matter what he did he just could not shake off.
It kept him awake, wondering and puzzling over it, teeth grinding in annoyance.
After testing the drawers for any sort of secrecy spell, he rifled through each one in turn. It was not too pleasant (Naruto's underwear, he believed, wasn't fit for anything with eyes,) but there were only inconsequential clothes there, and rather puzzlingly a fork. Sasuke firmly shut them all, with a self-satisfied 'I knew it' look bobbing curvaceously on his lips. It was about the closest thing to a flirt he could form and he was not even aware when he was doing it or what on earth the look was.
Where are the 'naughty' magazines? The porn? The condoms? The alcohol? Something like that. He expected it from Naruto, as he peered speculatively under the bed - hastily withdrawing his head and wishing he hadn't looked.
There were dust bunnies the size of a small type of terrier under there… along with a moth eaten and clearly mutating fuzzy orange slipper.
Sasuke pushed himself back on his haunches, he glanced speculatively at the wardrobe, head tilted to the side like a calculating bird.
It was a simple old stained oak piece of furniture pushed firmly up against the wall with small iron loop handles. Sasuke's eyebrows rose up his brow without command: it was oddly… tasteful for Naruto. He was instantly suspicious.
He moved an outstretched finger towards one handle, but millimetres away from the cold corrugated iron… the air prickled slightly.
Sasuke let his mind probe… something surged down his arms, rippling down the flesh and through the skin, until it was stopped, sucked into a spinning black orb and then away into nothingness with a sickening swoon of faltering energy.
Sasuke snarled, teeth grinding back, narrowly missing his tongue. He had pre-supposed in his irritation that Naruto, being an idiot, would not have thought of protecting whatever was in said closet. On this point he was of course, proved wonderfully wrong. As his fingers made contact, the wardrobe seemed to slip back into the wall as if sensing intrusion without permission and its defences were riled.
Something sweet and powdery billowed over Sasuke, forming a choking, suffocating cloud. There seemed to be an endless supply of it, and he was coughing and sneezing inside the swirling veil as it clung and settled onto every surface it could find.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror opposite, a sudden portrait of a snowman standing where he had previously stood.
He watched as the wardrobe slid casually out of the wall again. As Sasuke stretched out his hands, he registered the fact that his body was covered in a particularly sugary layer of frosting. Naruto's choice of protection ward was most definitely not without personal humour.
"Idiot." He muttered to himself, sneezing on the clouds of powdered sugar now wafting through the air around him.
A change of clothes later, Sasuke was suitably annoyed not to give a damn what the hell the apartment looked like after he was done with it.
He decided to leave Naruto's room well and truly alone however, after the sugar covering the floor started to clump together to form several rude words along the politest version which was: 'Got you good, Nosy GIT!'
He couldn't quite get all the sugar out of his hair. To his great annoyance, the more he washed it the more it seemed to stick. But he hoped (more accurately, wishing for a miracle) that the grey streak wasn't that noticeable.
Sasuke resumed exactly what he was doing before Naruto's room attacked him, but he forgot the subtly now. He slammed open doors and twisted handles in a most unforgiving manner, yanking open the door to Naruto's bathroom fiercely.
He began mercilessly poking around, opening up cupboards and bottle lids, knocking things aside in the medicine cabinet. The only things present were a few aspirin, several years over their sell by date, so Sasuke binned them. Thinking if Naruto took those he would probably pass out… stupid fox. There was also a tube of orange toothpaste, an orange toothbrush, an orange razor, a bottle of orange cough mixture and a half empty bottle of – thankfully not orange- sleeping tablets. Sasuke had to stare, vaguely bewildered and eyebrows raised, before he could quite register the ubiquitous colour.
He found himself staring at the bottle of sleeping tablets for a long time, until he pulled it down and shook it about a bit. The bottle looked quite new and was a high dosage. The cap was worn from use. He put it back, frowning, not knowing if he was slightly disappointed or not. He hadn't really expected to find a bottle of chloroform, poison or (heaven help him) Viagra. But there was nothing really unusual at all about… well, any of it.
