Dentes

Author’s Notes: Keep in mind that there are three POV’s in this story--19th century Sasuke’s, Naruto’s of the 21st, and Sasuke’s of the 21st, and as of now they are all operating on different dates.

--

“Tears stream down your face, when you lose something you cannot replace. Tears stream down your face, and I--

Tears stream down your face. I promise you I will learn from my mistakes. Tears stream down your face, and I--”

Fix You, by Coldplay

December 25, 1905

Naruto laughed at Sasukeh’s expression as he pulled it out of the box, and laughed even harder when he regarded it with a wary eye before reluctantly twisting it around his neck. Compared with his fair skin, black hair and dark clothes, the bright orange material of the scarf looked utterly ridiculous. “Dashing,” Naruto snorted.

“Thank you, I suppose,” Sasukeh said dryly. It was truly a horrid color, and probably the most eye-catching thing this side of London, but it was soft and faintly warm from the box sitting so close to the fireplace.

Naruto grinned back. “Haven’t you ever heard that it’s the thought that counts?”

“I believe I have,” Sasukeh replied. Still chuckling, Naruto reached across to grab the wrappings and stood up to add them to the small pile on the side of the hearth before taking his cup to the kitchen to refill it. Sasukeh watched with half-hooded eyes, still fingering his new scarf. It was quickly cooling down to match the arctic temperature of his skin, and somehow that made the color seem a little duller.

“So did I get you everything you wanted for?” Sasukeh didn’t bother to raise his voice, knowing that Naruto was listening either way. He shifted closer to the fireplace, letting it warm his back. Lately he was getting colder, and as much as he’d like to blame the weather there was only so long he could fool himself. It was Naruto’s fault, Sasukeh knew. Being around the human for so long, touching and holding a solid mass of warmth and heat, had spoiled him. The cold he’d conditioned himself to forget was now a conscious feeling again.

He hated it.

There was a long pause before Naruto said, “Almost.” His reproachful tone of voice was not lost on Sasukeh, but he was determined not to let this night go to waste. It was the first time he celebrated a holiday in hundreds of years, and he didn’t want to get into this argument today. Didn’t they have it enough already? Once a day, twice a day, sometimes it was all Naruto could talk about.

“Put it on next year’s list, then.” Even as the words came out of his mouth, Sasukeh could detect the hesitancy in his own voice. Sasukeh was no longer new in town, no longer unapproachable. People were starting to look more closely. He had to run for food more often. Had to put more effort into his small ‘business’. Even then, there were things about him that he knew people could sense were just not right.

Forget a year. Sasukeh might not have a few months.

The thought of having to leave Naruto here were unbearable enough that Sasukeh often forced himself to forget about them altogether. The thought had been tormenting him long before Naruto had asked him--”How does one become a vampire?” so casually, like it doesn’t matter--and now the blond was forcing him to remember. Forcing him to consider things the same part of him, the human part, didn’t want to deal with.

“Bollocks,” Naruto replied. “There may not be a next year.” He had to go there, didn’t he? Of course he did. He was Naruto.

“Don’t say such things,” Sasukeh reprimanded gently.

“Just because you can’t face the facts,” Naruto’s voice grew louder as he re-entered the room, hot cider steaming in the chipped mug, “does not mean that I have to.” He sat on the edge of the couch instead of the floor where Sasukeh was seated. Instead of the angry expression Naruto usually got on his face when this was brought up, one that Sasukeh found incredibly attractive, his eyes were dead set and serious. Calm, very unlike him.

Sasukeh diverted his attention from Naruto’s serious gaze to the new easel in the middle of the floor. He’d noticed that Naruto’s was beginning to splinter at the legs, and however much the blond said it didn’t bother him, Sasukeh knew he’d like a new one. Naruto was like this with a lot of things. Everything important, his cooking utensils, his books, his supplies, were always kept in perfect mint condition. The human took good care of them. It was the complete opposite of Sasukeh, who believe that a little tarnish did no harm. In fact, it was better. A little damage showed just how well-worn and well-loved it was.

“Sasukeh.” The vampire looked back at him with nearly as much reluctance as he’d had putting on the scarf. He wondered how stupid he looked in it. “We need to talk about this some time.”

Sasukeh snorted. “I see no reason to,” he said regally, cocking his head up so that even at their different levels, it appeared that he was looking down on him. “I answered your question. There’s no need to go no further.”

“Yes, you did,” Naruto agreed, and Sasukeh knew what was coming from a mile away. “And it sounds perfectly safe--”

“How does having one’s blood completely drained sound safe to you, by any stretch of the term?” Sasukeh cut in, but even then Naruto’s face remained calm and passive.

