Where is God?

“Where is God?”
By: Innerchild

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and co.

Pairings: main Sasuke and Naruto
Others

Warning: I am not Christian, but that doesn’t mean I’m against anyone who is. I’m not here to bash anyone’s religion and if I cause offense in the story, then it’s my opinion. Everything in this chapter is true, except for my own personal view on SOME churches and SOME Christians. If you have any questions though, then ask away. I’m sorry if anyone gets offended, but I warned you.

Oh, and Sasuke acts OOC in this part, but you’ll get over it.

“Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but—live for it.”

-Charles Caleb Colton

Chapter three
Open Fire

Naruto quickly turned off the music and made sure he didn’t have any hickies on his neck. He hadn’t bothered to look in the mirror of the bathroom, but was glad that he had one in his room. To his horror though, a small red mark was starting to show on the side of his neck. He pulled the collar of his shirt up a little and tried to hide it. It would work for the time being, but he would have to do something later on to cover up.

He wondered briefly if the girl Sakura down the hall had any make-up he could borrow. She would probably think he was a drag queen, but he could worry about that later.

Sasuke had moved to sit in the computer chair, his eyes resting on the blonde to see what he would do. He didn’t want to get Naruto in trouble, especially after hearing that his family was extremely religious. He didn’t even have to ask the blonde to know that his parent’s did not know about his sexual preferences.

The door opened to Naruto’s room and the blonde stopped raking his fingers through his hair to look over at his Mom.

“Sweetie, you didn’t tell me that you were bringing a friend over. If I had known I would have been home sooner.” She told him.

Naruto just scratched the back of his head, giving her a small smile.

“I didn’t really know about it either. We got assigned as partner’s in English for a project and we thought we should go ahead and get started on it.” He lied through his teeth. Sasuke smiled inwardly as he watched the blonde woman, who looked almost exactly like Naruto, smile back at him. Did she actually believe him? That was a horrible lie. All you had to do was look around the room to see that they weren’t doing anything but sitting. No notebooks opened, no pens and pencils littering the bed, no word document opened on the computer or website. Nothing that indicated that they were at work on a school project.

“Okay. Well, if you two need anything just tell me. And why don’t you have your friend stay for dinner.” It wasn’t a question and both boys knew it. Sasuke just nodded his head as Naruto gave another weak smile before she left, leaving the door slightly ajar enough to fit an arm in.

Naruto closed the door and sighed, running his hands over his face in frustration.

“Man… this is going to be awkward.”

XXXXX

Awkward was an understatement. When everyone sat down for dinner, Naruto’s father tried to pull Sasuke into conversation about what his parent’s did, where he lived, if he went to church, and finally, what he thought about the new bill that was trying to be passed.

Sasuke answered most of his questions with a yes sir, until he was asked about his family. All he said was that he lived with his aunt and left it at that. When he was asked the last question, he made the mistake of saying that he didn’t really care either way. Which was a lie… one that he hated to tell.

That set Naruto’s father off into his sermon about what was right and wrong in God’s eye. How it was an outrage to Christians and the country alike. Naruto had never seen his father this adamant about anything before, and wondered momentarily if this was how he looked when he was trying to convince people outside of the church to sign that damn petition.

Sasuke was lost in the feeling of Naruto’s discomfort. He couldn’t say that he felt welcome or at ease in the blonde’s home, but he didn’t feel trapped or confused like the older man sitting across from him probably wanted him to. He did, however feel slightly guilty about what just happened on the blonde’s bed. But the more his father talked, the less guilty he felt, even feeling slightly smug at the thought of “violating” the church goers son.

He had also known about the bill and had felt that it was something that should have been passed years ago. Not just because of his own feelings for the same sex, but because he knew what it felt like to be parentless. It didn’t matter if someone liked or was with the same sex when it came to giving someone an opportunity to feel wanted and be wanted. What mattered was that someone loved the kids that didn’t have a family, gave them a home, a reason to be happy, and a place where they felt like they belonged.

So many kids had the opportunity to be happy if they could be adopted. And yet people who were afraid of homosexuality or thought that it was ungodly, wanted to take that away from these kids. It wasn’t fair. It was cruel. It was decisions like these that were intolerable, not two men or two women loving one another.

