Disclaimer: Nope, nope…~

Warnings: Nothing big. Language. Established NaruSaku and SasuHina. Having said that, the pairings will be SakuHina and SasuNaru. XD

Unexpected

~matahari

Fate was a cruel bitch. The world was out to get him. His life was a living nightmare, he was sure of it...

Sasuke had despised that moronic idiot since the first day they had met and the feeling had been more than mutual. They were often the product of insult laden arguments and heated fist fights that started with what seemed to be little to no provocation. All through their high school years many had wondered, Sasuke included, just why they hated each other so much. They had shared several of the same friends despite his inclination to be a loner most of the time, and their interests were not drastically different even if Sasuke was sometimes a little more studious. Something about the blond just got under his skin and made him itch with suppressed anxiety.

Each had been glad to see graduation day and with it a summer and subsequent year of college in which they would never have to see each other again. (Two opposing colleges in which many of their sports teams were rivals, mind you.) Both had lead pretty happy lives after that point, for a matter of several years, even if they seemed a little bereft of... something. Things were just a little too quiet or a little too calm. Nothing bad happened, but neither did anything very exciting.

After college they both entered their respective practices. Naruto had become a pretty well respected businessman and had been working slightly longer in the 'real world' than Sasuke, who had followed in his late father and brother's footsteps, becoming a very renowned lawyer.

They both married women they met in college, women that they liked very much, that suited them, but that were somehow only just close to what they wanted. Oh, don't think either of them didn't want or try to create what it was they thought they would have... it just wasn't ever quite... there. They loved their wives, and their wives loved them, but all of them could feel that it wasn't that head-over-heels-I-just-want-you-so-much-and-need-you-to-breathe kind of love; it was just a little lacking, there was just something missing. They didn't know what it was; they just knew it was absent, missing from their lives, but as essential to living as eating or breathing was. Without it, they felt a bit... lost.

Of course, Sasuke had never admitted this to ANYONE. Though, he had serious suspicion that his brother knew something was wrong, that he wasn't just tired from long hours, that he wasn't just busy all the time. His brother was a shrewd one, to be sure, and could read Sasuke like an open book, cover to cover, without really trying. He had a feeling that after their parents died, Itachi could read him even better. The only twinge of guilt Itachi had ever shown was over how his little brother pushed himself to get married, to be sure to have some sons all because Itachi found the female populace utterly repulsive. His brother was gay and Sasuke was married. It was just the way the world worked; Sasuke could never forgive himself if he let the Uchiha disappear into the dregs of history, no children, no future heirs to hold the family's name proudly.

Now was where the true problem begins.

They both found a quaint but well-to-do and beautiful house in a nice neighborhood in a nice area of the country not too far from their jobs, only to find they had moved in... right next door to each other. Of all the odds, the probabilities, the possibilities. Oh, they fought it. Of course, they fought it. But once their wives met, there was simply no stopping the inevitable, as horrible a conclusion as it was: Sasuke and Naruto were now neighbors.

In the beginning, it was nothing but bickering and grumbling about so-called 'bastards' and impossible-to-live-next-to 'idiots'. For their wives, it was hell. And they quickly straightened out their husbands – Naruto, with a good closed fisted punch to his (nonexistent) brain and Sasuke, with carefully placed and softly spoken death threats. Oh, what a scary thing a woman can be when she truly wishes...

Eventually, to everyone's surprise and no one's understanding, the two took on a grudging sort of friendship. The kind of friendship that should have been extended years ago... if the two weren't quite so pigheaded. They didn't really understand where the hell it sprang into being from. One day, they just didn't argue quite as much, learned to listen to each other a little more. It hadn't been hard, so why had they waited so long and been forced to undergo wifely beatings just to give it a chance again?

The two never bothered to notice just how much they had in common, but in due time they would share a predicament terser than their sometimes-hatred could withstand. Sometimes you just have to have someone - anyone - who understands and can help you through your troubles. It rather helps when two people find themselves with the same problem.

The Great Problem of Undeniable Horror, of course being: walking into your bedroom to find your wife and neighbor in YOUR bed together. Oh no, you're mistaken. It wasn't the other husband, your blond haired twit of a neighbor, she was with. It was your wife, in the throes of semi-passion, with your newly made friend's wife. And all Sasuke could think was: I didn't know she even swung that way. If his mind hadn't been quite so boggled at just the prospect (and it had been Naruto instead) he may have found it strangely hot.

They of course had spotted him as soon as the door flew open, had sprung apart, away from each other like they'd been physically pained. But Sasuke had already turned, door still ajar, and mechanically walked away, so frozen, so blank, that he didn't even know what to think.

