Dentes

Important Author’s Note: I don’t think many have noticed, but check the dates between Naruto’s and human-Sasuke’s different POV’s. So far, Sasuke’s story is days ahead of Naruto’s.

Again, sorry for the delay. I’ve been getting a bit bored with the story line, but now that it’s picking up, hopefully I’ll write faster.

-Kodak

“Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums.”

-Pet, by A Perfect Circle

November 22, 2005

While Naruto’s brain was telling him that it hadn’t been that long since he’d last seen sunlight, his heart soaked up the outside air like a dry and brittle sponge. The sky was still dyed a dark hue from the night, but the promise of light was almost too much to bare.

Naruto began to run.

He veered to the right, following the footprints he’d made with Sasuke the night before. It had seemed so long ago. Outside, alone save for the sound his boots made as they crunched through the snow, it felt like the vampire didn’t exist at all. Supernatural things were back in the books and movies to which they belonged, and Naruto had woken up from a long, deep sleep. A coma. And now he was running like the last remaining human in the midst of a zombie apocalypse he’d seen so often in theaters. Alone. In the quiet. Danger unknown but ever present, nonexistent until he saw it with his own eyes.

He kept on running.

It wasn’t long before he panted for air, and the oxygen deprivation brought a sudden clarity to his mulled thoughts. He’d darted out the door without a single sense of direction, only following meaningless footprints. He skidded to a halt and did a three-sixty, as if doing so would allow him to garner a better understanding of this abandoned city’s layout. It did no such thing. Only made him dizzier than anxiety was already making him.

Nearly crying with the frustration of it, of being outside and free and so far from his goal, Naruto kept on running in the same direction. He passed the graffiti-covered wall, ignored the chunks of ice clinging to the brick where they’d landed their targets, and darted past where their own footsteps ended. Sasuke had been asleep when he left, sure, but his Sasuke was restless at night. Maybe this one was, too. Able to wake at the slightest noise, if got too hot or too cold, or noticed a certain missing something--

Naruto shook his head, refusing to think. The fact of the matter was that Naruto had willingly thrown himself between a rock and a hard place. He had to find a way out of this labyrinth of a town or go back to a fate that would surely end up with him in a state worse than death. Sure Sasuke had said it took him an hour to reach town, but that meant nothing to Naruto. Who knew how fast vampires could run? Maybe he jumped roof to roof like a real-life spider man. Maybe he transformed into a bat. Miraculously enough, Naruto was wishing himself back in that wreck of a house, at least long enough to come up with a more formidable plan.

“There can’t be any other plan,” Naruto hissed to himself. “This is it.”

He kept on running, the snow clear save for tiny paw prints, until he stopped so suddenly he literally tumbled to the ground. His head spun even faster, and through disoriented vision, Naruto saw another set of footprints coming from the opposite direction. His mouth gaped open, some snow slipping into his mouth, and he drank it gratefully. The sudden change of emotions, from frenzy to panic to relief, made the taste and temperature of snow welcome to his burning body.

The man at the other end of the footsteps wasn’t Sasuke.

“Hey!” The man didn’t turn to him. “Hey, you! Help me!”

The stranger didn’t so much as shift a muscle. He was carefully surveying a map he held open with one hand, the other hidden in his coat pocket. When Naruto drew closer, he saw that the lower half of the man’s face was hidden by the forest green scarf he wore, a heavy woolen hat hanging low over one side of his face. Thin wisps of hair hung damply over his one visible eye.

“Hm?” he asked when Naruto drew up to a stop before him, both hands clasping his knees as he gaped for breath. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah! Do you live here!?” Naruto breathed out, praying that the man had a cell phone on him. He remembered his own, and vaguely wondered which house it was at. The idea of seeing such technology was astounding to him, and wonderfully familiar. Even if this man had a dead one, the mere sight of it, proof of such an existence would--

“Not really. I live here and there.”

Naruto blinked. He was homeless? Just to be sure, “Do you have a cell phone?”

“I don’t.”

All of a sudden, the supernatural reality closed back in on him. Technology took its place as a fantasy, and the danger became more real. Growing frustrated, Naruto asked, “Do you know anyone who lives in this area?” They said homeless knew the land more than the average citizen, didn’t they?

“Obviously not. It’s abandoned. Can’t you see that no one’s here?”

“I’m here!” Naruto snapped. “You’re here! We got here from somewhere! So you must know where this place is!”

The man scratched at his cheek. “With that logic, you must also know where we are.”

“I--I--for fuck’s sake,” fear was making him incoherent, so he decided a sharp slap of truth as just what he needed to get this man to stop joking. “I was kidnapped you son-of-a-bitch! I was drugged and blind-folded and fucking dragged here! How the Hell would I know where we are!?”

To his great shock, not even this caused the strange man to waver. “Kidnapped?” he repeated as if Naruto had just relayed to him today‘s weather. “You ought to report such a thing to the police.”

Naruto was going to punch him.