Sasuke remembered why he didn’t go to church now. Even though his family had not forced him into it, he had tried it once. Just to see if he felt the same thing that his old friends had talked about feeling when they were listening to a sermon or praying.

He hadn’t felt anything. At least nothing spiritual.

But the few people that looked at him gave him the feeling of being sized up and judged. Especially when the preacher stared at him as if he knew what he did behind closed doors. He had walked out before the sermon was over, and had never stepped foot in a church since then. Sasuke didn’t dislike someone if they believed in God, it was only when they started to preach and or judge him for his way of life that he started to have a problem with it. He did not like having someone press his or her religion on him.

And right now, he did not like Naruto’s father. His mother he could tolerate, even though he thought she looked like the family dog that obeyed its Master’s every command each time she bowed her head in a nod. He didn’t want to get on their bad side, though.

However, he didn’t feel like keeping his opinions to himself after hearing the dirty haired blonde say that gays were sick and perverted people who couldn’t be trusted with children. And that they had the choice in whether or not they loved and or slept with the same sex.

“Homosexuality is not some kind of sickness. It’s hereditary. They found the gene back in 1989. Anyone who says that they can change their mind about their choice is a fool. It’s like deciding that after being mentally challenged all your life, you suddenly say you don’t want to be. And there are just as many cases of sexual abuse towards the opposite sex of the abuser as there is of the same sex.” Sasuke said, his long monologue surprising himself. He usually didn’t like to talk, but if you got him on a subject he really cared about, then there was no stopping him. He could go on all night until the other person was either speechless or in agreement with him.

Sasuke’s speech had stunned Naruto’s family, even the blonde boy himself. But Naruto’s father wasn’t giving up yet. He pushed his glasses further up his nose before returning to the argument.

“If they’re not perverts, then why are most men in jail rapping each other?”

“Rape is not an act of sex. It’s a show of control, and thinking that gay men only screw each other in the butt is a common misconception. Some gay men don’t even do that.”

Naruto’s Mom coughed in an embarrassed manner. Everyone looked towards her.

“Would anyone like dessert?”

No one answered, but she stood up and went into the kitchen anyway.

“It’s still an unhealthy environment for children to grow up in. It will make them biased towards the heterosexual community and Christians. They might be recruited into being gay because it’s all they know. They won’t know the difference between being gay and wrong, or being straight and right.”

Sasuke actually snorted, making the older man narrow his eyes.

“Are you saying that every married couple that stays together for their kids even though all they do is fight is a healthy environment for a child to grow up in? Or that a single parent household where the mother or father is never home because all they do is work is good for them? Or a parent that has to pull their kid out of school and let them fail classes because they’re being taken out early so that their mother or father can go to work is healthy? What about households that have to have their kids get jobs at young ages so that they can support themselves or their families? Is that healthy for a child to grow up in?” Sasuke asked with bitterness in his voice. He wasn’t stupid or unaware of the things going around him, which is pretty much what Naruto’s father had thought. Hoping that he could use that against him.

Sasuke was like an open fire now. Anything you feed him made it grow more and consume anything in its path.

“And thinking that kids will be recruited is the most retarded thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t force someone to be gay or straight. That’s like telling someone their black all their life when their skin is white. It still doesn’t change your genetics. And being biased? You’re trying to make me partial towards gays by telling me things that aren’t true. Most homophobic men and women make their children racist or prejudiced all the time. But you don’t see a problem with that, do you?” He practically sneered at him.

Naruto’s father was almost white in the face. He didn’t answer any of those questions… because he didn’t know how too. He just didn’t have an answer for them, because no one had ever really been in disagreement with him.

Sasuke leaned in closer, liking the switch in roles once again. He really didn’t like this man and he wanted to make him squirm more.

