I've rewritten this prologue. If you read the first version, I'd like it if you could please read this and tell me what you think!

-Kodak

When you write down his name, and just stare, the letters begin to bleed and thrum with the word's own heartbeat. Press your ear to the table. Every thud, every thump, until you realize it's your own heartbeat echoing back at you. It picks up; lift your head, stare, and miss until it [aches] deep in your bones. Your veins petrify, and an eternity passes within a few seconds.

You stare at the name and realize all over again that that is all that is left.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Once rigor mortis has set in, what in the world is left to bend?

Snap.

Vox vocas.

I can hear your heartbeat in mine. I'll breathe for you. A voice within a voice.

"Their words, mostly noises. Ghosts with just voices. Your words in my memory are like music to me."

Set the Fire to the Third Bar, by Snow Patrol

October 1, 2007

"Pot," Asuma grumbled under his breath.

Kurenai waited the obligatory amount of time for incredulity's sake, and after a long and expectant pause, considered it her unfortunate duty to ask for elaboration. "What about it?"

"That's what Americans deal in, right?" Asuma drew back to throw her a quick glance, the curtain bunched up in his right fist. He was speaking around his last cigarette of the night, and Kurenai eyed the cherry with a mildly considering look. A few more hits to kill it, then a book, and bed…

"You mean the drug?"

"Yeah."

"What about it?" she repeated.

"I think that's what the new neighbors are doing," Asuma mumbled around a long drag, and Kurenai tried very hard to act surprised. "What do you think?"

Kurenai glanced at the clock on the wall and folded her magazine, returning it to the coffee table. "I think I'm heading to bed. Six gets here awfully early—"

"No, Kurenai, what do you think?" he asked sternly.

Asuma had been asking her variations of this same question for the past two months, a week after their new neighbors turned down their dinner invite for the third time. Kurenai didn't much have a problem with the reclusive nature of them. From what she gathered from the rumor mill, the older man was a professor from the United States who'd traveled to Poland with a graduate student in order to study localized business psychology at one of the universities. They did research and write ups during the day, and left during the night for the laboratories. Another reclusive trait. They avoided the business of the town during the day, preferring to conduct their business in the general calm the late hours provided.

However, this slightly peculiar behavior was nothing compared to the look of them, which she knew her husband honed in on. The older gentleman looked fine—he was a little ragged, but generic in his looks. It was his young protégée that drew the concerned glances and inspired hushed gossip.

And it was here that Kurenai could see where Asuma drew the drug connection. The young man—"Sasuke," he'd introduced himself in a short tone, barely giving Asuma's hand a shake before quickly dropping it—had a drawn, starved look about him. There were deep shadows beneath his dark eyes. His hair had a slightly unkempt look to it, like he hadn't slept the night before. He dressed in casual nondescript clothing, but that seemed to only highlight his differences. It was like dressing dog in human clothing—you noticed it more when it tried to blend in.

And not only that, but there was something… trying about being in his presence. From the brief snatches of his voice and glimpses of his visage as he trailed his mentor to their car, Kurenai herself felt exhausted. She'd tried many times to place a word to his personality, to his very existence in this tiny backwater spit of a city, and had so far come up short.

"The neighbors aren't dealing pot," Kurenai sighed, standing and scratching the back of her neck.

Asuma frowned at her, but finally closed the curtains on the outline of the house on the hill. "Why are you always defending them?"

"Why are you always attacking them?" Kurenai countered. "I'm going to bed," she repeated, heading for the stairs, not waiting to see if her husband would follow. It was when her hand touched the wooden banister, skin prickling a bit at the rough and dented wood, when she finally found a word to label the strange boy with.

Lonely, Kurenai realized, mouthing the word and feeling the weight of it on her lips like slow-acting poison. He looked so very lonely.

Sasukeh set the lamp back where it was supposed to be. Ignoring the cracked body of it, he set upon picking up the other things scattered about the floor; his notebook, a stack of maps, a few emptied donor bags. A flashlight, the switch snapped cleanly off. Torch, Sasukeh corrected himself, spinning it slowly in his hand before returning it to the bedside table. That's what they call it here, isn't it? The torch was placed on top of a short stack of books and an even taller pile of maps from which the few scattered on the floor had spilt. Italy, Greece, Germany, Scotland, Canada-but none of the States.

Sasukeh left the cold bed and went on a familiar pursuit. It was most certainly not his internal clock that had woke him up, but a loud crash a few rooms down. Sasukeh had chosen a location on the outmost borders of Manchester. The complex was bookended by a retirement facility and the community center, assuring near quiet during the day time. It provided a slightly larger problem, though, when it came to fresh food. There was a fine line between matured drink and toxicity. A few too many drops of blood from any one person in their seventies or eighties could put one in a stupor for days.

Nevertheless, having lived in so many places in his lifetime Sasukeh was well-accustomed to sleeping in new and strange locations, and passing through the noise in quiet content.

The problem was, Naruto wasn't.

