Chapter 3
"YOU HAVE A…A….A-A-A-A-A-A-…..A WRI….A WRI-WRI….A WRINK…." Naruto sputtered, nearly choking on his tongue. Sasuke decided he hadn't the heart or the insurance and decided to put the sputtering blonde out of his misery.
"It's a wrinkle. Yes. Happy now?" He hissed sardonically. Naruto recoiled at the abundance of venom interlaced in Sasuke's voice. The Uchiha took note and considerably softened, sighing hopelessly.
"I just noticed it this morning, so I went out and bought some wrinkle cream and was trying to put it on in the bathroom which was why I didn't want you looking." The sentence came out in a jumble of garbled, mostly incoherent sounds and Sasuke winced.
A brilliant whirlwind of yellow danced across his eyes and the next thing he knew, his lips had just about dissolved under the force of Naruto's kiss.
The blonde held the kiss until Sasuke honestly thought he'd die from lack of oxygen (ironic that it was Naruto doing the killing, given the fact that he was supposed to be his lover), then peeled his mouth off of the Uchiha's with a warm, squelching noise, only to propel himself into Sasuke's chest with an elated squeal. An expression of confusion and shock promptly fixated itself onto the Uchiha's elegant features.
"Naruto…what…."
"THEN YOU'RE NOT HAVING AN AFFAIR!!" The fox-child shrieked happily, delving deeper into the folds of Sasuke's shirt. After a few moments passed during which the Uchiha carefully digested the information, he spoke, carefully choosing his words.
"And…why would you think that?"
"BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE YOU WERE ACTING ALL WEIRD IN THE MORNING AND YOU WERE REEEAALLLYY QUIET THE WHOLE TIME AND I STARTED TO GET WORRIED BECAUSE I THOUGHT I THOUGHT I THOUGHT YOU WERE HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH SOMEONE ELSE BECAUSE YOU WERE TIRED OF ME AND AND AND THAT'S REALLY EASY FOR YOU TO DO BECAUSE A LOOOOOOOOOOTTT OF WOMEN REALLY LIKE YOU AND—" Sasuke hastily clapped a hand over Naruto's mouth.
"Honestly Naruto, you're way too loud. I'm not having an affair, and I don't want to have an affair, so try to keep that shit out of your head, okay?" He said affectionately, chuckling as the blonde impudently wrinkled his nose.
"So…so that explains all the "d'you think I'm getting old?" questions and the weird behavior and everything…" Naruto said thoughtfully, just grasping the situation. Sasuke momentarily considered commenting on the sharpness (or lack thereof) of Naruto's thought process, then discarded the thought and lightly brushed his mouth over the blonde's lips.
"Yeah, that explains it. Now shut up," at this, Sasuke's voice dropped several octaves to a low, husky baritone "and let's continue where we left of, mmm?" Naruto purred seductively in response and pulled the Uchiha down on top of him, opening his mouth to grant access to Sasuke's tongue.
"You know…I'm kinda curious…" The blonde murmured against Sasuke's sweet, warm mouth between licks and kisses, "What kind of wrinkle cream did you use?"
Sasuke settled for emitting a moue of dismissal, delving deeper into Naruto's mouth with a husky moan. The blonde allowed him a few more kisses before gently pulling his lips off of the Uchiha's, gracing him with a heated, searing stare clouded with both naked desire and probing curiosity as he coyly slid slender fingers across the line of Sasuke's jaw.
"C'mon Saaaaasuke…." The words slid out of his lips in a breathy whisper. "You know you want to tell me." A flash of irritation flickered in the Uchiha's raven eyes as he tried in vain to capture Naruto's lips.
"Naruto…." he growled impatiently, but the blonde was stubborn, running a tantalizing tongue over Sasuke's bottom lip.
"You know I won't do anything unless you answer." Mock hopelessness flashed in Sasuke's eyes as he sat up, irritably running an aggravated hand through sleek black locks.
"It was Harumi's Wrinkle Cream, okay? Now do you have to make this any more difficul—"
"HARUMI'S WRINKLE CREAM??!??" Naruto practically shot out from under him, slamming his spine none to gently on the arm of the couch. Sasuke let out a sigh that seemed to reflect all the irritation in the world.
