Dentes

November 26, 2005

Sakura had told him that it would be best if he were to stay in public eye for the time being. Sasuke wasn’t quite sure what constituted as ‘public eye’, but he figured that a simple trip to a local hardware shop would be public enough.

There was no real reason to leave his house. The police officers hadn’t made an appearance since yesterday afternoon, and his parking lot remained depressingly vacant.

But there was a dead bulb in the kitchen, something he’d discovered upon flicking the switch earlier on in the afternoon. It gave a sharp sound like a hornet hitting a red hot sheet of iron, flickered once, twice, and died. Hence the impromptu trip.

Public eye, Sasuke thought, was a loose term.

And lately, so was living.

The lights along the streets bobbed along his vision like drunken fireflies, distorting everything into a real-life Picasso painting. Staring at the bright patchwork of colors made his eyes hurt, so he focused instead on the dark sidewalk beneath his trainers. It was safe. None of the streaks of light could destroy the mundane, colorless pavement, and he counted the cracks, avoided stepping on them, stepped on them on purpose every now and then.

He’d left his wallet and his house keys in the bowl on the coffee table, and his hand was curled loosely over a wad of one dollar bills, maybe a five or a ten thrown in there somewhere. Sasuke doubted a single light bulb would cost that much, but he also wanted to grab dinner while out. The only time he’d eaten meals at his home was when Sakura stopped over and cooked for him, her emerald eyes guarded, hiding what Sasuke could only guess to be a mixture of pity, sadness, a bit of anger.

And suspicion.

The wire tapping equipment had been removed from his kitchen the same day that he stopped seeing a black and white car with a bar of dead lights outside of his window. The team of detectives pinned to the case had dropped the ransom option, and were currently hounding the orphanage for names of people who’d taken Naruto in as a foster child before the boy had gotten himself emancipated.

Sasuke wondered how long it would be before they dropped that option, too, and turned to the only one they had left.

Was it Sherlock Holmes who’d said that when all other possible options were eliminated, the last option was the answer?

Perhaps it was irrational, but for the last few days, Sasuke harbored the malicious urge to burn every single mystery book that was unfortunate enough to be within a ten-mile radius of his person.

How long do they keep looking for a missing person?

A missing person who isn’t even a child?

A parent-less, white, gay man with no spectacular accomplishments or ambitions?

How long do they keep looking for a person like him before they move on to the blonde, pig-tailed six-year-old of some greeting-card perfect family that would grab far more attention from the media?

How long?

How long?

Sasuke was stubborn, but he wasn’t dense, and he wasn’t a fool. He knew an eye was constantly trained on him, and would be until he died, Naruto died, or Naruto was found. Unfortunately, the only desirable option seemed to be becoming less and less an option with each blank hour of his life.

His destination lay in sight when he rounded the fourth city block outside of his development, but he made no move to quicken his steps. He strolled at a dead, leisurely pace, the heels of his shoes scraping against the concrete, shoulders dipping down and hands in his pockets. His breath fanned out before him before whipping past his cheeks and trailing out behind him like a path of vapor. Although the day had been sunny, tomorrow was when weather forecasters predicted would b the first snow fall of the window. The sky had darkened ominously by the time three ‘o’ clock rolled around, and Sasuke suspected that the sky the next day would be hard and gray as stone.

When Sasuke opened the door to Fix ‘n’ Things, it was to find the store mostly empty save for the elderly assistant manager who was shuffling through a messy pile of paperwork behind the register. Sasuke never quite knew how to categorize the place. It was like a CVS, only with hardware. The town housed a lot of young people who commuted to one of the three colleges that were nearby, thus the stores in the area were keyed to a lower budget. This place was like the retarded lovechild of Home Depot and Walmart; small, dinky, unorganized, and with a lot of things that didn’t belong in a hardware store like boxes of sodas, candy, a section of manga books, a small selection of electronics, and canned goods.

When the small bell that hung above the door rattles in a rusted kind of way, the woman, Miss. Jekyll, looked up in surprise. Sasuke could see why. It was quarter to eight at night, and this store closed in fifteen minutes. She probably hadn’t had any customers in well over an hour.

Slowly, a cautious smile crept onto her face, and Sasuke gulped back a heaving sigh of frustration.

