Dentes

Author’s Notes: Sorry for the long wait. I caught pneumonia and haven’t been able to write for a few weeks because of it.

Any and all future Twilight references are completely unintentional, and should be ignored. Although the excerpt from a Fall Out Boy song is, unfortunately, very much intended. Sorry, but I had to do it. I heard this one line on the radio and laughed. It’s oddly fitting.

In the last chapter I made a mistake. When Sasuke was talking about the transformation from human to vampire, I said it was due to the venom spreading from the arteries. That’s incorrect. It‘s supposed to be ‘vein‘, more specifically, the jugular vein. As a reviewer pointed out, the arteries in the neck lead to the brain, not the heart.

-Kodak

“Say my name and his in the same breath, I dare you to say they taste the same.”

-I Don’t Care, by Fall Out Boy

November 27, 2005

When Sasuke woke up the next morning, he was mildly surprised to find that it was eight ‘o’ clock. By recent standards, he’d gotten a full night of sleep. Hs slumber had been untainted with dark nightmares, an even more surprising fact, although when he awakened, it was to a sense of unease and faint nausea in his stomach.

To quell the sickening, he headed straight to the kitchen and popped two slices of whole-wheat bread into the toaster. While he waited for it to finish, he poured himself a tall glass of orange juice, and leaned against the counter to drink it, rubbing his bangs out of his eyes on more than one occasion. Without gel they sort of flopped over his face, and he finally tucked them behind his ears.

When his toast was done, he placed it into a napkin, refilled his glass, and padded to the living room where he sunk heavily into the couch, contemplating the ceiling with his head tilted back, thinking all the while.

There was a twenty dollar bill on his dresser, he though, taking a bite. He would take that, and maybe a five. More than enough to pay for what he remembered the damage to be. At least, it should be.

Finished with his first piece of toast, he eyed the other one blandly before crushing it into his napkin. Lately, the line between hunger and over-eating had become despairingly thin. If he ate too much, he’d retch. If he didn’t eat enough, his stomach would pain him, and would make eating equally agonizing. He went to the kitchen, threw the napkin away, dumped the rest of his juice and let his glass sit on the counter, then dragged himself upstairs to shower.

Half an hour later found him outside of his house and into the cold. He’d had the sense to wear a heavier jacket, a leather coat that went down a few inches past his knees, although he mildly regretted having not grabbed a scarf. The cold bit at his lips, and he licked at them to keep them from chapping.

Is he cold, too?

His fingertips ran over the edges of the thin wad of currency in his pocket.

Is he cold?

The bell rang, like it did last night, and once more he emptied the empty hardware shop.

Sasuke had no clue if Miss Jekyll would be in today. It could be one of the college students he’d seen behind the counter every now and then, but a feeling told him the old woman would be right where he left her. His intuition, for the most part, was right. Except that instead of in the aisle he’d stormed out of last night, she was crouched in front of the short wall of magazines, sliding a new sheaf of Times magazine into place.

She didn’t look up upon his entrance. “Hey, how’re you,” was her customary greeting, and without waiting for an answer, she asked, “Can I help you find anything?” Sasuke was silent long enough for Miss Jekyll to turn around, possibly wondering if her bad hearing was playing tricks on her. Her eyes widened slightly behind her thick bifocals. “Oh.”

Sasuke still didn’t say anything, and after a pregnant pause, Miss Jekyll cleared her throat and asked, “Can I help you with anything?” There was a slight tightening of her eyes, but Sasuke couldn’t discern whether it was from anger or concern.

“I want to--” ‘Apologize’ seemed to juvenile, too cliché a word, so Sasuke reached into his pocket and pulled out the cash. “For last night,” he said. “For whatever I broke.”

She waved an annoyed hand at his money. “Don’t worry ‘bout it,” she said. “Not yer fault.”

Sasuke was. Whether this was out of pity or genuine concern, he wanted neither, so--”I want to pay for it.”

“A simple ‘I’m sorry’ would do just fine,” she informed him. “But you don’t seem the type to say sorry, huh?”

Sasuke could think of nothing to say. His hand remained outstretched, although he knew any attempt he made at making her take the money would be in vain. Why bother? She didn’t want it.