"Yes, okay?! And at the rate we're going, pretty soon you're going to be celibate, and I'm going to be frustrated!!" Naruto promptly dissolved into paroxysms of laughter.
"Jeez….Sasuke….sounds like you only…want me for the….sex…." He managed to gasp out before inhaling noisily and giving himself over to yet another bout of hysterical mirth. The Uchiha's mouth twitched in spite of himself.
"You know that's only part of why I want you." He said tartly, earning a sly wink from the blonde. Naruto teasingly shook a delicate finger in front of Sasuke's nose.
"More like most of the reason why you want me," he shot back, then laughed. "Nah, I'm kidding."
"So why are you so concerned about Harumi's Wrinkle Cream?" Sasuke probed curiously. Naruto's expression quickly reverted to a tense, apprehensive frown.
"You're sure, absolutely positive that you used Harumi's wrinkle cream?" He said urgently. Sasuke carefully nodded.
"Yeah, and as a matter of fact, I'll bring you the bottle so you can see for yourself…but…why's that such a problem?" Naruto threw his hands up in exasperation, not-so-subtlety rolling sapphire eyes.
"You don't notice things other than shinobi-related happenings, do you? Jeez, Harumi's Wrinkle Cream Inc. went out of business fifteen years ago, and they haven't made a new product since." He said with a mordant air of obviousness. "I thought everyone knew that." He added as an afterthought, earning a "you don't have to rub it in," from the disgruntled Uchiha.
"But why would that be such a concern?" Sasuke asked. "The bottle was still on the store shelves, so—"
"That means the manager's a complete ass who doesn't know what items to keep and what items to get rid of," Naruto stated matter-of-factly. "Now, you were GOING to bring me that bottle?" At that, Sasuke promptly disappeared, only to materialize half a second later, a small purple bottle clutched in his hands which he thrust defiantly out at the blonde.
"Here." Naruto took it gingerly, turning it over in his hands. After a while, he shook his head and pointed a nail at a small series of numbers down near the bottom. Sasuke squinted to see.
"Is that the expiration date?" The blonde asked. Sasuke nodded.
"It says it'll expire next Tuesday—" He started to say, then stopped, suddenly tense.
"Wait. Something feels off…" The phrase came out in a terse whisper. Naruto's lips twisted in a wry smirk.
"Kai."
The numbers seemed to blur, then warped into a new set of digits which seemed to glint almost mockingly up at the Uchiha. The blonde nodded grimly.
"Yeah, it expired Tuesday of fourteen years ago, Sasuke. Jeez, what were you thinking? I can't BELIEVE you didn't catch that." Sasuke considered an excuse, then decided it wasn't any use.
"Okay, okay…but I can always wash the stuff off…"
"Do you know why Harumi's Wrinkle Cream went out of business?" Naruto asked candidly. After a moment's thought, the Uchiha uttered a bemused negative. The blonde sat back and closed his eyes, steepling elongated fingers together as he went about his explanation with an air of authority.
"When the company first opened, they had a huge explosion in business, and many people thought they were going to have a monopoly over creams and lotions. However, after a few years, people started to get severe symptoms, and eventually it was known that Harumi's Wrinkle Cream was using a blend of effective but deadly chemicals in their cream, which is why they went out of business. It was a huge scandal, Sasuke, I can't believe you didn't know about it until now." He concluded tactfully.
Sasuke sat quite still, digesting this information with about as much speed as it took for molasses to drip. He was wearing a possibly deadly concoction of drugs on his face, and even as he thought these nastily unpleasant thoughts, the drugs were probably seeping into his brain and shutting down his vital organs. This would do well for future nervous breakdowns, yes it would…but…strangely, his mind remained unusually calm, an odd, studied coolness overtaking his senses (which was probably a side effect of the drugs, he thought absently, but side effect or no side effect, it felt rather good). He turned to Naruto and vaguely muttered a "how did you know this?" Naruto looked smug.
"Tsunade-baachan." Ah. All the wisdom in the world contained within one word. But…
"How would Tsunade-sama know?" Sasuke asked with a puzzled expression.
"You know I'm training to become the next Hokage, right?" Naruto said. Sasuke nodded. "And you know I have to learn certain diplomatic and political lessons from the current Hokage, which is a requirement right?" Again a bemused nod. "So once in a while, when we're taking a break and Tsunade-baachan gets drunk, she complains about a couple of things, one of them being wrinkle cream, which she has to use to keep up that face that she has." Naruto concluded with a rather triumphant air. "But enough talk, we have to do something about your face." He was stopped by a rather sharp tug on his sleeve. Sasuke looked deeply troubled and tense.
