Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Deception - COMPLETE	By : kizukatana Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Naruto/Sasuke Views: 11937 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and make no money on anything I write

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
-xXx-
One week. One whole week had gone by and Naruto had learned absolutely nothing about whoever had sent the photos to Sasuke. Lying in his bed in Orochimaru's brownstone, Naruto scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration.
He was beginning to wonder if the bastard had sent them to himself just to get Orochimaru to send Naruto over to him. Every day, Naruto escorted Sasuke when he needed to make a public appearance somewhere. Naruto scanned the crowds, the rooftops, the passing cars, opened every piece of mail (over Sasuke's seething protests) and looked through video footage of every security camera from every location that Sasuke frequented more than three times a month.
Nothing.
It was like someone had sent the photos, then given up. Which would be great, except that they needed to have some sort of confirmation about that before life could go back to normal for Sasuke and Naruto could stop 'protecting' him. And Naruto really wanted this assignment to be over.
First, it was cutting into his time to try to make use of any of the contacts Orochimaru had given him access to. The more time passed under Orochimaru's thumb, the greater the risks of Naruto getting sold out. He wasn't a fool. He had now wasted an entire week, getting no further on his personal project, nor on his assignment with Sasuke. And Orochimaru had continued to have someone follow Naruto, so he hadn't been able to contact Kakashi. His only consolation had been that Kakashi had walked right past him one block from Orochimaru's house when Naruto was on his way home from Sasuke's one evening. Neither had made eye contact or acknowledged the other in any way, but he knew that Kakashi wanted him to know that he had gotten the information on Naruto's new address that Itachi had given the department. They couldn't talk, but even that tiny contact had calmed Naruto somewhat. It meant that Gaara would also know he was ok.
His second issue with his 'Sasuke babysitting assignment' was that it was becoming increasingly difficult to remain detached about the whole thing with Sasuke, and that was not something Naruto wanted to pursue.
He tried to write it all up to the fact that - whatever his personality - Sasuke was physically about as perfect as a human could get. So of course spending time around him was starting to take its toll. Plus, the level of intimacy of their interactions made maintaining distance extremely difficult. Naruto wasn't a sex-trade worker. So for him to be so intimately familiar with someone and have no feelings for them at all was unnatural. He knew the intimate scent of Sasuke, the sounds he made when aroused, what his face looked like at the moment of orgasm. He knew where the man's sensitive spots were, and that Sasuke liked a little pain with his pleasure. All the little details a lover would know. But with no love.
So of course his brain was trying to invent things. Pretending that the way that Sasuke looked at him when they were out at a public event conveyed some message of need. That the way he had started to say Naruto's name when he came was a sign that he wanted Naruto specifically, not just the sexual release he was offered. And then there were the rides up to the penthouse in the elevator. The last time, Sasuke had stood directly behind Naruto, letting Naruto feel the heat and hardness of his body the entire ride up to the 40th floor. Naruto had been almost shaking by the time they arrived. Sasuke had grabbed him by his waist, spinning him around and leaning in to bring their mouths together, and for a second, Naruto had almost let it happen.
Almost.
But instead he had ducked his head and placed a small bite on the sensitive spot on Sasuke's neck (careful not to leave a mark... he wasn't foolish enough to leave any marks of ownership on Sasuke), then sliding down to relieve the obvious tension between Sasuke's thighs. Naruto didn't miss the flash of disappointment in the onyx eyes that watched him, clearly wanting more than what Naruto had been willing to give so far. But Sasuke hadn't forced it. He'd accepted the unspoken ground rules of no sex and no kissing. So far. The invitation was there in those black eyes, though. And it was starting to become harder to ignore.
And that was a major problem because it could distract Naruto from actually being able to focus on looking for whoever was potentially trying to hurt Sasuke. Naruto couldn't afford to let his eyes drift to the man who looked both powerful yet elegant in his expensively tailored suits. He needed to stay focused the other people in the room, looking for unnatural interest or potential danger. Or even just a constant face that shouldn't be there.
