AN: I like this chapter, I wrote it before the writer's block of 2014 set in to make everything that much more difficult. This has been edited but only initially because I have an insanely short attention span…like Tobi!

Love and sexiness to everyone who reviewed, faved, read or whatever. You guys keep me powering through the writer's block – no lie.


7: Sasuke

Fighting off Tobi, who is absolutely adamant that I owe him a kiss, whilst drunk is not exactly the way that I planned to spend this evening after meeting my brother on Campus earlier but then neither was kissing Naruto.

Kissing Naruto…

Being who I am, I never before imagined what it might feel like to be rejected. To be confronted with such voracious anger after our…semi-accidental lip lock, to see that hatred transform into blind fear as Suigetsu appeared at the doorway, to watch his face flood in relief when Suigetsu thought fast and told him that I am a kissing fiend whilst drunk…

Uchihas are not rejected.

"Oh man…you owe me for this dude," Suigetsu sighs dramatically, sinking into the arm chair to the left of the couch as I bring up a foot to push into Tobi's chest when he advances on me with puckered lips at the ready.

Oh God, is that…a coating of saliva on his lips?

I shiver in mild disgust, bracing myself against the edge of the chair to re-double my shoving efforts as Tobi tries to remove his obstruction aka my foot.

"I know this is all new and exciting for you Uchiha but you could at least try to keep it in your pants," Suigetsu tells me idly, running a hand through his hair.

The glare I shoot at him should be murderous enough to make even the most formidable opponents piss their pants but Suigetsu just shrugs it off, fingering the edge of his mouth thoughtfully. It's unnerving how desensitised he's getting to my death glares…maybe the effect is muted because of the drink.

"Apart from being a little unresponsive though, you're not a bad kisser. I dunno why he was so freaked out…"

"Suigetsu," I say in my sharpest voice, feeling my lips thin. The look I'm giving must be potent because even Tobi pauses for a moment, freezing in place above my crotch with my elbow digging into his shoulder. "If you do not stop speaking, I may feel the need to disembowel you before bed."

Suigetsu waves this off lazily which just serves to piss me off more and, pouting, I take another long drink of the rum.

"You've probably had enough of that," Suigetsu warns me as Tobi tries to duck beneath my elbow and I end up swiping him upside the head to halt his advance with my rum-gripping hand resulting in a light clunk of the bottle against his temple.

Suigetsu's probably right, I know this. Enough damage his been done this evening to last for several weeks but the disconcerting feeling of squirming unpleasantness that starts to bubble up inside me every time I remember the look on Naruto's face when he pulled away from the kiss inspires a deep-rooted need to drink until I am absolutely numb.

Is this what those awful fan girls feel like every time I reject them?

No…this has got to be some sort of fluke. I must be taking this extra hard because I was already stressed, because I don't fall in love like other people…

Or at least, I thought I didn't.

Stupid built in chemical reactions…stupid involuntary 'love drug'…

I pout absently and take another deep swig, only vaguely aware now as the bottle is tugged from my hand and Tobi stops fighting against me, sitting back up on the couch at a respectable distance.

"It's no fun if you're unconscious," Tobi complains, standing up and stalking across the living room to disappear into the kitchen, completely uninterested in currently occurring events now he no longer really has the opportunity to tease me. Apparently it's more about the fight than getting a kiss and if I've lost the ability to fight, he doesn't feel like pressing the issue thank God.

"Seriously Sasuke, you should probably stop now," Suigetsu mumbles as he slides the stolen rum bottle onto the little coffee table.

I eye him warily, pleased when my world is overcome with a fuzzy haze and Suigetsu's blatant disdain for my chosen coping methods bothers me much less.

Not that I care what he thinks at all.

"You're not the boss of me," I say seriously, chuckling because I actually sound like a petulant teenager. The laughter feels weird in my throat and because it's something I wouldn't normally do, I end up frowning at myself.

Ah, it's a slow descent into madness it seems; beginning with the ever irritating loss of dignity.

Suigetsu simply rolls his eyes, huffing out with enough force to dislodge a strand of platinum hair that was hanging limply in front of his face and stands, leaning over to haul me up. The pleasant half-blurred scenery of our living room warps horribly around me as I lift myself up and suddenly the overhanging light seems to be burning my retinas. I wince involuntarily and shut my eyes, hissing against the pain and leaning against Suigetsu who staggers uselessly.

