A/N: Set post-700 and pretty much ignoring everything that's happened so far in Boruto. Gen unless you opt to take it otherwise. Enjoy! (And happy belated birthday Sasuke!)
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Stumble Their Way
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Naruto figures out something's wrong about five minutes into their meeting. They do this a lot now, at least once a month—Sasuke comes into his office, armed with facts and figures and cool logic and way more words than he probably needs, and then he and Naruto argue for hours until they've hammered out something resembling a compromise.
Because that's what they do now, the Nanadaime and his closest advisor—they compromise, like the damn adults they're supposed to be.
Something's off today, though. Naruto can tell because Sasuke isn't tearing him to shreds like he normally is by this point in the proceedings; just to test the theory, Naruto makes a purposely oblivious remark about the fiscal fallout of Sasuke's proposal. He knows Sasuke's thought that part through, he's seen the papers—Sasuke has them sitting right in front of him, for crying out loud.
But Sasuke doesn't say anything. Naruto frowns.
"You awake over there?"
That gets a blink. "What?"
"Just seems like you're not hearing anything I say, so, y'know, maybe we should save this for another time."
Now Sasuke's frowning too. "No, I can—" He stops, shakes his head like he's annoyed with himself. "I'm distracted. I know I shouldn't be, but I am."
Okay, well, cryptic bullshit is better than silence. Naruto can work with this. "You wanna talk about it?"
The look Sasuke gives him could freeze water in the middle of spring, but Naruto's used to it. He waits.
Finally Sasuke breaks. "It's complicated."
"Story of our lives much?"
"Sakura's pregnant."
The air seems to leave the room in a rush, sucking the rest of Naruto's words right out of his mouth.
All he can manage is, "Oh."
"Oh," Sasuke echoes.
He'd known they were sleeping together, obviously; Sasuke might call him stupid on a regular basis but they all know he's not blind. But as far as Naruto knows his two oldest friends have never been a "couple"—you know, officially or anything. They don't really talk about it. Sasuke gets this funny constipated look on his face whenever Naruto hints at the subject and Sakura hit him the one time he actually brought it up, so he'd just accepted that they had their own weird casual thing going on and that was that. As long as everybody else was happy with things, then Naruto was happy with things.
A baby is kind of a game changer, though. He can't not ask anymore.
"Is she going to keep it?"
Sasuke nods. His mouth is a thin line. "I think so."
Naruto almost asks if they planned it, but one of the many things being Hokage has taught him is that sometimes you don't have to say all the shit that comes into your head. Sakura's a top-tier medic-nin and definitely smart enough to keep from getting pregnant if she wants to, but Sasuke still looks like he's been bludgeoned over the head with something heavy, so maybe Naruto doesn't really want the details.
"So are you guys…?"
Sasuke runs his fingers back through his hair, like it doesn't stick up enough on its own already. "We're not…"
He trails off. Naruto gets it anyway. They've always had half their conversations in ellipses, feels like.
"You're gonna be there for that kid," he says. It's not a question.
Sasuke doesn't hesitate. "Yes."
Naruto hums. "Somehow it doesn't feel like 'congratulations' is the right thing to say here."
A huff of something that might be laughter when it grows up. "Please don't."
"Y'know…" Naruto clears his throat. "We're gonna have a kid too. Hinata and me. Just found out last night."
It's so rare that he gets to catch Sasuke off-guard.
"Congratulations," Sasuke says after a minute. Naruto grins.
"Thanks."
He doesn't say that that wasn't exactly planned either, but he's going with it because he loves Hinata and he already had the ring picked out anyway. He doesn't say that they're both too young to be fathers—that Sakura and Hinata are probably too young to be moms, but then they've always seemed to have their shit together more than Naruto ever did, so maybe that's something.
Sasuke doesn't say that the only experience he has with fathers is cold disappointment, and Naruto doesn't point out that his own father died before he ever opened his eyes. None of that is stuff they don't know already.
Casually, Sasuke says, "You'd better hope it gets Hinata's looks instead of yours."
Naruto sputters. "You—my kid is gonna kick your kid's ass in the academy, just you wait."
And somewhere in the insults and posturing that follow, it feels like balance has been restored.
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"Your son is defacing the Hokage monument again," Sasuke says instead of answering Naruto's question about patrols. "Do something about it."
Instinct has Naruto leaning back in his chair, his arms folded defensively.
"Your daughter set half the training ground on fire yesterday because someone called her 'Uchiha'," he retorts. "Do something about it."
They glare at each other across the desk, but there's something hollow about arguing when both of them know there's no high ground to be had.
