In the cold of space you find the heat of suns
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Naruto › Yaoi - Male/Male › Naruto/Sasuke
Rating:
Adult +
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91
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3,753
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636
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1
Currently Reading:
3
Category:
Naruto › Yaoi - Male/Male › Naruto/Sasuke
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
91
Views:
3,753
Reviews:
636
Recommended:
1
Currently Reading:
3
Disclaimer:
This story has some of Masashi Kishimoto's characters from Naruto in a universe of my own devising. I do not own Naruto. I do not make any money from these writings.
On the Oak
Apologies if the characters have grown differently in their new environment.
Spacer crews travel the Far Borders and the Fringe of occupied space, trading. Spacing is an ancient and honourable profession carved out by millenniums. Most spacers start out as fourteen-year-old boys seeking a future. Few survive a decade spacing.
46. On the Oak
Konohamaru sat in Haku’s room watching him brush his hair.
Haku used the mirror to study Konohamaru. Konohamaru had been unhappy since they had moved from the Sakura to the accommodation on the Oak, which was, as close as possible, a replica of the household on Tarrasade. Haku suspected that Konohamaru’s unhappiness was nothing to do with adapting to the role of cat, or the move from the Sakura to the Oak.
“You hate him,” Haku observed. “You hate the ‘little knife’.”
Konohamaru went scarlet.
“Why else would you be hiding in here?” Haku asked.
Konohamaru scowled. “That’s not fair, Haku. I like you. I have always liked you.”
“I shall ask Iruka-sensei if I can be added to your list,” Haku said. “After all, I am crew.” He laughed at Konohamaru’s shock. “It will give you more time away from that crew room. Who knows? I may let you fuck me. Would you like that, Kono-kun?”
“Very much,” Konohamaru told him with a surprising amount of certainty in his voice.
Haku’s laugh became a knowing smile. He continued brushing his hair. “Jealousy is very ugly, Kono-kun.”
“It is just so unfair,” Konohamaru complained. “He does none of the work. He still will not even do me the courtesy of speaking to me when I speak to him. Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke and Naruto spend ages with him.” He looked away. “It is like when Sasuke came to live with Grandfather.”
“Konohamaru?” Haku asked.
Konohamaru looked at him. “Yes, Haku?”
“Would you have been a child whose family had been massacred? Would you be a boy who thinks he is a knife rather than a person?”
“No,” admitted Konohamaru. There was silence for a time. “Did you mean it? About letting me fuck you?”
Haku smiled. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. At least you will have some interesting fantasies.”
“You want to be put on Konohamaru’s list?” Iruka queried in astonishment.
Haku finished putting away the dishes. “Yes. Is that a problem?”
“No,” admitted Iruka. “Why?”
“I do not have to tell you why,” Haku reminded him. He waited a few moments before continuing. “Konohamaru deserves a little extra attention. Since Sumaru arrived he may as well have not have existed for you and Kakashi.”
Iruka flushed. “That is not true,” he contested.
Haku shrugged. “Perhaps. I wish to be on Konohamaru’s list. We will leave it at that.”
“Where do you see Sumaru in a few standards’ time?” Iruka asked Sasuke.
It was a very good question. The more Sasuke thought about it, the better question it became. “I haven’t been thinking that far ahead,” he admitted. “It’s hard enough dealing with him day by day. You know that, Iruka-sensei.”
“I know,” agreed Iruka.
“I require a straight answer, Rin-san,” Sasuke insisted. “Is it safe for Sumaru to use his collar? Is it safe for him and is it safe for those around him?”
Rin scowled at him. “I assume you mean the radiation and not the fact that it turns him into a super-charged killing machine?”
“Rin!” Sasuke growled.
“The radiation is a very minimal risk to others. It is, in the long term and indirectly, lethal to him. The radiation causes the symbiote to produce the hormones that put him into that super-charged state. Every time it happens, his body is damaged a little more. A proportion of the damage is never healed. This is what has all but killed his mother. From what I can tell from the records he gave me, it is what killed his father.”
