Life, After

Spiders and Metaphors

Notes: This will be a series of drabbles set after "Selfish". More often than not they will have a domestic or fluff theme. Warning: this particular chapter will have mention of spiders (spoiler warning: they die, if that makes you feel better). Also, standard disclaimers apply.

The house that stood before them resided on the edge of Konoha near training ground eight. The porch was sagging, the shoji door needed new paper, and at least one of the windows was broken. This was a house that had stood the test of time and more than one "Destruction of Konoha" events.

In other words, this was a house that endured.

It was also a bit of a fixer-upper.

Naruto thought it was a great metaphor for his relationship with Sasuke and Sakura.

They spent the entire day clearing out all the debris and dirt in the house. The inside had more damage than they thought too: Sakura's foot fell through the floor boards in the living room. Luckily only the living room had some bad planks and they were easy to remove. Removing and replacing the boards had eaten up the rest of the day, however, so they did not have time to move any of their furniture inside.

They were essentially camping in the bedroom with their sleeping bags.

It was definitely not what Naruto had in mind for their first night in their brand new house.

New houses needed christening.

The night was still young and held promise though…

Just as Naruto was about to entice his partners into something fun, he felt something crawling on him.

Naruto looked, and saw a spider. He smacked it. Then he spotted another one. Then two others. Then Naruto took a look around the room…and the room was covered in them!

"Sasuke, Sakura!"

"What? I'm trying to sleep…" Sasuke nearly growled.

Sakura pulled her bag over her face.

"We have a spider infestation!"

"Don't be dramatic, Naruto. One or two spiders do not an infestation make," Sakura replied, not bothering to look.

Sasuke, on the other hand, was now sitting up and glancing calculatingly around the room.

Naruto was unprepared for what came out of his mouth.

"We have to kill it with fire."

Maybe he heard wrong.

"Come again?"

Sakura jumped out of her sleeping bag and starting furiously wiping any possible spiders that could be on her off (there weren't any) accompanied by mutters of "Ew!" and "Gross!"

"Grab your sleeping bags," Sasuke directed, already standing and eyeing the room like it was full of the enemy.

Naruto blinked and followed the order…wait, was Sasuke going to seriously burn the room?

"Can't we just…y'know, use bug spray or something?"

Spiders weren't that bad…

Sasuke was silent and led Naruto and Sakura out of the bedroom, then through the living room, and out of the house.

"C'mon Sasuke, tell me what's going on in your head! Sakura, help me out here!"

"…I'm kinda with Sasuke on this one."

Crazy people. He was in love with crazy people.

"Katon: Housen—

"Wait!" Naruto shouted, "think this through!"

"…You're right. Simple fire won't do."

Then Sasuke unleashed freakin' Amaterasu on the house. Black unholy (but since Amaterasu was a god, didn't that actually make it divine? Naruto shook his head) flames ate away eagerly at the house.

"The house! You're burning down our house!" Naruto put his hand in his hair, slightly pulling on the blond tresses.

"It was a lost cause."

"How?! We could've fumigated!" Naruto turned to Sakura, "Why aren't you pissed?"

"I…kinda hated the house," she quietly admitted.

The fire crackled in the background.

"What?"

"Sasuke did too."

"Huh? Why didn't you guys say so before we bought it?"

"You seemed to like it," Sasuke said.

"I knew it had problems but I didn't think it was going to be so much work…On top of everything we saw when we got here, it also needed new wiring and the pipes needed fixing," Sakura confessed.

"So you used the spiders to get rid of the house?"

"It was the tipping point. I also…really hate spiders," Sasuke looked to the side at this last part, as if it pained him to admit.

Yeah, the house had been crappy…but it had been a metaphor! Sasuke and Sakura hated the metaphor. Sasuke burned down the metaphor. Does that mean this relationship was doomed to fail?

No! It absolutely wouldn't fail.

Naruto just needed to find a new metaphor.

Burned down house…scorched earth…new beginnings! They were moving on into a new era of their relationship. They would build their new life together on the old foundation.

Naruto could live with that. He liked 'new beginnings' a lot better than 'fixer-upper' anyway. Their mistakes were in the past.

His teammates were staring at him.

"You okay?" Sakura's eyes shined with concern.

"Yeah," Naruto grinned, "Just means we get to rebuild!"

"Right!" Sakura grinned. Sasuke also had a smile on his face.

Things would work out.

Now all they needed to do was find somewhere to sleep and do other things. ('Cause sex was totally happening tonight. They had a new metaphor to celebrate, after all).

-fin-