Naruto rubs at his face and tries not to groan. Technically this is a meeting. A Very Official Meeting between the Hokage and his chief advisor that has somehow devolved into bickering over who's the shitter parent.
(They both step carefully around ever specifying who, exactly, Sasuke's supposed to be representing in these meetings. That's just common sense, in Naruto's opinion. After all, there's no Uchiha clan left to bargain for—just Sasuke and a hard-eyed eight-year-old who's currently refusing to use his last name.)
"I don't know what to do with Bolt," Naruto admits. It feels even worse saying it out loud. "I know I should be around for him more. I'm trying to be, but there's just so much to get done here, you know?"
Sasuke nods. Of course he knows; he knows just as well as Naruto does that methodically pulling apart an old system and rebuilding it from the ground up is an insanely complicated and messy prospect. There's no way one Hokage should be able to do it, not in one lifetime.
Which is why Naruto's given himself twelve years. Twenty, tops. He's got other shit he wants to get done too, y'know?
The problem is that on top of dealing with big-picture stuff like that, where one miniscule policy change only comes after hours and hours of arguing the same point in circles until victory doesn't even feel like a victory so much as a breather in between death matches, there's still the day-to-day business of running a village. Life doesn't stop just because the idiot with the fancy hat gets delusions of grandeur; Naruto gets that. And he's gotten a lot better at delegating over the years, but there's still an itch in the back of his mind that gets worse when he isn't personally overseeing everything himself. Making sure he's doing right by these people, even by proxy.
The upshot is that the workload literally never ends. Naruto's in his office most nights until fuck-o'-clock in the morning, doing paperwork until his eyes bleed (and he doesn't even get an awesome new eye technique to show for it, how is that fair?). He's even been sleeping in the office lately, which he feels guilty about even if Hinata's been understanding about it so far. And Sasuke, with his wandering and info-gathering and everything else, isn't much better off.
This is his dream. This is still his dream, and Naruto wouldn't trade his life now for a single thing. But it's not an easy life to have and be a dad.
"Y'could try talking to her," he offers. Sasuke raises an eyebrow.
"Hypocrisy doesn't suit you," he says.
Yeah, well, being awkward as hell around your own kid doesn't suit you. Naruto doesn't say it, though, because he knows Sasuke has better reasons than most to be emotionally stunted. Losing your whole family will do that to a person.
Kind of like having a demon shoved in your stomach as a baby will turn you into an attention-seeking little shit with no friends, which…huh.
Naruto does groan this time. "We've doomed them," he says. "Our kids are just like us."
"You never know," Sasuke deadpans. "Neither of them have tried to defect or started wearing eye-watering amounts of orange yet."
Naruto snorts. "Yeah, prob'ly because we lucked the fuck out with our wives."
Sasuke twitches; it's so minute most people would probably miss it, but Naruto kicks himself all the same. Hey, Sasuke and Sakura have always had a confusing thing going on, and it didn't get less confusing just because they suddenly had a kid waddling around. So sue him for forgetting sometimes they're not actually married. Half the time he can't remember if they're even together at all.
"My point," Sasuke says, "is that there's still time."
"Yeah." He sighs. "We just have to get off our asses and do something about it."
All he gets from Sasuke is an uninterested "Hm" as he pulls a scroll out of his coat and passes it across the desk. Naruto squints at it suspiciously.
"Were you just hanging onto this so you could throw it at me and avoid talking about your feelings?"
Sasuke actually rolls his eyes. So much for being the mature one.
"It's a list of candidates for the next delegation to Suna. I've already vetted all of them, so at this point it's mostly a question of which ones are masochistic enough to sign on."
Naruto frowns. "Is this about the trade negotiations again? Look, I already—"
"Blew a lot of hot air in my general direction," Sasuke cuts in. "Let me lay it out for you as simply as possible: You are the Hokage. It isn't necessary or practical for you to personally oversee every single meeting between villages, especially over something this mundane."
Naruto opens his mouth to argue, but Sasuke has one more ace up his sleeve.
"Then there's your close friendship with the Kazekage." There goes the eyebrow again. "You know Gaara's people aren't about to screw you over in a trade deal. There are issues here in Konoha that would be more productive uses of your time. Issues that do need your personal attention," he finishes, pointedly.
Defeated, Naruto slumps back in his seat. On principle there's about a million and a half things he wants to say about "showing respect" and "making sure things are done right" but somewhere between his brain and his mouth they get lost, and what comes out instead is "Thanks, Sasuke."
"I'm not doing you any favors," is the typically acerbic reply. "You won't have an excuse not to do your own paperwork now."
Naruto remembers something. He grins.
