Disclaimer: I once got a court hearting to argue why Naruto should belong to me. My case was that Mr. Kishimoto didn't understand the characters, and that by refusing to put Naruto and Sasuke together, he was denying true love and thus guilty of abuse... and that I should be given custody. The judge informed me that fictional characters do not have rights, and, since Mr. Kishimoto and I weren't married, he couldn't even grant me custody over said characters if he wanted to. So, I still don't own Naruto.

Sasuke and the Kyuubi
Chapter 11

"You're awfully quiet today, Gaara," Naruto purred from his perch in the window, basking in the midday sun. The air was cool and crisp, ghosting through his fur on a light breeze, yet the golden rays kept him warm. Naruto was content, at peace even, his mind less troubled after a good night's rest. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept so peacefully.

The confrontation between himself and Kakshi was still fresh, and Naruto knew he would have to apologize once more, but somehow his soul felt lighter. Though they had fought, the Naruto knew he and Kakashi had made peace—as strange as that might be.

"I'm always quiet," Gaara responded after a moment. He was focused upon brushing Naruto's tails, having insisted upon doing it himself when he'd seen the substandard job Kakashi had performed.

"Yes," the fox chuckled, "But today your silence is deafening. I can practically hear you thinking." This brought a smirk to the Kyuubi's lips, flashing a playful glint of fangs. "Tell me. What thoughts do you have churning in that wicked little brain of yours?" Naruto turned his amber eyes upon the red panda, watching his friend curiously.

Gaara frowned, trying to organize the thoughts he was being questioned about. "You are different," He finally spoke, as if this were the answer and his explanation all-in-one.

"Am I?" Naruto smiled with bemusement.

A nod was all he received in reply.

"Care to elaborate?" Naruto pressed. For some reason Gaara was being difficult today; usually their conversations were easier than this. Naruto could see his companion's brow set in a furrow, a strange harshness faceted in those opalescent eyes was the only hint as to an explanation for Gaara's hesitance.

"You were laughing," Gaara attempted to explain, "...with the boy."

"Yes," Naruto couldn't suppress the smile which formed from the memory.

"We..." Gaara's brow knit tighter in frustration, "...don't laugh anymore. Not together."

Naruto couldn't help the small chuckle that rumbled in his chest, "Why, Gaara, is that jealousy I hear?"

"No," the panda frowned.

Naruto leapt from the window, wrapping his arms and tails around the smaller creature and nuzzling Gaara's cheek with his own. "Don't be..." the fox purred. "I've been a bad friend lately, but I promise we'll have plenty to laugh about going forward."

Gaara raised a skeptical brown, but nodded in acceptance. He tried to hide his pleasure upon finding himself in Naruto's embrace. The fox's fur was soft, radiating with warmth as if it had absorbed the sunlight he'd been lazing about in. For Gaara, hugging Naruto was like being embraced by the noon sky—pleasurable and all encompassing.

"This should be enough..." the comment was barely a whisper.

Naruto's ears twitched, uncertain if he had actually heard anything, "Come again?"

"This." Gaara wrapped his arms tighter around Naruto, afraid to let go, as if Naruto would vanish from his world if Gaara were to release him. "What we are... should be enough."

"Gaara..." Naruto's ears fell flat against his skull, and his eyes softened. It appeared he would be having more than one soul searching conversation before the sun had fully risen.

"I should be enough," Gaara said firmly, his eyes hardening as he fixed Naruto with a glare.

"You should be enough," Naruto frowned. "Time and again I've wondered how you could put up with my idiocy..." There was a long, tired sigh as Naruto stood up and walked back to the window. He silently wondered if he had the strength to deal with this confrontation, of if he was just dreading the outcome. Something told him it wouldn't be quite as bloody as the one he had with Kakashi, but it would no doubt leave wounds just as serious. "We've been over this before."

"You've..." the smaller man paused, wrapping his long tail around himself defensively, "You've run from the subject before."

"I'm not good for you, Gaara," was the quiet response. "I'm no good for anyone."

"How can you say that?"

"Because it's the truth."

Gaara's eyes flashed with anger, "I've told you before that I'll always be there for you. I don't care about the curse, or the time. I'll be there to support you."

"I know you don't care, but I do!" Naruto growled. "You tell me that I'm fine the way I am, but I'm not." He didn't want to be angry, couldn't afford to get angry—not again. With a labored breath, Naruto forcibly calmed himself, deflating as he slumped against the window frame. "I need to be better..." he admitted.

"You need someone who understands," Gaara gently placed a clawed hand upon Naruto's shoulder, lightly running his fingers through the golden fur in a soothing manner.

"I need someone who will force me to be more than what I am," Naruto shrugged away from the touch, fixing his friend with a firm look.

Gaara stilled under the fiery gaze, and his own eyes hardened in return, "And you're saying I can't?"

"I'm saying you don't want to," Naruto corrected.

"Just because I accept you for what you are?" Gaara's voice cracked, rising an octave in disbelief. Every visible hair on his body stood on end as he puffed-up, starting to breathe rapidly.

Naruto watched as Gaara's eyes flashed with mixed emotions—pain, anger, and confusion playing across his face as he took a step backwards, faltering in his attempt to understand why Naruto couldn't accept what he had to offer.

"No, Gaara," Naruto's tried his best to reassure, to make his voice assuasive with velvet tones. He reached out a paw to halt the others retreat. "Because you should be enough, and you deserve someone who views you as so much more?"

"But what about what I want?" Gaara's voice was hardly there, a broken whisper to match the heart that was breaking within his chest.

Naruto dropped his hand to his side as he saw the tears begin to form, bearing witness to the further destruction he seemed to wreak on those dearest to him. There was nothing to be done... but to finish what he started. "You deserve someone who isn't selfish, Gaara." He turned away, unable to watch his closest friend shatter any further, "Someone who isn't me."

