Note: This story will be continued under the profile grumpikachu, which is my original account. The email related to it was hacked and I lost control of most of the accounts related to that email, and I was sure it was lost what with my poor ability to retain the information gmail asked of me. But I've recently gained back control against all odds and will be shifting to it.

A/N: A really cheesy sort of story - the sort I usually avoid but the idea was too good. The execution., not so much orz.

First Naruto multi-chap, please drop a line, it'd be much appreciated (as would be suggestions.) and rewarded with virtual omelettes, cooked by Itachi himself* Hope you enjoy!

[*warning: these omelettes will not be edible, but they will have Itachi's mangekyou pattern on them. That's cool, right?]

Warnings: Protective-of-each-other!Uchiha Family, Way-too-hyper!Uzumaki-Namikaze Family, conspiring-with-Jiraiya!Tsunade.

Behind Enemy Lines

i: i'm not doing it

Onyx stared into blue, both pairs of eyes widening almost comically. Their owners' faces wore similar horrified expressions as they processed the announcement that had just been made.

Sasuke broke first.

"What do you mean we have to switch?"

Naruto, being the more optimistic of the two, chose to classify it as a hearing mistake. It was totally possible for two people to mishear the same thing, right?

"What exactly did you say we had to switch?"

Their Boss, Tsunade Senju, smiled the saccharine smile that Naruto had named "The Evil Smirk of Doom" and Sasuke agreed (a rare occurence, indeed) was generally Trouble, and repeated the words that had sparked off the whole situation in the first place.

"You're switching families. Naruto will go live with the Uchihas for two weeks, and Sasuke will go live with the Uzumaki-Namikazes for the same period."

Sasuke's right eye developed a twitch. Naruto, on the other hand, still seemed convinced that Tsunade was playing a cruel joke on them.

Sweeping an imposing glance across the two of them, the blonde woman continued in a cheerful voice.

"You two are the top designers this company has, and yet you can't cooperate with each other if your life depended on it. The only way to overcome this is to get you two to understand each other. And what better way for that than let you see each other in your home environments, to share living space and lifestyles to come to an understanding?"

"That still," Sasuke's voice was glacial, "doesn't explain why you voilunteered us for a reality show."

"Yeah!" Naruto piped up, indignant, "You could've just told us or something, you old hag!"

Tsunade blinked, face flushing. Sasuke had the sense to shut up immediately and elbow Naruto to do the same, but Naruto carried on with the tenacity of a bulldozer.

"You can't interefere in our private lives like this! Have you seen Sasuke's brother? I swear he's a psychopa-"

Here Sasuke's cautionary elbow jabs suddenly became a lot harder than strictly necessary, and Naruto ended up stumbling into the desk. This, apparently, was the last straw for Tsunade.

"YOU TWO BRATS! You almost ruined the last Fashion Week by refusing to work together!" They had then been each given a show, and had both outdone their own selves through what she suspected was the sheer will to not lose to the other, but Tsunade saw no reason to mention that now. "I keep telling you to get over your issues and stop bringing your private lives in the work place, but do you ever listen? So don't come running to me now that its finally coming back to bite you in your scrawny asses! You're doing it and that's IT. NOW GET LOST!"

Naruto went first, his survival instincts being sharper than his pride, and Sasuke followed him soon afterwards.

Tsunade dialled Jiraiya's number.

"Hello, Jiraiya? That reality show you talked about...its on. You owe me a hundred bucks. I want the payment in Sake."

In retrospect, Naruto and Sasuke should really have known better.

"It'd be good for the company, she said." Naruto muttered to himself under his breath, "Improve teamwork, she said. Don't be so immature, she said."

His assistant, Sakura Haruno, gave him a decidedly unfriendly stare.

It wasn't that Sakura was a bitch, contrary to what the subordinates who found themselves on her bad side believed. She could be a kind, if somewhat insensitive, person. In her defense, Naruto had been ranting about the same thing for over half an hour and she really could use a break from hearing him rail about Sasuke, who just so happened to be her crush, and Tsunade, who had been her mentor when she first came into the fashion industry. She knew from experience that his rants could go on for hours. (Literally. Once Naruto had spent almost a whole afternoon and evening ranting about she had gotten used to tuning Naruto and his babbling out, or she would've ended up in jail for assaulting her boss.)

Besides, Sakura was trying to work. Work that Naruto should have done, but wasn't doing because he was too preoccupied with bitching about Tsunade and Sasuke and the situation Tsunade had pushed him in and Sasuke and of course it was all Sasuke's fault because Naruto totally hadn't been the one to antagonise the other man first.

Sighing, she cracked her knuckles noisily, drawing Naruto's attention to her. His face immdiately took on an expression of mixed terror and betrayal as she advanced on him and slapped the file she had been working on on his chest, face unforgiving.

"Finish your work first, Uzumaki. I had to skip my lunchbreak because of you. I'm going to get something to eat."

After Naruto gulped and nodded, she walked to the door before hesitating. While she agreed that Naruto and Sasuke (mostly Naruto) took the rival thing too far, she still sympathised with the situation the two had been put in. Sasuke's family was huge and overprotective, and completely aware of the hostility going on between the two of them. Sasuke's brother sometimes came over to Sasuke's office so they could share a lunch, and glared at everyone who dared to look at his little brother wrong (which, besides Naruto for the obvious reasons, included almost all the females in the office and a few of the males as well), She could understand why Naruto would be worried.

Knowing she was going to regret it sorely later on (because she wasn't kidding about the epic proportions Naruto's Sasuke-rants could reach) she ducked back into the office and smiled at her boss, whose blonde head was bent over his desk.

"And after that we can go to Ichiraku's and you can tell me all about how Sasuke's an evil reptillian alien in a human skin."

She exited the office to Naruto's overly exaggerated exclamations of joy that someone believed him.