Not to mention the fact that there was no possibility of any sort of relationship between a man in Sasuke's position and someone like Naruto. For so many reasons that Naruto didn't even bother to lay them out. It was impossible, and there was no point even considering it.
So he kept his eyes away from Sasuke, and focused where they needed to be. But it didn't keep him from hearing Sasuke, from learning about the man and what he did. And that was, in a way, more dangerous to him than the man's physical beauty. Because it was slowly eroding many of the beliefs that Naruto had about Sasuke. Beliefs that had made it easy in the beginning to ignore him.
The first assumption to fall was that Sasuke had bought his way to success, from his seat on the city council, to the fancy degrees that were displayed in simple black frames in his office. Harvard Law School. Princeton undergrad. Top honors everywhere.
But listening to Sasuke speak in these meetings and debates, he realized that Sasuke would never have needed to buy anything. The man had a fierce, ruthless intellect, leaving much more seasoned opponents gasping in its wake despite the fact that Sasuke was often the youngest in the room by at least a decade. Naruto's favorite moment had been the time when a man who had been flaunting his tenure and experience and trying to belittle everyone else had tried to intimidate Sasuke into changing his position when they had clashed. Naruto had glanced over at Sasuke and the older man, wondering if the animosity between them was enough that Naruto should examine the older man more closely.
And there had been a look that had flashed across Sasuke's face, one of intense predatory anticipation like a tiger playing with a rabbit. Then Sasuke proceeded to verbally grind the man to dust, methodically picking apart every element of the man's argument and leaving him flushed with humiliation at being taken apart in front of his peers.
That look... had been hot as hell. Naruto had been glad Sasuke's attention had been focused on the older man in front of him, and Naruto had been careful not to look at Sasuke the rest of the meeting. But when Naruto had undone the fastenings of Sasuke's trousers later that evening, the image had flashed across his mind and he had had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from ripping Sasuke's shirt off and seeing if he could get that expression to come again. But he had stuck to the rules he had set for himself. In the end, Naruto had found himself sweaty, frustrated and hard when he had brought Sasuke to release. Awareness had flashed through the velvety black eyes as Sasuke realized Naruto's reaction. Awareness and an invitation.
But Naruto had walked away, determined to not take it further beyond the boundaries he had already set out in his mind.
Yeah, he really needed this stupid fucking job to end.
-xXx-
Two days later, Naruto was walking from Sasuke's apartment building on his way back to Orochimaru's. It was still early enough in the evening that the summer sun hadn't set, and the heat baking off the concrete was still full. He felt a prickle along the back of his neck, one he had learned not to ignore. He slowed down, pretending to remove a stone from his shoe. As he bent down, he quickly scanned the faces around him that were reflected in the window of the coffee shop he had paused by. No one he recognized; seven of them had glanced at him. He walked another block in the direction of the nearest subway station. He knew all the men Orochimaru sent to watch him. This wasn't one of them. So whoever this was, it was new. He could lose him in the tunnel if he had to, but first he wanted to know who it was.
He paused again at a bus stop, pretending to read one of the advertisements posted on it. He stretched up, seeming to look around casually. Only one of the seven faces was still around him. In the rapid pace of life in New York, the only reason someone would still be there given Naruto's multiple pauses would be if he were following him. The man turned to look the other way as soon as he noticed Naruto's glance.
That was a fatal mistake.
Naruto noticed the tattoo of a bull in black/green ink on the man's neck. He recognized the art work immediately: a Russian mafia tattoo. The mark of a hit man. There was a second tattoo of an orthodox cross on the man's forearm, meaning he was relatively high in rank. Naruto's body froze and panic snaked along his spine. He had no connections to any of the Russian organizations, and as far as he knew neither did Orochimaru. But there was one person who did.
Gaara.