Of course she’s heard about Naruto, he thought bitterly as he stared straight into her steely gray eyes that were busy studying his face for what he could only assume to be some sign of a mental breakdown. Who in this damn town hasn’t?

“Evenin‘, Sasuke,” she said, the sweetness in her voice sounding surprisingly genuine. “What brings you here so late at night?”

“Light bulb went out,” was his short reply. He swept past her, not in the mood for conversation, although he knew this women too well to expect her to leave him alone. Naruto had dragged her over for dinner once or twice, and she talked almost as much as his lover had.

Had.

Had.

“How’ve you been?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Have the police found anything’ new?” It was something he appreciated about her, that for all her talking she didn’t spend it beating around a bush.

“No.” He’d found the aisle that contained electronic appliances and his eyes scanned the products for light bulbs.

Miss Jekyll cleared her throat. “They’re over here, son.”

Sasuke blinked. She was pointing at an area he’d walked by not five seconds ago. He strode over to where her finger pointed, and began to stare at them without interest. “Thanks.” He didn’t feel much like eating anymore, but he still didn’t feel like going home. It wouldn’t be fair to dwindle around here while Miss Jekyll was trying to close up.

“Any specific kind you were lookin’ fer?”

“Not really.”

“What kine’ of watt?”

I don‘t care. “I don’t know.”

There was a long silence in which Sasuke counted the gaps in the metal framework and Miss Jekyll shuffled around the store, moving products this way and that, but never straying far. Sasuke didn’t remove his hands from his pockets to pick anyone or even read the casing. He simply stared and didn’t want to go home.

“How’s yer new alarm clock turning out?” Miss Jekyll asked awkwardly after a long minute of silence, seemingly trying to scrabble at straws that would tie up the loose ends of an equally awkward conversation.

“My alarm clock,” Sasuke repeated blandly, not in the mood to take pity on her well-meant stab at conversation. “I--” he couldn’t bring himself too say ‘we’, “--bought it over the summer. I hardly call that ‘new’.”

The shopkeeper looked confused. “Did you forget?” she asked. “You came in just a few weeks ago to buy a new one. The same exact one, too. Na--Someone threw at the wall, you said. Broke it.”

This sounded completely normal. Naruto had a bad habit of throwing the alarm clock at the wall or smashing it against the edge of the bedside table when his muddled brain couldn’t sort out the method to turn the wretched thing off. Eventually Sasuke had moved it to the other side of the bed so that Naruto would have to climb up and over Sasuke to reach it. Which he did, of course, but it gave Sasuke enough time to shove the blond off the bed and turn it off the proper way. They were college students, after all, and therefore couldn’t afford to pay to replace every alarm clock Naruto felt the urge to go Hulk on. Sasuke had even duct taped the wire to the back of the table, leaving no room to properly smack it into the wall. It had proved successful; they’d managed to keep this clock for nearly five months.

Sasuke would most certainly remember if it had broken.

“It must have been someone else,” Sasuke muttered, turning back to face the aisle. There were five brands of light bulbs in several different levels of wattages. What was the difference between 60 watts and 100? Would that blue glass tint the light aqua? If that black light didn’t turn his room to midnight at noon, would they give his money back or call the funny farm?

“It can’t have been.” She didn’t know when to quit, Sasuke thought angrily, feigning interest between the brands Patsonic and Clicque. “Son, no one could get hair like yers in a million years. Same face, same hair, even mentioned Na--his name once-er twice.”

Just shu--

…what?

Sasuke had been removing a back of three 80 watt bulbs from its hook, and although he knew the package was light, it now felt fifty pounds in his sweating palm.

“It looked just like you,” she reaffirmed. “You probably forgot.”

“It couldn’t have been. My clock is still taped to the table.” Miss Jekyll gave him an odd look at that, but he hardly registered it. “Are you sure it was me?”

“Sure it was, son.” She was looking worried again. And again, this didn’t register in Sasuke’s mind at all. “You said that Naruto broke it again,” she repeated, as if confirming with herself her own thoughts.

“And I bought the exact same clock.”

“Same one. You even asked if it was the same one ya bought earlier.”

What?