“Did you know that if one woman has a child from a surrogate father and raises that child with another woman, if something happens to her, her partner can’t take custody of that kid and he or she could be sent off to an orphanage. And most families won’t help out, because they’re like you. Prejudiced. They think it’s disgusting or ungodly. Well, who are we to say what’s god like and what’s not? You take everything from the bible so literal, when it’s a book of stories. Everyone gets something different from it. It’s been translated, interpreted, and had chapters removed throughout the years that it might not even be the real word of god… but most people don’t even think about that. They just listen. They just obey. Without a thought. It’s sad really… they’re almost like zombies.”

Silence and then,

Are you?”

“Okay, who wants apple pie?” Naruto’s mother asked as she came back into the room, completely missing the heavy tension in the room.

“OUT!”

The blonde man stood up and towered over Sasuke with his hands balled up into fists on the table.

“GET OUT, NOW!” He bellowed at the Uchiha. Sasuke got up slowly and went to go get his bag in an unhurried manner, not even paying attention to the man as he yelled over and over again. He simply took his time and gave Naruto a sympathetic look as his father yelled at the blonde to never see him again.

Naruto looked up at Sasuke and watched him leave his apartment, the door closing quietly behind him.

XXXXX

Sakura was just coming up from the front desk of the complex, swearing lowly to herself at the inopportune time for the air conditioner to break down. The manager said that he would have to get someone to look at it tomorrow, since other tenants had been complaining about the same thing. And it was freaking 85 degrees in her apartment!

As she stepped out of the elevator and onto her floor, she saw someone walking towards her. She had never seen them before, and had even thought at first glance that they were a girl. She honestly couldn’t tell if it was a girl that may like to dress up like a guy or if it was an actual guy.

Either way… pretty boy or hot girl.

They stepped past her and got into the elevator that she had just gotten out of. Sakura shrugged her shoulders and went back to her door, dreading the idea of how her dad was going to react when he came home tonight. If he came home, that is.

XXXXX

A few hours later, and Sakura was still by herself. Three fans were running in the apartment, making it slightly less hot. But she was still sweating like crazy, even in a tank top and shorts.

A knock came at the door, and Sakura put down the glass of water to peek through the peephole. She frowned slightly, wondering why he was here at this time of night. It was almost twelve. She opened the door.

“Um… hi, Sakura. I know it’s late and everything, but this was the only time I could get out of my place. I was wondering if you could do me a favor.” Naruto said shyly.

Sakura was reminded of her friend Hinata for a moment. She smiled and ushered him in.

“Sorry about the heat, but our stupid air conditioner died a few hours ago. So, what can I help you with?”

A red tint spread across his cheeks as he pulled down the collar of his shirt. Instead of one red mark, there were now two. The little sneaky bastard had been hiding, but they both stood out clearly now.

“I need these covered up. My parents can’t see them or I’m dead.”

Sakura laughed lightly at him. She had a guess at where he got those, but decided to ask him about it first.

“So, where’d you get them from?”

“Uh… a friend.” He answered as she went into the bathroom and pulled out a bag. She grabbed a few things out of there and put them on the counter. Sakura beckoned him with her finger as she looked at the powders and concealers, and then his skin.

“Does this “friend” happen to have black hair and dark eyes?” She asked as she tested a few of them on his skin, trying to get the right color. He was a lot tanner than she was.

“Wha? How’d you know what he looks like?”

“I saw him earlier in the hallway. I actually thought he was a girl… thanks for clearing that up for me.” Sakura told him honestly as she found the right mix and began to work it over the blots on his neck.

Naruto laughed at that.

“I’ll have to tell him that later.”

After covering up the nice bite marks on the blonde’s neck, Sakura gave him both concealers that she used and told him how to use them.

“Thanks a lot. You don’t know how much you just saved my sorry ass.” He said with a grin.

Sakura just smiled at him and told him anytime. She really did like him. He was fun to talk to, and was refreshing next to a bunch of stuck up rich girls.

“Hey, if you ever need help with dressing in drag, just tell me. I’d love to help out with that. You’d make a pretty girl.” She teased him, only half joking.

He would actually make a pretty girl… if he had long hair. Maybe put them into pig tails…

Naruto laughed at that and then left. He actually thought that he might want to try that sometime. Who knows, he might like dressing up like a girl.