“You cannot reverse this damage?” Sasuke checked.
Rin shook her head. “Not yet. Perhaps never. And, before you ask, I cannot remove the symbiote without killing him.”
“I have tried being reasonable, Sumaru-kun,” Sasuke told him. “You will not listen. I give you a straight choice. Your collar comes off, permanently, or you get back in the Snow Willow, with your mother, and leave.”
Sumaru stared at him.
At least Sasuke knew he finally had his attention.
“If you decide to stay, you will be allowed to swear to Uchiha as soon as you decide you are ready. We will begin training you to be a member of our team. But you will have to become more than a knife. You will have to go through the same training as did almost every member of this team. Except for Shino, Rin and Kurenai, we have all catted. That meant we all scrubbed floors and mended clothes.”
The boy swallowed. “Even Naruto?” he asked.
“Even Naruto, although he was very bad at sewing. Naruto and I went through it together. Sumaru, I want you to be one of my knives. I promise that Rin will work on a way to activate the symbiote without the damaging side effects. I promise to consider you for an implant when you reach sixteen standards. However, even if you become my sharpest knife, sharper than Naruto, I need you to have other skills as well.”
He blinked back tears. “I will stay. You can take off my collar.”
There were many times when Naruto wished that his hearing was less acute. This was one of them. He did not want to have to tell Iruka-sensei or, worse, Sasuke, that Sumaru was desperately unhappy; that the boy who presented such a unyielding face to the world had cried himself to sleep every night since they had cut off his collar. Naruto wished that they were on the Sakura; if he had been in a bunk someone else would have noticed. Instead they were on the Oak, where Sumaru had his own room.
In the end he decided that doing something himself was better than having to tell Iruka-sensei or Sasuke. He went to the smallest gym the next morning and waited, patiently and cross-legged, for Sumaru to finish his prayers.
“We had a similar choice to make, you and I,” Naruto began. “For me it was to wear a collar or leave. For you it was take off a collar or leave.”
“You have a talent for this, Kono-kun,” Shino told him.
Konohamaru looked up from the flyer he was making for Akemi’s birth anniversary. He thoroughly enjoyed working on the project and Shino was an excellent teacher. “Thank you, Shino-sensei.”
“I am thinking of starting a very simple project with Sumaru. You could help me teach him.” Shino’s lips twitched slightly in what Konohamaru had come to understand as a smile. “We are both so unskilled at speaking, we could do with your help.”
Sumaru had improved since Sasuke had cut his collar off. He was less arrogant and haughty. He also did chores, some of them well but most of them badly. He still barely spoke, but Konohamaru now believed he listened.
On the other hand, he was even closer to Naruto. The only emotion Konohamaru ever saw on Sumaru’s face was hero worship.
“I will teach him at another time if you would prefer,” Shino suggested.
Konohamaru flushed. “No, it will be fine.”
They worked in silence for some time.
“He wants to be Naruto,” Shino said suddenly and quietly. “You do not want to be Naruto. You want to be Naruto’s special person, which is understandable. I sympathise. I wish I was someone’s special person and that, like your dream, will never happen. We must move on. We must think of people like Kakashi, who thought he would never find another special person after Obito and yet he now has Iruka.”
Konohamaru was shocked yet flattered that Shino should go to such lengths to make him feel better. Haku had told him that Shino loved Shikamaru, that Shikamaru did not know and that this was one of the taboo subjects that Konohamaru must never mention. “Thank you, Shino-sensei,” he whispered.
“You are welcome, Kono-kun.”
“In Sasuke-sama’s office?” Asuma queried.
“In Sasuke-sama’s office,” Shikamaru insisted. “We are beginning a tradition that every child will have balloons and cakes and the presents that are not from their parents or their siblings in Sasuke-sama’s office on his or her birth anniversary. Naruto is planning to decorate the desk. The balloons will be tied to the desk. The cakes and the presents will be on the desk.” He paused meaningfully. “This tradition will, of course, become established enough to continue when we return to Tarrasade.”
