Dentes

November 16, 2005

When the first jolt of pain and shock sliced through his body like a white hot whiplash, Naruto’s free hand, the one that hadn’t burst into flames and shattered into millions of unidentifiable pieces, was tugging at the cold restraint pressing against his neck, curses spewing from his lips like magma from a violent volcano. His legs thrashed and met immobile targets, and what felt like his entire ride side was pinned to the bed with a sickening paralysis.

It wasn’t like the first bite had hurt all that much. For a few long seconds following a sharp gasp of pain, Sasuke had settled for keeping his jaw and lips tight over the patch of his arm, and although it made him all the more queasy just thinking about it, he knew those dagger-like fangs protruding from him gums where normal teeth were supposed to grow were embedded deeply into the skin.

However, when Sasuke gave a harsh suck and groaned, when a shinning pearl drop of blood blossomed at the corner of pale lips and trailed down an equally white chin, Naruto cried out from the agony of it, feet stopping their useless thrashes and beginning to scrabble along the bed for some kind of purchase, his body inching this way and that but never getting any farther as Sasuke continued to suck the blood from his arm. Naruto caught sight of his captor’s throat and saw it bob with every fervent wave of pain that left the blond shaking and he moaned, eyes shutting and teeth clenching. His stomach was revolting against the rest of his body and was trying to claw its way out by way of his throat, and Naruto was beginning to think it was going to win. He tried to swallow against it, but Sasuke was practically purring as he drank, no, gulped down his blood, and the thought of swallowing anything made him want to gag. His whole right arm was shaking and his fingers felt numb. His breath caught in his throat time after time; Sasuke seemed to have stopped keeping tabs on the strength he was exerting and Naruto couldn’t decide what he was going to die of first, blood loss or suffocation.

Naruto moaned again, this time only to drown out Sasuke’s noises and the sickening slurps, the feel of a wet and rough tongue moving over his skin, those teeth dipping out a bit and then pushing in further, as if they had hit a dry patch and were trying to find a better angle. His eyes were partially open and staring at the ceiling, and his muscles liquefied until all he could do was try and breath, try and ignore the vampire

--vampire, vampire, is that what it is, is that what this thing is--

until he finished.

And he did, some time later, when the great sucks and gulps turned to small sips and tiny, electrifying stabs of brutal pain. Then the fangs began to retract, and a whole different agonizing torture set in. Naruto almost wished the teeth would sink back in, just to avoid any more pain, but when they were gone the blond relaxed even further into a slump. He hadn’t noticed it, but now he felt Sasuke’s fingers, warm in his grip, twining with his own. And he held it back, his grip fragile and weak, his bones feeling chilled. Sasuke’s mouth was warm from fresh blood as he lapped at stinging flesh, jaw moving in a mechanical rhythm, as if he’d done it hundreds of times before and this time was only one more to add onto his routine. Naruto glanced down and immediately wished he hadn’t, whimpering slightly as fresh nausea bubbled in his mutinous stomach. Two bloody, gaping puncture wounds riddled the flesh of his arm, the skin around the holes seeming to be gone completely. Thin trickles of blood continued to fill them, only to be washed away by a greedy tongue seconds later. Like a car crash, Naruto could not help but watch, even though his vision began to blur around the edges. The realization that Sasuke could do anything to him in this weak state and he’d be as equally unable to do anything to prevent it was a dull bother, his mind barely registering it. The moonlight and lamplight flickered like pale ghosts over the bed, and Naruto shivered at the sight.

The hand that had been clutching his throat now moved to gently rub his sore right shoulder before roving once over his chest, dipping over his lax left arm to snake under his back, gripping him in a half-hug. Sasuke was kissing his arm now, slowly, licking every now and then. He traveled to hollow that was opposite his elbow, then up and up until he met the edge of Naruto’s shirt sleeve. Nudging it aside with his nose he continued to trail shocking heat to his shoulder. He felt like the whole entire world was spinning on its axis. The dizziness he felt was reminiscent of the kind he’d always endured for a day or so after he’d donated blood to the Red Cross. But then, he wasn’t pinned down to a bed and assaulted by what could only be described as a vampire. Back then, he was given a glass of orange juice from a cartoon Sasuke had kept in the trunk for him, driven home by Sasuke, made to lay down on the couch by Sasuke, endured a short wait while Sasuke quickly made him a stir fry dinner out of whatever red meat they had in the fridge, held by Sasuke as they watched whatever Naruto wanted on the television, thought of the wistful look in Sasuke’s eyes that told him he wanted to donate that day as well, the firm set of his mouth that told the story of how he’d wait until the next time so that he could spend today making sure Naruto got home safe, ate well, went to bed early, drank plenty of fluids….

“Sasuke,” Naruto whispered, eyes burning, even though the rest of his skin felt cold. The vampire had taken his head out of Naruto’s shirt so that he could place kiss after sweltering kiss on his neck, sucking constantly, groaning. The heated hand left Naruto’s grip to entangle in his hair, tugging his head to the side to permit him better access. The arm around his back withdrew so that the hand could trail down his side only to dip under his shirt, heatedly rubbing his stomach.

“Sasuke,” Naruto murmured, eyes narrowed at the ceiling, back arching when nimble fingers found a nipple to pinch. A bold knee stroked along the outside of his thigh before dipping inwards and parting Naruto’s legs. A firm, warm body slid between them and eager hips met his, pushing, a groan emitting from pale pink lips, red eyes so dark they could have been black, or gray, or--

“Sasuke,” please, find me, were the words left unsaid as lips crashed into his in sync with the brutal force grinding into his pelvis.