“If yer really sorry, you c’n take that money and buy me a cuppa coffe down the corner,” Miss Jekyll said. “Take yer fancy twenty and buy me a tall black cuppa joe, and you’ll be considered forgiven. An‘ don‘t you dare get me any of that Starbucks crap.”

Sasuke’s hand retracted to his side, and with the twenty dollar bill still in hand, he left the store.

When he returned, Miss Jekyll had finished with the magazines. She stood leaning on the counter, obviously waiting for him. Sasuke held in his hands two cups of coffee, both black, from Florence’s Danish and Eatery a few stores down.

He handed Miss Jekyll hers, and watched her take a contented sip before taking a gulp of his own. She sighed heavily, and it sounded like the rattling wheeze of an old air conditioner. Sasuke realized then just how old this woman was. He’d never realized how many wrinkles lined her face, how thin her skin seemed, how knotted, gnarled and veined her hands were. He wondered if this could be the last cup of coffee she ever drank, if she’d fall limp right in front of him, because she looked like she was relying on her last reserves of a quickly dwindling supply of inner-strength.

Then he wondered when it was his thoughts had grown so morbid.

Sasuke took another, stronger drink of coffee.

“So, what’cha doin’ here so early in the morning? I’m fairly positive it wasn’t to get this old woman a cuppa coffee.”

A furrow dug itself between Sasuke’s eyebrows. He knew the answer, but couldn’t find words that would give it form. Last night, when he’d gone to bed, one of his last thoughts had been, No matter how possible this sounds now, it’ll sound like bull shit tomorrow. But he’d woken up still feeling like he was the main character in some sort of horrific psychological thriller, and that he still needed to play his role as detective if he ever hoped to get anywhere.

“I wanted to talk about something you told me last night.”

“Well ain’t that obvious?” She gave him a crooked smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Still hung up on that, are ya?”

“Not hung up,” Sasuke corrected. “Interested.”

“Yer hung up,” she told him authoritatively. “Son, lemme tell you something. When someone’s goin’ through a tough time, it seems like every damned thing on the planet is out to get ya, and it ain’t true. You start forgettin’ things, and everything seems important. It ain’t. Not everythin’s a clue.”

“I’m not looking for clues,” Sasuke lied. “I’m not a detective.” That one, depressingly enough, wasn’t a lie. The truth weighed heavily in his words, and Sasuke wondered what the hell he was doing.

“I knot that, but I don’t think you do.” Miss Jekyll eyes the lid of her cup, then put it down on the counter. “It’s tough, son, I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” Sasuke realized that this was a stupid idea. Miss Jekyll wasn’t going to talk about his supposed clone wondering around town. She was going to be sympathetic, like life-long experience had taught her. This was useless. A waste of time.

“It’s differen’ for everybody,” she agree, nodding her grizzly head, but it was lost on Sasuke, who was already digging through his pockets. He’d used the five to pay for their drinks, and once again, he drew out the twenty. Instead of handing it to her, however, he threw it on the counter.

“For what I broke,” Sasuke repeated. He let that be his dismissal as well, and before Miss Jekyll could say another word, Sasuke was out the door, disappearing as quickly as he’d come.

--

The moment Sasuke stepped through the door of his and Naruto‘s shared house, he heard a distant ringing. At first he thought it was simply a ringing cause by his mounting headache. When he realized it was the phone, he at first attempted to ignore it, shutting the door behind him and leaning heavily against it. The consequences of not picking the phone up, however, far outweighed the results of ignoring it. It could be Sakura telling him to get out of the house, the police were coming. It could be Naruto, telling him he was on Candid Camera (1) and to come pick me up at the station, idiot, the joke’s over.

Setting the keys down on the end table, flinging his coat onto the couch, he walked heavily to the kitchen. The phone stopped ringing, silence reigned for ten seconds, and then it began to ring again.

Picking it up, cradling it in his palm for a moment, lamenting his procrastination on getting Caller ID, he pressed it to his ear and said, “Uchiha.”

“Sasuke,” he heard Sakura wince from the other end of the line. “There you are! I’ve been trying to get a hold of you forever!”

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the exaggeration. “I’ve been out,” he said. “I didn’t hear the phone ring.”

“Out or not, you should still have your cell phone. Which works much better, by the way, when you turn it on.”

The barb flew completely over his head, as Sasuke was suddenly feeling his right pocket, digging his hand in, and feeling only leg. It hit him, then, like a ten-pound bag of hardened cement.