Sasukeh found him in the kitchen and inwardly cursed. Naruto had unknotted one corner of the black curtain, but luckily for Sasukeh his bravado has ended there. All the same, a wavering eye-shaped pod of light bubbled on the linoleum floor like a spot of lava.

"Naruto," Sasukeh sighed, roughly tousling his hair with his good hand and tucking the other into the pocket of his sleeping pants. It always hurt when he saw that light. "What are you doing?" he asked, knowing the answer. This wasn't the first time Naruto had woken up before him. But it was happening at an alarmingly increasing rate lately. Sasukeh had more broken nights of sleep than none, waking in cold fear to find Naruto missing from their bed.

But he was right there, sitting cross-legged upon the ground and staring hard at the spot on the floor, rubbing absent-mindedly at the spot on his upper arm. Sasukeh winced in sympathy.

"Just looking," Naruto shrugged, trying to smile but only managing a grimace. "Dunno."

"Come back to bed," Sasukeh insisted, holding out a hand and stepping closer. He was careful not to get in the range of the light. When Naruto didn't take the offered hand, nor did he even look at it, Sasukeh sighed once more and went to the window. Carefully, he edged the curtain closed, tying the knot securely once more.

Naruto blinked as if awaking from a deep stupor. Shaking his head, he watched as Sasukeh knelt before him where the light had been. "You know you can't go near it."

"I know," Naruto said, shrugging his shoulders again. He smiled, and this time it was a little more real. Sasukeh relaxed. "I just… feel like I miss it."

Sasukeh chuckled, leaning forward to kiss him on the mouth. Naruto hummed, flicking a piece of Sasukeh's bangs from between them and curving his neck to meet him. Sasukeh settled his hand on the junction between Naruto's neck and shoulder. The skin was as cool as stone, and soft as cashmere.

"How many times am I going to have to tell you," Sasukeh growled playfully, resting his forehead against Naruto's and looking the younger vampire in the eye.

"You haven't seen the sun in over a hundred years."

Japan, Winter, 1589

With curious fingers, Sasuke ran a rough thumb between the seam of the child's lips. Playfully, Naruto bit down and the warrior hissed, pulling back his bleeding hand. Naruto laughed, running a small pink tongue over his fangs to taste Sasuke's blood.

Europe, Spring, 1905

Sasukeh leaned his head on a hand, patiently listening to Naruto's most recent string of questions and answering quietly in the hush of the night. Sasukeh could feel Naruto's warm arm still thrown over his hip, fingers tracing patterns into the small of his back. Sasukeh lost his train of thought, and when he forgot to answer one of Naruto's questions, Naruto forgave him.

America, Summer, 2005

Sasukeh hid himself in the shadows of a drooping maple tree, sharp bright eyes focused inside the window of the small two-story home. In it, Naruto draped himself over Sasuke's chest, tugging on the man's bangs. Sasuke slapped the hands away and with a playful air retaliated by leaning forward, pinching some skin of Naruto's bare shoulder in his teeth. Naruto yelped, then laughed and butted his head into Sasuke's chest. Outside, Sasukeh ran a gloved hand over his chest through which, hundreds of years ago, he would have felt a heartbeat.

Poland, Fall, 2007

Sasuke blinked his eyes open, his mind shuddering awake. He could hear Kakashi bustling about downstairs, could hear his own words, "I'll be back soon," echo back to him, and Naruto's answering, "I love you." Sasuke licked his lips and tasted the second kiss he never received.

On the first floor, Kakashi smiled at the ceiling before picking up the phone from its perch on the coffee table and carrying it outside to the front porch, sitting down on the stoop. His neighbor Asuma was just getting out of his car. When Kakashi twiddled his fingers daintily at the man, Asuma responded energetically with a hand gesture that, if Kurenai had seen it, would have earned him a weekend of nights spent on the couch. Kakashi cheered up significantly.

When the operator finally answered on the phone, Kakashi said, "I'd like to make a collect call…. Yes, they'll accept the charges." A few more questions, then, "Manchester, England…. Yes…. Thank you."

Kakashi was made to wait through two grueling minutes of elevator music before there was finally a dial tone. And then, a sleep-husky voice answered the phone. "Uchiha."

Kakashi beamed into the mouthpiece. "Sasukeh."

Instantly the voice became sharper. "Kakashi. I haven't heard from you in a while."

"Yes," Kakashi agreed. "Don't worry, I'll get straight to the point. I thought it only my duty to inform you that Sasuke has made himself a list of priorities. Amongst the top listed, there is included picking up our dry cleaning, fixing the leak in the roof, buying a couple of maps, and kicking your ass into the seventh layer of hell. Oh!" His eye crinkled upwards. "And I'm charging this phone bill to you. Hope Naruto's well. Ja!" And Kakashi hung up on Sasukeh's violently rising tones, and could have sworn he heard a second voice mumble something in the background before he hit the END button. Nevertheless, Kakashi wrote it off as a good start to the night, cracked the prepaid phone in half, and went to go kick Sasuke off the roof of the house.