Miss Jekyll was fixing him with a pitying stare now. “It’s all right, son,” she said. Her hand twitched at her side, as if she wanted to clasp him on the shoulder her place a comforting hand on his arm, but she didn’t. “Yer under a lot of stress. It’s natural. Don’t get hung up on something like this.”

Sasuke didn’t forget anything when stressed. He hardly forgot anything at all, ever. He remembered every fact, every date, every formula for exams that may very well determine his future. He remembered what his living room looked like before it was coated in blood. He could remember nearly every word his brother had said to him before Itachi swallowed the muzzle of a gun.

Sasuke didn’t forget.

“Sasuke?”

He shoved the light bulb package back, and it toppled to the floor, bring several hooked of products with it. They spilled to the floor. He heard glass shatter.

“Sasuke!”

He didn’t want to go home.

He didn’t want to eat.

But now, he had to leave here, too, before he began to consider that he had a split personality, or worse, that--

Riiing

Sasuke didn’t know that he was outside until cold air struck his face like a hammer, giving him an instant headache. His nostrils burned, and he didn’t know he was running until his lungs began to burn.

Sense was telling him two rather contradictory things. One was that he needed to go back that and question Miss Jekyll further, to withdraw from her more details about whatever it was she’d been talking about. About this stranger with his face. Sense also told him he needed to leave before he finally cracked.

He stopped several empty streets away, leaning and heaving against the crumbling brick corner of a closed dry cleaner’s. The sky was a deep, pitch black, like frozen silk. His windbreaker provided little warmth, but he didn’t mind it much. Didn’t mind it at all, in fact. He stared out and into the horizon, studying the outlines of buildings that were given shape by the outlines of stars and streetlight. He could see a small lake, like a pool of liquid silver. He could see the outlines of the run down part of town that was scheduled for reconstruction some time next May. He could see everything, the darker part of his neighborhood, and it looked so much warmer, so much more inviting than his empty home. It pulled to him to walk its empty streets, that there was a comforting warmth hidden somewhere in those trashed houses, and all he’d have to do was go in and find it.

He took a step.

Another.

But there would be no warmth there, Sasuke knew, not matter what his guts and his heart told him. Only the cold, the darkness, and the moon.

A second me.

His hands went back into his pockets.

A man with my face.

Dejected, he turned on his heel, and began the long journey back home.

What the Hell is going on?

November 18, 2005

Naruto was always slow to wake, but this particular waking came with a jolt of surprise. One side of his body was immobilized, pinned to the bed by his wrist by something cold and unmoving, making his fingers twitch. They felt numb. It was cold inside the room. There was a draft somewhere. Out on the streets, painted with the colors of night, a cat mewled and hissed pathetically like a wolf baying at the moon.

He tried to move his hand, but the restraint kept him from moving far. He groaned, and a breathy chuckle swept away the last of the sleep that lay like old laundry in his mind.

Naruto blinked, confused, and Sasuke finally removed his hand from where it had been pinning Naruto’s to the bed. The younger man was lying down on his stomach, head tilted in the vampire’s direction, eyes curious and mouth pursed.

“Oi.” He felt ashamed when his voice croaked like a bull frog. Sasuke’s grin grew wider. Clearing his throat, Naruto said, “What was that for?”

“You were thrashing about in your sleep again,” was Sasuke’s excuse.

Naruto propped himself up on his elbows, but didn’t move to leave the comfort of the covers, his bare skin sure to feel the chill of a late November morning. Unlike Naruto, however, Sasuke was fully clothed and straddling the edge of the bed. Again, Naruto was confused. But when he looked out the window, it was to see a dim, dark red, like rust, staining the sky. Dawn was approaching, and Sasuke was leaving.

“I thought,” Sasuke murmured, crimson eyes troubled, “that sleeping with me helped to keep the terrors away.”

“It does!” Naruto said immediately, twisting so that he could sit cross-legged on the mattress, the thin sheet ripping over his lap. “It does, Sasuke. But you cannot chase them all away.”

Sasuke snorted. “I should.”

They were silent for a while, both well aware that the sun was mere minutes from kissing the lipped tops of the skyscrapers that, over the past few years, had erected themselves before their bewildered eyes. Bewildered, all but Sasuke’s. Nothing seemed to faze him, and Naruto felt that nothing ever truly would. He’d lived too long, Naruto knew, for much to surprise him.