After sputtering incoherently for a few moments before his eyes fell back on the map. This man might be a nutcase, but a map was a map. “Hey, could I see that for a second?” He pointed a finger at it.

The stranger gave him a bland look from his one visible eye before handing it over. Naruto snatched it from him, impatience making him forget that he should really keep up with his manners to the only person he knew was in the area besides--

“Hey, this is a map of the entire state!” Naruto cried. His nerves were mounting. He didn’t have time to fuck around with this-- “Can you tell me where we are on here?”

“Oh my, you can’t read a map? What kind of kidnapper would want such a stupid boy?”

The urge to hit him was becoming near impossible to resist, but Naruto hung on to the one thought--homehomehome--and it allowed him to bite his tongue. With the taste of copper in his mouth, Naruto grit out, “I am trying to get home,” he hissed. “I live near Bucks. Bucks County.” The strange man showed no recognition, and made no move to retrieve the map that was slowly becoming ruined in Naruto’s grip. “I need to get to the police. I need to get home. Can you please--please--just tell me where the nearest city is.”

It wasn’t a question, it was a demand; but the older man took plenty of time turning over his answer in his head. Naruto’s feet itched to run. His heart felt like a ticking time bomb. Besides the taste of copper, the vile taste of vomit was his constant companion. Nearly sick with nerves, he had to swallow several times to keep himself from retching. Oddly enough, his eyes were clear of tears. It seemed there really was a level of stress where tears became inadequate.

“I don’t know this city well,” the man finally said listlessly, unapologetically, and Naruto wanted to spit at the ground in front of his feet. He remembered a workshop, a washed out backdrop of cinder and construction, and that stopped him. “Street names mean nothing to me. You’d have to find a point high enough in the city to look out and try to find it. I know there’s a town border not far from here. Five miles, maybe.”

Five miles, Naruto thought dizzily. That’s not too bad, is it? I ran that in high school all the time. Not through the snow, but fear produces--what is it, what is that shit, but I can make it. I can.

“Thanks,” Naruto breathed. Relief made him giddy and he asked, as an afterthought, “Hey, what’s your name again?” even though the man had never mentioned it.

But he was already straightening up and walking away, to Naruto’s astonishment. “Hey, don’t you want your map back?” There was no bag slung over his back. His clothes looked in good condition, and Naruto could only guess at the quality of the leather his jacket was made of, now that he looked at it. Did he steal it? How could a homeless person afford such luxuries?

“You shouldn’t worry about such things,” the stranger said as he walked back the way Naruto had come from. “No time to dawdle. Sasuke might catch up to you.”

By the time Naruto had gotten over the shock, the mysterious man had disappeared into an alleyway, and he was alone once more.

--

Sasuke woke up in an old barn far from his village, the snow drifting through the rafters slowly, steadily, piling up as high as the bails of straw. The hay he lay on smelled like dust and mold. There was no one with him, only pain, a pain so deep it froze him to the bone. He was told later, by a man who traveled with him for quite some time, that when a vampire first woke up, it was to the insatiable thirst. The need for something his own body could no longer produce. The addiction to blood that would satisfy the dead blood cells in his frozen veins.

But it was different for Sasuke. He was miserable, but not because of the thirst. Despite the wretched depression, he was also happy, bitterly so, and proud, in a ironic way. He’d sacrificed himself for someone he loved. Someone he wouldn’t remember the name of for years to come, whose face he would see vague outlines of for centuries, whose skin wouldn’t touch his for a long, long time.

And that was all Sasuke remembered. A sacrifice. And then he was gone.

Sasuke woke up from his memory slowly, eyes fluttering but remaining shut, breathing in the deep smell of reality and fire. The dream visited him every now and then, when he was restless and plagued with thoughts of the loneliness that dovetailed immortality. It was like a needle to a diabetic. Painful at first, like it would be to everyone, until years and years of suffering through it brought immunity. Now it was as routine as feeding.

Sasuke’s eyebrows furrowed over closed eyes. Cold. He was colder than usual. How had Naruto gotten so far away from him? Sasuke pulled his arm, expecting a semi-heavy weight to resist. Wanting the warmth of a human body, not just a fire. Instead, he only heard the empty handcuff slide across the mattress.

Sasuke’s eyes opened, and widened nearly simultaneously.

Naruto was gone.

--

Naruto didn’t waste anytime. Didn’t, in fact, even ponder over the man’s words. He had far too much in his head to worry about that, too. And in the matter of a minute, Naruto had half-managed to convince himself he’d made the whole thing up.

The first thing he did was another full-circle, but this time with a solid purpose. His eyes scanned the sky until they brushed upon the highest point. A deep dark red building pierced the sky several blocks back along the road he’d been traveling. It towered over the surrounding buildings, and Naruto could only assume that it was as apartment building or an office space. Either way, where there was a building, there was a roof.

