Weapons Check.

Weapons Check.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Naruto, and admit this sadly. Naruto and all related characters, names and terminology belongs to Masashi Kishimoto-san and Shueisha Inc. I am not making any profit from what appears below.


Warnings: This chapter, there are Hints of Shonen-ai (Is it me, or does that sound like a perfume?), WAFF, ninja equipment, my somewhat evil sense of humour. Unbeta'd, but never fear, I'm a linguist. The lads are 16 and, here in the UK, fair game. Further chapters will be lemon-scented, with a rather astonished Sasuke and some interesting uses for chakra. Hopefully. Working on it.

Quick Nota Bene from the author: Apply usual "Ack, first time writing in this fandom!" panicked disclaimer. Add in fact that author is British, and so's the spelling. I'm erudite, so I know big big words and how to use them. If you run into something you don't know, hit the dictionary and consider the new vocabulary a gift from me.

~~~~~~~~

Leaves dance. Lifting, falling, the air filled with the scent of them as they move, cut early from their summer branches. The wind races in circles, glinting. Green. Gold.

Blue.

The pale, heat-worn blue of summer skies. The flash of fierce, laughing blue eyes. The grey-blue bite of metal shurikens. The wild, white-hot blue of chakra. The deep blue-black of midnight hair.

Red.

Drops of blood spattering the air with red the colour of autumn maples. An orange scarf dyed darker red with sweat. The calculating wariness of crimson red eyes. The soft pinkish red of a tongue sticking out of lips pursed with determination. The random, electric red of demonic chakra.

The wind stills, and leaves fall. Two exhausted young men drop with them.

"Speed training. Middle of summer, and he says we need to work on 'speed training'." The blond pants his complaint, the grass under his mouth muffling his voice. "Kakashi's still a bastard."

Beside him, chest heaving, Sasuke throws an arm up over his eyes, his hand still limply clutching a kunai. Gravity is pushing his back into the ground, the air feels like shards of hot glass in his lungs. Dying. He knows he's dying. It felt like this before, that time with Haku, that other time with Naruto at the Valley of the End, the time with Orochimaru... The kunai slips, nearly nicking his ear before sinking tip first into the ground. He's done the nearly dying thing a few too many times to care about it much. Despite the heat, he shivers. There's a cold place in his very soul. He forces himself to move his head the inch it takes to look over at his team mate, the one so determined to thaw him out.

Naruto is splayed like a starfish, belly down, and gasping like a beached whale. Like Sasuke, his chuunin uniform is drenched with sweat, the dull greys and greens blacker around the back, under the arms, around the neck. His scarf, the one flamboyant shout of childhood he kept after passing the exam, lays limply across his sweaty neck.

Minutes pass. Even Naruto is too tired to talk for a while, so Sasuke stares up at the dappled light of the tree above him. Fast. They're both so fast now. They were trained by Kakashi, who was trained by the Yondaime Hokage, Konoha's own Yellow Flash, who was trained by the Sennin Jiraiya who was trained... by dodging the hordes of furious bathing beauties. Sasuke smirks tiredly. The famed speed of the Konoha ninjas, honed by perverts.

There's a groan over to his right, and Naruto flips over to get out of the sun, to share Sasuke's shade. He's still sprawling, so his left hand clunks carelessly against Sasuke's right. Neither care. Caring takes energy. They both watch the shifting patterns of light as their breathing evens out.

Finally Sasuke sits up, unsnaps his waist-pouch and grabs the water bottle. Two deep swallows, then he upends the bottle over his head. Water trickle through his chuunin vest, slides coolly through the thin mesh shirt. He shivers. There's a laugh from the blond, and Naruto's hand tugs his sleeve. Sasuke obligingly tips the remainder over his friend. They grin damply at each other, the satisfaction of a good workout mellowing the Uchiha into the rare facial expression.

"What else you got in your pouch?," Naruto asks idly, pulling some grass from a clump besides his ear. At his friend's raised eyebrow, he shrugs, biting into the stalk of grass and twiddling it casually with his tongue. "Everyone seems to have different things. Once you get past the regulation stuff, that is. Chouji's got snacks and the soldier pills, Kiba's pouch is full of dog treats. What do Uchihas carry?"

"More water, for one," Sasuke replies dryly, lifting a second bottle out and sipping slowly. "Whetting stone. Sealing wax. More weapons."

