Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Embracing Dreams ❯ Chapter 12
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Arigatomina 
Anime/Manga: Naruto Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Comedy / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 08.12.2007 | Pages: 5 | Words: 8.3K | Visits: 322 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Naruto Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Comedy / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 08.12.2007 | Pages: 5 | Words: 8.3K | Visits: 322 | Status: Work In Progress
Warnings: shounen ai, violence
Part 12
Sasuke never made a sound. He sat rigidly, his damp bangs shielding his eyes as he stared down at Iruka's hands. As soon as the healing finished, he stood up, made a sketchy thanks that was more assumed than heard, and was gone. They heard the front door close quietly behind him.
Iruka had watched him exit the room. Now he turned sober eyes on Naruto, who was crouched on the floor by the half cleaned mess and frowning at the door. "Go ahead," said Iruka. "I'll finish that and start dinner early."
Naruto's head snapped around. "Really?" he asked. He stared at Iruka for a moment in surprise. Then he beat a hasty retreat before Iruka could change his mind.
Unlike Sasuke, Naruto had the good sense to grab a coat from the hall closet before he left the house. Iruka noted that as he went over to clean up the rest of the mess on the floor. He heard Kakashi follow him around the counter, but didn't look up until he finished dumping the ruined noodles in the trash.
"I'm trying not to hover," Iruka said quietly, finally turning to frown at Kakashi. "I really am trying. But neither of you is making it easy on me."
Kakashi's eye widened. "Me? What did I do?"
"He's been living with you for two years and he doesn't know better than to run around in the rain without a coat?"
Iruka had posed it as a question. Clearly it was intended as an accusation. Kakashi leaned back against the counter and sighed.
"He doesn't own a coat," Kakashi explained, in a wry tone. He didn't want to sound condescending, but Iruka had a lot to learn when it came to Sasuke. It was difficult not to be amused at the thought of anyone being that worried about Sasuke's recklessness. The boy was always like that. Running in the rain was nothing. How was Iruka going to react when winter rolled around?
"I've bought him a few coats," Kakashi continued. "I even managed to get one on him once." He smirked fondly at the memory. Sasuke had put up quite a fight that time. He'd won because he knew Sasuke's weakness - the kid wouldn't accept 'charity gifts', but he wouldn't willingly destroy them, either. In the end it was surprisingly easy to pin the brat and get the coat on him when Sasuke was rigid to keep from tearing it in the struggle. "I got him to wear it all the way outside," Kakashi smiled. "Then he pawned it and came back with groceries instead."
"Why?" asked Iruka.
"Same reason he won't wear long sleeves or let his hair grow out," Kakashi shrugged. "Makes him harder to grab hold of. He has cuffs he wears if it gets cold enough and that's it. I'm lucky if I can get him to wear real shoes when we're somewhere snowy."
Iruka stared in disbelief, and a good dose of rising anger. "And you just...allow that."
"Most of the time," Kakashi admitted. "He's stubborn, not stupid. If he thinks he can handle something, he usually can. And if it turns out he can't handle it, he doesn't do it again."
Iruka looked as if he were close to another explosion. Kakashi cut him off by stepping forward and putting an arm around his shoulders.
"He's about fifteen," said Kakashi. "Maybe sixteen. He had to have been at least thirteen when I met him. How old were you when Hiko picked you up at that kiddie jail? I may not know how you ended up there, but it sounds like you were as stubborn then as the brat is now. What about that runaway friend of yours? Sasuke's a runaway waiting to happen, always will be. Push him into doing something he thinks could get him killed the first time one of those thugs shows up, and he'll be gone within the hour. I figured that out fast. I may not like all of his quirks, but they've kept him alive. And I'm not his dad. I'm not even a big brother. I'm just...the convenient adult who pays for the rooms and walks him onto the airplane so people don't ask questions."
Kakashi smiled at Iruka's troubled expression. "You, on the other hand, are the nice stranger he's afraid of hurting. Innocent bystander. You can tell from how helpful he was being this morning. Don't worry about hovering. It's your house, your rules. He'll either obey or he'll take off."
"I don't want him to leave," Iruka said quickly. "That's why I'm trying not to hover."
"Yeah, but it really bothers you, doesn't it. And this is just one kid who's not yours. What are you going to do when you have a handful of them staying with you? If you tiptoe around worrying about upsetting one of them, they'll run all over you."
"No," Iruka said quietly, "they won't."
He slid out from under Kakashi's arm and gave him an odd look, a half smile that was just the slightest bit devious. Kakashi blinked, watching him start gathering things for dinner. That look reminded him of the way Iruka had so easily controlled the conversation upstairs. He didn't know what to make of it. A moment ago Iruka had seemed worried and hesitant. Now he acted as if he'd never doubted himself at all.
"I'll have a talk with him tomorrow," Iruka said, glancing over his shoulder. "I'm sorry for questioning the way you've been taking care of him."
Kakashi blinked again, his eye widening suddenly. "Is that what you were doing?"
"Well," Iruka smiled, "mostly I was distracting myself so I wouldn't go chasing after him. But it's good to hear more about the way you've been raising him. That's what you've been doing, you know. Raising him. Even if you started it because you were bored, he's a lot more than an entertaining pet to you now."
"Um," Kakashi frowned. Had he referred to the brat as a pet earlier? He thought quickly, running through the things he'd told about his first encounter with Sasuke. Yeah, he had used the word pet a few times. A pet cat. "He's more of a stray than a pet..."
"So you say," Iruka murmured pleasantly. He set a pot of pasta to boil. Then he started gathering things for a salad. He'd have Kakashi help. If he could teach Naruto to do it, he could teach even the worst cook.
"I'll be buying supplies," Iruka said as he worked. "I expect him to use the things I get him. The same goes for you."
"Me?" Kakashi blinked.
"Mm," Iruka smiled. "Wash your hands and chop this for me, please."
Kakashi looked doubtfully from the knife he'd been handed to the full head of lettuce. This was more Sasuke's area of expertise. The only vegetables Kakashi handled came out of a can. He washed his hands and came back to frown at the vegetable. He slowly cut the head of lettuce in half down the center. Then he glanced back up. "What do you mean me?"
"You didn't eat much this morning," said Iruka. His expression was gently disapproving. He didn't seem to notice how nervous that made Kakashi. "You'll end up as thin as Sasuke is."
"Eh?" Kakashi forgot about the lettuce cutting. He knew from holding him earlier that Iruka weighed considerably less than him. And he'd always gotten compliments for his physique. Comparing him to the scrawny brat was ridiculous. "How can you say that? You haven't even seen me naked yet!"
Iruka started, a light blush breaking over his face. He considered reminding Kakashi that he had no intention of ever seeing him naked and decided against it. Selective deafness worked just as well. "All I meant was that breakfast is a very important meal in this house. As you said, my house, my rules. If you dislike what I make, I'm perfectly willing to prepare you something separate. I don't like to see people not eat."
"Oh," Kakashi sighed, deflating slightly. He was still tempted to do a little kitchen demonstration to prove his manliness and lack of scrawny teenager-ness. If the kids walked in Sasuke would take one look, do a full body twitch, turn on his heel, and walk right back out. Naruto would probably do a repeat of earlier and explode in outrage. Not only would it serve as a temptation to Iruka, it would be amusing as well.
"I take it you don't usually eat breakfast?" prodded Iruka.
Kakashi looked over in distraction. "No, we usually stick with coffee in the morning."
Bad thing to say. Very wrong thing to say. Iruka froze, his hand curled so tightly over the little fruit knife he'd been using on the tomatoes that his knuckles turned white. Kakashi was already wincing by the time he finally looked up. Iruka looked up slowly, stiffly, with narrow brown eyes.
"We?"
Kakashi fidgeted. "Ah...well, I'm a bachelor, you know. Old habits. I've been drinking complimentary hotel coffee since I was twelve. The pots are so small it's not more than a few cups each..."
He absolutely would not admit how much he enjoyed the twitchy restrained hyper activity Sasuke displayed when he was jarred awake by a caffeine high. And it wasn't as if he hadn't tried to get Sasuke to eat in the mornings. The last time he'd reheated his signature soup-stew from the night before, the kid had taken one look and made a run for the bathroom. Kakashi suspected Sasuke was allergic to one of the ingredients. He'd been eating it for years, with relish, and he'd never had trouble keeping it down.
"Don't tell me you never drank coffee as a kid," Kakashi said quickly, with a winning smile.
Iruka's dangerous frown lightened just a bit. "I did. In the evenings. To stay awake. Never for breakfast."
"Most important meal of the day?" Kakashi ventured. Iruka gave a sharp nod. "Well, if you want to keep the brat off the coffee, I'm sure he'll listen to you. He ate enough for three people this morning. He definitely likes you."
Iruka made a noncommittal hum and went back to preparing the salad. Sasuke didn't like him. Maybe he would eventually. Right now he was simply trying to avoid trouble. Iruka had recognized that immediately. The entire time Sasuke had spoken to him that morning, he'd looked uncomfortable. It was forced and impersonal. Iruka had behaved the exact same way when he'd gone alone to Japan after living with Hiko and Tenka for so long. There were two common ways for a defensive child to keep people at a distance. Iruka had done them both. It was either being abrasive so they didn't want anything to do with him, or being so painfully polite that they barely noticed him. He was glad Sasuke had chosen the latter approach with him. It was much harder to befriend abrasive teenagers.
.-.