Where is my cell phone?

Losing a phone would have been insignificant to anyone but Sasuke.

They, he, whoever, could have called him and posed as me. Naruto would have gone to meet whoever it was in a second. But how would that explain the popped window?

You’re playing detective again.

What does Sakura want?

Where’s my phone?

When did get so disorderly?

Is Naruto alive?

Does Naruto have my phone?

Whoever had my phone, he has Naruto, he has Naruto.

“Sasuke?”

“I’m here,” was Sasuke’s automatic response. “I’ll turn my phone on.” He had Naruto, he has my phone. He took my phone, he took Naruto, where’s my phone? Sakura was beginning to say something else, but he hung up on her.

She didn’t visit that day, and the house was wonderfully, depressingly quiet.

It wasn’t noon, but Sasuke Uchiha kicked his shoes off in the kitchen, went up the stairs, tore his shirt off and let it stay where it fell. He undid the button and zipper of his pants, but didn’t bother to take them off. He fell into bed. Toed off his socks. And stayed, staring at the ceiling, thinking of his cell phone and that Naruto had his own ring tone, the only one Sasuke ever picked up for.

Sasuke’s head fell more heavily onto the pillow some time in the early morning, eyes shutting. He couldn’t measure the amount of time he spent staring at the back of his eyelids, then the ceiling, then his eyelids before he finally fell asleep. His stomach told him he was hungry and his mind told him he’d never eat again. He had no recollection of ever falling unconscious.

But when he woke up, an epiphany hit him as fast as sleep had been slow to come.

He needed to make a phone call.

--

November 18, 2005

“Where are we going?”

“The attic.”

Naruto winced, eyeing the walls of the obviously decrepit building. “This place has an attic?”

“Yes.” Sasuke stopped in the middle of the hallway and opened the closet. He tucked inside for a moment, and withdrew a moment later with a stepstool.

“You sure the floor won’t collapse under our feet?”

Sasuke snorted. “Not entirely,” he said dryly, unfolding the stool and stepping up. He reached a hand above his head, grabbed a string Naruto hadn’t even seen before, and pulled. When the door flopped open, Naruto expected a cloud of dust to fall on Sasuke’s head, but it didn’t. It was perfectly clean, just like the rest of the house.

Great. Just what I need. A vampire with OCD.

“Did you need a hand up?” Sasuke asked. “There’s no ladder in the house.”

Naruto scowled and hissed, “I can get up fine, bastard!”

Sasuke shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He reached both hands up, gripped along the edges of the panel, and in one graceful movement, tightened his arms and drew himself up. He was through and in the attic before Naruto could even blink.

For a moment, the blond considered running. But he could feel the vampire’s eyes resting heavily on him, which meant that he was crouched right by the door, perfectly capable of springing down and tackling Naruto to the ground before he took all of two steps.

Naruto stood hesitantly on the stool, and then looked up. He wasn’t short, but Sasuke was tall, and the distance didn’t look as great when he’d done it. He reached his hands up, already knowing that he’d fall inches short.

Pale, cold hands flew down and snapped around Naruto’s wrists, and Naruto yelped, falling backwards. But Sasuke was already pulling, and in the next moment, he was sitting with his legs dangling through the door, trying to regain his normal pulse rate.

The only light came from below, and it came up through the air like a dusty hologram. In the darkness, he felt Sasuke move beside him and mutter, “You’re such a woman.”

“Shut up!” Naruto snapped, shoving the taller man away.

Sasuke scooted back, and Naruto saw the faint outline of him unfold itself until he stood at his full height, and then he retreated back into the shadow where he became completely indistinguishable.

“What? You gonna turn into a bat or something?” It was meant to be a joke, but a real trace of apprehension entered his voice.

A snap, crackle, and a flicker later, and there were two lights. A small one from the match, which Sasuke quickly extinguished with a flick of his wrist, and the light from the taper candle he held in his hand. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Hey, I’d believe pretty much anything at this point.” Naruto paused, and scowled when Sasuke began to smirk. “But not that.”

Sasuke tossed the used match onto a broken down, but clean table that held a short stack of books that looked to be the size of cement slabs. There were no bindings, but the covers looked like leather.