Sasuke, come find me, please, I don’t want to be here anymore, please

They kissed frantically, one with smug victory in every swipe of his tongue, in every sharp nip to kiss-reddened lips, one with a mind so deranged he didn’t care who this was, only that the style and the shape of the mouth was so familiar, so damned warm, and sense had completely left the room. Now all that remained was unbridled and soundless passion, mingling with the smell of iron in the air. Homesickness, quenched thirst, and hopes that would not stop dying and reforming.

When Sasuke tilted his head and bit down none-too-gently, licking the blood that beaded there, Naruto realized several things. That this was not his Sasuke, that this man was unknotting the drawstring of his pants, and he had to stop this kiss if he ever wanted to get a word n edge-wise because, judging by the jelly-like feeling of his bones, physical resistance would get him nowhere.

Can’t bite, it won’t hurt him, he has my head pinned, if he could stop moving, stop biting, I’d be fine, I’d tell him exactly where to go---

Finally, Sasuke moved to press firm kisses along the corner of his mouth, trailing them down so that he could lick along the line of his chin. Naruto spent a precious five seconds learning how to breathe again, but when that lethal mouth started to take the path leading back to his lips he voiced his protests. Loudly.

“KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF!”

Then his free arm, the one with at least a little feeling in it, went up to push at the hollow of Sasuke’s face where the eye was. The raven haired man’s response was to back off by a few inches, but his hand continued its exploration of his chest while the other tried to move his pants down past his hips. Naruto dug his rear into the bed, refusing to move his hips to help. Sasuke groaned and backed away further, kissing at his palm before licking his wrist. Naruto jerked the hand back, the fangs too close to such a vital artery for his comfort.

With his head free, Sasuke dove down lick hungrily at his sternum, one hand keeping the shirt hiked up, the other still yanking at his pants. “Come on,” he groaned. “Come on.”

“No! No on! Get off!”

Sasuke’s hands reached down to grip Naruto’s legs by the backs of his knees, clasping tightly and hoisting them up under the tops of his calves were resting upon the vampire’s shoulders. This time, when Sasuke tugged at his pants, they came free, along with his boxers, and slid up to the bend in his legs. Naruto cried out in shock, and yelped when hot hands were instantly at him, tugging at him, inserting themselves, rubbing and pushing, sliding over and around and in…

“Stop!” His voice was cracking, badly, but he didn’t care. He only cared that one hand left him to tug at the button keeping black slacks up, and that clothes were being discarded entirely too quickly and too easily. Shaking like a leaf, Naruto tried pushing himself up, but fell back when a mouth was at his and when two dry fingers pushed deeply inside of him, scratching along sensitive flesh and Naruto screamed into the older man’s mouth. He felt a stiff, hot sex press against his, felt it thrust and dip lower, just as a third finger began to push into him.

I don’t care that it’s disgusting, Naruto realized, and stopped pushing at Sasuke’s shoulder. He choked when the third finger pushed abruptly into him, making his gasp for breath because a solid and real tongue was attacking his and a too-ready erection was pushing at him, nearly into him, and those three fingers were beginning to slide out and he was so wholly unprepared and he didn‘t want it and fuck it would hurt like this…

I don’t care! Naruto bit down on the tongue, hard, twisting his head to the side. His hand reached up, middle and index fingers finding the grooves to either side of the bridge of his nose, and stabbed forward. A slick barrier met the pads of his fingers, but Naruto just grit his teeth down harder and made him dig his nails further into his assaulter’s eyeballs. Earlier he’d jerked back when Naruto pressed his palm into his eye. He hoped to get the same reaction.

Naruto got better than he had hoped for. Sasuke practically flew back, their bodies parting as the man gasped in pain, both hands flying up to his eyes. Naruto took the chance to jerk his legs off of the larger man’s shoulders, wincing as he placed his feet gingerly on the mattress and hissing when he made himself arch his hips up in order to slide his boxers and sweats over his hips, movements clumsy in their haste. His right arm was slowly regaining a normal feeling, but his fingers fumbled at the waistband, more like rubber than anything useful.

When he deemed himself decent once more, his eyes whipped to the man in front of him, fully intent on seeing him doubled-over in pain. Instead, he sat there on his knees, hands at his sides and curling along the mattress, bright brown eyes completely unharmed, face void of any pain. Naruto grit his teeth at the frustration of it. Slacks hung low on pale hips, and Naruto forced his eyes to stay level with a bright red gaze.

It wasn’t fair, It isn’t fair! Naruto thought, feeling the stinging pain in his backside and the dull, pounding ache in his arm. The sharp nips left behind tiny pains that ran along his neck, his lips, his chest, and there he sat, not an ounce of pain to weigh him down or remorse or anything, only a blank stare and unfounded superiority and--

Guilt.

Naruto blinked.

He didn’t know how or why, but the word flashed across his mind like in image on a projector before flickering away and dying. And he saw it now. The way Sasuke’s head was tilted downwards slightly, how he peered at Naruto through his lashes, somehow seeming to look up at him even though his gaze was at a much higher level. His shoulders were slumped slightly, and upon closer inspection, Naruto saw the pricks of dagger-like teeth protruding from his mouth. He was biting his lower lip. His arms were tilted backwards slightly, and he was resting on the balls of his heels.

“I’m sorry,” his posture told him. “You know very well I can’t control myself,” said his eyes. Instant understanding, pieces of memory that he couldn’t tell were his, made him dizzier than the loss of blood had. But Naruto understood, as if he’d learned it a while ago, as if he’d grown to accept it when he’d known this creature for only an hour.