“You said,” Naruto went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “that I can drink from you, right?” Sasukeh didn’t answer, so Naruto took it as a ‘yes’. “I can--bite you, and then I’ll be fine. With just a little of your blood. You’re strong enough to stop me if I go too far, are you not?”

“I don’t know how fast your fangs will grow,” Sasukeh told him. He folded his legs from under him until he sat cross-legged, and with one arm propped his forehead in a tired manner. Not tired, just frustrated. There was a rational and irrational part of his brain, and Naruto was preaching right to the latter. Sasukeh had never been a patient man from the get-go. He was afraid that if that second part of him won out, it would ruin him, just like Naruto had. Ruin him for all else, throw all rationality to the wind and act, like he’d always done. Calm reasoning wasn’t his strong point. It was acting. Letting that beast out of the cage might mean he’d never be able to lock it away again.

And Naruto was dangling the key right in front of his face.

“Then cut yourself with your own.” Naruto was finally starting to sound exasperated, but in a new way. Not frustrated that Sasukeh wouldn’t listen, but because Sasukeh refused to get it, refused to understand his logic. But it wasn’t that he couldn’t understand, just that it was the last thing he wanted to do. Or the first. No middle ground.

“Naruto, I cannot.”

“You can,” Naruto insisted, getting up only to kneel before the taller man. “You said your traveling companion, what was his name--”

“Hey only told me his assumptions,” Sasukeh reminded him.

“That are probably true,” Naruto finished. He placed his hands on Sasukeh’s knees, and instantly the vampire felt the wonderful, gorgeous warmth. Spoiled. He’d been spoiled rotten. “He’s been alive a lot longer than you. Met with fellow vampires.”

“We lost correspondence a while back,” Sasukeh said. “He might have found out something new.”

“Spare me,” Naruto scoffed.

“You never know, Naruto.”

“But I do,” Naruto insisted. “I can feel it in my gut, Sasukeh.” His fingers began to gently massage his knee caps, and Sasukeh tried to imagine how he’d feel about the loss of this warmth. But compared to what he’d gain in return, it hardly seemed a casualty.

“You’re probably just hungry.”

Naruto didn’t rise to the bait. “I can feel it.”

Yes. As can I.

They were both silent for a long time, both waiting for the other to say something. At some point, Sasukeh had reached out and pulled Naruto into his lap, arms winding their way around his waist and holding on tightly. He knew it must have hurt. With so many endless years on his hand, he had fine-tuned his body and muscles to use every fiber of strength they held, and he was far stronger than the average human. He used that strength now, probably bruising him but he didn’t care. He just wanted to hold, to clutch, what was his. What was taken away and given back, and with it that damned niggling feeling that giving in was wrong. Let him go, let him go, let him be human.

I want him. More than anything else. No matter what’s in the future, or what lay in my past, never will I want something as strongly as him.

“Sasukeh?”

The vampire sighed, slackening his grip and allowing his lover to settle more comfortably. “Naruto,” he answered, feeling the man press his face into the side of his neck.

Softly, warm breath swelled in his ear as Naruto whispered, “I love you.”

Sasukeh clenched his eyes shut and grit his teeth for a moment, wanting to and not wanting to at the same time, to bite and not let go and to hold him, really hold him, and they’d be cold together, never needing the sun. “I love you too.” It was a sigh, his sounding so graveled and dirty when following Naruto’s. How could this human ever, ever, in a million years--what was it Sasukeh had done, and why was he getting only half a second chance, was this a reward or a punishment because it surely felt like--

Softly, Naruto kissed the side of his head. Somewhere in his chest, Sasukeh thought he felt his long-since dead heart lurch. Along with it, the beast began to break loose.

March 2, 1906

Two years. Sasukeh had officially outlasted all of his previous stays in one particular place. Now people were greeting him by name. Their eyes followed him on the streets, none too friendly. Rumors began. Whispered from behinds hands and into greedy ears. Sasukeh heard Naruto’s name in these whispers more than once, and when a patron at the dry cleaner business he frequented inquired as to his previous place of employment, Sasukeh knew that it was time to go.

He walked slowly towards Naruto’s place, quietly rehearsing in his head what he would say. He walked about the block a couple times to stall, and stopped at a street corner when he realized he couldn’t think of a single coherent, sensible thing. It would be far easier to just leave in the middle of the night without a word, like a bad dream.

The thought made him shudder. How was it fair that he’d live to be tormented with this while Naruto was free to live a perfectly normal life? Would Sasuke grow to be so old that he forgot this Naruto, too? Probably.

