A/N: I have no idea if Yashamura is a girl or guy. I completely mangled the timeline--I'm more worried about messing up Kakashi's character. Beware! Shifts in scene!

***

Innocence, once lost, can never be regained.

--Lucifer, Sandman: Seasons of Mist, Neil Gaiman

In the arms of the angel, may you find some comfort here.

--Sarah McLaughlin, Angel

"It's uncanny how many problems you can solve with duct tape."

"Sometimes I use it for underwear."

--Dilbert and Wally, Dilbert, Scott Adams

There's on at the door,

At the gate to damnation...

Is it thief, thug or whore?

There's one at the door...

And there's room for one more till the end of creation.

--Lord Squatterbloat, Sandman comics, Neil Gaiman

I fell out of my chair. This might take a while.

--Anon.

***

 Flashback:

"What? You gained what? Go ahead, shock me, thrill me," Gaara got uncomfortably close to Naruto's face, shades of yellow flickering in his eyes in Naruto's bedroom of the stone castle-fortress. "Tell me why the fuck I should stick around!"

His eyes widened not with fear but with warning; Naruto waited until he settled back down. His bed sheets were mussed under his hand; he always went to Gaara, it was rare for the Tanuki to seek anyone out, much less actually look for him. Gaara was cranky, moody, and it wasn't anything new to Naruto. He always got over it eventually. When he got into his moods it was better just to steer clear away. He'd been moodier lately, even more so than when Sasuke and Sakura had been here; now it was just Sasuke and he was nastier if possible. And now Naruto knew for sure that there was no stick shoved up his ass; Gaara was just like this naturally.

"What the hell got into you?" he asked mildly, ignoring Gaara's own question.

With uncanny speed Gaara slipped back, his face cold and nearly pitying. It was always weird to watch his face reflect emotion, and now was no different.

"You should know. Hell's own spawn is in me," and he hesitated, as if deciding if he should continue or let it lie. He let it lie, because that was true. Hell's own spawn was in him, but it wasn't in Naruto anymore. Not really.

***

"Kakashi."

"What's up?" the silver-haired shinobi quips without looking up at him, still scribbling something by lamplight in his inn room even though it had to be past midnight. Sasuke paused.

"I...I need another."

"Another what?"

Sasuke made vague signals in the air with his hands, gesturing to his hair. He's somewhat irritated Kakashi's being thoughtless again, but then that's normal for the lazy shinobi. And he's sort of been working lately. Kind of. "Metal. Head protector. I...need a replacement."

Kakashi nods--still without looking up--finishes writing whatever he was recording and gets up, favoring the limp in his left side. He doesn't need his crutches anymore, but his left leg still pains him.

After Sasuke...returned, they've been able to move quicker; he's seen to it. They're close to the coast, near enough that on still nights one could feel the breeze from the ocean over the city lights and stench even from their location on the outskirts of the metropolis. They're far enough away from the west that they can stay longer in one place, can begin to take things out of boxes without worrying that they'll have to be packed again the next morning when they move out. They've been here for a little over two weeks now. Ino's had a chance to go shopping for clothes, and dragged Hinata with her. Mission requests come in by the dozens now that they're easier to find, and Kakashi sighs at the complete lack of invisibility and tact.

Surprisingly, Kakashi's room is rather cluttered for a Jounin shinobi, with cardboard boxes and folders full of medical papers and maps, research books the kind only very fanciful children have filled with stories about princess fairies and goblins stacked on the floor and hiding the table. Bits and pieces of stories have been scratched out or underlined or have little post-it notes leafed between the pages.

It was Kakashi who taught him about silver's invisibility and copper's medical abilities. It was Kakashi who taught him how to hunt the trolls, that werewolves were immortal to everything except silver and incineration. It was Kakashi who laughed at his scorn over elves and mermaids.

"Why? Think just 'cause they're cute they won't bite? Just 'cos they're all cute and squishy?"

"Oversized rabbits and fish. You want me to hunt rabbits and fish for how much?"

"Oh, don't be such a sourpuss. And you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things you don't understand: that's the first step to screwing up the mission. They're all cute and stuff right before they snap your head off and mount it. Charge in without a clue, and it's going to be messy digging you back out. I don't want to have to; you should know better than that. Here. Book. Read. Good for you." Sasuke was waved in the general direction of a bookcase while Kakashi continued to rummage. Sasuke didn't budge an inch.

Its possible Kakashi learned everything just now; it's possible that he's known about metal's properties, the poison drug in elvish blood for ages. He knew that mermaid's eyes matched the hypnotism of the Sharingan, that nothing could catch an elf in the woods and knew how to lure the creatures out. Its possible Kakashi has known of the darkness longer than he's hinted. It's not unbelievable; it would explain a lot. While Sasuke was still in diapers and Itachi still the village's golden child, Kakashi had been out in the night fighting the things that invaded life now. And Kakashi had been one of the best. If not for his game leg, he would be the best, but as matters stand he's not very mobile on the field, but a godsend behind the scenes.

"You're not serious."

"Read. Good for you."

"A mermaid? Who wants us to kill a mermaid?"

"They've been drowning fishermen in Yanaka all this month. Seventeen bodies and counting."

"Had to have been--" sharks, he almost snaps. Bloody mermaids, Kakashi actually wanted him to...

But there had been too many attacks for sharks.

"Animals only hunt as much as they need to; anything else would be a waste of energy. Don't forget Sasuke: Mermaids are half human. And you know--or at least you should, by now--how very sweet humans can be."

Kakashi stared at him, not glaring but intense and a bit hassled, like he was trying to see into his brain because Sasuke was being stubborn again. Pushing him, and seeing how he'd react, treating him like a rookie student still exasperatingly ignorant about the simplest things. Kakashi had stopped being super considerate a while back; now he treats him like he always did, like he was still Sasuke Uchiha of Konoha who lived in his Spartan apartment rather than live in the old rambling house of his family. Like nothing had changed very much.

Kakashi still reads his erotic novels when he can find the time, and even if hell was raining down on their heads he'd still find the time to giggle like a boy reading his father's pornography while blood spattered overhead. Ino doesn't flirt or yell at him anymore, though that sickeningly sweet tone is still in her voice whenever she says his name. Shikamaru pretends to ignore him most of the time, noting every change in mood or routine Sasuke puts out. Lee ogles that he's completely unbroken, that he's even stronger than before and doesn't bother to hide his admiration or jealously; he still makes terrible jokes. He ignores Hinata and Neji as much as possible; he's fairly successful.

As for...well, it's not impossible Sasuke could help him. He could tell him. He could tell him, and maybe he'd stop hurting. But...

That's far too intimate. He wants to help, but even he needs some privacy.

With a slight weight in his movements, moving with more gravity than usual but no where near pompous or even formal, Kakashi retrieves his head protector--already made and set for him, just waiting for Sasuke to ask--from it's box and hands it to him with a certain amount of solemnity, right before telling him not to forget to get Neji a new pair of pants--it was getting embarrassing how nearly-naked Neji kept on coming back from missions.

"It's his own fault he's so slow; not mine." And it had only been one incident, and when things were trying to tear one's head off one's pants are not important! It hadn't been his fault, it'd been Hyuuga's!

Kakashi sighed. Sasuke would do what he asked, but now he was complaining too. It's was just one of those things.

Sasuke gave him a dirty look before feeling the cool of the cloth slide against his forehead and knotted it behind his head. It feels strange but familiar; like an itching over an old scar. He hung around a while more as a way of saying thank you and goodbye without saying a word. He's feels more comfortable talking to Kakashi more than anyone else, but he still doesn't trust him completely. Sasuke knows Kakashi doesn't trust completely either; he's not that naïve.

He's Kakashi; the perverted old slacker that Sasuke knew would die for him, cared about him without demanding much in return, who's sharper than Sasuke likes to contemplate and so absent-minded that Sasuke felt a distinct nerve in his eyebrow twitch every time he heard that awful excuse always preceded by, "Sorry I'm late, but I--"

Still sometimes Sasuke forgot that, even now. And he would remember why he shouldn't.

Sasuke asked once about Sakura. If Kakashi knew anything.

Kakashi had been walking away from him, about to go do something, and had stopped for a full second. And Sasuke knew something was off.

He had turned around slowly, and underneath the good-natured laziness and aloof exterior Sasuke could see hints of the light-splitting sharp ninja who had killed before breakfast without hesitation or guilt or passion. One of the few shinobi to allow themselves to truly become dispassionate killers--dispassionate, but never stupid. Never thoughtless; he thought real good, he just didn't have to care. And Sasuke doesn't know if he should feel fear or jealousy.

"Don't know what happened to her," Kakashi clipped slowly, steadily drilling into his eyes without pain or hurry. "Do you?"

She's dead too.  Out like a candle.

Sasuke stared back. Then he dropped his eyes.

Kakashi began to turn away, and he opened his mouth without saying anything. He noticed Kakashi waited, but he didn't know what to say. What he wanted to say, what he wanted Kakashi to hear, what he wanted to be true. What he really knows. He hesitated. He hesitates.

Kakashi left him there silently, and for a while Sasuke didn't move.

***

Winter was here. But it used to be summer.

Once it was autumn, with all the possibilities for reconciliation and understanding standing at their own individual door of destiny, each leading down a different path, the chance for fake laughter to bloom into real laughter almost too late, but only almost. It wouldn't be too late. It wouldn't have been too late. It could've happened; it didn't have to be this way.

It had been summer.