He can’t help himself, the decent, less sane part of his brain whispered, a part Naruto had never known existed. Not with that much blood in him. He always gets carried away, he feels bad about it, just let him be and calm down. Almost immediately after this, he thought, And I know this how?

“Get out,” Naruto hissed, flattening himself further into the headboard for emphasis. Sasuke’s eyes widened slightly, almost hurt, begging for him to understand. I do, I do understand, just don’t make me say that I do…

And then, so quickly that Naruto flinched, Sasuke got up and off the bed, hands going down to fix his pants. Naruto turned his head quickly and fixed his stare outside the window. He could see the blurry outlines of abandoned houses with blackened and boarded windows, saw the smudges of graffiti like spilled highlighter ink over a black canvas. The sky was punctured with stars, and he tried to trace them but found he couldn’t find a familiar pattern. An overwhelming burst of homesickness exploded like fireworks in the pit of his gut, and this time, he did swallow to keep from throwing up. He missed Sasuke, he missed home, but mostly, mostly--

He heard the vampire work at the wood by the fireplace, but he didn’t bother to watch. He stayed silent, every now and then shifting his body to make sure all of his clothes were still on. He felt naked, still, but he was too tired and had too much pride to tuck himself in and hide under the covers. His feet were bare and cold, his right arm now full of what felt like hot cotton. His eyes and ears burned from the effort of not crying, and his throat was a mess, feeling knotted several times over.

The crackling and snapping of flame made him look over, and an ethereal orange glow outlined Sasuke so that he couldn’t make out any of the man’s features. He was prodding at the lit logs with an iron poker, sitting it down only a moment after Naruto began to watch. The blond blinked, confused. How did he get the fire so big after only a minute of tending to it? And then he was sitting back on his haunches, slipping something from his pocket and pulling it back over his hand. The glove.

I missed it? Naruto thought, almost disappointed. When did he ever pull it off? He was just... touching me, and I didn’t notice it?

“I’m going to go make your lunch,” Sasuke murmured, crossing the room at a steady pace, but his steps purposefully quiet. “This can’t be good anymore…” He bent down and picked up the bag, the plastic crinkling loudly in the silence. The vampire looked up, meeting Naruto’s eyes once more, looking for something the blond wasn’t sure was there.

They remained in an awkward and tense silence for a time before, without a word, Sasuke left the room swiftly without even a glance over his shoulder.

He’s graceful. He looks it. Like an aristocrat. More than Sasuke, even. It’s like water. It’s disturbing. The immature, yet incredibly strong, desire for the vampire to trip or stumble was crushed when he made it safely to the door, opening it and stepping outside before pulling it shut behind him.

Naruto tensed, waiting. He wasn’t disappointed.

Click

His head made a dull thud as it hit the headboard and the flames made his blue eyes glow orange as he stared hard into the fire, trying his hardest not to think of either of them, only that the room was familiar in more ways than one, and that the fire was slowly beginning to heat the room.

--

November 20, 2005

“Remember, Sasuke, answer all their questions calmly. Calmly and rationally. Everyone’s a suspect, you don’t want to give them ideas.” A grunt. “You know you have the tendency to fly off the handle. Don’t do that now, Sasuke, especially not now. They’re only trying to help.” A snort. “I mean it, Sasuke--”

“Sakura, perhaps we should leave him be?”

The woman sighed, rolled her eyes, but nevertheless relaxed into the backseat of the car, eyes trained on the back of Sasuke’s head. He was seated in the front passenger seat with her husband Lee behind the wheel, the green mini-van traveling at a steady forty-five miles down 611. Every now and then she caught Sasuke quirk his head to look at the speedometer, at which point the would snort in disgust and glare sullenly out the window. The sounds of his teeth grinding together was alarming. Sakura and Lee had both point-blank refused to allow Sasuke to drive home from the airport when he’d met them at the runway.

“You’re not driving in your condition,” Sakura had snapped, fists planted on her hips and head held high. “The speeding tickets you’ll get us won’t help a single thing. Now shut up and let Lee drive.”

Lee pulled the car off a familiar exit, and Sakura inwardly thanked any sort of unseen deity that Sasuke and Naruto’s home was so close. She didn’t think Sasuke could stand to be in this car for ten more minutes. Even the five minutes they had left seemed too long. She feared the fate of every light they met, expecting combustion and feeling relief when they flashed green and their car rolled under them. Shino was quiet beside her, reading out of some kind of brochure, prescription sunglasses still over his eyes even though the day was a dark and gloomy one. The sounds of the pages flipping was the only sound in the car, in the tense and nearly unbearable silence.

Sakura frowned, resting her head on the glass of the window and allowing her eyes to droop slightly. It had been under 48 hours since Naruto had been missing, and already she’d been questioned by four or five different officers. All of their questions, she noticed, were linked in some way. They first questioned his lack of family until they pulled up his records and found all of his relatives certificates of death. Then they asked about enemies, and from there it all circled around one thing: his sexuality. Their college was fairly active in the gay rights movement, but the police had told her that wasn’t a good thing. Schools like that, they told her, attracted a lot of unwanted attention from conservatives in the area.

She felt uncomfortable answering the questions, even the simpler ones, even with Lee at her side with a supporting arm around her shoulders, his hand in hers, fingers rubbing soothing patterns. She felt odd, like she shouldn’t have been asking them at all. Why didn’t they just ask Naruto himself? Sakura had thought multiple times. He’s probably upstairs sleeping, just go wake him or Sasuke up, they’ll be happy to give you all the answers that I don’t know.