“You surprise me,” Sasuke had assured him once when Naruto voiced his thoughts. “Every second of every day you surprise me.”

Naruto had laughed. “Even when I am not there, eh?”

Sasuke hadn’t laughed, but smiled, a little sadly for reasons Naruto wouldn’t understand until several short months later. “Yes. Even then.”

Now, Sasuke sighed and turned his face away from his lover to face the dawn. “I should leave.”

They had this down to a science. Like a predator could sense pray, Sasuke could sense when the dawn was approaching. He could count the seconds until the first sliver of light sliced through the fog-choked air of an early London morning. But Naruto had gotten something down to a science, as well: his pleas.

“You don’t have to leave,” Naruto said as if he expected this morning’s answer to be different than any other morning. “Stay here. You know no one will come in, and there are dark places--”

“The only dark place in this apartment is that pathetically small closet of yours.” He gestured around Naruto’s home with a gentle wave of his arm. It was one large room with the bed tucked into a corner, the kitchen in another, and the rest of the space dedicated to several tall easels and a plain wooden work bench that was littered with blueprints, some torn, some new. Three of the walls were plain, unpainted, chipped and cracked in places. The fourth wall that faced the rest of the world was made entirely of glass.

“Your room must be full of light when the sun rises,” Sasuke murmured wistfully, eyes glazing with visions visibly only to him. “It must look marvelous.”

“Yes…” When Naruto had designed and constructed this new wall of glass three years ago, he hadn’t taken into consideration a man who regarded the sun as an atheist might a crucifix. If he’d known, he might have bricked over the tiny window the wall had offered, covered it in thick burlap, something to block out the sun, to keep Sasuke with him every day, every hour…

Sasuke was getting up and, before he could stop himself, Naruto was grappling at his forearm. “Do not go.” Do not leave me. “Stay.” You always leave me.

“You know I hate it when you beg this of me,” Sasuke murmured, a sadness and loneliness that seemed as old as time itself weighed heavily in his eyes, but Naruto couldn’t stop himself from asking anyway.

“Please…”

“I must.”

“Do not leave me.”

“Only until night time, Naruto.”

“Please.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t leave me… Sasuke…”

“I have no intentions of leaving you, Naruto. I’m right here.”

“Please, Sasuke, don’t….”

“Wake up. I’m right here. Wake up, Naruto.”

Naruto’s gaze wavered, and he opened his eyes.

The sky was indeed dark, but instead of the sun rising, it was beginning to wane. There was no trace of its light, only the burnt remains that would fade to black in half an hour’s time. The room wasn’t cold but warm, the fire once again crackling like it had never begun to die. Indeed, it was warm enough that his forehead had begun to sponge with sweat, causing blond locks to stick to it in messy clumps. He lay on his stomach, hands twisted in the sheets and keeping them taught over his waist and shoulders.

Naruto looked at his wrist. The handcuffs were gone.

He looked up, and met Sasuke’s gave squarely. The amber of the irises were more warm than cold this morning, and Naruto winced when he realized the reason behind the vampire’s slightly mesmerized expression.

“Back up,” Naruto muttered, even though Sasuke was a good two feet from his person. Nevertheless, Sasuke backed up further. Feeling the sheets loosen at the lack of weight pinning them down, Naruto was able to struggle into a sitting position, rubbing at his eyes in a sleepy manner even though he didn’t feel remotely tired. He was stalling for time that he was sure the vampire would take at any moment. He needed a reasonable excuse, a believable story, something flexible enough that it would rebut any accusation Sasuke threw at him.

The silence stretched on for several long moments, which Naruto spent debating the pros and cons of debating about a horrible nightmare. Sasuke cut him to the chase before he could come up with anything concrete.

“You said my name.”

“I didn’t.” A story could have plot holes. Denial was better, easier.

“You did.” That wonder, the warm glow, was still in his eyes, and Naruto found himself simultaneously despising it and wanting to make it glow brighter.

“You’re hearing things.” Sasuke sat at the edge of the bed, but nevertheless, Naruto felt trapped. “Let me up.”

Sasuke didn’t move. “You did,” he repeated, leaning forward by an inch. It felt, to Naruto, like a mile. “It was a ‘keh’ sound.”