Naruto found him in the backyard, seated on one of the large rocks at the edge of the trees. There were four of those rocks, mini boulders as Naruto liked to call them. They were two feet high and squished on the top and bottom so they were perfect for sitting. He'd literally stumbled across them in the fields and drug them home to mark the corners of his would-be garden. It wasn't a garden yet because he hadn't decided what to plant there. He'd spent all of spring sitting on one of the rocks and staring at his little eight by twelve patch of dirt. He kept getting distracted by the rocks, all four of which were speckled with shiny spots, rough patches, and faint etchings that reminded him of scars or fossils. He had to admit they looked especially interesting now that they were wet. That didn't stop him from immediately feeling annoyed at the sight of someone else sitting there.
Actually, he'd been annoyed before he even got outside. Iruka wasn't being himself at all. Iruka hadn't said a word about them being wet, he didn't make him finish cleaning up his mess, and he didn't even look exasperated when Sasuke went right back outside. Then there was Kyuubi, who'd been faking sleep for the last hour. Naruto knew he wasn't really asleep and Kyuubi knew that Naruto knew. So why was he even bothering to pretend? The only thing Naruto could come up with was that Kyuubi was busy thinking things he didn't want Naruto to overhear. Kyuubi almost never hid things anymore. Everyone was acting weird and it all led back to Sasuke. Sasuke, who was currently sitting on one of his rocks and staring at his patch of dirt as if it were his own personal brooding spot.
Naruto stopped a few feet away and crossed his arms. The rain had calmed into a steady drizzle that barely made it through the edge of the trees. He was still getting wet, and his jacket was already damp from earlier. All Sasuke's fault.
"What's your problem?" Naruto glowered. "If you're mad at me, fine, don't take it out on Iruka-sensei. He was just trying to help."
"What's buried here?" asked Sasuke. He was staring over his folded hands at the barren mud patch. He heard Naruto make a distracted sound behind him.
"Nothing right now. It's gonna be my garden once I plant something." Sasuke gave no sign of having heard him. Naruto stalked as close as he could get without stepping in the mud. "That's my rock you're sitting on, too, so the least you can do is look at me when I'm talking to you."
Sasuke gave a slow look over his shoulder. "Do you want me to move?"
Naruto stared in surprise. Sasuke's eyes were half-lidded, as if he were bored, but the irises were a dark vivid red. There were two black marks angled on either side of the pupils, the top ones only half visible. Kyuubi stopped pretending he wasn't paying attention. Naruto wasn't the least bit surprised. Pretty eyes? More like dangerous and exotic. And Sasuke was already exotic compared to the locals here, with his pale complexion and Asian features. Naruto had never drawn as many stares living in Japan as Sasuke had the second they'd walked into the rental place.
'Okay,' Naruto muttered, 'I admit it. He's really hot.'
Kyuubi gave a wistful sigh. 'I told you so.'
'He's still a jerk,' Naruto added firmly.
Sasuke continued to stare at him as if he were waiting for something. Naruto took that as an invitation to stare right back. He was sitting on the edge of the rock, legs bent, with his elbows propped on his thighs. With his head turned to look over his shoulder like that, Naruto could see a pale scar on the back of his neck that was probably hidden by his hair most of the time. Naruto never scarred, so he was always obscenely interested in them. Iruka did his best to discourage that as being unhealthy, while Kyuubi encouraged it as being a normal boyish obsession with gruesome injuries. At the moment, that little scar reminded Naruto of how nasty the burn on Sasuke's hand had looked, and the way he'd just sat there as if it didn't even hurt. That was probably a conceited macho thing, but it was still kinda cool.
"How did you get that scar?" asked Naruto. He completely forgot his annoyance in favor of hearing something potentially disturbing. He didn't realize his eyes had lit up with eager interest, so he was a bit confused when Sasuke gave a disgruntled frown.
"I got knocked through a window," Sasuke muttered. His eyebrow twitched when Naruto's face lit up even more.
"Seriously?" Naruto gaped. "That's so cool. Were you fighting with a mutant? I got a broken nose once, but I heal really fast so it's not even crooked now. He was just your average moron, anyway. He just got lucky. I've never fought a mutant. Was he really strong?"
"No," Sasuke said, frowning more. He didn't want to talk about this. It was distracting and Naruto's energy was flickering strangely, too unnerving for him to relax the sharingan. It was as if the more excited Naruto got, the more his energy reacted. And Sasuke didn't know enough about energy signals to know if that were normal or not.
Naruto blinked. "No, he wasn't strong, or no, he wasn't a mutant?"
"Both," said Sasuke. He forced himself to look away, his gaze turning back to that muddy patch. "He wasn't a mutant. He was..." How had Naruto put it? "...just your average moron."
"Oh," Naruto sighed. He frowned in disappointment for a moment. Then a slow smirk slid onto his face. "Wait, you mean you got knocked through a window by a moron? And here I thought you were strong."
'He is,' Kyuubi said sharply. Naruto ignored him.
Sasuke didn't so much as twitch. In fact, he relaxed and turned a condescendingly bored look on Naruto. "I don't use my talents on morons."
"I don't either," Naruto said quickly. "But I still don't get pushed through windows. Was he like drunk or something, so you didn't fight back? There's gotta be a story behind it - mutants just don't get beat up by average morons. We run away or fight back, everyone knows that. That's why there are so many runaway mutants all over the place."
He knew that for a fact. It was part of the whole 'mutant history' thing Iruka had told him when they first started living together. The second generation and all that. They either got beat up and their talents came out to defend them, or they get tossed out by bad parents and had to use their talents to protect themselves from everyone else. Yeah, there were some who supposedly got kidnapped from loving families by people wanting to experiment on young mutants, but Naruto wasn't sure he actually believed those stories. He couldn't imagine good parents like Iruka just letting their kids get kidnapped without going to the police, the papers, and telling the world until they got their kids back and the bad guys got theirs. Besides, even with those stories, the kids supposedly broke out and escaped by using their talents.
'If they kill the parents, there's no one left to look for the missing children,' Kyuubi reminded him.
'Maybe,' said Naruto. 'I still say if it happened as often as people say, there'd be some proof of it.'
'You're proof of it,' Kyuubi said sharply. 'No parents, no extended family, no proof that you were ever born.'
'One hell of a conspiracy,' Naruto whispered back, in a playful tone. 'I know, I know. I still say I just got dumped, some morons tried to hurt me, and my talents came out to protect me. You don't remember anything before that, so anything else is just guesses. I'll believe it when I see it.'
"I don't fight humans," Sasuke said dismissively, turning away again.
"So?" Naruto prodded.
Sasuke leaned forward and frowned at the mud. "So nothing. Some morons were fighting and I was too slow to get out of the way. It didn't involve me." He'd also been nine at the time and too small to elbow his way through the crowd, but that was beside the point.
"It didn't involve you until you got knocked through the window," Naruto scoffed. "What would you do if someone pulled a gun on you?"
"Dodge or disarm him," Sasuke said, in that same monotone voice. He'd only been in one encounter where that had happened. Since then he'd learned how close was too close to get to people like that.
"And if a moron picked a fight with you?" prodded Naruto.
"Ignore him."
Naruto's face screwed up in a disgruntled scowl. That was exactly what Iruka had been telling him to do for years now. Ignore them. Walk away. Don't sink to their level. Don't be baited. He'd never thought to hear something like that from someone his own age. That was the sort of stuff adults said, even though they'd never followed that advice when they were kids, either. They might as well tell the kid to take his punches like a good little doormat.
Naruto gave Sasuke a wincing look. "You're gonna be in trouble once school starts. Seriously. If you don't fight back, the morons'll have a field day with you."
Sasuke ignored him. There was still something odd about that muddy patch. He was more interested in that than Naruto's warning. Morons didn't concern him. The footprints did. They were fresh, not deep enough for the shoe size, and they were in the center of the patch as if the person had dropped out of the sky, taken one step toward the house, and then disappeared. His first thought was that a mutant had been here. Someone who'd purposely left a very telling sign behind. And it was far too early for it to be someone sent by Itachi. Someone who'd already been here and had noticed the new arrivals? He didn't think so. His gut was telling him it was a mutant, but he didn't have any of his instinctive wariness when he looked at those marks. That made him even more worried.
"Where'd you get that one?"
Sasuke blinked and sent a sharp frown at Naruto. The blonde was pointing at the patchy scar on his left knee, once more wearing an eager interested expression. Sasuke fought back a twitch. He wasn't used to people even noticing his scars. His skin was pale enough that they weren't visible from a distance, and most of the ones not hidden by his clothes and hair were so old they were hard to see up close. The last time he'd lost a fight badly enough to walk away with scars was when he'd been distracted by Kakashi. Sure enough, the scar Naruto was looking at with the same morbid curiosity he'd given his hand was one of those. There was no way he'd admit how he'd gotten that one.
"Are there other mutants in this town?" asked Sasuke.
"Huh?" Naruto blinked. "You mean besides me and Iruka-sensei? I don't think so. Hiko's supposed to have a kid who's a mutant, and a mutant boyfriend who usually stays with him, but they haven't been here since we moved." He waved a hand vaguely over his shoulder, gesturing to the house. "Hiko's a friend of Iruka-sensei. He's the one who taught me how to fight. He's pretty good, but he's not a mutant. He says there aren't any others. I'm pretty sure he's right, cause I'd have noticed if I saw one."