When Sasuke didn’t move, Naruto stepped forward to inspect the desk. “What is all this?” Naruto asked, brushing the tips of his fingers across the top of one. It had no title, no author, and the pages looked thick, jagged and cracked. “You couldn’t have shown me this downstairs?”

“I don’t like to move them when it’s unnecessary,” Sasuke explained. ‘They’re very old.”

“Why the attic? Why not the living room or something?” Naruto began to flip open the front cover, but a gloved hand covered his before he could move it.

“It’s very, very old,” Sasuke repeated. “Nearly a century, as a matter of fact. Be careful with it.’

It suddenly dawned on Naruto what was in that book, and his curiosity extinguished like a small flame doused in water. He didn’t want to see it.

Sensing his sudden change of heart, Sasuke took over for him. He set the candle in its holder down, the light refracting off the surrounding area like it was all made from a dully and dusty mirror, and slid the book closer to him. The sound it made was dull, but from the way Naruto reacted, it might as well have been nails on a chalkboard.

“I don’t really need to see--”

“Hush. There aren’t that many. Photography was a new technology in your time.”

“My time,” Naruto snapped sarcastically. He was ready to say more, and none of it pleasant, but the cover of the book was suddenly open, and Naruto was trapped.

“This is actually the first picture you’ve ever taken in your life,” Sasuke said. He pointed to the obvious structure in the picture. “You said you wanted to remember this.”

Naruto wasn’t really listening. He was too frightened to say much, and with his face leaning downwards, eyes wide and breath choking in his throat, he stared at the nearly barren, the edge of a scrubbed wooden table, the leg of an easel, and the wall-wide window that took up nearly three-quarters of the snapshot.

November 28, 2005

“Uchiha. It’s seven in the morning. Don’t you have better things to do than to call me? Like sleep?”

“Wake up. I have a favor I need you to do.”

“Of course you do.”

Sasuke heard shuffling on the other end of the line, but he highly doubted that Shikamaru was actually getting up. Probably just twisting into a more comfortable position on the mattress.

“I need you to track a phone number.”

“What, no ‘hello‘, no ‘good morning’, no ‘please’?”

Not in the mood for teasing banter, Sasuke let his silence speak for him.

Shikamaru sighed. “Naruto’s, right?”

“Wrong.”

Shikamaru was quiet for a moment. “Not Naruto‘s?”

“No. Whoever took Naruto left his cell phone here.”

If Shikamaru noticed that Sasuke spoke as if the abduction was a fact more so than an option, he didn’t comment. “Then whose?”

“Mine.”

This time, when the brunet lapsed into silence, Sasuke wasn’t sure if it was because he was tired or just too lazy to answer right away. But when he spoke again, it was in his usual monotone. “Please don’t tell me you woke me up this early just because you lost your phone down a couch cushion.”

“Would I do that?”

“In all seriousness? You might, if you were pissed enough.” A pause. “Are you?”

“I am, but not at you.” Sasuke sighed. “Just track it for me, would you?”

“Why?” Sasuke heard a creaking sound, and then soft taps that could only mean Shikamaru was making his way across the hardwood floor of his flat. He was moving, at least, Sasuke thought. Sasuke would consider himself twice as lucky if the genius was making his way towards his computer, not the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee.

Knowing that his story would sound highly improbably, if not ludicrous, Sasuke began, already having decided not to lie to Shikamaru. The man was a genius in pretty much everything imaginable. He could read people better than they could themselves sometimes. He’d skipped through most of high school, graduated from Harvard as valedictorian, and was now employed under the CEO of a major computer networking company. Sasuke knew for a fact that Shikamaru’s brains were the only thing saving him from landing himself out of a job. His personality was lazy, lazy as they come. It was when he realized that if he applied himself to schoolwork early on, he could get the whole thing out of the way in less than half the time if he skipped class.

Despite his laziness and his genius, Shikamaru was loyal, protective, even. In their early high school years (except for Shikamaru, who was graduating the end of that year), Ino had taken the train up to New York city to meet with a friend. Several hours after their meeting time, her friend was calling to see if Ino had even left; she’d never shown.