"Heh, I'd hate to be you in a few hours," he says gleefully as he rights himself and angles towards the staircase.

"Sharrup," I slur at him in the best unimpressed voice I can manage whilst the world spins sickeningly beneath us. My feet don't seem to be co-ordinating with my brain as Suigetsu half drags me up the stairs like some kind of invalid. Eventually, he kicks open my bedroom door, something I will be scolding him for when I have the presence of mind to, and dumps me on the bed. I fall into a horizontal position as a mass of tangled limbs facing the doorway and Naruto's markedly closed off bedroom.

I scowl at his doorway and resist the urge to stick my tongue out.

For all the good it would do.

"You should try and sleep off the alcohol," Suigetsu tells me, stifling a snicker as I roll over grumpily and try to disentangle myself from the clutches of the blanket to get into bed properly.

"I hate you," I tell Suigetsu sincerely as he tugs gruffly at the covers beneath me. He simply smiles that smile, the same one that Ibiki was wearing on the day my normal, sane life ended, the day I learnt of Naruto's existence and my whole world was thrown into cringe-worthy chaos, the harbinger of doom. Then he reaches into his trouser pocket and pulls out his phone, angling it up above me as though readying to take a picture.

I growl at him.

While I may not be fully in control of my motor functions at the moment, if he thinks that he'll get away with creating lasting evidence of this drunken state and my minor lapse in judgement, he has another thing coming. I am an Uchiha after all and Uchiha's have excellent reflexes, even whilst a little drunk.

He looks up at the growl but doesn't seem deterred from his task so I make a point of flexing out, lightning quick and grabbing his phone, flinging it in one smooth motion so it lands on the carpet in the hall.

"Hey!" Suigetsu barks, lunging after it.

"Don' let the door hit you on the way out!" I call out after him, indulging in one last snicker as the door swings closed behind him and hits him on the butt of his skinny fits as he bends over.

Sometimes it's good to be an Uchiha.


The soft summer breeze tugs at the longer strands of my hair as I wander home from school, my latest science test clutched proudly in my hand and my backpack slung haphazardly over my shoulder. The sleeves of my school shirt are rolled up in the heat and the school trousers I'm wearing are just a little bit on the large side. Despite the belt I'm wearing, they're hanging low on my hips so the cuffs scuff along the ground as I turn the corner into our road…

And stop dead…

There is nothing wrong with the way our road looks; nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. The big tree that sits in the Tsumugi's yard sways slightly in the breeze as usual and the posh car on the Yamamoto's drive is jutting out over the pavement as always and yet an ominous sense of foreboding seems to have washed over me, almost choking me with the pressure. Fear writhes in my gut, so intense that it's almost animalistic and I have to fight the urge to bolt back to school.

It's too quiet.

The Tsumugi's tree has a family of young birds nesting in the higher branches but I can't hear a single peep. The usual white noise of the background has disappeared as people come home from work after completing an early shift.

No-one is around.

It takes a colossal effort to get my legs to move, to take a shaky step forward but once the first move is made, I'm able to break into a run, a mad sprint down the street to my front door. My heart is careening wildly in my chest; my breaths are short, ragged and loud as I pelt up the front steps to my white front door. Through the frosted glass set into the diamond shaped window, I can see that the interior of the house is shadowed and dig through my trouser pocket for my keys, eyes darting out wildly to my abandoned street as though I'm expecting some sort of monster to try and bombard me.

My hands shake as the key slips into the lock and as the door swings open, I dart inside without waiting to take stock of the atmosphere permeating the interior, only knowing that this place is my sanctuary – it's never let me down in the past.

The door snaps shut behind me and I lean against it, breathing hard, allowing my heart rate to return to normal before I'm finally able to realise that something is not right here as well. Normally at this time of day, my mum can be heard bustling about in the kitchen, Itachi's footsteps can be heard as he moves around his bedroom, the creak of dad's chair filters through from the study.

Nothing.

Not even the drip of the tap in the kitchen.

What's going on?