His hunger was slightly lessoned when he found a pink bag full of make up under the sink; for a moment he frowned, looking back into Naruto's bedroom. A vision of the blond and Sakura sitting in the room together, Naruto sitting by her feet as Sakura applied makeup flashed briefly before his eyes. His stomach twisted and he hastily shut the back bag under the sink away from sight.
Later he found the closet in the dusty unused room at the end of the hall should-never-be-opened-EVER, because when it is the clutter descends like a waterfall all over and on top of said opener. Or rather, victim.
Sasuke had spent the better half of an hour wiggling and dragging himself out by his elbows to save himself from being crushed to death - all the time wondering how the hell Naruto had got all that stuff in there in the first place. There were also sharp objects in the coat and umbrella stand where he was sure he was going to lose an eye, as well as some sort of carnivorous, blood thirsty bat living in the broom cupboard the size of a - and Sasuke wouls swear this on his life - a baby elephant.
By the end of it all he was furious with Naruto and even more so with himself because he was exhausted and hungry, and after yesterday's little incident there probably would not be any prepared food for him, barely edible or otherwise.
As he ambled hands in pockets down the stairs, dignity still intact… somehow: his stomach revolted at how absurdly normal the whole set up was.
It was so goddamned complacent, so homely, so fitting in, and he hated it. He hated it with every solid fibre of his being, which was saying a lot because it took a lot for Sasuke to hate something.
He pushed open the door to the kitchen with one hand and stood in the archway, naturally eyeing up the spot where he had thrown the ramen bowl at Naruto. For a moment he could see the idiot now, looking up at him, blue cornflower eyes reflecting something very close to terror as Sasuke had bent down close to him.
It had occurred to Sasuke then and there, as he whispered those two words in that tone laced with venom, that Naruto wasn't, really, very unlike the rest of them. Naruto had held Sasuke at arm's length, not because he chose to but because he didn't know what else to do.
He was, in short, afraid of him.
Sasuke found himself smiling again, an expression that was anything but a smile.
Fear can be manipulated, channelled and warped into things that control and master a person. He considered for a moment what he could do to Naruto with it, and his mind wandered, eyes scanning the room, his vision falling on the bowl of cereal as his stomach gave a particularly loud growl.
As he moved towards it, ravenous despite his resolve not to eat anything the idiot had had a hand in making, the thought flickered through his head that this was odd. It was too nice a gesture, far too nice, considering everything that had happened.
His hand hovered over the spoon as he sat down, craning over the bowl and scrutinizing it from all sides. But he could detect nothing wrong with it from its general appearance, golden cornflakes sprinkled with a generous helping of sugar. He took the carton of milk and checked the sell-by-date. Also, fine. Eyes narrowed he poured the milk over the cornflakes.
The cornflakes act as anyone would expect them to. Nothing exploded, it didn't change colour or start to smell like dead rotting fish- and that's something. Knowing Naruto… anything could happen.
He dipped the spoon in and waited…. Absolutely nothing.
He opened his mouth, his pink tongue dipped and curved as the spoon went in and he tasted the cold metal and then… and then…
He wretched, gagged and spat back into the bowl.
Ample helpings of salt. Not sugar.
Naruto walked towards his desk, peering over the huge pile of papers he was cradling in his arms. He blew blond trails of hair out of his eyes before snapping: "Why is there a giant needle on my desk?"
He slammed the wobbling stacks down on one corner as Ino wandered over and picked it up. He glowered at her as she pinned it into her long blond hair and blinked her wide sea green eyes at him.
"Hair ornament," she stated flatly, looking him up and down as if she suspected he just might have sat on one as well. Naruto snorted at her, slamming behind the desk, and made a fuss about something else: muttering and scowling at anything and everything within ten meters.
Ino turned to the closest person behind her which on this occassion happened to be Neji and asked "Is he okay?".
To which Neji gave her a pained please-don't-ask-me look, replying "He's been like that all morning."
Neji moved promptly off before Ino could say anything else. She put both hands on her slim hips, her mind clicking and whirring into a meddling mode. Her sensibilities told her that approaching Naruto at this point in time would be encroaching on suicide, especially since he currently seemed to be oozing a black cloud of ill-will over the surrounding area.