There was a ruckus a few blocks down that he could hear from his brooding spot. Because it would be abnormal not to go and gawk like a strangled chicken, Sasukeh’s legs moved automatically to escort him there. He’d soon have to find shelter for the day, though. On the horizon, the sun threatened him with dusty orange fingers clawing against the sky.

There was a mess of wood against the wall when Sasukeh arrived at the scene. Across from it, an unharmed horse picked at the weeds that grew between the cobblestones, completely ignorant of the human escapades occurring behind it. It was a sentiment Sasukeh could get behind. Vaguely disturbed that he connected better with a horse than a human, he refocused his attention elsewhere, and inevitably upon the bleeding body.

There were woman wailing and crying for the man, and Sasukeh found himself frozen to the spot. Flecks of blood had gotten into his blond hair, and his eyes, now a dark and glassy blue, were unfocused on the ground before him. His one arm was twisted behind his back, clearly unhinged, and his legs tangled like lace below him. His shoe had fallen off, and the ankle Sasukeh could still taste was bare to the cold air. His mouth, always so warm, was blue and red. Face scraped. Unmoving. Utterly still.

Sasukeh felt himself collapse.

Only he hadn’t. Only his mind. And once it had done that, once his thoughts dropped away one by one like rain water through the storm drain, he realized that the dead man was not Naruto. His hair was a sandy blond, his eyes more hazel and green than blue. He was short, and dressed the same, but the face was completely different. Utterly different. A tear ripped through Sasukeh’s chest.

Inside of him, the cage broke.

There was a dead man behind him, and a million more on his conscious. Guilty as he was, as selfish as he was, that would have been Naruto two years ago. And it might still be him years from now, or days from now, if Sasukeh let it.

He must have looked odd, running as he was, with more emotion on his face that these city dwellers had ever seen. He was foreign, so strange, so different, who was he, a monster, to think that he deserved such a thing? Who did he think he was?

Sasukeh’s felt tired, a peculiar phenomenon. He couldn’t remember his limbs feeling tired in so long, just like he hadn’t remembered what it felt like to be cold. Naruto brought out the very worst in him. Cold, tired, frustrated, possessive, greedy, selfish, so irrational, and even though he knew that by not leaving now, by not leaving right this instant, he’d be ruined for life, Naruto had already destroyed him. He’d destroyed him once in some nameless part of the world, and he’d reentered Sasukeh’s life to do it all over again. And he wouldn’t get away with it. Not this time.

Forever.

Forever.

Sasukeh didn’t enter like he normally did, just pounded away at the door. Half hoping that Naruto wouldn’t answer, would in fact never answer, because he didn’t exist. But of course he did, at first looking confused, then surprised, followed quickly by concern. “Sasukeh? What on earth--”

Sasukeh kissed him then, if nothing then to shut him up, Harshly, cruelly, and he felt blood blossom into his mouth when he did it too hard but he didn’t care. Didn’t care, even, if Naruto didn’t kiss him back. He pushed him in and then pushed him down, onto the floor where he pinned him with his mouth, mouth eating at him, hands greedily stroking at his skin and stealing away everything that he was. Blood dripped down a tanned cheek and when Sasukeh roughly stroked his face, it sneered into his hair.

Naruto was gasping for air through their mouths, and Sasukeh could feel his heart beating frantically where their chests connected. Naruto begun to pound at Sasukeh’s chests, obviously needing air, but Sasukeh was greedy now, nothing but desire and want, so he kept the kiss a few seconds longer. His. His.

When the vampire finally pulled back, it was to meet a furious and confused glare. “Bloody hell, what was that about?” Naruto spat, moving to swipe the blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand. But Sasukeh pinned his wrist before he could and looked, trying to see if this sight was acceptable. Naruto’s lips smeared with blood. It wasn’t that bad. And besides, the blood should not be wasted. His head bent down, and even though Naruto twisted his face away, Sasukeh still began to lap it up from his cheek. When Naruto realized he hadn’t dove down for another brutalizing kiss, he calmed down, even turned his head so that Sasuke could lap at his torn lips.

“Well?” Naruto asked once Sasukeh had sighed into his damp cheek, finally finished. Sasukeh didn’t raise his head from its current position as he whispered lowly into Naruto’s ear, “I can give you what you want.”

“What I want?” Naruto repeated sarcastically. He began to struggle from beneath him, but Sasukeh kept him firmly pinned. “What I want is for you to get off so that I can pound some sense into your stupid--”

Sauskeh cupped his cheeks as he ranted an drew back to look him in his eye as, slowly, he repeated himself. Then again, replacing the “you” with a “we”, then waited. Prepared to repeat himself until the end of time if that’s what it took for Naruto to understand. Thankfully, it only took three times before Naruto got it. He looked so human staring up at Sasukeh with such hopeful eyes, so naïve in his young age.