He’s gone.

And that fact slapped her in the face again and again and she never grew immune to the pain of it.

He’s gone.

He’s gone.

But when is he coming home?

He must be lonely. He puts up a good front, but he must be scared. He has to miss home, he wants to come home, he wouldn’t run away, not without saying good-bye to at least Sasuke.

Sasuke, sitting up there, head tilted back and eyes shut, face relaxed, fists tightened to hard she was sure the palms would begin to bleed. He gulped every now and then, his throat bobbing with the action, and every now and then his eyes would clench tightly.

Why can’t I be that strong? Sakura wondered. How can he not cry? How can he stop himself?

A movement to her left caught her eye, and looking over, she saw that Shino was unfurling a wad of tissues from his pocket. Once he had, he handed one to her, eyes bland and mildly concerned behind his dark spectacles.

Sakura realized then that silent tears were running down her face.

As she wiped at them hurriedly with the tissue, avoiding looking into the rear view mirror from which Lee was no doubt looking worriedly at her, she caught sight of Sasuke’s face again. His eyes were open, boring into hers with envy narrowing the corners, conveying only one simple message.

Why can’t I be that strong? Why can’t I cry like you? What gives you that right?

They pulled up to the house a few moments later. Sasuke didn’t make a face, not a flicker of emotion danced across his face, at the sight of police vans parked across his lawn. He didn’t acknowledge the familiar faces of neighbors and classmates he saw grouped together, some looking his way with pity, others being questioned by the police. The front door to the house was open, and without even shutting the car door or turning to speak to his friends, he strode briskly up the pathway and through the open door.

He could see the kitchen from where he stood at the mudroom, and instead of the usual mess of plates and silverware, there was a confusing network of wires running to box, to laptops, all being manned by men in crisp black uniforms. Keyboard clicked and rattled as they typed, wires were twitched into places and plugged in, all wires leading to the phone jack. To track the phone calls, he knew, but he didn’t give that much thought.

Naruto

“Hey, kid,” someone was saying. “You ain’t supposed to be here.”

“It’s all right, he lives here,” the familiar voice of Sakura was saying, even as he headed up the stairs.

“He the boyfriend?” were the last words Sasuke heard before he was out of earshot.

Sasuke stopped at the top of the stairwell, hesitating, looking towards the ajar room to their bedroom. He would go in there, and it would be empty. Naruto wasn’t home, and he didn’t know when, or if, he’d ever be back.

It was empty in there.

Thinking he couldn’t possibly get any lonelier, Sasuke slowly made his way to the door. He pressed a hand against it, remembering opening it and seeing Naruto there, just laying on the bed reading, sleeping, watching TV, listening to a CD. He remembered pressing Naruto there before sliding to the floor, the bed too far away for their hurried tastes. He remembered everything, and he knew he wouldn’t find any of that in there. But still, he hoped. There still remained the wild hope that this was a dream, and looking in there would dispel any slumber he was stuck in, get rid of this horrible waking nightmare. Something like this belonged on a crime show, in a book, not in his reality. Naruto missing did not belong in his reality.

He pushed open the door, and found himself to be very wrong. He could get lonelier.

The window was shut, but he could see from where he stood that the screen behind it was missing. There was a yellow tag stuck to it with the number “3”, and on the pillow, a “2”, the floor between the bed and window a “1”. It looked like a murder investigation. The room smelled oddly, not like home, and didn’t not look like his room. This was a sick, twisted game someone was playing on him, and he was not amused in the least. Things like this didn’t exist. Things like things did not exist in his reality. Things like this were the kinds that drove people to insanity.

“Mr. Uchiha?”

Sasuke turned his head slowly and blinked. He stood in the middle of the room with no memory of ever having moved past the doorway, but he knew that odder things had happened that day. Under the threshold stood a portly cop who had the same voice he’d heard spoken before. His blue eyes were crinkled, but not in pity. Not even in sympathy. Just in understanding.

Sasuke nodded his head slowly.

“Mr. Uchiha, my name is Morgan Patrick, I’m with the police. If you have a few minutes, I have a few questions I’d like to ask, if you wouldn’t mind.” He was digging through his pocket, a notepad already in his hand, but pen absent. As he searched, he said, “We’ve already questioned your friends, but we’d like your account of it first. As you already saw, any phone calls coming to this house are being traced. We haven’t gotten anything so far, but we’re still waitin’.”

Sasuke nodded his head, and as he waited, the turmoil in his head switched to the other direction. It was like a switch had been flicked. Suddenly, everything changed. The sadness, loneliness, all teetered over the edge and like the snowball affect, a huge, sweeping wave of anger drowned all other thoughts. “Why?” Sasuke murmured, gray eyes like chips of ice, trying to keep his teeth from grinding too hard.

“Hm?” the officer murmured, glancing up at him, finally having drawn a pen out from his pocket. He stepped closer, clicking the end of the utensil, a curious look in his eyes.. “Why what?”

“Why Naruto?” Sasuke elaborated. “He hasn’t done anything to anyone. He goes to school he works a part-time job, he does charity work, he donated blood to the fucking Red Cross whenever he can… Why? What did he do to deserve---” His throat restricted, and he found himself unable to talk.

Officer Morgan sighed, eyes sympathetic yet firm, stained as they were by experiences far worse than a kidnapping. “That, Mr. Uchiha,” he said, “is what we’re trying to figure out.”

--

November 17, 2005

“You pronounce my name oddly.”