A sceptical snort answers him. "Everyone carries a shitload of weapons. I bet I carry a hell of a lot more weapons than you."

A pause in the quiet drinking. "I doubt it." The mellow tenor is full of smug surety.

Heat and exhaustion forgotten with the luring red cape of rivalry, Naruto goes from languidly horizontal to furiously vertical almost instantaneously. "OH YEAH?!"

"Yeah."

"Wanna bet, bastard?"

Coolly, Sasuke recaps his water bottle, then smirks up at the enraged blond. "The last job's payment?"

Naruto rolls his eyes. "Unlike some, I got rent to pay. How 'bout the one with the least weapons pays for..."

"Ramen," says Sasuke, matching Naruto's eyeroll with his own.

"I was gonna say the onsen, bastard," huffs the blond, indignantly crossing his arms.

"Riiiight." Sasuke stands, lazily stretching out tired muscles with a barely visible wince. "Actually, dobe, the onsen sounds good."

"See? So, is it a bet?"

"Hn."

Dryly muttering under his breath, "I'll take that as a yes," Naruto pulls out a small notebook from his chuunin vest. "So for the speed exercise, we declared ten kunai, twenty shuriken, as the maximum to throw, right?" A stubby pencil heads one page 'Bastard', the other with 'Naruto the Great'. Sasuke, peeking over his shoulder huffs at the latter and earns himself a toothy grin as the numbers are written down.

"Let's start!" Naruto sets the notebook down, and enthusiastically starts to pull things out of his vest. Moments later, two sleeves of ten shuriken each, a bandolier of light kunai, a few weightier ones, and six jutsu scrolls are on the ground. "C'mon, bastard, I want my onsen."

"Hn." Sasuke drops the same standard equipment on his section of the grass, then smirks as he lays out a second, then third string of kunai. He pulls out a wad of explosion seals, ostentatiously counting them out until Naruto cheerfully implies that they must be for when his Katon jutsus fail. Scowling at his friend, he grabs the pencil and starts writing down numbers.

Sitting on the ground, Naruto pulls his chuunin vest over his head, exposing a loose black t-shirt. Half a dozen more kunai spill out. He pulls off his hitai-ate, his blonde hair running riot with freedom, and smugly shows Sasuke the neat row of shuriken that had been tucked behind it.

They check the numbers. It's a tie.

Sasuke growls, and yanks off his vest, showing off more shuriken sewn into the dark blue lining. Naruto matches his smirk, and pulls off the scarf. Sasuke blinks, before muttering, "That's where you keep them." Naruto just grins wider, and cautiously lays down the scarf full of one inch diameter smokebombs.

They count again. Still a tie.

Off come the wraps. Rows on rows of metal discs sewn delicately onto strips of fabric, overlapping, acting both as armaments and shields. Sasuke has switched the ones from his childhood from white to black, but otherwise kept his weapons pretty much the same. Naruto had added the leg wraps, but refused to hang weights on his wrists. His forearm sheaths were full of thin sharp needles.

They both frown at the tally sheet. Fine.

Off come the sandals. Both pairs have blades that snap out of the soles when triggered. Both hide lengths of garrotte wires in their belts. They strip down to their boxers and t-shirts. Naruto's shorts come off, and there's another two rows of carefully tied jutsu and summoning scrolls. Sasuke's longer shorts yield a pair of tanto, and yet more kunai strapped to his thighs.

Naruto hmphs and, standing, pulls off his shirt. Sasuke looks up, and just stares. There are leather straps, with studs no less, across the blonde's shoulders and well defined chest. It's the kinkiest thing he's ever seen, and considering some of the ways Konoha's ninjas choose to dress, that's saying something.

Naruto grins at the very unfrozen features of his best friend, then turns around. "Like it?" he cooes. Flat against his back and held in place by the straps are five blades. Two wakazashi, two thinner blades on the outside, and a small knife, all upside down, all obviously custom jobs. It explained how Naruto could just slip a hand under the back of his shirt and whip out weapons, something that had been pissing off the Uchiha for the past two months. "You remember that escort job to Lightning I did? The smith I was bodyguarding was willing to swap skill for skill instead of cash."

Naruto turns around fluidly, the oiled leather moving smoothly against his bare chest. Sasuke's eyes are latched onto his best friend's fingers as they play lightly on the small studs. The blonde notices, and laughs. "Yeah, the leather, that was the hard part. I had to go to a S&M shop and get it custom-made."