Like on the outside of Sasuke’s house, there was a lock on the door, Naruto noticed as he drew up to it. There was an old rusted sign, but he couldn’t read it. Several strips of blue painters tape formed peeling lines around the doors, and ice-filled trashcans stood at either side of the stoop. No footsteps led to it. Not even the homeless could get in.

Naruto didn’t waste any time with the heavy contraption that was the lock. He tore off his gloves on his way back down the stairs of the porch and stuffed them into his pockets before picking at the wire frame on one window. After a long few moments and a few pained grimaces as the frozen, rusted metal bit into the soft tips of his fingers, Naruto managed to wriggle his hand far enough above the sill to grab a good hold on the frame. With two large heaves, a little wriggle to the left after he’d heard the top right corner snap sharply, Naruto managed to lift the frame from the window. Crouching down, he uprooted from beneath the snow a solid block of cinder left over from construction. Swinging it over the shoulder, he let is slam into the glass. The fist hit cause a network of spider web-like cracks to spread like ripples over a pond. The second hit brought the whole thing down, the wooden frame splintering like tooth picks under his rushed rage.

Jagged pieces of glass stuck up like fangs, but Naruto ignored them. One hand pressing into each side of the brick frame, Naruto pushed, allowing the strength of his arms to support the rest of his weight as he swung his legs up, hoisting himself through the window.

The only difference between the inside and the outside was the smell. Outside, it smelled pleasantly of ozone. The inside smelled like nothing at all. The cold and the age of the building had eliminated even the foulest of orders that came with an abandoned apartment building. But Naruto could still see his breath cloud before him, and the scant light leaking through the musky window matched that of the outside.

Refusing to linger, Naruto quickly made his way through what he assumed to be the lobby. The area was barren except for an old step ladder and a few stray buckets of paint. There was a stack of Yellow Pages in the corner, and several notices on dull-colored flyers stuck to the door Naruto hadn’t wasted his time attempting to open. There was a desk, and beyond it four doors to elevators. Not even bothering to try, Naruto breezed by them to the Fire Route sign, beneath which was an old iron door. Pressing the bar, the steel cold as ice, Naruto stepped through.

And into complete darkness.

For a moment, Naruto stood still in shock. His one hand had been heading to his pockets to withdraw his gloves, but it became paralyzed to his side the moment the slice of light from the open door disappeared, a heavy thus echoing throughout the stairway. Or what Naruto assumed to be the stairway.

Without his mind fully processing what was processing, Naruto stumbled forward, hands groping before him blindly. Fear made him dizzy, and when his foot scuffed the front of the step lightly, his knees buckled and he collapsed onto the staircase. Curling his legs up, he pressed his forehead tightly against his arms that he’d curled around his shins, and thought that he hated the dark, that the stairs might not be sturdy, that there were plenty of other tall buildings but they were God knows how far away, and that Sasuke might very well be sitting up there, waiting for him.

Then, he thought about the other Sasuke. Sitting at home, on their sofa, or out in the cold with the police, looking for him. He had to know he was missing by now. No one besides Naruto would know how to offer him the help that he needed. No one else would know that Sasuke didn’t desire comfort, only desired constant agendas, constant strategies, search the city, to search he state, no one would know.

Naruto would get back to him. But first he had to get up the stairs. Just stairs. He stumbled up them drunk. Stumbled up them in the dark. Stumbled up them in the dark while drunk. He could do it again.

Not giving himself a moment more to fret because he was positive, absolutely positive, he’d change his mind, waste time trying to find another building, Naruto stood and turned to face, presumably, the staircase. His hand reached out to the railing, and feeling it was how he’d imagined a human bone would feel. Cool, stiff, brittle, and covered in something disgusting, some unknown film. He snapped his hand back, deciding that if he were going up this thing blindly, he’d might as well do it right. Balling his hands into tight fists at his side, Naruto began the long ascent.

From the muffled sound of his footsteps and the heavy creaks, Naruto could tell that the carpet beneath his feet was threadbare at best, the wood old and molded through. He counted to fourteen, then stumbled forward when he came to a landing. Swallowing thickly, he once again groped the air, feeling for a wall. He found one, along with a thick blanket of cobwebs. Something underneath his foot gave a sick crunch. Maneuvering to the left, Naruto met a wall. Moving down that, his hip bumped into what was presumably the railing. Retracing his steps, Naruto found the wall opposite and soon after, the first step of the next set. Bracing his nerves, Naruto set forward.

His confidence rose and plummeted like the waves of an ocean. The further he went up, the fast he went. Several times on every flight of stairs there was a crunch. Several times on every flight of stairs he heard something move that wasn’t him. More than once Naruto had to stop moving and swat at thin nets of spider web that had coated his face, and he knew, just knew, that the black of his coat would be gray with web by the time he got outside and into the sun.

Something big moved upstairs. Naruto kept moving, refusing to listen too hard. Soon he was on flight five, but he remembered far more than five rows of windows stacking up this building. More like twenty. He continued to climb.