As he heard the sound of rapidly vanishing footfalls, Naruto knew Gaara had fled. The quiet, muffled sobs Gaara attempted to mute rang like tower bells in Naruto's ears, and each one felt like a knife in his heart, the heavy slamming of his chamber doors was like the final nail in his coffin. Naruto found himself in absolute, deafening silence, yet the world around him seemed to be screaming.

The image of a faceless blonde woman came unbidden into Naruto's mind. She was a figure who haunted his dreams and taunted him during his darkest moments—the enchantress whose face he had forgotten through the centuries, but who's mocking laughter never left him. Some days, if he focused hard enough upon the forest's edge, just as the morning sun broke the trees and splayed auric light across the ground, Naruto thought he could see her in the trees, dancing in and out of sight, laughing—always laughing.

"Are you happy?" he growled at the tormenting mirage. "Is this what you wanted from me?"

As always he received no answer, and Naruto collapsed into the window's grasp, surrendering to the roaring silence.

"Velaren un marc... best-try-uh," Sasuke struggled with the last word. His tongue felt as if it were trying to perform a sort of verbal acrobatics and ended up tripping over itself.

"Bes-tray-ah," Hinata corrected, trying her best to hide a fluttering chuckle. It was a futile effort and the laughter escaped, almost musical in its tones as it reverberated and cooed within her chest.

"Bestraya," Sasuke tried again, with an approving nod from the avian woman sitting across from him on the lawn.

"Much better," she crooned, her laughter now that of excitement. "You'll be fluent in no time."

Shooting her a skeptical look, Sasuke took the compliment for what it was worth—encouragement, but he highly doubted he would be speaking the ancient language of Castle Kyuubi any time soon. It was a language as bizarre as the castle's occupants, full of as many guttural sounds as there were melodic overtones. The one thing Sasuke could appreciate about the language was that words only had one meaning, which made it easy to understand once you could actually comprehend it. A paradoxical language if there ever was one, but one that made it very difficult to be deceptive.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Hinata chastised him, "You've only be practicing a week."

Sasuke's eyes widened, and for a moment all he could do was blink. Had it really been a week since their lessons started? If that was indeed the case, then Sasuke hadn't laid eyes upon Naruto for almost twice that amount of time, which was such a peculiar thought. Sasuke had almost gotten used to the strange limbo, a constant state of fear and excitement, that came from having the monster popping in and out of his days without warning; he'd almost become comfortable with it, until it had suddenly stopped. Sasuke had found himself with nothing to change the monotonous procession of his days, and despite how much he loved books there were only so many he could read before he needed to feel... something, anything—to have a sense of purpose, the thrill of knowing he was advancing towards some goal.

It was during one of these attempts to escape the boredom, wandering the endless castle hallways, when Sasuke overheard a conversation between Hinata and Iruka. They had been swiftly discoursing in a language Sasuke couldn't hope to identify, but he did recognize it; it was the same language as the song Hinata had been singing in the garden, and even in common discussion the language sounded like the two of them were singing. Sasuke would have listened to them talk for hours, but the pair became silent as soon as they noticed Sasuke's approach, and Iruka had excused himself a moment later to "attend to urgent matters".

Left in the hallway with a shy avian and nothing but awkward silence, Sasuke had blurted out the first thing he could think of to alleviate the uncomfortable tension, and due to his word vomit their lessons had been given birth.

"Really you're doing quite well," Hinata's voice broke through his thoughts. She brushed a wing across her beak, something Sasuke had noticed her do from time-to-time when she got nervous, "perhaps if you had a better teacher—"

"Nonsense," Sasuke shook his head. "If I were a better student, perhaps I wouldn't cause you so much trouble."

The feathers on Hinata's face fluffed, which Sasuke had come to associate as somewhat similar to a human blushing, and she shook her head rapidly, "It's no trouble at all. Really!"

"I'm glad," Sasuke gave her a tiny smile, the barest corner of his lip twitching in amusement at her flustered state. He then placed his hands on either side of him, feeling the cool blades of grass between his fingers before shoving himself onto his feet.

"Is it time already?" Hinata asked him, rising to her feet as well.

"Yeah, I don't want to keep Kakashi waiting. He's been irritable ever since Iruka sentenced him to bed-rest."

"Well tell him I said it's his own fault for being stubborn," Hinata chuckled before waving him off.

"I'm sure he'll love to hear that," Sasuke couldn't help but laugh along with her, returning the wave as they parted ways.

Once he was around the corner, Sasuke picked up his pace and hurriedly sped to his room, sliding open his door loudly and quickly grabbing several things off his desk from a mental checklist. "Pencils, book, eraser..." he muttered to himself, throwing them all into the messenger bag that lay on the floor before snapping the clasps and throwing the bag over his shoulder.

He spared a brief moment to look at the clock next to his bed, "Noon already... dammit!" With that realization he was off, speeding through the corridors as quickly as possible, and thankful now, more than ever, that the castle was practically deserted because no one could chastise him for running through the halls.

He made record time to Kakashi's room, throwing open the door and staggering in, his chest heaving in ragged gasps as he tried to catch his breath. "I'm... here!" he stated, hunching over with his hands on his knees.

"You're late," Kakashi barked from his bed, not even bothering to look up from whatever book his nose was buried in.

"Lessons with Hinata..." deep inhale, "...ran later than..." rapid exhale, "...I..." Sasuke swallowed, trying to get some moisture back into his mouth, "...expected."

Kakashi regarded him over the top of his book, "You look horrible."

"Just ran from the gardens," Sasuke grumbled, finally feeling like he could breath somewhat normal.

