Author's Notes: Hooray! My third official one-shot. And yes, it is making fun of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Why? Because I can, of course!
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Title: The Brother/Sisterhood of the Magically Self-Adjusting Pants
Rating: T (or PG-13)
Summary: It was turning out to be a boring, mission-less summer for Team 7. That is, of course, until a pair of magical pants enters the picture. Crackfic.
Pairings: None. (With SasuSaku undertones, because I couldn't help myself.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
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It was days like these when the two original boys of Team 7 realized just exactly how whipped they really were.
It was hot. The kind of hot where you stay inside drinking a glass of lemonade sitting in front of the air conditioner. What made the heat worse was that these two boys had donned pants that day. Long pants that did nothing to help the heat as they trudged through the streets of Konohagakure.
Naruto had shed his jacket long ago, stuffing it in one of the shopping bags he carried. His black tee shirt stuck to his chest uncomfortably, but he endured it, as it was earning him and the man beside him appreciative looks from the fairer sex. Mostly his teammate was getting all of the attention, but he did see a few look his way. The necklace around his neck glimmered in the light, and only enhanced his boyish, but powerful looks.
Sasuke was faring about the same as his blond haired teammate. He'd returned from Orochimaru the year prior, and had just recently finished his probation period. He was seventeen now, having turned so a few weeks before. He found that his seventeen years of age came with the legal drinking age not to mention his seventeen-year-old body, honed to lean, deadly muscle and speed. At first, he had rolled his long sleeves to his elbows, not wanting to attract any more attention than he already was. When that hadn't worked, he nearly gave his female teammate a heart attack when she came out of the dressing room to see him in a rather form-fitting black wife beater. He saw the faintest blush on her cheeks before she raced back inside of her dressing room, changed back into her own clothes, and had walked right out of the store, not sparing him a look for several minutes. Her shoulders had been tense as if she knew he was smirking at her back the entire time.
Mentally, he contemplated the same woman as she walked a few paces ahead of them both.
Haruno Sakura was the only one of the three who came out of this mess virtually unscathed. She wore her normal attire, sleeveless red shirt, tan skirt over a pair of shorts, but had substituted her boots for a pair of normal black sandals. Both men slightly envied the fact that not only was their teammate wearing shorts and was therefore staying cooler than either of them, but also the fact that her hands were empty. One little kicked-puppy look from those apple green eyes and now they were piled down with shopping bags upon shopping bags.
Sakura had smiled at both of them as she unpacked her load onto them. "It'll be good strength training." She had said.
Bull. Shit.
The medic must have sensed their discomfort, because the next place she took her pack mules was to lunch at a nice, air-conditioned restaurant in the center of town. Ichiraku was out of the question. Not even Naruto was up for a piping hot bowl or three of ramen.
All of them downed multiple glasses of ice water and their meal of choice. They got a block away from the restaurant before Naruto announced he had to pee. They retreated into a casual clothing store and Sakura and Sasuke sat on chairs by the dressing room while Naruto answered nature's call.
It was a few minutes later when Sasuke, arms crossed over his chest, noticed the pink-haired woman looking at him. He turned towards her when she said his name.
"Sasuke?"
"Hm?"
"You need new clothes."
He snorted at her and her female shopping addiction, but grudgingly realized she was right when she poked a hole in his pants near his knee.
"Go get new clothes, Sasuke-kun." Her tone was sickeningly sweet, although Sasuke brushed it off.
"Maybe later."
"But we're here now, Sasuke."
"No."
"Sasuke." Sakura growled.
The last Uchiha rolled his eyes and got up. He grabbed the first pair of pants he saw, black ninja pants, paid for them, and then plopped back down. "Happy?"
She smiled. "Much. Although you really didn't have to go for the seventy-dollar pair, you know."
He shrugged.
It was at this point Naruto came out of the bathroom. As the door opened, however, everyone who was unfortunate enough to have been walking by covered their noses and began to flee the area.
"Hey guys! What'd I miss?"
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The heat was broken three days later by a sudden heavy rainstorm. It was so sudden, that Sakura had been walking home from a rigorous hospital shift when the heavens opened and sheets of rain came pouring down. Before she knew it, she was drenched with her hair and clothes plastered to her body. She'd taken shelter under a store awning to wait it out, shivering and exhausted.
And that's how Sasuke found her.
It was clear he was favored by someone higher-up. The rain seemed to come down a little less on his umbrella, as if the only opening in the clouds was following him around. Despite the wind pushing the rain in a multitude of directions, he didn't seem to be wet at all.
Some people just had all the luck.