"You can tell a mutant on sight?" Sasuke frowned. He could do that now, but it was a recent addition. He couldn't do it without activating the sharingan, which meant it was also a rather useless addition. It wasn't as if he could walk around town with the sharingan looking for possible mutants. He'd gotten enough stares from people who assumed he was normal. He didn't want to think of how many he'd have gotten with red eyes. Of course, he did have a pair of sunglasses he'd used in the past, but they'd have drawn far too much attention on such a dark rainy day.
Naruto didn't answer right away. Was this another of those 'not worth lying about' things? Kyuubi thought so. But Kyuubi wasn't the one who had to deal with the weird looks.
"Not really sight," Naruto said reluctantly. "It's kinda like smelling blood from a distance. But it's not smell, either. I just...know."
'I know,' Kyuubi corrected him. 'Ask him what the pervert's talent is.'
Naruto blinked. 'Why now?'
'Because you want to distract him from asking more about you,' Kyuubi sighed. 'And we need to know. This is a good time to find out, while he's already talking.'
"What talents does the pervert have?" asked Naruto. "I know he can be dangerous if he touches us, but not why. I don't want him touching me, anyway, but what would happen if he did?"
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Naruto could tell that Kakashi's talent relied on touch, but not what the talent was? Something else about that statement caught his attention. "Us?"
Naruto flinched and blurted, "Anyone, I mean, mutants in general. Me and Iruka-sensei mostly. I know he touched you guys and nothing happened, but something could if he used his talent, right? Something bad?"
Sasuke let it go for now. If Naruto had more talents than his abnormal strength, he'd find out eventually. Right now he felt a wave of sympathy, for someone who would probably end up as one of Kakashi's victims once the man got down to business. Better that Naruto be warned in advance. "Kakashi copies talents by touch. It doesn't always work. When it fails, he's the one at risk, not the person he's trying to copy." He glanced pointedly at Naruto. "He lost the free use of his left eye when he tried to copy me. Because our talents are too similar. Where he copies talents by touch, I copy talents by sight."
Naruto's eyes widened. He stood motionless, but inside he was giddy - and a little guilty.
'I told you,' Kyuubi was muttering. Naruto was bouncing around too much to pay attention.
'He copies talents,' Naruto rambled, more to himself than anything. 'Talents. Meaning he's got a bunch of them. That's gotta be enough. If we fight we'd have to come up with new tricks just to keep up, right? It's just like Iruka-sensei said about how most mutants discover their talents because they're backed into a corner where they instinctively act. And you said he's strong, so he'd be able to really push us and then we can-'
'He won't fight us.'
Naruto's giddy rambling came to a dead stop. Kyuubi's tone was sober, almost wistful.
'What do you mean?' Naruto demanded. 'Why wouldn't he? He copies talents - we got lots of talents and we'll have more once we figure out how to do them. You said he's strong, well, we're strong and strong guys always want to get stronger - you gotta fight strong people to get stronger. Why wouldn't he want to fight us?'
'First,' said Kyuubi, 'he doesn't know we're strong. While he suspects we are, he won't act without proof. You won't tell him anything about yourself.'
'I might,' Naruto said slowly. 'I mean, if I have to tell him so he's interested, then I will. He just out and told me what his talent is, so...'
'Second,' Kyuubi continued, 'he's too dangerous to spar with.'
'Are you saying he'd beat us?' Naruto demanded, outraged. 'What the hell, Kyuubi! The first strong mutant we run into and now you're too scared to fight him? I thought you were all eager to attack him, what happened to 'jump him before the rain starts'? What's your problem?'
Kyuubi gave a vague full body turn that meant he was about to go back to sleep, or back to feigning sleep in this case. When he spoke, it was with a morose tone. 'His reactions are wrong.'
'You're talking about the way he looked at me earlier,' Naruto frowned. 'He was just surprised cause he's not used to us. You saw the way the pervert did it - cause he's more used to him. And he didn't do anything when Iruka-sensei touched him, cause he was expecting it, right?'
'Maybe,' Kyuubi murmured.
Naruto sent a frustrated scowl at Kyuubi's curled back. The fox was mock-sleeping again, just like that. Well, two could play that game. He squared his shoulders and pushed all thoughts of weird mind-changing foxes out of his head. That's when he noticed that he was currently standing alone in the back yard. He jumped, looking around in surprise. How long had he been chatting with Kyuubi? He was so used to it he could do it without losing track of what was going on around him. He hadn't 'lost time' in years. He was sure they'd only been talking for a minute or two.
Sure enough, Sasuke hadn't gotten far. He was walking along the edge of the bordering trees, scanning the ground and branches with the same steady interest he'd given the neighborhood earlier. Naruto went after him. Once he caught up, he could see that Sasuke's eyes were still red. They weren't as bored and heavy lidded now. In fact, Sasuke looked a little edgy. Nervous, maybe.
"What are you looking for?" asked Naruto.
Sasuke ignored him. It wasn't easy. It hadn't been easy to walk away from him, either. They'd been talking, well, Naruto had been talking, and then the blonde had gone quiet. His eyes had dimmed, focused on nothing, but his expression continued to be animated as if he were listening to something only he could hear. Frankly it was unnerving to witness. Sasuke had seen the same thing on their walk back. This time he'd had the sharingan active to tell him that it wasn't just Naruto's face that changed - his energy had flickered, too. Whatever it was, he didn't like it. He'd gotten a sudden urge to be somewhere else. And Naruto hadn't even noticed him getting up and walking off. Distracting. Bad enough the boy kept talking to him, he didn't want to get involved in Naruto's issues.
The house was too big. Sasuke had suspected as much when they'd first gone into it and he'd seen how empty the livingroom was. They hadn't been living there long. But there was more to it than that. He could tell by looking at the outside that there was a third floor, possibly a tipped fourth attic floor as well. The main hall upstairs was too narrow to account for the depth of the exterior, suggesting another section at least as large as the one he'd seen. He needed to explore the interior. Iruka wasn't going to like that.
"Are you ignoring me...?"
Obviously. Sasuke kept his attention focused on the house. There was a window on the second floor that would give quick access to the roof. It was on the end, the next to last room before the bathroom. Kakashi's room. His eyes narrowed as he thought about the trouble he'd have to go through to get the man to switch with him. Was it worth it? The drop from his own window wasn't that far. If someone tried to get in from the roof, they'd have to go through Kakashi's room first. The man was a lazy pervert, but he was also eerily sly when it came to noticing things. With him in that room, no one would get further than the window sill. Assuming they even got that far. Kakashi's hearing was even better than Sasuke's. Best to leave it, then.
"What's your problem!"
You. Sasuke almost said it this time. He bit it back and turned away from the house. He'd have to do something about Naruto. Soon. Right now he had an hour before dark. He'd have to go in then to keep his word to Iruka. Yes, he could always sneak out later, and he probably would do that. But he wanted see as much as possible while there was still some natural light to see by. Using the sharingan to see through the dark took more energy than he liked.
The trees thickened further in, clusters of bushes and weeds until it almost looked like a real forest. Not that Sasuke had seen many 'real' forests. This one was heavy with tall grass from the fields. The trees themselves all looked the same to him. He wondered if Naruto knew what kind of trees they were. Then he winced at his own thought. It was very difficult to completely ignore someone who was throwing a tantrum two feet away. The trees. Yes, he was only focused on the trees at the moment. They were sturdy affairs with branches so heavy a person could travel from the field to the house without touching the ground. That thought caught hold with a vengeance.
Sasuke turned on his heel, sidestepping Naruto, who'd just edged closer than before. He went back to the muddy patch of dirt and judged the distance from those footprints to the nearest trees. It didn't seem likely. The jump was too far, the impact would leave heavy impressions in the mud, and the person would have to have jumped backwards to get back to the trees because there weren't any prints in the surrounding grass. That was why he'd dismissed the idea earlier. Now he remembered one of the mutants Kakashi had tracked recently. A willowy blonde man who'd moved as if he were walking on air. Sasuke had copied that, but he hadn't had a reason to test it yet. It was one thing to know he could mimic something he'd seen. Figuring out how to do it was considerably harder.
He concentrated on being light. Easy enough. He was naturally graceful, fast enough that he didn't stay on the ground long during a conflict. But this was dancing. He made a darting rush to the side and turned, grass ghosting over his ankles. His steps were still visible. They were lighter, yes, but clearly visible to anyone who know what to look for. The rain was weighing him down. Not really, but he felt as if it were. And his sandals were strapped too tightly, keeping him flat footed. A sharingan copied image passed through his mind, the blonde man the first time they'd spotted him. He'd been standing more on his toes, and he'd been relaxed. Boneless, even. Fluid. The only time Sasuke achieved that state was when he woke up in a daze. Trying to force it would only-
A hand closed over his left wrist. Sasuke whipped around and caught himself, his right hand inches away from Naruto's neck. His first relieved thought was that the blow wouldn't have killed the idiot. He'd have been knocked away, left choking from the impact, but he wouldn't have died. Sasuke would have realized who it was before he could follow up with an actual attack. His second thought was that the idiot was faster and quieter than he'd given him credit for. Naruto had been at least five feet away and he hadn't heard his approach at all.
"Well," Naruto glowered, "that's one way to get your attention."