"You're out of shape," the wolf shook his head in disapproval, "You should exercise more and read a little less..."

"Neji's been helping with that enough, thanks," Sasuke retorted, going over to the desk and starting to set up his things.

"Ahem..."

Sasuke paused, sending a sideways glare towards the source of the noise. "What?"

"You know the cost of arriving late." Kakashi snapped his book closed, laying it upon his bedside table with more force than necessary.

"I'm not spending the next hour giving you feed back on your latest... study," Sasuke shuddered, using the least descriptive word he could think of to describe Kakashi's smut.

The wolf chuckled, "I only had you do that once."

"And it was enough."

Kakashi shook his head, mirth dancing behind his eyes. He reached out a clawed hand, "Hand it over."

Sasuke froze, looked at the hand as if it were evil, and glared back at the offending owner. "No."

"Then you can go take lessons from Kiba," Kakashi shrugged, "I could use a nap." The wolf hunkered down on his bed and closed his one good eye, feigning sleep.

Sasuke spent several minutes with internal debate. One the one hand, he could just do what Kakashi wanted, get the humiliation over with, and then they could get to the reason this meeting was taking place. On the other hand, Sasuke hated humiliation in all forms and was programmed to avoid it at all cost.

"It comes down to how much you want these lessons," Kakashi smirked, as if he'd read Sasuke's mind, using that stupid, irritating half-raised lip which revealed shining teeth—teeth that were mocking Sasuke as much as the mouth they resided in.

But he did want to learn. Ever since the first day he had stumbled onto Kakashi's artwork, as embarrassing and horrifying as that work was to examine, Sasuke had been amazed by the lines and the shadows and the life that jumped out of those drawings. The passion he could see in the art reminded Sasuke of how little passion he had in his own life... how he had never wanted the future his father had crafted. Somehow, on that day, Sasuke had made an unconscious decision to find something he was passionate about, and it was a decision he was now actively pursuing.

"Fine!" he snapped, digging into his bag and pulling out the leather sketchbook Kakashi had given him on their first lesson. He threw it at Kakashi, and didn't bother hiding a pleased look when it smacked the wolf in his muzzle.

"Uncalled for..." Kakashi massaged his injured face and proceeded to open the sketchbook.

The silence that followed lasted an eternity. Sasuke stood frozen to his spot, anxiety clawing at his chest while Kakashi just sat there, flipping through pages at an agonizing and glacial pace. There weren't that many sketches in there because they had only been doing these lessons for a week, but Kakashi insisted on staring at each sketch for what seemed like hours.

Finally Kakashi closed the book with a snap, tossing it back to Sasuke who fumbled to catch it before it hit the floor. "They're crap," he said casually, picking his own book off the bedside table and returning to his previous reading.

"What?!" Sasuke seethed, holding his sketchbook protectively to his chest.

"You heard me," Kakashi fixed him with a stern look. "They're garbage."

"How can you say that?" Sasuke opened the sketchbook and practically shoved it in Kakashi's face. "It looks like an exact replica! I spent hours on it!"

"Hours spend on imitation doesn't change the fact that you have created an imitation," the wolf opened his mouth and let out a long, bored yawn before stretching out languidly across the bed.

"It's architectural," Sasuke threw his hands up in exasperation, stomping across the room to throw his sketchbook on top of the desk. "I thought that was the point?"

"There is no life in imitation," Kakashi pushed himself up 1on his forearms, attempting an explanation. "Whether you are drawing from models, or imagination, or from something you observe... you have to understand what you are attempting to create."

"It's a building," Sasuke growled.

"And they have just as much life in them as any other subject."

"I don't get what's wrong with my drawings," Sasuke glared down at the sketchbook, trying earnestly to see the problem.

"You have to take interest in what you draw," there was an impassioned plea to Kakashi's voice, imploring Sasuke to see something that couldn't be seen. "You have look at it, see the way it catches light... understand it, take care with what you are trying to capture... and what you are feeling in that moment can be communicated through the play of shadows, the harshness of angles."

"You want me to use the building as a way to communicate what... I'm feeling?" Sasuke was skeptical.

"Yes," Kakashi nodded.

"How?"

"When you figure that out," Kakashi smirked. "You're one step closer to realizing that dream you want to achieve."

With a heave of his chest, Sasuke let out a sigh. He plopped down into the desk chair and opened his pencil box, also given to him by Kakashi. "You're supposed to be teaching me," he protested.

"I am."

"Not if I have to figure this stuff out for myself."

"I'm teaching you technique," Kakashi countered, pointing down at the sketchbook. "Which you are mastering at a surprising rate, but I cannot teach you to understand yourself, or how to communicate your emotions. That's something you'll have to do on your own, especially if you ever hope to design buildings of your own."

"I will design buildings of my own," Sasuke said with much more assuredness than he felt.

"Then draw something that has life in it," Kakashi said before returning to his book and leaving Sasuke to silence and self-doubt.

He turned to a fresh page in the sketchbook, picked up a pencil to begin drawing... and he froze. "Something that has life..." he muttered. What did that even mean? He couldn't picture a building as being alive. It didn't have a face, or expressions, or eyes...

As he thought about eyes, Sasuke remembered crimson eyes flashing with molten rage and how they shifted to a soft amber... or that startling azure gaze, staring out from a portait as deep and clear as a mountain stream. How could one creature have such expressive eyes? Without even realizing what he was doing, Sasuke's pencil was skritching across the paper, and he was using his left thumb to smudge harsh lines into intricate shadows, erasing darkness to create light, and obsessively attempting to create from memory the one thing in a long time that made him feel... alive.

