Title: Preparations

Author: AppleL0V3R

Beta-reader: Terror-Of-The-Crimson-Night

Fandom: Naruto

Characters: Team 7

Rating: T

Type: One-shot – Complete

Summary: When Sakura gets married and the wedding is on the horizon, she realizes that the biggest problem is that neither of her boys can dance.

Theme: 50 Muses LJ challenge (#23 – Dancing)

Word Count: 1,745

Disclaimer: If you've heard of it before, then it's obviously not mine.

Note: This collection of one-shots is dedicated to the friendship and dynamics of team seven, not the relationship between any mentioned pairings. So if there are pairings they will not be the focus. However for this particular one, there are mentions of ItaSaku, NaruHina and SasuIno.

Oh and I don't know one dance from the next (except the tango) so my apologies if I'm wrong and the woman isn't spun around on the waltz.

Requested by: Anime Freak456

Green eyes twinkled with amusement at the expense of the two grown men before her. Well, grown body wise, their mentality seemed to still be that of children or even pre-teens like when the three first met. But it wasn't because the two were arguing like morons again, it was because they were sputtering and whining about the firm choice she was imposing on them.

It really was quite funny the way Naruto was waving his arms in the air and talking fast as he tried to convince her that her latest idea was a really bad one. Sasuke wasn't helping with the way he'd crossed his arms and was trying to look intimidating even as she caught all the telltale signs that he was uncomfortable and even borderline sullen.

But the key words in both those sentences was the word 'try'. Because the fact of the matter was, they weren't getting out of this.

Deciding that she'd allotted them enough time to get their protests out of their system – even though she knew they would keep up long after all was said and done – she shifted on her feet and put her hands on her hips. "Alright, dully noted." That got them to quiet, well Naruto to anyway since the raven haired man wasn't being all that vocal, "However, I'm not letting this one slid."

"But Sak–"

"No, Naruto. I'm not going to have you making complete fools of yourselves at my wedding, its just not happening." She didn't even pause or give them the chance to try to refute her statement, "And don't even try to tell me you know how to dance, because I know for a fact that you, Naruto, can't without at least some lessons and you, Sasuke, aren't getting by on any Uchiha excuse because Itachi told me that you can't dance either."

Her calm tone and all-knowing, no-nonsense eyes told them that they had been soundly trounced in this one. It earned her two very disgruntled twenty year olds and she knew that this was going to be a complete and utter nightmare. That didn't mean she was giving up. She'd known them for too long and knew them too well, not to know how to get around their attitudes – or at least how to put up with them.

And without further adieu, she turned to the instructor she'd hired for the occasion and nodded to the nice young woman.

After all, Sakura didn't need to learn, she'd grown up with Ino and the blonde had not rested until she was satisfied with the rosette's ability to move her body to any kind of music. Come to think of it, she had protested and made comments while she was being subjected to the lessons as well. But her pushy friend hadn't so much as batted an eye back then and so the Uchiha-to-be had learned to dance. And baring the same tenacity in mind, she proceeded to teach her surrogate siblings.

The dark haired woman, who would have Sakura's complete assistance in teaching her boys to formally dance at a wedding, smiled back and stepped forward. Normally she'd let them slid on account that they didn't dance anyway, but between the last event that had dancing in it and her upcoming wedding both men had found themselves girlfriends, both of whom were the rosette's best friends. And thus another reason they wouldn't be getting out of it.

Fortunately for them, Sakura had insisted she would take care of the lessons herself because she just knew that it wouldn't get done otherwise. Ino was going to make things horrible for Sasuke or that she would be far too flirty – and the two would probably end up in bed rather than making progress. And polite and shy Hinata would either not convince her loud boyfriend to do as she asked or she'd end up fainting from the prolonged, close proximity – and so progress wouldn't be the last thing to happen.

She knew that eventually the two women were going to be able to get Naruto and Sasuke to do what they wanted like Sakura could, but until then, this was her wedding and she really didn't want anything going wrong.