There are two boys hanging in midair, the darker one holding the lighter's ankle and seeming to hang from nothing. They are twelve years old. The darker hasn't gone away and betrayed the shit out of anyone yet. The lighter is growing in leaps and bounds, but is still pretty stupid and affectionately impotent in most matters. Konohagakure is a dull place where they hang their clothes up and drop into bed. Their dreams aren't perfect, but they aren't bad. They don't haunt them in the daylight; they just make them relieved to wake up.

It's not perfect, but it isn't bad.

Right now their both watching a courtship performed rather clumsily, and the lighter plasters his hands in front of his mouth to keep from laughing.

The willow trees are in bloom, faint spidery-white blossom mixing with larger late bloomers and dandelions, the sakura blossoms having come and gone already. The air is heavy with pollen and sweat of the two boys as they practiced beating the shit out of one another without meaning to hurt the other...just give him a little something to think about, that was all.

Kiba Inuzuka is fumbling miserably in his attempt to ask Hinata Hyuuga out on a date--lunch! Out for lunch! Or...whatever she wanted! It was on him, no problem, if she was, you know, like not doing anything like on, um...you know. Later. Or now. If she wanted to hang out. ...He'd like to.

He isn't being clear, and the lighter is shaking with laughter so hard the tree shakes. The darker isn't stuck to a thick branch, but rather a stem of dental-floss thickness tightly rigged with chakra to the bottom of his shoe, leading along the stem to a thicker stem to a thin branch to a thicker branch to the trunk itself--all strung together with chakra like a suspension bridge.

Hinata has no idea what Kiba-kun's asking. His chakra jumps and he keeps on interrupting himself.

When Kiba-kun finally starts to talk clearer, look her in the eye and was about to--

A shoe hit him in the head. Hard. Because Naruto didn't wanna use kunai or shuriken and there was nothing else, so he had let loose what he had, not caring that Kiba'll be able to track his scent and tear him apart because there were somethings he just couldn't resist!

Sasuke dropped him on his head and conveniently walked out. He didn't pay attention to the enraged war cries or squeals of amusement and pain that peal out of the woods, but something tugs at his lips. It didn't happen often, this tugging, but...well, it happened often now. It was ...almost as interesting as it was frightening.

For one of the few times in his life, Sasuke Uchiha isn't scared of getting close to someone, because the dobe would never realize what he was doing anyway. Wouldn't recognize the vulnerability, the disadvantages. The dobe never noticed anything. Still...best take these things slow.

A smile tugs on his lips that taste faintly like miso ramen.

***

"So anyway, this druggist approached the customer who just lit a cigar and said, 'Hey, you can't smoke in here.' Right?"

"And then like, the customer gets ticked and blows smoke inta the store owner's face right? And then he says, 'Like hell I can't!! I just bought the damn thing here!' and it makes sense right? Right, but then the druggist says..."

"Big deal. We sell condoms here too!"

Sasuke shook his head and slurped at his ramen that was way too salty while his companion laughed his pants off for no real reason, nearly yipping like a dog in his throat, high-pitched and continuous in his throat. But god, he was getting sick of ramen. There was a limit to how much a person could eat; Naruto would get high blood pressure before he hit 20. Naruto had laughed.

The laughter quieted down and so did the slurping, a silence filled with things that couldn't be shoved into tidy letters and--in truth--didn't need to be settling over them like a flannel blanket. They understood without saying. This was much better than staying the night alone. They are just past 14 years old.

Naruto has problems sleeping, nightmares of lithesome trees and greasy blood and choking heat, the smell of smoke and yelling waking him up roughly, and Sasuke feels what it's like to be shunned for one's choices. The Sound have come and the Sound have gone, and that's trust he'll never regain.

Innocence, once lost, can never be regained.

Never regain...except from one person too stupid to lose it in the first place.

It gets warmer at his side; they're sitting in a booth for once at the ramen shop Naruto never stops loving, Sasuke knowing better to sit at the counter because it gives the idiot a farther distance to fall when he loses consciousness. He always does. He always does when he's around Sasuke, not because he gets bored, but because he feels secure near him. Sasuke doesn't know why; he's never given the dobe any reason to feel that way around him...damn it all, he's tried to do the opposite. Trust idiots to mess everything up.

The warmth gets stronger, sliding down his arm, and he deftly takes the chopsticks out of numb fingers, lifting his arm to do so and greatly surprised when the warmth lands in his lap. His eyes go wide but he doesn't react more, besides swiftly checking to see who was staring and who was whispering.

Not even the owner notices; it's too late for him to care as long as they're quiet, and the hour is so early in the coming morning that no one else is there.

So Sasuke stiffly allows it for 10 minutes, before dragging the idiot home.

He doesn't give into the temptation of watching Naruto sleeping in his lap; he'd start regretting it hours later. He wouldn't stop regretting it for years. He wouldn't stop regretting it until he saw him again, decked out in red and black and grease.

The summer left. It's winter now, and Sasuke's breath turns to ice.

It isn't warm anymore, anywhere. He knows this. He knew this.

He doesn't sleep much now.

***

Pain. Try not to come up. It'll hurt.

Vaguely there is a scream. A woman's. Then running and muffled voices. Trouble hearing heartbeat. A little worry.

Hands lightly feeling wrists, gently prodding neck. There wasn't anymore screaming. Time passed--not sure how much--then light went away, and so did sound. It was cold.

With a mental spiritual inaudible groan that came from the roots of his marrow, Naruto opened his eyes and woke up dumped nowhere in the cold night. It hurt like all.

The knife had been too sharp.

***

Gaara fondled the gun carefully, keeping care not to point it directly at his head. He knew how to work it of course, so there wasn't much danger of it going off on accident. Still...there was no point in tempting himself.

Knives were useless things, and swords were just long fancy butcher knives at their core. They were interesting in a dull prehistoric way, but completely useless against him. It didn't matter who's hands they were in; his would-be assassin or his own. Ninjutsu just irritated his skin: like the chakra of flies tickling his eyelids, but it never hurt him. Not even the seals.

He's stabbed himself a couple of times in the chest years ago after screaming with his demon and fleeing the sand at his heels. The darkness clung in globs to his back, hiding in every crevasse and pore and leaked out from behind his eyes, driving him mad. The heart of the desert seemed to swallow him up, until he couldn't hear anything else but the crunch of the grain, the wind howling and the sniggering in his hair. It was too quiet and too loud and too overwhelming, and--for lack of a better phrase--Gaara lost it.

He felt pain when the blade stuck in his chest, stared in some wonder as redness covered the shininess, felt his breathing stop and his blood slow, his body turning cold.

He remembered hitting the ground dimly and thinking, "This is it. This is really it. ...Oh wow. This is really it." He wasn't afraid, though he was a little nervous. Mostly he was surprised.

He hadn't seen Temari in months, nearly a year. She'd been the last person that he had been near to without thinking about killing her. He had avoided people, avoided everything and everyone and just tried to avoid the whole world for as long as he could. At least the desert was good for that. Nothing could be found in the desert, because there was nothing there but sand and sun and sky. Nothing less, nothing more.

His eyesight grew dim, turning fuzzy at the edges, and he waited for it to go black. It'd go black eventually, and then he'd stop thinking (he'd stop thinking! He could actually stop thinking! That damned demon couldn't smile at him now!) and then he'd fall asleep forever and he wouldn't wake up. He couldn't wake up; not for the curses and not for the scream and not for the mocking and not for the blood. He'd go to sleep and he'd never wake up. Never.

Gaara's eyes went wide as he watched with intense interest.

His eyesight fogged over more.

He was barely breathing now--there was a thirteen second lapse in between inhaling and exhaling, and the sand felt comfortably cold against his arm, which meant his body temperature was dropping even while he lay there thinking.

As it sometimes comes during crisis, he noticed every little detail, how each grain of sand was a different shape and just a slightly different color, how every inch of the night sky was a different shade of navy blue and velvet black and deep purple, how very pure white the stars looked. How very beautiful everything was.

Had he been different, Gaara would have smiled. He hadn't thought the world beautiful before.

And he had waited for his eyes to close.

And waited.

...But perhaps they wouldn't. Lots of people died with their eyes open, faces usually locked into a look of horror after meeting him. Maybe he'd die with his eyes open too.

Silver grains spun gently around him, rolling over his fingers gently like a mother's caress or a funeral procession. The knife left without him moving; sand clotted over the blade with his blood. He clenched his eyes shut in frustration.

Not even his death could be his.

//...did you really think I'd let...//

//Shut up.//

A couple weeks later, Naruto showed up looking beaten and scrawny and starved, and had smiled weakly at him. Briefly, Gaara had considered kicking him around for no other reason that he was there and he'd last longer than the others. Naruto offered to take him out for drink. Naruto turned out to be flat broke. Naruto wanted his help.

"Why should I?"

"Um...well, there's always power and fighting and stuff, but beyond that...uh, well, you're not doing anything too important for the next 3 years, are you? I'm kinda hoping you'll say no..." Naruto smiled at him hopelessly. Gaara stared.

Back in the present and sitting on the rock out of doors, Gaara couldn't help noting that the night sky didn't look as pretty as it did on the night he was wanted to die. The last he'd seen of Naruto the idiot had been gaping at his back, stupid and not knowing. Not knowing anything. Not knowing so much.

It wasn't that Naruto didn't care; he did, Gaara believed he did.

His throat tightened and the bottom of his tongue pushed against his teeth. He blinked.

No, the problem wasn't Naruto, though it'd be nice if it was, and it kind of was. It wasn't that Naruto didn't care; he did. It just...wasn't enough. Not what he wanted. Not what he needed. And Naruto didn't know that was what he wanted.