Naruto was furious. Frustrated and hurt, too, because he'd been sure they were getting along a few minutes ago. He was trying really hard to get past that insulting first meeting, and to not peg Sasuke as a complete asshole. So what did Sasuke do on his end? Insult his use of the stove, get burned in his place as if Naruto needed someone to protect him, refuse to let him help with the injury, get him in trouble with Iruka, and then walk away and ignore him like he wasn't even there. Naruto could get past the whole kitchen thing, because Sasuke had been trying to help, and he didn't really mind not being the one with the skin burned off his hand. If he looked at it that way, Sasuke was a pretty good guy. Ignoring him, though, that was too much. It wasn't as if Sasuke had anything better to do than to hang out while they waited for dinner. All he was doing was walking around looking at stuff. And doing odd little turns in the grass. Naruto admitted he kind of liked that last bit because there was something tempting about the way Sasuke moved. It made him want to tackle the guy, ruin that perfect balance and knock him off his feet. Maybe get into a nice fist fight while he was at it to make up for the weirdness Sasuke was creating in Iruka and Kyuubi.
"Let go," Sasuke said sharply.
Naruto immediately tightened his grip. He'd let go earlier when Kyuubi told him to and where had that gotten him? Aside from asking about the umbrella, Sasuke had ignored him the rest of the way home. He knew if he let go now Sasuke would go right back to ignoring him. Even fighting and getting in more trouble with Iruka was better than being ignored.
"Make me," Naruto shot back. Sasuke's dangerous expression flickered for a moment, revealing wary surprise. Naruto gave a smug grin. "I bet you can't."
Sasuke's eyebrow twitched. What was Naruto trying to do, get himself killed? He forced his left hand to unclench. Naruto promptly loosened his hold so the bones weren't grinding together as much. Stupid. In a match of brute strength he'd never have gotten free without sacrificing his wrist in the process.
Naruto had one flashing moment of surprise before he found himself lying on his back. Sasuke had smirked at him. Yeah, it was a dark smirk, more insulting than anything, but it looked good on him. And he'd been too startled to feel wary about why exactly Sasuke had gone from looking cornered to being darkly amused. Then Sasuke had done one of those half turns Naruto had found so tempting to watch and the rain dampened wrist he was holding slipped free. He blinked sprinkles out of his eyes, scowling in annoyance, and tried to figure out what Sasuke had done to get him off his feet. One minute Sasuke was pulling his wrist free and the next Naruto couldn't see him anymore.
'He dropped and kicked your feet out from under you, moron,' Kyuubi supplied.
'Oh,' Naruto sniffed. He pushed himself up and glowered at Sasuke, who was once more doing his graceful little movements at the edge of the would-be garden as if the encounter hadn't even happened.
'Iruka is going to complain about the grass stains,' Kyuubi pointed out helpfully. He sounded rather amused.
'He never liked this coat, anyway,' Naruto said dismissively. He hopped up and approached Sasuke. The boy didn't even glance in his direction.
Kyuubi shifted restlessly. 'I'm telling you to leave it alone.'
'No way.'
'You can't take him by yourself,' Kyuubi said quickly, speaking faster the closer Naruto got to his target. 'The only way you'll beat him is if you attack with the aim to kill.'
'I don't want to kill him,' Naruto said, in a calm casual tone. 'I want to introduce him to my garden. He was staring at it so much earlier, I think he'd like to get a closer look.'
'I can't talk you out of this?' Kyuubi sighed.
'Nope.'
'Idiot,' Kyuubi said, wistfully, and fondly because Naruto was his idiot. 'Do you want my help?'
'Nah, not this time,' said Naruto. 'If I can't get him to eat mud, I'll let you play next time. You can even bite him if you want. He looks like he needs a good bite.'
Kyuubi perked up, going from reluctant to eager so fast his fur fluffed. They were on the same level now. 'I knew you'd see it my way.'
'Yeah,' Naruto admitted. 'We're the same, so it was probably a given. Quiet now, I'm gonna pounce.'
'Pounce away,' Kyuubi beamed proudly.
Naruto stopped a few feet away, tensed for a split second and then lunged. Sasuke turned before his feet left the ground. He was ready for him this time, twisting into the lunge and pushing him further. Naruto immediately thought of the 'toss' Hiko had used on him during their last mock fight. He'd already come up with a way to counter that the next time Hiko tried it on him. He applied it to Sasuke now. He grabbed hold of Sasuke's arm, his other hand clenching tight on the back of his shirt. They went down together. Naruto rolled when he struck the mud, using his weight to push Sasuke off him and his grip on his shirt to keep him from getting free. Sasuke made a blurred move with his free arm, and Naruto felt something like a slap on the center of his neck. Then it turned into a slow burn. He didn't realize his throat had closed up until Kyuubi surged forward in a haze of orange to heal the spot.
'Told you to stay out of it,' Naruto shot at Kyuubi, distractedly. Sasuke was really hard to hold onto. He'd gotten him onto one shoulder, but he couldn't seem to push him all the way onto his back. The hand shoving against his neck kept them apart so far that he was afraid he'd rip Sasuke's shirt. He'd already lost his grip on Sasuke's arm, what with the rain and the mud making the skin too slippery for traction.
A sandaled foot shoved against Naruto's stomach. Naruto heard Kyuubi give an excited cry about Sasuke's flexibility as he lost his grip and fell back. Then he was scrambling up again. He tried to kick Sasuke's feet out from under him the same way Sasuke must have done to him earlier. Sasuke jerked back and lost traction. He went down on one knee before he caught his balance. That was just long enough for Naruto to tackle him again. This time he hit him head on and had the pleasure of seeing Sasuke's head snap back until mud splattered up onto his cheeks. Naruto grinned, unaware that his own face was just as splattered. He twisted sideways so there'd be no chance of Sasuke kicking him off again. Then he leaned down to smirk at Sasuke's expression. He looked livid, more shocked and furious than anything. It was nothing like that dead dangerous stare he'd given him earlier.
"Now what?" Naruto taunted. "It must be really hard to ignore me like this, eh?"
Sasuke stared in rising horror. Where they children? This wasn't a fight, it was a...wrestling match. Here he was, rolling around in the mud with someone who had nothing to do with Itachi or fighting for his life, and the one who'd attacked him wasn't even using his talents. Oh, he'd noticed the way that energy had flared when he'd slammed the heel of his hand into Naruto's windpipe, some healing or protecting counter that kept the injury from choking him the way it was supposed to. But aside from that Naruto hadn't done anything except throw his weight around. And all of this because he'd ignored him?
"Get off," Sasuke growled. He didn't want to be the one to bring talents into this mess, but he wasn't about to resort to twisting and squirming his way free. He'd have to leave his shirt behind to do that and just the thought of Kakashi's reaction when he went inside muddy and shirtless made his stomach turn over. "Now," Sasuke added, when Naruto continued to grin at him.
"Make me," Naruto said, grinning wider than ever. Sasuke's eyebrow started twitching. Naruto laughed and pushed harder on Sasuke's arm, forcing him deeper into the mud. He'd finally planted something in his garden. The thought made him laugh harder. That was all the incentive Sasuke needed.
"Die," Sasuke hissed.
His left hand shot out, palm flat against Naruto's throat. Then he poured enough electricity into the moron to make his muddy blonde hair stand on end. Naruto let out a chattering yipe and fell over. Sasuke calmly righted himself, brushing clumps of mud off his arms and legs as he watched Naruto sizzle. The blonde gave a few spasming twitches before lying still. Unfortunately he was still breathing. A few stuttering gasps later and he was talking as well. Sasuke's eyebrow twitched. He should have gone with his first instinct and send those volts into his brain. At least then he would have been out cold for a while.
"You shocked me," Naruto gasped, gaping and panting at the muddy teenager standing beside him. "That fucking hurt...!"
"It was supposed to," said Sasuke.
"Well, duh," Naruto muttered. He was getting his breath back now. Kyuubi was snickering in his head at having had to help him yet again. Naruto didn't really care. He'd just been electrocuted. He blinked dazedly at Sasuke, who was looking almost cute now that he was standing up with mud all over him and that exasperated and wary expression on his face. Naruto pushed himself up and gave a weak smile. "I admit, that was really fun..."
Sasuke backed away slowly. The blonde wasn't sane. That was the only explanation. He'd used that attack on grown men and left them shuddering for an hour, more than long enough to finish them off or make a slow escape. Naruto was already climbing to his feet and going on about how neat the attack was, as if he hadn't just been on the receiving end of it.
"Next time we fight, I'll show you one of my moves," Naruto said, with an excited grin. "I don't have a lot of attacks, but I got some great moves. There's one I've been trying to figure out where I can be in two places at once. I'm sure I can do it, I just never had anyone fast enough to push me into it, you know? You're definitely fast enough. Squirmy, too. I was planning to rub your face in the mud for ignoring me, just so you know. You made it so hard just to pin you that I gave up, like trying to hold onto a worm or something." He smirked and rubbed a hand on his neck. "And what was that move you did with your hand? Feels like I've been yelling a lot - it was like that before you fried me."
Sasuke just stared warily at him, as if he were afraid whatever Naruto had might be contagious.
"Whatever," Naruto waved. "We can talk about that stuff later. Iruka-sensei's gonna have a holy fit when he sees us." He grimaced a little, and then waved that off, too. "Before that..."
He picked his way out of his newly tilled mud garden. Sasuke backed away some more. Naruto frowned a little at the odd wariness. Then he shrugged and held out a hand.
"Good spar," smiled Naruto. His happy expression faltered a breath when Sasuke just stood there staring. "It won't kill you to shake."
"Says you," Sasuke muttered.
He gave his hand, just to keep Naruto from grabbing it. His hand was shaken up and down twice before Naruto let go. Sasuke promptly took another step back. He remained a safe distance away as Naruto led the way into the house. Iruka let out a shout the second Naruto passed through the back door. Sasuke dropped his head in humiliation. He didn't know what was worse, Iruka's horrified reaction, or Kakashi's perverted mud wrestling comments.
