Title: Changing of the Guard

Author: FantasticFoxkin

Summary: For the man entrusted with protecting the Hokage, no security team is good enough.

Rating: T

Pairing: SasuNaru

Disclaimer: I do not own anything relating to or contained within Naruto. No profit is being made from this. The only thing I get out of doing this is an even greater desire for the owner of this manga to get his skates on and to finish the darn thing the way I want him to. :p

Author's Note: Gift fic for Xenothium because she's awesome. I love the concept of ANBU!Sasuke and Hokage!Naruto and this is based on a roleplay that that two of us are doing. The style is very strange and something of an experiment, let me know if it worked or not. Thanks to HopeLuff for proof reading this for me, my grammar is as bad as ever. The ending is..well to be honest I'm still not sure about it but I'm just going to ignore my reservations and post it anyway. Thanks in advance for reading and any comments are very much appreciated. :)

The guard change was a good twenty minutes ago, but he can't bring himself to leave his post. Instead he stays right where he is, concealing his chakra and his presence from even the most skilled ninja. He watches his men go about their duties and almost clucks his tongue disapprovingly against the roof of his mouth. It both irks and pleases him that they don't know that he's watching. The pleasure comes from remaining undiscovered; from being the best and yet he's trained them better than this especially when someone so important is at stake. He makes a mental note to get tougher on his subordinates; to increase the amount of training that each member of ANBU must undergo because mistakes likes these are how Hokages are lost.

At the back of his mind, he's aware that he should be able to trust these people to do their duty- the problem is that he can't. All of the guards are excellent shinobi in their own right; handpicked to serve in ANBU, to serve their Hokage. In some regards, he does trust them; he trusts them to protect the village with their lives and even more importantly he trusts them to succeed, he wouldn't be much of a captain if he didn't. And yet when it comes to the safety of the Hokage, he finds that he trusts no-one other then himself. Even in a time of peace and prosperity such as the one Konoha is currently enjoying, they cannot afford to let their guard down. They would mock him if they knew the depth of his paranoia but he knows that it is the one thing capable of keeping the hope of this village alive, keeping Naruto alive.

The position of Hokage has always been a symbol of security and of trust. People respect and admire those that hold the position. Yet never before has he known of a Hokage to be spoken about with so much love. The people of Konoha and of the surrounding area have made no shame of the fact that their leader isn't just someone who commands their respect, but also that he is someone that they cherish.

He can only wonder what took them so damn long.

Naruto has changed in the long years that he's known him. He's hesitant to use the word 'matured' about someone in their twenties who still has the sense of humour of a five year old, and yet that's exactly what Naruto has done. From the ruins of a society that had been ravaged by war, Naruto has managed to rebuild a place that many people are proud to call home almost single handed. It hadn't always been this way. There was a time in when he couldn't foresee living long enough to do anything other than taking this village to hell with him. Yet Konoha has adapted and evolved into a place that he believes the Uchiha clan would have been proud to have been a part of, to give their lives for, and that's all down to Naruto.

There is just something unique about their Hokage that makes people want to follow him; that makes them believe that short loud mouthed idiot can do anything if the blonde only sets his mind to it. Sakura once compared Naruto to the light of a lighthouse, guiding the lost souls through the turbulent waters back to a position of safety and security. He thinks that Sakura needs to stop reading those dreadful romance novels of hers and come up with a metaphor that doesn't suck... although, he can see her point, however idiotic she manages to make it sound.

The only reason that he came back here in the first place was because of Naruto. There had been a time when everyone had given up on him, including himself, and yet Naruto's faith in him had never wavered. That hadn't made any sense to him back then and why would it have made sense? It wasn't as though he had given Naruto any reason to believe that he could be saved. Hell, at that point, he hadn't even /wanted/ to be saved; content to simply fade away once his revenge had been completed. And yet here he is, Captain of ANBU and head of Konoha's security. If someone had told him this was how his life would have played out a few years ago he would have laughed and then probably killed them for being so idiotic. Why would he ever want to be responsible for protecting the very place that had been responsible for the demise of his clan, for the murders of his family?

It hadn't been easy moving back to Konoha. It had taken a lot of pleading on Naruto's part and the promise that things would be so much different once he was made Hokage. Of course Naruto couldn't be Hokage then, considering the idiot was never in Konoha and Naruto had refused to go back without him which put them both in a difficult position. If he was being completely honest, his original reason for going back was because he had nowhere else to go. He was tired of being on the run and it wasn't as if he had anyone but Naruto who cared about what happened to him. At that point in time he hadn't been able to fathom why Naruto was so keen to for him to go back. It cost Naruto nothing but trouble.

He liked to think that he'd never been a fool, unlike some, and he knew very well the risks Naruto had taken by bringing him home. Then to offer an ex-criminal such a high position after only being in office for five minutes? It had certainly caused a stir in the village. Even before Naruto had been offered the title of Hokage, he'd heard many people question the blonde's judgement and his suitability to become Hokage simply because he was best friends with the returning 'traitor'. It hadn't seemed to matter what people said though because Naruto was a force to be reckoned with. Naruto had point blank refused to back down on the issue and had publically stood by him, speaking out about Konoha's own treachery even though it could have cost him his dream.

