a/n: A couple of things first. This world is straight from my mind with only loose influences from others. You want to use it? Give me some credit. If something isn't clear, drop me a line in a review and I'll answer.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Amaranth.
Baptized with a perfect name
The doubting one by heart
Alone without himself
Amaranth by Nightwish
The club was full to the brim with bodies pulsing to the beat of the trance and techno coming out of the overly large speakers. It was dark and only glimpses of darklight colored flesh were visible for moments as the lights strobed overhead. Eyes the color of electrical currents watched the masses, a faint twinkle of amusement hidden in their depths. His tan face held a pleasant expression as he turned to his companion, who leaned with him against the black walls. They had made sure to fit in. Blonde hair was loosely spiked, eyes lined lightly with shimmering black, nails painted black. His shirt, such as it was, was sleeveless black leather, held together with three bronze buckles, roughly the size of his fists. Black spandex was snug just below the top of his hip bones, leaving a small glimpse of tan skin between the shirt and pants. A bronze studded belt angled it's way from the top of one hip to the top of the opposite thigh.
"See anything you like?" Naruto asked in a light voice. His companion flicked eyes a shade of green so bright they almost blinded people at him. His hair was shorter, a deep crimson, the color of dried blood. A matching tattoo covered the upper right of his forehead, the kanji for love. His eyes were lined a thick dull black, giving him the look of either an insomniac or a raccoon. His clothing matched that of his neighbor, save they were the color of a good red wine. His skin was so pale that it glowed under the attention of the blacklights.
"No," Gaara frowned at the crowd, ignoring the few come hither looks he was getting from both the male and female population of the club. The blonde rolled his eyes and looked toward the entrance about to suggest they head for another club then. His eyes snagged on a figure that just walked in. His skin was as pale as his companion's, but his eyes were a black so deep they glowed without the aid of the lights. His face and figure looked as though it were sculpted from the finest white marble; all hard angles. He wore a black fishnet shirt and pants a blue so dark it looked black until the light hit it. On his arm hung a pink haired girl, eyes a color caught between green and grey. She wore a low cut black dress that stopped just below her ass, and a pair of thigh high black boots. He swallowed and pushed off the wall, earning an amused look from the other.
"How about them?" he asked already moving towards them. The redhead shrugged, making it clear he did not care one way or the other. They slid through the crowd like water, towards the bar where the two sat.
He felt the eyes on him the second he entered the club. Years of training had him scanning the crowd for the source, ignoring the pink haired girl tugging on his arm. He could not believe that she had managed to convince him to come here. He hated crowds, and loathed the music that these places played. But she had insisted, something about him needing to get laid. He snorted, catching the glimpse of a blonde across the crowd. He fingered the grip of the knife tucked in his waistband. He should've known. Clubs were like all you can eat buffets to their kind. He moved with Sakura to the bar, doing his best not to let her know he had found work. She, however, knew him all too well.
"Let it go," she hissed at him as they took seats at the bar. He frowned at her. She could never understand what drove him. He didn't hunt for the joy of the kill. He hunted to prevent others from going through his pain. He turned to talk to her and found himself looking at the blonde from before. He felt his breath catch in his throat. He was beautiful. Not in the overly feminine sense that most male vampires were, but in a way that screamed both power and sex. His eyes were a color that only vampires could possess, and Sasuke had to clamp down on the urge to get a better look at them. He knew that vampire eyes were hypnotic, and the odd color was a way for them to entice their prey into looking at them.
"Name's Naruto," he said leaning on the counter between the two. He watched the blonde's mouth move, judging it to be safer than trying to look into his eyes. He showed no hint of the fangs he knew were hidden in that mouth. His right hand, which was against the bar, tightened on the hilt of his knife. He wanted nothing more than to plunge it into the heart of the dead thing smirking so charmingly at him. He hunted vampires. He did not fuck them. He blinked as an idea came to him. He smirked evilly.
"Sasuke Uchiha, slayer of the fourth circle," he said. It won't matter how old those two were, it was a fact that you did not mess with any slayer inside the inner five rings of slayers. It was akin to suicide. The rings were determined by the number and level of kills made. The fact that he had made the inner rings at the age of twenty made him a practical legend. But to his surprise, the vampire just twirled a lock of hair the color of polished gold, and made sure the two were eye to eye, despite the fact that Sasuke was sitting. Sakura gasped drawing the attention of the redhead. She could not believe that Sasuke was being so bold. You did not just go out telling everyone your profession like that. It was a good way to end up dead.
"Really," Naruto said and his voice made it sound like the idea excited him. And it did. He had encountered many hunters in the years he had been alive, it was the curse of his age. He had once had a lover that was a slayer of the first circle. He pushed back the memories and the pain that came with him. That had not ended well. Sasuke suppressed his surprise. Was he crazy? One of the vampires that lost his mind over time and was too powerful for the others to put out of his suffering? But it was all put into the back of his head as he stared into those eyes. He could feel himself drowning in a sea of impossible blue. Wait. With a mental jerk he pulled himself from mental fog.