He'd walked, on autopilot at best, to the house next door, his brain refusing to make sense of... well, anything. He'd raised his arm, rapped the knuckles against the door, completely forgetting the doorbell, and waited. Like a statue. And that was how Naruto found him, waving a hand valiantly in front of his nose to try and rouse him.

It took the motion in front of his eyes to get reality to finally snap back into place. It was like he'd been floating in some twilight zone parody of his life, watching from a safe distance as everything unfolded. It was like a train wreck: you want to look away, it's a horrific sight after all, but you just can't.

Sasuke felt his lips move but nothing would come out and with faint annoyance he started to hiccup. For no apparent reason. "Baaaastard... Are you in there?" Naruto's (too) loud voice entered Sasuke's dreamscape distantly, but drew him back with strong hands to the present horror.

"They're... cheating on us," he managed to get out softly.

"Wha?" Naruto stared confusedly at him for what had to be eons, golden brows furrowed in thought. Suddenly something lit up on his face, dawning on him finally just what those words could mean. "You mean...? Oh, God. Who is it? Who!? I'm gunna kill that motherfucke-"

"Shut up, idiot." Sasuke sounded so tired, so defeated. Where did whoever was running the universe get off on throwing wrenches like this one into the mix? "With each other," Sasuke said tersely.

"Huh? What do'ya mean?" Naruto stared at him, as though the sought after answers might suddenly burst forth but then his eyes got wide and his face cleared of any and all emotion, which was... odd, coming from Naruto. "Oh. Ohhhhh. Wow..." he said, blinking a few times. Finally, he pinched his forearm, emitting a small 'ow' - just to make sure this was all really happening Sasuke surmised.

He let out a small cough, just enough to get the idiot's attention. "Oh. Oh, sorry, come on in." Sasuke had no intention of going back to his house now - maybe ever.

Naruto trudged through the entryway, Sasuke following on his heels, and flopped heavily on the sofa. His elbows rested over his knees, head falling into his hands, fingers running nervous paths through a disheveled head of sunny spikes, and through it all, he simply sat in an armchair across from his once-hated rival, trying not to think. Thinking was the enemy right now. Thinking only brought him to the logical conclusion that his marriage was irrevocably over. It wasn't like his wife was sex starved, believe him, and she was terribly shy to begin with, leaving his rational thoughts with the only logical, no-nonsense solution that fit. His wife loved this other woman - enough to risk a happy marriage.

In turn, he realized that with this conclusion, they were not planning on coming back to their husbands now that they'd been found out. He felt sick; they had only been married a little over eight months and were settled nicely and planning on having little Uchiha's running around soon. She hadn't gotten pregnant though but not for lack of trying. He could break down and cry at just that thought, the thought that not only was he disgraced but he didn't have a child to carry his name onward, his genetics.

It was only a short bout of delusional momentary insanity once he rationalized the situation once again; he could simply find another woman he got along well with and get married again. But geez, he was already pushing thirty, did he really have the time for all that?

Naruto looked up finally, drawing him out of his thoughts gladly. It was depressing enough that he wanted to push it away for now until he could deal with it later.

The blond pulled his hands down his face exaggeratedly, like he was trying to pull his skin off. "I can't believe this." He leaned back. "I never would have pegged Sakura-chan as bisexual. Didn't even know she liked women." He was in shock, Sasuke realized. He was finding trivial things to say because he didn't want to deal with it either.

The living room was starting to get dark while they sat in silence. Finally, Naruto wearily glanced him, yawning lightly. Must've had a long day, Sasuke mused. Can't say I blame him. This wasn't exactly how I wanted to come home from work and spend my Friday night.

"Hey, bastard." Sasuke gave a light 'hmm?' in question, still trying in vain to have the chair suck him in into the folds and poufy pillows completely. "You hungry? 'Cause I'm fuckin' starved." With that he stood up, subconsciously rubbing his thighs to straighten his slacks. Sasuke gave up his silent willingness to disappear inside some pocket chair dimension and followed the blond man into the kitchen. As he passed a hallway bathroom he decided to take a small detour and relieve himself. When his bladder no longer felt like it was secretly trying to undermine his control (because bladder's were just conniving like that), he turned to look into the small, rectangular mirror.

His reflection looked like shit, so that left the only possibility his brain could conceive – that he looked like shit as well, because reflections rarely lie. He finished washing his hands and looked around the door frame in the direction the idiot had headed off in. There was a light on at the end of the hall, so that must have been the kitchen. To an artistic eye, it may have read as: a wary traveler headed to a light at the end of the tunnel, maybe to achieve some enlightened view of the world as he entered the afterlife.

Sasuke wasn't religious. He never had been, wasn't now, and doubted it would ever change. And so, the metaphor was rather lost on him. It remained an omen of things to come anyway.