He raised an eyebrow and stopped in front of her little awning. Sakura did a little finger wave, which he responded to by sighing a little and telling her she could come to his house, which was closer, until the storm passed.
She joined him under the black umbrella and they walked to his house mostly in silence. Sakura couldn't stop the exhale of relief when they'd entered his house and closed the door against the storm.
Now Sasuke was many things, but he was a gentleman at his core. Therefore, when he saw the shivering, dripping girl standing in his foyer, he pushed her towards his room and told her to take a hot shower so she wouldn't risk pneumonia.
Sakura shed her clothes and hopped into a steaming shower. The strange thing about Sasuke was that he made sure all of his shampoos and soaps were scentless, so he'd be harder to track by scent on a mission. All of the scent he gave off, which Sakura mentally concluded—and would never say aloud—was natural and extremely pleasing. He smelled addictingly masculine.
Blushing at the thought, she sped up the rest of her shower and wrapped the dark blue towel around herself, embroidered at one end with a small Uchiha fan. Peeking out into Sasuke's room, she assessed the coast was clear before examining her things. She'd left her clothes over a vent in his room. Her underwear and bra were dry, but everything else was still sopping.
Thank goodness she didn't have to borrow a pair of his underwear.
Deciding he wouldn't mind if she borrowed some of his clothes—he'd probably mind more if she pranced around in undergarments in his house until her clothes were dry—she took out one of his black shirts—a long sleeve one which she rolled the sleeves up on. It actually fit pretty well, because shinobi couldn't be bothered by loose clothing. Searching for a pair of pants, she found the pair he'd bought on their shopping adventure due to the fact that he'd never taken them out of the bag.
Sakura slipped them on and frowned. They fit her well enough—almost too well to have come from the men's section. It was something she'd have picked out for herself. Well whatever.
She combed through her wet hair with her fingers before retreating downstairs and putting her wet clothes in his dryer. She knelt down at his kitchen table before being given soup and hot tea. Sasuke simply went back to his paper, his face hidden by the latest news. He had to hide his slight uneven breathing.
Because really, she just looked that good in his clothes, and the devil in his mind was reacting.
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Hey Sasuke!
I washed the clothes I borrowed and put them up for you. Sorry about the pants, I accidentally got an itty-bitty dot of bleach near the waistline. Tried to color it with a Sharpie, but it washed out. Please excuse the white dot.
Sakura
P.S. Just kidding about the marker.
Sasuke rolled his eyes at his teammate's childishness. Sakura—whom he no longer considered a hindrance anymore, she was just still kind of annoying—was the light of Team 7. Her personality sparkled even when she felt mediocre and when she was happy he could almost swear she glowed a bit.
However her extreme bubbly personality balanced out with her extreme temper. A temper that hadn't been as strong before he'd left, Sasuke recalled. He blamed the pink haired girl's mood swings on her mentor and Hokage, Tsunade, who had such a warped sense of humor that she proceeded to laugh at him the entire time she was dishing out his cruel and demeaning punishment. There were more than a few occasions of Sakura acting like this, but the most recent was when she convinced Naruto he had to be naked for her to give him his post-mission check-up. The blond had sputtered, pleaded, and thrown all of his height and masculine intimidation into her face to get her to change her mind, but nothing made the kunoichi budge. In the end, Naruto surrendered and took off his shirt and started on his pants when Sakura couldn't keep a straight face anymore and burst out laughing.
And people thought he was sadistic.
He put the note back on the kitchen table where he'd found it. Sakura hadn't been at training today, but that was no surprise. Her job at the hospital was nearly full-time on her own insistence. While she had developed her mentor's sick sense of humor, she had also adopted Tsunade's stubbornness and determination. There were times when it took both him and Naruto to bodily drag her away from her work. If one of them was on a mission and Kakashi wasn't there as backup, all attempts short of pinching the nerve in the back of her neck were in vain.
He went upstairs and took a shower to get rid of all the dirt and sweat that had accumulated on his body from training. The only reason he and Naruto had stopped was due to the fact it was pitch outside because of the lingering rain clouds blocking the light from the moon. Neither fighter could see the other at all. After evaporating a quarter of the lake, destroying a section of the forest, and Naruto's shadow clones attacking each other, they called it quits for the night.
Sasuke finished his shower, ignoring the slightly feminine scent Sakura left, he dried himself off and was slipping a pair of pants on when he suddenly froze.
Well…damn…
Had he ever had such a comfortable pair of pants? Maybe when his mother was still buying them for him. In fact, he didn't even remember these pants. Wouldn't he remember a pair of pants that were so amazingly…
He froze for the second time that night…
And promptly mentally kicked himself.