“You’re hearing shit,” Naruto deadpanned, feigning nonchalance. “If you don’t stop deluding yourself, you’ll never come to your senses.”

“I am not the one whom needs to come to his senses.”

“Whatever.” Feeling the familiar pressure, Naruto gladly yawned widely, adding to his charade. “You gonna let me off the bed?”

Sasuke leaned forward again, unrelenting. “What were you dreaming of?” he asked. “You asked me not to go.”

“It wasn’t you I was dreaming of, asshole. It was Sasuke.”

“Stop lying to yourself.”

“I dreamt I was home,” Naruto quickly lied. “The morning that Sasuke left for the airport. I knew you were coming, and I knew you wouldn’t if Sasuke stayed.”

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.” The warmth had dissipated and was quickly being replaced with doubt. It was working.

Having just woken up from the most surreal, frightening dream he’d ever had in his entire life, Naruto’s mind was understandably muddled. It clouded his judgment and gave his courage a fierce sort of clarity. It let him bring himself to his knees, inched him forward until he wasn’t half a foot from Sasuke. He settled back onto the balls of his feet, and surprised even himself when his hands drew up and gripped Sasuke’s face gently, one palm to each cheekbone, the tips of his fingers grazing his ears and his bangs.

Sasuke blinked up at him, eyes wide with shock, lips falling apart slightly, his breath hitting Naruto’s face like a cool gust of mint-scented wind.

“Naruto…” he murmured, tilting his head to the side, hope birthing in his eyes and making Naruto’s heart ache in his chest.

“Sasuke.” It was the first time Naruto had knowingly said the vampire’s name, and it sounded so wrong, but felt so familiar, and he knew he’d remember the sound of it, the way his lips and tongue formed the syllables, for the rest of his life. But now it was time to throw down the final peg of his lie, and hopefully the next rung of the ladder that would allow him to climb out of this Hell. “There is nothing in this world that I want more than to let this place burn to the ground, with you in it, and go back home to the man that I love.”

It hurt more than Naruto thought it would, saying something so hateful, but it had its desired effect. More of an effect than he was hoping for.

It was painful to notice the way that the hope lingered over Sasuke’s features for a few seconds longer, like he was waiting for Naruto to tell him it was just a joke.

Then the anguish set in, and Naruto, for the life of him, couldn’t find the words to describe it.

It made him feel like dying.

Sasuke’s face inched away from his hands slowly, and Naruto let them drop back down to his lap. Sooner than he expected him to, Sasuke was standing and stepping away from the bed, although he didn’t turn his back to the human. Like Naruto held a weapon Sasuke couldn’t possibly fathom wielding, and that it would spear him in the back the moment he turned his gaze away.

“What do you want for breakfast?”

Naruto wasn’t quite sure he heard that right. “What?”

“What,” Sasuke said slowly, “do you want for breakfast?”

“I’m not hungry,” Naruto blurted out, eyes still confused, hearting beating rapidly--hopefully?--in his chest.

Sasuke nodded and headed for the door. Before he stepped out and locked it behind him, Sasuke turned to say his next words to Naruto’s face.

“Even when I first met you nearly a century go, I knew what a horrendous liar you were. You cannot lie, Naruto, especially to me. Your eyes just cannot get into it. As I know this, I know you were not dreaming of your old home, and I most certainly know that you were not dreaming of him. I’m not the fool here, Naruto.”

Naruto practically felt his jaw unhinge. His eyes were wide with shock, shame making his heart clench tightly like a fist inside of his chest.

“You claim to love the man that I stole you away from, but if he would believe a lie such as the one you tried to feed me, he is nowhere near deserving of your love.”

Naruto couldn’t think of anything to say. His tongue felt still and swollen in his mind and he felt that if he were to try and say anything, it would fall right out of his mouth.

“There are clothes for you on the window sill,” Sasuke said, nodding towards the window. “I’ll bring you up your breakfast shortly.”

It sounded like a dismissal if Naruto had never heard one, but Sasuke lingered to say something else.

“And one more thing.” To Naruto’s further shock, Sasuke began to smirk, all earlier signs of agony completely gone. “You’re a fool to think that I could die in a mere fire, let alone allow you to get far enough away from me that you’d go back to that pathetic excuse for a human being. You can lie all you want, Naruto, but if he wants you back, then he’ll need to do what I did.” His eyes gleamed. “Take you from me himself.”