His body was in motion before he even had a plan. The organization Gaara belonged to had been having conflicts with a Russian syndicate, and rumors had been swirling before Nagato's organization had been taken down that a major turf war between Gaara's boss and one of the Russian crime lords was in the works. If that were going down, Gaara would be high on their list of people to take out.
But Naruto should have been completely unknown to them. The only reason they could be keeping an eye on him today was if they had been watching Gaara for some time. Naruto hadn't been home in more than week, but this person following him was new. Which meant either Orochimaru was somehow involved and had given them his location for some reason that likely had nothing to do with Gaara, or the Russians had been searching the City to find him to make sure he didn't interfere with whatever they had planned when they went to deal with his friend. He wasn't going to take any chances on the second option.
Naruto turned abruptly and began walking quickly to the subway station. There were three stations he had mapped out where the entryway to 'dead' tunnels or stations that were no longer in use was within running distance from the platform. His pursuer likely knew he had been made, so Naruto had to assume the man would act as soon as he had an opportunity. Likely not with a gun, given the full streets. The platform was crowded with the evening rush hour. But that was fine. Naruto didn't need speed at this point. He only needed to keep out of arms reach of the much older hit man. Naruto dug a $20 bill out of his pocket and tossed it on the seat of a shoe-shine station and grabbed a tin of black shoe polish without breaking stride, ignoring the surprised shout from the shoe-shine guy. The twenty should more than cover the cost.
Naruto's two most identifying features were his hair and his eyes. He wished he had brought some sun glasses, but he just squinted his eyes as much as possible to conceal their color, and kept his head down. The trains ran frequently during rush hour, and one was just letting out passengers when Naruto slid his metro pass and went through the turnstile. He squeezed between people, opening the can of shoe polish as he walked and digging out a clump of the black, thick polish and smearing it through his hair. No one even glanced at him as he shouldered his way through the crowds, boarding the train and continuing to walk to the interior door that would lead him to the next car. He had to make it two stops. Which meant he had to keep moving or he'd end up likely with a knife between his ribs.
By the time he reached the next car, his hair was black. He thumbed some over each eyebrow for good measure, then slid the tin in his back pocket and kept walking to the next car, wiping his black-smeared hand off on his jeans. They had just pulled into the second stop, and Naruto exited with the other passengers in a crush of bodies. He made his way to the far edge of the platform and crouched down as casually as possible, his eyes slitted but alert as he scanned the crowd for his prey.
The older man with the tattoos got off the subway, and Naruto could see him scan the crowds, searching. He crouched down further, out of the man's line of sight. The train had emptied out and the remaining passengers were now boarding. Soon the platform would be clear.
A lesser opponent would have simply followed the sweep of the bodies out of the station and searched in the street, but the man obviously had good instincts and soon Naruto saw the pale eyes lock on his. The train was leaving the station, and as soon as the last car passed Naruto jumped down onto the tracks. Naruto heard one or two shouts. He turned his head just in time to see his pursuer reaching behind under his jacket.
Shit. Gun.
Naruto took off at a dead sprint down the tracks, careful to avoid the electrified rails. He had one minute to reach the abandoned platform. It was boarded up from the street entrance, so the only people who frequented it were homeless or criminals. There would be no witnesses at this time of day, and no one who would call the police. He heard a bullet ricochet off the cement wall just to the right of him, but not the shot itself.
Silencer.
No surprise. The guy was a pro, and now that they were away from witnesses he didn't need to hold back. Naruto rounded the corner, and easily jumped the five feet up onto the old platform, rolling away and staying low so the man couldn't get another shot off. He lay flat, breathing hard and waiting for the man to appear. Naruto pulled his knife out of his pocket. He'd take him out here, then go back to his apartment to see if Gaara was the actual target, or if it was only Naruto to begin with.
The man jumped up, trying to pull himself up onto the platform, but he was likely in his late forties and his agility had suffered. He slid back down, but he had seen Naruto laying on the ground. Rather than trying to jump up again, he simply stood on the tracks and started firing shots over the edge of the platform as Naruto rolled then ducked around a corner. They both heard the sound of the oncoming train at the same time.
