Fine Lines

Fine Lines Ch. 2
Collaboration with Grandlinegirl

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The morning brought with it sunshine, blue skies and pleasant weather. The storm from the previous day seemed to have vanished into thin air, no trace of it left. Birds chirped outside, crying their delight for the world to hear, as fresh, warm air blew into Naruto’s musty apartment from the open window.

Naruto awoke to warm rays of sun shining in through his dilapidated blinds, the warmth caressing a scarred cheek. Groaning, he sat up in bed and wiped the sleep from his eyes before turning the bleary blue orbs on the clock beside his bed. He was already late. Jumping from bed, he took a quick shower before dressing in jeans that hugged his hips, and a snug black t-shirt. He grabbed his bag full of untouched homework before leaving, making sure to lock the door behind him before taking off.

Luckily, he didn’t live too far from the school. When he arrived, his World History class had already started. Pausing outside the door, his hand on the knob, he took a deep breath before opening it and stepping inside. He threw a flippant apology to Itachi before moving to his seat in the back of the room.

Itachi glanced up and stopped talking as his classroom door opened and a messy looking Naruto barreled in. He honestly thought the blonde hadn't shown up on purpose, wanting Itachi to make due on his threat, but then again, a small part of his mind knew it wouldn't happen. The blonde had been shy at best yesterday and he knew it would take a lot more trust for Naruto to fully open up to him.

He nodded at Naruto's apology and resumed his speech regarding the Ancient Egyptians. The class ended with the sharp ring of the bell and the students hurried to get up and get the hell out so they could eat lunch.

The long haired teacher eyed the blonde as he stood up and beckoned the boy to his desk with just a look.

Another boring lesson; he hadn’t missed much. How could Itachi teach such a boring subject when he was so...interesting? He’d spent the lesson doing what he normally did: drawing; although, it was different this time. He couldn’t quite manage to block out Itachi’s voice, no matter how hard he tried.

The blond lazily gathered his things when the bell rang and shoved them into his bag, standing up and hefting it over a shoulder. He then saw the look Itachi was giving him.

Sighing, he made his way through the maze of desks to stand before the teacher’s.

The older man waited until the last student left before speaking to the boy. "Pretty late aren't we? I'm sure you know that school starts at eight thirty." He looked at his watch. "Four hours late... anything happen I should know about?"

He knew he was being a bit hard on the blonde, but frankly, he was like that with all his students. It didn't matter how he felt about the particular person, tardiness was his biggest pet peeve.

Sighing again, Naruto focused his gaze on the wooden desk top, not wanting to look at the man he’d been thinking about all night. “I slept in,” he shrugged, offering no further explanation.

He didn’t expect Itachi to go easy on him just because they had been intimate, so it wasn’t a surprise to him.

Itachi nodded. "And let me guess, the homework assignment completely slipped your mind?"

When Naruto had no words on that he just nodded once more. "Naruto, I know you don't care about school, but don't make me feel like I'm wasting my time. I know school can be hard, but really, what I assign as work is not that difficult."

“It doesn’t really matter,” he said quietly. “I’ve already failed this class.” He also wanted to point out that Itachi was wasting his time, but thought that might be going too far. He looked up for a moment, his gaze quickly raking over his teacher’s face before turning to leave.

Itachi wanted desperately to call Naruto back, take him into his office and just hold the boy. He could tell how hard it was for Naruto to feel like a disappointment to everyone and it was breaking the raven's heart to see Naruto going through such a hard time.

He had to find a way to make Naruto feel more confident in himself, but what could he do? He sighed and stood up, heading to his office to eat his lunch as he graded more assignment.

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After leaving the classroom behind, Naruto dropped his bag in his locker and grabbed his lunch before heading to the cafeteria. He was hungry since he’d missed breakfast, not that he ever had much to eat in his apartment. He didn’t know what to do about after school since Itachi hadn’t asked him to come by. Should he go? Should he not? He had no idea, but since the older man hadn’t asked, he figured he didn’t want to see him.

He looked around the large cafeteria trying to spot an empty table. The only one that was completely free was on the far side. Making his way there, he slumped into a chair and began to eat.

It didn't take long for the students to finish up their lunches and the majority of lunch was spent messing around and just talking to one another. Itachi's younger brother, Sasuke, attended the school and was among the most popular and brightest in his grade. That being said, the spiky haired raven tended to pick on Naruto more often than not. It was with this in mind, and spotting the blonde at a table by himself that said spiky haired teen left his friends and made his way over to Naruto.