And Sasuke, being the monster all fairy tales knew that he was, took advantage of it.

February 28, 12905

While it took Sasukeh only a few days to close down his relatively small business, it took Naruto much longer. Due to an inborn feeling of guilt, Naruto took the time to set each of his clients up with a new and trusted constructor. When asked, he told them that he wanted to get out and travel while he still could. To learn more things. They’d all shaken their heads in disappointment, and eyed Sasukeh with dirty glares as he walked down the streets for influencing such a bright young mind, for taking away their prodigy with his tales of travel and adventure.

After a while, it was settled. Naruto had moved in with Sasukeh for a short while in order to sell his things. He couldn’t just leave them there, he said. There was a young boy Naruto had grown close with, Konohamaru from down a few streets, who aspired to be a designer. All of Naruto’s things went to him. Once he’d dropped his key off to that windowed room, to the place where he’d built upon his dreams, he went back to Sasukeh’s, and the vampire held him. Silently, a few tears trickled down. Soundless as snow. The next day, there was no trace of his earlier sadness, only that endless flow of hope Sasukeh had seen ever since he promised to fulfill Naruto’s wish.

That evening Sasukeh had signed off for the closure to his lease and shut the door, leaving behind all the scarce furniture. After an hour-long carriage, they reached the outskirts of town where the dirt grew more and more uneven. The carriage dropped them off at the trail station, and from there a two-hour walk to an abandoned barn he remembered passing on his way here. He remembered nothing of his own transformation, but the fact that he’d woken up in a barn far away from civilization suggested that they needed privacy. Would it be painful? Would the blood lust be so strong Naruto tried to run the second he opened up demonic eyes for the first time? Sasukeh had no answers to these questions, so he took all the precautions that he could.

On the inside, the barn was just as decrepit as it looked. Sasukeh was glad that he’d thought to bring oil lamps with him, because he didn’t trust any that he’d find in a place that looked this old. The smell of mold and decay fermented to create an altogether horrendous smell, and it made Naruto wrinkle his nose.

“Romantic,” he chuckled.

Sasukeh rolled his eyes. “Idiot,” he mumbled under his breath. But he couldn’t help but agree. He thought that such a transformation should occur in a more… stupendous place. But this would just have to do.

Sasukeh watched Naruto as he walked lightly into the middle of the room, spinning slowly and taking it in. A rotted wooden floor, rafters full of grimy hay, undoubtedly host to all sorts of creatures. It was hard, but somehow Sasukeh mustered up enough guts to ask him, “Naruto, are you sure that you want this?” He meant his tone to sound firm, but a tiny, niggling plea crept into his voice. Perhaps his rational side, the one beaten to submission, wasn’t as gone as it might seem. But it was soon beaten back into submission as Naruto turned his eyes on him. Those clear, bright blue eyes.

“I’m sure, Sasuke,” he said quietly. “What will it take for you to believe me?”

Sasukeh didn’t answer. When he bent down and hooked an arm around Naruto’s legs and lifted him into his arms, the human didn’t complain. Carefully, Sasukeh carried him over to the cleanest patch of hay he could find before kneeling, setting Naruto down. In a careful, even voice, Sasukeh asked, “Will you let me have you?” and it sounded more like a marital vow, more like a promise, than a question.

Naruto answered by fully relaxing into the straw. So much trust it was dizzying. Trust in that promise, trust in a half-baked plan that they knew little about but believed with every fiber of their existence. Sasukeh had never seen Naruto as calm as he was now, laying beneath him, turning his head but keeping their gazes locked as he bared his neck. Softly, a tan hand tugged at the first button of his shirt and widened the collar. His chest rose steadily, like he was sleeping.

“I love you.” And from Naruto, born in the nineteenth century to a poor family, then to an orphan, from the Naruto who he met by accident and saved on a whim, from the Naruto that simultaneously saved and condemned his soul, who was as selfless as Sasuke was selfish, who loved him so much he was willing to give him this…

From this Naruto, they would be the last words Sasukeh ever heard.

Carefully, Sasukeh sunk his mouth down to Naruto’s neck. The skin was warm and had the most wonderful taste. No single patch of skin on Naruto’s body tasted as good as this did. He kissed it, smelled it, savored the warmth, and licked a patch. Naruto remained motionless and calm as Sasukeh licked his way down the column of his throat and stopped then, lips hovering above the jugular, so close to the heart, a clear pathway for the poison to the heart. Naruto’s heart. And now, it was Sasukeh’s heart.