Deciding that the whole thing would go a lot more smoothly and a lot less awkward for the other woman to do her job if the green eyed woman played Sasuke's dance partner. Naruto would be fussy and loud, but the raven haired guy would be cold and stiff, making it as impossible as he could to be worked with and would do a damn good job while he was at it. So even if it would agitate her, she knew it would be a good idea.

Even if the instructor already knew them as well, she didn't actually know them past a few greetings and a handful of conversations when one or the other had been picking Sakura up from work. The woman's name was Shizune and she was a family friend of the Haruno's godmother, Tsunade. Not to mention a colleague when the two of them trained for the local hospital under the aforementioned blonde woman.

Shizune motioned for Naruto to come to her as Sakura settled her feet in front of Sasuke. "Alright, we're going to start simple, and formal. The Waltz."

And like that, both women were clasping left hands with their unwilling male counterparts and placing the right hand on board shoulders. Sakura felt Sasuke awkwardly shift on his feet and grab her hip with his own left hand. Out of the corner of her green eyes, she sees Naruto begrudgingly follow Sasuke's lead even as the dark haired woman began to instruct on what steps they would be taking, moving the blonde as she did so. Unfortunately, even though neither guy could dance, Naruto was as graceful as a bumbling toddler who refused to open it's eyes and be mindful of the feet of his dancing partner and so no matter what it looked like he was being dragged half the time and dragging Shizune incorrectly the rest of it.

Sasuke on the other hand, had begun to move while keeping an eye on the other dancing pair. But he was stiff and halting and refused to yield or make things even remotely easy for Sakura. Because of his complete and utter lack of effort, the pink haired woman ended up losing her footing when she tried to spin under his arm which was arched far too low, forcing her to do some kind of awkward and painful limbo before falling on her ass quite painfully.

She closed her eyes and prayed for patience that didn't come as she got back onto heeled feet. Instead of hitting him and trying run that pretty face of his like she had the urge to, she put her hand on his shoulder and roughly grabbed his other one. All the while doing her best to tune out her laughing best friend as he yet again stepped on Shizune's foot.

It was clear that the two of them were just going to have to be more stubborn about this than the two infuriating guys they were trying to teach.

It took nearly and hour before either pair got through the steps without too much problem the first time. It took another two before it looked even halfway good. By that point Sakura was ready to thrown the towel and be happy that it might look semi good so long as no one paid any attention to either man while they were dancing. Besides, she soothed her irritated and frazzled nerves, being so close to Sasuke for three hours without dancing lessons should warrant a break for anyone. The guy was a pain in the ass and every other second she had to fight the urge to throttle him.

She loved him like the brother she never had, and she wanted to beat him like it too.

Even the normally patient and sweet-tempered Shizune was looking halfway murderous when Sakura stepped away and said that she'd had enough for that day. And the rest of her life too, she'd added darkly under her breath.

It was a wonder she'd managed to go so long without snapping and cheerfully committing double homicide years ago. In fact, she deserved a medal. Her feet were killing her and she felt just a bit twitchy, like the next person to so much as look at her wrong was going to get a broken nose. Though she would happily settle for a nice massage and sweet-talking from her lovely honey.

Before or after she got back at Naruto and Sasuke, she wasn't sure. The bloody brats were still grinning – or in Sasuke's case, smirking – because they knew they'd won. But after putting up with them both for three hours she didn't want to see their faces for another second.

She vaguely wondered if she really wanted to be related to them too. After all, her folks had pretty much adopted Naruto when they were kids. But being Sasuke's sister-in-law? She didn't know if she could do it.

But she loved Itachi and she'd considered both boys family for over a decade now anyway. She was just going to have to put up with actually being related to both of them. And she was going to have to deal with nightmares that went with that.

And Itachi definitely owed it to her treat her like a queen. Especially since this had been his idea from the beginning.