XXXXX

The weekend was long. Naruto usually wouldn’t mind, but he really felt like getting out of the house. And do more than just go to church. He hated going, but he couldn’t just skip out on it. And his mom could always tell if he was faking being sick. So that was out of the question.

The main reason he didn’t want to go was because he knew the topic about the bill was going to come up. And he didn’t want to know about the progress.

So, as usual, he got up at eight o’clock in the morning on Sunday. He went through his usual routine and took a look at his bed for a few minutes. He could still picture Sasuke lying down on it. For some reason, he really wanted to see him. And not because he liked screwing around with him, even though he had never really done that before with another boy other than Neji. The idea of being fuck buddies was new and he had to admit it thrilled him.

But what he really wanted at that moment was to be with him and talk to him.

He thought the boy was of very few words, until a couple days ago at the dinner table. He had never seen someone get so angry. Naruto could understand though. He wished he could have been the one to say those things. It wasn’t that he was a coward and couldn’t stand up to his own parents. But damn, if they found out or if he said something like that, it would be pretty much the same response. Yelling at him to get out of the house would be the least of his problems. He would be completely disowned from his entire family.

Except… for his uncle. His uncle was the black sheep in the family. He didn’t fit in anywhere. He had stopped going to church when he graduated high school, didn’t go to college, never been married, and wrote porn for a living.

Not the kind of things you did in Naruto’s family if you still wanted to be considered apart of it.

Naruto had not seen him in a long time though. All he remembered about him was his white hair and that he was his mother’s older brother. They were almost sixteen years apart and shared a different father. Even though divorce wasn’t looked very nicely upon in his family either, it was still there. Just most of the participants were dead, so it’s not like the family could criticize them that much anymore.

Even though they still did.

His mother’s voice came from the other side of his door. He took one last look at his bed and sighed to himself before walking out into the living room.

XXXXX

While everyone closed their eyes and lowered their heads, Naruto looked around at the oh so familiar surroundings. Tall painted windows that ran down from the top floor to the bottom one, bathing the marble floors in shades of blue and pink. Over extravagant golden chandeliers that had a few burnt out light bulbs mixed in with hundreds of others that still glowed too brightly for his liking hung over the middle of the church floor. There were long rowed pews on the first floor beneath the balcony he was sitting in; the seats filled with people, some of them gaping in long stretches as fewer people came each Sunday. The choir dressed in their dark maroon robes with a hymnbook on their lap sat on their chair, which stood on slightly raised stairs of the stage. Two pianos sat on either side of the stage, large silver organ pipes raising up on the walls, and of course the organ itself on the back wall behind the choir. All these things surrounding the hefty cross hanging on the wall, a scarf of purple draped over it.

And last, the preacher standing at the podium, a bulky bible that looked overused sitting in front of him as he prayed. The prayer came to an end without Naruto noticing until he saw a wave of heads lift up.

The preacher went on with a few announcements about some missionaries that belonged to their church overseas, along with some things about meetings, Teens for Christ on Wednesday being pushed up an hour early, and then the update on the progress of the church’s petition against the new bill.

“So far we’ve got nearly one hundred and fifty signatures, and Kazuma Uzumaki and Mike Klien say that they can probably have twice as many within the next two weeks before the bill is sent to the Senate.”

A few people started to clap, Naruto’s mom jabbing him in the side to make sure he was paying attention. He didn’t clap. He pretended to daydream until everyone was done clapping, making his mom look at him disapprovingly. Crap, he was probably gonna get in trouble for that later.

He had a feeling that his mom was suspicious about him after that whole fiasco with Sasuke the other night. Naruto knew she didn’t think he was gay, but that he was probably doing something that would get him into a world of trouble. He just hoped she wouldn’t call the school or try to get into contact with Sasuke’s aunt.

Two women gossiping together usually spelled trouble. Especially with his mother. All she did was gossip with neighbors. He had actually found out yesterday that she had been meddling in Sakura’s business, finding out that she lived alone with her father, who was now out of a job and almost never home.

He felt bad for the girl, even though he had just met her. He liked her and felt like he could become good friends with her if they spent more time together. But after his mother found out that the girl was left alone a lot, he wouldn’t be able to go over to her apartment much. Probably never, unless he snuck out after they went to bed like he did on Friday night.