Asuma stared at him. “We will be having children’s birth anniversary celebrations on Fugaku-kyou’s desk?”
“We will be having children’s birth anniversary celebrations on Sasuke-sama’s desk,” Shikamaru emphasised.
Asuma thought about it and then bowed. “I salute you, Shikamaru-san.”
“We will be doing this when we return to Tarrasade?” Kakashi checked, his eye fixed on the desk, which was a riot of colour with bunches of balloons anchored at each corner. In the centre was a pile of presents and to either side a plate of small birthday cakes. Akemi sat on a cushion on Sasuke’s chair with a crown on his head.
“That is the idea,” Asuma confirmed.
“And you are fine with that?” Kakashi queried.
“Will you be fine with it when it is your and Iruka’s child?” Asuma asked. “You suffered much more than I.”
Kakashi glanced about, checking that Iruka was at a safe distance. “We have never discussed having our own children.”
Asuma shrugged. “Sasuke’s children then. As if Iruka is going to care who the genetic parents are.”
Kakashi’s eye went from the desk to where Naruto was galloping about the room with Misora on his shoulders. “Yes, I will be fine with it. Trust Naruto.”
“It was Shikamaru’s idea.” Asuma’s eye went back to the desk. “Although I see Naruto’s hand in the implementation.”
Sasuke looked at Akemi sitting on his chair, Misora on Naruto’s shoulders and Keitaro on Kurenai’s hip. What was an Uchiha? He knew the answer his father and even his mother would have given him. They would have brought up an genetic chart and shown him the parameters within which a child had to fall to be considered a full blood. He worked his way over to Rin’s side.
“Can Naruto and I have children together?” he asked.
Rin’s head turned towards him slowly. “I will only answer that question if he is also asking it,” she answered.
“Babies?” Naruto queried. He had thought that they were going to fuck, not talk about babies. He thought of Akemi, Misora and Keitaro. He thought of Shino’s nieces and nephews. He liked children. He did not know if he liked babies. He knew that Sasuke wanted children and that Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei had agreed to help raise them. Uchiha had to include more Uchihas or there would be no point. He smiled. “Lots of little Uchihas,” he agreed. “Ten?” he suggested.
“No, not Uchihas,” Sasuke said. “Our children. Combinations of you and me.”
Naruto was very still. His whiskers twitched. “Hybrids do not breed,” he reminded Sasuke. “Hybrids are engineered.” He did not know why he felt so uneasy. “Most hybrids do not work. I do not want a child who does not work. It is not fair on the child.”
“Can we talk to Rin about it?” Sasuke asked.
Naruto sighed. They would speak to Rin. She would persuade Sasuke that it was a bad idea.
Rin and Naruto exchanged looks. This was one issue where Naruto was certain they understood each other perfectly. He hoped she could get the idea of a Sasuke/Naruto baby out of Sasuke’s head.
“You can clone Naruto,” Rin began. “You can make tiny tweaks like colouring. Very tiny tweaks. Anything more and it will be up to the Lady how the baby turns out. I do not know why Naruto works.
“I can take some of Naruto’s human genes and splice them into a human embryo’s chromosomes. The more splicing we do the more risk there is of damaging the embryo. We are talking a maximum of one percent of the genome. Nowhere near half. You could pick something visible. A token. Maybe Naruto’s eye colour. I could do that safely.
“Perhaps a scientist specialising in hybrids would be more positive but I doubt it.”
“Is there a scientist specialising in hybrids?” Sasuke asked.
“There is a scientist called Kabuto who publishes interesting research,” Rin told him. “It’s a dubious field with many charlatans.”
Naruto wished that Rin had not mentioned the scientist. It might raise the prospect of hope in Sasuke’s mind. “But this Kabuto is unlikely to suggest that a half and half mix of Sasuke’s and my chromosomes will make a healthy baby,” he stated.