All passing Jounin scuttled past looking wary.
Ino pushed her light blonde fringe from her eyes, she moved gracefully around the area and thoughtfully strolled down the hall. She waved at Hinata who had just walked out of an adjacent room - followed closely by Neji, who was regarding the shy girl with a curiously soft look. Ino found herself grinning, thinking that if Kiba didn't hurry up soon he was going to have some serious competition on his hands.
Ino beckoned to Hinata waving Neji off with a dismissive hand movement- this was no mean feat as Neji looked quite foreboding in full ANBU get up. But he seemed to take little notice of Ino's impudence walking past the platinum blonde to say something to Hinata, who looked surprised and then a little confused.
"You two," Ino said her mouth milky pink and half-cynical, half-smiling as she said it, "look rather cosy together as of late?"
Hinata looked embarrassed and bit her lip. Ino watched as she tried to nod and shake her head at the same time.
They stood in the corridor for a minute chatting, until Ino grabbed Hinata by the collar when she was sure no one was looking and dragged her into a nearby cupboard, where she hissed: "What the hell is wrong with Uzumaki?"
Hinata looked stressed, although neither could really see much as the cupboard door closed, shutting them in. Hinata registered that she was now stuck in the dark with a mop poking into her back and a bucket wedged on one foot.
"Wrong? Wrong… why should anything be… wrong?"
Hinata was a hopeless liar.
Ino smiled like a cat cornering its prey and leaned in a little closer.
"I know when Shikamaru's keeping a secret from me. I know when Kiba's in on the secret and for some reason I'm still clueless. I also know, Hinata, when you know something, and I don't. One thing, which you are all going to ridiculous lengths to cover up! Naruto's been acting weird ever since he came back from that last mission, and to be frank Shikamaru has too… he keeps talking about Naruto all the time, and yet he refuses to tell me why! He thinks I don't know anything! HA!"
Ino gave a loud derisive laugh and ploughed on, her eyes glinting.
"I know the Hokage's in on the whole thing, and that Iruka doesn't know why Naruto spent two hours and forty-five minutes in there with her and a council of elders being quizzed about whatever the hell it is."
She crossed her arms and sat on another upturned bucket, narrowing her eyes accusatorily. That was the 'look' that gave Shikamaru shivers, because it was Ino being at her bossiest.
Hinata quailed and shrank as far back into the corner as she could manage. She liked Ino, but she had been especially difficult to handle ever since Sakura had left.
"Who did they bring back with them, Hinata, on that mission? Who was the extra passenger? Why was that ward all blocked off in Kohona hospital for the entirety of two weeks? And medical-nin had to be escorted down with ANBU guard? Who are they keeping all locked up? What are they hiding? Hmmm? What? Tell me!"
Hinata was quite sure that if she didn't answer the question, Ino would simply crack her mind open anyway and read the information that was in there like splitting a walnut. Hinata's hands reached forwards, scrabbling madly for the handle; she had only found out by accident anyway! And she would rather die than betray Kiba's trust in her.
Fortune today was kind to Hinata, as if answering her prayers the cupboard door was tugged open and Shikamaru was revealed - Kiba peering curiously over his shoulder, sipping coffee.
"I thought I detected your melodious voice," Shikamaru said, looking down, one eyebrow raised. Ino looked disappointed and a terrorised-looking Hinata scrambled towards Kiba as fast as she could. "What on earth are you two doing?"
"Talking…" both Ino and Hinata said, haltingly.
Kiba and Shikamaru exchanged looks…
"In the broom closet?
Ino dusted dirt from her forearms and didn't answer, she sniffed disdainfully as she rose from the up-turned bucket with surprising dignity.
"Why aren't you working?"
"I was working. Your voice just grinds so gratingly on my nerves I find it impossible to do anything until I've found to ask you to stop using it."
"How rude of you Shikamaru, intruding on my personal conversations with other people. Why can't you show me some respect?"
"Ino, I have a healthy respect for you which is why I try to keep as far away as possible from you at all times."
Ino's chest swelled as she crossed her arms and leant back a fraction. She tossed her long white blonde hair over her shoulder, mouth turned down and scowling, she licked her lips and prepared to spit back hellfire at the man standing lazily in front of her. Dusky, angular, somewhat teasing, hands in pockets and spine slouched.
