Fish Bird

Chapter 3: Dying, Living, Waking, Lying.

The digits flash in the semi darkness, a neon lime glow.

5:59.

The nine continues to flicker casting moving shadows on the sloping walls.

A little to the left someone makes a noise in their sleep: a sort of gurgling snore into the soft fabric of a pillow, that smothers it into a fluffy sort of sound. Almost absolute silence…. ‘Almost’, because there’s the sound of slight pressure outside the door, as if someone’s standing right outside it, fingers on the handle, listening intently for movement inside. Seconds pass and nothing happens. The void spirals, dripping anticipation. Smoothly, the handle bends and the door- seemingly from its own accord- swings open a fraction.

There is no light in the hallway, only pitch black and swallowing shadows as the door continues to swing, sinister and smoothly.

Somebody is standing there in the darkness.

The digits flash 5:59 for the last time, and as the number jumps to 6:00am the alarm starts its awful high-pitched ring.

Naruto yells as the machine screams into his ear, and promptly falls straight out of the side of his bed onto the cold unyielding floor. Groggily he sits up and turns on the light, and then frowns: he doesn’t remember having left the door open before he went to sleep. Shrugging his shoulders and thinking nothing of it he yawns, arms up and over his head, tonsils exposed to the world. He falls groggily backwards in a dead stupor.

            The alarm rings again.

//Damn machine…//

                                                *          *          *

The key slides in the lock, giggling a little as levers lift. It’s slightly rusty and gets jammed sometimes. Irritably Naruto wedges his shoulder against the door, using his weight as an added incentive for the hinges to swing open.

It bursts somewhat abruptly into his corridor and he trips in astonishment over the welcome mat and lands sprawled like a beached whale all over the front step. The contents of the shopping bags he was holding go rolling all the way down the wooden floorboards. Cursing his enormous feet- he’s always been ashamed of them ever since Sakura mentioned it once in bed, giggling that they reminded her of clown’s shoes and that they amused her. Naruto frowns.

//Hardly the most flattering attribute of my general appearance, thank-you. //

He scrambles after the cartons on his hands and knees- he thinks he might have lost half the broccoli shoot but he can’t find it. Most of it at least has been recovered. He thinks he dropped both of the shopping bags, although, he’s sure he brought three…?

            He makes his way into the crampt kitchen whistling cheerfully. It should be noted that the kitchen isn’t crampt because it’s small; it’s crampt because it’s untidy.

//And untidy is putting it very lightly…//

A quick glance reveals there to be coat hangers sticking out of some the utensil draws; a stash of comics in the bread bin; a blown light bulb in the sink and a spatula stuck into the door of the microwave. The walls are liberally splashed with a multitude of different colours, mostly liberating oranges and yellows alternating sometimes into a deep rich shade of vivid red.

            Naruto likes his kitchen. It has a cheerful friendly environment that seems to welcome him in, greeting him. Sakura loathes his kitchen. It’s far too noisy in her opinion, and the fact that it looks as though some alien creature slithered all over it does not lend itself to the furnishings. After a small learning curb, Naruto had decided that on the rare occasions Sakura would agree to sleeping over at his apartment - only ever in the time of a dire emergency, like when her flat had flooded and she’d had to stay with him for an entire week - that it was easier just to order take out, eat in one of the bedrooms and put an ‘Out of order’ sign on the kitchen door.

Although if he was bored it was always fun to lead her in there and watch her go from a ‘good’ mood to having miniature kittens in under thirty seconds flat.

 As he deposits the shopping onto the counter boards, still singing to himself, he pauses to say a caring “good morning” to the spiky potted cactus sitting in the windowsill.

He begins to noisily clatter about, putting things away and leaving things out for later. He wants breakfast soon and he’ll be damned if he got up early this morning for nothing. It’s when he opens the fridge that a slight predicament surfaces in the form of an interesting, large green fungus growing at the back of the vegetable draw….

//Well that doesn’t look very appetising//

There’s also an unpleasant sour smell coming from an open carton of milk. He knows better about the milk though: he’s not about to spend another day running back and forth to the toilet, oh no, not after last time. Not if he can possibly help it.