Sasuke scrapes together as much aplomb as he can, and says, "I hope you didn't have to swap skill for skill for that too." He's trying for sarcasm, but his mouth had run dry. It came out low and hoarse instead.

Naruto, oblivious, laughs again. "They did ask whether I was a bottom or a top, but when I showed them the blades and scabbard, well, they said it kinda answered the question for them." Black eyes goggle at that, and go wider still as Naruto shrugs out of the gear with practised ease. By the time Naruto turns around, however, he's got the notebook firmly in his lap and is furiously writing down the current totals.

Still tied. Neither of them can believe it, and do a quick recount. Still tied. They both swear, then glare at each other.

"Fine," snaps Sasuke. They've both pulled out all the stops, he might as well show his last resort. He reaches his fingers into his mouth, and takes a small waterproof pouch from its place between his teeth and inside of his cheek. Two soldier pills and a diminutive nail file are held up as exhibit A. He smugly smirks, and waits for Naruto to concede defeat.

Blue eyes narrow. "Fine!" Off come the boxers.

Sasuke gapes at the back of his now completely naked friend. After a second to recover, he snaps out, "I don't think -that- counts as a weapon, dobe." A middle finger is waved at him, the familiarity of the rude gesture helping the Uchiha grasp at what seems to be rapidly retreating reality... reality that slips away entirely as the blond casually sticks the same finger up his own backside. There's a pause, during which Naruto flexes and grunts, during which Sasuke finds the hot summer air thick and heavy once again. He stands shellshocked, his mouth a Sahara, heartbeat thundering in his ears, eyes gone unexpectedly Sharingan with the feeling he can't define racing through his veins.

Then with yell, Naruto... pulls out a stubby waterproof case.

Sasuke stares at the vulpine grin that flashes triumphantly at him.

"See? See? I thought, where would -nobody- look for stuff?" Naruto cheerfully opens the bullet-shaped container, showing the small lockpick set and five extra needle darts. "I thought the same as you, putting something in my mouth, but eeuch, it'd probably taste bad. Or I'd swallow it by mistake. So..."

Sasuke just slides down against the tree and lets the words run over him. His friend. His best friend. His best -male- friend had weaponry hidden up his arse. He leans his forehead against his knees. "You win."

"Eh?" The embarrassed but pleased volume of words screeches to a halt.

"You win, dobe. You..." The dark hair quivers. "You..."

Sasuke loses it. He leans back against the tree and howls with amusement. Tears cling to his lashes. Nothing has made him laugh like this ever. Nothing. Nothing has made him feel this alive in all the years since Orochimaru. He laughs, and watchs Naruto's slow lazy smile grow wider and wider as he did so. Warm. Warm and wonderful. Like his soul had grown back. Like he's come home.


---~~~~~~----

(oh, I've fixed a few things, mostly verb tenses. Whoops.)


I am thinking on a second chapter, with lemon. Naruto is a Top, oh yes he is.

Additional comments, feel free to skip the follow brief rant:

While I've written fanfic for some time, I've never posted here, or on Fanfic dot net. I'd only started reading Naruto fic, and desperate for good fic, found myself perusing the sites I swore I'd avoid. I'd heard tell, you see. Well, I've found some good stuff out there. My problem is the vast array of writers who have neat ideas, good dialogue... and absolutely no interest in checking their work. I don't mean the occassional mistype, hell, I've gone and retweaked this post a half-dozen times alone for things I discovered after posting. I'm talking chronic apathy. So, here is the simplest thing to keep in mind regarding grammar.

Hyphenated words. Think about them. If you mean to say "It is" you can use it's. If you mean to say "You are", you can use you're. Use you're to mean your, or it's when you mean its, and I have a HULK SMASH! moment at the keyboard. Before you write it, say it out loud. It helps.

Secondly, in regards to Japanese usage in English language fanfiction, I don't generally do it. I could, I lived over there for six months, and speak and read it fairly fluently. I won't though. My feeling is that I also have a BA in Latin, but won't smack the reader around with that, so why use Japanese superfluously? I am using 'dobe', simply because I prefer the sound of it over 'Dead-last'. Something I learned translating stuff: There are things that just don't carry over well. I'm also fond of -ne? at the end of sentences, but that's partly because it implies a question has a 'yes' answer in both Latin and Japanese. How's that for a trivia lesson?


Rant over. Thank you. I shan't plead for comments, but will be delighted if I get any.