Sasuke didn't know how long he sat at the desk, but it was far more than an hour. Kakashi had agreed to a small time frame for lessons, insisting that his busy schedule didn't allow for baby sitting; however, if the wolf had any objections to Sasuke's presence, he didn't make them known, and Sasuke was too far gone to wonder if he was becoming an annoyance.

His trance-like state was broken when he accidentally pressed too hard with one of the colored pencils, a deep crimson hue, and it snapped, gouging a deep, dark line into the drawing. Sasuke almost despaired until he noticed that the harshness of the mistake was actually a welcomed accident. It provided a certain depth he'd been attempting to create for the past several minutes... and now the drawing was finished.

Letting out a slow, tenuous breath, Sasuke sat up straight for the first time in what felt like days, and his back screamed in protest. How long had he been in here? There were no windows to see the time of day, and Kakashi didn't keep a clock be cause he was a lazy bastard who apparently didn't need to keep track of time.

"Finished?" Kakashi asked, looking over the top of his book.

Sasuke stared back down at his work, questioning himself for just a moment. He looked down into the eyes he had drawn: the one on the left a harsh, rage-filled fury of red on the far edges, fading into soft golden colors like a summer mead in the center. The gold flowed into the right eye, becoming more solid like metal as it blossomed into a sparkling cerulean gem, coruscating into flashes of light that danced with excitement and hinted of mischief.

The eyes that stared back at him from the paper were not eyes that allowed for argument.

"Yes," he nodded, glad his voice was as a firm as his decision.

Without another word, Kakashi set his book down, holding out a waiting hand, and Sasuke passed the sketchbook over without objection, waiting... hesitant to even breathe for fear that it might bring with it a negative response.

"This is not a building," Kakashi said, his voice giving away no clues as to what he thought of the actual subject of the drawing.

"Something with life..." Sasuke frowned. "That's what you said."

Kakashi nodded, his brow furrowing as he studied Sasuke's work. The wolf's face was practically knotted in concentration, and he turned the sketch to different angles as if it would somehow yield a different result. Sasuke felt each second drag by with agonizing difficulty, as if time were taking a long march across his chest, making certain to stomp on the space above his heart.

"The color," Kakashi murmured.

"What about it?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't teach you how to do this."

"No," Sasuke looked at the wolf in confusion.

"Then where?"

Sasuke blushed, breaking eye contact, "You... use different techniques in your drawings. I... tried mimicking a few of them." He ran a nervous hand through his hair, hoping Kakashi wouldn't ask when he'd had time to make an in-depth study of said techniques.

"I see..." there was a playful edge to Kakashi's tone, but he didn't comment about Sasuke's apparent snooping, or the fact that Sasuke had been using smut as reference material for artistic skill. Instead, Kakashi closed the sketchbook gently and handed it back to Sasuke.

Sasuke took the book and waited for further comments, but none were forthcoming. When he felt as if he would explode from the pressure of unknown criticism, Sasuke blurted out, "Well?!"

"Well done." Kakashi smiled.

"What?" Sasuke blinked.

"You're sketch was well done."

Sasuke blinked again.

"Next time I want you to translate that life into one of your architectural drawings," Kakashi picked up his book once more, apparently finished with Sasuke's critique.

"That's it?" he asked incredulously. "You're not going to ask about why I drew that, or what feelings I was trying to communicate?"

Kakashi set his book down in annoyance and stared pointedly back at the boy, "Would you answer either of those questions? Do you want to tell me about some deep, hidden emotions?"

Sputtering indignantly, Sasuke stuffed the sketchbook into this bag and started to pack up the rest of his supplies, "I wasn't saying there were! I just expected more than that."

"I see..." the wolf chuckled.

"There are no emotions!" Sasuke squawked, crossing his arms.

"Of course not!"

"As long as you understand that..."

"It's late, Sasuke," Kakashi stuck his nose back into his book to signal the conversation had come to an end. "Why don't you go eat dinner and we can pick this up again tomorrow?"

Sasuke nodded, having finished packing up his things, and slug his bag over his shoulder once more before heading out. "Thank you for today," he said pausing at the door.

"You did good," Kakashi didn't look up from his book, but the compliment still brought a smile to Sasuke's lips.

Without another word, Sasuke closed the door behind him and headed towards the kitchen. He passed one of the castle windows and noticed the moon outside, which meant he'd spent hours in Kakashi's room. As if to highlight this fact further, his stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. Food, Sasuke decided, food would be good.

Night had long fallen over the castle when Naruto left his chambers. He closed the massive oaks doors without a sound and traveled through the halls as little more than a shadowy wraith, barely a hint of a whisper as the pads of his feet brushed the floor or one of his tails whisked through the air. He caught a glimpse of the moon as he passed by a small window, hanging lofty in the night, and found himself grateful for the lateness of the hour. The rest of the castle would be asleep, which left him free to keep his vigil without the fear of interactions.

The irony of his cowardice was not lost on Naruto. He'd told Kakashi he was finished hiding, done with secluding himself, and yet here he was stalking the corridors in the early morning when he was certain no one could confront him.

In the past, Naruto would have ignored such self-reflection or come up with excuses for his behavior, but in recent days he had achieved a sort of clarity, or perhaps he was finally being honest with himself. He couldn't keep hiding, not if he wanted things to change, but it was difficult to overcome the fears which plagued him. The compromise for the moment was to patrol the castle at night and make certain everyone slept peacefully, being apart of their lives but safely disconnected.

Every night he wandered, letting his feet carry him where they would. Some nights he would end up outside watching the moon until it set, other nights he would prowl the corridors keeping watch; however, tonight his feet had carried him to a dead-end. Naruto looked curiously at the door in front of him, tilting his head ever-so-slightly in regard.