Although Ino had later been found (she’d boarded the wrong train and had ended up going south instead of north), it had lit something of a fire under Shikamaru’s pants, and he’d rigged his computer to track cell phone signals (2). Sasuke couldn’t understand the piece of equipment if his life depended on it, but even Shikamaru admitted that it was a hassle to use, and that he’d only do it for emergencies. It was too much trouble trying to get into the cell phone companies’ networks, not to mention the fact that it was also highly illegal.

Sasuke had a sneaking suspicion that Shikamaru had tracked Naruto’s cell phone the moment he’d gone missing, but hadn’t mentioned it when he found the signal coming from inside their house.

“I found out that it missing when I landed in Japan,” Sasuke said, listening closely to the sound coming from the other end of the line. He heard the fainting tapping of keys and a steady hum, but the brunet was quiet. “I was looking for it to call Naruto. I hadn’t used it since that morning.”

“That’s not like you, to lose your phone,” Shikamaru said. “So, what? You think Naruto took your phone by mistake?”

Sasuke snorted. “No. Like anyone could ever mistake that orange atrocity.”

“Then why am I looking for it?” The tapping stopped as he waited for an answer.

“Because I think whoever took Naruto has it.”

“What would Naruto’s kidnapper be doing with your phone? And how would he have gotten it, anyway?”

“I don’t know how the hell he got it,” Sasuke snapped, temper flaring once again. “And he’d use it to call Naruto. Ever hear of caller ID, dumbass?”

“Naruto would know it wasn’t you with the first word he heard over the phone.”

“You can change your voice on the phone. With--something, I don’t know. If you can track down cell phones from a rundown Mac, someone’s bound to have the technology to change a simple voice.”

Shikamaru snorted. The tapping started up again. “So someone’s out there running around with your boyfriend and your voice, eh?”

Sasuke ignored the sarcasm. “It isn’t just my voice he’s running around with.”

Shikamaru’s next question sounded slightly curious, although thankfully, this time the tapping didn’t stop. “What do you mean?”

Slowly, Sasuke began to recount his first trip to the hardware store, and then the small interview he’d had with Mrs. Jekyll that morning. He edited out nothing. Shikamaru listened patiently, never interrupting.

When Sasuke had finished, Shikamaru said the first thing that any sane person would say. “Are you sure you didn’t forget about taking a trip there?”

“I’m positive,” Sasuke said. “She said that whoever it was bought an alarm clock. I already have one. It’s duct taped to the bedside table. Don’t ask,” he added.

“You over-estimate my curiosity. I wasn’t going to.” The clicking and tapping had stopped, as did the flow of their conversation. The whirring noise had grown louder, though, and Sasuke absent-mindedly wondered what it was doing.

“I’m breaking down cell phone towers network by network,” Shikamaru said, as if reading Sasuke’s thoughts. “I’m not getting any significant signal, which means your phone is off.” Sasuke winced. He should have told him that sooner. “But even if a cell phone is off, it still gives off a signal. It’s just going to be a lot harder to track. And finding an active one is hard enough.” The line crackled as he sighed heavily into the receiver. “This is all so damned troublesome.”

“You’re telling me,” Sasuke muttered, not bothering to apologize for the inconvenience.

They were silent for well over a minute. Every now and then Shikamaru could be heard tapping a brief sequence of keys, a beep would follow, and then quiet. The brunet was the first to break the silence. “You know that what you’re telling me is complete bull shit, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that no one will ever believe you?”

“I know.” All too well, he didn’t add.

“And that even though I really, really don’t want to, I do?”

“That’s the reason why I told you.”

“Because what you’re saying is that you have some type of clone running around out there, driving up your cell phone bill and buying alarm clocks.”

“I’m aware.”

“No offense, Sasuke, but you aren’t important enough a person to warrant a cloning.”

“Yes, well, it’s not my identity that they’re after.” And although Sasuke knew Shikamaru would be able to see the motion, nor would anyone else, his eyes narrowed to thin obsidian slits. “It’s Naruto.”

November 18, 2005

“Do you remember this?” Sasuke asked without looking up. With his ungloved hand, he used a finger to trace the outline of what could be seen of the window that seemed to have sprouted straight from Naruto’s dream. “This is your old apartment. You furnished the window yourself. Your landlord almost pitched you to the curve.” Sasuke’s mouth twitched into a small smile that Naruto didn’t see. “You always said London never got enough light. That it always had a constant cloud of smog over it.”

