Right, I know Naruto's birthday is October 10th, but it was, what, October 13th or something when I joined fanfiction. So that and the fact that I never pay any attention to dates made me forget. Anyway, it's a Naruto belated birthday fic. By 16 days (groan). I'm a horrible fangirl… It's SasuNaru, obviously. Reviews please!
WARNING: MANGA SPOILERS! If you don't read the manga, you probably won't get what's going on. Well, you will, but there is one spoiler or two.
Birthday secrets and birhtday wishes.
"Sasuke" Naruto began, tilting his head back so he was looking at Sasuke upside down. "Sasuke, whaddya getting me?"
Sasuke scowled at him from the over the top of a mission report. "None of your business, dobe."
Naruto flared up, jumping to his feet and practically bouncing on the soles of his barefoot feet. He glared at Sasuke venomously, the most vicious glare he has, the one he always uses on Sasuke, the one that never really means anything. "How the hell is it not by business, bastard?" he growls at Sasuke. "It's my birthday, isn't it?"
"So what if it's your birthday?" Sasuke demands. He stands up too. "Naruto, you idiot, you get your presents on your birthday. Your birthday isn't today, amazingly. It's tomorrow, you dumbass." Sasuke stops for a second and then thinks of a new way to insult Naruto. "Dobe, if you don't know how to read a calendar, you could have just asked me. I would have taught you."
"I do know how to read a calendar, bastard! I'm just saying, you're my boyfriend, you should tell me what my gift is before my birthday! You're my boyfriend and you love me and should obey my every command because you love me so much! So give me my present, you asshole! Or at least let me see the cake! You haven't even let me see the cake!" Naruto throws at him, all of his previous relaxation gone.
Sasuke groaned and ran his fingers through his long, midnight hair that Naruto knew was a sign of great irritancy with Sasuke. "I'll let you see the fucking cake when it's your fucking birthday, understand, dobe? Until then, leave me alone."
"Sasuke!" Naruto wailed, abandoning the 'tough guy' ploy and switching to 'cute/desperate guy', flapping his arms wildly. "Sasuke, just give me a hint! Please, Sasuke! Pretty pretty please!"
Sasuke sighed and yelled over the noise: "Shut up, Naruto, and I'll tell you!"
Naruto is quiet in a second and he runs over to Sasuke, loping his tanned arms around Sasuke's neck and bright sapphire eyes looking into Sasuke's own hard onyx ones hopefully. He leaned forward and kissed Sasuke chastely on the lips, telling him happily when the kiss is over, because Naruto can't whisper: "Thank you, Sasuke!" He leans in expectantly.
Sasuke sighs and wraps his own arms around Naruto's warm body. "It's something very old and something very hard to get, you you'd better be grateful for it once you get it." he tells his lover solemnly, knowing Naruto will attack him with pleadings in a second.
He's not disappointed. "Sasuke!" Naruto wines after Sasuke's finished talking. "Sasuke, that doesn't tell me anything! Anything could be old and hard to get!" He jumps away immediately and starts ranting angrily. Sasuke drowns him out as soon as he starts and goes back to the table, finishing what Naruto thinks is a mission report.
Eventually Naruto slams a hand down onto the table and he stares at Sasuke fiercely with 2 stormy skies. "Are you even listening to me, Sasuke?!"
Sasuke shakes his no uninterestedly and Naruto screeches out his anger before yelling out: "I'm going to Sakura-chan's house! Maybe she'll be smart enough to figure out your stupid hints! I bet she'll even show me her present!" Sasuke hears the slam of the Uchiha Compound's main door and sighs thankfully.
He looks down at the papers he just finished writing up and smiles to himself. In 5 minutes, he's walking out the door himself, locks it and heads toward the Hokage tower.
**********
Sasuke is standing outside Tsunade's room impatiently. She's got some ANBU back from Mist and there've supposedly sighted former Akatsuki members, from what Sasuke can hear through the walls.
