This is for SabakuKyuu17, who was my 100th reviewer on 'Fractured Sun' and requested a SasuNaru oneshot (this so didn't turn out how I expected), and also for my mom…who has Easter anxiety. Several lines are stolen from her (and my dad ALWAYS watches the Ten Commandments. Scary).
Mikoto centric. Slight SasuNaru that could be taken as close friendship.
I no own!
"Come on, it's not that bad a movie."
"I don't care."
"It's not that horrible!"
"You watch it every year!"
"You don't have to watch it."
"We're not Jewish."
"So?"
"Moses is the head of the National Rifle Association!"
And so, with that, Uchiha Mikoto stalked off, leaving Uchiha Fugaku to his absolute favorite movie, the Ten Commandments. No one knew why this stupid, hokey movie was so loved by the head of the Uchiha clan. No one could figure it out. What was obvious, however, was that he watched it every year on the same day. Easter Sunday.
Mikoto hated Easter. She called it Easter anxiety. There was some part of it that she despised. Yule, Mabon, Summer Solstice, that she could handle. Easter? No. No, she couldn't handle Easter. She heard the knock. The devil's knock.
"Coming!" she shouted through the house. She opened the sliding door.
There stood her mother, carrying two giant baskets. Baskets, Mikoto knew, that were filled with candy. Candy that Sasuke wouldn't eat and Itachi would just horde away. Sasuke, however, would be sharing his candy with his friend, Uzamaki Naruto. Now, Naruto was a nice boy, but when he ate a lot of sugar, which he always did around Easter, it was sort of scary.
"CANDYCANDYCANDYCANDYCANDY!" Naruto shrieked. He pulled up short of Sasuke's grandmother and stood incredibely still. Sasuke, who entered after him, took his giant basket of candy and trudged into his room, where Naruto proceeded to eat at least half of it. At once. Mikoto thought homicidal thoughts. Lots of little homicidal thoughts.
There was a peeping noise from inside Sasuke's room.
Twitch.
Twitch.
Twitch.
Mikoto turned slowly to her mother. Her eyes were narrow little slits and her lips were almost nonexistent. She glared right into her mother's soul.
"You didn't."
"But I thought he would like one!"
"You. Got. My. Son. A. Chicken," Mikoto growled. "You got him a chicken. You know we have enough pets. Not a chicken. Did you get Itachi a chicken?"
"Of course, it would only be fair!" Mikoto's mother laughed, completely oblivious to her daughter's rage. Mikoto smiled humorlessly. One day…one day her mother would get it. She motioned for the elderly woman to sit on the couch.
"Tea?" she asked grittily. Her mother nodded. Mikoto stalked away, her hands shaking. 'When I get my fingers around that blasted woman's neck…' she thought, censoring her own brutal plans. She returned to her mother, handed her a steaming cup of tea, and bustled off to see how Sasuke and his friend were doing.
What she saw, however, made her stop short.
Naruto sat on Sasuke's lap, examining the chick carefully. He pet its fuzzy head with one index finger, making soft cooing noises to it. Sasuke had one arm wrapped around Naruto's stomach, pressing their bodies against each other, face buried in a puff of bright blond hair. It made Mikoto smile, because her son was smiling, albeit barely, but still smiling.
"Mikoto!" shouted Mikoto's mother from the other room. Mikoto shivered and Naruto and Sasuke broke apart, their faces somewhere between terror and embarrassment. Mikoto just smiled at them, however, and turned to go see what her mother wanted.
"When are we eating?" Mikoto's mother asked. Mikoto drew her lips into a line.
"Soon," she said. "Come on boys, lunch will be ready soon." Her lips twisted into a smile and she raised both eyebrows. Then she drifted into the kitchen. 'I only hope that no one else sees,' she thought to herself. It wasn't as if Konoha would see a member of the Uchiha Clan and the Kyuubi container as ideal friends.
"Medium honey! Big honey!" she called. From somewhere else in the house, The Ten Commandments flicked off and Fugaku traipsed into the kitchen. Seconds later, Itachi appeared. Both males looked very annoyed at being addressed by Mikoto's pet title.
"Oh look Mikoto, you embarrassed them!"
This earned rabid glares from Itachi and Fugaku.
"Lunch time," Mikoto said, swiftly and gracefully changing the subject. "Who's hungry?" She smiled and gestured at the low table. Everyone sat around it, thoroughly enjoying Mikoto's wonderful cooking. She really was talented with it. Everyone besides Mikoto was too engrossed in their food to notice Sasuke and Naruto, who were leaning against each other and swapping food: Naruto's squid for Sasuke's ramen and vice versa. Mikoto smiled again and tore apart a sushi roll.
It was time for 'Let's sit around and have Meaningful Conversations'. Mikoto didn't really hate this part, she could deal with it. She didn't talk too much. Neither did anyone else besides her mother really. She just talked and talked and somehow, no one seemed to remember the Meaningful Conversations.
"So then I bought the greatest boots in three different colors…" Mikoto's head dipped and she had to pull up, blinking and squeezing her hands into fists to keep awake. Her mother's rambling about shopping for shoes was making her tired. So tired.
