Yes, I'm still alive.....just been busy!

I the little free time I had, though, I managed to find what I now consider the best piece of RenjiByakuya fanfiction I've ever read (so far). I honestly don't even remember how I found it, it was a week or so ago, but I've read it twice since. The fic in question is called "A Cure for Loneliness" by

day_eight. It can be found here, on Beautiful Devotion, a Byaren community. So far, "A Cure for Loneliness" is four chapters long, with the first chapter split into two parts. I don't want to give away too much of the plotline (Yes! It is yaoi AND it has a plot!), but I will make a point of saying that it is Byakuya-uke and -aptly- labeled NC-17. Also applaudable is the characterization; no weepy-uke Byakuya here! Although the main characters are Renji and Byakuya, many other characters appear throughout the fic as well, and as far as I could tell were in-character, too. The grammar and style is wonderful and the lemon scenes are steamy yet tasteful. 

I'll also mention that there is no bondage, something I've noticed a lot of lately in byaren or renbya, in this fic. If bondage happens to be your thing though, I would highly recommend checking out any of the works by lcpdragonslayer who is also a member of Beautiful Devotion and has teamed up with day_eight on occasion.

 

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Here it is, at last:

I know I said  a long time ago that I didn't like Sasuke and Naruto pairings. I have relaxed my rules a bit and have discovered the slightly-more-canon joys of NaruSasu. That's NaruSasu as in 'Sasuke is uke'. To avoid the oncoming rant I feel beginning to boil, let's get on with the review!

With One Last Growl by Bevino, on fanfiction.net, is a romantic comedy starring Naruto and Sasuke. Comedy in yaoi is often not that comedic at all, I find, but this one actually had me giggling. Let me just say, I am not a giggler. The story starts out with Naruto and Sasuke already in a relationship sometime after the time skip. (They're legal now!) I honestly don't know much about what happens in Shippuden, but from the episodes of the regular Naruto I've seen, both of them are pretty in-character. Naruto causes the humor, Sasuke causes the (slight) angst. 
Sasuke's angsting begins when Naruto leaves on a mission while he's stuck back at the village. Sasuke has just been allowed back in but is under a sort of house arrest until the village can totally trust him again. Sasuke finds he can't sleep without Naruto and his strange, but hilarious, sleeping........'habits'. Naruto's exact 'habit' is a key point in the story and one of the funniest twists I've read. I won't reveal it here, but leave you, the reader, to find out for yourself.
I would also like to note, before I close off, that the grammer is excellent and the visual imagery is great. With One Last Growl is rated M, but only M, not stretching to NC-17. The lemon scene is handled very tastefully and not tremendously "gooey", if you know what I mean. I recommend this fic to anyone who already likes NaruSasu pairings or anyone who thought, like me, that there was no hope of a good romantic fic about Naruto and Sasuke. 5 stars!

      Treacherous Heart, by DancingDragonBlaze is changing my mind about Naruto fanfiction. No longer are we limited to overused stroylines, out-of-character-ness, and WTF?! yaoi. Her fluffy, angsty romance is by far one of Fanfiction.net's best. 
     Without giving the juicy details away, Treacherous Heart is a Sasuke-centered fic that takes place somewhere after or during the Shippuden Arc. (Admittedly, I've never read Naruto, so I'm not totally sure how long that arc lasts.) Sasuke, still living in the Sound Village, is stuck in a tug of war of his heartstrings. Its either his current lover, Kabuto, who touchingly provides that fluff I love so much, and his previous lover, Kakashi. I had never read a KabuSasu before this, and I honestly didn't know how it could work. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did. 
      This fic, which is still being continued even after a whopping 38 chapters, is rated M. I agree with the rating, but not because there's explicit hard-core yaoi action. Its more for the language (provided mostly by our prince of angst, himself), violence, rape, OroSasu (which by itself ought to equal an M) and of course the, in this case tasteful, boy/boy action. You could also include the hints of previous shota that are sprinkled throughout although I don't think that the present story would be considered shota (Sasuke must be in his late teens by now). 
   I would definately recommend this fic to any Naruto yaoi lover. As DancingDragonBlaze puts it, this story puts the 'uke' in 'Sasuke'.
    Here's a link to the story, http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3203454/1/