"Should we… stop them?" Hinata asked, whispering into Kiba's ear by standing on tiptoe.
"Whatever for?" he responded. Without looking, Hinata knew Kiba to be smiling. She could hear it in his tone of voice. "It's just getting to the good part!"
True to Kiba's thoughts, Ino did look as though she was about to rip Shikamaru Nara limb from limb in her fury with her bare hands. But she was, sadly for Kiba, stopped - as Iruka who happened to chance walking down the hallway at this point spied the up-and-coming commotion and had the sense to break it up.
"Oh no!" he told them, irately shooing them back down the corridor again and through into one of the many office rooms.
"You guys are not doing that again, not after last time. I still haven't regained hearing in one of my ears thanks to you lot."
He looked pointedly at Ino, who seemed to pretend not to hear him, but merely stuck her nose stubbornly in the air.
Kiba looked thoroughly disappointed.
It was an odd thing to know that you're a higher rank than your former teacher; it was even odder to know it, and yet for the fact not to matter: they all stood there for a full ten minutes and received the scolding in full from their former academy teacher. Iruka, then confident that they've been berated enough, suddenly seemed to look about as though he had lost something.
He peered at them, although he was about the same height as Kiba and Shikamaru.
"Where is Naruto?" he asked suspiciously, as though someone was hiding him beneath their shoe.
"If he's not here causing trouble with you… then where is he causing trouble?"
Iruka was giving them the exact same look he had done last month when he found Naruto sprawled unconscious on the sidewalk with toe imprints on his forehead. The sort of, "I-don't-believe-it-what-have-you-done-now?" expression.
"He's doing paperwork." Ino said placidly, sniffing disdainfully as Iruka gave a small snort of laughter.
"No really, where is he?" he enquired again.
Naruto hated paperwork- he had to be dragged in by the ankles kicking and screaming before he'd consider doing it even under duress.
"No really," Shikamaru stated, he nodded his head towards the direction Naruto was working in. Iruka peered around the corner sceptically, wondering if it's some sort of elaborate joke.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
"Lots of things," said Kiba, sipping his coffee in the same way you would take a sip of cola at the cinema and reach for your tub of popcorn. "Where do I start? He likes to dance when he thinks nobodies watching, mostly in the kitchen and he forgets to close the blinds, and he has a mole on his left hip which I keep telling him to get checked out because it could be cancerous, but will he listen? No! He says that's only if it's hairy, and it doesn't count if it's a weird shape. And I say it does but he doesn't believe me, personally I think it's because it looks exactly like a-"
Kiba was never able to finish saying exactly what Naruto's mole looked like because Shikamaru, for dignities sake, clapped his hand over the his mouth.
Shikamaru gave Iruka a very strained smile.
"We'll go talk to him, don't worry."
Kiba, stopped in mid-sentence, had yet to draw breath and had begun to turn slowly purple.
Iruka looked disbelievingly at them for a minute but seemed to think the better of it. He turned to leave adding "I'll be back to check," in rather ominous tones. Shikamaru removed his hand and let Kiba slide to the floor in a dizzy pile to resume breathing again, his amber eyes spinning whilst Ino tapped her foot, looking accusatorily at all three of them in turn.
"Well?" she asked. "Shikamaru Nara, aren't you going to explain to me what's going on?"
Shikamaru stretched and linked his fingers behind his head, his look was no longer playful but business-like.
"Nothing's going on," he said very simply, just as a muffled cry of anger drifted out of the room behind them.
"He sounds like he's herniated something." Kiba commented from his pile on the floor.
Ino raised both of her long elegant pale eyebrows over her dewy eyes, and she planted her hands on her hips.
"And tell me why I'm supposed to believe that Shikamaru, give me one good reason?"
"Because I'm not going to tell you." Shikamaru replied, rolling his brown angular eyes. "Why do insist poking your nose in everywhere, Ino? Especially when it's not wanted. It's got nothing to do with you."
"Nothing to do with me?" Ino protested looking briefly hurt and then very angry.
