He lay awake. Something felt wrong that prevented him from sleeping. There was an unrest within him and it roused him from a long slumber. Maybe he was a bit jealous the others all had a chance to play, but he didn't. Ofcourse his instincts would kick in at night, being nocturnal.

He hadn't been unaware of everything that had happened, it was just that he never took an active role in it all, because he was inherently lazy. Yet now he was awake. His current mate, Sasuke was sleeping next to him and he was trying to not be restless and wake up Sasuke. He was staring at the ceiling and just couldn't find sleep.

He sighed. Nights were so long when you couldn't sleep. He didn't want to remain inactive when he felt this much energy brimming inside him. If Sasuke had been awake, he would have gladly burned away the energy with his mate, but Sasuke seemed so peaceful sleeping he didn't want to disturb him.

Sitting up, he waited for a second to see if his movement disturbed Sasuke, but Sasuke didn't move. He got up and left the room to go to the back yard. He sat on the deck, watching out over the garden and leaned against a post. It was nice outside, the moon was bright and the sky cloudless. The stars were shining, strewn across the sky in full glory. For a moment he longed to go to the Hokage monument and just sit there for a while, but he was on house arrest, so he stayed where he was.

After a while he got up and walked into the garden. In boredom, he might as well tend to it. It was still decent from when they worked on it before, but work was never done in a garden. Even the short while of their mission was enough to sprout new weeds, gather new fallen leafs and even some dead plants. It wasn't like the dark prevented him from seeing it. The moon and stars were quite enough to see everything. In fact, sometimes he found it easier to work under the light of the moon as sunlight was regularly bright enough to still hurt his eyes a bit.

It passed the time. It wasn't until the first rays of the sun broke over the horizon that he noticed he'd worked the night away. And that he might have wandered over to the part of the garden that they hadn't worked on at all yet.

He sat down and looked at his hands. They were muddy and stained. They had scratches on them and even some blood from deeper scratches he had failed to notice as he worked. It was weird seeing these hands. They looked wrong, nothing like his real hands. Or paws to be more exact. He felt disassociated from this body. It didn't fit him, so he rarely took control, but the gardening had brought a peace of mind that allowed him to accept it for a while.

He couldn't wait to slumber again. Remain silent in the background but still present, like he had been for so long, sealed away. He yawned. Of boredom more then tiredness.

But something still felt off. He was being watched. At first he thought it was the ANBU the Hokage sent after him, but the ANBU wasn't alerted to him right now. Probably because the ANBU didn't expect him to be up in the middle of this night. There was something else. Or rather, someone else, that was trying to prevent leaking their presence to him. For a moment he wondered if the second presence was what drew him from his otherwise peaceful slumber, but that wasn't it. The presence was a more recent addition to his day. He looked around, his red eyes taking in the surroundings with new diligence. Ah, there it was, hiding in plain sight. It must think it was hiding properly. His eyes settled on it fiercely.

He slowly stood up, stretching the muscles that felt so unfamiliar yet responded to him like his own body would have. He fixated his gaze upon his point of interest and the subject of his attention squirmed uncomfortably. With certain steps he strode over to the small quivering creature. "Hello there, little bunny." The fox said, grinning down at his new prey. "Were you being curious? That's a dangerous trade to have as a bunny, you know." He said, cocking his head and grinning, exposing his slightly elongated canines as he stared at the bunny with gleaming red eyes. The bunny backed up, nervously smiling up at him and muttering something.

"What's that, bunny? You really need to learn how to speak up. You wouldn't want your last words to go unheard, now would you?" He leaned in closed as if to listen better, but then grabbed at the bunny with his clawed and dirtied hand. He missed his swipe as the bunny hopped away quickly. Well, that just wouldn't do. He'd need to give chase. How long had it been since he had hunted for real? Too long. Yes... way too long. His grin widened as he watched the bunny scurry away. It was speedy, he'd give the bunny that, but that just made it more interesting.

He gave chase, jumping in front of the bunny so it needed to scramble and turn direction, swiping at its legs so it'd loose balance, nicking the skin to hear it yelp in pain, but never enough to make it slow in its attempts to get away. Not that he would let it get away, no, he just wanted it to think it might be able to. It amused him to see it run and cower in fear. This was the kind of power he loved to have, the power that should have always been his, and everything in the world was supposed to be mere bunnies to him. Except his mate. His mate was the only one to stand on equal footing as him. But he got cruelly locked away, almost long enough to forget the thrill of the hunt. So now he took his time and toyed with his prey.