“What?”

Naruto was sitting cross-legged on the bed now, poking at the remains of food in his dish with a chopstick, doing his best to ignore the fact that it was beef stir-fry. It had cooled, but the smell tempted him to eat more of it. His stomach, however, was putting a firm foot down on the idea. And besides, Naruto wouldn’t want the bastard to think he’d enjoyed it too much.

Said man was currently poking at the fire and adding into it a few more logs with an expertise Naruto figured he’d garnered from many, many years of experience. He tried hard not to think too much on his age, pretending that he was human was far better than losing his sanity and grip on reality. And in Naruto’s reality, there was no such thing as vampires.

“When you were calling it out earlier,” Sasuke began, trailing off.

“It wasn’t your name I was calling and you know it,” Naruto snapped.

“Tch, whatever, idiot,” Sasuke replied testily. “Anyway, despite the fact that we appear to share a name, mine is pronounced differently.” The way he said it made it sound like he was racist to a word pronunciation, a word pronunciation, the fucking weirdo. “It isn’t Soss-kay. It’s more like a Soss-keh.”

Naruto blinked. “Are you seriously flipping out over a little name error?”

Sasuke stood up and shrugged, the fire once again blazing brightly behind him. “Of course. I wouldn’t want you to call out the wrong name whilst making love.”

Well, Naruto thought, where to begin with that? There were so many ideas to attack--the fact that his Sasuke was the ‘wrong’ one, the fact that the vampire assumed they’d be having any sort of consensual intimacy any time soon, or any time at all, the smug attitude--but he didn’t get to attack any one of those points. While his lips formed useless and silent words, Sasuke sidled up to the bedside and pointed at the half-finished bowl. “Are you done with that now?”

Angry, he was angry, more angry than he was afraid, more enraged than he was sick and dizzy, and he went on instinct. He knew it was a bad idea, yes, Naruto knew that very well. But Sasuke was pushing him and pushing him and there was only so far back he could shrink into a corner before he rebounded in the most unpleasant of manners.

When Sasuke reached for the dish with his right hand, the shiny leather of the glove tempting him even further, Naruto’s hand shot up and grabbed the vampire’s. They both froze, and the dish remained still on the bed. Naruto squeezed, but felt no give under his grip.

Cold. It was stone cold. Like there was ice in the glove instead of a hand. Sasuke didn’t pull back, merely winced, a slightly betrayed look entering his eyes. “You know I hate it when you do that.”

“I don’t know anything about you,” Naruto replied, hand still squeezing. There was give, just in certain spots. There seemed to be one area in particular that felt like a glacier. The rest of the hand was stiff, but still, it felt like a hand. Not this.

“Then how did you know that gripping there would hurt me so badly?” Naruto’s eyes snapped from the hand he held to Sasuke’s calm, if not slightly annoyed, gaze. “I made you angry,” he said blandly. “And you reacted by hurting me in return.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Naruto blurted quickly, not bothering to correct himself afterwards. It would make him look ridiculous, he knew, even more so than he probably looked now.

Sasuke sighed and to Naruto’s slight alarm, turned his hand over easily in the tight grip and twined his fingers with the human’s. “Yes, love, I know.”

A blush, a hot one, flourished over his face brightly, and he yanked his hand out of Sasuke’s. The vampire didn’t stop him. He sat neatly on the bed, resting his hand palm-up on the bed staring at it as if contemplating it as well. They both stared for a long minute until, bored with the silence, Naruto reached for the hand again. This time, instead of cupping the palm, he followed the faint seam at the wrist of the glove until he found the end of it. He worked the zipper out. Sasuke didn’t stop him. He tugged at it. The leather was soft like warm butter, and the glove separated just as neatly, until the tail of the zipper was at the tip of the pinky.

Naruto was slow to peel the leather off, revealing a pale white hand, skin the same as the rest of him. But there was something off. There was something a bit wrong, and in the dark, he couldn’t see it. He was blocking the light, he realized, and he shifted back in his seat and tugged the lax hand onto his lamp, tilting it towards the light.

All the breathe, possibly all the oxygen, in his lungs and in his body left his mouth in one fail swoop.

It was far worse than the hypnotizing eyes. It was even worse than the lethal-looking fangs. It wasn’t ugly, but so outlandish he couldn’t help but stare in numbed disbelief. He ran a gentle finger over it, and whipped it back as if stung. It was really, truly there. Contacts could be added to change eye color, dentures could be used to mimic teeth, but nothing could create this.

The right portion of his hand, spreading from just below the knuckle to the wrist, creating a messy half-circle shape to the center of his hand, was stone. There was no mistaking it. Tiny little pores dotted the hard, solid-grey material and, turning the hand over as if it were a mere object and did not have any connection to an actual body, Naruto found it had created the perfect replica of the left side of the palm, although that portion was marginally smaller than that on the back of the hand. Where the skin met stone, the flesh was hard, like stiff rubber, becoming gradually smoother and softer when it reached the rest of the hand. Pressing it, there was so leeway.

“Then how did you know that gripping there would hurt me so badly?”

Once again, Naruto whipped his hand away, clenching it on his lap and staring down at it hard, eyes set resolutely away from the half-frozen appendage. It made him sick to look at. But not sick with repulsion.

Sick with pity.

And that was why when Sasuke rose his right hand to cup his cheek, he didn’t shrink back. He flinched at the cold texture, but besides that, stayed where he was. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, cause any more hurt to fill those eyes. It was too cruel, he reasoned, to not only refuse to follow along with this madman’s twisted vision, but to also refuse such a simple touch.

