Here is a non explicit piece just because...well because reasons. Some things are implied however so yes, if you didn't already figure it out, this is a NaruSasuNaru (M/M) type of story, just without the usual details.

Summary: Each vote counted for one. Majority rule on who lived. Either way he looked at it he was a dead man. He was a dead man who controlled the vote. NaruSasuNaru, M/M, AU, Oneshot, COMPLETE.

Majority Rules

This was a joke, right? This should have been a joke. He stared across the room, blue eyes scanning repeatedly over a dirt smudged pale face and sliding down to study bloody, cut hands. Dead, black eyes stared back at him.

Everyone was looking at him, waiting. He was the only one left to vote. They had gone around the entire circle, each person carelessly tossing their hand up, their own name tumbling from their lips.

A majority vote, they said. Only one could be pardoned, they said. It was a mind game. Even Naruto, dense as he was, had picked up on that. There had to be a purpose for this final test but if there was one it was lost on the blond.

A petty crime had gotten him into this situation (for defacing the monument certainly was just that) and population control had determined his fate. He would be tested, along with every other criminal for the past year, with a series of trials. Everyone was on death row, no matter what they'd done. It was rumored that people passed the trials each year, ten every time, but Naruto had believed it was a joke, not to be taken seriously. What even happened to the other prisoners? There was no way the rumors were real.

The adults had certainly believed it but Naruto didn't have any of those in his life to begin with so what did he care what they thought?

Well he'd been wrong, not for the first time in his short life, and the trials had been brutal. He had barely escaped with his life, told that if he'd passed through all the obstacles that he would live. They were to be new military recruits. So they had said.

He stared into the dark eyes across from him, the eyes of the guy he had struck up a team with. He had found him during the first months when more than half the candidates died of starvation or extreme climate. The dark haired man had been huddled in a corner between broken down buildings, clinging to life by a thread in front of a fire that was nearly embers. Never able to resist a good jab at someone highborn, Naruto hadn't let it pass without comment. It had ended in a fight that enabled them to keep all their toes in the biting winter chill and survive into the next day, when the pale man had gone on his way without a word or a glance back.

Naruto had shrugged and moved on; he was used to being on his own. When next they met the abandoned city had become a scorching desert and the dark haired man had picked up a girl. Sakura, she was called. He didn't seem too fond of her but he was either unable or unwilling to shake her for whatever reason.

Naruto, unable to resist a good flirt with a pretty girl or the temptation to find any way to annoy the pale man, had tagged along. Much bickering and hitting of the blond by Sakura (who, it turns out, could really pack a punch) and they had come to an agreement. They made their way through the trials that way, their ragtag group having much success locating food and supplies and finding the next marker points in this never ending game where the stakes were their lives.

It didn't take long for things to turn sour. They were at their thirty-ninth marker, one away from forty and completion of these damned trials, when illness swept through the remaining ranks of prisoners.

The other two caught the sickness immediately, Naruto seemingly immune to the epidemic. He did everything he could to help them, finding water in the parched land and scavenging food for them. It wasn't much, food became more and more scarce as the trials dragged on, but it was the best he could get and he was doing better than many others. His pale comrade seemed to be slowly recovering. Sakura was getting worse.

By the end she was hacking up lungfuls of blood and unable to keep down any food. She died in the night after professing her love to their dark haired companion one last time.

The two remaining had packed up their things and made it through the two final markers within forty eight hours.

And here they were. Standing in a circle in the middle of the room, the intercom crackling as the announcer behind it shifted, waiting for Naruto's vote.

Each vote counted for one. Majority rule on who lived. All he had to do was say his name and they'd be in a never ending tie that would lead to each of their deaths in turn. Or they would all die on the spot, there was that possibility. Either way he looked at it he was a dead man.

He was a dead man who controlled the vote.

"Sasuke."

A flash of surprise sparked in previously flat eyes and Naruto was sure the shock was reflected on his own face. He'd opened his mouth intending, as everyone else had, to try to save himself. It appeared his better nature wouldn't let it turn out that way. The corners of his mouth lifted in a self deprecating grin and he put his hand up.