"He's my best friends boyfriend- of course it has something to do with me you asshole!"
"And that's why!" Hinata suddenly interjected as if a lightbulb had suddenly gone off above her head. She looked startled at her own boldness and for speaking so loudly out of turn. Kiba jumped to his feet.
"Erh… what I mean is… it's well…" she bit her lower lip, as she blushed furiously. "He's upset because he hasn't got a letter from Sakura yet."
"It's been over three weeks you know," Kiba finished for her whether on purpose or not he was now standing in a protective posture in front of Hinata, as if to shield her from Ino's accusatory glare.
"They parted and, well, it wasn't on unfriendly terms but he wanted a bit more than what he got."
"Oh," Ino suddenly breathed out very slowly seeming endlessly relieved, "is that all it is? I thought he was having an affair or something from the way you guys were carrying on. I mean, he's acting like he's had a lovers spat or something along those lines."
Shikamaru and Kiba exchanged fast uncomfortable looks.
"Why don't we," Hinata suggested soft fingers curling around Kiba's elbow and pushing it down so she could side step him, "go see if he has any mail from Sakura? He's bound to get letters because it's a mercenary mission into a neutral zone and she's just helping treat the casualties brought about by that flood. He might even be able to gain visiting access if he applies early enough. Do you want to come with, Ino?"
Ino raised her hands behind her head, linked her fingers and pushed back, unclenching the knot in her spine and causing her to seem about two inches taller. She couldn't disguise the look of relief that passed over her pink lips and she gave a small start of laughter.
"Yeah, I think that would be a great idea."
Hinata smiled, as they walked off down the corridor together both boys could distinctly hear Hinata saying: "Maybe we could write her letter too?"
"I have no idea how she does it," Kiba said, smiling fondly after the Hyuga girl- his eyes half closed, watching until they disappeared around a corner.
"It's called tact," his friend stated bluntly, hands still in pockets.
"Well I ain't got none of that," Kiba agreed with a wolfish grin. "I was just gonna sit and watch whilst your girlfriend ripped you limb from limb."
"She not my girlfriend," Shikamaru told him and his tone was sharp as he turned about and began walking towards the room Naruto was occupying. Funny muttering sounds were leaking out from behind the door and drifting down the hallway.
Kiba bounced up and down behind him.
"You still fancy her though."
Kiba can almost see Shikamaru rolling his eyes through the back of his head.
"Had it not have been for Iruka, you guys would have totally gone for each other. It would have been great to watch," he added somewhat remorsefully.
He was ignored.
In a great display of courage Shikamaru approached the desk that wobbled heavily with piles upon piles of paper. The white mountains trembled, shielding their occupant securely from view. Both he and Kiba could feel the bad mood spooling behind it, oozing, trickling and swelling against a high-fastened wall and pounding to get out.
"Naruto?" Shikamaru asked, he hoped his voice did not sound overly cautious. He had not as of yet dared to put his hands on the desk, he had a looming fear of them being smashed by a bad-tempered fist. There was a grunt from somewhere in the paper pile and a few sheets moved in a seething mass of white.
But apart from that nothing.
Shikamaru swallowed and licked his lips. He paused, closing his eyes before looking imploring at Kiba, who sighed dramatically and rolled up his sleeves.
Kiba took a swallow and a gulp like a deep-sea diver about to embark on a long airless plunge, then he stuck his head right in amongst the piles.
"IS ANYONE IN THERE?"
This took courage because they all knew what was going to happen next. There was an enraged yell from somewhere in the mass of paper as Kiba had shouted directly into Naruto's right ear, there was a thick 'thump' from where a flashing vision of a fist could briefly be seen, and a yelping as Kiba fell backwards, rubbing his nose which now sported an ink splotch at the tip.
Shikamaru seized the chance to dodge around the edge of the desk, the commotion causing the papers to spill like a white tide over the floor, and suddenly the air was filled with a tumultuous confusion of dancing white papers like snowy petals swirling and dashing on eddies in a storm.