Naruto waited to see if the man would be able to pull himself up or not. He hoped he made it. Subway deaths always drew so much media attention. That was the last thing he wanted. There was only a two inch clearance between the train and the platform. If the man didn't make it up... well, Naruto wouldn't have to worry about being followed.
The sound of the approaching train grew louder. Naruto could hear the frantic scrambling of the man trying to pull himself up. Naruto heard the screech of the train going past. He poked his head around the corner to see if the man had made it or not.
He hadn't.
Naruto didn't bother looking down on the tracks to see the body.
Instead, he turned and kicked out three of the boards that covered the entrance to the old station. Luckily, there was no one paying particular attention to him as he exited, and he turned his way toward 99th street, running.
. . . . .
Gaara was chopping lettuce for his salad, the long knife making quick work of the stalks. Due to the heat, he was shirtless, wearing grey sweatpants, his feet bare, the swirled tattoo around his navel identical to his roommate's.
He stilled as he heard unfamiliar footfalls stop outside the door to his apartment. He had only been paying half attention, but he counted at least four distinct sets. Possibly five. His grip shifted on the knife, the muscles in his forearm taut. He grabbed a second knife from the cutting block and crouched behind the counter, his body poised but absolutely motionless.
If these were some simple thugs looking to do some easy breaking and entering, they had picked the wrong apartment.
He glanced at Naruto's bed pallet, where the one gun they kept accessible in the apartment was hidden. Not enough time to get it. The others were under the floorboard with a series of false passports, cash, and drivers licenses. They wouldn't help him now.
Gaara didn't even flinch as door was kicked in. Two men with masks entered first, both holding guns with silencers. Not simple thugs, then. As they took an instant to scan the apartment looking for their target, Gaara threw the knives in a single fluid motion before rolling back behind the counter. The three men who had stood behind them in the hallway didn't have a chance to respond before he heard two bodies hit the ground, and knew that his knives had found their marks in the throats of the first two attackers.
But the three men Gaara had seen waiting in the doorway now knew where he was, and likely that he was currently unarmed. Unless they were incredibly inept, he would be in serious trouble.
He heard them enter the apartment at the same time he heard the sound of a new set of running feet in the hallway. Gaara's head snapped up. The tread sounded heavier than usual, but he knew who was coming.
And he grinned.
The door crashed open again just as Gaara launched himself at his nearest opponent.
Naruto burst through the door and threw the dead body of the man he had been carrying onto the assailant closest to him, knocking him down, then instantly swung around to face the third attacker.
While both Naruto and Gaara had studied as many martial arts forms as they could given their line of work, they knew when you were up against multiple opponents with guns you had to skip the audition for the Bruce Lee movie and go for fast and brutal. Together they had crafted their own form of fighting drawing heavily on Krav Maga* and other commando styles designed to kill an opponent in two moves or less, ideally when those two moves happened at the same time.
The man rushed Naruto. The blond let him get in close, lightly blocking the man's arm to keep him coming closer, ignoring the knife that slid along his arm up to his shoulder. He grabbed the man by the chin violently arcing his head backwards smashing it toward the ground and breaking his neck using the man's own momentum. He turned in time to see Gaara spin, snapping the elbow of one of the men who had managed to grab one of the fallen guns, then kicking him directly in the throat with the toe of his foot, crushing his windpipe and rupturing his carotid artery. Gaara twisted the gun from the man's now limp hand and in one fluid motion fired a shot into the head of the man Naruto had knocked down beneath the body of the man Naruto had killed in the hallway standing guard before the man could even get up.
It was over in under a minute.
Naruto was standing with his back to the fire escape, grinning at Gaara. They rarely got to fight for real together. But when they did... it was awesome.
"How did you know - " Gaara began. Naruto watched Gaara's smirk vanish to an expression of fear, then everything went black.