His mother didn’t trust him. She always told him she did, but he knew otherwise. Sometimes he’d come home and find some of his things missing or in different places than before in his room, meaning that one of his parent’s had gone through his stuff. And who had all that time on their hands? The only person that stayed home during the day like the good wife she was.

Sometimes he didn’t feel close to his parents at all. It had to due largely with the fact that he was keeping such a big secret from them, but there were things that had started happening before he had even found that out that caused it as well. He had grown busier over the years, along with his father, and his mom was used to being alone or with her friends from church, which left them little time to spend time with one another. The only time they ever really spent any time together was in church or at the dinner table.

At church they were seen as one of the best families. They were nice, clean, there every Sunday and Wednesday, always participated in fundraisers and activities, and gave a good bit of money every chance they got. Naruto and his family weren’t rich, but they were definitely well off. The only reason they were living in an apartment for the last few years was because his father made all the decisions about how they spent his money.
After having Naruto, all they could afford was a smaller apartment than the one they were living in now. His mother hadn’t been all that young when she had him either, meaning that they stopped trying having kids soon after, not wanting to have any complications for her or the baby.

After a few years of living in the dingy place, they had moved into the place they live in now. It really wasn’t that bad of a place. It was for the middle class and was in walking distance of almost everywhere. Naruto’s school, the church they had been going to for the last sixteen years, grocery store, and the shops and galleries a little further in downtown.

The main thing was, his dad didn’t see a need to move into a house since they didn’t have any pets or more kids. The three-room apartment was good enough for them, and it saved them a lot of money to spend on other crap.

Like helping to add onto the church. The church itself had been small when they had first started going here, but after years of saving money and having rich contributors, the new Sanctuary had been built. The building now used for the youth minister and the teens had been the old sanctuary, and had enough room for Sunday school and Wednesday nights. It was perfect.

Except to Naruto.

He had never liked big places. Usually because they tended to need more work, more color, more everything to put life into it. The church held no life in it, not even when music was blaring from pipes or from the mouths of the choir. It still felt empty even when it was filled with hundreds of people.

He always felt lost and out of place in there. Every Sunday and Wednesday.

Right now though, he felt even more out of place. He didn’t believe in God. He didn’t believe in the Holy Spirit or anything that the preacher told them... even though he tried desperately. It bothered him sometimes that he didn’t believe, especially when he used to be a Christian. It hadn’t even been that long ago that he had prayed before he went to bed and asked god for forgiveness. But all of that had changed when he started to question things. And when all he got were more questions than answers in return… he started to doubt everything. Now, he was just lost. Naruto still didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

He also didn’t like the preacher. The man was aloof, almost never at fundraisers, always shoving his family up on stage to do songs or play important roles in plays, and hardly there. He was like the boss of a very prosperous business. Always talked about, but rarely seen.

Naruto thought that the man just liked to hear himself speak and make bad jokes at the podium. Other than that, it was like the man was a ghost. He gave Naruto the creeps, especially when he looked at him while talking about the sins of the flesh. It was like he knew something.

Naruto’s mother was standing up, making him shake out of his thoughts and join the real world. He stood up and they went down the stairs to have small talk with other members of the church before they left.

XXXXX

The car ride home usually only took them about five minutes with stoplights and traffic, but today it seemed to drag on. He wished his parents would just let him walk, but they didn’t want him too, knowing that it might not look right.

His mother was talking about the sermon and how good it was today. Almost better than last Sunday’s, when the youth minister had taken his first time up on the stage.

“Naruto? Were you thinking about something during church? You seemed awfully distracted when Pastor Martin was talking about Wednesday night. I thought you loved going on Wednesdays.” She said. Naruto could hear the guilt she was trying to place on him because he had not gone last Wednesday. He had had too much homework and studying to do.

“I was just thinking about what he was saying during the sermon, and how true it was.” He answered automatically.

“Oh, all right. Anyway, do you want to go with me tonight? We’re having a meeting about some out of town missionary trips. I think it would be good if you went with me this coming weekend to Charlotte. We’re going to one of the shopping malls to talk to people, hand out some bibles, and have a small charity performance for future trips.”