The library? He marveled. Apparently his feet had a desire to see Sasuke. He reached out a hand for the brushed-silver door knob and froze. Instantly fear spiked up inside of him.

He hadn't seen Sasuke since before the incident with Kakashi. Naruto knew the boy had been spending more time with the wolf, which meant Sasuke had seen the wounds caused by Naruto's rage. How would Sasuke react? Was it worth finding out? His hand wavered in the air, torn with indecision. These questions were what kept him to a midnight vigil... was now the moment to break it?

You are acting like an idiot...

Naruto frowned. The voice had been in his head, but it sounded suspiciously similar to Sasuke's voice. No one called him an idiot.

With irritation giving him newfound determination, Naruto gripped the door knob and swung the door open, fully prepared to give Sasuke a piece of his mind, if the boy was his usual arrogant self, only to discover an empty library. Naruto deflated upon this realization, surprised to find disappointment replacing his earlier ire.

He stood there, holding onto the knob of the open door and looking around the room expectantly, as if Sasuke would suddenly materialize. It didn't happen. No matter where he looked, his eyes did not find Sasuke, but he did find something else.

"What a mess..." Naruto muttered, looking around the room with distaste.

Books were everywhere. They were piled next to an unmade bed, they were lying all over chairs and the small settee, the desk was covered with unfurled manuscripts and open tomes, and the shelves were full of gaps wherein books had toppled over. Naruto felt an uncontrollable impulse, a little voice itching in the back of his mind, one he was all to familiar with, and it was causing his right hand to twitch spasmodically.

Naruto tried to fight it, he honestly and truly did, and for a moment he believed he would be able to shut the door and walk away. He would walk away and give Sasuke a firm talking to about maintaining and keeping a space clean...

But he did not win the fight. Rather than shutting the door, Naruto turned on the spot and stalked back to his chambers as if on autopilot. The library hung in silent anticipation, and the open door way offered a restricted glimpse into the empty room where the air practically hummed with a nervous energy.

The tense lull was broken as Naruto stalked back through the doorway, a bucket of cleaning supplies in one hand, a feather duster in the other and an assortment of other tools wrapped up in his tails. He set all of his supplies up neatly against the door frame, and, with a fidgety glance around the room, quickly set to work.

He homed in on the first stack of books, hoisting them into his arms and lumbering over to the nearest shelves. As he read the titles of each book, his tails absentmindedly took them from his hand and deposited them onto the proper shelves. One of the few benefits of being transformed into a beast, Naruto had discovered, was that having nine, prehensile tails was almost equivalent to having nine extra hands. They certain made tasks, such as filing books in a library, far more expedient.

Within no time Naruto had developed a rhythm, grabbing books and marching past shelves without pause, his tails flurrying about in a storm of sorting. It took him perhaps thirty minutes before not a single book remained unshelved, but that itch in the back of Naruto's mind continued to aggrieve him. While he had properly categorized and filed away the books strewn about the room, he had noticed many volumes which had been incorrectly shelved before his arrival, which was unacceptable.

Naruto let out a sigh, and lumbered over to the first shelf on the far left side of the room and began the task of pulling the offending titles, pondering in his mind whether it would be best to organize by genre and title, or author and alphabetically... or would both be acceptable?

Once a decision was firmly in place, books started flying off the shelves, caught mid-air by the grip of his gracefully coiling extremities before being deposited into their proper places. Minutes breezed by, and Naruto comfortably fell into the near mechanical routine, glad for something to take his mind away from other thoughts. The more he worked, the less he was consumed by introspection, and slowly that gnawing itch began to fade away.

The entire sorting process took several hours, but its completion only served as a warm-up. Much like a sprinter would stretch and jog before launching themselves into a full run, Naruto felt himself ready for a more grueling challenge.

First he made the bed, followed by dusting the room from top to bottom—shelves, banisters, furniture. He climbed and reached each nook and cranny, leaving no speck of dust behind. He was a general fighting a war, and dust was the enemy; there could be no quarter given, for once the dusting had been conquered, it was time to polish.

Reaching into his bucket of supplies, Naruto pulled out a jar of wood polish and several rags, applying a liberal amount of polish to each before it was whisked into the grip of a tail, and finally grasping the last rag in his free hand. A determined fire came to light behind amber eyes—he would make this room shine.

Like a creature possessed, Naruto launched himself into yet another task, polish coated rags flying about the room. He polished the desk, the arms of chairs, the legs of the settee. All of his appendages were a blur of motion, rubbing over some wooden surface or arcing back towards the jar for a new application of polish. Shine was brought to every inch of the library shelves, and sparkle was applied to baseboards and molding alike. Naruto rolled up the massive floor rug, chucking it out into the hall in order to wax the floorboards without obstacle.

By the time he finished, Naruto was breathing heavily, his chest heaving up-and-down with each deep breath, the motion followed by his shoulders and his tails. It was early morning, and sunlight could be seen through the library window, just beginning to crest the forest's crown. The pristine light landed its delicate fingers upon Naruto's handiwork and the room seemed to blaze with the newfound luster.

A satisfied smile took over the creature's face, all teeth, as he was finally done—the impulse was satisfied. With a final nod of approval, Naruto dropped the polishing rags into the bucket, gathered up his things and closed the door on the library. He made it back to his chambers before the first yawn hit him, and he brought his hand up to cover his mouth.

Eyes widened at the sight.

His hands were filthy, stained with polish and dust. Naruto performed a quick review over the rest of his body only to find similar results: his fur was splotched, his tails were stained and tangled, in short—he was a mess. There was no way he could go to sleep like this, not without completely ruining his bedding.

Letting out a dejected sigh, Naruto stored his cleaning supplies in their closet and stalked off to the baths.