Click

Naruto listened to the sounds of feet walking down a set of creaking steps, lamented the death of his courage, and wondered when it would return to him for good.

--

Sasuke knew Naruto wasn’t hungry because of his biological clock, not a sincere lack of appetite. He didn’t know how his stomach would react to the reversal of breakfast, lunch and dinner, so he made something simple. He popped two pieces of white bread into the toaster on the counter and while he waited for them to toast, he fetched from the pantry a jar each of marmalade and peanut butter. It was a treat Naruto used to love for breakfast, and Sasuke was curious as to whether he’d like it now. Behind him, the power generator hummed, the hulking thing looking odd and out-of-place in such an old-fashioned kitchen.

He lay out a plate, leaned against the wall, and thought.

He knew Naruto would lie before the man even woke up. It was just the sort of person he was, protecting truths he thought he needed to keep secret and sharing all the others.

After so many centuries of life, Sasuke had eliminated the bad habit of forgetting and misunderstanding. He spent the last one hundred years thinking of the man who was undoubtedly sulking in the locked room directly above him, dissecting his habits and his quirks in his mind, tracing the contours of his smiling face with his mind, shutting his eyes to see cerulean ones looking earnestly back at him.

The toaster popped

And then he began to think of Sasuke.

Sasuke had to give the human some credit. He seemed to make Naruto happy, to a certain degree. They lived in a modest home on the outskirts of town, surrounded by plenty of trees, and never needed to travel far for anything. Their home was full of windows, like he knew Naruto liked it. They were comfortable, and Naruto craved comfortable. They were steady, like the sun and the moon. They could fight knowing that no matter what was said or done, they’d eventually find their way back to each other.

But that didn’t change the fact that Sasuke wasn’t him.

There were times that they didn’t seem to be on the same page.

When Naruto wanted to go out, Sasuke wanted to stay, and of course the blond would stay with him. If Naruto wanted to have sex that night, Sasuke would sometimes put his work ahead of that and let Naruto go to bed himself that night. When they argued over what they’d have for dinner, Sasuke made too much effort to win out the argument, and he sometimes did. Naruto shouldered responsibilities that they should have shared. His eyes sometimes looked a bit lost, like he wanted to say something, but didn’t.

And that was all the least of it.

The most deciding factor was that that pathetic human couldn’t protect Naruto the way that he could.

There was no weight heavy enough in this world, or in any other world, that could crush him. No temperature was hot enough or cold enough to ail him in the slightest. Sasuke could feel things, oh yes. Pain was no stranger to him. But after such a long life, it became more of a nuisance than something that could bother him. He’d learned to turn the pain off, to tuck it into the corner of his mind where it wouldn’t bother him.

Sasuke could not be hurt. Sasuke could not die.

The human could be both.

And that was why he, not the other, could protect Naruto. And only he who could protect him could ever be worthy of him.

Sasuke drew the toast out of the oven, found it to have cooled, and popped it back down for another minute to heat up.

Yes, he thought. Only me.

And as he waited for the toast to pop back up, he looked out the window above the sink and into the sky, plotting, and planning.

--

When Sasuke had unlocked the door and entered, it was to find Naruto changed, but not on the bed. He’d been on the floor, arms crossed behind his head, legs in a perfect arch across the floor, doing a set of sit-ups.

“What are you doing now?” Sasuke asked, crossing the room to place Naruto’s breakfast on the bed.

“What does it look like?” Naruto grunted, face flushed slightly from exertion. “My body feels all weird. I need to stretch my muscles.”

“What muscles?” Sasuke had joked. He got a harmless kick to the shin retribution.

When Naruto had lifted himself from the floor and stretched, he walked over to bed the bed and picked up the plate, eyeing it slightly incredulously. “The fuck is this?”

“It’s breakfast.”

“It looks disgusting.”

“Try it before you judge it, moron.”

“What is it, anyway?”

Sasuke sighed. “Toast with marmalade and peanut butter.”

“Your cooking skills suck. Where did you come up with this anyway?” Sasuke didn’t answer, so Naruto rolled his eyes and took a bite, hungry despite himself. He sincerely wished it didn’t taste so good that it showed on his face.