Standing just to the side of the table, Sasuke looked down at the blonde as he seemed to be drawing something. "So, this is what you do all day in class, no wonder you're failing."

Naruto had been minding his own business, drawing and eating his lunch when the person he dreaded most approached him. It wasn’t that he was afraid of Sasuke, but he really just wanted to be left alone.

“What’s it to you?” Naruto growled, leaning back in his chair. “What do you want?”

Sasuke sat himself down across from the blonde and continued to scrutinize the boy's drawing. "You know, Itachi's getting really fed up with you never doing your homework and being a failure in general. Guess who he complains to when you’re causing him stress? Really, guess."

“He rants about me?” Naruto glanced up for a moment before returning his gaze to the drawing, his brows furrowed. He tried his best to keep his expression normal but his stomach was churning, an unfamiliar tightness in his chest.

"That's what I just said, moron." Sasuke leaned back in his chair and looked at the blonde boy. "You should just quit school, why even bother coming? Save yourself the embarrassment of being denied a diploma." With that, the young raven stood up and headed back to his friends after grabbing Naruto's drawing right out from under his hand.

Naruto had asked himself that question many times. If he were honest, one of the main reasons was because he liked attending his World History class, just so he could be near Itachi. But, it seemed that didn’t matter now. Did Itachi really complain about him? Did he really think about him that way? There was no reason for Sasuke to lie since he didn’t know about his attraction to the older man.

The bell rang, but he didn’t move. He wasn’t in the mood to go back to class now. After twenty minutes or so, he pulled himself from the chair and threw out his garbage before leaving. He had nowhere to go, didn’t want to head home, so he started walking the empty halls, lost in thought.

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Itachi had just finished his lunch and stepped out of his class for a moment to head to the restroom. He had a free period and therefore had no class to teach until the next period.

The raven turned a corner, almost to the bathroom when he saw Naruto wandering around the halls. Of course he knew Naruto had class so the only reasonable thing to do was to tell him to head in that direction. But, he knew that the blonde probably wanted nothing to do with school for the time being.

He approached Naruto either way and just looked at the boy once the blonde caught sight of him. "If you’re planning on skipping your classes, you might want to physically leave the school or someone will just make you go to class."

The young blond almost groaned out loud. It was just his luck to run into Itachi. His face hardened as he looked at him, anger and hurt reverberating throughout his entire body. Right then, he wished he were somewhere else; anywhere but there, standing in the empty hallway with the older man.

“Okay,” he ground out, turning around to head to the nearest exit.

Itachi reached out and grabbed the boy's arm. "I was kidding. Although I'm sure you'd rather be anywhere else. Since you don't want to go to class, do you mind keeping me company while I grade papers?" He smiled at the blonde, that smile that seemed to be reserved only for Naruto as of late.

He tensed when Itachi touched him but stopped. His mind was screaming at him to say no, that everything that had happened yesterday had been a mistake; that he shouldn’t get involved anymore. Despite himself, he nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He silently cursed himself for being so weak around the other as he followed him back to the classroom.

Itachi closed his office door, much like he had the day before but this time; he knew he had to be careful. "So, what happened?" he asked, offering Naruto a seat in front of his desk. "You seemed upset."

Naruto took the offered seat, slouching down with an angry expression marring his normally handsome face. He wasn’t going to tell Itachi what he’d heard, there would be no point; he would probably just lie. “It’s nothing,” Naruto shrugged, refusing to meet the older man’s gaze.

Itachi fluidly slid his reading glasses back on and began reading over papers. "I hope you’re not upset with me about earlier today. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh."

“I don’t care about that,” he murmured as he crossed his arms over his chest, stretching his legs out in front of him. He warily wished he had brought his bag with him so that he’d have something to do. As it was, he couldn’t help his angry blue gaze from raking over the other. Even though he was pretty upset with him, he couldn’t help being affected by the close proximity.

"Then what is it? I know your anger is toward me." He stopped grading to look up at the blonde. The anger was clear in the blue eyes. "What did I do?" Pleading was in his eyes and he couldn't help but feel lost in not knowing what he could have possibly done to upset the boy. He had seemed perfectly fine yesterday. Maybe that was it; maybe the blonde was having second thoughts about what they did... That could be a huge problem if the boy decided to take action against him and tell another student, or another teacher for that matter... Fuck.

