Title: Brave New World

Chapter: 1/whoknows

Genre: Romance. Humor, 'cause I'm terrible at writing it but I love it to death. ;D And... drama.

Summary: [Sasunaru] [AU] Naruto, a nice guy with an unfortunate unlucky streak, stumbles upon a cheap, inexplicably twinkling necklace after escaping three murder attempts at his life. Now he's Death, and one unwilling vampire, Uchiha Sasuke, shows him the ropes.

Warnings: ohmigawd! thz iz sooooo gay. ur a fag and jeyzuz h8ts u. Couple of boys smoochin' each other isn't your thing? :D Chalk yourself up to that lovely person's commentary; I enjoy throwing smarmy comments at'cha.

... I also think I abuse italics, and that I go way too fast through action scenes. D: I'll let you be the judge.

ALSO: copious amounts of swearing. Because... that just strikes me as something that'd fit Naruto's character.

Note: Hooboy, this thing's been bouncing around my head since April of 2007 when my darling friend lent me Christopher Moore's amazing piece of literature, A Dirty Job. That man gets all the credit for this pointless piece of fanfiction; he is my inspiration. :3

YES, Sasuke's a vampire. It's overdone, but this is my twist on it.

This story was supposed to be complete before I posted it, but I can't wait anymore. D:

NEWS YEAR'S RESOLUTION: FINISH WHAT YOU START.

Mmyeah. We'll see how long that lasts.

Anyway - I have no beta, so, this is entirely thought, written and edited by yours truly. (please, uh, be kind with that thought in mind).

Enjoy! :D

Brave New World

Naruto despised Tuesdays.

He had always been aware of the black cloud of misfortune that constantly hovered above him and knew, almost intimately, of its wily ways of deterring him from the path of happiness. It had introduced itself one Tuesday morning during a rainstorm - an unfortunate day that Naruto does not remember because he lost his two front teeth, got struck by lightning, and misplaced his favorite shoe (with the smiley face shoelaces) all in the same soccer game. That day landed an eight year-old Naruto in a hospital that suffered a power failure minutes before his arrival; Naruto almost lost his life because there was nothing to sustain it. His father, hysterical, killed himself and two others - his best friend and his best friend's mother - while gunning the brand new silver Avalon fifty miles over the speed limit, trying to get to Naruto (consequentially, the car was totaled). His mother went missing overnight (a scuba diver found her corpse two years later in the polluted lake bordering the town, and Naruto faced a lawsuit that claimed he owed the diver thousands to cover the man's emotional damage therapy). His parents' savings went to his greedy uncle Mizuki because a will had never been written, and he was dumped into a dreary little orphanage that had been forgotten by the city.

Restated: Naruto despised Tuesdays.

The stupid cloud that Naruto blamed for his very existence never dissipated as he grew up; his bad luck streak merely became a watered down version. Disaster still clung to Naruto better than his shadow.

For instance: Naruto knew never to order eggs because he'd get eggshells stuck in his teeth, he knew never to gamble with jaywalking because it was predictable down to the second when a car that had lost its breaks would careen around the corner, he knew not to walk alone at night because people with sticky fingers tended to gravitate toward him and snag something off his person (usually he lost his wallet; once, a fingernail), and he knew never to work retail on Tuesdays. He only cooked with hot water from the spigot (anything electrical started the house on fire), he slogged through rain, wind and snow to his destination to avoid being a hostage at gunpoint on public transportation, and he always put his mirrors face down come Halloween, in case any more hallucinations of ghosts clawing from the other side of the glass, screaming for help, occurred.

All these things came to Naruto through experience. But there was one thing that stuck out more than his untamable hair - Naruto knew, above all else, not to anger, annoy, or give any inclination of betrayal to a woman. Girlfriends were no exception.

"GODDAMN YOU, NARUTO!"

Naruto ducked as a modestly decorated vase smashed above his head. He felt the shards graze his scalp, but he was too terrified to swipe them off; Sakura was much scarier than the prospect of severe blood loss.

"S-Sakura," Naruto stammered, lips quirking into a tentative smile, "baby, why would you--"

"DO NOT BABY ME," roared the pink grenade, and Naruto was forced to launch himself into the adjacent hallway to avoid a wine glass - a crystal wine glass, Naruto thought painfully - as it crushed itself against the wall. His elbow throbbed reproachfully as Sakura armed herself with the twin of the shattered goblet. They were her anniversary present, given just twenty-two minutes ago. Seems like it's been the second cold war, Naruto thought dazedly. He scrambled to find words that would appease the inflamed woman, who was decreasing the distance between them at an alarming pace.