Sex didn't mean anything to him, not like it meant to Gaara. Naruto's stupidity had always been boundless when he wasn't thinking. He cared. Just not enough. He didn't know. Gaara couldn't say.

He sighed, and put the gun in his pants.

***

His clothes weren't sweaty, and the sheets weren't streaked with semen. He wasn't doing much, just sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning on his elbows on his knees and staring at nothing, his posture a wreck.

It was quiet.

Behind his eyes, he still sees the flame whipping in the wind, hears the screams rising and falling and--worse of all, disappearing. His skin blisters in the heat; it hurts to blink his eyes; his lungs won't stop shrinking.

There are two of them:

One sits across from Rock Lee, watching his breathing rise and fall gently, making sure that it never stops. The cloud is breaking, letting in flitting storms and calm.

One sits alone in the dark.

The dark is inside. It won't go away.

He did what he wanted to. He didn't get what he wanted.

He fought like he should. He doesn't feel at peace.

He's carrying a tombstone too heavy for even him on his back; on top of his family cemetery, the graveyard of memories. It's very heavy.

It hurts.

It won't go away.

He doesn't know why.

***

There was a knocking.

On his door.

It was loud.

...And it was not going. Away.

If Naruto had had the energy and mental skills necessary to swear, he would have.

By degrees, he didn't so much get off his bed as ooze off it, the slightly rank tangy smell of the sheets and room stirred for the first time in 17 hours with movement. Not really walking, but more like...falling with continued lateral motion, Naruto arrived at the door, not caring who was on the other side or if they wanted to kill him or kidnap him or (worse) demand rent money, slammed it open with a rattle of chain.

Gaara was on the other side.

//....?//

Slow motion, wait a sec, think back...wait for it...and...

//...huh?//

Naruto squinted slightly, before contending to just stare slightly frowning at him, half awake. Vaguely, he wondered if he was still dreaming. It was perfectly possible; he didn't dream so much anymore, but he still did dream. But...Gaara? On his...doorstep. Yeah. Right.

Naruto blinked once, then slammed the door in Gaara's face.

//Whatever// Naruto thought.

On the other side, Gaara blinked, before tilting his head down.

Whatever.

Yeah.

Like who really...

...yeah.

Something started to crawl into his throat, around his lips.

There was a rattling of chain, and then the door swung back open. Naruto's arm shot out with deceptive speed in his sluggish state and gripped his sleeve. With equally deceptive but fragile strength, he pulled Gaara inside. Gaara went willingly. His other hand clutched a small nondescript jar of ointment.

Again, Naruto slammed the door shut. He forgot to replace the chain or lock it.

Stale darkness ran back into the room, stained slightly with chilly second-hand light sliding out of the grime-covered window. With his hand still gripping Gaara's sleeve, Naruto took his time to actually peer at him, perhaps still surprised that Gaara was there alive and next to him--and not trying to strangle or sneer at him. Huh. How truly amazing. Indeed.

Nap time.

Naruto, lately, had been doing a lot of sleeping. A lot of sleeping. Waking meant he had to do something, because if he didn't do something then he would start thinking, which would make him sad and angry. However, doing something meant he had to find something to do, which required work, and work required thought to find the work. Motivation. Needed that too.

Naruto was out of both.

Gaara's eyes weren't green, he decided. And his face still didn't scar. Not like his... And his haircut looked like he had got into a fight with an electric razor that ended in a stalemate, a sort of Bohemian crew cut. Badly. Damn artists. What? ...Oh yeah. His eyes weren't green. But they weren't blue either. Somewhere in between, blue green...sea gray...

Naruto broke eye contact sharply as sharply as he had started it, and abruptly staggered over to his rumpled bed, still gripping Gaara by his sleeve--perhaps absently, perhaps not. In any case, when he collapsed on the bed, Gaara followed him.

His legs were half-curled under him; muscles limp and heavy like rock, something deeper than fatigue running through them. His eyes were shut, yet there were still...

Faintly, Gaara frowned. There were lines under Naruto's eyes.

He thought for a while, absently feeling out the atmosphere of the room, the state of the air and temperature, the state of the furniture and Naruto's personal belongings, of which there were very few. Nearly nonexistent, in fact. He looked down, and moved his foot. He found a rather distressing sight.

Naruto's duster, his trademark shiny red leather jacket that he absolutely adored was crumpled on the floor. His special symbol of power.

Gaara was quiet for a while, before saying, "Fuck," equally quietly to himself.

Then he climbed up on the bed, and carefully lifted up Naruto's head a little, and placed it in his lap. The fox boy, frowned, grunted, before lapsing into inanimation again.

Eyes that may have been green but then again may have been blue squinted in confusion then disbelieving horror. Perversely--because Gaara could never be called squeamish--he traced the light paper-thin streak of skin that circled Naruto's tanned neck like a white tattoo collar. Except that their skin couldn't tattoo. And it didn't scar...easily.

Gaara had no mark like that on his skin; not even the iron marks lasted long. He never imagined he would see one on Naruto while the fox still breathed. A mark like that...to get that...

//...it should have killed him.//

Something else on Naruto's neck caught his eye; a necklace of tanned leather hanging off him awkwardly. Gaara pulled at it, scornfully half expecting to find a piece of blue cloth or leaf tied to the end of it, and his eyes widen instead. It's a warped lump of glass, raw sand still locked in the center.

"Wow, I didn't know we could do that...that's pretty cool."

"Kinda looks like a kitty, doesn't it?  ...Pretty kitty..." Naruto turned over so that he faced up at Gaara, pale blue eyes wide open and the little orb of glass completely forgotten. 

"Mrrroooww?" 

This time Gaara kissed him, and Naruto giggled.

He put the necklace carefully back under Naruto's shirt. The smaller boy was bonier, lighter; perhaps not weaker per se, but Gaara almost never saw him this still. It was unnerving. Gingerly, slowly, Gaara petted his hair, not completely sure if he was doing it right.

The only one to really...touch him at all had been Naruto. Neither Temari nor Kankuro had done it, but then they weren't really an affectionate family anyway. Loyal, yes, but not physical, and no more affectionate than they had to be. And even though...Yashamura...had been affectionate...she had never really touched him either. Gaara wasn't sure anymore if that affection had been genuine or not.

Gaara had had a mother; in a way she was still with him. He wouldn't say she loved him; he knew he didn't love her. He doubted she had, since she had cursed him for her own pride and sense of justice, kept him alive to do her dirty work beyond the grave. But he had never really known human touch. Just Naruto's. He wasn't sure if he was doing this right or what. He was rather nervous.

Naruto didn't move; didn't make any sound at all. He was so...vulnerable.

Feeling slightly braver, Gaara combed his fingers through the dull yellow locks, pulling slightly, liking the way it felt. Feeling even more slightly brave he leaned down...

He knew what he wanted.

Lightly, he just brushed his lips against him, liking the way the texture touched him, tickled and was slightly rough, a little dry. Not perfect, but that was what made it beautiful. Then he went in deeper, the feeling more familiar all the time, more of what he was expecting and what he was used to. Then he pulled away.

Naruto didn't wake up.

He tasted slightly sour; old saliva and Gaara could vaguely make out the taste of alcohol in the corners of his mouth.

Gaara sighed quietly, and ran his fingers through his hair.

He could wait. He could always wait.

***

"Oh...hey. Oh. Wow. You're really here."

"..."

"I... Um. You're...okay right? I mean...er."

"What?"

"Um...Wow. You're really here. I thought I was dreaming or... Gaara?"

"What?"

"...why are you here?"

"Why not? I can go anywhere I want. Why? Do you want me to leave?"

"No! No, that wasn't what I...I mean it's just that...um. Well. It's... You look nice."

"You look like shit."

"Heh. Yeah, you're probably right. Um...Gaara?"

"What?"

"You're not like gonna...I mean... You don't have anywhere to be for a while, right?"

"I don't have any solid plans."

"Um. Do you wanna...I don't know, maybe... Do you wanna hang out with me a while? I mean, if you want... ... I'd like it. If you're not doing anything."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Oh. Okay. That's good to know. Um..."

"..."

"It's nice to see you again."

"..."

"Um."

"Come on. You need a shower."

"But...I'm not sick, okay? I'm fine, there's nothing wrong with me."

"I didn't say there was, stupid. But you do stink. And I could use a shower anyway..."

"Oh. Oh. Oh... Okay, I'd like...I'd like that a lot..."

***

Far off in the long grass, the cold thick winter fog weighing down the leaves, Sasuke could make out the faint ribbon of disappearing-reappearing white ribbon of organic steam as Neji breathed warm air out into the night. Because of the distance, he could barely hear the rustling of cloth and hair as Ino shifted high above in the trees; to something with a keen sense of hearing, she must have been making a riot. She did it on purpose.

In the meadow itself, hemmed by imposing savages of trees that didn't talk in any language they understood, was a lone stereo stoically playing a Beethoven CD hidden by grass leaves. At the moment, Immortal Beloved was trilling through the night as the piano keys rose and fell gracefully.

"Don't underestimate them," Kakashi had said. "Never underestimate what you don't understand."

"So what, we should just overestimate them instead?" Ino asked annoyed.

"No," he intoned exasperated. God...kids. He always got stuck with kids. "You shouldn't expect anything. Go in, look, listen, and do what you can. Above all, make it all back alive. The mission is secondary to that."

It went against shinobi code, but Kakashi Hatake dictating what was law now right in front of them triumphed over what was code then on some old scrolls written by dead people and burned to ash. Not even Neji had a problem with it.

