If I Could Put Sasuke in A Bottle
Most people, Naruto thought, would be surprised if they discovered that Uchiha Sasuke liked to take bubble baths.
Hell, he'd been surprised himself, the first time he'd barreled into the other boy's home and found him in a tub full of steaming water and soapy spheres.
(You guess which body part was abused for that.)
And Sasuke was particular about his bubble bath too. He liked two scents: vanilla cherry, and blue sunset. The first time Naruto had stumbled upon the two bottles, shoved deep in the back of the bathroom cabinet, he'd decided (quite maturely), that he'd keep his find to himself and spare his friend his dignity. And himself considerable pain.
Naruto wasn't often allowed into Sasuke's apartment. Most times he busted in without warning, and on such occasions got little more than a quick glance of the place before being booted back out again. He made astonishingly little progress in getting back into that cabinet over the three weeks following his discovery. He had to find out what they smelled like. The closest he'd gotten in all that time was one of the caps half-unscrewed before Sasuke had started banging on the door.
So yeah. He gave up on that plan. Three weeks was way too long to have turned up as little has he had. During those three weeks, he'd only even gotten into Sasuke's apartment four times- and from there, only into his bathroom twice.
For Plan B, Naruto tried to see if he could smell anything like vanilla or cherry stuck to the boy's skin. He was insanely interested as to what blue sunsetsmelled like, but had no idea what to tune his nostrils for.
It was such a simple plan. It was bound to fail...but it was still a wound to his ego that it bombed that quickly.
("Wh-? Baka! Why the hell are you smelling me?")
So finally he asked the Ichiraku Ramen girl where women bought all those smelly perfumes and soaps. She gave him a funny look, but directed him to a sizable store six blocks over called Hana. He took one glance at the place, and thought, no. If he set foot into that shop, for sure his dick would fall off and make a run for it before the door closed behind him.
But wouldn't you know it, he wound up being forced to go the next day by Sakura-chan.
Honestly, he'd only been trying to help! Sakura had neglected her apartment (they all had really, with so many missions), and he'd wanted to give her a hand with making the house...livable again. Dust covered everything. Every surface, be it horizontal, vertical or diagonal. He hadn't meant to knock over that shelf in the bathroom...
Sakura hadn't been happy. Apparently, that smelly stuff girls loved so much was not cheap.
And God he'd been right about that fucking store. Four baby steps through the door, a mean push from his pink-haired teammate, and he swore he could feel something really important shrink.
Wall. After wall. Covered in...bright...colored...scented...shit. Someone had a lot of effing time on their weird-ass hands.
Naruto pinched one by the cap and lifted it gingerly to peek at the label.
Windy Palm and Island Citrus-berry. Of course.
He could've sworn citrus fruits were...well, weren't berries. And what on earth did a 'windy palm' smell like? Did it smell different than a 'motionless palm'?
At that point Sakura smacked him on the back of the head with something vaguely strawberry-y and heavy, demanding his undivided attention. She told him to find a body gel (whatever that was) called 'Pomegranate Heaven'.
Grumbling, he stumbled towards the corner of the store she'd indicated and pushed the bottles around, looking for...
Vanilla cherry.
Or, as the makers called it, Vanilla-Cherry Blasphemy.
Naruto squeaked and grabbed for it. Unscrewed the cap...
He took a deep wiff and coughed. Strong smell.
Exactly the kind of scent he'd been expecting, actually. It smelled like someone had popped a bucket of vanilla and cherries in a blender, thickened it up and bottled it and slapped a label on it. God, the mental image...ruby-red, perfectly round, fat fruits dropping slowly in a vat of thick, hot eggshell vanilla...
...who would have thought food could give a guy a boner.
He replaced the bottle on the shelf, gaining a new respect despite the bright colors and ridiculous names. Hell, if every stupid little bottle of overly priced soap smelled like that, he didn't give a damn what they called it.
The other scent. What was it called? Blue sunset- oh, man, he could hardly wait to get his hands on...
...it. Again, this one boasted a different, more frivolous calling. Blueberry-Blue Lagoon Sunset.
(Well, if they insisted putting his newfound opinion to the test...)
He grabbed for it and nearly crushed the thin plastic cap in his haste to get it off. Hearing a drumroll from some annoying chibi in the back of his brain, he brought the opening to his nose and...
Oh. God. It smelled like someone had bottled Sasuke. It was the single most erotic thing he'd ever smelled before, and came as such an abrupt shock he nearly lost his footing on the floor that had at some point decided to switch places with the wall.
It didn't occur to him to wonder why he would find Sasuke exc. in a woman's bath store (more accurately, it didn't occur to the author).
He flipped the bottle to look for a price, and that time he did go backwards. Naruto had never seen that many zeros in his life.
...well, if you counted his last report card from the Academy...
(He wasn't.)
Being such the stealthy beast he was, Naruto flashed a glance to the left and right before shoving the bottle into his pants and dashing for the door.
He was two blocks away before the alarms went off, so no harm done.
Naruto fell asleep in a bathtub full of bubbles that night.
The notepad file for this story has been on my desktop for...months. I'm so very happy that it's finished and posted :3
Also...just wanted to say...I hate Time in a Bottle. I love Jim Croce, but I cannot stand that song. Just sayin'.
-Oceans