.-.
TBC
Part 12
Sasuke never made a sound. He sat rigidly, his damp bangs shielding his eyes as he stared down at Iruka's hands. As soon as the healing finished, he stood up, made a sketchy thanks that was more assumed than heard, and was gone. They heard the front door close quietly behind him.
Iruka had watched him exit the room. Now he turned sober eyes on Naruto, who was crouched on the floor by the half cleaned mess and frowning at the door. "Go ahead," said Iruka. "I'll finish that and start dinner early."
Naruto's head snapped around. "Really?" he asked. He stared at Iruka for a moment in surprise. Then he beat a hasty retreat before Iruka could change his mind.
Unlike Sasuke, Naruto had the good sense to grab a coat from the hall closet before he left the house. Iruka noted that as he went over to clean up the rest of the mess on the floor. He heard Kakashi follow him around the counter, but didn't look up until he finished dumping the ruined noodles in the trash.
"I'm trying not to hover," Iruka said quietly, finally turning to frown at Kakashi. "I really am trying. But neither of you is making it easy on me."
Kakashi's eye widened. "Me? What did I do?"
"He's been living with you for two years and he doesn't know better than to run around in the rain without a coat?"
Iruka had posed it as a question. Clearly it was intended as an accusation. Kakashi leaned back against the counter and sighed.
"He doesn't own a coat," Kakashi explained, in a wry tone. He didn't want to sound condescending, but Iruka had a lot to learn when it came to Sasuke. It was difficult not to be amused at the thought of anyone being that worried about Sasuke's recklessness. The boy was always like that. Running in the rain was nothing. How was Iruka going to react when winter rolled around?
"I've bought him a few coats," Kakashi continued. "I even managed to get one on him once." He smirked fondly at the memory. Sasuke had put up quite a fight that time. He'd won because he knew Sasuke's weakness - the kid wouldn't accept 'charity gifts', but he wouldn't willingly destroy them, either. In the end it was surprisingly easy to pin the brat and get the coat on him when Sasuke was rigid to keep from tearing it in the struggle. "I got him to wear it all the way outside," Kakashi smiled. "Then he pawned it and came back with groceries instead."
"Why?" asked Iruka.
"Same reason he won't wear long sleeves or let his hair grow out," Kakashi shrugged. "Makes him harder to grab hold of. He has cuffs he wears if it gets cold enough and that's it. I'm lucky if I can get him to wear real shoes when we're somewhere snowy."
Iruka stared in disbelief, and a good dose of rising anger. "And you just...allow that."
"Most of the time," Kakashi admitted. "He's stubborn, not stupid. If he thinks he can handle something, he usually can. And if it turns out he can't handle it, he doesn't do it again."
Iruka looked as if he were close to another explosion. Kakashi cut him off by stepping forward and putting an arm around his shoulders.
"He's about fifteen," said Kakashi. "Maybe sixteen. He had to have been at least thirteen when I met him. How old were you when Hiko picked you up at that kiddie jail? I may not know how you ended up there, but it sounds like you were as stubborn then as the brat is now. What about that runaway friend of yours? Sasuke's a runaway waiting to happen, always will be. Push him into doing something he thinks could get him killed the first time one of those thugs shows up, and he'll be gone within the hour. I figured that out fast. I may not like all of his quirks, but they've kept him alive. And I'm not his dad. I'm not even a big brother. I'm just...the convenient adult who pays for the rooms and walks him onto the airplane so people don't ask questions."
Kakashi smiled at Iruka's troubled expression. "You, on the other hand, are the nice stranger he's afraid of hurting. Innocent bystander. You can tell from how helpful he was being this morning. Don't worry about hovering. It's your house, your rules. He'll either obey or he'll take off."
"I don't want him to leave," Iruka said quickly. "That's why I'm trying not to hover."
"Yeah, but it really bothers you, doesn't it. And this is just one kid who's not yours. What are you going to do when you have a handful of them staying with you? If you tiptoe around worrying about upsetting one of them, they'll run all over you."
"No," Iruka said quietly, "they won't."
He slid out from under Kakashi's arm and gave him an odd look, a half smile that was just the slightest bit devious. Kakashi blinked, watching him start gathering things for dinner. That look reminded him of the way Iruka had so easily controlled the conversation upstairs. He didn't know what to make of it. A moment ago Iruka had seemed worried and hesitant. Now he acted as if he'd never doubted himself at all.
"I'll have a talk with him tomorrow," Iruka said, glancing over his shoulder. "I'm sorry for questioning the way you've been taking care of him."
Kakashi blinked again, his eye widening suddenly. "Is that what you were doing?"
"Well," Iruka smiled, "mostly I was distracting myself so I wouldn't go chasing after him. But it's good to hear more about the way you've been raising him. That's what you've been doing, you know. Raising him. Even if you started it because you were bored, he's a lot more than an entertaining pet to you now."
"Um," Kakashi frowned. Had he referred to the brat as a pet earlier? He thought quickly, running through the things he'd told about his first encounter with Sasuke. Yeah, he had used the word pet a few times. A pet cat. "He's more of a stray than a pet..."
"So you say," Iruka murmured pleasantly. He set a pot of pasta to boil. Then he started gathering things for a salad. He'd have Kakashi help. If he could teach Naruto to do it, he could teach even the worst cook.
"I'll be buying supplies," Iruka said as he worked. "I expect him to use the things I get him. The same goes for you."
"Me?" Kakashi blinked.
"Mm," Iruka smiled. "Wash your hands and chop this for me, please."
Kakashi looked doubtfully from the knife he'd been handed to the full head of lettuce. This was more Sasuke's area of expertise. The only vegetables Kakashi handled came out of a can. He washed his hands and came back to frown at the vegetable. He slowly cut the head of lettuce in half down the center. Then he glanced back up. "What do you mean me?"
"You didn't eat much this morning," said Iruka. His expression was gently disapproving. He didn't seem to notice how nervous that made Kakashi. "You'll end up as thin as Sasuke is."
"Eh?" Kakashi forgot about the lettuce cutting. He knew from holding him earlier that Iruka weighed considerably less than him. And he'd always gotten compliments for his physique. Comparing him to the scrawny brat was ridiculous. "How can you say that? You haven't even seen me naked yet!"
Iruka started, a light blush breaking over his face. He considered reminding Kakashi that he had no intention of ever seeing him naked and decided against it. Selective deafness worked just as well. "All I meant was that breakfast is a very important meal in this house. As you said, my house, my rules. If you dislike what I make, I'm perfectly willing to prepare you something separate. I don't like to see people not eat."
"Oh," Kakashi sighed, deflating slightly. He was still tempted to do a little kitchen demonstration to prove his manliness and lack of scrawny teenager-ness. If the kids walked in Sasuke would take one look, do a full body twitch, turn on his heel, and walk right back out. Naruto would probably do a repeat of earlier and explode in outrage. Not only would it serve as a temptation to Iruka, it would be amusing as well.
"I take it you don't usually eat breakfast?" prodded Iruka.
Kakashi looked over in distraction. "No, we usually stick with coffee in the morning."
Bad thing to say. Very wrong thing to say. Iruka froze, his hand curled so tightly over the little fruit knife he'd been using on the tomatoes that his knuckles turned white. Kakashi was already wincing by the time he finally looked up. Iruka looked up slowly, stiffly, with narrow brown eyes.
"We?"
Kakashi fidgeted. "Ah...well, I'm a bachelor, you know. Old habits. I've been drinking complimentary hotel coffee since I was twelve. The pots are so small it's not more than a few cups each..."
He absolutely would not admit how much he enjoyed the twitchy restrained hyper activity Sasuke displayed when he was jarred awake by a caffeine high. And it wasn't as if he hadn't tried to get Sasuke to eat in the mornings. The last time he'd reheated his signature soup-stew from the night before, the kid had taken one look and made a run for the bathroom. Kakashi suspected Sasuke was allergic to one of the ingredients. He'd been eating it for years, with relish, and he'd never had trouble keeping it down.
"Don't tell me you never drank coffee as a kid," Kakashi said quickly, with a winning smile.
Iruka's dangerous frown lightened just a bit. "I did. In the evenings. To stay awake. Never for breakfast."
"Most important meal of the day?" Kakashi ventured. Iruka gave a sharp nod. "Well, if you want to keep the brat off the coffee, I'm sure he'll listen to you. He ate enough for three people this morning. He definitely likes you."
Iruka made a noncommittal hum and went back to preparing the salad. Sasuke didn't like him. Maybe he would eventually. Right now he was simply trying to avoid trouble. Iruka had recognized that immediately. The entire time Sasuke had spoken to him that morning, he'd looked uncomfortable. It was forced and impersonal. Iruka had behaved the exact same way when he'd gone alone to Japan after living with Hiko and Tenka for so long. There were two common ways for a defensive child to keep people at a distance. Iruka had done them both. It was either being abrasive so they didn't want anything to do with him, or being so painfully polite that they barely noticed him. He was glad Sasuke had chosen the latter approach with him. It was much harder to befriend abrasive teenagers.
.-.