He was having a discussion in his head…about a pair of pants.
He snorted for a moment, and decided that the mental lapse had never happened. In fact, he'd already forgotten about it.
Sasuke walked into the bathroom and grabbed his toothbrush, watching the steam on the mirror clear away as he brushed his teeth. He spit, and his head looked up when he saw an anomaly out of the corner of his eye. What was that on his pants? A white dot?
Please excuse the white dot.
No.
No way in Hell could these have been the pants she was talking about. These were not the pair that Sakura, just a few days earlier could have looked so damn good in. He had seen the way they hugged her and remembered thinking that he'd have to exchange them because he'd gotten the wrong size in his annoyance. Because surely, something that fit petite little Sakura couldn't have possibly, ever in a million years fit his larger, more muscular frame. Surely he was imagining the dot on the waist of his pants. That was it. He was so dog-tired from training that he was seeing things. When he woke up in the morning, he would be in a pair of pants with no white dot. Pure black.
To his dismay and slight horror, the white dot was still there in the morning.
And the pants were still damn comfortable.
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The rain clouds that had plagued the city for the last week finally opened up and drenched everything that stood outside. Sasuke had just been getting ready to go out when he looked out the window and couldn't even see the wall across from his house through the sheets of rain.
Agitated at having an unproductive day, he switched from ninja to domestic mode and decided to put away his laundry. He stuffed the cursed pants at the very back of the drawer, thinking they were probably under some accursed jutsu. He'd had enough abnormalities for one lifetime.
Even through the rain, he felt two familiar chakra signatures rushing towards his house at an alarming speed. He clucked his tongue in disapproval. Idiots.
He was waiting for them at his door when they finally made it to his covered front porch, soaked to the bone and panting. One recovered earlier than the other.
"Hi Teme!"
A raging fist caught the back of his head as Sakura recovered her breath. "Naruto, don't be an idiot. We want him to invite us in, not turn us back to the rain." She turned a rather brilliant smile onto his form, as if she just remembered he was there. "Hi Sasuke!"
He stepped aside as a silent invitation. Naruto was covered in mud and immediately barged into the Uchiha's room to take a shower. Sakura just requested towels, use of the dryer, and a spare change of clothes. He debated the last one as he was giving her a spare t-shirt and pants, because the last time she had borrowed something of his they had been returned possessed.
He set about making tea for them with the logic that they would do (and had done) the same for him.
When Sasuke returned to the living room with a steaming mug, Sakura had changed clothes and cocooned herself in a fleece throw. He sat down next to her and not long after, Naruto came literally bouncing down the stairs.
"Hey Sasuke, did you borrow my pants and forget to return them or something? Because these fit me way too well to belong to you."
Which Sasuke, for a moment, thought was unusual. Naruto was bulkier than he was, not to mention a few inches shorter. Even though they were shinobi-style pants, each boy found them fitting a bit differently. Both he and Sakura looked over in slight confusion.
"No, dobe. Wh—" His question halted in his throat. By the choking sound Sakura was making from inhaling her drink at the wrong moment, he knew she had spotted it too.
The white dot.
"Where did you get those pants?" Sasuke asked.
"They were in the back of your drawer. Hope you don't mind. I'll return them I promise! I mean, I know I haven't returned that shirt you let me borrow that one time on that mission but I'll definitely…"
While Naruto continued to babble, Sasuke and Sakura shared a look.
"…and why are you two looking at each other like that? Is there something going on between you that I don't know about? Are you two having a secret affair behind my back? Wait, I didn't mean it! Don't look at me like that! I'm sorry I just…why are you guys still staring at me like that?" He gulped because there was a gleam in his teammates eyes that he didn't like. Sasuke and Sakura were more alike than everyone thought they were.
Suddenly, in the middle of his musings, they attacked.
Sasuke subdued Naruto while Sakura tried to release whatever genjutsu was on the pants, but they stayed the same.
"Damn it!" Sakura cussed. "Why isn't this working? Kai!" She then proceeded to growl, "Naruto, take off the pants."
Said boy spluttered. "What?! Um, Sakura-chan this is a little…I mean…you know I like Hinata-chan…"
"Oh for the love of…" Sasuke growled. "Take off the damn pants, dobe."
"Who are you two and what have you done with my teammates?"
"Fine, if you won't…" And then in a display that was completely un-Sakura, the pink haired girl yanked off the possessed pants. Both boys looked at her with strange expressions, even as she told them to turn around. "If I catch you peeking I'll make sure you'll never look at another woman again."
The boys knew she wasn't joking, so they mumbled their consent while she changed pants.