Naruto stood looking outraged as he saw Shikamaru near the corner of his desk laughing at him. In blind anger Naruto leapt at him, guided only by his feet, and this was the moment Kiba had been waiting for. He jumped up and over the desk, batting papers from the air, and seized Naruto about the middle and sent him crashing to the floor on top of Shikamaru. They all lay there, breathing heavily, winded, uncomfortable and covered in paper cuts.
"Good afternoon Uzumaki," Kiba said into Naruto's shoulder. His hands were on somebodies' upper thighs and he wiggled them experimentally. Shikamaru twisted to knee him in the chest.
"You guys," Naruto hissed in his best I-am-so-pissed-at-both-of-you-right-now-you-just-wouldn't-believe-it voice "I'm going to have to reorganise that."
"I can't feel my feet…" Shikamaru said in a half wondering voice, "so I can't really help you there." A solitary piece of paper fluttered over-head and settled neatly on his face.
"Oh bollocks." They heard him mutter from beneath inky scrawled handwriting. "Naruto, you filled this out all wrong."
"I-DON'T-CARE-ANYMORE!" Naruto announced fiercely, turning a sentence into a grossly over-syllabled word; all the while trying to wriggle out of Kiba's pinning grasp. But the wolfish youth's arms were linked like a vice around his hips as if he was never ever letting go.
"What is it anyway?" Kiba's voiced asked muffled as he was now talking into Naruto's abdomen.
"A form of some sort." Shikamaru (with effort) reached up and picked it from atop his nose and blinkingly inspected it.
"Don't look!" Naruto shouted; he kicked at Kiba harder but those arms must have been held on by something stronger than superglue because he didn't yield in the slightest. If anything, the grip became tighter and they all became more tangled up as Naruto tried to reach forwards, sprawled flat on his stomach like a lame turtle with a huge limpet stuck to its back. Shikamaru meanwhile leant back, trying to read the whatever-it-was underneath the combined body weight.
He wondered vaguely if this would rupture his spleen.
It wasn't long before it turned into a full-fisted brawl, and it was a strange sight to behold. Choji ambled in halfway through to pick up something he had left behind: in the confusion nobody noticed and in the shouting nobody heard his exclamation of: "What in hell?" before he turned promptly and marched straight back out the way he came again, shouting after Ino: "He's doing it again!"
"It's an ANBU form!" Shikamaru shouted down to Kiba after another minute of struggling. Naruto slumped down, sweating and swearing into the hard wooden floorboards. This had been entirely too much activity for Shikamaru: he was going to skive the rest of the day off, find a tree to sit under and go to sleep.
"A what?" Kiba asked, and he sat straight up, relinquishing his super-human grip and snatched the paper out of Shikamaru's hands.
"You told us you weren't going to…" he said in an accusatory tone of voice. "You talked to Kakashi-sensei about it and he said you just weren't cut out for this sort of thing! That you wouldn't make the psych profiling… Naruto… Naruto? Are you listening?"
"Yeah well," the blond snarled back from the floor, one arm draped over his blue eyes so they could only see his mouth twisted back into an expression of inner revulsion. "Maybe you guys don't know me as well as you think you do."
Kiba blanched.
Shikamaru kneaded his forehead with his knuckles and let out a long sigh.
This is entirely too bothersome for his liking- all he really wanted to do is watch the clouds pass over-head and maybe doze off for a while, but that wasn't an option right now. It's not integrity that had called him to act; it's a friend, and a close one at that.
"Naruto Uzumaki," he said in an even, patient voice, "what did he say to you?"
"Didn't say anything," came the muffled, awkwardly stubborn reply.
"Who said what?" Kiba asked, looking confused.
He was again ignored.
Shikamaru was not about to play this game, he was not a fan of having his time wasted by pointless things that took up his energy.
"Naruto, either you tell me or I'm never treating you to ramen again."
There was a pause.
"Ever."
An uneasy silence.
"What happened, Naruto?"
"We're not…" the words came slowly and with some difficulty, lying on top and underneath him, both Kiba and Shikamaru could feel Naruto tense, every muscle in his body seemed to clench as he sucked in air.
"I'm not speaking to him."
"Really?"
"No," Naruto said, and his voice was distant as his memory travelled backwards, seeming to hitch and replay over and over again. "Not until he apologises."