Rin looked horrified. “It would never work. The embryo would not get through the first cell division. Even if by some fluke it did…” she voice trailed off. Her expression was enough.
Sasuke played. It helped. It required his mind and his body to work together. The music was beautiful. It never ceased to amaze him that he could produce it. He should set aside time each day to play. It was soothing. He would move the biwa to his office.
Maybe he could teach his children to play; not all of them, he did not want it to be a chore to them. He would teach only the ones who took to it as he had taken to it.
There was a movement across the open doorway of his room. Then Sumaru stood there, motionless, staring. So the boy liked music.
Naruto was pleased when Sasuke produced his lute after the evening meal. It had been too long. People started to appear as soon as the music started. Elite fighters drifted into their crew room, beckoned over the threshold by Iruka. Haku sat on the floor with Konohamaru sprawled beside him. Naruto noticed the way Haku’s fingers played in Konohamaru’s hair and wondered.
After a while Sasuke started to play music so that they would sing. Iruka and Kakashi took the leads in a ballad, which always delighted the elite fighters. Shino sang a comic song in his deadpan way that made it all the funnier. Hamaki and Terai persuaded Fu sing. Then Sasuke turned to Sumaru.
“Is there a song you would like me to play?” he asked.
There was silence. Then, slowly, the boy spoke. “You will not know the tune.”
“Sing it,” Naruto encouraged. “Sasuke will be quick to pick it up.”
Sumaru sang, hesitantly at first and then with more confidence as Sasuke began to pick out the melody. His voice had yet to break. The sound penetrated the air and the mind, as haunting as it was beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGVMS4AWUlU
Author’s note
I hope that readers like this ‘vignette’ chapter because I think I need mechanisms like this to develop the plot and some of the characters without dedicating whole chapters.
I would like to thank Kat for her review, which was useful. I continue to appreciate constructive criticism.
When I originally posted this author's note on 23/02/10 I asked for a debate about using the term 'fuck' in this fic for everyday reference to sex. Thank you to those who contributed. Thse contributions helped me decide to continue using it in this way.
There also seems limited hunger for a glossary explaining the technology of this world, so I have decided to not write that until time is less pressing, which probably means never!
Spacer crews travel the Far Borders and the Fringe of occupied space, trading. Spacing is an ancient and honourable profession carved out by millenniums. Most spacers start out as fourteen-year-old boys seeking a future. Few survive a decade spacing.
46. On the Oak
Konohamaru sat in Haku’s room watching him brush his hair.
Haku used the mirror to study Konohamaru. Konohamaru had been unhappy since they had moved from the Sakura to the accommodation on the Oak, which was, as close as possible, a replica of the household on Tarrasade. Haku suspected that Konohamaru’s unhappiness was nothing to do with adapting to the role of cat, or the move from the Sakura to the Oak.
“You hate him,” Haku observed. “You hate the ‘little knife’.”
Konohamaru went scarlet.
“Why else would you be hiding in here?” Haku asked.
Konohamaru scowled. “That’s not fair, Haku. I like you. I have always liked you.”
“I shall ask Iruka-sensei if I can be added to your list,” Haku said. “After all, I am crew.” He laughed at Konohamaru’s shock. “It will give you more time away from that crew room. Who knows? I may let you fuck me. Would you like that, Kono-kun?”
“Very much,” Konohamaru told him with a surprising amount of certainty in his voice.
Haku’s laugh became a knowing smile. He continued brushing his hair. “Jealousy is very ugly, Kono-kun.”
“It is just so unfair,” Konohamaru complained. “He does none of the work. He still will not even do me the courtesy of speaking to me when I speak to him. Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke and Naruto spend ages with him.” He looked away. “It is like when Sasuke came to live with Grandfather.”
“Konohamaru?” Haku asked.
Konohamaru looked at him. “Yes, Haku?”