Naruto generally preferred to bathe in the early hours of the morning while the rest of the castle slept. He wasn't shy about the act of bathing itself, rather he hated the vulnerability of the act... and the staring. People tended to stare whenever the Kyuubi entered a room, and Naruto didn't care for people staring at him while he bathed.

Luckily, it was still early morning, so it was unlikely for many of the castle's occupants to be awake, and those who were would be focused on morning tasks. Naruto felt confident the baths would be abandoned, and he let out happy purr whenever he was proven correct.

He opened the doors to a completely empty hot spring, faintly illuminated by the morning sun and a warm steam rising into the cool mountain air, which caught the light and glimmered like a sheen of diamonds. Grabbing one of the buckets off a shelf by the door, along with soap and a wash cloth from the linen closet outside the baths, Naruto scooped up a full container of water and proceeded to scrub the polish from his fur. He started with his paws before moving onto his face and torso, none of which took much time, before settling down into a seated position and beginning the arduous task of cleaning his tails.

And this is the downside... Naruto groaned inwardly. It was wonderful using the appendages to hasten a workload, but cleaning them was an absolute nightmare. If he didn't have an issue bathing in front of his subject; then he would probably have Kakashi or Gaara helping him. The image only brought a grimace to his face. No, he shuddered at the thought. It was more intimate than he was willing to get with anyone.

It took time, but eventually he felt confident in his handiwork. Naruto set aside the soap and washcloth and upended the bucket of water over his head, washing away most of the suds lathered into his fur. Just to be safe, he scooped up another bucked and rinsed again, watching at the soapy water washed away into the floor drains. He bent over to pick up his discarded items, placing them into the bucket and setting all of them against the door. It was a small courtesy for whomever cleaned the baths, at least they wouldn't have to clean up after him.

The hard part completed, Naruto happily lowered himself into warm embrace of the hot spring, unable to suppress the pleasurable groan that escaped him as the heated water soothed his limbs. He hadn't noticed before, but his nighttime activities had apparently been strenuous as evidenced by the aches leeching out from numerous joints.

This is the life, the thought to himself, watching as his tails as they played through the water, darting about like furry little koi in a steamy pond. It definitely wasn't the worst way to start a morning, or end a day considering he had yet to sleep. The entire experience was so relaxing, Naruto closed his eyes and actually felt sleep creeping upon him...

And then the door to the baths opened.

His senses kicked into overdrive, and Naruto ducked under the water with little more than his eyes breaking the surface as he crept back into the obscuring haze of steam that rose above the water. He'd been caught, but whoever had entered the baths obviously wasn't alerted to his presence. Naruto took advantage of this to silently move into the far corner of the spring, partially obscured by a part of the natural rock formations which jutted up around the edges. It kept him out of sight, but allowed Naruto to easily observe the entrance, curious to see who had him cornered.

Surprisingly it was Sasuke.

With raised eyebrows, Naruto watched as the boy entered the baths and began to follow the same routine the fox had completed early. Sasuke grabbed a bucket from the shelf, followed by soap and linens from the closet, and then, completely unaware that anyone else was in the baths, the normally reserved human began to strip.

Somewhere in the back of his mind told Naruto that his casual observations had turned from looking for a way out into dangerous territory, bordering on voyeurism, and that voice was screaming that he should avert his eyes, because he was obviously staring—an irony completely lost upon the Kyuubi because he couldn't tear his gaze away. His thought process was completed halted by the pale expanse of skin, slowly revealed as Sasuke let the white top come undone and slide off his angular shoulders to pool in a lump as it hit the floor.

Naruto couldn't believe how perfect that skin was—unblemished and soft, the color of alabaster stood in stark contrast to Sasuke's dark hair and piercing gaze. Naruto had always marveled at how pale the other man was, but he'd never before thought the disparity to be beautiful before, yet, in the pale caress of the morning sun, Naruto could think of nothing else to describe the scene before him, and he gladly let himself fall of that precipice into the role of voyeur.

With the greatest amount of restraint, Naruto managed to keep his observations respectful. He refused to fall into depraved ogling. As Sasuke continued to disrobed and go about his routine, Naruto consoled his conscience, and did his best to assuage any guilt, by telling himself that beauty should be admired... and that Sasuke need never know. All he needed to do was find an escape.

It was a foolproof plan, until it wasn't.

All thoughts of escape were wiped away when Sasuke stood up to pour water over his head. Naruto's eyes widened in awe as they watched the cascade of liquid mingle with lather and suds, washing over the smooth expanse of skin and those delicate contours of muscle. Sasuke turned grab his towel, and he flashed a perfect silhouette of a chiseled hip.

Somehow through the clouded and muddle thoughts, Naruto managed to question himself. Was he really entranced by another man's body? From the way he was staring at Sasuke's backside the was little room for arguments, which left another question... Why? And better yet... did it matter? At one point in time, Naruto might had had a crisis of identity. He would have been expected to marry for political gain, or to produce an heir, but, with the many centuries passed, those obligations had faded into dust, and the cursed prince came to a realization: he didn't care.

Naruto couldn't remember a single time in his life when he had looked upon another individual and felt such admiration, and he tried to crush the little voice in the back of his mind that whispered of desire. It was yet another new and exotic feeling to overcome him, and, after many nights of deep introspection, Naruto had decided to embrace these new feelings and see where they lead him.

If admiring Sasuke's stark form in all its incomprehensible beauty was one of the outcomes, well... Naruto couldn't complain about the journey thus far.

At least he wouldn't complain about observing from afar, but Sasuke wasn't staying at a distance, rather the boy was coming in Naruto's direction. Panic gripped him, and the fox pressed himself as quietly as possible against the rocks, hoping both steam and shadow would conceal his presence, but the effort was unwarranted.