What was code then was then; this was now. So they kept relatively close to each other, within seeing distance, and to the creatures they were supposed to hunt the three probably had huge target signs painted over them; elves could hear their heartbeats if it was still. But...the music muffled their position somewhat while at the same time drawing them out. Elves had a funny attraction to music; they liked it, they'd follow it, but it didn't make them dumb. For as long as there was music, they'd stick around and let whoever was making it happen go on for as long as they could but once the music stopped that was it.

No steam rose from Sasuke's nose or rustling from his clothes. He couldn't hear his heartbeat over the music, and then the volume went up by a few decibels. Neji had the 360 vision and the remote controller; they were here. Sasuke didn't twitch or open his eyes, and heard Ino become conspicuously quiet. The elves would catch that, would know they were working as a team and already knew why the shinobi were there---to do the same damn thing that ninja had been doing since the creation of the throwing star, and realize how much they knew about the three ninja kids out in the dark woods dazzled next to how much they knew of elves. And their confidence would grow.

Elves had their own magic. They had their own spells. They saw humans the way humans saw slaves; pretty, useful, and expendable. Generally quite dumb and weak.

Sasuke still didn't open his eyes.

They would go after Ino first; she was closest to them and in the trees themselves to top it all of with whipped cream and a red ribbon bow. She was the most vulnerable. Shikamaru had been counting they would look at it that way; he wasn't wrong. There was a gasp and clash of metal above.

When she tumbled out of the tree gripping a bloodied arm, Sasuke was there to catch her, his eyes still closed. Even through her dramatic wheezing, he could still hear the smile in her voice. Even so, just for appearances, he continued to crouch over her and inspect her arm, head flitting from one side to the other. There was blood on her arm; it just wasn't her blood. With the show they were silently putting on, the brave damsel hurt, the hero too absorbed with her to notice anything else, and the other guy obviously blind, hopefully the elves wouldn't notice the body that was slumped on the branches wasn't breathing anymore.

Neji's nearly-smile flitted as he saw them draw in close around them, chakra signatures bright and alien through the fog. They strolled in carefully, attention 70% on the music box and 30% on the ninja, passing by Neji so silently he had to admit some awe. There wasn't even a microscopic breeze when they passed; if not for the Byakugan, he wouldn't see them at all. Still...a job was a job.

Sasuke started to stand up, pulling Ino up too while she leaned a little too heavily on his arm, heavier than he would have liked and gasping in pain louder than what was really necessary. There were seven total; now six; that meant two each and maybe three for Ino, and they were standing pretty damn close to the stereo without giving them their backs sooo...

They weren't expecting iron. Kunai, shuriken, and even doppelgangers and human speed but they weren't expecting iron or silver or the Sharingan or speed faster than even their eyes could pick up or an attack that made their energy explode inside their skin.

About half a minute into a second song, a stone knife trimmed with copper thudded a few precious centimeters short of the stereo. The music continued on.

Ninja and elves had fought often, and elves didn't forget well. Still, a couple hundred years was a couple hundred years, and even if the memory is still fresh after all that time, they found they were fighting a different kind of ninja.

At the end, the stereo was shut off.

They removed the heads, and burned the bodies discreetly after Neji had made an impromptu autopsy using his Byakugan resourcefully on one of the taller males and the lone female in a record time of fifteen minutes. Ino kept her back to it; she wasn't sick, but her skin felt colder than usual and her stomach kept twisting. It really stank. They looked...well, they had looked nearly human; even prettier than humans looked, except that elves were clearly animals.

Their eyes--the size, the orange-brown coloration in the iris--weren't human, more akin to a fox or a cat, and the shape of their faces was off, and of course their ears were too big and they did smell like animals. Then there were their nails. You wouldn't expect that to be a big point.

Ino's nails were thin, polished and sometimes painted, and manicured when she could get it. But their nails were thick, broken around the edges but clearly sharp and strong, dirt and bits stuck under them. These weren't nails for showing off, these were nails for working with. Ino had touched them, eerily expecting the thing to come back to life and attack her while Neji was absorbed with taking the body apart and Sasuke...did whatever it was Sasuke did, and looked into a face that filled her with fear and fascination.

He was, of course, handsome...in a very primal, old-fashioned sort of way. His face was clearly male, strikingly so, eyes glassed over in rigor mortis, yellow-brown with black slits for pupils, and bits of feather and bone braided through sable-silky hair. He really was quite gorgeous; if he hadn't tried to kill her, Ino would have felt bad. Still, the little signs of what he was kept her from really feeling anything.

He had canines like a dog's in his mouth, and he had the marble crest of the clan who had hired them on a leather thong around his neck; the pendant had belonged to the second-in-command's son. He'd gone missing one night three weeks ago; missing from his bedroom without a clue. He'd been six years old. They had never found a body, and Ino realized that if there was one than they weren't going to find it, and if there was then they wouldn't want to see it.

The boy could be alive. It wasn't likely.

The elves and fairies were famous for stealing children in the night, but it was never said what they did with them afterward; only that the children would never come back. Some of the stories said they made them their slaves, other's that they adopted them. But Kakashi had been reading a lot of fantasy (not pornography for once) and stories said that elves were also good wise creatures who lived in sophisticated palaces in harmony with nature and the world of man, and you know, it was funny, but he'd never seen a elf do anything more to a guy than hunt him and mount his head onna stake to signify where one clan's hunting territory ended and another began. It was a funny world like that, Kakashi had said. The mission was secondary to survival, and they were not to forget that.

Sasuke finished stacking the bodies, and Neji finished taking notes, his hands and paper blood-soaked. The fire was fast and concentrated, and it only lasted a few minutes. Sasuke was looking into the trees again, so they left in a hurry, dragging him along without touching him. The bloodlust was weak in him now, but it was still there. As it was he had taken three elves on his own, and a fourth with Neji. He was still...freakishly strong.

Ino carried the marble pendant, and presented it to the client's second-in-command.

He took it without a word.

The client himself inspected the heads, and protested when Kakashi refused to allow him to keep them. He threatened to have them thrown out, and in his quiet, dispassionate way, Kakashi told him he could very well try...but the heads stayed with the ninja, and they were going to get paid. The client refused; no heads, no deal.

Ino had no idea what happened next, because at that time Kakashi's voice had dropped to the point where only the client could hear it; Neji appeared to be taking a nap, and Sasuke ignored everything and everyone. The clan head went pale.

Somehow, they walked out of there overpaid and with the heads sacked away more or less in a group. Neji trailed behind, and Sasuke sort of walked...away without going away. He kept his distance still, after all this time, his mind somewhere Else all the time, but managed to stay in calling distance.

Back at the ramshackle inn they were beginning to call Base, Kakashi discreetly burned the remains.

"But...I don't understand. Why go through all that trouble if you weren't planning to keep them?"

"It's not that I wanted them; I don't trust people with things they don't understand."

"The client? But...why not?"

Kakashi hadn't answered immediately, and hadn't blinked. "People do funny things with what they don't understand," Ino kept looking at him. "There's a...thing about elfish blood...there's usually some biological catch to the people we don't understand. The catch with elves is that their blood is poison, but if properly prepared becomes an anti-poison and even a miracle potion for illnesses...even old age, it's rumored. An elixir of life. Elves don't age, if you didn't notice."

Ino stared. "Immortality?" Kakashi shrugged, his eye still focused on the fire.

She thought more. "That's why you made us...wash our wounds..." Hinata had put ointment on their wounds, scouring them gently with alcohol first. She never said what kind of ointment was.

Ino's eyes strayed to the fire counting the skulls she could see. She had never questioned before what was in those ointments, or actually looked at the books Hinata read sometimes despite all the time they spent together looking after Lee with his flagrant chivalry and out-of-date manners and to a small extent Iruka. Hinata did have a lot of books and scrolls neatly stacked in her room adjoining Lee's rather like Kakashi-sensei, and a million 'experimental' potions and powders she peacefully mixed and Ino had no idea what they were because nothing Hinata did could ever be illegal. Hinata was a Girl Scout with the sweetest, shyest smile she'd ever met. She had never really questioned...

Kakashi didn't say anything for a long time, accurately judging how long it would take for the information to sink in. "Don't worry about it. We'll look after you."

"I wanna know more."

"Why? Suppose I told you everything you want to know," Kakashi had looked at her, gray eye drooping. "Would that make you feel better?"

She hesitated, and then rallied loudly "Maybe! I wouldn't know since you guys never--"

"You never asked. But I'm sure Hinata would appreciate the help; she's more into the technical than I am and she's been overworked lately. Just let her know and I'm sure she'll tell you everything you want to know...a friendly cup of tea wouldn't go amiss either."

Ino had stared for a long time at him, silent. There had been a veiled rebuke in there somewhere; she had nearly forgotten about Hinata-chan and Iruka-sensei and Lee-kun with all the missions and Sasuke-kun. She had forgotten; they were all they had now. She should've...then she nodded her head.

"Yes sensei." Even though Asuma-sensei had been hers, not Kakashi. She left him there with the fire, which eventually burned down to ash that was spread along the side of the inn, warningly. Three days later, bright red flowers flared out of the ground that not even Hinata recognized.

Unsurprisingly, the inn keeper had a 'talk' with Kakashi; he didn't mind them, god knew they were quiet if just a little...odd, and kept the place safer than it had been in years, but this was...this was getting a bit strange. He wanted...well, not to be rude or ungracious, and god knew that they had always paid on time but well; he had to ask them too--

Kakashi offered to buy the inn from him. The innkeeper told him how much it was. Kakashi offered double that.

"You...you have that?"

"Yes."

"You can really pay that much, I mean I thought--"

"Yes, we can. But if it's too much trouble then I'm sure we can always--"

"Wait, do you really have that much?"