"Sakura! I-I've never looked twice at another woman--"

Sakura ignored his plea for innocence. "What does Ino have that I don't? Huh?" Sakura was squeezing her fists so hard Naruto was afraid for the safety of his teeth. "Is it her breasts?"

"Wha-why would that--?"

"Is it her hair?"

"No, Sakura, you're gorge--"

"It's the sex, isn't it?" she raged, quivering with anger. She had charged so far into Naruto's personal space he had retreated to the opposing wall - but now he was cornered, and errantly confused.

Sakura was never like this. Sakura was always sweet and kind, always smiling, always equipped with band-aids, always ready to hear both sides of the story. And, sure, he'd received a few mighty blows to the head occasionally, but Naruto couldn't remember a time when Sakura had gotten this angry - an almost savage quality - nor could he remember ever seeing her face twisted into such a horribly unkind expression. If he had allowed himself to indulge the thought, Naruto might've said Sakura's expression reminded him of one of his terrifying hallucinations in the mirror last Friday (the 13th).

She was coming closer. Panicked, Naruto dove onto his remaining option: sweet-talking. "Sakura, honey," he tried a soft tone to calm her, "I haven't cheated on you--"

"BULLSHIT." Naruto barely avoided the remaining glass grenade. "Why the hell were you three hours late, Naruto, if you weren't with Ino? Do you - do you really think I'm that stupid? That I wouldn't figure it out?" Naruto could only gape as Sakura stopped her march forward, crying, wiping her eyes with dangerously clenched fists. "P-People have been calling, Naruto, saying such awful things - but, b-but they told me where you've been and I saw you and - and I'm so..."

Naruto had no idea what she was talking about. Seen him? She said it like it was evidence to a crime. He hadn't done anything even remotely suspicious. What was--

And it was almost like a second personality overtook her; Sakura's eyes sharpened, her teeth made a reappearance, and the crying ceased.

"I knew it was a bad idea to date you, I knew it," Sakura snarled. "You son-of-a-bitch, you snake, I hate you--"

Desperate, Naruto cried, "But Sakura! I love you!"

His hands were balanced unpleasantly on shards of glass, which greedily sunk into the soft flesh of his palms and would've made normal men howl. But Naruto's attention was fully focused on his girlfriend's shaking and crying form. Her fists were clenched tightly, her hair stuck messily to her tearstained cheeks, and her dull green eyes - eyes he used to proclaim undying love to - were filled with a cold dismissal.

"Get out."

As Naruto shakily rose from his caged position, a snide little voice in the back of his head told him he should've been expecting something like this. He shouldn't've crossed the town in a taxi - number one mistake - because the cabby was, of course, an emotional roller coaster, and Naruto, being a good soul, couldn't just walk away when the guy was sobbing his heart out in Naruto's arms. Really, the voice snipped, cleaning its fingernails, you should've chanced Sakura's rage without a present.

But Naruto hadn't. After dropping the snoozing cabby off at the clinic, he ran the last leg to the crystal dealer, paid for the hand-cut, customized goblets, and even went to far as to barter with the subway to make it back to her.

He quietly shuffled past Sakura's stone body - oddly still from the amount of emotion that had just coursed through her - reached for his car keys on the wooden divider and paused. Her anniversary card was propped open, the scribbled I luv yoo! burning its cheery message into Naruto's retina. He turned away, walked the few steps to the door he'd never gotten around to paint the shade of yellow he'd imagined, and stopped once more.

Naruto took one last look at Sakura, whose back was still stiffly facing him, before stepping out into the crisp January air, quietly shutting the door behind him.

It reminded him just how fragile his happiness was.

Naruto kicked a crumpled soda can angrily, fists buried in his ratty coat pockets. Figures it's a goddamn Tuesday, Naruto groused, burrowing deeper inside his trusty old coat as another gust of wind slunk down his collar. It'd also figure Naruto only knew of one person - the very same one whom he had been accused of sleeping with, of all things - with a vacant couch, and she (of course!) lived on the other side of a town currently facing a small crisis.

Public transportation was closed after midnight because of the innumerable amount of people that vanished without a trace on the dark city streets; police were baffled, and people superstitious. Rumors were running around of cackles hissing from dirty drainpipes and sounds of scratching claws and rustling feathers echoing in shadowy alleyways. Some of the witnesses (with, at best, dubious qualifications) claimed they'd seen a man with more piercings than a tattoo artist, a figure wearing a basketball on his head and, they'd continue in terrified whispers (in the local gag newspaper), that another one was eating a corpse; the blood was like, thick, man, and we were like, whoa! And it was totally not sweet.