"Oh…" Kiba said helpfully, "so you guys will never speak again then?"
Once again, the penalty for stupidity was to be kicked painfully in the ribs.
"What's he apologising for?" Shikamaru asked curiously as Kiba writhed around, thoroughly winded.
"It was- I was… It's stupid really."
"Stupid enough to make you mad?"
"Maybe… I don't know. Silly thing is most of it… all of its probably true anyway. I thought maybe I was hiding things from myself or hiding in things and I just hadn't realised. I'm an idiot, I'm just too stupid to see it."
He removed the hand from his face and they could both see in his expression something that made them worried. A self-defeating look that slipped down a spiralling slope into nothingness and despair. They hung on tender-hooks as they saw him falling closer inch by inch.
"You can't change people I guess, they'll always stay the same… no matter how much you… how much or how hard you try…"
"Oh Gawd." Kiba snorted and he punched Naruto hard on the shoulder so his head slammed forcefully into the floor.
"You sound just like Neji! You're being ridiculous, listen, how do you think you got here anyway? By luck? If it was then you sure as hell used up all the luck there is in the world because through all logical thinking now, you really should be dead. Stuff whatever Sasuke says, do you hear? He doesn't even have to stay with you much longer, you heard Tsunade! Another month and if he's not dead then he's clear to be moved and Kakashi will be back and everything will be back to normal again!"
"We can only hope he dies…" muttered Shikamaru, as he looked dreamily up at the ceiling causing Kiba to shiver.
It was weird, Naruto thought, to have your two best friends simultaneously trying to cheer you up in two dynamically different ways. Like paint and glue it stuck and coated him until he was fighting down something in his throat and biting his tongue hard to stop himself from saying something stupid.
Whatever Sasuke said, he was not alone… Not now, not ever. Never ever again.
"Naruto?" the voice from above was Kiba sounding worried, "You're not…you know…crying are you?"
"No," Naruto said entirely too defensively to be believed, and he took an extended shuddering breath in, "of course I'm not."
"You princess." Kiba muttered, his hands still firmly putting pressure on his shoulders and somewhere behind them Shikamaru collapsed into a limp lump on the floor and closed his eyes scattering sheets like snowflakes.
Naruto raised his arm from his eyes which were dry and a clear unyielding innocent blue and kneed Kiba in a certain unmentionable place who gave a small: "Oh!"
"Who's crying now?" Naruto muttered, grinning.
Sasuke Uchiha froze as the front door slammed open. His heart bagan to beat marginally faster as he bid a sudden and hasty retreat into the nearest bathroom and wished that the air didn't seem so thick.
He turned on the taps and stuck his pale hand under, watching as the substance went swirling down the drain and yet more bubbled back up to the surface again like a molten eruption. He bit down savagely on his lower lip, his mind felt hazy and disorientated but his thoughts were as keen as ever. He has spent the day searching for a way out and now he just might have found one, but it would be no good if the idiot just walked in here and saw him like this because… because….
Sasuke felt his body tense as he heard footsteps on the stairs, and strained to listen for how many: if it was Naruto and co. he was in big trouble, but Naruto himself he can handle.
For a moment the footsteps dwindled and then stopped. Sasuke willed them to continue: "We're not talking," he muttered, "You're angry with me, just leave me the hell alone."
For a while nothing happened and Sasuke wondered why Naruto didn't keep on walking until he realised by looking at the medicine cabinet that 'shit' this is not his bathroom.
He moved to shut the door at the same moment Naruto shouldered it open, they stared at each other. The blond's face initially hostile, wide generous mouth strung down in a half snarl until his eyes took in all of the scene, and he stopped.
"Sasuke," Naruto said on the out breath, in tones below a whisper, "what the hell happened?"
The Uchiha looked down at the basin. The white tiles were covered in thick clots of deep crimson, and little pools of blood slid in carmine rivulets down the sides, the water had turned a deep pink.
He gave a smile, the sort you might see from a snake before it bites you: slow, unfathomable and infinitely dangerous, inky black eyes impossibly dark and somewhat devouring. Naruto pressed his spine back flat against the door.
"…Are you sure you want to know?"
The question hung uncomfortably.