He bit down.

The first few moments were just like any other time when Sasukeh bit him. He drank more slowly this time, though, knowing that if he did it too quickly he’d drain too much blood from one part of the body and not enough from the rest. Sip by tiny sip of pure heaven. He knew that Naruto must have been in immense amounts of pain, but the human gave no show of it. Instead, he began to slowly pet Sasukeh’s hair like he always did when he felt the vampire needed calming down.

Sasukeh didn’t know when to stop. He couldn’t keep track of the time, but eventually Naruto’s hand dropped from his hair and to the ground. His breathing was slightly hitched, raspy. Carefully, Sasukeh withdrew his fangs to look at Naruto’s face. His face was as white as parchment, his lips and eyelids tinged blue, but what was most surprising of all was Naruto’s mouth. His lips were smudged faintly with blood, and when he opened his mouth to draw in another strangled breath, there were two gaps where his molars used to be. Sasukeh pulled Naruto’s upper lip up--it was so cold--and saw the fangs. Not long by any measure of the word, but there. Growing. Slowly. Very, very slowly.

Instantly, dread washed over him. Frantically he yanked at the cuff of his shirt, but a part of his brain was already telling him it was too late. The fangs were too short, and even from this distance looked nowhere as sharp as his. How was Naruto supposed to bite into the hardest substance on the planet with those? So he bit into his own wrist, and nearly gagged. A rotten taste bloomed in his mouth in nauseating waves. His own blood was cold as ice. Nevertheless, he frantically pressed it to Naruto’s mouth.

“Drink, Naruto,” Sasukeh ordered. He could feel the wounds in his arm heal as fast as he realized what the purpose of such short, dull fangs were. They weren’t meant for biting a fellow vampire--”Drink, damn you!”

Useless.

Useless.

The gaps between Naruto’s shaky breaths were lengthening, and this time when Sasukeh put his own wrist to his lips he tore a large chunk of flesh, pain ripping through him and vile blood spilling over them both. He pressed his wrist to Naruto’s mouth, knowing that it wasn’t what he was needed, that he was wrong, wrong, so wrong.

“Please!”

The blood welled in Naruto’s mouth, painting his face. His eyes were no longer open, closed gently, and Sasukeh cursed himself for not keeping their gazes locked. He wanted to see those eyes, one last time--

The last time.

“Do not take him away from me again.”

The third time Sasukeh pressed his wrist to Naruto’s mouth, never having considered a human, such a weak creature, to be needed in this--a third party, a stranger, to be needed for something so intimate--Sasukeh knew that whatever he’d done in his human years must have been too despicable for Hell to handle. Too cruel for Satan himself to deal with. So they did this to him.

Why

The fourth time, Naruto had stopped breathing.

Throughout the night, he tore at his wrists. Would have torn at his neck if he could reach. Tried to find something sharp enough, ripped at it with a switchblade but nothing cut him. Sasukeh was growing faint, but throughout the night, as Naruto grew colder, colder, colder than ice, as the beast inside him roared, as his heart mourned a loss he wasn’t ready to accept--the blood was cold. In Naruto, in Sasukeh. It ran cold from sitting in it so long, as Sasukeh talked, as Naruto listened. As the vile scent drifted around them, bathed them, the dust Naruto had been covered with, then dying down to a faint background smell. Naruto tilted his head back and saw, still, Sasukeh bending down to bite into his neck. The bath water was so cold now, and he hadn’t noticed he was trembling until Sasuke began rubbing his arms, holding him close, and whispering that it would be all right, I have you now.

You won’t be taken from me for a third time.

November 28, 2005

Sasuke sat lowly on the tree branch. He could practically feel his lips chapping, but he didn’t dare let his tongue dart out to lick them. They’d freeze over in a second. Streaks of yellowish light swung haphazardly beneath him from the police officers’ flashlights. Sharp growls and barks from the canine unite lit the night up with the carnal sound of nature. He could no longer feel his feet; he’d made sure to walk a good ten feet through the small crick that halved their back yard before scrambling over the rocky band and up the tree, making as little contact with the wood as possible. It seemed to be working, as the search party was heading further North.

Sasuke peeked at his digital watch and grimaced. 9:41. He’d been in this tree for nearly five hours. His and Naruto’s house was lit up like a Christmas tree as officers searched it top to bottom, either for Sasuke or a dead Naruto. Perhaps both. They wouldn’t find either. Still, Sasuke felt indignant at such an invasion of privacy.

