Disclaimer: I clearly do not own Naruto : )
Summary: If Sasuke had known that saving Prince Naruto would involve him being surrounded by this band of lunatics, he'd... still have done it. He questioned his sanity.
As far as Sasuke knew, he'd only met Prince Naruto of the Sun Kingdom twice in his life
The first time was the boy's four-year-old birthday party. Sasuke remembered pulling the blonde blob's hair, and instead of crying the little prince took the lollipop that he was holding and stuck it into Sasuke's hair as revenge. He was still miffed about that.
Anyway, there were, surprisingly, a lot of other little babies in attendance. There was a ball of pink that followed him everywhere that day, he recalled her as being the Princess Sakura of the Forest. Her servants brought their kids as well, another girl who wouldn't stop grabbing him whenever he walked by, Ino, and two other boys who wreaked havoc by bringing swarms of puppies and insects into the castle. Sasuke supposed he was kind of lucky that one of the Sea Kingdom's servant babies, Lee, was as keen on Sakura as she was on Sasuke, or else he would've never gotten away from the girl. He never liked the Sea Kingdom's royals much, though. Princess Hinata never said a word and would blush whenever spoken to, and her cousin Neji was…well, he didn't like him. There was a boy he had believed was some sort of life-sized toy until he poked it. He later learned that it was Prince Shikamaru of the Sky, but he never figured out the identity of his chubby sidekick. Prince Gaara of Kingdom Sand was there too, but it didn't look like he had even learned how to walk yet, as he simply sat by Naruto with his teddy bear, glaring at everyone who passed by.
There was a lot of hair-pulling and lollipop-sticking that day, as he recalled. There was one part where a tall, snake-like man walked into the castle, opening the doors with a BANG! Everyone went silent then. Well, almost everyone. Naruto was still yelling at him for stealing his new walrus cap. That was when the man reached down, picked Naruto up, and said something. Sasuke couldn't remember what he had said, but his servant, Kakashi, told him that Orochimaru was angry because he wasn't invited, and warned the king and queen never to forget to invite him or else something bad would happen to Naruto.
After that, the party was over. Sasuke went home, enduring a week-long travel to reach his own castle in the Kingdom of the Moon. He was invited to the Sun Kingdom again the following year, but had caught a cold the day before, and couldn't go. The year after that, he was at a relative's cottage and couldn't make it in time. The year after that he broke his ankle, and the year after that he caught sick again. And so, year after year, Sasuke missed Naruto's birthday.
Until eight years later, that is. Sasuke looked at his calendar, wondering about that nagging feeling he had at the back of his head.
"Kakashi, is there some significant about today?" Sasuke asked his masked servant.
Kakashi looked at him, his eye curving upwards, "no, there is nothing significant about today at all, your majesty." The prince blinked up at him, and then turned back to the calendar. He could have sworn that something important was happening today, or at least this week.
Sighing, Sasuke was just about to leave when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up.
Kakashi's silver hair shone from the light coming through the window, "there is nothing significant about today, but there is something quite significant happening tomorrow."
And that was how Kakashi ended up with an eye patch.
On the way to the kingdom of the Sun, Sasuke racked his brain to try and figure out what this prince Naruto looked like. The most he could remember was a mop of golden hair and big blue eyes. Oh, and a walrus cap. Oh well, he'll just have to see when he got there.
"Anxious?" he heard Kakashi ask. The prince turned from looking out of the window of carriage, and raised an eyebrow, "why would I be?" His servant only chuckled in response and made no reply.
They were getting closer, Sasuke could tell from the sudden rush of warmth. They had probably just entered the territory. He looked at all the peasants working along the wheat fields, and the merchants selling goods in the marketplace. They all seemed much livelier than the residents of his own kingdom…at least during the day.
There was a patter of hooves on dirt beside them. "Ah, I believe it's Princess Sakura of the Forest, do you remember her?" Kakashi's eye curved upwards as he added, "she seemed very fond of you." Sasuke silenced him with a glare, but when he turned back around, he found himself looking into another carriage – Sakura's carriage.