-xXx-
Naruto woke up to an intense wave of nausea. He felt something warm beneath his head. Soft, wet and sticky. He knew that if he opened his eyes he'd throw up from the pain in his head, so he took a minute to try to focus on remembering what had happened to him. He slowly remembered being followed, the subway, the fight in their apartment. He thought they had finished it. But then, how did he end up on the ground with a throbbing head?
He breathed in, the cloying metallic smell of blood giving him a hint of what all the stickiness was.
"Are you done playing dead?" A low voice drifted down to him, immediately settling a feeling of panic he hadn't even realized had begun to brew.
"Gaara," a wave of relief washed through Naruto. Gaara was ok. That was all that mattered. "Don't kill me if I puke on you, 'kay?"
He heard a soft snort. "Well, given that you already bled all over my pants, I don't think it matters much at this point."
Naruto slowly opened one eye, then hissed as the light in the room seemed to stab directly into his brain. But it was enough. He could see that he was laying on the floor, his head resting in Gaara's lap.
His throat worked convulsively as another wave of nausea washed over him. He had a concussion, that was pretty clear. It wasn't his first, so he was familiar with the symptoms. Intense sensitivity to light. Pounding nausea. Dizziness. Fucking head pain.
"What hit me?"
"Bullet," Gaara said flatly. "Grazed your head."
"Who?"
"The lookout. You got the one out front, but evidently they had another in the back. Came to see where the rest of the gang went."
"You got him?"
"Hmpf. Of course," Gaara looked down at his friend. The relief that flooded through him when Naruto first started speaking made him glad he was already sitting down. Gaara's hands were shaking. He had still had the gun in his hand that he had taken from the last assassin, so it had been a simple matter to shoot the figure that had appeared on their fire escape. But the dread of seeing Naruto hit the ground with blood pouring from his head... Gaara closed his eyes, feeling them burn. Slowly he put his pale fingers into Naruto's hair, avoiding the places that were clotted with blood. Head wounds always bled like a bitch.
Naruto sighed, feeling the soft stroking. "If I'd known all I had to do for you to let me in your lap was get shot in the head I would have done it along time ago."
Gaara snorted softly. They both knew that Naruto was only half joking. They loved each other. But Gaara had been damaged beyond the point of repair in terms of physical interaction. Naruto knew it would only ever be a brotherly bond that they could have, but he treasured it. Even if he had wished at various points in time that it could have been more. This was enough.
"You can't die, Naruto," Gaara said, his voice low and raspy. "Especially not for me."
"I'm ok. Just a concussion," Naruto breathed, relaxing further into the touch. He didn't bother addressing Gaara's last statement. He would die for Gaara in a heartbeat. And Gaara would die for him. It was understood. They were all each other had. "Did you call Sakura or Kakashi?"
"No."
Naruto would have nodded if his head didn't hurt so much. He was relieved. They still had to clean up the mess. Kakashi couldn't get dragged into a crime scene with seven dead bodies. Even if it were a hit squad, there's no way that someone with Naruto and Gaara's history wouldn't go to jail. And he didn't want Sakura to become a target. He'd have to stay clear of her until they knew who was after them and took care of it.
"Did you know them?" Naruto asked, gritting his teeth through the pain. This wasn't the time to be napping.
"No, but they're Russian. Could be business. I have to get to the compound and see if it's an all out take-over attempt, or if it was just me. How did you know?"
"One of them was following me home from Sasuke's. Saw the tats. Worried about you," Naruto whispered, trying to find a bearable method of talking.
Gaara frowned. The people Naruto worked for didn't know about Gaara. The people Gaara worked for weren't supposed to know about Naruto. Gaara was careful, and would have known if he had messed up. That meant that someone had informed the Russians. Some third party. Unknown players were dangerous.
He would worry about that later, though. For now, they needed to dispose of the bodies, avoid detection, and keep Kakashi out of it.
Eventually, someone would come to check to see what had happened to the team that had been sent. Gaara and Naruto needed to be out of here before then. They had at most six hours. Probably less. It was possible that someone was watching the place even now.