After Sasuke had fled through the back door, he heard the doorbell ring. Stupidly, he waited in the tree for them to leave. He heard his door being kicked down, and planned to slip back in after their departure to pack a bag and car keys. But within twenty minutes a large fleet of police cars were parked across his lawn. There were even more than when Sasuke had first arrive to Japan. Obviously, they weren’t here to merely question Sasuke. They were here to arrest him.

At 10:01, Sasuke deemed it safe enough to move. Even under the cover of night he decided to move slow. His limbs burned the whole way down the tree, and he grunted as he collapsed to the ground. His legs were momentarily paralyzed from their lack of movement, and feeling set back in by form of painful cramps and stinging needles. Sasuke hissed through his teeth and moved to his knees. Tried to wiggle his toes. If they were moving, he could feel them. But his heels were on fire, and that was enough feeling for him.

He slowly pulled himself up from the ground. His hair, which had still been slightly damp upon his exit, was frozen to his scalp. Sasuke shoved his hands into his pockets and rubbed them harshly against his cold thighs. Then, slowly, he began to walk.

He made a wide circle around his house, and kept to the outskirts of the woods that bordered one side of the town. Stumbling in deep dips of the forest floor. Walking in a bit more deeply whenever he saw a light window. His final destination was normally a ten minute walk from his front door, but with the way he was traveling, it took Sasuke over an hour before he finally arrived at Sakura and Lee’s townhouse. It was connected to a second home on its right. All windows of both houses were black.

Cautiously, Sasuke threw his gaze left and right before darting to the sliding back door that led into the basement. Sasuke had no doubt that it would be unlocked, and surely enough, it slid open without resistance.

Sasuke allowed himself a heavy sigh of relief. The house wasn’t just warm, it was blazing. He immediately shut the door behind him and moved away to the hallway. There, he collapsed to the floor, panting. He hadn’t realized he was out of breath. This room had been converted into a sort of second family room. There was a large plasma TV mounted to the wall with three different game consoles and a DVD and Blueray player. A wide wall full of movies. The walls covered with old movie posters. Whenever he and Naruto visited, this was often where they ended up. There was a two-seater couch they always favored, where Naruto would threw himself if Sasuke was already sitting. Pushing the breath out of his lungs. He could still remember Naruto’s laugh. An inane chuckle cracked his mouth. It sounded like a dead croak, and his entire chest ceased up as if flash frozen. Nothing. There was nothing there now. Everything, everything was gone. Sasuke didn’t cry. His mouth hung slightly agape, shoulders slumped, eyes dead. Everything, everything was gone.

And he didn’t even know why.

“Sasuke?”

That was the same voice as on the phone. Sakura’s voice. Sasuke didn’t bother to respond. The hallways light flickered on and several pairs of footsteps thundered down. And then stopped when they reached the hallway and caught sight of him.

Slowly, Sasuke lifted his head to meet their eyes. Sakura. Lee. Shikamaru. And slowly, he hissed, “What the fuck is going on?”

November 23, 2005

Naruto got up from the bed to start the kettle, scratching at his head and looking behind him. Sasukeh was there, to his surprise. He thought there’d be sun today. He should have been gone by now. But the room was so dark that maybe it was Naruto’s internal clock that was askew.

Naruto made it five steps before he tripped over something he could have sworn wasn’t there a few hours ago. Groaning at the pain in his stubbed toe, Naruto shifted onto his knees. The wooden floor was oddly scratchy, like the woolen rug they had laid down at work. Like carpet--

The breath left him in one foul sweep, and oddly enough, without even thinking too hard on it he was feeling at his wrists. Skin. No metal cuffs. The second was Sasuke’s face. Sasukeh’s face. Both so similar he couldn’t differentiate between the two, that feeling deep in his chest. The contradictory notion that chained him to this one man while simultaneously making him feel like the freest man on Earth. The feeling that made him believe worldwide peace was possible and that the world was too cold and cruel to get out of bed, to not even bother and just stay in bed with this one man, with Sasuke. Sasukeh holding him, kissing him, just talking and it wouldn’t matter what he said. They’d stay in bed, for the rest of their lives, not eating, just sleeping and talking and touching until time, like the sand in an hourglass, dwindled away to nothing.

And one of these men, whom he loved so deeply they were like fully functional limbs on his body, he’d have to let go.

Automatically Naruto’s body chose the easiest possible route. He slowly stood. The pain in his foot was gone, and a great, sorrowful numbness plagued his body like a fast-acting poison. The clock on the bedside table read 12:01. Naruto didn’t need to look outside to know which time of day it was. He could feel it in his bones, just as he knew that at a relatively short distance away, there was a human being who needed him, who‘d known only Naruto his only life and would change anything, anything, if Naruto would ask. Just as he knew that a few feet away, there was a being who needed him for much longer, who’d suffered so much pain, that had had so much taken away from him, that he no longer knew how to keep anything save by force.