“Would you have been a child whose family had been massacred? Would you be a boy who thinks he is a knife rather than a person?”
“No,” admitted Konohamaru. There was silence for a time. “Did you mean it? About letting me fuck you?”
Haku smiled. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. At least you will have some interesting fantasies.”
“You want to be put on Konohamaru’s list?” Iruka queried in astonishment.
Haku finished putting away the dishes. “Yes. Is that a problem?”
“No,” admitted Iruka. “Why?”
“I do not have to tell you why,” Haku reminded him. He waited a few moments before continuing. “Konohamaru deserves a little extra attention. Since Sumaru arrived he may as well have not have existed for you and Kakashi.”
Iruka flushed. “That is not true,” he contested.
Haku shrugged. “Perhaps. I wish to be on Konohamaru’s list. We will leave it at that.”
“Where do you see Sumaru in a few standards’ time?” Iruka asked Sasuke.
It was a very good question. The more Sasuke thought about it, the better question it became. “I haven’t been thinking that far ahead,” he admitted. “It’s hard enough dealing with him day by day. You know that, Iruka-sensei.”
“I know,” agreed Iruka.
“I require a straight answer, Rin-san,” Sasuke insisted. “Is it safe for Sumaru to use his collar? Is it safe for him and is it safe for those around him?”
Rin scowled at him. “I assume you mean the radiation and not the fact that it turns him into a super-charged killing machine?”
“Rin!” Sasuke growled.
“The radiation is a very minimal risk to others. It is, in the long term and indirectly, lethal to him. The radiation causes the symbiote to produce the hormones that put him into that super-charged state. Every time it happens, his body is damaged a little more. A proportion of the damage is never healed. This is what has all but killed his mother. From what I can tell from the records he gave me, it is what killed his father.”
“You cannot reverse this damage?” Sasuke checked.
Rin shook her head. “Not yet. Perhaps never. And, before you ask, I cannot remove the symbiote without killing him.”
“I have tried being reasonable, Sumaru-kun,” Sasuke told him. “You will not listen. I give you a straight choice. Your collar comes off, permanently, or you get back in the Snow Willow, with your mother, and leave.”
Sumaru stared at him.
At least Sasuke knew he finally had his attention.
“If you decide to stay, you will be allowed to swear to Uchiha as soon as you decide you are ready. We will begin training you to be a member of our team. But you will have to become more than a knife. You will have to go through the same training as did almost every member of this team. Except for Shino, Rin and Kurenai, we have all catted. That meant we all scrubbed floors and mended clothes.”
The boy swallowed. “Even Naruto?” he asked.
“Even Naruto, although he was very bad at sewing. Naruto and I went through it together. Sumaru, I want you to be one of my knives. I promise that Rin will work on a way to activate the symbiote without the damaging side effects. I promise to consider you for an implant when you reach sixteen standards. However, even if you become my sharpest knife, sharper than Naruto, I need you to have other skills as well.”
He blinked back tears. “I will stay. You can take off my collar.”
There were many times when Naruto wished that his hearing was less acute. This was one of them. He did not want to have to tell Iruka-sensei or, worse, Sasuke, that Sumaru was desperately unhappy; that the boy who presented such a unyielding face to the world had cried himself to sleep every night since they had cut off his collar. Naruto wished that they were on the Sakura; if he had been in a bunk someone else would have noticed. Instead they were on the Oak, where Sumaru had his own room.
In the end he decided that doing something himself was better than having to tell Iruka-sensei or Sasuke. He went to the smallest gym the next morning and waited, patiently and cross-legged, for Sumaru to finish his prayers.
“We had a similar choice to make, you and I,” Naruto began. “For me it was to wear a collar or leave. For you it was take off a collar or leave.”
“You have a talent for this, Kono-kun,” Shino told him.
Konohamaru looked up from the flyer he was making for Akemi’s birth anniversary. He thoroughly enjoyed working on the project and Shino was an excellent teacher. “Thank you, Shino-sensei.”