Kakashi had come close to smiling. Greed and vanity: two of the best scalpels any man could ever ask for.

Yes, they did have that much, and they were willing to pay it...the only problem was that, well, they had no use for an inn. They were ninja, after all, but if he would be willing then they could make deal, surely...

In the end, the innkeeper was 'given' an obscenely large amount of money; less than what Kakashi had originally offered. The ninja were given free reign of the inn, to go wherever they wanted and do whatever they wanted to it provided they didn't upset the other customers, given half the living space of the building for their own uses without question--at all--and the innkeeper still ran the domestic scheme. Customers flowed into a place more secure than an invisible fortress.

Kakashi sighed. Fuck. He hadn't really planned on settling down this quickly, or this loudly but...well, that was life.

Sasuke still came to him at night when there were no missions. He didn't roam anymore, not to the extent he had once, but he still came to him at night, refused to stay in his own room for too long. In a night of no missions, of a lull in the danger, Ino annoyed Shikamaru as much as she could and they typically looked after each other, Hinata read nervously while Neji studied his bloodied notes and they looked grudgingly after each other, and Iruka kept bedside watch on Lee because there wasn't too much else to do and Lee had managed to get him talking normally again through sheer force of will, even managed to get a fake smile with one of his really great jokes and they looked uncertainly after each other, and Sasuke kept silent vigil with Kakashi.

They didn't talk. Sometimes Kakashi would work at his desk, making notes or rereading the best make-out scenes in Icha Icha Paradise and realize that Sasuke had fallen asleep leaning on his wall. Sometimes Sasuke dropped into his bed willingly, sometimes not. Either way...he never did say what had happened to him.

Didn't say why he could sleep at night now, or how his skin hadn't been burned. Where he had been the last month. He just didn't mention it, and Kakashi didn't ask. When Sasuke was ready he'd talk, but not until then. Anyway, he was getting restless, so he'd be ready to talk pretty damn soon. Kakashi could wait.

***

The Dreaming. Mirrors reflect. The Dream Lake reflected blood and a face he hated.

There was running and there was drowning.

There was terrible drowning, dark and thick, too thick to move through, too thick to strain. Burns. Hurts. Hurts make it stop hurting. Make it not burn.

She's too strong. She's too damn strong.

Turn back. Make it stop. You can't do this...you can't do this, this is wrong! ...you can't do this--I won't let you!

I'll stop you; I'll find a way.

...I don't owe you a thing! You can't make me do anything! ...I won't let you hurt them; they're mine! You can't have them! I'll kill you!

...If I die, so do you; I know that, you know that. You don't touch them; I'll kill you if you do, no more fighting, no more nightmares, no more fucking around. Do you understand? I said no!

...Are you that eager to die? Is your prison so bad? Listen...I know it's bad, but this is my life too. This is my life before you stepped into it, before you were sealed into it; mine! You had yours already! You can't have mine! You can't have them...

|| End ||

I'm sorry. You can't have them. You can't have them.

...because I'll destroy you before I let you have them. I'll finish you.

|| Done Burn Over ||

No. I won't let you. I won't let you.

|| Stop Die ||

|| Home Mine ||

It belongs to me now; you can't have it back. I won't let you have it back. It belongs to me!

|| Gone Gone Gone ||

What are you doing? What are you doing?

|| Done Burn Over ||

You can't do this to me; I won't let you. I'll kill you! I'll kill you!

|| No Understand ||

|| Done Burn Over ||

|| Lost Death Lost Lady Lost Dead ||

...where are you going? Where are you going!? You can't leave me here; you can't leave me here like this! I did it--I followed! I did my part! The deal's done, you can't just walk out now! ...you can't leave me like this. You can't...you can't leave me like this.

"Don't leave me!" Naruto screamed and shot up in bed.

Gaara struck him across his face, and Naruto's first reaction was to bury his foot as far as it went into his gut before going for his neck and stomach. Flame danced on his skin and burned into Gaara's. The floor broke his fall hard. For a second, Gaara nearly felt uneasiness.

He had heard Naruto whimpering in his sleep, low in his throat and had seen him twitching. He hadn't heard Gaara when he called his name, hadn't woken up when he shook his shoulders, first gently then hard and the whines and squeaks of pain grew frequent and higher pitch and he wasn't waking up and Gaara didn't know what to do so he just hit him to make them both feel better.

It was the sand that saved him, held Naruto's claws at bay while bloodshot dark purple eyes glared at him, then retreated, then trembled and threw himself against the sand locked around his body. Gaara stayed with his back on the floor, his stomach aching and neck throbbing, bleeding gently and stunned.

The metal-screeching snarl tempered into a thick growl thundering out between jagged teeth, low red eyes glaring and narrowing at him, breathing still heavy, before seeming to retreat. Inhuman eyes finally focused on him, took in his features and even in his stunned state Gaara could still see the light of recognition and embarrassment that went off behind fox eyes.

Finally, Naruto closed his eyes, and sat back, letting the sand shackle him as she would. Naruto moved off to his side; theirs legs still touched, and his breathing was heavy. Slowly Gaara turned his head to study him, his back to the floor.

Naruto still wasn't seeing him. His eyes were focused on some point in the far future or distant past, and he still trembled. His neck smelled like blood, and his skin was flushed wet rosy. The line on his neck glowed.

Gaara moved very slowly, sitting up, keeping his distance and still staring at him. He waited, noting every change in his breathing and shiver, and discovered something interesting.

Naruto didn't fear him; not anymore. He used to before, he was always careful in the "You can kill me, I can you," cheerful sort of way, but he always kept his guard up, except when he started to sleep at Gaara's side, when he started to trade kisses and playful flirts. Even then, he was still alert, still wary of the capriciousness and insanity that lived in his bedtime partner.

He didn't have any guards up now. It was...unusual.

He was afraid. He was afraid, but he was excited too; anticipating. Eager. ...shameful. He never looked into Gaara's eyes. He didn't speak; a rare feat. He didn't want to hear how he was, he didn't want to see it. He didn't even want to think about it, except he couldn't help dreaming, drink and fuck as he might.

"You never asked me why I came back to you."

Naruto twitched, eyes darting in his general direction before twitching away equally quick. He heard. Gaara's eyes hardened.

"They didn't deserve you."

"Did they deserve that?" comes the small paper-thin whisper still hemmed by an animal rasp, asking questions he has answers to already.

"It was nature, it was what you were. It's what you do; they should have known better than to provoke what they can't control."

There was a whispery cough; it might have been a laugh. It might have been a sob. It sounded painful. Gaara's words sounded so very familiar...so very damn familiar. So damn...

"..." Gaara reached out to touch his shoulder, before thinking better on it. "Naruto..." Blue-fighting-red eyes cut through him like knives, painfully, but without malice.

"It's what we are. We can't be judged...there's too much. You're hurt...you'll get better."

"I'm fucked up. That's what I am: fucked up." The blue and red knives go away as he closes his eyes.

"...no. It's...okay," and damn, did it sound strange for him to be telling anyone that it was 'Okay.' The only reason Gaara thought it was Okay to be what they were, to exist, as they were was because Naruto made him feel good and could smile honestly. The only thing that made what they were 'Okay' was Naruto. Gaara didn't believe in himself; in his power, yes, because it would be pointless not to, but not in himself. He believed in Naruto.

"Naruto."

The knives didn't come back.

"..." Lightly, Gaara picked up one of his hands, sweaty and shaking, and put it on Naruto's chest. He remembered the castle; even then, there had been tears, nightmares, but small as lint that he hadn't thought on them twice. The dark ninja had irritated him too much for him to notice. Now they're big dust bunnies, and Gaara waited until Naruto could feel his own heart beating. Feel that he was still alive.

"How's that a good thing?"

"You can't die. Only the weak die."

They aren't knives anymore, and the red and blue aren't fighting; it's just the indigo blue rising out of the fog. Naruto considered him carefully.

"I could kill you. Does that make you weak?"

Silence.

"I don't know my limits anymore Gaara. I didn't think I could do it; I never planned this far. I never meant to carry it this fucking far."

Light blue disappears as he blinks once, with momentum. He's whispering; frail as a moth in a monsoon.

"I think the only reason was to shut her up."

"She's dead now. She can't talk anymore; you killed her. You won. You're strong."

Naruto wilted, withered on himself. He kept getting smaller.

Gaara narrowed his eyes with a slow mounting fury; it was that damn thing on his neck.

"And you?"

"I'd fight back. I've never tried to kill you; you should know that. We can't kill each other...there's no point in trying to hurt each other. We'd be wasting our time; we're too much alike. Like trying to kill a mirror."

"You're not like me."

Gaara paused. He didn't want Naruto to say that, he didn't want to think about that. He was right, of course. They weren't alike, not inside. They met the same difficulties, the same obstacles, but they reacted in very different ways. They always had. Gaara never wanted to care about anyone and would never hurt someone he cared about. Naruto wanted to care so much, be cared about so much that he did it until he hurt; he didn't know when to stop. When it was time to move back. Gaara didn't know when it was time to move forward.

"No. But no one else is like us. We are alone. Together we're alone."

"And that makes it better?"

Stab. Gaara flinched. "What do you mean?"

"That we're alone. So it makes everything...better. That we have no limits. I don't know where to stop; I don't know when to stop. There's no one telling me when it's enough, there's no fatigue to pull me down. I don't know when I've won anymore; I don't know when I've lost. I don't know when I'm home I don't...I don't belong anywhere. Not with humans and not with Them."

Naruto looked up at him somberly, "Gaara, I don't think I can die."