"How long was I out?" Naruto said, feeling the nausea spike as he spoke, but knowing they needed to get a move on things.
"About thirty minutes," Gaara said, trying not to recall the agonizing way that those thirty minutes had seemed to stretch for days as he waited to see if his only friend would wake up.
"We need disposal supplies. Construction trash bags, bleach, gloves, and duct tape," Naruto whispered the list they both knew by heart. If someone had called the cops, they'd have heard by now. Despite the extreme violence of the fight, it had been relatively silent and over quickly. None of the neighbors had decided to call the cops. That was one less thing to worry about.
"I'll go. You probably can't walk yet." Gaara's voice was brusque, but he gently picked Naruto up and laid him down on his pallet. Naruto smiled at the smaller man, still amazed at his disproportionate strength despite all the times he had witnessed it.
"Rest," Gaara said, keeping the worry from his voice as he handed Naruto the shoebox he had placed the three guns that the hit men had brought with them. "But don't sleep. You might not wake back up if you do."
Naruto understood the warning to be both about sleeping with a relatively severe concussion, but also the very real chance that more 'visitors' could arrive, and Naruto needed to stay alert. Their eyes met in brief agreement, then Gaara was gone.
Naruto slowly drew a deep breath, willing his body to recover. He could hear the sounds of music floating up from the window over the fire escape. There was a block party going on somewhere below. Naruto closed his eyes and let the muted Latin rhythms wash over him. He thought about the curvy girl with the molten chocolate eyes that called him 'papi' when she held him. Another set of darker eyes flashed across his consciousness, and he tried to push them away.
He still felt the room spinning, and knew it would be a bit before he could walk. He just hoped he recovered fast enough to be able to help carrying the makeshift body bags down to the trash room. One of them would have to be waiting down to collect them while the other put the bodies in the chute on their floor. And if one of the bodies got stuck... Naruto didn't want to think about it. They needed to make this crime scene completely disappear.
But a nice wide trash chute had been one of the main criteria for a place to live. That, and proximity to the subway. Hopefully things would go ok.
Gaara came back within twenty minutes, carrying two shopping bags full of supplies. He was glad to see the body count unchanged from the last time he had been here.
"I'll prep the bodies," Naruto said, slowly sitting up. "We still have a couple of hours before rigor sets in, but I don't know if we have that long before reinforcements arrive. You go get the truck."
Gaara hesitated. There were several reasons he didn't like this plan. He didn't think Naruto was physically up moving and packaging the bodies, for starters. He also knew that the staying stationary in this apartment was much higher risk then jacking a garbage truck was. Naruto just looked at him. "You can drive. I can't. We don't have time to wait for my headache to go away."
Gaara walked slowly over to him, and squatted down. "If I come back and find you dead, I am going to resurrect you just so I can rip you to pieces."
"I love you too. Now go steal a garbage truck."
Gaara snickered despite himself.
As soon as Gaara left, Naruto forced himself to get up and slowly begin prepping the bodies. To get them into the bags, he had to bend their knees, then fold their chests down to their knees, into a fetal position. He used the duct tape to secure them in position, reducing the chance of the bodies shifting and getting stuck in the chute. He knew it would require roughly four garbage bags per body to prevent the bags from tearing under the weight, so he quadrupled up the bags and set to work. The garbage bags were then secured with duct tape, both for reinforcement and to keep them closed. Gaara showed up just as Naruto was finishing wiping up the obvious pools of blood, throwing all the rags into another trash bag. The apartment would now pass a cursory glance if the police showed up later tonight. As long as the bodies were gone.
"Ready?"
Naruto nodded. "We'll bleach the floors and walls after we get rid of the bodies. I mopped up the majority of it, but haven't had time to get rid of trace yet."
Gaara nodded. "I've got the truck in position. Just toss them down the chute, and I'll load them in and drive them to the municipal waste incinerator."