"Holy crap!"
"Can we turn around now?" Naruto asked hesitantly.
"Yeah."
They turned around and their eyes were directed downwards to see the result of her experiment.
"Wait a minute," Naruto said. "Those can't possibly be the same pants, can they?"
She showed him the dot and he began to flip out. Sakura began to babble.
"This is crazy. We're all going insane. The pants are possessed. Lack of sleep. Too many head injuries during training. Not enough…"
"Sakura." Sasuke said to stop her ranting. Thankfully, it worked.
"We should do another test." Naruto said. "Just to be sure."
"On who though? Everyone we know wouldn't be a significant enough change to tell the…difference…" Sakura trailed off as an idea popped into her head.
By the gleam in Naruto's eye and Sasuke's devilish smirk, she knew they were thinking the same thing.
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Chouji stretched. He loved rainy days. To him, they were calming, and he could relax and take a day off. Days off for a shinobi were rare, so every ninja took advantage of the ones they got.
He gathered a book in his hand about some foreign cuisine he found. He retreated to the bedroom of his cozy apartment to read a little before bed in a relaxing way to end a relaxing day, but any thoughts of rest were driven from his head when his ninja awareness piqued. Something was definitely off about—
And then it hit him.
Literally.
He was suddenly attacked from behind by multiple people. He didn't have great speed, like Lee or Sasuke, which was why he missed the initial attack. It didn't really hurt per se, but the wind flew from his lungs as he fell face-down on the floor. He gave an "umph" at the impact. The…hefty…nin tried to get up, but was suddenly pinned down by an unnatural strength. Now this was a blow to his pride! Because he could enlarge any part of his body, he prided himself on his strength. If he couldn't even throw this person off, there were only two possibilities for his second assailant.
So he took a guess, "Sakura?"
Someone slapped the back of his head. "Hn. Stop talking."
Chouji gave a small squeak in fear. He'd always been a little intimidated by the Uchiha boy, and now he was pinned on the ground and at the mercy of two—no, three…he caught the sight of blond hair in the corner of his eye—of the most powerful shinobi in the world.
"Now Chouji, just relax. We're not going to hurt you." Came Sakura's soothing soprano.
The Akimichi heir felt all three shinobi hesitate for a few beats.
Naruto spoke first. "I don't want to take his pants off."
"Well someone's got to do it, Dobe."
"Why can't you do it?"
"No way in Hell am I—"
"Seriously guys?" Sakura's impatient voice cut into the conversation. "Stop complaining and do it already!"
"But it's weird Sakura-chan!" Naruto was surely pouting. "Besides, why can't you do it?"
"In case you hadn't noticed, my hands are a bit full." The medic pushed on his back a bit more, and Chouji squealed again. "Oh…sorry Chouji. And besides, I'm not going to take his pants off! That's improper."
"You did it to me just fine." Naruto grumbled.
"That's because you're you, Naruto, so it doesn't really matter."
Chouji heard Sasuke let out a long suffering sigh. "Why don't we just do it with his pants on."
There was another pause.
"Oh."
"Yeah, that would work."
And Chouji began to panic, wondering what the devil they were doing. He felt his ankles being lifted up and something was being slipped over his legs. They felt like…pants? What in the world was going on?!
"Wow…they fit."
"Chouji," Sakura spoke. "How do you feel?"
"Violated." The man remarked from face-down in the carpet. A hand slapped the back of his head.
"Give us a serious answer." Sasuke chastised.
"Sasuke, don't be so harsh." Sakura chided. "Now Chouji, what I really meant to ask how do you feel in the pants?"
"Uh…fine, I guess."
"Just fine?" Naruto asked. He then scoffed. "He's still not giving us straight answers."
"Okay, they're pretty comfortable."
"Pretty comfortable?!" Naruto screamed. "Those are the most comfortable pants in the world!"
"They might be more comfortable if I wasn't already wearing pants."
"Oh." Said the blond.
"Thank you Chouji, you've been a huge help." Sakura said politely. In one move, the pants came off of him. "Oh, and if you ever tell anyone about this encounter, I'm not going to go easy on you." Chouji could hear the grin in Sakura's voice as she talked. "Understand?"
"Yes." The Akimichi boy grumbled.
"Good." And the instant the pressure was relieved from his back, Chouji turned over only to find the three enigmatic shinobi already gone.
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"It's just what we have to do, Naruto."
"I still think we could forget about the whole thing. Those are damn comfortable pants!"
"Dobe." Sasuke said. And really, that was all that needed to be said for the dark-haired teen to get his point across.