"I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to--"

"Naruto." He pulled his face up in his hands, made him meet his eyes, and felt the hysterical vibrations through his skin and erratic heartbeat. No, Naruto wasn't afraid, but he had been standing on the edge of something much bigger than him, bigger than anything he had ever known for too long now and just realized how fucking deep the damn chasm truly was.

The worst thing about getting one's wings, of being truly free, was knowing what to do with it. Where to go. The worst thing about freedom was the responsibility that came with it. One truly is alone when one is free; that is the definition of freedom--freedom to choose by one's self. For one's self. With love came too many ties; ties held one down. All alone; the freedom came all alone.

Naruto trembled like a sparrow in hands, wings not broken from the gales he'd been fighting in, but not far from it. Not long now before he broke completely.

"That's why I'm here. You never asked why I came back."

"Why?" Naruto cut him off sharply.

"I came back for you. We're alone...but we don't have to be alone--by ourselves. We can still...hang out. Talk. Touch. We still can. It's not...it's not so hard to do. It doesn't hurt; it doesn't have to hurt. We can't hurt each other--we're the same enough that we can't. It's...okay. We're safe. Together we're safe."

The corner of Naruto's lip twitched, "Safe..."

"We can be. We don't have to be...in the darkness. If we don't want to. We can get out of it. We can always get out of it."

"Stay with me," his windows were pale blue again, dripping warm salt water. His lips were formed around the word 'Please' but his voice had hidden too well for it to say. His voice was still the gentle beatings of a moth's wings. Gaara rubbed the edge of his cheek, and the windows shut though rain still came through. "Hold me."

Naruto collapsed, lunged, light and small and short and Gaara held him tight. He wasn't gentle because he didn't know how to be, wasn't paternally comforting because he didn't know that either. What he did know was certainty, and he held on to the twitching weak form without the slightest intention of letting go.

"I can't believe I did that...I can't believe I did that..." was repeated over and over into the skin on his shoulder, hands spasming on his chest as the shaking leaf tried to curl up close to him and tried to curl up away from him, "God I can't believe I did that...me..."

"Fuck...I really am a selfish bastard, aren't I? Aren't I? ...geez, fuck, I can't really blame him...he was always such an effing..." Naruto hiccupped and Gaara held him tighter, painfully. He didn't say a word, because this all sounded too familiar. Hadn't he thought like that once?

Except...it was Naruto now. He hadn't thought the blonde would go through something like he had; they seemed too different.

"I came back for you."

"Gaara...Gaara I...I didn't...I swear I didn't mean to..."

"It was just meant to start and then it'd stop and it'd be okay and everything would be back to normal and she'd be dead and I'd be home or I'd be dead and you'd be there and it'd be okay and everything and I'd been so damn sure that someone somewhere would be stronger than me..."

"I had to make him stronger than me... How sick is that? How fucking sick is that? ...god...I'm tired. Gaara I'm tired. She'd have killed me if she'd known...I don't know. I don't know anymore."

"I've got you."

Silence for a while. Naruto was wrapped around his neck securely; his shirt damp from tears and spit and sweat, body curled in his lap as well as any 18 year old could manage.

"Gaara, I..."

Naruto could feel humid breath down his back; like an animal's breath. It'd be a long time before Gaara came close to resembling something human.

It was in the little things that he did; how he looked too hard and deep at things, measured everything up to his own level of security, how he never thought twice about killing, had nothing resembling a human conscious, how he listened to little details...how he didn't trust or have a damn thing except himself, but when he did have something, when he did trust, when he did choose something with the human part of himself he did it all the way; no looking back, no second guessing.

Naruto closed his eyes. He and Gaara were nothing alike.

"I don' wanna hurt you..."

"You can't. I won't let you."

The body was still in his arms, though he still trembled a little with the aftershocks.

"Promise?"

Gaara felt he had stepped into something deep. Still, he never did look back.

"Promise."

Naruto hiccupped once more on his shoulder, and finally unhooked his hands from his shirt and put his arms around him.

Some minutes later, he would kiss the side of his neck, Gaara would caress down his spine, and they would kiss open-mouth, the good rare kiss that contains too much emotion and too much understanding to be done everyday: slow, very slow, deep, but so strong it nearly hurt. In a little spot in Naruto's ribcage, he felt a small sting of pain and was relieved. Gaara licked the tears from his face and over his eyes and brushed his hair back lovingly, and his tongue was rough and gentle in his mouth, but so damned certain that Naruto couldn't even begin to think how to deny him anything he asked. Nor did he.

That night, it was Naruto that whimpered and squirmed underneath, arching his neck and dragging his nails over Gaara's spine. It was the first time he'd ever allowed Gaara that sort of control--the first time he'd allowed anyone that sort of control. He was rough--too rough, delightfully rough--but his kiss was so certain and strong that Naruto couldn't stop him, though he remembered never to give Gaara that sort of power again. He was too...certain. Rough around the edges. Worse than that, he was too possessive; he left a mark on Naruto's neck that would take a full week before it faded.

Naruto came with a scream, feeling sharp teeth tear through the skin on his neck and hands bruising a brand into his hips and shoulder. It happened twice more, making a grand total of three times of Gaara brutally investigating every little crevice and pleasure center he could manage before Naruto told him to stop; he couldn't take anymore, his body couldn't take anymore. But once more--don't stop at three, whatever you do damn you, don't you dare stop at three! Not a three; never at three, never again. Never again. Never again.

It was a promise Gaara would break.

***

Gray blue smoke wove up lazily into the dry desert air outside the biker bar. Collections of lean monsters were haphazardly lined up outside gleaming black, blue, and red paint and silver chrome. Roaring 400 horsepower, sleek, turns on a dime, eats up gas like a real mother but there's none better.

The inside of the bar was lit and rowdy, the first two fights of the night waning as the drinks and money got looser, and the third in it's beginning stages. A group of leather and denim clad toughs smoked outside, eyes on his own bike to make sure some slick bastard didn't nick it and need taking care of, and sharply glancing over the motorcycles to see what had what.

Blue gray smoke wafted into the desert night air, hot and arid with a hint of dead salt, overlapped with nicotine and stale sweat and piss, a bottom odor of oil at its fundament. Conversation fishtailed from bikes to women to bikes to gangs and idiots to beer to bikes to hangouts to buddies and bastards to bikes.

A shout came out from inside the weather beaten bar and its one ceiling fan, a crash of glass as bottles were broken.

Attention outside however was kept on a stranger smoking silently at the edge. Bikers guarded their territory fiercely; the freak wasn't known, wasn't with anybody, didn't even seem to have a fucking bike. It was a miracle that the bastard hadn't been taken and jumped already. It was weird. From men who cut their own tongues on broken glass, scars on the hands and neck from bloody bar fights, some missing ears and fingers...nobody wanted to touch the outsider. It was strange.

Could've been the way he stood, the way he smoked...something about him was just...off. Wrong.

Then again, they may have been waiting for the proper prompting. It was always more fun that way, and whatever idiot that came wandering in always provided it sooner or later.

He was just a kid, young and soft barely out of his teens, held himself loosely, ignorant to their glances, wearing beaten black jeans and gray cotton shirt. The only piece of leather on him was a ritzy red jacket, the sissy designer kind no idiot would wear outside the city, without a tear or stain on it, still holding on to the faint polish. His blond hair was hand-cut and standing out at odd angles like a malpracticed broom, eyes covered with cheap red sunglasses, skin tanned bronze with sunburn bright his nose and ears.

//City boy, here on vacation to show what a tough guy he is.//

::Why hasn't anyone taken him?::

The group narrowed their eyes, glances sliding, shifted uncomfortably, subtly shuffling just slightly closer together.

There was a scream from inside and a window broke as a man was thrown through it, bouncing up and down where he hit the gritty dirt and skidded across. There was angry shouting, ending abruptly.

The blond punk had a grin on his face; smoke leaking out his mouth, cigarette held loosely between his fingers.

As one man, the outside group trailed eyes to follow the guy who strode out the door to kick the fallen man in the ribs, the sounds of bones cracking thunderous in the silence. The guy coughed up blood without a sound. No one moved. He kicked him again, hard enough to flip him over and away, the guy landing with a crunch. The stranger detached himself from the wall, moved into the herd of metal horses, road demons with wheels.

The fighter stopped kicking, turned his head in the direction of the movement, tilting his ears like wild animal, not even breathing hard or with the standard maniac gleam in his eye that the men had come to expect. He looked coolly focused. Then he walked over to the stranger.

Like most everyone else, he was dressed in torn black jeans and a ragged black shirt, not bothering with a jacket. A closer look showed that he was just another kid, with a shorter scraggly cut of blood red hair, stains of blood all over his face and bare arms, and some kind of tattoo on his forehead. He looked more like a ::a killer:: than the blond kid, even if he was wearing face paint and sandals.

::More a man than you gadget fuckers would ever be::

::The man over there is dead::

Eyes turned to the man still curled on the ground, drowned in the sour light coming from the doorway, all alone. Eyebrows lifted and several specific neurons fired to life. //Huh.//

He hadn't moved at all.

::Stay away::

::Stay away::

::Forget::

The group fought the urge to shuffle closer together. They'd been around; they could recognize a predator when they saw one, but it wasn't often they saw anyone under 16 walk in and out of a fight without a limp. The two kids couldn't be much older than 16; Red could have been 17.

The red haired ::killer:: had finally stopped in front of the blond punk. Offered him keys. Comprehension kicked in a rush: Oh, so the red head kid had to be an older brother, or friend, way out of town showing his little city pal a good--

Eyebrows shot up when blondie leaned forward to kiss the red head. On his lips. Like they were girls.