"Speakin' of efficiencies, how's your search for a personal assistant going?"
The look Sasuke gives is a pretty clear reminder that his daughter isn't the only one who can set fire to large areas in short spans of time.
"I don't need one," he says.
Naruto smiles the politician smile he'd learned how to mimic about a month after taking office. He knows it drives Sasuke fucking nuts, which was half his reason for learning how to do it in the first place.
"I'll have a list of possibilities for you by the end of the week," he replies sweetly.
They might stumble their way into being decent parents yet.
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Naruto asks Sasuke if they can have their next meeting out by the river.
"Just tryin' to take advantage of the nice weather while we can," he says when Sasuke asks without asking, and he knows Sasuke doesn't buy a word of it, but they've been doing this for long enough now that they both know to pick their battles. Besides, Naruto's not completely full of shit; it's unseasonably warm for this time of the year, and he wants to be outside in it as much as possible before the wind starts snapping and everything gets really cold, really fast.
The marked decrease in potential eavesdroppers is just a bonus.
Naruto gets there first, stretching out on a smooth-ish rock alongside the riverbank and relishing the feeling of sun on his skin, nice and warm even through the tree cover. He closes his eyes and breathes deep, inhaling fresh air and listening to the water move over the rocks.
When he opens his eyes again, Sasuke is standing there with his arms folded.
"What's this about?" he asks, blunt with a sharpness that age hasn't yet managed to dull.
Naruto squints up at him. "Hello to you too. You mind sitting down before I snap my neck?"
He's pretty sure Sasuke rolls his eyes, but he sits. More battle-picking. Sasuke must be anticipating a fight.
Naruto's aware that he's already on edge and so decides to bypass the small talk entirely. He hauls himself up into a sitting position, avoiding Sasuke's coolly questioning eyes.
"I want to make Sarada my heir," he says. "Officially, I mean. I'm going to talk the council into it later, and I'd really appreciate some backup because they're gonna lose their collective shit."
There's a long silence from the man sitting next to him. When Sasuke does speak, it's not any of the words Naruto might have expected.
"Won't my being there be seen as a conflict of interest?"
Naruto shrugs. "It's not like they don't know you're my advisor, or my friend. The ones who're gonna yell about nepotism will do it whether you're there or not, so you might as well make them say it to your face."
Sasuke still hasn't moved, hasn't even unfolded his arms. He's going to get stuck that way and Naruto is never, ever going to stop laughing.
"What about Bolt?" Sasuke asks, his tone unreadable. "I would have thought…"
Naruto considers for a minute before he answers.
"Bolt is a great ninja," he says. "He's loyal, he's brave, he's creative—and a pretty damn good-looking kid too, if I do say so myself." His grin fades into something more thoughtful. "But he doesn't want to be Hokage. Not really. The minutia would drive him nuts in a week; he'd be crawling out of windows to escape his counselors. Action is what he's good at—that, and watching the backs of the people he cares about. I'm hoping he'll make ANBU in time to be on Sarada's bodyguard detail, but that'd be his choice, obviously."
"You've thought this through," Sasuke observes. Naruto smirks at him.
"Don't have to sound so surprised. I've been doing this for a while now, y'know."
Sasuke unfolds his arms, but the tension in his body doesn't loosen one solitary hair.
"They won't like it," he says flatly.
"Who?"
"The council. The villagers." Sasuke waves one arm expansively; it doesn't help his perpetual crow impersonation. "Anyone who remembers my defection, or the Massacre, or has opened a history book sometime in the past two decades. They'll never accept a Hokage with the last name Uchiha."
"Yes, they will," Naruto says. "They'll accept it because Sarada's a damn good shinobi, plus she's got way more brains than I had when I took office. Besides, if anyone's going to prove to the naysayers just how full of shit they are, it's going to be your kid because I'm pretty sure stubbornness runs in the family."
As he talks he imagines he can see Sasuke begin to relax in increments, until finally he doesn't look like he's gearing up for a fight to the death. Which, given how spectacularly Naruto's council is going to lose their aforementioned shit, might be a little preemptive but whatever.
"I won't believe it," Sasuke tells him. "Not until the inauguration ceremony is finished and she's wearing that ridiculous hat."
"Wouldn't expect anything less from you," Naruto replies, feeling cheerful. "But Sarada is going to be the Hachidaime, because she's earned it, and Bolt's gonna be there to protect her because it's what he loves and what he's good at. So you better start getting used to the idea."
Sasuke's mouth twitches. He doesn't say anything.
But that's all right, Naruto thinks, leaning back on his hands and smiling. After all this time, he doesn't really need to.