Naruto didn’t answer, and it was when his eyes began to water that he realized he hadn’t closed them in quite a while. He blinked rapidly, and his eyes stung, the watering worsening for a moment before the lids of his eyes washed away the evidence of his shock.

Focusing every fiber of his being on keeping his voice from breaking, Naruto cracked a wise-ass remark. “This is stupid.”

Again, disappointment clouded the vampire’s eyes, and Naruto had to remind himself he’d known him for less than forty-eight hours, that he shouldn’t care, that the person he loves the most might not even know he was missing yet. That thought cleared the image of the dream-apartment clear from his head. The idea that every organ inside of his body was screaming for home, screaming for him, and Sasuke probably didn’t even know it, was damn near unbearable. He gulped against the sudden nausea that bubbled in his stomach..

Sasuke let the subject drop, and he flipped the page. On the left was another picture of the apartment, and Naruto saw the easels, the table, although the rolls of schematic had been cleared away.

“This was your work area,” Sasuke explained. “You helped to design the new department building right down the street, and you were working on the highway plans.”

“Was I?” Naruto said blandly. He couldn’t force sarcastic nonchalance into his voice, so he settled for a dead tone of voice.

Sasuke ignored it, and pointed to the next one. To Naruto’s immense relief, he didn’t recognize this one.

“That’s the bakery from downstairs,” Sasuke said. “You got your coffee there. You were never much of a tea maker.“ Sasuke chuckled suddenly. “Never much of a tea maker, either, judging by your companions complaints.”

Naruto didn’t know whether Sasuke was talking about Sasuke, or about the friends in his supposed fellow life. In order to change the topic of conversation, he flipped the page over. On this yellowed page was a picture of a rundown looking shop. The windows were boarded halfway, and posters hung on every available space, although the image was too blurry for Naruto to make much else out.

“You worked there,” Sasuke said. “Or, more specifically, your employers did. You tried starting a business with these people.” He frowned, pale lips going a bit thin. “They did something terrible. Do you remember what it was?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? It‘s rather hard to forget.”

“Positive. What, did they kill my dog or something?”

“No. And you never had a dog. You had a cat.”

Naruto groaned, shook his head, and pointed to the next one. “What’s this?”

“I suppose it’s best that you don’t remember,” Sasuke sighed. “And that was the police station. Can’t you see the sign?”

“I can’t see much of anything in these crappy pictures, asshole.”

“Who says that it’s the fault of the quality. Perhaps it is the fault of the photographer, hm?”

Naruto opened his mouth to snap, “I took the pictures just fine!” and realized the mistake not a moment too soon. Sasuke smirked. He knew it, too.

Naruto continued to look through the pages, and Sasuke forwent his commentary in order to lapse into silent contemplation. His ruby brown eyes stared into the book, the eerie black comma-like designs seeming to sway in place, but it was obvious that his gaze resided on a place far from here.

It didn’t matter much. The rest of the photographs were of buildings, of markets, of a patch of trees that grew out of the cobblestone. None were focused on people, and when a face appeared in the photograph, it was blurred beyond recognition.

“You had a field day with that camera,” Sasuke murmured when Naruto finally turned to a pair of blank pages. “You thought it was the greatest invention since the stencil.”

Naruto didn’t bother to tell Sasuke about all the photography classes he’d taken through high school, or how Sasuke used to, in his own subtle manner, push him into pursuing it. How he’d given it up for journalism, how he’d catch himself looking longingly at the closet where he kept his outdated Nixon.

Sasuke probably already knew.

Naruto eyed the other books. If this album contained nothing but pictures of scenery, he wandered if the other books followed a similar pattern. He wanted to ask, so as to know to run if Sasuke tried to open one.

“You’re being oddly quiet,” Sasuke said suddenly. Naruto looked up and realized that Sasuke’s eyes were no longer trained on the book, but on his face, studying it.

“Eh?”

Sasuke closed its ancient cover soundlessly. After his first reaction of utter horror, something Sasuke missed, he himself too transfixed in the picture, every other picture had been relatively normal. Thankfully there were no recognizable people in the photographs, and none of them brought back the same feeling of déjà vu, of distinct familiarity, as the first picture.

“Is something wrong?” Sasuke didn’t look interested in the area. He looked more interested in the answer he’d already decided on that was no doubt fully formulated in his head.

He thought Naruto was remembering.