Gingerly, I drop my bag down in the doorway and remove my shoes; my movements now slow and precise like I'm trying not to aggravate the atmosphere in the house. As I straighten from removing my shoes, I hear a creak on one of the upstairs floorboards and a lump settles in my throat. My heart flops painfully inside my chest and my vision blurs as I hold my breath on a reflex. My eyes swing up to the ceiling.

I know in an inevitable way that I will have to traverse the stairs to find out what's going on but it takes me a while to gather the momentum to move again. It seems as though I've been reduced to short bursts of manic movement followed by long periods of freezing up entirely…

I want to call out to my parents but to do so would be a bad idea.

The instinct to remain silent is completely compelling. I can't ignore it.

When I finally move, I make a point of treading carefully on the carpeted stairs, placing my feet in the spots that I know will cause the least amount of noise like I learnt to do last Christmas when neither Itachi nor I could sleep. Eventually, the open door of my parent's room comes in sight over the lip of the topmost step and that in itself is wrong. As a general rule, mum always keeps the door to their room shut and I pause for a fraction of a second, unnerved.

I gulp uneasily and force my foot down onto the next step.

My muscles strain as I ascend.

And the sight that meet my eyes…

It's…

It's…

Blood everywhere.

Crimson splatters on the walls slowly drying dark, darker than vibrant incarnadine, shadowed.

Harsh angles and thick drips of thick liquid sliding down onto…

Onto…

Mangled limbs splayed unnaturally, familiar soft pale skin drained of all normal colour until almost grey. The dark sweep of my mum's hair hides her face but underneath the longer tresses, dad's lax expression can be seen.

The whites of his eyes stare at me.

Neither of them are moving, not even the gentle rise and fall of their chests and the stench of the blood in the room is overwhelming and oh God I'm going to puke, I'm going to-

I'm going to puke.

The violence of the feeling in my stomach has me throwing off the duvet that was wrapped around my torso and staggering as fast as I can for the bathroom. The house is dark as I reach for my bedroom door and yank it open, uncaring as it cracks against the door to Naruto's box room. Lunging forward, I hit the wall and my face grows unbearably hot for a moment as I struggle to hold in the vomit until I'm at least at the toilet. I have no choice but to pause until the crippling feeling subsides and then I practically throw myself into the bathroom, dropping before the bowl of the toilet and spilling my guts out in a fantastic projectile display of an upchuck reflex.

I am never drinking rum again.

No matter how bad my life is or how stressed I get.

My knuckles are white on the edges of the toilet seat as I heave emptily for a moment and then sit back on my hunches trying to chase away the after images of the same disturbing nightmare by fixating on something calming. The stressful material of the last few days doesn't give me a lot to work with in terms of calming but eventually my breaths slow slightly and I'm able to rest my head on the lip of the toilet, shivering in the cool night air.

The reprieve doesn't last long however. I can feel the bubbling nausea rising up into full blown sickness in my system once more and am forced to shift so I'm in more of a prime position to throw up without causing more of a mess. Then just as I'm about to heave, I feel something gentle slip through the longer bangs at the sides of my face, pulling them away as I eject the remaining contents of my stomach into the toilet bowl.

It takes me a moment to comprehend that someone must be holding my hair away from my face to help and as I breathe steadily, regaining myself, I let my eyes flick to the side to catch a glimpse of tanned skin in my peripheral vision.

Oh no…

"Naru…to," I manage through dragging breaths, crumpling onto my hunches once more and trying to hold myself together though my stomach still feels like it's trying to commit a mutiny and escape from the shackles of my system.

"Hey asshole," he says behind me and his voice is soft, calm – the calm thing that I need to fixate on.

My breathing regulates.

When I'm eventually able to uncoil slightly from my doubled over position, a glass of transparent liquid is pushed into my hand and I eye it ruefully.

"Drink, you'll be dehydrated and more likely to have a hangover otherwise," Naruto tells me and I sip tentatively at it, my movements slow. Weirdly, the water soothes the residual burn in my throat on the way down and I'm able to re-adjust myself until I can actually see Naruto, who is perched on the bath in a pair of pyjamas adorned with little frogs looking somewhat concerned, properly.

I want to snort at him and tell him not to worry; I don't need his Goddamn pity…

…but somehow, I can't.