On his twenty-sixth flight of stairs, Naruto screamed. Something had gotten a grip on is legs, sharp teeth biting through the cloth of his pant. He slid backwards, the fall that would crack his neck nearly immanent, until he realized that the creature who’d bitten into his legs was a broken-in stair. The wood had given clear way under Naruto’s foot. Cursing under his breath for not even noticing the sudden shift in vertigo, Naruto shuffled forward, leaning onto the second step above the broken one, twisting his leg this way and then that way to free it. His heart beats could no longer keep up with the monstrous rushing of blood in his ears, and the way his body pulsed made him afraid he’d begin bleeding from every orifice of his body, and bleed out before he reached outdoors. Cursing himself, cursing Japan, cursing goddamn cell phones and door locks, Naruto crawled up the rest of the flight. Once he was sure he’d regained complete feeling in both legs, he made the rest of the way on foot.

When Naruto felt along the wall on both sides at the top of one set of steps, he realized he’d come to a stop on the twenty-second story. There was a door at the center of the adjacent wall, but he hadn’t bothered with it, thinking it was the entrance to another floor of apartments. Now, the particular cold of that handle was given new meaning. Gritting his teeth, Naruto pushed at it. It didn’t give. Smirking, half sane, Naruto wondered how anyone who’d come up this damn high--he shuffled back, and launched himself, shoulder-first, at the double-doors.

Cold, cold, beautiful air.

For this, Naruto did take his time. He hadn’t realized just how much the dark had affected him until he’d gotten outside. The roof was covered in a thick blanket of undisturbed snow, layer upon layer of ice from past snow drifts crunching beneath Naruto’s feet as he made his way forward. There were very few building tops he could see from his point-of-view, and then more of them as he got closer to the ledge. This building, he knew, was a good choice. Never mind the fact that jumping off of the complex seemed a much more desirable way of going down then descending those treacherous stairs.

Naruto expected to have to squint into the distance in order to see even the faintest glimmer of a populated city, but to his surprise, he spotted it almost immediately. The vampire hadn’t been kidding when he’d said it only took him an hour to get into town. It was morning still, but had it been night, Naruto was sure he’d be able to literally hear the horns and the sirens from this spot.

Hands gripping the cement ledge, Naruto looked down and saw the road he’d been walking on. He’d been going the wrong direction. He should have gone the other way upon leaving Sasuke’s house, not--

A jolt of fear raced up Naruto spine as he realized what he’d have to pass in order to reach the city.

Shaking his head once, Naruto squinted at the confusing gridline of roads that made up the world beneath him. The road he’d been traveling wasn’t completely straight. It arched, like a pointing finger, in order to merge into a thicker line that made up what looked like a six-lane road. At every few blocks, a road leaked into that main street, including--yes, yes--the road right behind the apartment building.

“I’ll double back,” Naruto muttered. Go back to the main road. Walk along that, and keep going, going until he reached town.

Smiling, truly grinning for what felt like forever, he looked down at himself, and laughed. That, too, felt wonderful, coming from deep inside him and bubbling away all the angst he’d been riddled in for days. He was covered, head to toe, in cobwebs. He’d only been semi-conscious of the fact that after the first few floors, he’d stopped brushing his entire self of whenever he felt cobwebs brushing his nose, and had taken to merely swiping at his face. Now, looking down, he was covered in thick strands of it like a spider had been working on weaving him in the same web for years. He brushed at the stuff, then wiped his palms along the back of his pants when the web stuck to his hands. Grimacing, but his eyes still light, Naruto looked up into the sky, enjoying it to its full extent, the freedom he’d been fighting tooth and nail for.

And as Naruto took a few minutes to look at it, he realized something strange. His eternal clock told him it must have been nearing noon, yet many lights remained on, the city a bright beacon in the rest of the darkness--

Darkness.

It’s dark.

While looking up, Naruto felt his insides tumble over the ledge and plummet to the ground. The sky was as cold, dark, and unforgiving as iron.

There was no sun.

--

When Naruto finally exited the building, he half-expected to see Sasuke sitting there on the doorstep, with handcuffs and the promise of a cold bed in front of a blazing fire, that it was time to sleep until the sun stayed down for good.

I broke my promise, the reality hit him sharply, I broke out deal, that this risk wasn’t worth it, I can’t go back.

From his birds-eye-view a few long minutes ago, Naruto knew that he had to go back. Right behind him was a city block. He turned left from the door, a left down the street. It was narrow, designed to only go one way, and kept going. Passing the one way signs, the trash, stray animals huddled together in the cold. The sky was darker than the alleyway entrances. Tears stung at his eyes, and he was continuously gulping, lungs burning deeply in his chest.

I broke our deal.

“Thirty days my ass,” Naruto bit out, then repeated it as if to strengthen his resolve. “Thirty days my ass.”

He never would have let me go anyway. He would have broken our deal, just like I’m doing now. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.

Somehow, this didn’t make him feel better.