No one would question a garbage truck with a permit dumping trash. Trucks ran late in the evenings and early mornings to avoid causing traffic problems.
And garbage incinerators ran at temperatures that left no remains.
They both removed their blood-stained clothing stuffing it into an extra garbage bag, then they took turns showering off the blood. Naruto washed his hair as best he could, getting most of the shoe polish out, but avoided the part where Gaara had tied some cotton gauze over the wound in his head.
Gaara threw him a black bandana. "Cover your head with this. It will hide the bandages and blood won't show through."
-xXx-
Eight hours later, Naruto walked into Orochimaru's house and was greeted by the man himself. Gaara had driven the garbage truck to the nearest incinerator while Naruto had cleaned the apartment and removed all their documents and weapons from the hiding space under the floorboards, packing them into two ratty-looking backpacks. Naruto had waited in a church that was on the other side of town. Gaara had met him there when the truck had been 'returned' and Naruto had handed him one of the packs. They had parted ways agreeing to meet up at the same location in three days when hopefully one of them would have learned what the hell had just happened.
Naruto's first task was to find out if his current employer had tried to kill him.
"Where were you last night?" Orochimaru asked coldly. It was almost seven in the morning.
Naruto studied his face intently. Orochimaru really didn't appear to know what had just happened. Naruto didn't know whether to be relieved or more concerned. Orochimaru wasn't the one who had put out the hit. But that meant someone unknown had. "I went out. Got a little action." Not the kind that Orochimaru would assume, but it was truth enough.
"I thought we agreed that you'd live here."
"And I do. But there are some... forms of companionship that I want to seek elsewhere. I'm assuming that's not a problem? I'm keeping my times with Uchiha. This doesn't effect you."
Orochimaru examined Naruto closely. "You look like you haven't slept all night."
Naruto wondered if the man could smell the bleach on him, and if he would connect that with the likely reasons for it. Or if he would say anything about the bandana covering his head. "It was a wild party. I ended up getting sick, and had to stay and help clean up."
"I thought you didn't drink," Orochimaru said, narrowing his eyes.
"Who said I was drinking?" Naruto countered, knowing that his eyes were bloodshot enough to pass for almost any kind of drug.
Orochimaru just looked at him silently. "Don't let it interfere with your work. I'd better not hear a complaint from Sasuke-kun on your... performance."
Naruto nodded once, ignoring the wave of nausea that rolled through him at the motion.
"Go wash up and change. Get a little sleep, but remember you're supposed to be at his home in a few hours."
Without a word, Naruto turned and went to his room to change. He was lucky that Orochimaru didn't know him well enough to know how ridiculous the notion of Naruto partying himself sick was. Nagato and Konan would have seen through it in a second. Somehow knowing that Orochimaru was not a good judge of character made Naruto feel better, slightly more in control of the situation. The man had obvious weaknesses. Naruto could handle him.
Of course, he still didn't know who had connected him with Gaara. And that bothered him. You can't fight an enemy you can't see.
He lay down on the bed. His head was still pounding sickly, but he knew he needed to stay awake, then go to Sasuke's home. It was possible that this had been architected to distract him from Sasuke. While it seemed like Gaara had been the primary target, Naruto was taking no chances until he knew for sure. They had picked him up coming out of Sasuke's apartment after all.
He decided to head to Sasuke's early. Given that Itachi had basically forbidden Sasuke to leave his home without Naruto with him, Naruto was pretty sure he'd find the man home. Hopefully in one piece.
. . . .
Sasuke looked up as the elevator chimed.
"Why are you early?" His eyes widened as Naruto stepped out and he took in his appearance. The blond looked like hell. His normally tan complexion was pale and waxy, his movements stiff and awkward. "What's wrong with you?" Sasuke asked, his eyes scanning the empty elevator to see if Naruto had been attacked.
"Rough night," Naruto said, his half-hearted grin not reaching his eyes.