Naruto found him in the backyard, seated on one of the large rocks at the edge of the trees. There were four of those rocks, mini boulders as Naruto liked to call them. They were two feet high and squished on the top and bottom so they were perfect for sitting. He'd literally stumbled across them in the fields and drug them home to mark the corners of his would-be garden. It wasn't a garden yet because he hadn't decided what to plant there. He'd spent all of spring sitting on one of the rocks and staring at his little eight by twelve patch of dirt. He kept getting distracted by the rocks, all four of which were speckled with shiny spots, rough patches, and faint etchings that reminded him of scars or fossils. He had to admit they looked especially interesting now that they were wet. That didn't stop him from immediately feeling annoyed at the sight of someone else sitting there.
Actually, he'd been annoyed before he even got outside. Iruka wasn't being himself at all. Iruka hadn't said a word about them being wet, he didn't make him finish cleaning up his mess, and he didn't even look exasperated when Sasuke went right back outside. Then there was Kyuubi, who'd been faking sleep for the last hour. Naruto knew he wasn't really asleep and Kyuubi knew that Naruto knew. So why was he even bothering to pretend? The only thing Naruto could come up with was that Kyuubi was busy thinking things he didn't want Naruto to overhear. Kyuubi almost never hid things anymore. Everyone was acting weird and it all led back to Sasuke. Sasuke, who was currently sitting on one of his rocks and staring at his patch of dirt as if it were his own personal brooding spot.
Naruto stopped a few feet away and crossed his arms. The rain had calmed into a steady drizzle that barely made it through the edge of the trees. He was still getting wet, and his jacket was already damp from earlier. All Sasuke's fault.
"What's your problem?" Naruto glowered. "If you're mad at me, fine, don't take it out on Iruka-sensei. He was just trying to help."
"What's buried here?" asked Sasuke. He was staring over his folded hands at the barren mud patch. He heard Naruto make a distracted sound behind him.
"Nothing right now. It's gonna be my garden once I plant something." Sasuke gave no sign of having heard him. Naruto stalked as close as he could get without stepping in the mud. "That's my rock you're sitting on, too, so the least you can do is look at me when I'm talking to you."
Sasuke gave a slow look over his shoulder. "Do you want me to move?"
Naruto stared in surprise. Sasuke's eyes were half-lidded, as if he were bored, but the irises were a dark vivid red. There were two black marks angled on either side of the pupils, the top ones only half visible. Kyuubi stopped pretending he wasn't paying attention. Naruto wasn't the least bit surprised. Pretty eyes? More like dangerous and exotic. And Sasuke was already exotic compared to the locals here, with his pale complexion and Asian features. Naruto had never drawn as many stares living in Japan as Sasuke had the second they'd walked into the rental place.
'Okay,' Naruto muttered, 'I admit it. He's really hot.'
Kyuubi gave a wistful sigh. 'I told you so.'
'He's still a jerk,' Naruto added firmly.
Sasuke continued to stare at him as if he were waiting for something. Naruto took that as an invitation to stare right back. He was sitting on the edge of the rock, legs bent, with his elbows propped on his thighs. With his head turned to look over his shoulder like that, Naruto could see a pale scar on the back of his neck that was probably hidden by his hair most of the time. Naruto never scarred, so he was always obscenely interested in them. Iruka did his best to discourage that as being unhealthy, while Kyuubi encouraged it as being a normal boyish obsession with gruesome injuries. At the moment, that little scar reminded Naruto of how nasty the burn on Sasuke's hand had looked, and the way he'd just sat there as if it didn't even hurt. That was probably a conceited macho thing, but it was still kinda cool.
"How did you get that scar?" asked Naruto. He completely forgot his annoyance in favor of hearing something potentially disturbing. He didn't realize his eyes had lit up with eager interest, so he was a bit confused when Sasuke gave a disgruntled frown.
"I got knocked through a window," Sasuke muttered. His eyebrow twitched when Naruto's face lit up even more.
"Seriously?" Naruto gaped. "That's so cool. Were you fighting with a mutant? I got a broken nose once, but I heal really fast so it's not even crooked now. He was just your average moron, anyway. He just got lucky. I've never fought a mutant. Was he really strong?"
"No," Sasuke said, frowning more. He didn't want to talk about this. It was distracting and Naruto's energy was flickering strangely, too unnerving for him to relax the sharingan. It was as if the more excited Naruto got, the more his energy reacted. And Sasuke didn't know enough about energy signals to know if that were normal or not.
Naruto blinked. "No, he wasn't strong, or no, he wasn't a mutant?"
"Both," said Sasuke. He forced himself to look away, his gaze turning back to that muddy patch. "He wasn't a mutant. He was..." How had Naruto put it? "...just your average moron."
"Oh," Naruto sighed. He frowned in disappointment for a moment. Then a slow smirk slid onto his face. "Wait, you mean you got knocked through a window by a moron? And here I thought you were strong."
'He is,' Kyuubi said sharply. Naruto ignored him.
Sasuke didn't so much as twitch. In fact, he relaxed and turned a condescendingly bored look on Naruto. "I don't use my talents on morons."
"I don't either," Naruto said quickly. "But I still don't get pushed through windows. Was he like drunk or something, so you didn't fight back? There's gotta be a story behind it - mutants just don't get beat up by average morons. We run away or fight back, everyone knows that. That's why there are so many runaway mutants all over the place."
He knew that for a fact. It was part of the whole 'mutant history' thing Iruka had told him when they first started living together. The second generation and all that. They either got beat up and their talents came out to defend them, or they get tossed out by bad parents and had to use their talents to protect themselves from everyone else. Yeah, there were some who supposedly got kidnapped from loving families by people wanting to experiment on young mutants, but Naruto wasn't sure he actually believed those stories. He couldn't imagine good parents like Iruka just letting their kids get kidnapped without going to the police, the papers, and telling the world until they got their kids back and the bad guys got theirs. Besides, even with those stories, the kids supposedly broke out and escaped by using their talents.
'If they kill the parents, there's no one left to look for the missing children,' Kyuubi reminded him.
'Maybe,' said Naruto. 'I still say if it happened as often as people say, there'd be some proof of it.'
'You're proof of it,' Kyuubi said sharply. 'No parents, no extended family, no proof that you were ever born.'
'One hell of a conspiracy,' Naruto whispered back, in a playful tone. 'I know, I know. I still say I just got dumped, some morons tried to hurt me, and my talents came out to protect me. You don't remember anything before that, so anything else is just guesses. I'll believe it when I see it.'
"I don't fight humans," Sasuke said dismissively, turning away again.
"So?" Naruto prodded.
Sasuke leaned forward and frowned at the mud. "So nothing. Some morons were fighting and I was too slow to get out of the way. It didn't involve me." He'd also been nine at the time and too small to elbow his way through the crowd, but that was beside the point.
"It didn't involve you until you got knocked through the window," Naruto scoffed. "What would you do if someone pulled a gun on you?"
"Dodge or disarm him," Sasuke said, in that same monotone voice. He'd only been in one encounter where that had happened. Since then he'd learned how close was too close to get to people like that.
"And if a moron picked a fight with you?" prodded Naruto.
"Ignore him."
Naruto's face screwed up in a disgruntled scowl. That was exactly what Iruka had been telling him to do for years now. Ignore them. Walk away. Don't sink to their level. Don't be baited. He'd never thought to hear something like that from someone his own age. That was the sort of stuff adults said, even though they'd never followed that advice when they were kids, either. They might as well tell the kid to take his punches like a good little doormat.
Naruto gave Sasuke a wincing look. "You're gonna be in trouble once school starts. Seriously. If you don't fight back, the morons'll have a field day with you."
Sasuke ignored him. There was still something odd about that muddy patch. He was more interested in that than Naruto's warning. Morons didn't concern him. The footprints did. They were fresh, not deep enough for the shoe size, and they were in the center of the patch as if the person had dropped out of the sky, taken one step toward the house, and then disappeared. His first thought was that a mutant had been here. Someone who'd purposely left a very telling sign behind. And it was far too early for it to be someone sent by Itachi. Someone who'd already been here and had noticed the new arrivals? He didn't think so. His gut was telling him it was a mutant, but he didn't have any of his instinctive wariness when he looked at those marks. That made him even more worried.
"Where'd you get that one?"
Sasuke blinked and sent a sharp frown at Naruto. The blonde was pointing at the patchy scar on his left knee, once more wearing an eager interested expression. Sasuke fought back a twitch. He wasn't used to people even noticing his scars. His skin was pale enough that they weren't visible from a distance, and most of the ones not hidden by his clothes and hair were so old they were hard to see up close. The last time he'd lost a fight badly enough to walk away with scars was when he'd been distracted by Kakashi. Sure enough, the scar Naruto was looking at with the same morbid curiosity he'd given his hand was one of those. There was no way he'd admit how he'd gotten that one.
"Are there other mutants in this town?" asked Sasuke.
"Huh?" Naruto blinked. "You mean besides me and Iruka-sensei? I don't think so. Hiko's supposed to have a kid who's a mutant, and a mutant boyfriend who usually stays with him, but they haven't been here since we moved." He waved a hand vaguely over his shoulder, gesturing to the house. "Hiko's a friend of Iruka-sensei. He's the one who taught me how to fight. He's pretty good, but he's not a mutant. He says there aren't any others. I'm pretty sure he's right, cause I'd have noticed if I saw one."
"You can tell a mutant on sight?" Sasuke frowned. He could do that now, but it was a recent addition. He couldn't do it without activating the sharingan, which meant it was also a rather useless addition. It wasn't as if he could walk around town with the sharingan looking for possible mutants. He'd gotten enough stares from people who assumed he was normal. He didn't want to think of how many he'd have gotten with red eyes. Of course, he did have a pair of sunglasses he'd used in the past, but they'd have drawn far too much attention on such a dark rainy day.
