Scared Stiff

Beta'd by Silvertsuki

Chapter one

The letters were red on the white wall, a bit crooked and not very artistic at all.

“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

“We have some… naughty boys here. Don’t mind the graffiti.” Itachi said in that lifeless voice of his. Naruto wondered, not for the first time, if they were doing the right thing. “It will be scrubbed off soon.”

“What’s that building over there? It looks like it’s been made of glass.” Kiba asked, making the effort of getting along for the sake of his friend.

“It is a building made of glass.”

Kiba growled deep in his throat on the slightly mocking words, and Naruto felt a pang of guilt in his stomach for making him do this. This stranger could be lying, and they had no reason to trust him at all. His mind wondered on this last winter and a big hole in the wall of the improvised little shelter house they lived. He shuddered. This needs to work.

“What use can a building made of glass be?” Kiba’s voice was different from Akamaru’s bark at this point only because Naruto could recognize the words. Barely. And he lived with the boy for five years.

The look in his eyes was mach easier to read; they said “Get me out of here!” and “Why is my dog in some truck fifty feet behind, when he should be here with me?”

Fortunately, Itachi too heard the trouble in Kiba’s tone, and decided to answer the question.

“It’s special glass. The building is testing area.”

“Oh.” Naruto answered when it became clear that Kiba would not, in favor of glaring at the back of Itachi’s head.

They met when they were kids, in the government institution. Kiba was in the next cell, so they talked sometimes at night. Later, when they escaped, Naruto decided to stay with him, even though that meant living in the wild. Better than being all alone in a world that hates you, he thought. These days, he just wanted running water and, occasionally, ramen.

They were on their own until just a few days ago, when Itachi found them.

He promised that it wouldn’t be like it was before.

The Institution was a horrible place. The doctors did … experiments on them. It was often painful and they were kept in lifeless little rooms all the time…alone. Naruto and Kiba were ten when some older mutants resisted.

On their way out, they unlocked everyone else. The boys found each other almost blindly and ran.

“It won’t be like that.” Itachi said, as if reading his mind.

(Which was not impossible at all.) “I have a younger brother, and he is just like you two. I couldn’t hurt you any more than I could hurt him.”

What was odd about Itachi was that neither one of the boys could smell anything at all. Most of the time, people smell the way they feel, but this man smelled as though he were made of plastic. Naruto needed this to work, though.

So he managed to nod.

The building was beautiful, new, and shiny white. From where they stopped, the beginning of it was as far as the end of it; you couldn’t see them clearly. The windows weren’t covered with bars. That was the first thing Naruto noticed.

The second thing he noticed was that the entrance was too small for a building this size.

“What is this place?” He dared to ask, for it didn’t look anything like the Institution.

“The dorms for the kids and the rest of the living space. The labs are behind.”

Naruto’s stomach sank once more at the mention of a lab, but he forced himself to breathe and calm down. It was to be expected; Itachi said that they are looking for a cure.

He stepped out of the car after Kiba and blinked the sun out of his eyes. Itachi sent the driver away and lead them up the stairs.

“Welcome, boys.”

Sasuke was annoyed.

Anyone would be, really, if a small fury animal woke them up in the middle of the night by stepping on their face.

He sat up in the bed, pushing the thing off of him. He noticed that it was a fox. A fox with fartoo many tails; he refused to count them at this hour, never mind that someone had turned the light on. It would be pointless anyway; this was obviously a dream.

It was a beautiful fox, and it was cuddling him as a cat would. Before he had time to think about why there was a wild animal on his bed, he reached out and stroked it behind the neck.

It answered by getting closer and putting its head on Sasuke’s neck. It was… gekkering.

“I’m glad you two are getting along.” Itachi’s voice came from by the door, amused. Sasuke pulled his hand away as if it had been burned, and tried to push the animal away once more. It didn’t work.

“You’re going to be roommates.”

Well, he knew that.

Itachi had told him when he asked why there was an extra bed in his room, when he came from lunch. Apparently, there was a choice: a boy, or a boy and his dog for a roommate.