"Naruto…do you know what…will happen to the people who've used the cream?"
He knew full well there was a fifty-fifty chance of Naruto being serious. Well…since Naruto was, after all, Naruto, the odds were more likely it being eighty-twenty in favor of the blonde spouting some melodramatic illness dealing with…oh, tentacles growing out of one's ears or something equally absurd. And….judging from the rather devious smirk that was slowly seeping across Naruto's face like grease over a non-stick pan…Sasuke was ninety-nine percent sure Naruto would come up with something—
"Well, first your skin cracks and oozes this clear, oozy-warm yellowy liquid that drips from your face, and then the whites of your eyes go all glazy-pink, and then eventually you start to bleed from all the pores on your body…"
—ridiculously absurd.
Ah yes. Yes. How ever did he know what was going to come next? With a sigh that suggested years of frayed nerves, Sasuke firmly grasped Naruto by both shoulders and nearly incinerated the blonde with the heat of his stare.
"Naruto, I'm about to die here, and I don't appreciate the fact that you're viewing my current situation as an entire and utter joke." At this, a very self-satisfied grin dripped like paint onto the fox-child's face.
"And here I thought that you didn't care whether you lived or died as long as you got rid of your precious, cherished Aniki."
Too late, the words slipped out of his mouth. Naruto, realizing the extent to which he'd made the abhorred mistake, quickly contorted his face into a flinch, but when the nails on his shoulders didn't start digging in any deeper, he allowed himself the mercy of cracking open one eye, and focusing the aforementioned orb on Sasuke's face. When the Uchiha showed no signs of wanting to rip apart the apartment, Naruto visibly relaxed, only to tense on reflex at the small smirk that slipped past Sasuke's lips.
"I have you, remember? Aniki isn't that much of a concern to me anymore."
It shocked him. Killed him. With an outraged roar, Naruto pounced, sending Sasuke clear across the room and sprawling onto the bed, pale wrists instantly trapped by the blonde's steel-shod grip. Cerulean eyes flashed with a concoction of confusion, shock, surprise, and utter astonishment.
"Did you just say what I think you just said?" He could barely squeeze the words out of his frozen lungs. Sasuke looked up at him with a casual, indifferent arch of one delicate, winged eyebrow and repeated his sentence, which earned him several minutes of constant, intense shaking courtesy of a terse and thoroughly frazzled blonde.
"AAAAAAAHHH!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S HAPPENING!!! SASUKE NOT CARE ABOUT HIS BROTHER?!??! HOOOOOOLY SHIT, THAT WRINKLE CREAM IS STARTING TO WARP YOUR BRAIN, UCHIHA!!!"
A kick executed from well-toned legs sent Naruto spiraling off into the wall on the other side of the room. Sasuke sat up, painfully rubbing his wrists, a disgruntled expression pasted upon elegantly-sculpted features.
"Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I just…don't….care anymore…." And with a conclusive sigh, Sasuke fell back onto the bed, snoring lightly as the sudden bout of narcolepsy overtook his mind.
Naruto, groaning and rubbing a very sore head, poked said piece of anatomy over the end of the bed, nervously biting his lip as Sasuke continued to sleep. Perhaps the Uchiha was just tired, Naruto thought. After all, finding out that he'd just topically applied a dangerous and potentially lethal salve on his skin should have been enough to peak his adrenaline…but then again, Sasuke was Sasuke, an Anbu captain who'd survived countless numbers of sharp, pointy, and (if the weather was particularly nice) explosive objects, so it was somewhat needless to say one death-inducing dose of wrinkle cream was going to fry his mind as badly as Naruto thought it had been fried.
The blonde padded over to the comatose Uchiha and gently slid arms underneath Sasuke's slim waist, effortlessly cradling him against his chest. Gingerly leaping out the window, Naruto flitted from rooftop to rooftop, an intensely worried expression carved on his features as he made his way to a familiar half-domed building with a formidable kanji character painted on a marble pedestal…
Review kudasai...(shakes finger) if ya don't, I shan't post any more...(cackles evilly)