“Cold?” Sasuke asked.

“It’s fine,” Naruto said before he could stop himself. Still, Sasuke drew his hand away with a simple swipe of his thumb over the hollow under Naruto’s eye, and picked up the discarded glove. He slid the skin-tight accessory over his hand with ease and zipped it up, hiding away the grotesque portion of his hand. He brought his hand back up, and this time, Naruto moved back a couple of inches, eyeing the hand wearily. The hand drew back immediately, if not slowly.

In a calm voice, Sasuke said, “You prefer my bare hand.” It wasn’t a question, simply a stating of a fact, like he was reading it out of a book. When Naruto failed to reply to that, Sasuke smiled gently. Another difference he noted between the two Sasuke’s. This one, sadly enough, seemed to smile a lot more.

“You really are him,” he murmured, eyes alight with warmth, happiness, and Naruto felt like speaking would be just as bad as refusing to be touched with the cold, stone part of his right hand. It would be like kicking a three-legged puppy in the face; horribly, horribly wrong.

“What is your favorite color?” Sasuke asked abruptly, and Naruto started so fast that he quickly answered with an, “orange.” The smile changed, this time into a bit of a grin, almost a smirk. “I know.”

Naruto scowled. The serious atmosphere was gone with just a few light-hearted words, and the blond couldn’t feel better about that. He didn’t want to know how Sasuke got such an injury. At least, he didn’t want to know now. He wanted to sleep, first. He wanted to eat another meal before he subjected himself to more knowledge than he was ready for.

“It’s not that hard to figure out,” Naruto challenged, sticking his chin up. “I own lots of stuff that’s orange.”

He was definitely smirking now. “And what is mine?”

“Blue?”

“Yes.”

“You could be lying.”

“But I’m not. You know that I’m not.”

Naruto rolled his eyes, and Sasuke rolled out another question. And another. And another. He answered them all, some more easily than others, noticing no particular pattern in any of them. He didn’t know whether Sasuke was trying to prove something, or he was just making a poor attempt at subtly changing the topic. All Naruto knew was that Sasuke had scooted back so that there was a good two-foot distance between them, and he seemed to be making no move to change that. That was good enough for now.

--

November 17, 2008

Naruto shifted. Despite the coldness of the room, he found his pajama shirt to be sticking to him in several places. He’d been lying in the same spot for too long, and small pockmarks appeared in his skin where the folds of his clothes had created faint pink lines. He was highly aware that sweat had dried to his skin, and it was making him uncomfortably self-conscious. Sasuke had said he’d been out for nearly 24 hours, which meant he hadn’t washed in well over a day…

Wonder if he’ll let me shower, Naruto thought before catching himself. No. I’ll tell the asshole I want one. His eyes drew down to his arm. The fang wounds had shrunken until they looked more like twin mosquito bites then half-healed thorn punctures. The whole arm itched, however, and his left hand burned to scratch at and aggravate the flesh. But just the thought of putting his nails, or anything, by those sickening blemishes made his mouth go sour and his blood curdle. No, he just wanted to run his arm under the jet of hot water, maybe gently massage some soap over it, and when it felt like an arm again, he’d scrub it raw.

Sasuke returned to the room a few minutes after Naruto had made his mind, carrying in his arms a bundle of heavy logs. The blond watched him dump them in front of the roaring fire, listening as he said, “This will last us throughout the day. I’ll put a few in by the morning after dinner, and it should be fine until night.”

Dinner at five in the morning. Naruto could hardly wait.

“Oi, bastard,” Naruto said (he still refused to use the name he was given, even though it differed from his Sasuke’s). When Sasuke glanced over his shoulder at him, he continued, “I want a shower. Did you say you had the plumbing running in this place?”

Sasuke frowned gently, standing up and brushing his hands off on the knees of his pants. “Yes. Did you want one now?”

Naruto rolled his eyes in an overly-exaggerated way. “No, I wanted one in a month. Yes I want one now, blockhead.”

Instead of replying with an insult in kind, Sasuke smirked. Before the vampire would even open his mouth, Naruto was rushing out the words, “And no, I don’t need any fucking help. You can stay in the room.”

Sasuke grinned, mirth glinting in his hypnotizing eyes, and Naruto had to look away. With the fireplace at such an angle, the light cause his eyes to cast a red glare his way, the black comma-shaped patterns a harsh contrast to the rest of the iris.

“Come,” Sasuke said, stepping over to the side of the bed and holding out a hand. “I’ll take you.”

“I’d be fine if you could just tell me what it was,” Naruto grumbled. Ignoring the offered hand, he stood up himself, and immediately regretted moving so fast. His knees buckles, and for a second he thought he would crash to the floor. Sasuke’s hands were there, a steadying grip, worried and guilty eyes staring down at him. The face was swathed in shadows, the eyes dark, almost black, almost grey…

Naruto grit his teeth and shrugged out of the older man’s hold. He brushed past him, hands clenched in an uncomfortable way, footsteps wide and purposeful. He put every bit of strength and concentration that his exhausted mind and body could muster into his footsteps, determined to at least make it to the bathroom by himself. When he was out the door, he heard it click shut, and the almost silent footsteps of the vampire as he followed closely. Naruto wasn’t sure if it was for his safety or for his stalker’s own perverse entertainment, and he really didn’t want to think too much on it.

Since the stairs were to the right, Naruto went left. There was a door to his right and then two to his left, the hallways ending in a dead end. Naruto frowned.