            The carton goes straight in the bin along with the entire contents of the vegetable draw, which seem to be transforming into various fluffy forms. After some thoughtful consideration, which involves Naruto frowning at the bin for some time, contemplating whether or not spoiled milk and mouldy vegetables could possibly be the formulae for producing carnivorous man-eating mutant plants, he takes the rubbish bin outside. Just to be safe.

            You can never be too careful.

Still humming as he comes back in, he rubs his hands together and starts to cook a godly breakfast, otherwise known as ramen.

                                    *          *          *

Half an hour later Naruto slowly traverses the stairs, hands in pockets, his footsteps strangely muted as he climbs the top steps, and pauses licking his lips.

It’s odd. He lives alone but has a two-bedroom apartment each with a separate bathroom, and a spare room that he doesn’t use. Kiba used to ask why when he first moved in promptly after he and Sakura had just started going out together. Naruto used to grin at this, that easy laid back smile, and say he “didn’t read the fine print”. Kiba would look confused and open his mouth to say something else until he was kicked by Ino- as much out of satisfaction than as a hint- or more discretely Shikamaru. The truth of the matter was however, Naruto had brought the two-bedroom apartment because he had wanted Sakura to move in with him. He had hated living alone as a child; and as an adult, or at least a child playing adult, he hated it even more. But the bold light of reality had been that Sakura had had no intention of moving in with Naruto, and had her own modest, neatly furnished apartment the other side of the village. It hadn’t been out of conscious thought she had done this, just something that sensibility had dictated to her. Usually five nights out of seven Naruto would sleep over at her place: sometimes more, sometimes less. He was welcome as long as he didn’t touch the décor and brought his own toothbrush. Neither was he allowed to touch her kitchen, which was, perhaps, understandable…. The mere thought of her own kitchen being in that… state… was enough to bring a cold sweat to her forehead.

For Naruto, his own apartment felt somewhat empty, especially at night. Alone in his single bed pushed up against the wall, which he still manages to fall out of every single morning.

The room he sleeps in is actually supposed to be the guest room. It’s the room next door with the double bed that’s the master bedroom. But he can’t sleep in there. There’s nothing more depressing then waking up in a double bed, alone.

It’s to this bedroom he’s going to now.

He walks down the corridor, feet making minimal noise on the wooden floorboards. He pauses outside the door, hands frozen over the wood, fist clenched and hovering. He licks his lips again and blinks his cornflower blue eyes.

//Oh for god sakes, just knock already! //

Once more he steals a glance down the corridor. The sunlight is streaming clear and strong through the double windows, leaving golden criss-crossed patterns on the floor.

Gently he knocks, and the sounds seem to slip and slide into nothingness as the inside of the room swallows it entirely. He knocks again, feeling awkward all of a sudden and slightly embarrassed. Should he wait? Should he go in? Should he leave?

There’s no answer from inside, so nibbling at his bottom lip he decides to chance it.

//It’s his bloody place after all isn’t it? //

 He has all the right to dance in there, wearing nothing but a fig leaf and singing the theme song from the Lion King! …Not that he’s going to, but he could nonetheless. The possibility is there.

Cautiously he opens the door a fraction. Inside the curtains are drawn, and the light creeps drably from under the thick material, dissipating after a few centimetres into the overwhelming darkness.

//Maybe he’s sleeping? //

He opens the door a little wider, fully expecting it to be slammed back hard in his face.

            Nothing happens.

            The tension seems to mount to a climax in Naruto’s stomach. He exhales through his mouth, swallows, and then chances it and sticks his head through the gap between the door and the wall he’s just opened up.

            The murky gloom of the room casts sombre greys across the walls and floor. It creates obscene shadows on the ceiling: he can see curling fangs and the stippled image of a cave entrance beneath the fan mounted in the corner. Slowly his vision shifts, moving towards the bed and its occupant, whom he can’t see but knows innately to be there. His gut seems to tingle as he opens his mouth, voice slightly hoarse:

“Hey… are you awake?”

His whisper is just audible, but the form on the bed doesn’t move. It has it’s back to him.