However, despite Naruto's best efforts (in the beginning at least), he had hated being back in Konoha. He didn't want to contribute to the rebuilding of the village or be forced to serve under those who had simply stood aside and allowed his clan to be slaughtered. People stared at him wherever he went and it was difficult living near people who thought he should feel remorse for his actions when he would redo them all over again in a heartbeat. There had been so many times that he had questioned his decision to stay in the village, so many times that he'd wanted to take off in the middle of the night and never set foot in Konoha ever again. The only reason he had stayed, during those difficult times, was because of the knowledge of what that would do to Naruto. The thought of hurting his friend like that all over again was more painful than he had anticipated. The worst part of it was that he'd managed to hurt him anyway, although in much smaller ways. With no outlet for his frustrations and anger, he'd taken it out on Naruto. It wasn't as though he wanted to hurt him, but there were times in which everything would build up to boiling point and Naruto was the only one who cared enough to listen to him. Still, it had been nice to know that no matter what he said or did, Naruto was there for him. The blonde was patient and ridiculously understanding about everything which only made him feel guilty, especially after some of their more animated fights.

Of course all of that had made it impossibly difficult to turn down that job in ANBU once Naruto had been made Hokage. He'd found that it was impossible to deny the blonde anything especially after everything he had done for him and all the crap that the idiot had put up with. Yet it was more than sense of duty that kept him tied to Konoha, to Naruto. He found that he genuinely wanted to stay here with him and by then it was starting to feel like home again. As far as he was concerned, someone had to make sure that Naruto didn't do anything stupid or reckless and he knew all too well that Naruto would have moments of stupidity and recklessness, Hokage or not, because that was just who Naruto Uzumaki was.

Perhaps that was how all of this had started in the first place; this extreme dedication to guarding the Hokage because he didn't trust anyone else to watch over Naruto. There seemed to be an unspoken rule in Konoha that, once you were made Hokage, it made you some kind of deity that could do no wrong. In the span of a few years, the village had gone from hating Naruto's existence to hailing the Kyuubi host as the greatest ninja that had ever lived. He couldn't help but think that putting someone like Naruto on a pedestal that high was only likely to cause the idiot to fall and break his damn neck.

It wasn't that he ever questioned his Hokage's skills. Naruto was an excellent shinobi, ridiculously kind-hearted, brave and had the kind of inner strength that most people couldn't even comprehend, but the Hokage was also only one man. Naruto was beautifully human in all his perfections and imperfections, quite capable of making mistakes just like everyone else and more importantly capable of struggling like everyone else. There was a vulnerability to his best friend that just made him want to protect the blonde from everything and everyone. Naruto seemed to feel things far more keenly than anyone else and he wasn't sure that anyone else had even noticed this about their Hokage.

At least, that was the reason that he gave himself every night for doing what he was doing right now. Sleeping with one eye open had become common place for him since his defection all those years ago and if he can use it to better protect what he is entrusted with then so be it. Watching over his best friend was the only purpose that he had now that his revenge was complete and he was as devoted to his new purpose as he had been to the path of revenge.

Frowning a little, he takes a step forward, still protected by the shadows. Even from this position, just outside the window he can hear Naruto's restless movements. If Naruto was having a good night's sleep then the blonde tended to be really still and quiet. It often amused him that someone so loud could be such a quiet sleeper it was probably the only time that Naruto's mouth stopped moving. Unfortunately, as he dropped in silently through the window, it was easy to see that his best friend was not just having a restless night's sleep, but that Naruto was in the middle of some kind of nightmare. Blonde hair was plastered to the tan forehead and as Naruto tossed and turned he could see that he was muttering something or to someone. Sometimes Naruto would be able to wake himself up but at other times, like tonight, that was impossible to do.

Resisting the urge to activate his sharingan to see what Naruto was talking about, he puts one of the finger tips of his glove into his mouth and pulls the fabric off his hand with his teeth. The easiest way to calm Naruto down is to touch his hair, something he's never failed to tease the idiot about. However, moments like this were something that he can't mock his best friend for because he has far too much experience of nightmares himself.

Leaning over the sleeping Hokage, he runs his fingers through the strands of blonde hair, pushing them away from the slightly damp forehead. There is something special about the fact that no-one gets to see Naruto this way. This is something secret just for him. He's learned to live with the fact that everyone and their uncle want attention from his Naruto. Children flock to the blonde like he's a candy maker and adults seek the Hokage's approval like they're all children again and need reassurance that they are doing well. Yet despite of all of this he knows that he holds a special place in Naruto's heart.

It pleases him that in a room full of people that he is the one that Naruto will actively seek out, he is the one who gets to see every single side of this village's saviour. No matter how many people the Hokage saves, no matter how many times he pulls of the impossible, Naruto will always be Naruto to him: idiotic, mushy kind-hearted Naruto.

He pushes back the porcelain mask and takes hold of the hand that is already reaching out to him as he leans down to kiss Naruto's forehead.

He is Sasuke Uchiha, Captain of the ANBU, and blessed with the responsibility of something precious he never expected to have.

Author's Note: Don't forget to review. ;)