“Second door on your left,” Sasuke provided, however needlessly; he sped up and walked in front of Naruto, gloved hand holding something out of sight. The blond didn’t argue; he was still too busy focusing on his walking.

By the time he reached the threshold to the bathroom, leaning against the wall for support, vision once again beginning to float out of order, Sasuke was already there. The item in his hand was a box of matches, which he was now using to light three candles that were spread along the countertop. An eerie triple-shadow of yellow bounced and dances in the room, not brightening it, simply applying color. It was creepy, Naruto realized, or was that just the situation he was in?

“I’ll be outside if you need me,” Sasuke told him, the words coming out as more of a threat than a kind offer. Naruto rolled his eye, offering no response other than shutting the door in his face. Even though he knew that with everything he’d encountered so far in the house could only lead to only one possible conclusion, he felt compelled to try anyway. He jiggled the tiny knob embedded in the doorknob, attempting to lock the door. It jittered loosely, useless as any sort or barricade. Sighing, Naruto pounded his fist once on the door, an auditory warning for the man to stay out, before beginning to undress.

He slid his shirt to the floor first, then his soft dormitory pants. With one cautious look at the door (I feel it, I feel him watching, screw solid, the door might as well be made of fishnet) toed off his socks and slinked plaid boxers over his hips, thighs, knobby knees, letting them pool at his ankles before stepping out. He glances at the towels on the hook along the wall and then the ceramic sink to his left. Dark red and gold to match the rest of the bathroom, a sickening replica of his one at home. It was bare save for a blue cup, a tube of Colgate, and a blue tooth brush that looked near well his own. Upon lifting it and pushing at the bristles, he found that the brush was new as he was tired. He brushed his teeth first, avoiding looking in the mirror at all costs. He didn’t want to see his reflection; he half expected to see someone completely different, to see this Sasuke’s Naruto instead of his Sasuke’s Naruto. If that made any sense at all, which he knew probably didn’t.

After spitting the foam from his mouth and rinsing his face off with biting cold water, Naruto went about fixing himself warm shower. He held his fingers in the flowing water, feeling the warmth spread tingles up his heavy arm, before making it even hotter and twisting the knob, causing the water to cascade from the highly-mounted chrome showerhead. He waited until the steam made small mushroom clouds against the ceiling before stepping in, leaving the shower curtains partly open, half wanting the candlelight and half worried that the steam would cause the flame to flicker and die. His eyesight in the dark adjusted fairly quickly, but in this house, any aid to his senses helped.

He tilted his head back and stayed there, willing the skin-prickling heat to diminish any and all traces of nausea that still threatened to corrupt his body into a mangled corpse. Everything, everything, was hurting. His veins felt like live wires, too hot and too shaky to contain. His whole body was shaking, and clenching his muscles only helped so much.

A month, Naruto contemplated, still staring upwards. I’ve subjected myself to a month of this Hell. What in the fuck was I thinking?

When he felt his skin grow tight, and a glance at his hands told him that they were pruning, he turned to the wall on his right that held the porcelain shelves. It was odd not seeing a window there. At home, there was a smallish rectangular mirror from their second-floor bathroom that faced the house next to him. It was devoid of any curtain, as the thick elm that separated the two homes was more than a sufficient barrier for their comfort. For a second, he could see it, could almost see streams of moonlight come bouncing through. But then it was replaced by cold white, three oval bottles, and a pile of wash clothes.

Snorting quietly to himself, trying not to think, Naruto picked up a washcloth, flicked it open with a twitch of his wrist, and ran it under the water, his other hand reaching for the bottle of liquid soap. There was a bar there, but Naruto had always preferred this. It made more suds, he’s reasoned before, but more importantly, it smelled nice. Oatmeal soap always smelled clean to him, and he squeezed a good amount into the cloth before beginning to wash himself.

It happened when he was done, when he was done ringing out the rag and when the last of the bubbles had swirled down the drain. It was when he was running a shaking hand through sweaty hair to wet it, when his other hand was reaching for the bottle of Dove shampoo. It slid from his slackened grip, shock and realization hitting him simultaneously, a second later the very familiar scent of his shampoo drifting into his nose. The full, never used bottle had a cracked lid now, and like thick white blood, the slick substance oozed and swirled lazily in the water, mocking him, mocking everything.

Naruto considered himself lucky he even made it to the toilet. The lid cracked loudly when it hit the back of the toilet, and Naruto’s head tucked down as he vomited everything he’d eaten that night, and what felt like everything he’d eaten in the past month. He retched, and afterwards, sobbed dryly before throwing up some more. Everything was broken around him, his stomach was gone and he wasn’t all too sure he wanted it back. His eyes burned and teared up, his face was burning, everything was fucking burning, he couldn’t see, breathe, only cry and try to breathe like he’d forgotten how.

“Shhh, shh…” There was a towel around him, and soothing sounds in his ear. Hands were rubbing his back through the cloth, and the soft murmurs, the wordless noises, only increased when Naruto dry retched, nothing left in his stomach, and a huge sob tore through in its place. It hurt, burned, his throat would never be in one piece again.

The cool lip of a glass was pressed against his mouth, and the liquid sloshes messily down his chin. It pulled away, the corner of the towel was used to clean the sick off of his chin and face, and then the glass was back. This time Naruto managed a sip, spitting it out almost immediately after. He was forced to so this several more times until even he had to admit it no longer tasted like he had a week-old corpse curdling beneath his tongue. He was tugged away from the toilet and into a hard chest, white arms encircling him, tugging him deeper into the embrace. The cup was balanced on the countertop, the hand returned to cross his chest and stroke his hair behind his ears.