            “…Sasuke,” Naruto persists, in that same tone of voice as though someone is dying: “I made you breakfast, are you hungry?”

            Nothing.

Not even an insult.

Which he might have even welcomed.

            //Might… //

So either Sasuke is ignoring him, which is highly probable; he’s actually asleep, which is equally likely; or… he’s dead.

            With the last one, Naruto isn’t too sure of what to do. The other two are relatively simple to sort out: just leave him alone, he’ll get up when he wants to. Naruto closes the door again and leans against it, thinking if Sasuke really is dead he’ll start to smell after a while, in which case he’ll be able to call Iruka up in hysterics and blackmail him into removing said dead body from his apartment.

            Smiling to himself Naruto walks back down the corridor again, and slides down the banisters.

                                                *          *          *

“He’s crazy. Didn’t I tell you he was crazy?” Shikamaru proposes from the hallway, hands in pockets, slipping off his sandals. He’s talking to Kiba, in Naruto’s kitchen with Hinata, who is meanwhile asking why there is a broccoli stalk in the umbrella stand.

            “I thought the term you used before was Irresponsible Git-Head?” Kiba replies, watching with interest as Naruto takes the vegetable from Hinata and drops it promptly in the sink.

            “Yes, that too, but my main point was that he’s crazy,” Shikamaru corrects, taking his usual seat by the door. He swings back lazily in the chair, angular head tilted slightly to the left as he surveys Naruto critically.

            The tousled haired youth is glaring at both of them, head on the palm of his left hand as he sits at the table, brows raised incredulously.

“Do you guys even feel it when you chip away piece by piece at my self esteem?”

            “No,” they both answer simultaneously.

            Naruto chews his tongue, caught between amusement and annoyance. In truth it’s very difficult to stay irritated with either of them for any long period of time outside of a day. That doesn’t mean to say that they’re forgiven, but it’s an excuse.

 “Is the only reason you decided to drop by to insult me?”

As a matter of fact Kiba does this about three times a week, almost always on a Wednesday morning, sometimes with Shikamaru in tow, most other times just by himself or with Akamaru. Kiba seems to have a sixth sense for when the best or worst times to drop by are: either just as lunch is being served, or like that disastrous time he got hit with a pineapple after he let himself in through the backdoor.

            “Well, as tempting as that may be,” Kiba says, grinning his wolfish grin and rubbing the tip of his nose, “it wasn’t the only reason. Dear Maru here has been worrying over you like a mother hen. So we thought we’d drop by and just check if you where still alive, in case poor old Maru’s heart just gave up completely from the suspense, dear old lady that he is.”

              “I beg your pardon,” Shikamaru cuts across, “I do remember someone trying to persuade me to break into this very apartment last night, just to make sure he was still alive. That’s all very well, when you’re woken up by someone’s hypoglycaemic rant at a normal time, but at three in the morning, that’s just… well, that’s just not polite.” He raises his eyebrows poignantly.

            Kiba throws an arm out over the back of the chair and squares his shoulders.

“You sayin’ you weren’t the tiniest bit anxious too?”

Shikamaru moves his mouth slightly forming a thin line as if contemplating an answer, and then thinking better of it, looks up at the ceiling; swinging back on his chair.

// Can’t really argue with that now can you? //         

Kiba grunts, an eye narrowed, and makes a low clucking noise. Which is ignored.

“So… Naruto?” Hinata asks, her voice quiet but at ease. There’s the comforting pressure of Kiba’s foot against the base of her chair as she sits up a little straighter. Unlike the boys she has the sensibility to get straight down to the point, and Naruto is looking at her kindly with his beautiful blue eyes, head on his folded arms now, mouth in a distant sort of smile that gives her a warming sensation which bubbles in her stomach.

            “How’s it been with Sasuke-kun?”

Kiba and Shikamaru who had at this point been obstinately looking in opposite directions from each other, both turn their heads, exchange a brief glance and subtly (or unsubtly in Kiba’s case) pay greater attention to this change in conversation.