Naruto knew that he’d reached the main street by the sheer width of it. It more than tripled the size of the road he’d just run from. He stuck to the side of it, practically plastering himself to the wall. When Naruto noticed the set of fresh footprints in the snow, the set that branched out and weaved long before his, his ankles gave way and with a sharp cry, he toppled head-first into the snow.

The gloves fell from his pocket, and Naruto felt flush, hot and sticky. Struggling for a minute, his frozen fingers clasped at the buttons of his coat. Giving up shortly after, he wrenched at the seams. The plastic circles skittered across the smooth icy surface, leaving not a trace behind, as Naruto shrugged off the coat and threw it far away from him. The cold air collapsed around him like a deflating airbag, and he realized, belatedly, that the footsteps surrounding him belonged to more than one person. Some were bigger. Some were smaller. Some went the direction in which he was heading, others traveled down a side street Naruto instinctively knew the end of.

It only proves that I’m going the right way, Naruto thought gravely. Man the fuck up, stand, and move.

So he did.

He left the gloves and coat behind in his flight, and his body felt wonderfully unburdened. His arms moved faster by his sides, and just that gave him the impression he was running twice as fast as before. His footsteps cleared the surface of the snow better, and even though his boots were soaked through, all of his toes long-since numb, his bare arms victim to the cold and biting winds, Naruto felt his body catch fire. Five miles, the stranger had said. Naruto must have run two of them by now. He had to. That was practically half-way there.

Wait, five miles to the city, or five miles to the border of this one? That would still leave a lot of ground to cover.

Snow began to dust over his body. Lazy flakes, slow and sure as poison, drifted down. For a long moment, Naruto didn’t notice. But when got caught in his eyelash, he looked up, and groaned. One end of the sky was even darker than it had been when he’d surveyed it from atop the roof. It was that end of the sky he was running towards, and muggy gray closed down upon him like ash.

His lungs felt like they were folding in upon themselves in his chest, squeezing at his blood for every last bit of oxygen. Building after building, Naruto couldn’t stop breathing, couldn’t stop thinking, did I go the wrong way? And, Maybe I should climb another building. Just in case.

Breathing, huffing, gasping

“Now, love, breathe deeply for me.”

He drugged me, Naruto reminded himself as his arms pumped at his sides. He had no right--no intention--no--he’d never let go.

“Thirty days,” of borrowed time.

“Thirty days for what?”

“For me to remember whatever you want me to. If I remember by the end of a month, then you can… ‘change’ me.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Then you let me go home.”

“I want to go home.” By some miracle, Naruto managed to make his voice sound strong and assertive, not pleading and pathetic like he felt. “I want to go home.” It wasted more oxygen speaking, but without conviction, it was all yet another wasted effort. “I want to go home.”

Sasuke had whispered, not all that long ago, “I’ll be back soon,” and Naruto now realized that that wasn’t Sasuke’s promise to make. It was his.

“I’m coming,” Naruto hissed. “I’m coming home.”

He ran faster.

Naruto soon lost count of the number of blocks he ran past. This city was eerily similar to his own home town. The buildings were of the same height. The apartments roughly the same shape. The streets merging into this one in a very similar fashion. But there was no one here. No one he wanted to run into, anyway.

This sucks, Naruto thought, amusing himself with such a juvenile thought. So amused he said it out loud. He was giddy, on a monumental high of fear and hope. It didn’t matter how many movies were based on or books were written about the two emotions. They didn’t mingle well.

Abruptly, the buildings ended, and only the road remained. On either side of it were huge piles of foreign objects Naruto couldn’t identify; they were completely coated in snow. Another minute of running brought him to a row of abandoned toll booths. When he went through one, he saw stickers plastered across the walls for things he didn’t even recognize. They were all either in tatters or half-way there, the ends curling up and yellowing. The plastic windows were black with age, and Naruto couldn’t even see through them.

And ahead of that was emptiness, Naruto found once he‘d hopped over the black and yellow guard. Just a blank, dark canvas of a sky and a field of white. For a heart-breaking second, Naruto was sure that the world ended just beyond the city. It made just as much sense as the existence of vampires, after all. But then, he saw the tops of buildings scraping along the sky, weary lights winking at him and glinting like likes of a great many teeth.

There was a border of trees outlining the city,. Naruto cleared the security of the looming dark and buildings, his run slowing to a steady walk. His lungs were aching badly enough to make his body shake. Just walking took more energy than he felt he had. The footsteps in the snow had nearly dissipated now except for a few. As if caught in a trance, Naruto counted and found that there were five sets of footprints, all roughly the same size from what he could see. Two of them led back in the direction he had come from. Three more trailed towards the city.

The third had no returning trail.

He’s here.

Like it had been hardwired into his brain, a tracking device implanted somewhere in his body, Naruto could sense Sasuke’s presence before he even saw him.

Naruto’s heart rate picked up, as it had half an hour ago when he’d last seen a presence other than himself. The only difference was that this time, it didn’t slow back down.