Sasuke's eyes stayed fixed on a point in the distance, somewhere beyond the baths. From his seclusion, Naruto watched the pale boy wade through the spring, sans towel because he obliviously assumed privacy. Sasuke made for the far edge overlooking the forest; crossing his arms over the rocky edge, he leaned a pale chin upon them and looked wistfully out into the morning sunrise, completely unaware of his captive audience in the shadows.

Letting out a relaxed sigh, as if to release some unseen tension threatening to snap his composure, Sasuke ran slender, pale fingers through a damp fringe onyx, pushing the long tresses out of his eyes. Naruto's eyes locked onto the movement, following every minute details as Sasuke rearranged his features. It didn't matter how they changed, Naruto found the sight remained breathtaking, and he dared not breathe himself for fear of somehow ending such a transcendent vision.

"Velaren..." Sasuke whispered to nothing and no one. " Velaren un marc... bestraya."

Those words stopped Naruto's very heartbeat, the startled organ skipping several beats before tripping over itself and slamming into his ribcage with painful agony. When did Sasuke learn to speak Konohan? or better yet... how did he know that particular phrase? Both of those questions did little to change that the words sounded like music on Sasuke's tongue, pronounced with a crisp, perfected clarity.

Naruto's moved without conscious effort, his body carrying him silently through the water until he was standing behind Sasuke, his lips inches from a pale ear, and he spoke the reply, "...bestraya un bolc tolonai."

What he had hoped to accomplish with this action, Naruto forgot in an instant. The next moment was one of thrashing limbs, being drenched in water, and then fixed by a pair of dark, glaring eyes, peering out from an angry face that promised murder.

Sasuke leaped into the air, a mess of splashing water and flying limbs, and he spun around to identify the owner of the voice who dared to intrude upon his moment of solace. Sasuke had taken to bathing in the early mornings when he discovered no one else in the castle bothered to do so at such a time. He'd become comfortable with the knowledge that the baths were his if he arrived precisely at sunrise, so of course, the moment he let his guard down, who should appear but the demonic recluse himself.

Fixing Naruto with his most violent glare, Sasuke tried to compose himself without appearing flustered or nervous, but, considering he had to hunch over to hide himself from prying eyes and he probably looked like a water logged bird with wet hair plastered across his face, Sasuke wasn't confident in his dignity.

"What... the hell!?" he growled.

Naruto at least had the decency to look away, though he did a very poor job of hiding a smirk.

"Were you trying to kill me?!" Sasuke's voice rose an octave. "You don't just sneak up on people like that! And how did you get in here?"

"I was hear first," Naruto's gaze focused on the ceiling, and he looked as if he were about to burst into laughter.

"What?" Sasuke did his best to puzzle through this new information. If Naruto had been here before Sasuke arrived... dark eyes widened in shock, "You've been here the entire time?"

The fox nodded, clamping a hand over his mouth when a snort of laughter escaped.

"You peeping bast..." the boy couldn't complete the sentence. Bastard wasn't a strong enough word. His mouth opened and closed, trying to form an appropriate response, but he brain was too frazzled by the knowledge that he'd been watched. Someone had been in the baths the entire time, and not just anyone... but the deranged fox, who joked about making Sasuke a sex slave, had seen everything. Sasuke crouched lower in the water, praying for the steam to shield him from that all too intense amber gaze.

Naruto's gaze was so intense, full of something Sasuke couldn't recognize but it looked faintly similar to reverence. It sparkled in the fox's eyes, flickering through the rich amber like flecks of sapphire stardust. It was unnerving, and Sasuke felt an intense sensation of warmth flow through him, though it could be explained from his submersion in the hot spring.

"Stop looking at me like that," Sasuke whispered.

"Like what?" a faint smile played across Naruto's features, doing little to help with his feigned innocence.

"Like that!" Sasuke gestured at the face. "Like you are... enjoying this!"

"What if I am?" the fox asked, crossing both arms behind his head and grinning unabashedly.

Sasuke didn't know what to say, so he just stared... and came to a startling awareness: Naruto looked unexpectedly human. The water had slicked Naruto's fur until it was flush with his body, revealing a surprisingly toned and agile frame of muscle that resembled a man more than it did a beast. Sasuke could see the fangs in the grin, and the feline features in the scrunched up eyes, but the whole was more man than monster.

As the fox stood there, making such a human gesture and grinning like a schoolboy, the softened features spoke to Sasuke of the prince hidden inside the beast... always there, but hidden behind fur and fang.

"Ne... who's staring now, Sasuke?" Naruto teased.

"Turnabout is fair play," was the biting retort.

The fox chuckled and nodded in surrender, falling back to lean near the spot where Sasuke liked to view the forest. "Stop hiding under the water before you overheat," he scolded.

"And leave myself open to your prying eyes?"

"Someone is full of themselves."

"Says the peeping pervert."

Naruto shook his head, "I was here first. It's not my fault you didn't notice my things by the door. I practically announced myself."

Sasuke's eyes shot towards the entrance of the baths, prepared to argue, but was stunned to see another bathing bucket sitting in plain sight. After nearly two weeks of bathing alone, Sasuke had assumed no one would be there; thus he hadn't even performed a cursory check to see if someone might have been there. "Oh..." was his intelligent reply.

"It's okay," Naruto shrugged. "I forgive you."

"Well I don't forgive you," Sasuke wasn't about to let the issue drop. "You could have announced your presence at any time!"

"True," the fox nodded sagely, "but then I would have missed the show."

"I am not here for your amusement!"

"I could apologize," Naruto offered, "but my heart wouldn't be in it."