            “Sasuke?” Naruto laughs, he didn’t pretend for a moment not to know this was the real reason they had been round, and last night too, and yesterday morning although technically Sasuke hadn’t actually been relocated to his until the afternoon. They had all been sitting with him on the front steps of his apartment helping him to swallow down butterflies of nerves.

            “I haven’t seen him actually, he’s been erh… sleeping, I think, since he got here. In fact I don’t think I’ve heard him move from the bedroom. Well he might have this morning when I went out to do the shopping.”

            “Do you know how stupid that was?” Shikamaru cuts across looking slightly irritated again, dusky angular eyes narrowed, as he settles his chin onto his open palm.

            “What?” asks Naruto genuinely confused, “Going shopping?”

            “Yes, well no, not just that, everything really. You’re just a huge idiot when it comes down to it so I don’t know why I didn’t presume this would happen before. I obviously didn’t factor the complete extent of your idiocy into the equation.” He paused trying to remember where he had been going with this. Ah, yes-

            “You left a shopping bag in the store you moron.”

            “I did? Oh..... Yes I did! How did you know?” He frowns at them suddenly, blue eyes narrowed, even giving Hinata an accusatory glare. “You haven’t been stalking me again have you? Because I warned you last time to nev-”

“Oh don’t be ridiculous Naruto, we only did that the one time, and it turned out to be an entirely pointless exercise.”

“It was intrusive!”

            “I don’t know about intrusive,” Kiba interjects mildly, leaning across the table to give Shikamaru a provocative waggle of his eyebrows. “…More like Intensely Disturbing on our behalf.”

            “Yes… well, what you saw will never leave this room.” Snaps Naruto, flushing a little, the whisker like scars on his cheeks seeming to deepen.

            “So… no speaking about Virginia?”

            “Virginia? Whose Virginia?” Hinata asks, non-plussed.

“His cactus!” Then both males burst into simultaneous laughter. “We kept hearing him talking to someone called Virginia. Except he doesn’t know a Virginia, so we thought maybe,” Kiba sniggered, “he had a secret girlfriend or something like that. So Maru and I followed him round for a bit.”

            “After a while,” -the other took over as Kiba collapsed into helpless giggles- “we realised he was only ever talking to ‘Virginia’ in the kitchen,” -Shikamaru’s eyes too are glistening- “Then we burst in on him one day, only to find him… well, deep in conversation-”

            “With a pff-plant!” Kiba manages to choke out through tears, fists clenched and slamming onto the table top.

            “You guys,” Naruto says between slightly clenched teeth looking up at the ceiling lamp, “you swore you’d never tell anyone.”

Kiba waves his hand in an airy manner, and replies with not a little irony:

“This is Hinata for god sakes Naru, don’t choke on your boxers. Realistically? Would she ever tell anyone?” And then adds after some consideration, looking at Hinata as though in a whole new light, “Would you?”

            Hinata looks aghast, but this might be for a number of factors, one that so bad are her friend’s intercommunication skills that they resort to stalking in order to ascertain the truth. Two that Kiba would ever suspect that she would tell anyone. And three that Naruto is currently in a long-term relationship with a particularly knobbly cactus.

            “No.” she says, as close to outrage as Hinata can ever get, a sort of mild disapproval. Kiba grins fondly at her, exposing his sharp canines, and props his head back on his folded arms and sticks his other foot on the base of her chair.

            “So,” Shikamaru continues to press on with a matter that actually has some consequence, “about Sasuke?”

            “I know you guy’s simply think I’m inept or something like that, but it’s really not such a big deal.” Naruto tells them simply, massaging his temples, and blowing messy strands of bright gold hair from his eyes.

            “Yeah, but you guy’s have ‘History’,” Kiba points out, slightly over-emphasising the ‘history’ part with his fingers. Shikamaru looks pained. “Surely that counts for something awkward, doesn’t it?”

// I would have thought so too…isn’t that odd? //

What Kiba is trying bravely to avoid saying is “remember what happened last time? When he walked off, remember how badly torn up you where about it?” You’re still torn up about it now. That’s the funny thing about scars, although new skin may form over the hurt, you’re never quite the same again. There’s always some sort of indent, or impression left, sometimes an old scar may ache if it went in deep enough. Naruto remembers very well what the pain was like, the sort that hurts every time you breathe.