"That's very interesting mother," Mikoto said conversationally. "Who wants dessert?"
"Me!" Naruto cried.
"Of course Naruto," Mikoto said. She happened to like the blond boy, despite what anyone else said. He made Sasuke so happy and that certainly earned him points in her book. 'Like the son I never had,' she thought wistfully. Itachi was always so…cold.
Mikoto swished into the kitchen, cut the pastry she had made into six pieces, and topped it with whipped cream. When she returned, her mother was taking her pills, showing a fairly uninterested Naruto.
"And then I take six of these," she said, showing six yellow tablets. Naruto nodded vaguely, curling his finger's around Sasuke's wrist. Mikoto noticed Fugaku giving his younger son an appraising look. The Female Head stepped into the room brightly, clicking her heels unnecessarily loud against the floor to direct all the attention to her and away from her child.
"Dessert," she called, handing out the pastries. Fugaku looked it over and took an experimental bite. He raised an eyebrow, put a few small forkfuls into his mouth before putting his food down and leaving it. Itachi just eyed the confection, picked it up, and left with it wordlessly.
"How very impolite," Mikoto heard her mother say. She just sat down and began to eat her own dessert. 'For once in my bloody life, I want some peace and quiet,' she seethed to herself. 'As rude of Itachi as that was, that is not my mother's place.' She shook her head and returned to watching her younger son consume the rest of his meal. He was never one for sweets, but he always liked what she made on Easter. 'One of the few reasons I like this cursed holiday.'
It was bound to happen eventually. Sasuke took a sloppy bite of dessert, whipped cream caking his nose. Naruto giggled, eyeing Sasuke's face.
"You have whipped cream on your nose," the blond boy said.
"Really?" Sasuke went cross-eyed trying to fixate his black eyes on his nose.
"Yup. Here, let me get it." Naruto grinned and leaned forward. He pressed his lips against his friend's nose, wiping away the whipped cream with a timid pink tongue. Mikoto thought this was cute. No one else agreed. Fugaku just eyed them strangely before shrugging it off. Mikoto's mother, however, couldn't get by without a snide comment.
"How very inappropriate for two boys to be engaging in such behavior." Her tone made Mikoto's blood boil. It sizzled. There was sizzling.
"What behavior?" she asked through gritted teeth. "What behavior are you referring to?" She caught her reflection in her dessert plate. Her dark eyes were flashing.
"That licking," Mikoto's mother said. "People might get the wrong idea about those too." She stuck her nose up self-righteously.
"Wrong idea? What wrong idea might that be?" Mikoto asked. Fugaku decided that this would be the ideal time to slip away. His wife was normally so level headed, but around Easter, she became quite frightening. He decided it would be safer to watch his movie or try to convince Itachi to spar. It would be safer to do the latter while tied to a tree with no chakra reserves than stay there.
Mikoto's mother sniffed, turning stony eyes on Sasuke and Naruto. "We wouldn't want anyone to think that maybe more existed between them than simply friendship."
"What would be wrong if more did exist?" Mikoto shot back. 'Hey…this feels good.' She felt powerful standing up to her mother, her oppressor. She felt powerful, and she liked it.
"It's--"
"They're just children, mother," Mikoto said, cutting her off. "Mother, would you do me a favor and say hello to Itachi. He's uncomfortable with speaking in large crowds?" It was more a question than a statement. The question was, 'will you buy it?'. Itachi was not shy.
"Of course." Apparently so. Mikoto's mother disappeared into the other wings of the house, leaving Mikoto, Naruto, and Sasuke alone around the table.
"Why did we make her so mad?" Sasuke asked. "Were we bad?" Mikoto shook her head, hand pressed to her forehead.
"No honey…I thought I would tell you early that that was in no way wrong, nor will it ever be. No matter what anyone says, it's not." She gave them pointed looks. "You promise me you won't believe anyone that tells you otherwise?"
"Yes mother."
"Yes Mikoto-chan!"
"Good boys. Now why don't you play with Sasuke's new chick? It might as well have a purpose." Mikoto smiled. Inside, however, she really wanted to kill her mother. Her son looking so sad had been…downright sad.
Her mother left, her husband watched his movie, her elder son trained in the courtyard and her younger son sat in his room with his best friend. When Mikoto slipped into the latter's room, both boys were sitting silently on other side of the room.
"What's wrong?" Mikoto asked. Sasuke shrugged.
"We made Baa-chan angry," he said.
Mikoto sizzled.
"No, you didn't. It was the stupid Easter…Easter…" She glared at the ceiling. "Don't change, alright? It's not worth it."
And then she left. When she went back to remind Sasuke to put his candy away, Sasuke and Naruto were back to full-contact. Mikoto smiled. 'Easter isn't so bad,' she thought.
Then she remembered her mother, the Easter village, the Ten Commandments movie, the large amounts of candy, the constant bother of feeding the chicks and the anxiety that went along with that one horrible Sunday.
And Easter sucked again.
This was not meant to offend anyone at all, in any way. The NRA comment had to do with the actor in the hokey version of the Ten Commandments movie.