Naruto thought it all wannabe-vampire nonsense - or the slight possibility that his bad luck could metastasize into entire metropolises - but he couldn't stop the shudder from scuttling down his spine as he hurried past one such gloomy back street. He had put a good twelve miles between his - Now Sakura's, he thought ruefully - apartment and himself, and was well into white Suburbia, but friendly neighborhoods by day turned damn creepy at night.

Ino was still miles away. Naruto trudged unhappily forward, pointedly ignoring the black cat that blinked intelligent eyes from a rooftop, ignoring the shadows that wriggled into inhumanoid shapes and waved at him - ignoring everything but his cold body. But Naruto (who was also ignoring the fact that the cheery lane had been ablaze with lights minutes before he began strolling down it; everything was pitch-black now) could not dismiss his feet.

It was the strangest sensation; Naruto's feet always numbed and tingled moments before something catastrophic happened to him. Doctors had said it was an aftereffect of the lightning strike that hit when he was a kid; don't worry about it, we can't do anything for you anyway. But after he'd been sucker punched in the face by an old woman who was actually an undercover agent and accused of pirating a multimillion dollar computer software program (when the guy next to him had, unbeknownst to Naruto, slipped the CD containing it into his manpurse), served three months in jail - effectively missing his college finals - and fallen down a flight of stairs with a lollypop in his mouth - which punctured a hole straight through his palate and almost caused permanent brain damage (some argued it did) - with all incidents occurring moments after his feet began to tingle, Naruto was convinced. It was a warning, and it was the only one he got.

So Naruto turned back toward the last sooty alleyway he'd shuffled past and took a wary second look.

A narrow, shiny street with a few leftover raindrops dripping from the shingles and a messy patchwork of tar was all that greeted him. It was just an alley, nothing suspicious about it. Naruto quickly glanced up - a huge cookbook had fallen out of a three-story window and crashed on top of his head once - and saw nothing but storm clouds. He relaxed, chastising himself for being such a fraidy-cat. Seriously, Naruto, he chided, turning around. What were you expec--

And then suddenly the air was too heavy to suck in, his legs refused to support him and he buckled. Naruto's palms slapped the wet pavement to halt his descent, but he still couldn't breathe and his mind was reeling - what the fuck? - and someone was screeching in delight nearby. It was like gravity had been amplified ten times; it hurt to inhale.

He could feel their presence more than see - Naruto could've easily passed as blind, as he was unable to make out anything in front of his nose. The numbness had spread to his ankles and Naruto could only swallow what little saliva was left in his mouth as footsteps ricocheted off the compact walls. His mind bleated; what the fuck?

One disembodied voice said, "This was too fuckin' easy."

"Mmm, he smells divine," a woman moaned, and Naruto's imagination supplied him with a vision of plump lips bitten by a set of white teeth. His breath hitched.

"Orochimaru, you fuckin' fag. Shut the hell up."

He still couldn't breathe. What the fuck?

"Silence, you fools. We do not have the luxury of time."

Frosty clamps fastened themselves around his biceps, and it was so cold he couldn't feel his skin. With the little sight available to him, Naruto realized with a detached horror that the icy feeling wasn't from steel, it was from a pair of hands. Hands with scales.

What the fuck?

His breathing was made even more difficult; a rough scrap of cloth was fastened around his mouth and tied painfully tight.

The first one who spoke was suddenly louder. "This is the fox?" A sharp kick hit his ribs, and Naruto was reunited with the wet tar with an explosion of hurt. His bones sang in pain as the skin of his cheek scraped the ground. "He's a fuckin' pansy!" the voice boomed with harsh chuckles, and it was joined with other snickering laughs. Naruto wanted to plant a fist in the shmuck's mouth who dared to punch him when unarmed and disadvantaged - it was one of his biggest morals; never harm someone who is defenseless - but he couldn't muster the energy needed to simply lift himself up. Or move his jaw to cuss that motherfucker back to his pit in the ground. Or twitch a finger. Or move.. any part of his body.

Naruto panicked. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't do anything as the ice-cold hands lifted him like a rag, harshly twisting his arms behind his back and snapping back his neck by the roots of his hair. Naruto's teeth were clenched as pain barraged his body and as cold cold, holyshit cold fingers brushed against his cheek. Softly, almost like a lover. It made his skin crawl.

"Do we really have to do this now?" the woman whined, and Naruto dazedly guessed it was her fingers on his cheek. "I could have so much fun..." What the fuck?