“On a more practical strand,” Shikamaru interrupts as he picks up an apple from the fruit bowl and bites into it, “how do you know he won’t try to kill you?”

// Blunt as a spoon as always, huh? //

Naruto picks three apples up from the fruit bowel and begins to try and juggle with them. He tosses one up and lets it fall back into his receiving fingers again, before trying with two. It seems to work well enough: he chances the third.

            “Oi, moron, stop showing off and answer!”

Naruto grins, keeping his eyes fixed on the apples as they fall after each other, his hands constantly in motion. He knows in a second one is very likely to fall, but he can’t help and keep the game going. He’s going to end up with a face full of very bruised apples in a minute.

            “Don’t you….think…that will….be a ….little difficult…in his….current…whoops!...condition?”

He asks in between the rise and fall of the apples.

“It would be more difficult if he where dead.” Shikamaru says tartly, looking at the apples in distaste.

Naruto’s concentration slips at this and he fumbles with an apple, so Hinata speedily leans across the table and plucks the apple out of thin air before it lands in his face.

“Wow…” Kiba says lowly, whistling between his teeth and looking at Shikamaru with undisguised horror, “you just don’t give a damn about bad karma now do you?”

Shikamaru spares him a single dirty look.

“Maru…” Naruto says very slowly, “are you suggesting I kill Sasuke?”

From the opposite end of the table Kiba shivers, rubbing his arms as though apparently cold muttering, “That’s just inviting it now….” Shikamaru sticks his tongue between his teeth inside his mouth, his dark eyes surveying Naruto. He should have known from the beginning anything involving this idiot would eventually reach him and drive him slowly insane.

            Between him, Choji, Ino, Kiba and now to his great displeasure Sasuke, all the stress was going to turn him prematurely grey.

            It must have been some sort of conspiracy.

                        // Very clever.... //

“Well, not in so many words. I’m just saying, you know, that if he were dead, and if you guys had listened to me, we’d all probably be a whole lot better off.”

“Shikamaru!” Both Hinata and Kiba say simultaneously looking appalled.

“Can you hear yourself when you talk Maru?” Naruto asks, he’s trying hard to mask the smile that he can feel creeping up his lips, Kiba just stares, jaw open.

“Or is it just some buzzing sound? Because all I can hear is yadda yadda something you know I disagree with, yadda yadda…and I’m right you’re wrong.”

He laughs when he meets Shikamaru’s gaze to find it half serious, half teasing, he knows what his friend is trying to do, reminding him to stay on his guard. He knows perfectly well that if Hinata weren’t here they’d do what they did last time he’d nearly got himself killed on a mission. Shikamaru would have Kiba pin him to the floor, then pour a tumbler of water all over him and have Aukamaru sit on his head.  He had turned several shades of blue and nearly suffocated to death before they had decided to let him up again. Not a pleasant experience.

            “I’m hungry,” he says, changing the subject and pushing his chair back towards the kitchen sink. “I’ll make lunch, shall I?”

            “Yum,” Kiba interjects enthusiastically, bouncing up. “Make Tonkotsu again, yeah?” He looks about eagerly for something to do; Hinata’s already moving to help. (They know better then to ask Shikamaru: the earth could be under invasion from aliens from the ninth moon of Zeptar and he wouldn’t shift a finger to help.)

Hinata begins quite logically, by trying to clean up one of the counter tops, which is covered with empty bowls and a used saucepan. She takes these all over to the sink which she fills with warm soapy water and dunks the dirty dishes in, having no problem herself with washing china.

            She turns about, lifting a tea towel to find a bowl full of cold ramen underneath it, unused chopsticks lying by its side.

            “Naruto,” she says in some confusion, turning round to find Kiba and Naruto in a heated argument about who ate who’s packed lunch the other day, (“they were dog biscuits you moron!”) and Shikamaru taking the opportunity to thumb through Naruto’s mail.

“…Are you going to eat this?”

“Uh?” His eyes fall on the china bowl, and he frowns looking for the first time slightly depressed.

            “I made it for Sasuke this morning, but he didn’t eat it.”