He's been waiting like that for 10 minutes, 10 minutes pretending not to notice untrustworthy stares and whispers from other ninja. To pass the time, Sasuke thinks what Naruto's reaction will be and eventually gives up. Naruto was unpredictable.
He leans his body against the wall further and slouches almost completely down, making sure to not get the papers crinkled. He looks at them again, contemplating how long Tsunade will make this last. She doesn't trust him and never will, so Sasuke thinks he's in for a long wait. But at the same time, he knows she'll go through with it, because she wants it as much as Sasuke. She just doesn't know that yet.
The door swings open, almost hitting Sasuke in the face before he stops it lightning-quick with his hand. A 4 man team stride out, white and red masks covering their faces that Sasuke doesn't care about. The moment Owl-mask, the last one, is outside, Sasuke barges his way in.
Tsunade is sitting at her desk, quietly talking to Shizune, who was, as ever, holding that pig that was supposedly Tsunade's. Tsunade hears his footsteps and nods her genjustu-faked head curtly. "Let me see those papers, Uchiha." she demands and Sasuke hands them to her without a word.
"Shizune!" Tsunade barks before Shizune has a chance to see the papers. "Go send those messages to the villages for new wood supplies." Shizune looks hurt and stands there awkwardly until Tsunade snaps at her again: "Now!"
Sasuke waits until she leaves the room and asks the Hokage only then: "Well?"
"Wait a little, Uchiha." Tsunade answers. She brushes a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, a pale imitation to Naruto's, Sasuke thinks.
Sasuke waits like that, standing, another 10 minutes until Tsunade directs her eyes to Sasuke. "I think" Tsunade begins slowly and Sasuke can hear the reluctance and approval in her voice. "I think that this is an adequate document for possession of the records you want, Uchiha." Sasuke lifts his mouth into a smirk.
Tsunade doesn't notice, her eyes back on the paper. "You have the approval of the current possession holder, that is, Jiraiya, you have a pretty good petition of people who support your idea, you have a valid reason for having these records and, most importantly, you have the impatience of the Council who want this whole possession thing solved. They don't trust Jiraiya and the majority of the council trusts Naruto, after all he's done. This is the easiest way out and a pretty good way, too. It was easy convincing them."
Sasuke smirks wider at the end of her report and tells Tsunade mockingly, because he has no respect for anyone except Naruto, even the Hokage: "I told you. This should have been done a long time ago."
Tsunade shots her head up and the diamond on her forehead seems to glisten. "Do not presume to tell me what should and should not be done, Uchiha. Naruto was a child back then."
Sasuke rolls his eyes. "So what? I found out stuff like this when I was 6."
Tsunade's plump lips tightened into a thin line. She never liked to be reminded how the Uchiha massacre was done on Konoha orders and how there had been such dire consequences, all because of the Konoha higher-ups. "Your case was different. If I had control at the time I would have never let you find out the secrets you did."
"Yeah, but you didn't. Now give me the records." Sasuke doesn't feel like revisiting the past he's tried most of his life to block out and forget. He never feels like it, except when Naruto is considered. The difference, however, between Naruto and other people was that Naruto actually felt sorry for him.
Tsunade leans down and draws out a door filled with papers and pictures. She rummages around in it for a minute before drawing a messy batch of reports, notes, pictures and accounts all stapled together several times. She gives them to Sasuke in one smooth, medical-nin's hand and says bitterly: "Here are all the records we've managed to find on Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki. If you do anything else besides giving them to Naruto, I swear I will have you executed."
Sasuke reaches out and takes all that's left of the lives of Naruto's parents.
***********
It's mid-afternoon when Sasuke returns to the Compound. The door is still locked and Naruto isn't back yet. Sasuke unlocks the door and walks in silently. He searches his mother's and father's room first, the liveliest member of the family being his mother. Sure enough, he finds brightly colored paper, in reds, oranges and yellows. Sasuke wraps up the papers on Naruto's parents in these papers and then goes into the kitchen and starts unloading the ingredients for ramen. The reason Naruto never saw a cake is because Sasuke's making him homemade ramen. Sasuke thinks Naruto will like that much better than cake.