Sasukeh had double-knotted the ties, triple-knotted some. Naruto got to work on the ones tying them to the floor first. When he crouched to the first, he noticed the apparent lack of pain he usually felt when Sasukeh stayed over. Then he remembered he hadn’t slept with the man for close to a hundred years, and inescapable guilt added itself to the emotional load Naruto was doing his best to ignore. It was going to take a lot more than untying a few simple knots to rid himself of one of them. One of these people… one of these lovers… They were so similar, and Sasukeh had always told him there was something missing, and Naruto had accidentally fallen in love with that something now. That living, breathing something that was out there looking for him, misunderstanding everything, wanting him back. And then Sasukeh, who waited a thousand times longer than his short patience usually allowed…

They were tearing him apart, and in order to avoid that, Naruto would have to cut it off himself. To break one of them so well beyond repair it would never come back to haunt him. But either way you cut it, the body couldn’t go on functioning when half of it was missing, could it? Why couldn’t he, Naruto, own any of his own self? Why did he have to hand it out to two selfish people, to one person, really, they were so similar, they were the same…

Naruto finished unknotting the tight ropes binding the heavy. Velvet curtains to the floor. A hairline fracture of light glowed brightly beneath it. Naruto had finally figured out what Sasukeh hadn’t managed to after such a long life. That part of him that had been taken from him the moment he turned.

He had to get a chair to reach the ties at the ceiling. He lifted it gingerly and brought it back. Sasukeh slept soundly behind him, perhaps even dreamlessly. Sleeping during daylight hours came naturally to him, but Naruto found himself wide awake as he wiggled the ties loose. Sasukeh had only double-knotted these. It made sense. The iron rods drilled into the plaster was more than enough to keep them in place.

Cautiously stepping off the chair, Naruto then moved it to the other end to work on the second curtain. Sasukeh was too tall to be able to reach these with the ease that he did. Said vampire shifted in his sleep behind him. The line of light on the floor danced as the loosened curtains shifted slightly. From the bulge at the bottom seam, Naruto knew that heavy chains weighed the curtains down. Over-protective indeed. Naruto wandered how this over-protectiveness could possibly coincide peacefully with Sasukeh’s over-confidence. His confidence that Naruto would want to stay, or at least hear him out after having passed out in the bathroom.

Or maybe it wasn’t over-confidence. Maybe it was trust. Just trust.

Naruto’s hands were shaking so hard by the last knot that the light danced as fast as a flickering flame. His knees were buckling, and when he moved to get off the chair, he stumbled. Sasukeh slept on. Perhaps he’d fed while Naruto slept. He knew now how tired Sasukeh could get after a heavy feeding. He’d slept through an entire two days before while Naruto stayed beside him, trying to sleep and replenish the blood loss. They’d both been more cautious after that.

There was a two-foot gap where the two curtains overlapped, and Naruto slipped himself into it in order to undo the dozen ties that ran down the length of it. There were also metal buttons that dotted the space between the knots, and they made an unbelievably loud sound in the quiet room.

Naruto estimated it to have taken him about half an hour by the time he’d finished. Blinding light struck his face for the first time in days, and it was the most beautiful thing he thought he’d ever feel. He spent a precious fifteen minutes there, enjoying the heat. Ignoring reality was just a side perk. But eventually, he drifted from that too and back into the room. Still as black as pitch, but the edge of the floor around the curtain had a faint glow. The bed was directly in front of him. Sasukeh’s bare arms, shoulders, and head were above the covers, facing him. Still sleeping. Naruto grabbed the underneath curtain. One tug, not even that far, would send a blinding bar of light straight over the bed. Perhaps reaching through the covers, but definitely able to strike his face.

Naruto could leave now. Step into the light. But Sasukeh would come back for him. Naruto knew he would. And this time, he might think it a better idea to just eliminate his competition altogether, Naruto’s feelings on the matter be damned.

Finally, finally, he had figured it out. What it was that Sasukeh was missing.

His hand curled around the edge of the curtain.

November 28, 2005

“What the fuck is going on?”

Sakura looked nervous, twisting her hands and worrying her lip. Sasuke couldn’t read Lee’s face, but then again, they’d never been close. But Shikamaru’s expression was one of vague triumph.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that I’ve found Naruto.”