Jaws dropped and cigars fell unheeded to the dirt when red melted into it. When red fucking melted and pressed the keys into blondie's hand, even fucking moaning.

Normally, this sort of image would have been shot through by several different guns or at least beaten into the dust except at the more liberal bike stops. Abnormally, no one twitched a finger. It was a true Twilight Zone moment, and no one felt like ruining it until the aliens showed up.

Blondie broke away with a sultry grin and hooded eyes, allowing a final brief kiss before straddling a bike and priming it, the killer settling in behind--behind like a girl--the flash bastard, arms locked around his waist, head resting over his shoulders.

Blondie offered them a bright, brittle smile before clumsily maneuvering out and speeding off into the desert, tires squealing inexpertly. One or two of them shifted idly, then blew out a draft of smoke between his lips, smiling like a contented dragon. It was definitely turning out to be one of the more interesting nights...

//Well, it wasn't my bike...//

***

"I'm afraid I'm going to drown this thing..." Naruto mumbled, foot uneasy on the gas. He wasn't quite sure how it worked or how to drive, but was getting the hang of it after the last three motorcycles they had crashed. "So didja have fun?"

A shrug against his shoulders. "It was too easy."

"Well, yeah...but you had some fun right? A fight's a fight. And it was with your bare hands, no jutsu. A kinda experience." Again, a shrug against his shoulders.

Gaara's hand came up to tear a sliver of glass out of his chin. Being hit with glass wasn't real fun, but it wasn't too bad. Worse had happened. And forcing, literally overlapping his will over the sand's, over his mother's, had been difficult. The trick, Naruto had persuaded him, was to know you weren't going to get hurt. It was just fun; nothing serious.

As Naruto had pointed out, it wasn't always convenient for a huge stick of sand to impale somebody in the middle of the parking lot. It made people stare. Gaara didn't care if people stared or not anymore, not now that he had Naruto all to himself. But Naruto did care, if only for convenience, so Gaara was learning control slowly.

Gaara closed his eyes and relaxed snug against Naruto's back, body alert for the second the bike began to dip to the side or brake suddenly and jump off it. He didn't trust these things; they had always traveled by foot. Motorcycles, cars, buses...Sure they were real things, but they couldn't compare to a real ninja's agility and speed, although they could outlast it.

"Wonder if it has a radio..." Naruto trailed off as Gaara's eyes snapped open.

It was looking for the radio last time that had made the vehicle careen down a canyon side. As fun as it had been watching the cursed thing fall, sparks flailing and exploding, the shock of falling and Naruto getting cut on the inside of his knee had not.

Worse had been the walk through nowhere to get somewhere. Naruto complained too much, never shut up, and Gaara refused to carry him. In the end, his terrifying sand was reduced to a transportation device. Naruto had curled on his chest to take a nap while grains steadily carried them south.

Hot dry wind ran through Gaara's hair like an old lover, flapped the sleeves of his shirt up his arms. Around his neck with a thong of leather, with shards of smooth, unfinished glass tied to it in two spots. Two shards, never three. He might add more as time went by--in fact he meant to--but never stopping at three. No dip, but no music either. His body coiled when he felt them swerve slightly to the left before righting, heard an odd whine and saw the headlight come on. "Radio, radio...Where's the bleeding radio..."

Personally, Gaara didn't think motorcycles had radios, but he didn't say anything. Naruto continued to fool for it, and Gaara stayed alert.

A short 10 minutes later found them dancing--or at least Naruto dancing--to music only he could hear around the bonfire of the last late bike. It had been a glorious time of speed and wind, and even thought they never did find the radio, they were bloody well going to have music!

"Ah EEE~EeeEE~ah wee bong bon away!" Naruto screamed on the top of his lungs, madly swinging a stiff Gaara around in a circle by the arms. "In the jungle! The mighty jungle! The lion sleeps tonight! Ahh eee~EeEe ya a bee bon awaa~aay!!"

Gaara kept tripping on his feet as Naruto spun them faster by the wrists, screeching the kiddy campfire song on adolescent-breaking vocals, his face beaming in a happy maniac grin. He didn't mind the bits where Naruto spontaneously jumped into his arms and kissed him breathless, his body heavy in his arms before bouncing back out again and swinging him wildly. Naruto--Naruto was weird. And if Gaara could have smiled, he would have. As it was, he settled for looking irritated.

Naruto had never found the damn radio, but he had some music and shy (sort of. Stiff, certainly) and sexy (damn straight!) dance partner that kept stumbling, marine eyes glancing at him in confusion and annoyance that he was cheerfully ignoring, so everything was absolutely great!

He was free. He was with someone who liked him, someone he needed and someone who needed him. Things were great. Things were great and more.

Everything else could go to hell. He was free.

He was finally free!

***

He wouldn't stop touching him. He wouldn't stop touching him.

It was just as well the blindfold was on because his eyes kept on closing by themselves, feeling heavy as if drunk and sleepy, but so receptive like Sasuke was in a sensory-dream, where nothing was solid but it felt so damn--

His head pounds and pain screams through his bones, mocking betrayal bleeding his ears wilting under the murderous sun.

Sasuke twisted to his left, one leg stretching hard while his toes curled, feeling his dry chapped lips scratch gently against his inner thighs, already the scalding temperature of a rainforest in the spring monsoons spreading under his skin like a wildfire from the faint puffs of concentrated evanescent heat from his breath breaking against his skin like a wave.

The fire blazed in black tree trunks, tearing at his hair and skin and stealing the air from his lungs.

His fingers are callused and roughed, and even with Sasuke's own arms tied behind his back he still jumps when they tease his right nipple, his eyes opening against the blind, while a combination of fleshy softness and polished wood calluses assault the little bits of his body that are triggered straight to his arousal and leave him weak as a newborn kitten and reveal just how hungry he is for that thing he can't name he really is; a ravenous, overwhelming hunger and he...

His arm breaks. His leg breaks. There is pain and demon blood running rampant through his blood. He nearly isn't him anymore. He nearly isn't human anymore.

Sasuke can taste Naruto in his mouth.

Betrayal. Bleed. He was supposed to fall. He was supposed to fall; it had been him, not the other.

He doesn't cry. He doesn't scream. He makes no sound at all, because that's who he is.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He didn't want it to be like this. How had this happened?

Naruto doesn't taste like miso ramen anymore. He doesn't. He used to. He doesn't anymore.

Make this not be happening. Make this not be happening. Make this not b--

He tastes like blood.

The Three are over: Dead Lost Over Death

The Fire keeps coming.

Sasuke's eyes sprang open, jerking up and after scrabbling at the edge of his brain he remembered to breath again. He inhaled too deeply, too loudly for his liking, but that didn't stop him from doing it again.

He was alone. This was his room. He was alone. It was dark. This was his room. This was the inn. He could get out any time he wanted.

Things did not come in threes. They didn't.

His mouth moved as he tried to push the taste out of his mouth, before reluctantly getting out of bed and spitting in the bathroom sink, rinsing his mouth out thoroughly with mint mouthwash; never cinnamon, always mint. Then he waited, growled with frustration and obligingly vomited in the toilet.

Damn it all, but this was starting to piss him off. He really should have planned the bastard's death better: It would've made him feel better.

***

The city was strange. The city was strange and a little creepy and really smelly, and too crowded at times, and it was quickly learned that Gaara could not stay in crowded areas long. It just didn't work: either he got out of it, or it got whole lot less crowded very quickly as the bodies dropped. It just didn't work, so they both tried to avoid it.

Still, the radio was cool, and the tall buildings had them staring until cricks formed painfully in the neck. Naruto was now practicing hijacking cars, trucks and driving all in that order, and Gaara was practicing on making the sand in concrete answer him.

Besides cars, Naruto's interest had been pulled in an artistic direction: He has discovered the advanced art of graffiti. Gaara was soon initiated, and with green and black as his insignia and red and gold as Naruto's they compete with the local gangs to see who can cover the downtown buildings quicker with unintelligible scrawl. It's no small wonder who won. It would take months before the City scrabbled up the money to buy paint for graffiti 30 stories high.

Besides concrete and spray painting over windows, Gaara's interest had been pulled in a social direction: He has discovered the advanced art of drinking alcohol. Emphasis on advanced. There is drinking to loosen up and drinking to forget today and drinking to forget tomorrow. There is drinking to forget life in general. There is drinking to die. College English majors have perfected the art of drinking, but nuclear-physicists have transcended the experience. Not even Shukaku can arise even though Gaara can feel his conscious slipping into darkness and Naruto drooling on his foot.

For some reason, they both wake up with greased dyed hair, pierced ears, and pink elephants stampeding migraines in their heads. Naruto wakes up naked; Gaara is wearing someone else's shirt and nothing else. In true college fashion, the shirt wisely proclaims, "Beer! Helping white guys dance since 1875!"

Naruto glanced up at him sluggishly. "...din' know y' dance..."

Gaara winced; his ears...his head...

"Shhh..."

"Nnnnn..."

***

"So which one do you wanna go on? The Accelerator or the Ghost Ride whatever thingy over there with the super big line. They're all about lines here, you notice? I'm thinking I can make you throw up in the first six seconds."

Gaara glanced at the roaring metal dragon that people were screaming on and shrugged. What a weird place. He couldn't believe people paid money for this.

"Aw, c'mon! You haven't picked anything out! What if you throw up on me or something, don't you wanna be here?" Naruto visibly flinched when Gaara began to consider this and waved his hands wildly, "What if I make the wrong choice or something?!"