He picked the first one.

It was evident, really, that he got to choose so he would feel too horrified with the prospect of living with a dog to complain about the whole thing in general, but it worked. Itachi’s games always worked on him.

So, this was not a dream.

Considering what had been happening in these last few weeks, it was a relief. He didn’t want to do anything remotely sexual with a fox.

On any level of his subconsciousness.

“Naruto, change back.” And only then, Sasuke realized that this fox was his roommate. And he had stroked it. Him.

Idiot had better be fucking gorgeous, or he would be missing his head.

The fox, however, answered only by hiding behind Sasuke, climbing on his pillow. It was good to know that there were people who didn’t obey his brother automatically, even if they were… vulpine.

“Call Kiba.” Itachi said to someone behind him, probably the nurse, and the door clicked.

They waited in silence, Sasuke sitting stiff on his bed; Naruto – the fox –apparently trying to smell his stomach through his back, judging by the pressure, and Itachi watching them and suppressing any form of smile that was threatening to form on his face.

The nurse obviously knew that violent and loud things usually happen when the Uchiha brothers were in the same room, at the same time, and she was back shortly. With her was a brown haired boy, who frowned at Sasuke when he grabbed the fox and pushed it in his hands.

The – thing – was stubborn. It bit Kiba, who yelped surprised, and jumped back on the bed. It then settled on Sasuke’s lap and looked content to stay all night, and maybe move in.

Kiba picked some rag from the floor, probably Naruto’s clothes, and wiped his bitten hand off on it. The nurse, an elderly woman that mothered all of the people around here, slapped him on the arm. He complained, looking like a kicked puppy, “He won’t mind.” apparently under the impression that she was worried about his choice of bandages alone and not infections. “Naruto?”

The fox didn’t even turn to him.

“I’ll get you ramen tomorrow if you change back.”

Ramen? Like noodles? Where was Kiba planning to find ramen when all they had was a canteen here and how would that help when his brother’s no-nonsense voice didn’t? Sasuke wondered.

Then the not-so-small body in his lap started to grow. Before he managed to try to push him off for the third time, there was a full-grown boy, stark naked and almost entirely on top of him.

And he would, apparently, be keeping his head.

Large blue eyes looked down at him in horror, and Sasuke swallowed hard, feeling like he had the one time Itachi made him dance on a slippery floor. He absolutely refused to let his elbows to buckle under the weight and glared up.

“Have a sheet.” Sasuke heard himself saying in sort of a detached voice. Kiba snickered somewhere in the room.

Naruto jumped, taking both the sheet and the blanket, and tried desperately to cover himself. Don’t bother, he wanted to say, but Itachi was still there, and so were Kiba and the nurse.

“I’m sorry!” Naruto blurted, in loud voice that was almost a wail and Sasuke was at that moment very sure that the next time he woke up with a needy wild animal on him, he would kick it. Hard.

“Don’t screech, you moron. Do you want the whole floor to come here? I’m fairly sure that at least some of them will try to see what’s under my covers.”

By some of them, he meant Sai, but the boys would learn that on their own soon enough. “Now, if we’ve settled this, can I go back to sleep?”

“Yes.” Itachi answered, knowing the sun would rise soon. “As soon as you’ve finished scrubbing off that thing you wrote on the guardhouse.”

There was no point in denying he did it; even if he pulled it off perfectly, his brother would always know better.

“That thing is a quotation from a very famous book.” Itachi didn’t look impressed. “It’s a middle of the night. Can I do it in the morning?”

“You didn’t seem to be bothered by the lack of light last night, when you painted it. I’ll be kind enough to allow you a flashlight, though. Put some cloths on. A bucket and scrubbing brush will be waiting for you by the entrance door.”

Itachi turned to leave, the nurse following him. Kiba went too, trying to send his friend an encouraging smile at the same time, but Naruto was busy getting into his pants behind a dresser and a mountain of sheets he gathered from both beds to see him.

Not that Sasuke was watching.