"I vote Sasuke," he repeated firmly, half smile developing into a full blown one as the dark haired man's face twisted before settling back into an apathetic mask. The heretofore dull eyes of the other people in the room now glared murder at him as the realization that they could have been saved set in.

The tinny sound of a clap came through the speaker in the abandoned classroom they were all standing in, followed by the scraping of metal chair legs on tile.

"Well that's settled then!" A cheery voice came through the speaker. "Sasuke, you are free to go, the rest of you will be required to come with us."

Like waking from a dream Naruto glanced away from Sasuke, finally realizing that they were surrounded by at least a dozen men armed and dressed like a SWAT team.

"What's going to happen to us?!" A scraggly, brown haired man who smelled distinctly like a dog screamed in the direction of the speaker as a guard moved to grab him. As he was held back from charging the words came through in screechy but clear quality sounding like a death knell.

"Why, you're to be executed, of course."

The fight seemed to drain out of the room's occupants at these words.

Naruto tried to catch Sasuke's eye as he was escorted out of the room with the rest of them, away from the dark haired man who was left to do as he pleased, but he wasn't having it. The last thing Naruto saw as he was jostled none too gently out the door was the straight back of the highborn bastard he had come to love.

Prison. It was the same as before. Overcrowded, smelly, and dirty. The survivors were all shoved into one cell, their execution by firing
squad set for two days out.

No last meals. No last words. No last chance.

They ate their crappy rations and drank their unclean water. Naruto, who everyone had forgiven for not choosing them, got them all laughing and joking about what they did to come to prison and deserve death. It was hollow in the face of reality.

The night before they were due to die silence fell over the small cell, some shedding silent tears for lost time, others fingering small tokens, all dreaming of better days and staring out the tiny slit of a window that moonlight shone through.

The sun was edging up on the horizon when the scrape of a key in the lock of the cell door announced the arrival of their execution. Nobody bothered to turn and look, simply waiting to be pulled out by the scruff or arm or hair, whichever suited the guards at that present time. So it was with much surprise that Naruto felt a hand cuff the back of his head that wasn't followed immediately by the sensation of being pulled somewhere via his scalp.

"What the hell was that f-?!" The words died on his lips as he turned to face his attacker, rubbing the back of his skull, and saw none other than Sasuke leaning casually in the doorway against the bars that made up a wall of their tiny cell, dressed in full guard regalia.

"Sasuke?" The question fell unbidden from his mouth as the rest of the group turned to face the door.

"Usuratonkachi," was Sasuke's typical greeting.

Naruto scrambled to his feet, hand dropping to his side. "What are you doing here?"

"What else, idiot? It's obvious you're too incompetent to get out of here on your own." Sauske smirked, ever the arrogant bastard. Naruto was still studying him with his mouth hanging open though and they didn't have time for that.

"Dobe, get your shoes on, we have to-" he stumbled back as something hard slammed into his chest, forcing the air from his lungs. The blond had punched him!

"You shouldn't have come." The expression on the tanned face was hard, like it was whenever they ended up in a serious fight during the trials. Naruto turned his back and put his shoes on before Sasuke could recover enough to retaliate and spun quickly back to the dark haired man, who was now glaring openly at the blond.

"W-!" The pale man was once again cut off, this time by the soft press of lips as Naruto pulled him in for a short, searing kiss.

"Thank you." The blond's tone was fervent and his eyes blazed in the semi darkness of the cell before he turned back to the group behind him.

"Let's go!" He waved his arm in a wide arc as he spun to face Sasuke again.

"Lead the way."

Sasuke didn't hesitate as he led the remaining prisoners from their cell and out into the compound. Didn't hesitate to silence guards blocking their way. Didn't hesitate as they ran out the door into the cool morning air and freedom.

Didn't hesitate to pull the blond with him into a secluded area when they were all too exhausted to go on and fuck him senseless.

And Naruto didn't hesitate to let him.

A/N: Satisfactory? Yes? No? Maybe? Wanna review and motivate future postings? ;)