“Shh…”

Dove. Dove. Dove.

“D--”

“Shhhh.”

He was lifted and carried from the bathroom, and he had to close his eyes to keep from losing himself completely. The battle against ferocious tears was lost, but the battle wasn’t completely lost. They fell as silent as snow, salty as the Dead Sea, and the skin touch his ears and bare shoulder was only lukewarm.

Dove. Dove. Dove.

He was going to be sick for the rest of his life.

He wasn’t deposited on the bed, as he thought he would be. Instead, Sasuke brought the two of them over to the fire place. Sasuke settled himself on the carpet and shifted Naruto until he sat comfortable in the crook of his crossed legs, Naruto’s body tilted so that the side of his head remained on the vampire’s shoulders. Hands stroked his side. Just when he thought he couldn’t get any sicker. Realization, horrific realization, barreling into him at the speed of light. The toothbrush, the interior of the bathroom, the bed sheets, but most importantly, Dove, fucking Dove….

He had to get it out before it escaped him.

“D-dove,” he stuttered out, breath catching on a million different fears, body shaking despite the heat the shower had left in his skin, the blazing warmth of the fire.

“Dove?” Sasuke repeated from behind him, bending his face so that they were eye-to-eye. “The bird?”

“No, you fucked up asshole,” Naruto grit out, trying to force as much bite into the words as he could. In his state, it wasn’t much. “The shampoo. Dove shampoo.”

“Oh.” A pause. A burning log released a pocket of air, and a shower of sparks illuminated the two in orange. “You’re having a fit over shampoo?”

“How did you know I used Dove shampoo?”

Naruto felt Sasuke shrug his shoulders. “Because it was in your bathroom, moron.”

That in itself should have been bad enough, but Naruto was positive that his assumption would prove to be a million times worse. “Sasuke--my Sasuke--uses that Pantene shit.”

“Should I care?”

“Pantene is in the shower, too,” Naruto explained as calmly as he could, trying to ration with himself that pushing himself out of Sasuke’s arm, resulting in a head-on-collision with fire, was not a good idea. “How would you know which one I used?”

Sasuke froze. Naruto could practically feel the vampire’s skin go colder.

A tree. There was a tree, right outside their window, now only an illusion to privacy, oh God….

“I--” Sasuke was caught up in too many words, it seemed, to come up with a timely excuse. He tripped over a few words until Naruto spoke.

“I don’t care.” Sasuke began to interrupt him. “Shut up. Just… shut the fuck up.” He tried to shrink in on himself, away from Sasuke, but the arms drew him in even more tightly. Crying, he reasoned, was not for now. Later, not now, The asshole’s been watching me, I know that, but he’s been watching me in the shower, he watched me shower. Just let me say this.

“I don’t care why you did it. I don’t want to hear whatever bull shit excuse you come up with, because you’ll make me believe you and I’ll--” He stopped himself, a stab of fearing lancing his heart at the thought Sasuke had caught that slip. How would I know that, how the fuck would I-- And then, the question he really didn’t want an answer to spewed from his mouth like vomit. “How long have you been following me?”

The answer was immediate. “About a month. I first saw you on your college’s campus.”

I knew it. I knew there was something wrong with him. It was that it wasn’t Sasuke at all.

“Shouldn’t you be inside during the day?”

Sasuke snorted, seeming to assume that the storm had blown over without ever really hitting. “It was cloudy that day, you fool.”

It was, Naruto remembered. He wondered if it would be cloudy that morning, and throughout the day. If it would be cloudy the day after that, and the day after that, and every day of a thirty-day-long death march. No sun for thirty days. And if Sasuke went back on his word, never again…

Gray eyes, hard as marble and with a hidden warmth only he could see, stared, welcoming, in his mind. Brown eyes as cold as winter, arms full of stolen warmth, continued to leech onto his heart, continue to draw out the energy Naruto no longer felt like he possessed.

“I want to go home,” he whispered again. Maybe, if he kept saying it enough… “Let me go home.”

The arms tightened. “This is home.”

Naruto turned his face again, but a pale hand slid across his cheek and pinched his chin, turning his face so that level brown eyes could meet with tired blue ones. “This is home,” he repeated firmly.

“It’s not.”

“It is. The sooner you accept that, the easier this all will be.”

“Fuck you!” Naruto snapped, shifting once again in Sasuke’s lap. The arms didn’t embrace him any more tightly; they were already hard and steady restraints, enough to make any movement uncomfortable. Sighing, he tugged the towel more tightly around himself. It left his shoulders and legs bare, only covering from his elbows to mid-thigh. The warmth of the fire was welcome on his bare skin, but Sasuke’s eyes were not. “Let me up,” he demanded. “I want to get dressed.”

“You’ll get dressed when I give you clothes.”

Somehow, it didn’t seem like the vampire had meant it to sound insulting, but the fact that it did--”Oi, bastard, I said…”

“I heard you the first time. I’ll give you a change of clothes later. It’s easier to warm up without clothes on.”

“Liar!”

“Shut up, you know I’m not,” Sasuke scoffed. Before Naruto could say anything else in retaliation, he went on, “Besides, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Flushing, Naruto looked away. “Says you.” When Sasuke didn’t say anything, the blond sighed. “Can I get off your lap? I can sit just fine on my own.” Still nothing. Rolling his eyes, Naruto muttered, “Whatever,” and made himself as still and uncomfortable looking as possible, watching the flames flicker on the iron grates.

Behind him, the vampire was silent.