And for that matter, so did Naruto.

But he’d be damned if he’d let Sasuke know that.

“You must remember something from those photos,” Sasuke stated. “Tell me. What is it they brought to mind?”

“You want to know what I think of them?”

“Yes.”

And Naruto did a second thing, the second in the past forty-eight hours, that he regretted a split second after doing it. With one wide sweep of his arm, he sent the book sailing across the room. It was heavy, so instead of hitting the wall, it slid across the floor a few feet before smashing into a table leg. The binding tore the rest of the way off. The pictures scattered. And even though they only showed blurred outlines of faceless people, of trees that might as well have been dead for all the color they were showing now, of buildings that looked like they came straight from the illustrations of his high school history textbook, Naruto could see his face staring guiltily up at him from every single page.

Sasuke didn’t move for a moment. He stared at Naruto, the mixture of smugness and curiosity on his face not having been cleared away yet, but when it didn‘t, Sasuke ducked his head and turned to crouch on the floor. He began to slowly gather the scattered pages, patiently, like a small child would gather the pieces of another broken toy a cruel neighbor had once again broke. The “I’m sorry,” left his lips before he could catch it, and he was surprised to find that he meant it.

“It’s all right,” Sasuke said, but he didn’t look up to meet Naruto’s eyes. He straightened a minute later, the pages and broken cover piled neatly in his arms. He carefully settled it on the table, but even then, instead of looking at his captive, he looked to the other books. “I’m guessing you’d like to save these for another day?”

“You guess wrong.” The vampire’s eyes met him in the dim light. “I’d like to save them for never, if that’s all right with you.”

Sasuke’s face drew down into a scowl. “I’d--like it very much, Naruto, if you’d be willing to look through these, instead of making me force you.”

“And I‘d like it very much if you let me the fuck go.”

Sasuke was quiet for so long that Naruto thought Sasuke was actually considering it. But then….

“For another time, then,” Sasuke said, leaning over the taper candle. A second later, he’d blown the candle out, and Naruto caught a brief whiff of smoke before darkness overrode all of his other senses. Naruto gripped the edge of the table. The trap door looked rather far away, all of a sudden.

A cold arm encircled his waist, he was tugged against Sasuke’s side, and he was walked quickly to the square door faster than he had time to protest. A moment later, his arm was around the taller man’s shoulders, an arm was behind the back of his thighs, and when his stomach soared up towards his lungs he automatically tightened his grip.

The moment his feet touched the floor, Naruto touched back with reality. Growling, he shoved Sasuke away, succeeding only in propelling his own self backwards.

“Don’t fucking do that.”

“Then don’t give me reason to. A grown man, and still afraid of the dark.”

“That’s only because creepy assholes like you come out of it!”

Sasuke smirked. “Are you hungry?”

Naruto blinked, the sudden change in topic nearly giving him whiplash. “What?”

“Food, idiot. Would you like some?”

“Stop belittling my intelligence!”

“Stop making it so easy.”

Naruto’s teeth clicked sharply shut. His eyes narrowed into a glare, and his hands curled, one more, into tight fists.

Sasuke scoffed. “Come on, then.” Sasuke strode past him, towards the staircase, and Naruto’s stomach chose that convenient moment to grumble. Scowling, Naruto finally gave up, and followed Sasuke into the kitchen.

November 28, 2005

It was well past noon, around 4 ‘o’ clock, and Sasuke was still in the living room. He’d changed into more comfortable clothes--a pair of dark jeans (“Damnit, Naruto, what did I tell you about wearing my clothes!?” “But they’re comfortable!”) and a cream-colored, flannel turtleneck--and his hair was still slightly damp from his shower. Afterwards, he deposited himself onto the couch by the cordless phone. The TV was blank, its face dark and reflecting everything in the room. The book he’d been reading was unopened, and had started to gather dust. The central air kicked on, and shut off ten minutes later.

Sasuke waited.

And waited.

It was five ‘o’ clock when the phone rang again, knocking him from his stupor. Almost automatically, his hand reached out, grabbed it, and brought it to his ear. “Uchiha.”

“Hey.”

Sasuke didn’t need him to say anything else. If Shikamaru had found anything at all, the first words out of his mouth would have been, “I found it.” Instead he got a monotonous, slightly pitying, greeting, completely abnormal for the genius.