"Why don't we take this outside," Sasuke hissed. He was pissed. To have a vampire try to roll your mind was a grave insult in his profession. Never mind the fact that he had almost fallen for it. The fact that he had attested to the power of the vampire standing infront of him. The vampire just looked amused.
"Sure. I've never had a problem with a little exhibition," Naruto knew that he shouldn't be angering the other, but he could not help it. Something about the slayer stirred at a playful side he had not shown in hundreds of years. Gaara, however, had had enough of his partner's game.
"Let it go, Naruto. He is clearly not interested in either a romp in the sheets or being a donor. And you know the Rules," Gaara grabbed his arm and yanked him slightly away from the counter. Sasuke and Sakura exchanged a look. Rules? They had to know a lot about vampire society in order to work on the fringes of it like they did. Never had they heard any kind of rules about prey other than the overriding rule: keep hidden. That rule had been voided when the Counsel had decided to sue for citizenship in America. It had been a ploy by the American Counsel to separate them from the European Counsel and had largely worked. With certain side effects. They could not terrorize the citizenry in the form of killing for no reason, they could not vote, they could not turn anyone under the age of eighteen, and they were not subject to trial by jury. A judge could sign a death warrant for a vampire if there was even a suspicion of wrong doing. Of course, the vampires appeared to follow the rules. Key word being appeared.
Naruto licked his lips and grinned foxily at his friend. He knew the Rules. The Rules they had followed since they had met over six hundred years ago. They had both been at the mercy of their Makers, brutal, powerful vampires, who cared nothing for whether you were willing or not. Vampires who could roll with the flick of their fingers. For vampires were not immune to the gaze of other vampires more powerful than they. The two of them had put down their masters and fled to American to escape the long reach of the European Counsel and Her. They had spent the last two hundred years roaming the country, never attaching themselves to any one master vampire, having become masters themselves. Thus they had created the rules. Never take the unwilling. Never take in pain. And the biggest one of all: never force anything. Having Gaara remind him of the Rules was like being slapped. Naruto turned to his companion, annoyance radiating off him. His eyes flicked over the crowd and he frowned, catching sight of silver hair, and light dancing off round glasses. He could've sworn he had seen that face before. Gaara turned over his shoulder and followed his gaze before his eyes widening. Sasuke began watching the crowd trying to make out what was getting that reaction from the two vampires, while Sakura waved down the bartender. Gaara growled low in his throat.
"We need to leave. Now." He hissed it. Naruto looked confused and watched as the slayer picked up the same person. Naruto opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on, only to be shoved out of the way, an oak crossbow bolt hitting the slayer as he moved. It took only seconds for the crowd to realize what had happened and the panicking to start; long enough, though, for Gaara to grab both the blonde and the slayer before teleporting in a whirlwind of dull brown sand. Naruto found himself on the ugly carpeted floor of the room he and Gaara were sharing at a local motel, the smell of fresh blood overpowering. Next to him was a barely conscious Uchiha, blood oozing from a wound at the juncture of his next and collar bone. He rolled to sitting position, hand applying pressure to the wound, and fighting the urge to just the lap the blood up. He knew that Gaara had already left the room to fetch his sister and human servant, Temari.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for, you damned slayer," Naruto asked trying to keep the other from loosing consciousness. It was clear he was in pain. Sasuke thought about the answer, trying to take his mind off the fact that he knew he was loosing quite a bit of blood. He remembered seeing Kabuto, a man he knew as the current Lord of the City's human servant, raise the handgun sized crossbow, and realizing where he was aiming. The next thing he knew, he was pushing the vampire out of the way. Something about the idea scared him greatly.
"My body moved on it's own," he managed to choke out around the blood. Naruto frowned seeing the blood dribble out the corner of his mouth. That meant that the bolt had managed to pierce his windpipe. If he didn't do something quick he was going to drown in his own blood before he could die of blood loss. He opened his mouth to ask permission, for there was something he could do, but realized the other had lost the battle for consciousness. He swallowed and prayed that the other would forgive him for what he was about to do. It broke the biggest Rule of them all. He latched onto the wound, drinking the blood that ran warmly from the wound, and began pushing his power into it. He couldn't heal him, but he could share power with him. The only catch was that he would have to give the first of three marks that made a human into a vampire servant. It would link the two together for the rest of Sasuke's life, making him stronger, faster, and tougher than a normal human. It also gave him the ability to heal wounds that would be fatal to a normal human.
Naruto found the core of the other's life easily, twining their life forces together. He had never done this, never bound another being to him, before. He knew how it worked in theory, and was working off of that. This human had damned near given his life for him, he would be damned if he was going to let him slip away. He growled around the wound when the first memory hit. He did his best to let the images roll over him and not fight them. He did not want to pry into the other's life, but he knew fighting would only hurt the two of them and distract him from his task. He knew that when he rested for the day the memories would come back. He hoped that the other would not be subject to his own memories. His life had been far from pleasant. Finished with his task, he sat back, resting on his elbows, watching the wound. A thin line of smoke rose from it and with a soft clunk the bolt fell out on to the floor seconds before the wound closed itself. Smiling, Naruto laid on the floor, not noticing Gaara and Temari standing at the door.