Sasuke stared up at him, utterly motionless. A single speck of darkness in an otherwise completely white world. Skin as pale as a ghost. Hair as dark as a raven. Naruto couldn’t make out details, but his memory filled in the blanks. He didn’t bother to wonder where he had wasted so much time. Didn’t stop to think much at all. He wondered how long it had taken him to climb the apartment building. How long it took Sasuke to reach where he was. Why Sasuke didn’t just follow Naruto’s footprints and stop him earlier. Wondered how anyone could be so sadistic, so evil as to--

Naruto refused to play the part of the deer-caught-in-the-headlights. When he walked forward, down the snowy landscape, it was more of a stubborn action than a courageous act.

Still, Sasuke didn’t move.

He can’t scare me, Naruto thought. Like a bee and a person. They’re more afraid of us then we are of them. There’s definitely more humans than there are vampires. There’s got to be. He’s more scared of them, of me, than I am of him.

With this in his head, Naruto went to meet Sasuke in the middle of a long snow-filled embankment that separated the dead city and the live one in front of him. So close to him. He could hear it now. The distant sound of sirens, and he wondered, wistfully, if they’d be able to hear him if he screamed.

Not even his stubbornness could keep Naruto moving once he caught a proper look of the expression upon Sasuke’s face. The bee and human analogy be damned; Sasuke could have taken up the whole universe. Naruto felt small, so insignificantly small. Tiny in this white world, where he was supposed to be the leading species. Where he belonged and this vampire could go inhabit a different reality for all he cared.

There was ten feet of difference between them. Sasuke stared, and Naruto stared back. Naruto tried to remember if this man, this monster, had ever loved him, and began counting in his head the times he’d told his boyfriend that he loved him. He got up to twenty before he stopped and realized it wasn’t enough, and that clearly he needed to get back and say it some more. Sasuke was the first to speak, his voice as quiet as the falling snow.

“You broke our deal,” Sasuke hissed out slowly, each word sounding like it stood in its own sentence. Every syllable designed to unnerve him, but Naruto stood his ground. He comforted himself in the fact that things could get no worse than this, and that he‘d said on numerous occasions he could do anything that he wanted. Anything that he dreamed. But when Sasuke made towards him, he realized that things could always get worse. It was watching a tsunami. No matter how fast he ran now, nothing could save him from getting swept away. The contradictions made him dizzy, and he hated himself for being as easily swayed as a leaf in the midst of a storm.

“There should never have been a deal in the first place.” Sasuke was getting too close to completely blocking his way from the city, approaching straight on and greatening the angle Naruto would have to run at if he wanted to move past him. But Naruto had no choice but to let himself be cornered. Right now, he was in no position to run. Even as a human, Sasuke was far faster than him. Naruto didn’t want to think how fast he’d be with a few hundred years of practice under his belt, if he didn’t have to feel the burn of muscle, if he didn’t even really need to breathe.

“You didn’t play fair.” The words were juvenile, but coming from Sasuke’s lips made Naruto feel like he was being spoken down upon.

“You still think this is a game?”

“It’s always been a game.”

Sasuke was advancing on him now, and in order to buy some time, Naruto mirrored each of the vampire’s steps forwards with a step back. Sasuke’s weak point was his eyes, and that was such a tiny spot. Compared to him, every part of Naruto’s body was a weak spot. He was a good fighter, but how could he fight someone who just would not die?

There’s supposed to be an answer! Naruto thought frantically. Sasuke was looking at him with a cross between boredom and vague amusement, but Naruto knew better. If Naruto didn’t come up with something now, he wouldn’t be--

I don’t want to be a monster!

“Come on, Naruto,” Sasuke murmured. “You’re always so eager to fight. Why back away now?” He gestured behind himself at the visible town. “It’s so close. Not even two miles away. It’s what you want, isn’t it? To go back to him.”

There’s always an answer! Desperate, Naruto carded through every memory pertaining to vampires. He was severely limited. There’s no sun. That’s the only weak spot I know. And his eyes. The garlic thing is shit. Mirrors--mirrors--fuck.

Eyes are stupid. Too superficial. There has to be something. Some weakness. For some its spiders, for some its big spaces, everyone has a phobia, kryptonite, something, something, he needs to have a weakness.

Naruto felt a branch crack under his feet. He was getting closer to the line of trees, back to that desolate city. He was backing up too far, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop now that he started. Sasuke looked ready to walk like this all the way back if he had to.

Then.

“But there’s something in me, I feel, that’s missing, something I had while I was human.”

That’s it.

That’s it.

But what if he missing? What the fuck could he be missing.

When the first tree lined up in his range of vision, Naruto shuffled through his options. Right now, bluffing seemed like his best option.

“Remember when you told me you were missing something?”

Sasuke hummed, barely seeming to recognize Naruto’s words. “I am missing something,” he admitted off-handedly. “And I fully intend to get it back.”