Sasuke felt his lungs deflate, and he relaxed into the cushion. Not out of relief, but in exhaustion, in disappointment. What had he been expecting, anyway? Honestly? Nothing worked out like this in real life. He was no detective on a television show, a secret agent in a movie, a criminal investigator in a book. He was Sasuke Uchiha, going to school for a degree in biochemistry, not law, not forensics. He was Sasuke Uchiha, the minor character in the plot who had to sit back and watch the main characters duke it out, whether to death or to the happy ending, providing nothing but side stories and comic relief. Was it funny? Was his life, his misery, that entertaining?

“You there?”

“I’m here,” Sasuke said in a voice that sounded very unlike his own. Or perhaps his hearing was impaired by the rapid thudding of his heart, distorted from the road of the blood rushing throughout his body.

“I’ve checked all the cell phone towers in the state,” Shikamaru said. “You were right. Whoever has Naruto probably has it. I can’t find the signal.” There was a break in his explanation, almost as if he were debating whether or not to say something. “I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Sasuke heard himself say. “It was a long shot anyway.”

“Yeah, well.” Shikamaru cleared his throat awkwardly. “It isn’t a lost cause yet. There are still the bordering states. I’m going to set the system up to run checks throughout stations county by county. It’ll go a bit slower to do it in batches, but it gets more done, so--”

“Don’t bother.” They both knew they wouldn’t find it. “You don’t have to.”

“I’m not doing it for you, Sasuke. I’m doing it for Naruto.”

Shut up. You know there’s no chance.

“Look all you want, then.” And before Shikamaru could reply, Sasuke hit ‘END’, and placed the phone back into its cradle. It didn’t ring again.

The pounding in his head intensified.

From his seat on the sofa, Sasuke reclined even further back, head propped on one arm that he looped over the headrest. He had a mug of black coffee that was rapidly cooling on the side table, and it was only a few minutes ago that he realized why. He’d forgotten to turn the heat up. Less like forgotten, really, and more like neglected. He didn’t care much. He liked the excuse to continue his manic coffee runs. The caffeine kept him awake and alert most of the day, and the crash that came after it was potent enough to knock him out into a deep, dreamless sleep for a few hours.

The cordless phone set on the table innocently enough, taunting him, and he wanted to pick it up and call someone, yell at them, yell at them for anything, to fix what he couldn‘t. Either that, or throw the thing at a wall. A small red light above the LSD screen starting to blink a second before it began to ring. Sasuke eyed it lazily. 6:02, it said. He’d been sitting in the same spot for hours, and had sat here with the same cup of coffee for nearly two. The day was more than half-way gone, and nothing was done. He was beginning to think that nothing would ever get done.

The phone stopped, and started back up again after ten seconds. Sasuke’s eyes drifted from it to stare out the window again. It was a clear gray day, and the snow on the ground magnified the meager light to an almost painful level. It was a snow day for the public school, he knew. He could see children playing in the yard. Parents shoveled away at the driveways, swept snow from the tops of their cars with wide-headed brooms. The roads were barren and brown with dirt, ice, and salt, and a lone black sedan dwindled down slowly like a single leaf floating atop a river.

The phone stopped.

And began to ring again.

As he watched the light bounce from the windows, the cars, the snow, he felt like it was all focused on him, just waiting for him to do something, anything, extraordinary or fruitless. Anything but sit here like Sherlock Holmes without his magnifying glass. Anything but Romeo without a Juliet. Anything. Anything.

When the phone started through its fourth set of rings, and the black sedan grew larger, and the children’s laughter and play grew dimmer, more distant, Sasuke finally picked up.

He did not get a chance to speak.

“Sasuke.” He almost didn’t recognize Sakura’s voice. It was cracking and trembling and afraid, rushed, hurried and hoarse. “Get out of the house now.”

“W--”

“Climb out the back window, run, don’t come here, but get out of the house! They’re coming!”

The line went dead.

And the black sedan crept closer.

--

(1) A TV show that used to air, where the Candid Camera staff played pranks on people and caught it on film.

(2) My experience on this matter only extends to the Law and Order shows I’ve watched. Please feel free to completely disregard everything I’ve said on the matter.

I’ll be without internet access for the next week, so if you send me any questions, expect a little bit of a delayed response.

-Kodak