It's around 9 o'clock when the food is ready and Sasuke wonders why Naruto isn't home yet. He couldn't have been that mad at him, could he? Sasuke sits down at the kitchen table and twirls his finger around an orange ribbon again and again, waiting. After 2 minutes he has newfound respect for Team 7, who waited for him for 3 years.
It's half an hour before Sasuke hears heavy breathing and hurried footsteps outside the walls of the Compound. He gets up abruptly, puts the ramen in the oven so it'll be warm again by the time he's shown Naruto his present and walks into the main hallway. He opens up the door and cold night air rushes at him and blows his hair wildly around his face. Sasuke uses one arm to shield his face and sees Naruto sniveling and shaking with the cold…or was that…?
Sasuke's arms shoot out and wrap around Naruto's sobbing body as his lover pressed up against him. Sasuke shuts the door, blocking out the cold wind and slides to the floor, still holding Naruto. He stares at his lover's face, utterly bewildered and unused to a crying Naruto. First he's exasperated. Then worried and angry at once.
"Naruto" he demands because Sasuke doesn't know how to comfort anyone. It's not a soothing whisper or a gentle hope, it's Sasuke trying to understand. "Naruto, dobe, what is it? What happened? Naruto, tomorrow's your birthday, Naruto. Be happy, idiot, it's your birthday. You're supposed to be happy on your birthday."
Naruto doesn't react, just shakes and sobs in Sasuke's embrace.
Sasuke and Naruto stay like that for 15 minutes, the entire time Sasuke asking questions and trying to think of what Sakura, the romantic, would do. Eventually Naruto stops long enough to gasp out: "Sasuke." and Sasuke takes the chance eagerly. "Yeah, it's me, it's Sasuke, Naruto. Come on, dobe, it's Sasuke, don't you know me? You tell me everything Naruto, come on, tell me whatever this is too. Naruto, nothing's going to happen to you. Naruto, it's Sasuke."
Naruto gasps again, long and rasping. "Sasuke," he stutters, so unlike him. His beautiful blue eyes are watery and the sky-blue reminds Sasuke of ripples in clear rivers. "Sasuke, I thought you didn't care that it was my birthday. I though you forgot and you didn't wanna get me anything, and you didn't bake me a cake or anything. That's what-that's what these guys said to me when I was going to buy fruit for Sakura-chan."
This is the dumbest thing Sasuke has ever heard his entire life.
"Naruto" he says, in slight shock, "Naruto, why the hell would you believe them?"
Naruto cries some more and it's a minute before he answers and even then his wet face is buried in Sasuke's chest and Sasuke can't hear a word.
"Naruto, I can't hear anything. Speak up."
Naruto lifts his arm to wipe away a booger from his nose and looks at Sasuke tearfully. "Sasuke, no one ever gets me anything for my birthday."
Sasuke sighed and kissed Naruto's disgusting, overflowing nose. "Naruto", he murmurs, "Naruto, I got you something. It was just hard to get, OK? That's why it took so long. I never forgot about your birthday, Naruto. I've been working on your present since last month." he finishes, thinking of the petition and how fucking hard it was to track Jiraiya.
Naruto snuffles and sniffs.
Sasuke remembers the cake part and consoles the ramen-lover. "And you're right, I didn't make you a cake-" Naruto's face falls and he starts crying again "-I made you ramen. Homemade ramen." Naruto's face stops crying and lifts up even higher than it was a few minutes ago.
"You made me ramen?" he asks in a ridiculous high-pitched voice which Sasuke assumes is an after-affect from crying. "You hate ramen, Sasuke."
"It's not my birthday, isn't it?" Sasuke raises his eyebrows.
Naruto's lips stretch into the biggest smile Sasuke has ever encountered and his blue eyes are sparkling. He kisses Sasuke happily on the mouth and Sasuke leans into the kiss, his tongue roaming around with satisfaction. Naruto smiles and moans into the kiss and Sasuke has a feeling he'll be smiling all night long.