Naruto didn't answer right away. Was this another of those 'not worth lying about' things? Kyuubi thought so. But Kyuubi wasn't the one who had to deal with the weird looks.
"Not really sight," Naruto said reluctantly. "It's kinda like smelling blood from a distance. But it's not smell, either. I just...know."
'I know,' Kyuubi corrected him. 'Ask him what the pervert's talent is.'
Naruto blinked. 'Why now?'
'Because you want to distract him from asking more about you,' Kyuubi sighed. 'And we need to know. This is a good time to find out, while he's already talking.'
"What talents does the pervert have?" asked Naruto. "I know he can be dangerous if he touches us, but not why. I don't want him touching me, anyway, but what would happen if he did?"
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Naruto could tell that Kakashi's talent relied on touch, but not what the talent was? Something else about that statement caught his attention. "Us?"
Naruto flinched and blurted, "Anyone, I mean, mutants in general. Me and Iruka-sensei mostly. I know he touched you guys and nothing happened, but something could if he used his talent, right? Something bad?"
Sasuke let it go for now. If Naruto had more talents than his abnormal strength, he'd find out eventually. Right now he felt a wave of sympathy, for someone who would probably end up as one of Kakashi's victims once the man got down to business. Better that Naruto be warned in advance. "Kakashi copies talents by touch. It doesn't always work. When it fails, he's the one at risk, not the person he's trying to copy." He glanced pointedly at Naruto. "He lost the free use of his left eye when he tried to copy me. Because our talents are too similar. Where he copies talents by touch, I copy talents by sight."
Naruto's eyes widened. He stood motionless, but inside he was giddy - and a little guilty.
'I told you,' Kyuubi was muttering. Naruto was bouncing around too much to pay attention.
'He copies talents,' Naruto rambled, more to himself than anything. 'Talents. Meaning he's got a bunch of them. That's gotta be enough. If we fight we'd have to come up with new tricks just to keep up, right? It's just like Iruka-sensei said about how most mutants discover their talents because they're backed into a corner where they instinctively act. And you said he's strong, so he'd be able to really push us and then we can-'
'He won't fight us.'
Naruto's giddy rambling came to a dead stop. Kyuubi's tone was sober, almost wistful.
'What do you mean?' Naruto demanded. 'Why wouldn't he? He copies talents - we got lots of talents and we'll have more once we figure out how to do them. You said he's strong, well, we're strong and strong guys always want to get stronger - you gotta fight strong people to get stronger. Why wouldn't he want to fight us?'
'First,' said Kyuubi, 'he doesn't know we're strong. While he suspects we are, he won't act without proof. You won't tell him anything about yourself.'
'I might,' Naruto said slowly. 'I mean, if I have to tell him so he's interested, then I will. He just out and told me what his talent is, so...'
'Second,' Kyuubi continued, 'he's too dangerous to spar with.'
'Are you saying he'd beat us?' Naruto demanded, outraged. 'What the hell, Kyuubi! The first strong mutant we run into and now you're too scared to fight him? I thought you were all eager to attack him, what happened to 'jump him before the rain starts'? What's your problem?'
Kyuubi gave a vague full body turn that meant he was about to go back to sleep, or back to feigning sleep in this case. When he spoke, it was with a morose tone. 'His reactions are wrong.'
'You're talking about the way he looked at me earlier,' Naruto frowned. 'He was just surprised cause he's not used to us. You saw the way the pervert did it - cause he's more used to him. And he didn't do anything when Iruka-sensei touched him, cause he was expecting it, right?'
'Maybe,' Kyuubi murmured.
Naruto sent a frustrated scowl at Kyuubi's curled back. The fox was mock-sleeping again, just like that. Well, two could play that game. He squared his shoulders and pushed all thoughts of weird mind-changing foxes out of his head. That's when he noticed that he was currently standing alone in the back yard. He jumped, looking around in surprise. How long had he been chatting with Kyuubi? He was so used to it he could do it without losing track of what was going on around him. He hadn't 'lost time' in years. He was sure they'd only been talking for a minute or two.
Sure enough, Sasuke hadn't gotten far. He was walking along the edge of the bordering trees, scanning the ground and branches with the same steady interest he'd given the neighborhood earlier. Naruto went after him. Once he caught up, he could see that Sasuke's eyes were still red. They weren't as bored and heavy lidded now. In fact, Sasuke looked a little edgy. Nervous, maybe.
"What are you looking for?" asked Naruto.
Sasuke ignored him. It wasn't easy. It hadn't been easy to walk away from him, either. They'd been talking, well, Naruto had been talking, and then the blonde had gone quiet. His eyes had dimmed, focused on nothing, but his expression continued to be animated as if he were listening to something only he could hear. Frankly it was unnerving to witness. Sasuke had seen the same thing on their walk back. This time he'd had the sharingan active to tell him that it wasn't just Naruto's face that changed - his energy had flickered, too. Whatever it was, he didn't like it. He'd gotten a sudden urge to be somewhere else. And Naruto hadn't even noticed him getting up and walking off. Distracting. Bad enough the boy kept talking to him, he didn't want to get involved in Naruto's issues.
The house was too big. Sasuke had suspected as much when they'd first gone into it and he'd seen how empty the livingroom was. They hadn't been living there long. But there was more to it than that. He could tell by looking at the outside that there was a third floor, possibly a tipped fourth attic floor as well. The main hall upstairs was too narrow to account for the depth of the exterior, suggesting another section at least as large as the one he'd seen. He needed to explore the interior. Iruka wasn't going to like that.
"Are you ignoring me...?"
Obviously. Sasuke kept his attention focused on the house. There was a window on the second floor that would give quick access to the roof. It was on the end, the next to last room before the bathroom. Kakashi's room. His eyes narrowed as he thought about the trouble he'd have to go through to get the man to switch with him. Was it worth it? The drop from his own window wasn't that far. If someone tried to get in from the roof, they'd have to go through Kakashi's room first. The man was a lazy pervert, but he was also eerily sly when it came to noticing things. With him in that room, no one would get further than the window sill. Assuming they even got that far. Kakashi's hearing was even better than Sasuke's. Best to leave it, then.
"What's your problem!"
You. Sasuke almost said it this time. He bit it back and turned away from the house. He'd have to do something about Naruto. Soon. Right now he had an hour before dark. He'd have to go in then to keep his word to Iruka. Yes, he could always sneak out later, and he probably would do that. But he wanted see as much as possible while there was still some natural light to see by. Using the sharingan to see through the dark took more energy than he liked.
The trees thickened further in, clusters of bushes and weeds until it almost looked like a real forest. Not that Sasuke had seen many 'real' forests. This one was heavy with tall grass from the fields. The trees themselves all looked the same to him. He wondered if Naruto knew what kind of trees they were. Then he winced at his own thought. It was very difficult to completely ignore someone who was throwing a tantrum two feet away. The trees. Yes, he was only focused on the trees at the moment. They were sturdy affairs with branches so heavy a person could travel from the field to the house without touching the ground. That thought caught hold with a vengeance.
Sasuke turned on his heel, sidestepping Naruto, who'd just edged closer than before. He went back to the muddy patch of dirt and judged the distance from those footprints to the nearest trees. It didn't seem likely. The jump was too far, the impact would leave heavy impressions in the mud, and the person would have to have jumped backwards to get back to the trees because there weren't any prints in the surrounding grass. That was why he'd dismissed the idea earlier. Now he remembered one of the mutants Kakashi had tracked recently. A willowy blonde man who'd moved as if he were walking on air. Sasuke had copied that, but he hadn't had a reason to test it yet. It was one thing to know he could mimic something he'd seen. Figuring out how to do it was considerably harder.
He concentrated on being light. Easy enough. He was naturally graceful, fast enough that he didn't stay on the ground long during a conflict. But this was dancing. He made a darting rush to the side and turned, grass ghosting over his ankles. His steps were still visible. They were lighter, yes, but clearly visible to anyone who know what to look for. The rain was weighing him down. Not really, but he felt as if it were. And his sandals were strapped too tightly, keeping him flat footed. A sharingan copied image passed through his mind, the blonde man the first time they'd spotted him. He'd been standing more on his toes, and he'd been relaxed. Boneless, even. Fluid. The only time Sasuke achieved that state was when he woke up in a daze. Trying to force it would only-
A hand closed over his left wrist. Sasuke whipped around and caught himself, his right hand inches away from Naruto's neck. His first relieved thought was that the blow wouldn't have killed the idiot. He'd have been knocked away, left choking from the impact, but he wouldn't have died. Sasuke would have realized who it was before he could follow up with an actual attack. His second thought was that the idiot was faster and quieter than he'd given him credit for. Naruto had been at least five feet away and he hadn't heard his approach at all.
"Well," Naruto glowered, "that's one way to get your attention."
Naruto was furious. Frustrated and hurt, too, because he'd been sure they were getting along a few minutes ago. He was trying really hard to get past that insulting first meeting, and to not peg Sasuke as a complete asshole. So what did Sasuke do on his end? Insult his use of the stove, get burned in his place as if Naruto needed someone to protect him, refuse to let him help with the injury, get him in trouble with Iruka, and then walk away and ignore him like he wasn't even there. Naruto could get past the whole kitchen thing, because Sasuke had been trying to help, and he didn't really mind not being the one with the skin burned off his hand. If he looked at it that way, Sasuke was a pretty good guy. Ignoring him, though, that was too much. It wasn't as if Sasuke had anything better to do than to hang out while they waited for dinner. All he was doing was walking around looking at stuff. And doing odd little turns in the grass. Naruto admitted he kind of liked that last bit because there was something tempting about the way Sasuke moved. It made him want to tackle the guy, ruin that perfect balance and knock him off his feet. Maybe get into a nice fist fight while he was at it to make up for the weirdness Sasuke was creating in Iruka and Kyuubi.