He’s not just mad, Naruto realized. He’s… I don’t know what he is, but-- It was dangerous. It wasn’t just his conscious thoughts reacting to it. His human instincts were alive and jumping, causing his whole body to shake with the urge to run as if a starved lion stood before him, not a near-perfect model of his lover.

Naruto had never given much thought to the phrase, “If I can’t have you, no one can.” But now, he felt positive that if given no other option, Sasuke wouldn’t hesitate in ripping out his throat.

“I know what it is that you’re missing,” and even though the words sounded cliché even in his head, he finished, “I know how to defeat you.” He didn’t even have to worry about sounding like a complete idiot. The quiet, murderous look ok Sasuke’s handsome face never shifted.

“Oh?” he sneered. “Interesting.’

Nothing works. Naruto stopped walking, and interestingly enough, so did Sasuke. The vampire regarded him with patient look, like he was just humoring Naruto with all this before he finally lost all patience and went in for the kill. Which, really, he was.

This sucks, Naruto thought, and before he could regret it, he charged.

Right before his right fist made contact with Sasuke’s collarbone, for his opponent had dodged at the last second--he’s playing with me, this is all a game to him, but it isn’t to me--Naruto caught a good look at the city. There was a building to the far right, a pale cream color. A series of shorter blocks surrounded it, indicating smaller buildings. They were far apart, stretches of empty space between them. It was familiar. Naruto recognized that layout.

His eyes bulged. His fist connected just as his brain made some quick connections. He remembered how, during car rides, he’d sometimes spy a distant city. Abandoned, Sasuke had once told him. Waiting for the district to come up with enough money for reconstruction. Something had happened there that had made it inhabitable. Too high crimes rates, the economy plummeting and the rent there soaring, completely gutting the city of nearly all its population.

Sasuke had swung him around, one hand on his shoulder, and Naruto was facing it full on. A hard arm closed around his neck, another hand grasping his air, restraining him. Naruto hardly noticed the pain.

He barely moved me, Naruto thought. All this time… all this time…

His city was staring him right in the face.

“You fucking BASTARD!”

Faint surprise registered momentarily on Sasuke’s face as Naruto struck out blindly. He felt more than a couple hairs part violently from the scalp. The pain of it was nothing compared to the shame he felt. He was such an idiot. Such a God damned idiot.

All he could do was hurl insults and punches, some landing, most not. Those that did only caused Sasuke’s body to jerk slightly, amusement now taking supremacy over every other feature on Sasuke’s face.

“What’s wrong, Naruto?” Sasuke asked as he brought his forearm up, blocking another hit and causing Naruto’s hand to fly by him. Taking advantage of that, he grasped Naruto under the arm and pushed straight down. Naruto’s knees buckled and he was brought down, face-first, into the snow. His neck arched painfully as he struggled to breathe through the slush. Sasuke laughed breathily, bitterly. “What wrong?” he repeated mockingly. “I thought you wanted to see your old home again.” Sasuke pressed his arm further into the snow and Naruto twisted his head to avoid suffocating. He coughed. He’d inhaled snow through his nose and water collected in his lungs. “Well? Aren’t you going to try getting to it?” Harder. His arm was going to snap. “Go on. Try.”

Naruto did.

His arm nearly dislocated from his shoulder, but Naruto managed to twist hard and fast enough, one bare hand pressed into the frozen ground as leverage. His feet scrambled like fish out of water for a moment before finding their footing implanted upon Sasuke’s calves. Killing two birds with one stone, Naruto got to his knees just as Sasuke fell to his. The vampire lunged at him, but Naruto was too fast, scrambling back and pushing up, stumbling to his feet. He started to run, highly doubting that he could take Sasuke down. He was confident in his ability to fight, but not confident enough that he could kill an immortal.

It didn’t matter. A hand gripped him behind his elbow, and he was spun around to face Sasuke’s furious gaze. His eyes burned like tiny flames, contradicting the rest of his frozen features. Naruto refused to be intimidated. He grabbed at Sasuke’s fingers, knowing better than to throw a fruitless punch or kick. He pried at them, but like a steel trap, they only dug in harder.

There has to be some weakness.

Naruto cracked.

When he was four, when the boogeyman still existed somewhere in his closet, the orphanage’s patron told him they weren’t real. The childish mind that told him that impossible things did exist, no matter how many times others told him that they didn’t. The childish innocence that feared things that went bump in the night. Eventually, as one got older, that mindset faded into the background. But it never truly went away.

Now it shoved its way to front and center, and Naruto felt like he was three feet tall. He was so small, so worthless, and the monster had finally clawed his way from his closet. Sasuke’s fangs gleamed in an evil smirk. His eyes, bright red, hair so dark, hands hooked into his arm, fingers like claws they were biting so deeply--

No, no, no

Don’tlettheboogeymangetme

“NO!” Naruto screamed. Scrambled back. Grew more insane, more hysteric, when he couldn’t budge. He couldn’t find it. The weakness. Behind him was home. It was so close, always so close, but the monsters in his closet were always closer. “NO! NO!” Don’t drag me under too. “NO!” Don’t make me disappear. Let me live. Let me live. I need to get back to him alive.