But he had toyed enough. His prey was getting tired and that took the fun out of it a little. The real pleasure of the hunt didn't come from the chase; it came from the kill. To see the life seeping out of the small, vulnerable body as it bled out, to see the shine leave the eyes as it gave out and left its body to feed his own. That moment was the sacrifice he longed to take.

He launched, landing on the bunny and locking it in place so it could no longer run away from him. He leaned on the bunny with a hand on its shoulder and and on on its head. He pressed down a little harshly, watching the bunny squirm and yelp softly. The bunny's body grew completely still save for the quick breathing and eyes desperately searching for a means to get away. He moved back a bit, preparing to press down hard and pound on the fragile neck to make it snap. He didn't have the mouth to tear at its throat, so a bloodless kill was all he could manage.

"Naruto, what are you doing?" His mate called out, sounding upset. He looked between Sasuke and the little bunny a couple of times, a little lost his mate didn't understand he was hunting and confused over the name he was called. It took a few seconds to remember that they had kept Naruto as their name, despite it not fitting him anymore but because of a lack of a better option, they had stuck with Naruto.

"Mate. I was hunting." He said and Sasuke gave him a look that indicated his confusion. Why would Sasuke be confused? He cocked his head at Sasuke, waiting on what Sasuke would do.

Sasuke walked up the them and looked him straight in the eyes. Sasuke's eyes widened slightly at seeing both eyes red, before settling back down. "Let him go, would you? You're hurting him." Sasuke said, looking down on the pathetic creature still fearing for his life underneath him.

"Why? Don't you want to eat bunny?" He asked, following Sasuke's gaze to greedily stare at the bunny as well. A renewed fear bloomed on the bunny's face at what he said and it began to squirm once again. That just made him brace his claws into the skin of the bunny in an attempt to keep it from escaping.

"That's not a bunny, Naruto, now please let him go before he really gets hurt." Sasuke said. "For me?" Sasuke added when he didn't get a response.

He huffed, pressed down on the bunny one last time and then sat back. The bunny scrambled to stand up and it hid behind his mate, clinging to Sasuke's shirt and looking back at the fox with big, scared eyes. He still looked nervous, but was quite brave for a bunny, deviantly staring back at him.

"I still don't like that name." He stated, attempting to swirl his tails only to realise he didn't have any tails on this body. He grumbled at that. "But since another name is still not chosen, I guess there still is no alternative." He sighed. He definitely needed to make this matter more pressing, even if he was the only one, it seemed, to be bothered by the blatent misnaming of himself.

He looked at Sasuke again, and the boy behind him. And yes, he did recognise the bunny was in fact a boy of around twelve or so, so he was grateful his mate had stopped him from killing it. Him. Whatever. What he also noticed was the natural grace of his mate while shielding the child, the way Sasuke had placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and unconsciously shifted to shield the boy from harm.

"You don't look so bad there, mate, with a child clinging to your frock." He purred as Sasuke, locking eyes with him and standing up. "We would do well to merit our own soon." His words elicited a blush on Sasuke with the insinuation and he smirked. He cupped Sasuke's cheek and kissed him. He chose his mate well. It really was a shame neither of them were female for as far as kids went.

Sasuke stepped back, glaring at him. "This is not okay. You can't almost kill a child and then continue like nothing happened!" He chided.

"Well, it was just a human. And a trespassing one at that. If anything, I was defending my territory." He shrugged.

"Defending territory? Against a 'bunny'?" Sasuke said.

"Ah, well, you know..." He said, realising he wasn't going to talk his was out of this one.

"Why did you do it anyway?" Sasuke slightly glared at him, making him squirm a bit. He had upset his mate. That wasn't something he should do.

"I haven't moved around freely in years. Decades. I got carried away when I sniffed out prey. You can't blame a fox for wanting to hunt!" He said, a little riled. Sasuke didn't budge,  however, and continued to glare him down. "Oh, mate. I'm sorry I've upset you. If you don't want me hunting your humans, then I won't, promise." He said, stepping closer to Sasuke and stroking his cheek. The skin felt so nice and soft underneath his hand. He smiled when he saw Sasuke slightly lean into his palm, knowing it was a little victory for him.