"Teme! Are you asking for an ass kicking?!"
Sasuke snorted. "Like you could, Usuratonkachi."
"Call me that again and I'll—"
"U-su-ra-ton-ka-chi."
"Why you—"
"Guys!" Sakura threw her hands up. "You're giving me a headache. Now…" She held up the possessed pants in one of her hands, prepared to throw it in the river and out of their lives for good. "I'm sorry I have to do this, magically self-adjusting pants, but you're no good for us. Even though you are comfortable and perfect and…" She trailed off, wondering why she was about to throw such a perfect pair of pants into oblivion.
"Sakura?"
Pink hair flew as Sakura turned to see her teammates giving her strange looks.
"Right then. Goodbye, pants!" And with a slight feeling of regret, Sakura dropped the black pants into the rapids and watched them get washed away with the current. She sighed. She missed them already.
"Glad that's over with." Sasuke grumbled.
"I'm hungry." Naruto remarked. "Anyone up for Ichiraku?"
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Eventually, ramen had turned to some light drinks, and light drinks had turned to heavy drinks. Sasuke didn't know what time he stumbled home drunk, he just knew the next morning he was lying on his kitchen table with a monstrous headache. Cursing the light as he walked to his room, he made a beeline straight for his bathroom, and from there it was straight to the medicine cabinet for aspirin.
He walked back into the bedroom to flop down on his bed for a few more hours of sleep, but there was a pair of black pants in his spot. At first, he thought he'd merely left out a pair from yesterday, or the dobe had put them there the day before, but then he noticed the small, white dot on the waistline.
Onyx eyes stared blankly at the pair of pants for several minutes. Immediately realizing what was going on, he reached for the phone and dialed.
"Ugh…what?" Sakura asked on the other end, sounding like she'd just woken up herself.
"Sakura?"
"Sasuke? Ugh…what are you…?"
"I need you to come over. I'm hallucinating."
When she reached his house half an hour later and saw what the problem was, her scream echoed throughout the entire Uchiha Compound.
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Sasuke opened the door to a tired Naruto.
"I still don't see what is so urgent that you had to call me over so early."
"So urgent? So urgent?!" Sakura screamed from somewhere inside the house. When Naruto finally caught a glimpse of her face, she looked hysteric and slightly perturbed. "This is what is so urgent!" And she held up the same pair of pants that they had thrown into the river not twelve hours earlier.
"Wha…that's impossible!"
"Well obviously not, if Sasuke found them in his room this morning!"
"Unless he fished them out of the river last night when he was drunk." Immediately, two pairs of eyes swiveled to the dark haired boy. "Well, did you?"
Sasuke scoffed. "Don't be stupid."
"These pants are possessed!" Sakura lamented. "What are we going to do?"
"We could get rid of them." Sasuke offered.
"In case you hadn't noticed, we tried that, and they came back smelling daisy fresh."
"We could burn them."
"They're shinobi pants, Sasuke, they're non-flammable."
There was a collective pause.
"…We could keep them." Naruto suggested, and immediately got two incredulous looks. "I'm serious! They're the most comfortable pants any of us has ever worn! What's the harm in keeping them?"
The other two members of Team 7 paused. What really was the harm in keeping them?
"Okay fine, we'll keep them. How will we decide who gets them when?" Sakura asked.
"We'll pass them off every couple of weeks or so."
Sasuke's nose wrinkled in distaste. "I'm not wearing anything that's been on the dobe's ass."
"Relax, Sasuke." Sakura said. "We're going to wash them before we pass them along."
"Nuh-uh." Naruto shook his head. "We can never wash The Pants."
"Naruto, that's disgusting."
"Dobe…"
"I'm serious guys! It will be like…a documentation of everywhere we've been!"
"And what if one of us gets blood all over it?"
"Oh…" Naruto thought for a moment. "Okay fine, you can wash The Pants." The blond felt another crafty idea come into his head. "But you have to write something you did in The Pants on one of the legs."
"Dobe…that's gay."
"You're gay."
"Boys!" Sakura yelled. "If we're going to make rules, I'm going to propose that underwear must be worn at all times while wearing The Pants."
The boys exchanged glanced and nodded.
"…So who gets The Pants first?"
"Ooh! Me! Me! Me!"
"Dobe…"
"Teme!"
"Guys!"
And that's how, with the help of a pair of magically, self-adjusting pants, Team 7 survived a boring, mission-less summer and managed to grow a little closer to each other in the process.
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Author's Notes: Ha ha, I've been planning this for a while now, but I've only recently had time to finish it. Hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Comments are appreciated, as always, and thank you for reading.