Sasuke studied him for a moment. Something was very wrong. Naruto was wearing a white button down shirt and khakis, with a black bandana tied around his head covering his hair completely.
"Take off the bandana. You look ridiculous," Sasuke said flatly.
"I'm having a bad hair day. Bandana stays," Naruto said, his voice soft and his eyes scanning the apartment as if expecting an attack. "Has anyone called you? Come by? Anything unusual at all?"
"No. And you can't accompany me to my lunch meeting with a do-rag on. Take it off."
Naruto hesitated. The walk in the bright sunlight had caused him to throw up in the gutter twice on the way over. He really doubted he'd be able to make it through a lunch meeting without vomiting or passing out. Eventually Sasuke was going to figure things out, so Naruto decided there was no point in prolonging it. He pulled off the bandana, revealing the bloody cotton gauze that the bandana was holding in place.
"Holy shit! What happened to you?" Sasuke strode over, grabbing Naruto by the shoulders and looking at bandage on his head. Naruto winced when Sasuke had grabbed over the shallow cut where the knife had reached him.
He instantly dropped his hands. "Sit," he snapped, glaring at the blond as if daring him to disobey.
Naruto looked at him for a moment, then slowly walked over to the sofa and sat down. The room was spinning a bit, and he didn't want to make it obvious that he needed to. So he glared back at Sasuke.
"Take off your clothes," Sasuke said flatly.
Naruto would have rolled his eyes if he thought he could without puking. "Sorry, honey, but I'm not quite up to a romp on the couch just now. I'll have to give you a rain check."
"Don't be an idiot. You are injured, and I can either call 911 right now and have someone check you out at the hospital, or you can take off your clothes and I can see what the fuck is going on."
Sasuke didn't miss the way Naruto had paled further at the use of the word 'hospital', and he remembered that Naruto had not even admitted to being shot to avoid going there when he was in jail. He mentally filed that away for later.
Naruto glared, but started undoing the buttons of his shirt. Sasuke stood there for a minute with his arms crossed. After a several seconds, he came and gently lifted the bloody gauze away from the wound on Naruto's head. Naruto hissed as the gauze stuck and pulled. Sasuke looked in shock at the wound. He had seen enough of the evidence photos from crime scenes his brother had been examining for his cases that he knew what he was looking at.
"This is a graze from a bullet," Sasuke said quietly.
Naruto just looked at him.
"You were shot in the fucking head."
Blue eyes just looked steadily back.
"Well, I certainly have to acknowledge your commitment to your job. Normally, when someone is shot in the head they'd consider that a valid excuse for calling in sick."
"Yeah, well... I had to avoid sleeping for the first twelve hours. And I figured I'd check in on you to see if anything exciting had happened here since we last chatted."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes, then batted Naruto's hands away from the buttons that he had been clumsily working on. "Idiot," Sasuke hissed under his breath as he peeled the shirt off to reveal several purpling bruises and one long cut.
Sasuke pulled out his phone and dialed. Naruto panicked but realized that Sasuke was punching in more digits than just '911'. "This is Uchiha. Please cancel my appointments for the rest of the day. Yes, tell the Chairman I will reschedule, but I have had a health issue arise that has made me unable to attend." He flipped his phone closed.
"You need a doctor," Sasuke said, already knowing what the response would be.
"No. I've had concussions before. I'll be fine in a day or two. The bleeding had stopped till you ripped the gauze off. It will be fine."
Naruto felt the room spinning again. He had overdone it on the way here. He was going to pass out. And Sasuke was definitely going to call an ambulance. Then he'd end up in the hospital, where they'd call the police to report a gunshot wound.
Fuck was his last coherent thought before everything went black.
-xXx-
to be continued...
next chapter will be mostly Sasuke, and what he thinks about all this, and how he feels about Naruto at this point. Do you think Sasuke will send him to the hospital?
*Krav Maga is a form of self defense developed by Israeli special forces, but used much more widely now. Not pretty, but very lethal.
- 5
- 6
- 7
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Deception - COMPLETE