Gaara glanced at him. "How?"

Time stilled.

Every so often, people describe having an out-of-body experience, where they see themselves through someone else's eyes. It's usually something terribly embarrassing, like having one's lips hook over one's braces as you lean in to give your crush a kiss, or tripping out of the bathroom stall with one's pants and underwear still hanging around one's ankles and sliding off to a hot pink oblivion with the sound of high-pitched laughter in one's ears as one's head concusses with the sink. Every so often, something truly momentous happens that forces people to see themselves as others see them.

Gaara trusts Naruto.

Naruto's face smoothed from his frustrated good-natured lecture, and something slippery and sleek swam beneath the surface of his eyes, but it vanished before Gaara could get a good look at it.

His blood quickened when Naruto began to slowly smile a very evil smile, before yanking on his wrist and dragging them to the head of the 3-mile long line and jumping in, tangling the straps up with Naruto bouncing in his seat like a child. No one protests because no one sees them move.

Gaara shoots the odd look he's been giving everyone and everything (nothing makes sense here) and sucks on his orange ice slushee while Naruto shrieks in his ear and gravity begins to play with his stomach. The horizon dips...

Results of very first co-ed roller coaster ride: Naruto threw up twice (once on ride, once on ground) and Gaara lost ice slushee. Bought three more (blueberry, coconut, cotton candy flavored). Hair stands on end on both.

Results of very first theme-park restaurant: Naruto started the food-fight. It sort of all went downhill from there. Gaara proves dead shot with plastic sporks.

Results of very first theme-park candy store: Stolen. All of it. Down to the last jawbreaker. Naruto does not stop bouncing.

Results of very first theme-park arcade: Broken. It was...kind of an accident? Sort of. It wasn't his fault! The thing just broke off in his hand!

Results of very first theme-park representative costumed Kenny the Kangaroo: Dunno. Pushed him in the Alligator Lake, haven't seen him since. Didn't see any alligators either.

Results of very first theme-park police/authority: Who? Oh, yeah, right. Them. Um...their underwear's in the kiddy-rides, and not terribly sure where the rest got to, but pretty sure they're still alive. Naruto kept one of the solid black wrap-around glasses. Glasses are shiny.

Casualties: 18 and counting.

Dead bodies: Um, none possibly. Hopefully. Yet, anyway.

Results of very first theme-park bathroom line experience: Zero.

Dragging a sniggering Naruto by the wrist, they thudded to a stop and looked at the line (and it was a line!). Naruto broke out laughing, "Want another slushee? Huh? I'll even buy it for you! C'mon let's go get another! Tequila flavored! Cherry flavored!" and Gaara glowered at the goofy idiot hooting next to him. Then he walked over to the bathroom wall, unzipped and let fly.

Naruto gawked, before bursting out laughing so more, "You're not really gonna--Oh my gosh you are! Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh...neat idea! Why didn't I think about that?"

He shot an odd look (whatever, this whole place was insane...but then again that was all right, because he was too) over at the bewildered doofus, "Oh, I did do that. I forgot," and notes that he's not the only one staring. Not by a long shot.

Methodically, Gaara notes that the all the idiot males are just realizing what a wonderful opportunity has been in front of their dicks all this time, while the females are looking scandalized and screaming. One catches his eye because she has hair like his, but she's not looking away or running like the others but is actually gaping at him...well, sort of him. It belongs to him, anyway. She's really interested and digging for a camera and, again, Gaara shakes his head as he zips himself back up and walks off; this whole place was weird.

Naruto's smirking devilishly at him, "Nice display man, that so totally rocked," and hangs off his shoulders, apparently forgiving him for not feeling sick even once. The grip on his shoulders is possessive and he allows himself a small smirk and starts sucking on the new bubble-gum ice slushee that's bought for him. So, he wasn't the only one who saw the stares after all...

They inspect the latest thrill-ride contraption, something metal that goes upside down and backwards and drops down at 115 m/p/h while Gaara sucks on the tequila ice-slushee. Naruto's stomach is empty, so they jump to the head of the line again and jump on. Miraculously, Naruto does not vomit but Gaara has to scrape him up and carry him off the ride and lets him sleep it off while he starts on lemonade, margarita, vodka, and lime ice slushees.

At exactly 4 hours 15 minutes 19 seconds 4 rides and 27 ice slushees later, Gaara has a brain freeze.

It is not a pretty sight.

***

There were other incidents people didn't see.

There had been the time Naruto had been harmlessly frying omelets at one of the hotels that they were hopping to and from, and Gaara had surprised him by walking him dripping water dressed only in a towel. Jaws and spatula had dropped at nearly the same time, higher brain functions: kaput!

It wasn't the fact that he was naked (well, yeah it was, but it wasn't all of it) it was more the fact that he was so secure. It was strange to see Gaara just...walking in half-naked anywhere with all the lights on. It was out of character! It was...weird!

Gaara hadn't smiled, but walked forward slowly, nearly shyly, and grabbed one of the cool bacon slices and started eating. After a while, he glanced down at the gawking male and remembered to kiss him lightly.

Naruto had grinned into it, grabbed his wrists, and traded spit rather aggressively but still let Gaara lead: he was getting better at it, this kissing and touching business. He was getting a lot better at it; he could nearly turn the tables on Naruto in bed now. Wouldn't be long now until the short blonde couldn't remember anyone but Gaara's kiss and touch, and wouldn't go looking for anyone else. He was nearly there; he was getting better so it wouldn't be long at all.

Gaara nearly grinned back and brushed his hands under Naruto's shirt, feeling the heated flesh shiver at his touch. He pressed him closer and felt the short body arch into it, the kiss becoming less playful and more serious as Naruto's tongue invaded and conquered his mouth, his breath short and hard already. Gaara felt his knees jellify and his stomach knot like so many rubber bands. //...damn. He's so...//

Naruto's hand slid down his back, mixing with the cooling water and nails scratching teasingly along his spine, and fiddled idly with the towel hanging off his hips.

Gaara slipped out of his hands and back into the door, out of breath but composed with three more slices of bacon in hand. "Going to get some clothes on."

Naruto's response and the clatter of the frying pan were instantaneous. "Nah, you're gonna get it now!" He was grinning when he said it, fangs flashing.

Gaara ran from the door, darting out and Naruto followed close to his heels, blocking the window and keeping his eyes on the door and grinning deviously when Gaara played along, eyes dark and sharp but actually *playful* under all that cold "I don't care, go fuck yourself," exterior he always had on. They circled, knowing that whoever caught whom the end result would still be the same: wet, hot, and deliciously tickling.

Who knew sex could be so much fun?

They always played like children, except when they played like demons, because they didn't know how to be anything else.

In the end, before Gaara let him get anywhere near him, he had made Naruto take off his clothes, because it wasn't fair that he was the only one wearing not-enough clothes. Once Naruto started, whatever thought Gaara had of playing Tease had ground to stop as he stared at the predatory glint in pale cyan eyes and the casual flash of teeth. Naruto had stepped up to him on the bed in clear light, letting him get a good look of what he had been bedding for little over two months now.

He had been expecting to be kissed, with the seductive tilt of full lips slanted playfully and had been slightly disappointed when Naruto had stopped a good distance away to pull his towel away, letting it drop to the ground and hit his feet. When Naruto had stepped closer, eyes still seductively narrowed and lips teasingly smiling Gaara had instinctively lowered his head down and parted his lips. Naruto had come closer--before sliding to his knees and licking his stomach, hands shockingly hot around his hips. The emotion in Gaara's eyes had been indescribable.

If Naruto hadn't been holding him up by his hips, the shudder that went through him would have knocked him down, and together they managed to lower him gently down to the mussed sheets and pillows. The predatory look never went out of Naruto's eyes, nor the stunned out of Gaara's and he threw his head back when lips caressed along the length of his cock, teeth brushing butterfly-hard against it, before nibbling without breaking the skin. Gaara gasped and growled impatiently, tugging at his hair and throwing him back to kiss him hard. Damn it, if Naruto wasn't going to kiss him then he would!

Most men would say using teeth hurt; neither Gaara nor Naruto were human, because as often as they slept next to each other and kissed they nearly always bit and bruised each other, nearly always fought.

Naruto shoved him back, so hard that he nearly fell out of the bed and followed at his heels, claiming his mouth possessively and groping his buttocks, groaning slightly even as Gaara hissed and trailed his nails hard against his back, breaking wounds that healed almost instantly afterward. Naruto shoved himself between his legs, and bit his fingers when Gaara brought his hand up to lick the blood off, the two of them nearly nose to nose, one mock-glaring and sucking his lover's blood off his hand and the other still grinning predatorily and licking his own blood off his partner's fingers and stirring the blood inside those fingers around and around and over again until he couldn't take it anymore and Naruto shoved him off and down. At the end, Gaara screamed like a creature hunted and caught, and Naruto didn't let him bite his neck again. No hickeys, not from Gaara. He didn't like it when Gaara did that.

It was Naruto's hormones carrying him away beyond what he could control. It was Gaara not knowing if it was normal or not.

They always played like children, except when they played like demons, because they didn't know how to be anything else. They didn't know if they could be anything else, and they didn't even try.

***

A/N: 39 pages. 39 pages ladies and gentlemen, because it kept on nudging me with possibilities. So...it's not dark anymore! I know, there's no real great lemon scenes in here, but I just don't see the potential for it. Maybe in the next chapter, I dunno. I finally got a livejournal. I found out I have stalkers. Hope the shifts weren't too bad; dunno if I captured Kakashi adequately, but I'm going to have more opportunities to do better if I didn't. We'll see.

Love you all!

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