November 23, 2005

Naruto had been standing there for around two hours by the time Sasukeh woke up. He blinked slowly. Even the tiniest bit of light filtering through made his body slowly edge back in the bed. The vampire froze in place, however when Naruto’s hand twitched. The curtain billowed slightly. However fast Sasukeh was, he couldn’t move his whole body faster than Naruto could move just his arm.

Naruto could feel the light, butter yellow, illuminating the right side of his body. To Sasukeh, he must have looked like death itself. How ironic.

And, like baring his throat to a blade, Sasukeh sat up. The blankets fell like so much water. His chest was white, perfect. The glove on his hand. Sasukeh said it hurt, but he’d always liked it when Naruto would kiss the edges. Naruto’s lips, he said, felt like a heating pad to the long-since dead muscles. Sasukeh had explained this all on one moonless night. In return, Naruto had promised to him the use of his hands. He’d sworn to Sasukeh his whole body.

He’d promised it to Sasuke too, their first night together. Both breathless and scared and trying their best to hide it. “Yours,” Naruto had breathed, “Yours. Take it.” Take me. And Sasuke had, because Naruto had promised.

Naruto didn’t bother to keep track of the thoughts running through his mind. Subconsciously he was aware that soon, the sun would begin to dip. Yellow light slowly shriveled and died to an ugly orange color. Sasukeh sat, staring at him, waiting. Waiting like he had for hundreds of years, waiting, waiting…

Sasukeh would allow him to do it slowly. To ease the curtain back inch by excruciating itch. To freeze him to marble in the slowest way possible. Sasukeh would not move. He’d let Naruto do it.

Stop me

Naruto’s hand shook minutely. He pulled it back a centimeter, and STOP ME found that doing so caused him a pain far greater than that he’d ever experienced. Being a vampire made him no less human. Hunting him, trapping him, stealing him made him no les of the man Naruto had willingly fallen in love with.

The bed was split by a thin line of light. Naruto had pulled it back far enough that a mere centimeter of light shown. Like a target.

Still, Sasukeh did not move. Blinked, slowly. Not over-confident. Just trusting, trusting, wasn’t that all Naruto had ever wanted?

But to halve himself. Or to take himself entirely from one and give to the other. Was that even possible? No. It wasn’t.

Tick

Tick

He recalled a Robert Frost poem, one he’d had to memorize and recite in a high school class. “I think I know enough of hate,” Naruto whispered softly, like a prayer. Sasukeh didn’t look confused. Just that he understood.

Tick

Tick

Like a bomb, the sky turned black. The room was cold, and empty.

Sasukeh pulled the sheets back, making room. The curtain fell from slack fingers, the second part of Naruto withering and dying on the floor. A clean break.

Never once had Sasukeh strayed from his path. Always set, never changing, always there and waiting for what he knew would inevitably come.

I know what you’re missing.

Slowly, Naruto went to him.

--

“Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones. And I will try to fix you.”

Fix You, by Coldplay

Author’s Notes: This story has reached over 500 reviews. Because of that, I’ve decided to post a poll asking readers what one-shot they’d most like me to write. Whichever option has the most votes by the end of November, I will write.

Thank you for your continuing support of the story. What started off as just a whim turned into a hobby that I very much enjoy. I know that the last few chapters have been a bit of a drag for you all, so in case you skipped/skimmed it, please read below for a relatively brief summary of the events that took place in the 1900’s.

Sasukeh met Naruto on his way to London, where they slowly built up a friendship. At one point, Sasukeh suddenly remembers that he’d met Naruto hundreds of years ago during his human life, and that this Naruto was a reincarnate. Soon after this realization, Sasukeh sees a human who looks exactly like himself roaming the streets. Inwardly knowing that this was the person fate had intended for Naruto, Sasukeh kills him. Although the details of his past are very vague to him, Sasukeh nevertheless ends up together with Naruto several months later. Due to his supernatural nature, Sasukeh’s made a point to never stay in one place for very long. Naruto convinces Sasukeh to turn him into a vampire as well, and the two plan to depart town. Unfortunately, the details of the process that Sasukeh had heard second-hand were unclear. Sasukeh drains Naruto of his blood and tried to get Naruto to drink his to complete the transformation. Upon seeing his small and rather dull fangs, however, Sasukeh realizes that it’s the blood of a human needed to complete the turn, not that of another vampire. With no human in the area, Naruto quickly dies.

“Now why couldn’t you have just said that instead of dragging this out for three chapters?”

Shut up, I was having fun.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in a review or a PM. Until next time!

-Kodak

PS: Sorry, just one more thing. I’ve posted a new poll on my profile. In order to celebrate Teeth reach 500 reviews, I’m going to write a one-shot of your choosing. You can vote for up to two options. If you have any ideas others than those listed, just tell me!