Sasuke breaks away eventually. "Do you want to see your present?" he asks Naruto. After seeing his blonde crying because of him, he had an urge to make Naruto happy because of him.
Naruto nods enthusiastically, his smile still very wide.
"All right, it's in the kitchen." Sasuke walks towards the kitchen with Naruto holding his hand like a little child to afraid to cross the street by himself.
When they get there, Sasuke points at it quietly. "There, see, I wrapped it and everything, like a real present." He points at the oven. "And you were late, so I had to reheat the ramen."
Naruto crosses the kitchen to his present. "I'm going to open it now," he tells Sasuke. Sasuke nods 'okay'. Naruto holds the present in his hands and looks at it wondrously. "Sasuke, this is my first-ever present."
Naruto opens the present with as much enthusiasm as he does everything, ripping and making tearing sounds vibrate off the walls. The ribbon is thrown somewhere in a corner.
Naruto looks at the pieces of paper, turning them around in his hands, in large, careful hands. Sasuke sits next to him and wraps his arms around Naruto's torso. Softly he kisses his ear.
Naruto stares at the pieces of paper and his eyes widen and crinkle at the sides in wonder and surprise. He stares at the 2 pictures on the first page, 2 pictures of a fiery-haired girl that was struggling to keep her face still and of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed man who looked exactly like Naruto, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, dimples and everything.
Naruto's father's eyes scroll down the page toward the part where it says the names. His jaw slackens and his fingers are trembling. "These are-these are my parents."
Sasuke squeezes Naruto tighter.
Naruto's eyes and fingers roam over the first page, the page with pictures and facts usually boring about their date of birth, height, weight, hair and eye color, type of chakra, hometown, age etc., etc. He flips the page over eagerly, almost in a trance and spies mission reports Kushina and Minato filed in, notable enemies they've killed or captured and other triumphs. The next page is the complete opposite, failed missions, notable enemies they let slip past their fingertips and other defeats. After that are notes from people that knew them describing their personality and habits, although Jiraiya had pretty much supplied everything. It was everything Naruto should have known about his parents. He hadn't even known his father was the Yondaime.
Sasuke whispered to him softly, as softly as his voice would ever get: "I told you it was something old and hard to get, didn't I?"
Naruto swallowed thickly, his fingers no longer trembling and looked at Sasuke with one of his endless smiles.
That's all he doesn't have to say.
The rest of the night, Naruto curls up against Sasuke's chest, snuggling cozily because this was the dobe's birthday, almost, and Sasuke was too nice that night to say no. He reads out everything to Sasuke, too excited and thankful to keep everything to himself. Sasuke keeps his eyes open and listens, halfway through standing up to get the ramen and Naruto points and yells how his mother's favorite food was ramen too. They slurp the noodles nosily while taking a break and then go back to reading. At the end, Naruto falls asleep, his head drooped down and smile wavering into a sleepy O. Sasuke carries him up to their bed and watches him breath and sleep for a few minutes, before falling asleep himself. Sasuke never had much patience for anything.
It's a perfect night and Sasuke dreams about the morning.
END
It's rushed and I think I could do a better job, but I was in panic about the whole 'forgetting Naruto's birthday' deal and wanted to put it on fanfiction as soon as possible. Don't get me wrong, I liked how it turned out a lot and feel like a genius for thinking of Sasuke's present, but if I had the time and patience to do a re-read, I think I could have made it maybe a little bit better. For instance, the horrible, crappy, shitty title. Ah, whatever, my brother hated it and he hates SasuNaru so that means it's alright.
Oh, and for those, that don't get it, because my brother loves Naruto and he didn't get it, the stuff Sasuke found out when he was 6, was not Itachi's bloodlust and the massacre, but the scroll thingy he looks at after the massacre that hold the Uchiha Clan's secrets. I don't really remember what the secrets are, either something about the Sharingan or the Kyuubi, but, whatever, it's the scroll and the secrets, not the massacre. My brother's like: "What massacre secrets? Itachi killed everyone, what's so secrety about that'", lol.