“Just something I heard,” he shrugged again. “It’s not a big deal.” He really didn’t want to get into it. He was afraid Itachi would tell him it was true, that he thinks of him as nothing but a failure, an annoyance.

Itachi raised an eyebrow, already having a suspicion. "I'd like to know what you heard." he said with barely any emotion in his voice, he didn't want to jump to conclusions and didn't want to show Naruto how situations like these could affect him so easily.

Naruto was silent for a few minutes, mulling it over. He didn’t want to tell him but he didn’t feel like he had a choice in the matter. He sighed, raking a shaky hand through blond locks before deciding to just come out with it. “That you’re fed up with me because I’m such a failure,” he murmured, his voice low. “Not that I can really blame you for thinking that.”

Itachi wanted to get up, storm out of his classroom and find out where the hell his brother was so he could smack some sense into him. God for all the things Sasuke's done to others, this took the cake. He knew it was Sasuke because no one else knew about his home life except for Sasuke who, unfortunately, Itachi had sole custody of.

Instead, he took a deep breath and stood up. He rounded his desk pulled Naruto to his feet before wrapping his arms around the boy in an embrace. "I would never think that of you. I know how smart you are and believe it or not, I would never give up on you." He felt a sadness take over him at what Naruto must have felt when Sasuke had spoken to him. "Don't listen to what anyone says about me concerning you. All they want to do is hurt you." He purposefully left out Sasuke's name, not wanting to literally bring the dumbass into the situation. That could be saved for when he got home.

Naruto’s body melted in Itachi’s arms, and even though he didn’t fully believe everything he said, he felt himself responding to the other before he could give it a second thought. His arms moved to Itachi’s chest before sliding up and around his neck, his forehead resting where his hands had just been. He was still angry, hurt, but the worst of it had passed for now.

Itachi’s arms tightened around the blonde when he felt Naruto's arms encircle his neck. He pressed his lips against the golden locks on Naruto's head before pulling back to look at the boy. "I really can't stand to see you like this. Please believe me; I would never purposefully hurt you. Why would I lie to you?"

The blond shivered at the quiet concern in Itachi’s dark eyes. He didn’t know what to say. What could he say? That he had assumed Itachi had lied because he didn’t trust anyone? The older man probably knew that anyway. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Why wouldn’t you lie to me?”

Itachi felt like a knife had just stabbed him at the blonde's question. What this kid had been put through in life, he could only guess. "Because I care enough about you not too." He brought Naruto against him once more before speaking again. "I know it’s hard to trust people when they don't return the favor, but please, just let me have it if nothing else. I know you can't give it to me now, but I really hope you can soon."
He had to admit he was afraid for Naruto. As well as having his teaching credentials and a Bachelors degree in child development, he also had a bachelors in child psychology and knew that this level of depression in teenagers could ultimately lead to suicide. He knew that Naruto wasn't suicidal, or he thought he did, but situations could always get worse.

"Why don't I take you home ok? I don't want you to have to be here right now if you don't want to." He pulled away from Naruto and looked at the boy once more. "Don't forget that you can call me whenever you need too. Don't think you'll be bothering me."

The words...the touch...everything was soothing to him and his arms tightened around Itachi. He so very much wanted to trust the older man but didn’t know if he could.

He didn’t really want to go home, where he would be alone, but there was no point in his staying at school since he wasn’t going to his other classes. “Okay,” he sighed, not really wanting to leave the warmth of the other’s arms.

Itachi nodded and then had a thought. "Go wait out by my car." He handed Naruto a pass. "Here, in case anyone stops you." With that the raven quickly headed out of the office and up to the main school office to request his urgency to leave for the day due to an emergency.

Doing as asked, the blond held the pass in his hand as he moved to his locker to grab his bag. After, he made his way outside and leaned against Itachi’s car as he waited for him.

It didn't take long for the raven to get permission to leave from the principal and headed out to his car. He made his way over to where Naruto stood and silently unlocked the doors and got in.

Itachi watched as Naruto slid in as well and soon started the car and exited the parking lot, heading to Naruto's apartment. Throughout the drive he was figuring out how to explain his sudden leave to Sasuke if the brat asked later that night, but hopefully, if all went well, he would be calling Sasuke and telling him to take care of himself for the night.