"Don't apologise to me! Apologise to him!" Sasuke said, pointing at the boy who was still clinging to Sasuke's shirt.

"Fine." He said and crouched down. "Come here, kid."

The kid looked nervously between Sasuke and him, but didn't move. "Come on, kid, aren't you a little too old to be hiding behind someone?" He tried to taunt the kid into stepping out and to his amusement it worked.

"I'm not hiding! I'm keeping myself safe!" Well, you can't flaw that logic. He rolled his eyes.

"Come on, kid, it's not like I'll bite."

"Somehow, I don't believe you." The kid answered, narrowing his eyes at him.

"Well, you better, because I don't lie." The kid looked between Sasuke and him again and then dared step closer. As soon as the kid dared let go of Sasuke, he smirked and quickly pulled the kid towards him, pinning him down in a hug. The kid yelped and turned around, but wasn't able to get away. "I'm sorry, pet. I won't try to kill you again." He made sure his voice had a slight growl to it and his smirk widened when he felt the shiver run down the bunny's spine. He couldn't help it, he loved terrifying smaller and weaker creatures.

"F-fine, I accept your apology. Please let me go!" He didn't. Instead, he sat down and dragged the poor boy along with him, who didn't even get a chance to flail around or try to free himself because of the hug.

"I like this one. Can we keep him?" He asked Sasuke. Sasuke didn't know whether to laugh about the whole situation, feel sorry for the kid or if he should be angry for Naruto treating a kid like a lost bunny. And was petting said boy right now.

The kid settled into his fate quite quickly, though, hanging over his arm anime-crying, but otherwise fine. "I'm sure he already belongs to someone, so no." At that the boy was released and a pout was directed at Sasuke.

"Then we'll need to get one of our own... or we could try and make one of our own." He said, smirking up at Sasuke and winking, but he didn't give Sasuke the time to respond. He looked at the kid, who was standing a few steps away, just outside easy grab-range. "What's your name, anyway, pet?"

"I'm not a pet! I'm Konohamaru!" The kid said, crossing his arms.

"Konohamaru, hmm. You smell like that old monkey. And like rabbit. Why are you here?" He leaned towards Konohamaru a bit, but the boy stepped away.

"I'm training by spying on an ANBU." Konohamaru said a little cocky.

"You mean the ANBU that's supposed to be watching me, but completely missed the part where I spent halve the night outside and tried to kill a bunny, the ANBU that's currently still sleeping in that tree over there and still hasn't noticed anything that's going on. That ANBU?" He pointed out. Konohamaru shook his head.

"No, I'm spying on a good ANBU, Uchiha-san!" He said, pointing at Sasuke. Sasuke crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. That kid had some nerve thinking he could just spy on an ANBU.

"Well, I could watch my mate all day as well..." He chuckled. "Ah, but..." He made a quick grab at Konohamaru again, who again wasn't fast enough to avoid him. Hugging the kid close to him, he urgently whispered something into Konohamaru's ear. Konohamaru had struggled at first, but when he heard the whispers, he stilled and smirked. A smirk that was almost reminiscent of Naruto's smirk, Sasuke thought. When Konohamaru looked at Sasuke with that smirk, Sasuke was pretty sure it was the exact same type of smirk Naruto used to carry when he was out to prank people.

He let go of Konohamaru again. Konohamaru stood up and saluted the blond man who was also smirking. "Okay, boss! Leave it to me!" He chirped and ran off.

"What did you say to him?" Sasuke asked.

"Nothing, realy." He answered shrugging, avoiding the issue. "But maybe the kid is a little more fox than bunny after all. This will be interesting." He stood up. "I'm going to sleep now. My head is killing me." He made his way inside and cuddled into the blankets that smelled of his mate. He was going to slumber again, but maybe he would take control a little more often. Interesting things could happen if he did. It did put a strain on him, though, so maybe not too often.

Ah, but Sasuke did look really good with a kid next to him. It would be a nice future to think about. With that thought, he was asleep within seconds.

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