“Isn’t that for the adults though? I thought I was going with the youth group to Greensboro in a few months?” He said unsurely. He didn’t want to go to either, but he’d rather be with some kids who were kind of like him than be with a bunch of old people who sat under a white tent in the mall, put up signs, but didn’t go up to random people to talk to them and still call it an Outreach Mission.

At least the teenagers went up to pretty much anyone and asked away. He thought he would have been annoyed to do that, but sometimes it was fun to just see what someone would say. He had actually come across one guy who had spoken perfect English to him before he asked if he was a Christian, then saying he didn’t speak any English and ran off with his family.

“Well, it is, but you can still come if you want to. I know Mary Ann’s daughter is going.”

Ah ha! So that’s why she wanted him to go. Mary Ann had a daughter that was about his age, and the two mothers and been conspiring to get them together for as long as he could remember. The woman’s daughter wasn’t ugly, that was for sure, but she could be a real bitch. She and Naruto had not gotten along the first time they met, and yet his mother kept on trying to push her on him.

It was getting really annoying by now.

“I can’t anyway. I promised to give a demonstration with Mr. G’s class this Saturday. Remember?”

“Oh, yes. Silly me, I forgot. And I wish you would call him by his whole name.”

Naruto just smiled to himself as he managed to get out of it. And at the fact that they were pulling into a parking space at their building. He just wished that tomorrow would start already.

XXXXX

Mondays were usually the worst day out of the week. For anyone. But for some reason, Sasuke was having an “okay” day. He wouldn’t go as far to say that he enjoyed it, because that would just be wrong for any morose teenager like himself to say.

As he walked into the gym, he headed straight for the locker room, noticing that the guy who had messed with him on Friday was giving him a dirty look. Sasuke just smirked at him and kept on walking.

The locker room was almost cleared out. There were a few guys tying up their laces on the benches, but other than that, he was by himself. Or so he thought.

As he opened his locker and pulled out his change of clothes, he saw the blonde boy he had been thinking about all weekend walking away from his locker. Sasuke went around on his side and walked down the other aisle of lockers to reach him. He grabbed him by his wrist and pushed him up against a few lockers that needed to be repainted badly.

“What the?” Naruto said before he saw that it was Sasuke. He felt kind of relieved to see him, even though he was currently being pushed up against something that was hurting his back. Something that felt distinctly like a lock.

“Did I get you into trouble?” The black haired boy asked as he ran his tongue up the blonde’s neck.

“Not really.” He said with a sigh. His arms came to rest on the other boy’s waist, pulling him slightly closer as he continued to kiss down his neck. Naruto’s eyes closed as a pair of lips met his own. The kiss was rough, just like it had been a few days ago. But the blonde didn’t mind. He parted his lips more as a wet tongue pressed against his own almost urgently. Sasuke’s hands wandered over his hips and played with the waistband of the blonde’s black gym shorts.

Just as one of those hands was about to venture down Naruto’s shorts, a voice sounded next to the two entangled boys.

“Glad to see you’re playing nice with the new kid, Naruto, but Shikamaru says that he needs to talk to you.”

XXXXX

This actually happened to me when I was like thirteen, the whole Hispanic guy pretending not to speak English. Yes, I used to be a Christian, but now… I guess you could say I’m searching. I do believe in a higher power, meaning I’m agnostic, but I don’t know what it is yet. Hopefully I’ll find it though. And no matter how much I read up on government, I’ll never understand it. If anyone knows a thing about it, PLEASE tell me. I might not get it at first, but if you have any patience then you might get something into my head! And hell, I don’t know if Naruto’s dad should have an American name or what, but whatever. Just so you know that the Yondaime is not his father… cause I wouldn’t turn him into a prick like naru’s dad is gonna be in this!

And I wanted to say thanks to everyone who reviewed, it really means a lot to me. I posted this story on another site and I’ve barely gotten any reviews… so, if I had some Sasuke and Naruto plushies, then I’d give them to you guys, cause you all rock!

Oh yeah, review if you want more! I’m a review whore and they make me update faster… hehehe…