"Prince Sasuke! It's a pleasure to meet you again! It's me, Sakura! Do you remember me? We met years ago, but I haven't forgotten you…" Sasuke blinked, letting the pink-haired royal babble on, all the while gesturing behind him to tell Kakashi to tell the driver to speed up. When nothing changed, he silently vowed to completely blind his servant… or at least take away his collection of erotic novels.
"…and we could, uhm, you know… get together sometime…oh, we're here!" Sasuke let out a small sigh. Finally. Once his carriage stopped, he hopped out and walked straight into the castle. Princess Sakura had opened her door and looked like she expected him to help her out, but he ignored her in favour of the far more welcoming palace.
"That was quite rude, your highness," Kakashi said once he caught up to the prince, "the princess looked quite upset when you walked past her like that." He could almost hear the snickering in his servant's voice.
"She can manage on her own." Sasuke replied, and silently prayed that Sakura wouldn't catch up to him before he could enter the main hall. Unfortunately, the pink-haired royal was beside him in a heartbeat.
"Prince Sasuke, why didn't you help me down?" She asked, sounding a little heartbroken.
Before he could answer, they'd reached the great hall. That was when Sasuke realized that he must have been late, because it seemed like everyone else had already arrived long ago. And by the looks of it, it was the same guest list as eight years ago. Which meant…
"Princess Sakura!" Ah, there he was. Sasuke quickly ducked out of the way as Lee came bounding up to the princess, and walked off in the other direction, leaving Kakashi to deal with the couple while he looked around.
"Oh, it's good to see you again, Prince Sasuke, is your father well?" Sasuke turned around to meet a tall, blonde man – probably the king. He immediately responded with the same answers he used whenever he was stuck in conversation with an adult. Not far into the chat, however, a short replica of the king hopped over and blinked bright blue eyes at Sasuke.
"Hey, dad, who's this guy?" The replica asked the king.
"Naruto, this is Prince Sasuke, from the Moon Kingdom. You remember him, don't you?" Naruto squinted at him for a few seconds, obviously trying to recall the duck-haired boy's name. Sa-su-kay. Sas-kay. Sauce-gay. Sas…wait, Sasuke…
"H-hey! You were the one who kept pulling my hair!"
"I did it because you were a dobe."
"I'm not a dobe, you bastard!"
And thus started the love-hate relationship between the Prince of the Sun and the Prince of the Moon.
As far as Sasuke could tell, nothing had changed. Everything was going along exactly the same way as it had so many years ago. Princess Sakura and her servant, Ino, were stalking him (and doing a terrible job of it), while trying to avoid Lee. Princess Hinata was playing with a puppy in the corner and talking to its owner, Kiba, while Neji towered over him, not noticing the trail of bugs that Shino was releasing up his shirt until too late. He finally found out that the fat kid eating half of the buffet table was named Chouji, looking content gobbling up the food beside the sleeping Prince Shikamaru.
And Gaara was currently glaring at him over Naruto's shoulder. Weird kid.
The only thing that was different was that Orochimaru wasn't-
BANG!
Nevermind.
"Orochimaru! I'm sorry, we didn't think you were, u-uh…" The king stuttered, unsure of what the say.
"Alive?" The pale man answered. Then Sasuke remembered. Right, Orochimaru lived in the swamps, and they had recently lost a war with the village in the mountains. Apparently almost the entire village was destroyed. That was probably why Orochimaru wasn't invited, because they thought he was dead.
"Well then, I'm just going to have to go through with my promise, yes?" and proceeded to walk over to where Naruto stood, beside Sasuke. Guards, and even the king and queen themselves, stepped in the way to intercept him but were easily thrown aside with a wave of his hand. This man must be one heck of a magician, to be able to do something like that so easily, Sasuke thought.
The blonde boy didn't seem fazed, hurling insults and also stepping forward to meet the man. Sasuke was forced to grab onto Naruto's wrist to keep him from moving. "What do you think you're doing, dobe?" He hissed.