“Like it?” Naruto didn’t like the triumph he saw in the vampire’s eye, and he rolled his eyes, ready to make a sarcastic comment, if not a lie.

“You cannot lie, Naruto, especially to me.”

“It’s edible.”

Sasuke smirked, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking up at him. Naruto made a show of walking around the bed to get to the other side to sit while he ate. For a short while, there was silence while they both thought, one eating, one staring.

“Oi, bastard.”

“Hm?”

“Why aren’t I a vampire?”

Sasuke seemed sufficiently shaken from what ever reverie he’d been stuck in, eyebrow arched slightly in question. Naruto lay sprawled across the bed now, plate empty and next to his elbow, studying his arm carefully and flexing his fingers, curling his hand into a fist and relaxing it. The bite marks from just below the inside of his elbow had completely healed over, and the marks on his shoulders had faded to a shiny pink, most likely to disappear completely in a few short hours.

Although Sasuke knew exactly what it was that Naruto was talking about, he decided to make him work for it.

“You are not a vampire because you are stupendously stubborn,” Sasuke said.

“You know what I mean,” Naruto snapped.

“Are you sure it won’t be too complicated for you?”

“I think I can handle it,” Naruto said dryly.

Sasuke chuckled, but the sound died as quickly as it was made. He paused, as if collecting his thoughts. “When I bite a person,” he began, “the venom from my teeth is injected into the bloodstream. In order for the transformation to begin, the venom needs to reach the heart. Vampire venom, however, is incredibly weak. If I bite a point far away from the heart, such as your right arm or your leg, the venom will become virtually harmless by the time it gets into the heart.”

“So… what, you have to bite right over it or something?”

“Ironically enough, no. The chest, for both males and females, is protected by too much muscle. My teeth wouldn’t be able to penetrate deep enough.

“The neck is the ideal place to bite if you want a transformation to occur. The main arteries are fairly close to the skin, and it pumps directly to the heart.”

“So I’m not a creature of the living dead because your pansy venom is weak as shit?”

Sasuke’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance. “In so many words,” he replied, voice clipped.

Naruto worried his lip, trying to figure out how to word his next question without wounding his pride too much. He traced patterns with the crumbs on his plate with his forefinger as he spoke. “If your venom’s so damn weak, then why are you so…”

“Strong?” Naruto snorted, which Sasuke took to mean a ‘yes’.” Physically, I’m no stronger than I was when I was human. My body is frozen, I guess you could say. Nothing could ever and will ever harm it. Likewise, it will never grow or develop any farther.”

“So what? You’re just gonna… live forever the way you are?”

“Yes,” Sasuke said solemnly. He moved himself fully on the bed, tilting himself back to prop himself against his arms. “Unless one of two things happen.”

“Eh?”

“I have no prior evidence to support this theory, but judging by my hunger for blood, I’m guess that if it were to be cut off, I’d eventually starve to death.”

“And the second thin?” he prompted.

Sasuke’s eyes left Naruto’s to stare out the window. “The sun.”

“The sun?”

“Yes. And this one I have plenty of evidence to support.” Seemingly unconsciously, Sasuke’s hand began to massage the gloves one, fingers rubbing over the spot Naruto knew to be like solid rock.

“So when the sun hits your skin it… what, freezes into stone?”

Sasuke snorted. “What did you think it would do? Sparkle?” (1)

“Don’t make fun of me,” Naruto snapped. The scorn left his voice quickly, though. He was getting the answers he wanted, and he had no intentions of doing anything to mess it up. “How did it happen?”

“Hmm… it was one of my very first memories since I woke up immortal,” Sasuke murmured, still touching his hand. “I was curious. I’d been in a dark, boarded house for a week, and I was always a bit… frightened of touching the sunlight. But I was nevertheless curious, and that won out in the end.

“There were spots in the boards that were cracked, chipped away. Light shone through in spots. I decided to place a harmless part of myself into it, and if it hurt, I’d retract my hand instantly.” Sasuke stopped massaging his gloves hand. He drew it into his fist, brought it up to eyesight, and stared thoughtfully of it. “I wear a glove to try and forget the disfigurement, but still, I’m reminded of my mistake every day.”