"Orochimaru." This voice was low and deep, and cracked like a whip. It was commanding, frightening. Apparently Naruto wasn't the only one who thought so; Orochimaru withdrew her icicles from his face faster than he could snap his fingers.

"We do not. Have. Time." There was a snarl, and the snickering stopped dead. The scaly man holding Naruto shifted uncomfortably, still wrenching Naruto's head back and holding his arms at such an angle they would dislocate if Naruto so much as twitched - not that he could. His legs ached, his cheeks were numb, his arms were turning into the consistency of molten lava, and his throat was constricting steadily from whatever was in the air. His mind was frantically trying to come to a conclusion - okay: bad guys, dark alleys, horror movie-rape-scene... What the fuck? - but only the snide little voice spoke up: See? I told'ya you should've just gone home.

There was a whine of metal, sounded like a sword had been drawn and scraped across the brick wall. The sudden noise made Naruto's already lightheaded mind wince and lose its hold on his thoughts, scattering them. The powerful arms detaining him suddenly picked him up, as if he weighed nothing, and tossed him, presumably to an adjacent asshole. Naruto unguardedly hit the wall with his head absorbing most of the impact; he saw stars, and Orochimaru must've made a reappearance, because one shoulder was numbing from the goddamn cold fingers again as he was roughly hoisted from the wet ground. His molten arms - Jesusgodfucker, the pain - were slammed above his head, and Naruto felt his ribs ache as his shallow rendition of inhaling became impossibly painful.

Breathing harshly through his nose - which quickly proved ineffective as blood plugged both nostrils - Naruto squirmed with everything he had left to try and free an arm - which he couldn't feel anymore - unsuccessfully. He was gonna die, he was gonna die, and he couldn't supply himself with enough oxygen to fight back.

Those fuckers, Naruto raged weakly, his struggles slowly subsiding. A blackness was beginning to swallow his already limited sight, and his dry-heaving wheezes left him gasping for more air; more air, god, he couldn't breathe.

And then something cold and pointed came to a lazy rest just above his frantically beating heart. There was silence in the sad, soggy alleyway, as if the occupants were collectively holding their breath.

"Farewell, Fox."

What the fuck?

He felt the sword leave his body, and heard intakes of air from every member of the group. Anticipation. He still couldn't breathe. His head ached.

Naruto closed his eyes.

Braced himself.

Goddamn it!

The blade cut a slow insert across his neck, before the man's fist audibly tightened, and Naruto could only dizzily stare at the place where the guy's head should be, gasping weakly through the bitter cloth. Goddamn it.

But his execution was interrupted. There was a howl of rage, a dull thud, and a snarl from the man with the sword.

And then the agonizing pressure on his scalp was gone, the cold fingers were gone, his captors were gone, the suffocating feeling was sucked from his lungs and they begged his diaphragm to contract - but Naruto didn't take a breath.

He didn't have time to.

The sour bandana was thrust up and over his eyes and an incredible force crushed him to the wall, recaptured his wrists, and aligned its hips into his. Naruto was able to fleetingly think not again before a bruising force pressed against his lips. It was a demanding kiss, and whoever it was knew damn well how to deliver. Dizzily, Naruto tried to keep up as his lips were sucked, bitten, nibbled, and licked until his heart throbbed inside its bruised ribcage, and as a tongue slicked over his molars, Naruto had to weakly admit that it was the hottest thing that he had ever experienced --

-- and then it was over. The talented mouth ripped away from him, and he breathed, inhaling until he felt he could burst, but the crushing pressure was back before he could even reach for the cloth covering his eyes. Positioning itself against Naruto's trembling body, whoever it was whispered fervently in his ear: "Run."

And then reality caught up with Naruto. The crescendo of angry snarls and scraping of claws - or were they scales? - on the tar was deafening, his quivering body was threatening to shut down, and the hostile, metallic taste in the air was settling with an air of finality on his tongue.

Suddenly, the suffocating weight on his body body was lifted, and before Naruto could even turn to see his savior's face he was violently jerked to the side, just avoiding a backslash attack; the whine of metal meeting the wall left Naruto's ears ringing.

Snarling, "I said go!"

Naruto's body was hurled forward once again, and he felt icy fingers scratch at his bleeding scalp - Orochimaru - and then Naruto's survival instincts kicked in as he blindly hurled a fist, heard a satisfying crack as he connected with someone's jaw - and then his shoes slapped the pavement and Naruto ran.

This is a teaser more than anything else; a tow in the water, if you will. :3 If you liked it and want more/hated it and want me dead so I can't write more - review?