When the door closed, Sasuke started getting out of his pajamas. Naruto, who was now trying to put what he took from Sasuke’s bed back, stopped short and stared, blush apparent even on his tanned skin. Adorable, really. In that absurd way when you don’t know if you should push them on the bed, slap them or stroke their hair.

You already did the last one, his mind supplied. And don’t get over excited, you should be out of here soon, anyway.

“If you need something to look at, you can always try the window. It was made for that purpose.”

Naruto sat on his own bed and bounced a bit, as if to check the mattress’ elasticity.

“I didn’t…” he started and then changed his mind. “It’s dark outside.”

“Yes, I noticed. It was dark for hours before you decided that my nose was a hill you could climb on. So what?” It was easy to lash out, when he knew that he would soon be scrubbing off all the paint he went through hell last week to get.

“More like a mountain.” Naruto narrowed his eyes at him, and loudly added. “So you can’t look through the window when the light is on.” His tone indicated he though he had won some kind of argument.

“My point was,” Sasuke said with one hand on the door handle, clearly not insulted. “just because I saw you naked doesn’t mean you have to return the favor. Next time when I’m changing, if you can’t find anything else in the room that can hold your attention for a minute or so until I’m done, step out.”

He thought he heard a “bastard” from Naruto but the door were already shut, and he didn’t check on his way out if his nose was too big in the mirror. He really didn’t.

It just cost him some effort.


It felt good, Naruto was thinking. The moonlight in the room was bright enough for him to count the squares on the ceiling, but he was too busy to do that and it wouldn’t have helped anyway.

He smelled so good. A bit sweet, and Naruto had lost control over his body…as if he were seven again.

He was just curious about the boy in the bed. Itachi had told him it was his brother and Naruto had wanted to see if they looked alike. He had carefully approached the sleeping figure and bent a bit to peek under the arm the boy had put over his face to guard his eyes from the light. Sasuke’s mouth was open, and really, that wasn’t supposed to be so appealing that he had to edge closer; he had seen Kiba like that many times. He did, though, and the next second his nose was full of that fruity scent and he lost his mind.

Well, not really lost it, as his mind was still there when he became a fox. He was just more focused. On his physical needs.

In what category of physical needs did getting into somebody’s lap as soon as possible belong to? He didn’t know. Maybe he had been cold, and never realized it because of the nerves. Or maybe the fox had thought the boy was some kind of food.

Naruto was just glad he turned into the fox, instead of letting him into his mind. That would be bad, especially on his first day here. He wanted to make a good impression. He wanted Itachi to find a cure, so he could live a normal life.

He also wanted Sasuke to come back soon, so he could apologize. It was probably a bad idea to molest the brother of the supervisor and let him stay mad at you.

So he waited, staying awake for hours enjoying his new comfortable bed. He missed Kiba and Akamaru.

Finally, the door opened. Naruto sat up and opened his mouth, but the smell, the sweet and alluring smell, reached him and he pinched his nose trying to prevent himself from changing.

Sasuke turned the light switch on and scowled at the sight of him.

“I’ve been scrubbing all night long. If you expected me to smell like roses, I’m sorry to say, you expected too much.”

As far as apologies went, this one started… not so good. Naruto thought quickly.

“I have allergies.” Whatever those were. People always complained about them around Akamaru and they were usually sneezing at the time. “My nose is itchy.”

Sasuke made a little noise while taking something from the dresser, which meant, judging by the look on his face, that he didn’t buy it. Naruto removed his thumb a bit and sniffed. When there was no immediate urge to jump in the other boy’s lap, he moved his hand completely.

Just in time to catch Sasuke’s look that clearly stated: ‘You are bizarre and mildly insane and I really don’t think I can move in with you.’

“I’m sorry!” He blurted, maybe a bit too loudly. “I don’t know what happened, I’ve never done that before.”

“I feel very special.”

“And you don’t have a big nose.” Naruto finished, ignoring Sasuke’s dry voice.

“I'm compensating for it in other areas.” Sasuke said, and walked out again.

Well…at least he didn’t sound very upset.

Wait, what?