"I'm not a dobe, bastard!" Was his only reply.
Orochimaru stopped barely a foot from Naruto, who fiercely glared back up at him. He completely ignored Sasuke, who by now was restraining the other prince by his waist. However, before the short prince could even move, he tapped the boy on the forehead, and Naruto crumbled.
"He'll be asleep for eternity." One last smirk and the snake-like man vanished. No smoke, no magic effects, he just vanished.
The whole day was an odd sense of deja-vu up until now, Sasuke thought as he held the limp body in his arms, sitting on the cold marble floor. It was quite a shame, too. He was rather fond of Naruto (although he'd be damned if he ever had to admit it), he found him kind of…cute. He let the king pry the blonde out of his arms, and then ordered Kakashi to help the sobbing queen.
"I have a better idea, your highness. If I may…?" Sasuke gave Kakashi a weary glance and then waved his hand at him. Do whatever you please, I don't care.
So he was stuck trying to comfort Princess Hinata with Kiba and Neji when Kakashi came back. "May a have a word, your highness?" Sasuke was glad to be rid of the others.
His servant pointed to a robed man with a scar over his nose, talking to the king and queen. "The wizard of this castle is a friend of mine, he's rather good at what he does, and from what I know he really loves the prince. I've asked him to try and fix this, since you seem to like Naruto so much." Sasuke glared at him. Yes, he was definitely going to confiscate those novels.
Soon, the wizard walked over and smiled sadly at Sasuke, then turned and whispered something into Kakashi's ear. He then left to tend to the king and queen once again.
"What did he say?" Sasuke asked, raising an eyebrow. Since when did Kakashi know anyone from the Sun Kingdom? As far as he knew, his servant only ever left the Moon Kingdom when Sasuke did.
"He says that all the guests should leave." Somehow, he suspected that that was not at all what the wizard told him, but he couldn't argue.
Sighing, he took one last glance at the sleeping blonde before leaving the great hall. Let Kakashi do all the work.
Of course, since he left early, he didn't notice the ball of energy the wizard was extracting from Naruto's chest. Surprisingly, no one did. Well, except Kakashi.
"What's going to happen to him?" Was the only thing that came out of Sasuke's mouth on the way back. He never received an answer.
A few weeks after the incident, Sasuke heard from his mother that the entire Kingdom of the Sun was forced into a slumber, and that the land was now protected by a dome of thorny vines. He wondered if that was what the wizard came up with, he couldn't see the point of what he was trying to do.
"He changed the spell," was all that he could get out of his servant. Sasuke sighed, Kakashi was probably just pissed because he took away all his 'classic pieces of literature'.
The story was all over the country in a matter of days. There were reports of dozens of knights, princes, and princesses from all over going missing as they tried to save the sleeping prince. It was rumoured that a kiss was all that was needed to save the prince and his people from eternal slumber.
If that was all, Sasuke thought, then I would have kissed him while he was still in my arms. He then banish the thought seconds later. Besides, it would've been pointless at the time anyway, the kiss was probably the work of the wizard. Either that or it really was just a rumour.
Days, weeks, months passed, and soon the story of the sleeping beauty (Sasuke laughed at the name) faded away like all old news. And before long people barely remembered the event at all, only that there was a dome of thorns where the Sun Kingdom used to be, and that it wasn't really as bright and warm as it was before.
Years passed, and Sasuke reached his eighteenth birthday. It was then that his mother and father urged him to find a wife, or even a husband. He didn't see the point. His brother was going to be the one to inherit the throne, why did he need a spouse?
"You haven't been the same since the whole Sun Kingdom catastrophe four years ago," his mother said, Sasuke noted that Naruto would've turned sixteen this year, "you need someone to lift your spirits." Well, then maybe they should get a new jester. "And really, you only knew him for a day. Two, if you count the time when you were six." But mother, Sasuke wanted to argue, you married father after knowing him for only a day. And besides, he never said anything about wanting to marry the dobe.
He put up with the constant pestering and matchmaking from his parents until, one day, he met a fox.