“Does it hurt?” Naruto asked cautiously, although he was fairly sure he knew the answer.

Sasuke finally looked away from his hand to meet Naruto’s gaze once again. Slowly, he said, “Tremendously.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“Very much so.”

Sasuke’s eyes were still on him, expectant, and Naruto wondered what the vampire thought he’d ask next. He seemed surprised by Naruto’s next question. “You said you woke up in a rundown house, right?”

“Yes.”

“Woke up as a vampire?”

Sasuke’s eyes tightened. He seemed to know where this line of questioning would lead. “Yes.”

“That means you were human once. Right?”

Sasuke sighed, heavily, and deep somberness seemed to weight down his very shoulders. “Yes,” he repeated, sounding tired of the same answer.

“Who was it that… changed you?”

Sasuke looked torn between telling him and avoiding the subject. Naruto hoped desperately for the former, but for the first time since their conversation began, he was disappointed.

“That,” Sasuke said, “is a question for another day.”

Naruto frowned, but decided not to push it. Much to his dismay, he still had several weeks stuck in this house. There would be plenty of time for more questioning later.

Abruptly, Sasuke asked, “Are you full?” He pointed at Naruto’s plate.

“Yeah, I’m done.” Naruto pushed his plate towards Sasuke, expecting the vampire to take it, but he did no such thing. Instead, Sasuke ignored the plate, stood up, and circled around to Naruto’s side of the bed. Human regarded vampire wearily, even more so when said demonic being held an expectant hand out to him.

“Good,” Sasuke said. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Naruto asked cautiously, but he doubted he cared much for the answer. Anywhere Sasuke took him that was outside of this room seemed like a dream come true.

“I want to show you something.” Sasuke grinned, his fangs flashing. “It’s past time that I do some convincing.”

November 27, 2005

12:00

…

12:01

…

12:02

…

1:35

Sasuke Uchiha could not sleep, so instead, he sat leaning against the headboard of their shared bed, staring at the digital clock that was still duct taped to the table, a bit dusty from months of use, still here, still theirs.

1:37

His right arm fell asleep, and he shifted so that it as his left shoulder that bore most of his weight. The angle made it slightly more difficult to see the illuminated screen. He cocked his head so as to see it better.

1:38

Someone had Naruto, he knew now. Someone smart, someone resourceful, and someone who had been possibly shadowing the two of them--it’s easier to think he’s been stalking us both, the two of us, not just him, not Naruto, leave him alone and come after me instead--for weeks, maybe even months. Someone smart enough to fool CSI with a set of dodgy prints. Someone with his face, or a good replica of it.

It was impossible to think. Ludicrous that anyone would handcraft a mask of his face, to mold a wig, to buy clothes like his, to learn about his life, just to get to his boyfriend. But as that boyfriend was Naruto, well…

Sasuke’s fists, for the first time in days, clenched not to choke back an overwhelming sense of sadness, of self-pity, but in anger. Pure rage, pushing everything else out of his mind until all he could feel, hear, smell, was the hot, coppery blood swirling through his veins.

It was an impossible thought, something only a crazed man would think. The police would mark it off as laughable and shoot to the more viable option.

But not Sasuke.

He knew how to play this mystery game, too.

When all other options were eliminated, the only one left must be the right one.

1:42

He looked harder at the alarm clock. Saw a blurred reflection of his face in the plastic covering.

“Sasuke, the fingerprints are yours.”

Every enraged pulse of blood seemed to run in perfect sync with the seconds he continued to count, the difference between digits on the clock that they’d bought some time last summer, whose brother was wherever Naruto was.

“It looked just like you. You probably forgot.”

“Prints from the outside.”

“You said that Naruto broke it again.”

“The fingerprints are yours.”

“You can’t forge a fingerprint, Sasuke.”

You can and he has. No one will believe me, but whoever he is, whatever kind of monster he is, he has.

Today was officially Sunday, and the next morning Sasuke had classes he had full intentions on not intending.

Because no one believed him.

“It looked just like you.”

“The fingerprints are yours.”

He was done playing the weeping widow in a trashy mystery novel.

Sasuke had some investigating of his own to do now.

--

(1) Haha, Kodak made a funny. For those who didn’t get the joke, I’ve one word for you: Twilight.