“He refused?”

“No, he just… I dunno, when he wants to eat he’ll eat I guess. I’m not going to run around after him and force him to digest my cooking...I’m not going to force him to do anything actually. I’ve never met anyone who can sulk as well as Sasuke Uchiha.”

// So very very true. //

“Yeah but,” Kiba salivates eyeing up the bowl, “that’s just rude to put food like that to waste.”

“Leave it,” Shikamaru say’s from the table in his no nonsense voice. “Sit down.”

Kiba sits down looking disappointed, his ears seem to droop slightly.

“Good boy.” Shikamaru mutters without looking up from what seems to be Naruto’s electricity bill from the way he’s grimacing, “So are you going to hurry up and feed us or what?”

                                                *          *          *

            Slowly there is a rise from the subconscious, breaking the thick film that separates a world of shadows from the realm of reality. The layer flickers, wavering for a moment before breaking completely. Like ripples on the surface of a pond, spreading surely outwards, connecting and diverging into something else much wider.

            From beneath it Sasuke Uchiha shifts, mind whirring in slow circles as he begins to wake. His eyelids feel insurmountably heavy as he looks up at the ceiling of a room he doesn’t recognise, studying it with his eyes. Light trails from cracks in the curtain behind his head and he winces as it falls across his face, stinging his eyes. Slowly he leans out of the bed: he feels vaguely sick, dark strands of hair are sticking to his pale clammy forehead as he staggers to his feet, and everything swims. His hands clutch the rim of the mattress to keep him from falling as he slams ungracefully against the bedpost.

            Thoughts are whirring in his mind at break-neck speed, colliding and fragmenting, too fast to process, and he grimaces. Placing one hand to his forehead he wishes they’d all stop. He’d wish for the silence again if it didn’t remind him so much of death; he’d ask for sleep if it meant escape, but it doesn’t. If he sleeps, he’ll see it. Over and over and over and over again, he’ll see it without pause. He doesn’t ever want to dream again, or sleep for that matter, but his body defies him. It keeps him as a human, limited, useless, worthless thing; and it’s proven itself as such, he thinks bitterly.

            Sasuke grits his teeth and stares hard at the floor, grey eyes focusing as he wills everything to be still.

            Collecting himself, he briefly he allows his mind to reflect on past and current events, where he is now is… Naruto’s apartment, because they don’t think he can really…. He laughs, but the sound that comes from his throat sounds more like a violent cough as it catches wrenchingly in his chest.

            It’s because they’re bored of prodding him with needles and sticking him in some machine, strapped down and sedated until he’s out of his mind for hours on end like some lab experiment. They’ve looked, they’ve analysed and their conclusion is he’s no threat, oh no… not anymore thanks to….

            Sasuke opens his mouth experimentally, cold dry air rushing to the warm insides of his mouth he tries to form a word. No sound comes out, and his smoky eyes flash with anger as he tries again. The same result, the silence falling deadpan onto him, and he feels like he’s being mocked. Laughed at. Things start to crumble to pieces in front of him and he has to fight down the overwhelming urge to start smashing things up again. Violence has been a way of coping for him over the previous years: he can channel thoughts and memories and feelings through it without having to think.

            The worrying thing is that he likes it too.

            Slowly he lets himself slide to his knees, cool fingers pressed over the hot sockets of his eyes. He knows full well that destroying things won’t help him now. He has to get a grip, he has to think, and think clearly.

            Briefly he looks down at his wrists, both of which are bandaged heavily, and an ugly sneer flickers up one side of his mouth. It is followed by a powerful surge of concentrated hate and anger searing through his abdomen.

// So they’re hiding it like that, are they? //

            He slips his shirt up and over his head, removing the soft fabric into a pile on the floor and allowing the cold air to assail his skin; he draws in a short hiss of anger as he sees the bandages across his chest too. His fingers itch: he wants to pull Them off, wants his nails to dig into the skin underneath and drag the damn Things out. Except he knows that it’s useless, and that he’s tried it before, to absolutely no avail. All it creates is more pain than he knows how to deal with.