“I am thinking of starting a very simple project with Sumaru. You could help me teach him.” Shino’s lips twitched slightly in what Konohamaru had come to understand as a smile. “We are both so unskilled at speaking, we could do with your help.”
Sumaru had improved since Sasuke had cut his collar off. He was less arrogant and haughty. He also did chores, some of them well but most of them badly. He still barely spoke, but Konohamaru now believed he listened.
On the other hand, he was even closer to Naruto. The only emotion Konohamaru ever saw on Sumaru’s face was hero worship.
“I will teach him at another time if you would prefer,” Shino suggested.
Konohamaru flushed. “No, it will be fine.”
They worked in silence for some time.
“He wants to be Naruto,” Shino said suddenly and quietly. “You do not want to be Naruto. You want to be Naruto’s special person, which is understandable. I sympathise. I wish I was someone’s special person and that, like your dream, will never happen. We must move on. We must think of people like Kakashi, who thought he would never find another special person after Obito and yet he now has Iruka.”
Konohamaru was shocked yet flattered that Shino should go to such lengths to make him feel better. Haku had told him that Shino loved Shikamaru, that Shikamaru did not know and that this was one of the taboo subjects that Konohamaru must never mention. “Thank you, Shino-sensei,” he whispered.
“You are welcome, Kono-kun.”
“In Sasuke-sama’s office?” Asuma queried.
“In Sasuke-sama’s office,” Shikamaru insisted. “We are beginning a tradition that every child will have balloons and cakes and the presents that are not from their parents or their siblings in Sasuke-sama’s office on his or her birth anniversary. Naruto is planning to decorate the desk. The balloons will be tied to the desk. The cakes and the presents will be on the desk.” He paused meaningfully. “This tradition will, of course, become established enough to continue when we return to Tarrasade.”
Asuma stared at him. “We will be having children’s birth anniversary celebrations on Fugaku-kyou’s desk?”
“We will be having children’s birth anniversary celebrations on Sasuke-sama’s desk,” Shikamaru emphasised.
Asuma thought about it and then bowed. “I salute you, Shikamaru-san.”
“We will be doing this when we return to Tarrasade?” Kakashi checked, his eye fixed on the desk, which was a riot of colour with bunches of balloons anchored at each corner. In the centre was a pile of presents and to either side a plate of small birthday cakes. Akemi sat on a cushion on Sasuke’s chair with a crown on his head.
“That is the idea,” Asuma confirmed.
“And you are fine with that?” Kakashi queried.
“Will you be fine with it when it is your and Iruka’s child?” Asuma asked. “You suffered much more than I.”
Kakashi glanced about, checking that Iruka was at a safe distance. “We have never discussed having our own children.”
Asuma shrugged. “Sasuke’s children then. As if Iruka is going to care who the genetic parents are.”
Kakashi’s eye went from the desk to where Naruto was galloping about the room with Misora on his shoulders. “Yes, I will be fine with it. Trust Naruto.”
“It was Shikamaru’s idea.” Asuma’s eye went back to the desk. “Although I see Naruto’s hand in the implementation.”
Sasuke looked at Akemi sitting on his chair, Misora on Naruto’s shoulders and Keitaro on Kurenai’s hip. What was an Uchiha? He knew the answer his father and even his mother would have given him. They would have brought up an genetic chart and shown him the parameters within which a child had to fall to be considered a full blood. He worked his way over to Rin’s side.
“Can Naruto and I have children together?” he asked.
Rin’s head turned towards him slowly. “I will only answer that question if he is also asking it,” she answered.
“Babies?” Naruto queried. He had thought that they were going to fuck, not talk about babies. He thought of Akemi, Misora and Keitaro. He thought of Shino’s nieces and nephews. He liked children. He did not know if he liked babies. He knew that Sasuke wanted children and that Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei had agreed to help raise them. Uchiha had to include more Uchihas or there would be no point. He smiled. “Lots of little Uchihas,” he agreed. “Ten?” he suggested.