Naruto had no idea where Itachi had gone but didn’t ask. He was glad he didn’t live far from the school; it was difficult being in the small confines of the car with the older man. When they pulled up in front of the apartment complex, he reached for his bag to find his keys so he could get in.

Itachi said nothing, just turned the ignition off and waited for Naruto to open his door before speaking. "I can come in with you if you want. I don't think you really want to be alone and frankly, I don't think it's a good idea for you to be alone right now." This went way beyond his lust. Itachi was concerned for the boy's safety at this point.

Naruto turned to look at Itachi with wide eyes. “You wanna come in? But...my apartment is a wreck and... Don’t you have classes?” It was true that he didn’t want to be alone; he could definitely use the company, although he was afraid of Itachi seeing the sorry state of where he lived. “Okay,” he nodded, having decided.

Itachi smiled and got out of the car, following Naruto up the short flight of stairs to his apartment on the second floor. "Can I ask you something Naruto?"

“Yeah,” he murmured as he fumbled with the keys for a moment before unlocking the door. Taking a deep breath, he opened it to let them inside.

Itachi stepped in and couldn’t blame Naruto for not wanting Itachi to see his apartment. It looked like the place hadn't seen a good mop in a while. "Why do you live alone; and how do you live alone? You're not even eighteen yet." He gingerly sat on the couch, not really wanting to know where the blonde got it from.

“My parents died,” he explained as he closed the door and locked it. “I guess they had some kinda insurance and a lot of money was left to me. I get enough money every month to pay my rent.” Dropping his bag on the ground, he toed off his shoes and moved into the living room, plopping down on the couch beside Itachi.

"Wouldn't the courts have taken you into foster care?" He wasn't meaning to pry, but this was his area of expertise as well as teaching. He unconsciously moved closer to the boy sitting next to him, trying to radiate support and comfort.

“My uncle got custody of me. He travels a lot since he’s an author but he checks in with me whenever he can.” Leaning back into the cushions, Naruto stretched his legs out and propped his feet up on the coffee table. He had never really told anyone about his life and he didn’t know why he was telling Itachi now, but surprisingly, he didn’t mind it.

Itachi nodded. "My parents died when I was 16, Sasuke was only 10. Our uncle took us in as well, but that didn't turn out very well. I ended up fighting for custody for Sasuke once I turned eighteen." He caught the look Naruto gave him at the mention of his brother. "Sorry." he said with a small smile of apology.

“It’s fine,” Naruto shrugged. He didn’t like hearing about Sasuke, but he could deal with it. He was glad for the company. He pulled his legs up under his body and glanced over at Itachi. It was weird having him in his dingy apartment; he seemed to light up the place.

They sat in silence for a while before Itachi spoke again. "I'd like to stay the night, if that's ok with you. I don't think I could stand to be by myself all the time." He saw a glimmer of something pass over the boy's face at his suggestion. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to do. I don’t even have to stay... but I'd like to."

Naruto almost gaped. Was he serious? He glanced over at Itachi and noted that the look on his face was quite serious. “Yeah, I’d...like that,” he murmured after a few moments, his cheeks flushing slightly with the admission.

Itachi mentally relaxed a bit and smiled before pulling the blond against him as he wrapped his arms around the boy's waist. "I want you to let me know at anytime if you want me to back off. Even at school, I don't want you to think that I'm hovering or trying to be controlling. That's the last thing I want to be to you." He ran his fingers through golden locks and wanted nothing more than to just kiss the blonde.

“Okay,” he murmured as he felt his body melting under Itachi’s touch. A sigh escaped him as the older man touched his hair; something that he found relaxed him greatly. He leaned his weight fully against the other, just enjoying the soothing motions.

The long haired man caressed the side of the blonde's face with his fingertips before lifting Naruto's head to gently claim the boy's lips. He couldn't hold back anymore and had to taste the blonde again. He pulled back after a few seconds and stared deep into the blue eyes that belonged to his student. "I know it’s hard, but... give me a chance to prove that you can trust me."

Naruto hummed in contentment against Itachi’s lips, pressing his own back. He had been thinking about it all night; the older man’s kisses were like drugs. He didn’t think he would ever get sick of them. He stared back into the other’s dark pools, his own wavering as he nodded.

TBC

Trust has been established!!! Or has begun too at least XD and for the record there will be no SasuNaru in this… Sasuke is always going to hate Naruto for whatever reason.

Review please!!!