            Slowly, Sasuke stands up, ignoring the world as it wobbles slightly.  He’s hungry, and he postulates that something is supposed to be done about food. He makes his way to the door, fingers brushing the handle. He considers the fact that he’s semi-naked, wearing god-knows-whose clothes, because he certainly doesn’t like them; and that his skin smells vaguely of antiseptic and bleach.

            It’s when he turns and looks at the closet with some scepticism that he notices the pile of clothes on the chair beside it. Pinned to the top there’s a note scrawled in untidy handwriting, that reads:

‘Hey, thought you might want these.

Your bathroom is just next door.

Oh, and you’ve got your own toothbrush, right?’

            For a brief moment Sasuke stares at the note, something swirling through him that he doesn’t understand, before he shakes it off and heads wordlessly through the door.

                                                *          *          *

// Oh for God’s SAKE! //

This really is quite ridiculous. Sasuke has been standing at the top of the stairs now for a whole twenty minutes, and still hasn’t moved.

            It’s not like he’s been routed to the spot or anything, he just… he just… he surmises at least, that he just doesn’t want to go downstairs.

            Noises are drifting up from the rooms below: laughter and the clattering sound of china mingling with the babble of people talking.

            Sasuke allows himself to slump against the wall, taking into account the messy wallpaper and the bright pictures on the wall. Somewhere down by the bottom steps, someone has placed a hand covered in purple paint on the wall. Either by accident or on purpose Sasuke really can’t tell. It strikes him as an odd thing to do… wait, take that back: the whole thing seems an odd. He finds himself slipping further to the floor, knees pulled up to his chest, back against the wall, still perched almost timidly like a child on the top ledge.

            What is this anyway? He vaguely remembers people telling him things, but the information is a blur. It slips in and out, told in times when he was heavily sedated to moments when the pain was so bad he couldn’t even remember his own name, let alone what he was doing here.

            Why have they stuck him here of all places? With that fool Naruto?

// Naruto…//

            Sasuke smiles.

            That’s if you can call it a smile: he tilts his head back as he does it, cruel twisted line working up the sides of his flushed and pouting mouth. It’s not quite a sneer: it’s too elegant for that; and yet somehow it’s demeaning.

            So, this is the older Naruto’s life is it? Sasuke almost feels like laughing. It’s ironic how normal, how bright, how cheerful it all is. He surmises from the general chaotic décor that he hasn’t changed much. He’s still that naïve idiot he always was… but mind you that’s a given isn’t it? Seeing as how he’s here in the first place. Only a fool would have given him a second chance after what he did. He wouldn’t have given himself a second chance if he were in Naruto’s position. He would have looked at himself clear in the face and told him where he could fuck off to. But Naruto’s not him. He’s clueless in comparison and he has no conception of what this could eventually lead to.

            What this will eventually lead to.

            Not because he wants it to, but because there is no other choice.

            Images flicker through Sasuke’s mind, and it’s like he’s watching a spin reel of flickering orange and turbulent gold and those laughing blue eyes. All the naivety, all the motion, all the joy and all the energy seems to flow: and without acknowledging it, Sasuke’s lips curve at the corners very, very slightly.

            Then he sees again what he did in that circular white room, the one with the high window. He sees the person standing far, far above him, arguing against restraints, face and expression so familiar and yet so altered.

            It hadn’t been… well it was…. Of course it was… time had past…. Just because it wasn’t what he remembered… it was still Naruto.

Wasn’t it?

His…old… no…ex?

Yes, that’s it.

His ex-best friend.

The one he threw away, because he couldn’t get what he wanted.

Because he wasn’t strong enough.

The one he had traded in.

// Screw you. //

And again that smile, that’s not really a smile, but a sort of grimace. Not exactly self-pitying, not as much as it is self-loathing.

// Fool that you are, fool that you always will be. //

            From the gap beneath one of the closed doors a babble of conversation ascends, accompanied by more laughter, some male and one female Sasuke surmises. Vaguely he wonders who’s in there, and why. ANBU checking that he hasn’t killed Naruto yet? He doubts it somehow.

            “You are unbelievable,” he can hear Naruto snapping, and he tilts his head slightly, drawing his knees closer to his chest, listening.