There was a hand at his neck now, cold as ice, even to his numb skin. He pounded at Sasuke’s arm, then twisted his face and bit into his wrist. The skin refused to give way under his canines, like it was rubber. It both disgusted and frightened him in equal measures.

“NO!”

Sasuke wasn‘t listening to him. “Game over.” That’s as cliché as “I know how to defeat you”, don’t let him get me, Sasuke, please, Sasuke, you’ve always wanted to help me, I know you have you damned retard, so help me help me help me help me Sasuke. The world went black.

--

Naruto woke up in time to hear the door shut behind them. He heard wind whipping at the sides of the snow with thick lashes of snow, and cobwebs tickled underneath his numb nose. He sneezed, but Sasuke didn’t bother to glance down. His eyes fluttered for a moment before opening, although there wasn’t much to see. Sasuke hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights, and the two were swathed in darkness. Sasuke paused at the door and shifted Naruto’s weight to free up one hand, which he used to engage the look. Then he was making his way through the mudroom, across the living room, and into the kitchen

They were climbing the stairs and Naruto was still a far cry from fully awake. The thought of mercy didn’t even bother crossing Naruto’s mind. “Are you going to change me?” Naruto asked instead, slow to wake, even slower to realize the true weight of the situation.

Sasuke still didn’t look at him, still climbing. “You’re not even going to try and stop me?”

Naruto didn’t raise to the bait, partially because he didn’t want to play along with Sasuke’s mind games. But mostly it was because Naruto didn’t know how to get away anymore. He’d blundered through everything up to this point, but now… now--

“No,” Sasuke finally said as they reached the landing, and it was then that Naruto noticed he was bundled up in Sasuke’s leather coat. “Not yet.”

Naruto was silent, then squinted as a sudden light went on. Sasuke didn’t bother to close the door behind them. He sat Naruto down on the toilet, steadying him against the side of the sink before kneeling down to the ground by the tub and turning on the faucet. It took a full minute for steam to begin billowing into the air, and Sasuke put the stopper in place, allowing the tub to fill.

Sasuke turned back to him then, and began to remove Naruto’s shoes. “You’re frozen,” he said by way of explanation. “A bath should help.”

Naruto could barely feel his feet as they brushed against the tiles of the bathroom floor. The jacket was removed from around his shoulders and drooped upon the floor. When Sasuke began to unbutton his shirt, Naruto swallowed and asked, “Aren’t you mad?”

Sasuke didn’t pause in his undressing as he answered, “I was. But not anymore.” The shirt was undone, and that too was pushed over his shoulders. “I’ve come to a realization that I’ve been going the wrong way about things. I’ve put the opinions of another above my own. Stand up.”

He steadied Naruto with sure hands as the blond rose shakily to his feet. He didn’t have the energy to feel embarrassed as Sasuke worked at the button and zipper of his pants. There was nothing sexual about it. Not yet, anyway.

Once Naruto’s pants and boxers were pushed past his hips and down his legs, Sasuke aided him in stepping out of them and into the tub. Once he had Naruto settled, he toed out of his own boots and began to work at his clothes. In no time at all, Sasuke was as naked as he was, and Naruto regarded him with vague detachment. Another thing he had in common with his human Sasuke, Naruto thought before Sasuke stepped into the tub and squatted down. Naruto shifted to accommodate him, and the water lapped at the ceramic lips of the tub as he fit Naruto neatly between his legs.

A pale hand reached up for the bar of soap in the dish, and rubbed it between damp hands for a moment before replacing it. Then they were at his face, rubbing over his cheeks. Cold hands on an even colder face. Naruto shivered in relief as Sasuke dipped his hands back into the blissfully hot water and washed the suds from his face. When the bar of soap was rubbing at the skin above his heart, Naruto asked, “What now?”

“Now,” Sasuke murmured, “I do things my way.” Naruto didn’t even bother to tense up. Sasuke was cleaning his neck now, and he could already feel the fangs, the teeth--

“Now,” Sasuke repeated, “I’ll talk.” He put away the bar of soap, and dunked his hand to begin rinsing Naruto off. “And you are going to listen, love.” Hot damp hands slid through his hair, and turned Naruto to face him. “Listen to me.”

Naruto was quiet. He refused to think about how, for the very first time in his life, he’d gone against his word. Couldn’t even bare to think about how he’d lost his only chance to get home, and he’d never get back to Sasuke. Or get that last kiss he should have gotten before he left. Feel warm hands, dark, gray eyes--

But Sasuke was talking. And talking. And for once, Naruto began to listen. Because it was the only thing keeping him from screaming.

“I met you in March,” Sasuke began as he settled Naruto more comfortably against his chest, “of 1904.”

--

Author’s Notes: To make up for such a long delay, expect chapter eleven by this Friday.

Thank you for continuing to read!

-Kodak