"Let go," Sasuke said sharply.
Naruto immediately tightened his grip. He'd let go earlier when Kyuubi told him to and where had that gotten him? Aside from asking about the umbrella, Sasuke had ignored him the rest of the way home. He knew if he let go now Sasuke would go right back to ignoring him. Even fighting and getting in more trouble with Iruka was better than being ignored.
"Make me," Naruto shot back. Sasuke's dangerous expression flickered for a moment, revealing wary surprise. Naruto gave a smug grin. "I bet you can't."
Sasuke's eyebrow twitched. What was Naruto trying to do, get himself killed? He forced his left hand to unclench. Naruto promptly loosened his hold so the bones weren't grinding together as much. Stupid. In a match of brute strength he'd never have gotten free without sacrificing his wrist in the process.
Naruto had one flashing moment of surprise before he found himself lying on his back. Sasuke had smirked at him. Yeah, it was a dark smirk, more insulting than anything, but it looked good on him. And he'd been too startled to feel wary about why exactly Sasuke had gone from looking cornered to being darkly amused. Then Sasuke had done one of those half turns Naruto had found so tempting to watch and the rain dampened wrist he was holding slipped free. He blinked sprinkles out of his eyes, scowling in annoyance, and tried to figure out what Sasuke had done to get him off his feet. One minute Sasuke was pulling his wrist free and the next Naruto couldn't see him anymore.
'He dropped and kicked your feet out from under you, moron,' Kyuubi supplied.
'Oh,' Naruto sniffed. He pushed himself up and glowered at Sasuke, who was once more doing his graceful little movements at the edge of the would-be garden as if the encounter hadn't even happened.
'Iruka is going to complain about the grass stains,' Kyuubi pointed out helpfully. He sounded rather amused.
'He never liked this coat, anyway,' Naruto said dismissively. He hopped up and approached Sasuke. The boy didn't even glance in his direction.
Kyuubi shifted restlessly. 'I'm telling you to leave it alone.'
'No way.'
'You can't take him by yourself,' Kyuubi said quickly, speaking faster the closer Naruto got to his target. 'The only way you'll beat him is if you attack with the aim to kill.'
'I don't want to kill him,' Naruto said, in a calm casual tone. 'I want to introduce him to my garden. He was staring at it so much earlier, I think he'd like to get a closer look.'
'I can't talk you out of this?' Kyuubi sighed.
'Nope.'
'Idiot,' Kyuubi said, wistfully, and fondly because Naruto was his idiot. 'Do you want my help?'
'Nah, not this time,' said Naruto. 'If I can't get him to eat mud, I'll let you play next time. You can even bite him if you want. He looks like he needs a good bite.'
Kyuubi perked up, going from reluctant to eager so fast his fur fluffed. They were on the same level now. 'I knew you'd see it my way.'
'Yeah,' Naruto admitted. 'We're the same, so it was probably a given. Quiet now, I'm gonna pounce.'
'Pounce away,' Kyuubi beamed proudly.
Naruto stopped a few feet away, tensed for a split second and then lunged. Sasuke turned before his feet left the ground. He was ready for him this time, twisting into the lunge and pushing him further. Naruto immediately thought of the 'toss' Hiko had used on him during their last mock fight. He'd already come up with a way to counter that the next time Hiko tried it on him. He applied it to Sasuke now. He grabbed hold of Sasuke's arm, his other hand clenching tight on the back of his shirt. They went down together. Naruto rolled when he struck the mud, using his weight to push Sasuke off him and his grip on his shirt to keep him from getting free. Sasuke made a blurred move with his free arm, and Naruto felt something like a slap on the center of his neck. Then it turned into a slow burn. He didn't realize his throat had closed up until Kyuubi surged forward in a haze of orange to heal the spot.
'Told you to stay out of it,' Naruto shot at Kyuubi, distractedly. Sasuke was really hard to hold onto. He'd gotten him onto one shoulder, but he couldn't seem to push him all the way onto his back. The hand shoving against his neck kept them apart so far that he was afraid he'd rip Sasuke's shirt. He'd already lost his grip on Sasuke's arm, what with the rain and the mud making the skin too slippery for traction.
A sandaled foot shoved against Naruto's stomach. Naruto heard Kyuubi give an excited cry about Sasuke's flexibility as he lost his grip and fell back. Then he was scrambling up again. He tried to kick Sasuke's feet out from under him the same way Sasuke must have done to him earlier. Sasuke jerked back and lost traction. He went down on one knee before he caught his balance. That was just long enough for Naruto to tackle him again. This time he hit him head on and had the pleasure of seeing Sasuke's head snap back until mud splattered up onto his cheeks. Naruto grinned, unaware that his own face was just as splattered. He twisted sideways so there'd be no chance of Sasuke kicking him off again. Then he leaned down to smirk at Sasuke's expression. He looked livid, more shocked and furious than anything. It was nothing like that dead dangerous stare he'd given him earlier.
"Now what?" Naruto taunted. "It must be really hard to ignore me like this, eh?"
Sasuke stared in rising horror. Where they children? This wasn't a fight, it was a...wrestling match. Here he was, rolling around in the mud with someone who had nothing to do with Itachi or fighting for his life, and the one who'd attacked him wasn't even using his talents. Oh, he'd noticed the way that energy had flared when he'd slammed the heel of his hand into Naruto's windpipe, some healing or protecting counter that kept the injury from choking him the way it was supposed to. But aside from that Naruto hadn't done anything except throw his weight around. And all of this because he'd ignored him?
"Get off," Sasuke growled. He didn't want to be the one to bring talents into this mess, but he wasn't about to resort to twisting and squirming his way free. He'd have to leave his shirt behind to do that and just the thought of Kakashi's reaction when he went inside muddy and shirtless made his stomach turn over. "Now," Sasuke added, when Naruto continued to grin at him.
"Make me," Naruto said, grinning wider than ever. Sasuke's eyebrow started twitching. Naruto laughed and pushed harder on Sasuke's arm, forcing him deeper into the mud. He'd finally planted something in his garden. The thought made him laugh harder. That was all the incentive Sasuke needed.
"Die," Sasuke hissed.
His left hand shot out, palm flat against Naruto's throat. Then he poured enough electricity into the moron to make his muddy blonde hair stand on end. Naruto let out a chattering yipe and fell over. Sasuke calmly righted himself, brushing clumps of mud off his arms and legs as he watched Naruto sizzle. The blonde gave a few spasming twitches before lying still. Unfortunately he was still breathing. A few stuttering gasps later and he was talking as well. Sasuke's eyebrow twitched. He should have gone with his first instinct and send those volts into his brain. At least then he would have been out cold for a while.
"You shocked me," Naruto gasped, gaping and panting at the muddy teenager standing beside him. "That fucking hurt...!"
"It was supposed to," said Sasuke.
"Well, duh," Naruto muttered. He was getting his breath back now. Kyuubi was snickering in his head at having had to help him yet again. Naruto didn't really care. He'd just been electrocuted. He blinked dazedly at Sasuke, who was looking almost cute now that he was standing up with mud all over him and that exasperated and wary expression on his face. Naruto pushed himself up and gave a weak smile. "I admit, that was really fun..."
Sasuke backed away slowly. The blonde wasn't sane. That was the only explanation. He'd used that attack on grown men and left them shuddering for an hour, more than long enough to finish them off or make a slow escape. Naruto was already climbing to his feet and going on about how neat the attack was, as if he hadn't just been on the receiving end of it.
"Next time we fight, I'll show you one of my moves," Naruto said, with an excited grin. "I don't have a lot of attacks, but I got some great moves. There's one I've been trying to figure out where I can be in two places at once. I'm sure I can do it, I just never had anyone fast enough to push me into it, you know? You're definitely fast enough. Squirmy, too. I was planning to rub your face in the mud for ignoring me, just so you know. You made it so hard just to pin you that I gave up, like trying to hold onto a worm or something." He smirked and rubbed a hand on his neck. "And what was that move you did with your hand? Feels like I've been yelling a lot - it was like that before you fried me."
Sasuke just stared warily at him, as if he were afraid whatever Naruto had might be contagious.
"Whatever," Naruto waved. "We can talk about that stuff later. Iruka-sensei's gonna have a holy fit when he sees us." He grimaced a little, and then waved that off, too. "Before that..."
He picked his way out of his newly tilled mud garden. Sasuke backed away some more. Naruto frowned a little at the odd wariness. Then he shrugged and held out a hand.
"Good spar," smiled Naruto. His happy expression faltered a breath when Sasuke just stood there staring. "It won't kill you to shake."
"Says you," Sasuke muttered.
He gave his hand, just to keep Naruto from grabbing it. His hand was shaken up and down twice before Naruto let go. Sasuke promptly took another step back. He remained a safe distance away as Naruto led the way into the house. Iruka let out a shout the second Naruto passed through the back door. Sasuke dropped his head in humiliation. He didn't know what was worse, Iruka's horrified reaction, or Kakashi's perverted mud wrestling comments.
.-.
TBC