A chair scraps back and there’s more laughter: “I turned my back for one minute and it’s gone.”

            “Ahh, well time wasted on one man is time gained for another!” A voice he knows but cannot place.

                     “That was awfully profound for you,” someone else says suspiciously: this voice too vaguely familiar, less so than the other one.

               “Regardless,” the first continues, sounding pleased, “I still think we should stick with the previous proposal. That we all spend the night here.”

               “You know, that’s really not necessary. Greatly appreciated, but still not necessary.”

This time the voice is Naruto’s, and Sasuke recognises the timbre: gentle yet stern and highly inflexible.

“I do think I can take care of someone, in his urh… condition. I mean it’s hardly a threat. He was here last night and nothing untoward happened.”

               “Last night,” the unfamiliar voice puts forward again, “he was sedated and quite frankly to put it another way: high. But odds are he’s going to be more active and more troublesome as time passes.”

               Sasuke sits up, expression slight and dangerous. He doesn’t like being discussed behind anybodies back: much less when he can hear it.

               “Maru,” -and it’s Naruto again- “you guys can’t move in with me. There’s not enough space.”

               “Yes there will be!” The lower, more animalistic one chime’s in: the voice sounds like the mouth is grinning. “We’ll use your bedroom and you can sleep in the living room.”

               Sasuke releases the grip on his legs and swings his feet onto the second-to-top step,

// They’re doing what? //

               “But, I don’t want to sleep on the sofa!” Naruto protests, “It’s lumpy and uncomfortable!”

               “Well you wouldn’t have to,” the laconic one interrupts, “if you’d been sensible and said no, like everyone thought you’d do. Because, God, we can only dish out so many second chances to those who-just-don’t-deserve-them now can’t we? I mean what idiot does that? Willingly? After he’s been screwed over, tossed aside, and… well, leached off.”

                “You’re very long winded, did you know that?”

               “Shut up.”

               “Leached off?” someone else asks, a girl’s voice, softly, “What do you mean ‘leached off’?”

               To Sasuke it sounds as if the two young men laugh derisively, “What I say,” the other replies: “Naruto was surpassing him and he couldn’t handle it.”

               “Hey.” This time, it’s Naruto’s voice sounding defensive and slightly hot: “Don’t degrade him like that. There was more-”

               “But it was a part of it: a major part of it I’m sure, and he deserves nothing better Naruto. Especially this. You amaze me sometimes, you really do. But not in a good way.”

               Sasuke doesn’t really know why it angered him so much to hear it. Maybe because it was spoken in such a matter of fact way. Maybe because he’d never wanted to admit to himself that that was the truth, and he didn’t like it. It was like looking at your reflection and despising it; trying to smash the mirror with your fist, only to find it wouldn’t shatter and left shards of silver splinters in your skin.

               It was before he even realised that he was doing it: walking down the stairs, hands in pockets, eyes dark as he heard the voices falter at the footsteps outside the door. As it swung open as aggressively as he felt, slamming into the wall and juddering, then it clicked. And he was once again aware of a room full of people, staring at him, with surprise intermingled with a little fear and dislike.

               He was tall. Probably taller than all of them by an inch or two, his pale features strangely accentuated by the black polar neck and trousers he wore. The whole of his body, still slender and darkly powerful stood commanding and authoritive in the doorway. His eyes slid with apparent disdain across all of its occupants, finally coming to rest on the one the furthest away. The only one who looks back without any hostility, animosity or even fear: which is what he expects.

               He doesn’t know why the look echoes so much inside his own mind. Perhaps it’s not what he thought it would be. Perhaps it’s because it’s whole, unaffected: almost emotionless towards him, with no opinion.

               Perhaps because it was from him, he wanted the greatest reaction.

               Naruto taps his fingers pleasantly on the table, sucking in a breath as he feels the suddenly awkward and to some extent hostile atmosphere that has settled over like a thick fog. 

               “Sasuke,” he says, breaking the silence. For some reason he feels like it’s just the two of them in the room alone, without another soul.

               “Do the walking dead get hungry? I’m afraid I simply don’t know.”