"Don't bother," Sasuke huffed, throwing himself up onto the rocks. The brace of cool air was refreshing, but he refused to admit that Naruto had been right about overheating. Instead he glared off into the distances, hoping the forest to serve as a distraction. Naruto certainly didn't attempt to break his concentration, and they both just hung, suspended in time and silence, as the warmth of the spring slowly eased the tension from their bodies and the mood.

As the last remnants of his irritation faded, Sasuke felt a nagging curiosity build in the forefront of his thoughts. "What was that you said earlier?"

"Which part?" Naruto's lips quirked, apparently amused at something.

"When you nearly gave me a heart attack," Sasuke growled. "You said something in Konohan."

"Ah..." was the nodded response. "I gave the other half of the phrase. It's an old greeting between people who are... close to one another."

Sasuke's brow knit in confusion, "Hinata has been teaching me, but that phrase came from a song. It didn't have a second part."

"No, I suppose it wouldn't in that context," Naruto chuckled.

"Explain," Sasuke demanded. He refused to be left in the dark when it came to something he could easily understand, if only someone would explain it to him.

"Velaren un marc bestraya," Naruto whispered, looking out over the sun-kissed forest. "How did Hinata define it?"

"Creating life in the world," Sasuke answered with hesitance, feeling now that the definition wasn't complete.

"This isn't a test you can fail," the fox soothed. "You're thinking of Konohan as a language that can be simply translated, swapping one word of it for a word in your language. It doesn't work that way. Konohan existed many years before your tongue... and when you say something in Konohan, it means something specific to our culture." Naruto paused, letting his words sink in.

"So the words change based on the situation?" Sasuke frowned, "I was under the impression the words only had a single meaning."

"In a way," Naruto bit his bottom lip in frustration, trying to decide how best to explain a foreign concept. "In a song, the words are sung to an unseen audience... so the concept is more generic. When spoken to a specific person, the feeling is more substantial, more precise."

"Sort of how you would speak to a friend more comfortably than you would a stranger?"

"Yes," there was a glint of approval flashing proudly in amber eyes. "Except in Konohan the words remain the same, whereas their essence changes."

"And you thought I was speaking them to you?" Sasuke asked skeptically.

"Lets say..." Naruto purred, leaning closer to Sasuke, "I wouldn't have have minded."

"Then what does it mean?" Sasuke fixed the infuriating fox with harsh stare, one learned from his father and allowed no evasion.

Letting out a breath, possibly to hide amusement, Naruto returned Sasuke's glare with a serene calm. Again Sasuke saw sapphire twinkling midst the golden irises. "Roughly translated," Naruto blinked, breaking the staring contest. "It means: I make a life in your world."

Sasuke's breath caught in his throat. Such a simple phrase, but given new context, now had profound meaning. His brain also began to interpret Hinata's song in a different manner entirely, but it was currently overwhelmed with trying to decipher what Naruto was trying to tell him.

The fox had admitted he wouldn't mind if Sasuke said the words on purpose, which meant Naruto wanted Sasuke to make a life here, at the castle? He was already a prisoner here, and therefore resigned to what that held. But are you really? His mind countered. Has anyone treated you like a prisoner? The truth was rather evident. He'd been treated more like a guest than anything.

And haven't you already been doing just that? His innermost thoughts taunted. Making the most of this place?

Had he?

Was that the hidden reason behind his lessons with Hinata and Kakashi? The working with Neji in the gardens and the hikes with Kiba? Sasuke was slowly beginning to include more of the castle denizens in his daily routine. Each day he spent less time alone and more time in their presence, if that wasn't creating a life... then what was?

"And the second part?" Sasuke's voice came out rough, heavy with the confusion of his own emotions.

"It was something my Father would say to my mother before she died," Naruto muttered. "I was told they always exchanged the same words." A somber sort of melancholy fell over the fox, and Sasuke was struck once again by how human the creature looked... and for the first time since coming to the castle Sasuke thought there was a vulnerability present as well.

"What does it mean?"

Naruto pushed off the rocks and headed toward the exit, pausing to look out of the corner of his eye. Sasuke caught hints of red intermingled with the blue, looking almost violet and practically drowning out the usual gold. "Your life gives my world meaning..."

The words hung in the air, echoing and repeating in Sasuke's ears as Naruto mounted the steps, shook himself dry, and exited the baths without another word.

Sasuke didn't know how long he remained frozen, transfixed by the enormity of that statement, his brain fruitlessly trying to decipher not only the words but the storm of emotions they had created inside him. Eventually his body took over, because his mind just wasn't capable, and exited the water's tempered embrace as if on autopilot. Sasuke absentmindedly dried himself off, dressed, and headed for the library... hoping to find his footing, something in the written word to anchor him back to reality.

For Naruto's words threatened to send Sasuke down a dangerous path, where his mind might start believing it had other options, where he might envision a future without his father's oppressive thumb, picturing a life which meant something, not only to himself... but to someone else.

Author's Note – Konohan is not a real language, at least not from any actual civilization. I've been toying with creating my own language for years, and I rarely pass up and opportunity to use it when I can. I know it can be frustrating reading words that are foreign, which is why I always try to include translations within the story. I know the translation came at the end of the chapter, whereas the language showed up in the beginning. Hopefully that didn't annoy anyone too terribly.

Lots of stuff happening, but I'm happy to say that the angsty parts are pretty much over.

Check my profile if you want to see how progress is going, also I detail all the little/big changes I've made to the story. Such as a rather big scene in chapter 8 where Kiba helps a naked Sasuke find clothes. Yep, I was re-reading the story to get my bearings, and I noticed that Sasuke a.) leaves the bathroom without dressing, and b.) never packed clothes for his trip... so he'd need some. Thus this scene was born. Chapter 1 and 2 also received some updates, with better POV for Sasuke added to both.