“No, not Uchihas,” Sasuke said. “Our children. Combinations of you and me.”
Naruto was very still. His whiskers twitched. “Hybrids do not breed,” he reminded Sasuke. “Hybrids are engineered.” He did not know why he felt so uneasy. “Most hybrids do not work. I do not want a child who does not work. It is not fair on the child.”
“Can we talk to Rin about it?” Sasuke asked.
Naruto sighed. They would speak to Rin. She would persuade Sasuke that it was a bad idea.
Rin and Naruto exchanged looks. This was one issue where Naruto was certain they understood each other perfectly. He hoped she could get the idea of a Sasuke/Naruto baby out of Sasuke’s head.
“You can clone Naruto,” Rin began. “You can make tiny tweaks like colouring. Very tiny tweaks. Anything more and it will be up to the Lady how the baby turns out. I do not know why Naruto works.
“I can take some of Naruto’s human genes and splice them into a human embryo’s chromosomes. The more splicing we do the more risk there is of damaging the embryo. We are talking a maximum of one percent of the genome. Nowhere near half. You could pick something visible. A token. Maybe Naruto’s eye colour. I could do that safely.
“Perhaps a scientist specialising in hybrids would be more positive but I doubt it.”
“Is there a scientist specialising in hybrids?” Sasuke asked.
“There is a scientist called Kabuto who publishes interesting research,” Rin told him. “It’s a dubious field with many charlatans.”
Naruto wished that Rin had not mentioned the scientist. It might raise the prospect of hope in Sasuke’s mind. “But this Kabuto is unlikely to suggest that a half and half mix of Sasuke’s and my chromosomes will make a healthy baby,” he stated.
Rin looked horrified. “It would never work. The embryo would not get through the first cell division. Even if by some fluke it did…” she voice trailed off. Her expression was enough.
Sasuke played. It helped. It required his mind and his body to work together. The music was beautiful. It never ceased to amaze him that he could produce it. He should set aside time each day to play. It was soothing. He would move the biwa to his office.
Maybe he could teach his children to play; not all of them, he did not want it to be a chore to them. He would teach only the ones who took to it as he had taken to it.
There was a movement across the open doorway of his room. Then Sumaru stood there, motionless, staring. So the boy liked music.
Naruto was pleased when Sasuke produced his lute after the evening meal. It had been too long. People started to appear as soon as the music started. Elite fighters drifted into their crew room, beckoned over the threshold by Iruka. Haku sat on the floor with Konohamaru sprawled beside him. Naruto noticed the way Haku’s fingers played in Konohamaru’s hair and wondered.
After a while Sasuke started to play music so that they would sing. Iruka and Kakashi took the leads in a ballad, which always delighted the elite fighters. Shino sang a comic song in his deadpan way that made it all the funnier. Hamaki and Terai persuaded Fu sing. Then Sasuke turned to Sumaru.
“Is there a song you would like me to play?” he asked.
There was silence. Then, slowly, the boy spoke. “You will not know the tune.”
“Sing it,” Naruto encouraged. “Sasuke will be quick to pick it up.”
Sumaru sang, hesitantly at first and then with more confidence as Sasuke began to pick out the melody. His voice had yet to break. The sound penetrated the air and the mind, as haunting as it was beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGVMS4AWUlU
Author’s note
I hope that readers like this ‘vignette’ chapter because I think I need mechanisms like this to develop the plot and some of the characters without dedicating whole chapters.
I would like to thank Kat for her review, which was useful. I continue to appreciate constructive criticism.
When I originally posted this author's note on 23/02/10 I asked for a debate about using the term 'fuck' in this fic for everyday reference to sex. Thank you to those who contributed. Thse contributions helped me decide to continue using it in this way.
There also seems limited hunger for a glossary explaining the technology of this world, so I have decided to not write that until time is less pressing, which probably means never!