His fingers are still in my hair and as I watch him, they start to move in smooth, rhythmic circles over my temples. His eyes are intense, almost luminous blue through the dark and I don't know whether to focus on them or the feeling of his hands in my hair.

I've never felt so attached to something physical before.

It's almost like I can feel where the synapses in my brain are firing in connection to his fingers, like little lightning bolts of thought are trying to strike through my head to connect to him.

Why is he doing this for me?

Some of what I'm thinking must have passed across my face because he winces slightly and his eyes avert to the floor of the bathroom for a moment.

"Your bedroom door woke me up," he admits and his fingers stop moving against my follicles. When I feel them start to pull away from my hair and the nausea that was being successfully suppressed surges up again, I grab hold of his arm, anchoring him in place.

"Don't stop," I whisper, appalled and furious because that was almost a plea.

Perhaps when I finally stop feeling sick, I can make him swear to never speak of this incident again.

Uchihas do not show weakness like this damnit.

He remains frozen with his fingers in my hair for a fraction of a second too long and I'm beginning to panic that he'll pull away, erect some sort of barrier between us after the awkwardness of the kiss earlier and my stand-offish attitude just now but then he leans forward slightly and resumes running his fingers in little circles over my temples.

The nausea disperses and I sigh in relief.

We stay like that for a long time, in some sort of stalemate as he soothes the ache in my gut with the magic of his touch in my hair. Inevitably though, his arms tire and he's forced to remove his fingers, his hands dropping into his lap and I feel the loss acutely.

I'm not sure what's supposed to happen now, I'm not the type to get sick often but when I have been ill in the past, I've usually dealt with it as quickly and efficiently as I can by myself. I can't remember the last time someone tried to help me like this and the fact that it's Naruto means that my mind is scrambling more than usual anyway.

So I just sit there like a fool, watching Naruto fidget, lifting his butt cheeks off of the cold side of the bath every now and then.

"Heh, if you asked me to describe something I thought I'd never see when I moved in, it would have to be Sasuke Uchiha on his knees in front of the toilet after an afternoon of heavy drinking," Naruto admits with an amused grin and I scowl at him.

I know he's just trying to lighten the mood but really, his tactlessness has to be legendary.

"If you came in here just to make fun of me, I don't appreciate it," I tell him curtly, turning my attention back to the toilet bowl as the revolting storm in my gut starts to kick off in earnest again.

Considering how he's reacted to my more acerbic remarks in the past, I'm expecting him to throw an insult at me and storm out, leaving me to my discomfort but I guess Uzumaki Naruto is really one for doing the unexpected. As I start to heave again, his fingers are back in my hair, tugging loose strands of black out of the way.

When the gruelling feeling of needing to throw up ebbs once more, I pull back, wiping my mouth shakily and taking the drink he offers. The liquid sits on my gut unpleasantly but acts as balm to the bitter taste and the sting in my mouth. My brows furrow in confusion as he sits before me, mouth clamped shut and eyes wide with what looks like sincerity.

"Seriously," I say, coughing through the scratchy feeling in my throat. "Why are you here right now?"

His lips twitch in the darkness and his eyes flick up to my hair as he slowly tucks one of the long bangs behind my ear. I must look absolutely wonderful right now.

"Because," he says in a quiet voice, "it's no good to go through something like this by yourself."

I don't know what kind of answer I was waiting for but I'm not sure how to react to this. I stare blankly at him, shocked and when I've finished properly analysing his answer; I feel a wave of curiosity mixing nastily with the nausea. Knowing first hand how true Ibiki's words regarding the power of body language and tone of voice are, I gradually pick his apart until I'm left with the feeling that he's speaking from not entirely pleasant experience.

Following this is the not so healthy chemical release I've come to associate with my…condition. Affection bubbles through me laced with gratitude and maybe even a hint of insecurity.

I tuck the remaining loose bang behind my ear, needing something to occupy my hands and allow my gaze to wander to the toilet, locking there.

"And you care about that do you?" I ask in what is supposed to be a scathing tone of voice.

For now, we'll ignore the fact that I sound like a needy whiner and allow the slight slip in tone to be indicative of the sickness I'm currently riddled with rather than the desperation brought on by the love drug.

Yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Naruto waits until enough time has passed for me to glance up to check his reaction and the effervescence of his eyes through the darkness actually makes my breath hitch. He truly is like a moving work of art, his features are positively striking.

"Yes," he says with such conviction that even though I was completely prepared to doubt his affirmative response, I find I just can't deny that he's telling me the truth.

I don't think I've ever seen such completely brash and open honesty.

It's like his true essence; his actual soul is on display for the world to view and just as it did when I saw him for the first time at the party, the world seems to shift. My heart lurches painfully in my chest, aggravating the nausea enough for me to have to turn back to the toilet. The feeling of his touch in my hair seems to magnify 100 fold this time until there is nothing in the universe but his touch and my skull, nothing that will ever matter as much as this moment and what he's doing for me.

"You may be a prickly bastard but you shouldn't have to do something like this by yourself, even if it is your own fault you got into this state in the first place," Naruto tells me as I wretch uselessly.

I'm not entirely sure how to react to this. The feeling of vulnerability is far too pronounced when I let myself acknowledge the chemical release of the 'love drug' and admit that I'm actually grateful for his presence so instead I fall back on tried and tested anger, pulling a face at him and trying to swat his hands away. The less he's touching me the better if this is what it does to me.

"I'm not a fucking charity case," I say bitterly, feeling a little bit more in control of the situation when lashing out at him as normal, even though it seems to inspire a pain in the chest at the same time. "You don't have to stay here out of some warped sense of duty."

Stabbing silence follows this and I wonder if he's actually going to leave, if we'll be back to avoiding each other tomorrow or if he'll punch me when I'm healthy enough to take it. Interestingly though, a light chuckle permeates the choking quiet.

"You really are a bastard," he tells me simply, his voice free of malice or the retaliating fury I was expecting. It's a simple…almost fond statement of fact.

And just like that, my own misplaced anger dissipates. I'm left feeling vulnerable and grateful anyway, like I have absolutely no power over anything at all. When his hands fall back to my hair a fourth time, I can't fight against the insatiable desire to just leave him to it.

I don't dare to speak again for fear of what will emerge whilst I'm feeling so…emotionally exposed.

Naruto, useless as he appears to be at reading social cues normally, seems to realise that I need some conversational space because he too doesn't speak again and this time, the quiet that's fallen between us isn't awkward or pressured.

By the time I finally feel like I'm not going to be sick, streaks of pink can be seen filtering through the bathroom window, illuminating the edges of Naruto's defined chin and shoulders. I have my back to the wall on the opposite side of the bath and am watching as Naruto's eyes drop closed every few minutes. His head lolls loosely on his neck and over the hand that he's leaning on before dropping suddenly forward and jerking him awake. He blinks, rubs his eyes, mumbles something and the process repeats anew.

I know I should tell him to go to bed but…the swelling of the feelings associated with the 'love drug' has left me completely tongue tied. If I resorted to throwing insults at him before because I could do nothing else but feel disdain for the reactions he provoked in me, I feel like his mere presence now would render me mute.

This can't be natural.

It can't be right.

There must be something wrong with me to feel so Goddamn much all directed at one singular entity and I should seek medical help on the matter. Perhaps I should approach Ibiki though I can just imagine how well that conversation would go down.

Naruto's light snore rouses me from my spiralling thoughts and I find myself frowning in mild concern. It's suddenly occurred to me that sitting as he is on the side of the bath, he could seriously injure himself if he falls asleep properly like that and goes limp. Standing on slightly shaky legs and making sure to keep myself bent over slightly to ease the lingering ache in my gut, I shuffle over to him and rest a hand on his sturdy shoulder.

He jerks awake instantly and blinks up at me through bleary eyes lined with dark bruises.

"You should go to bed," I tell him. "I'll probably be alright now."

It seems to take him far too long to process where he is and how he got here but then this is the moron I'm dealing with here. When it all finally registers, he beams up at me, a perfect reflection of the light in the sunrise, and stretches.

Aware as I am of how undignified and how unattractive I must look at the moment, I can't help as my eyes wander down the lines of his arms to the lean muscle of his torso under his pyjama shirt.

Sick as a dog and still perverted…After 18 years of no sexual preferences whatsoever, this is just too weird.

"What's the time?" Naruto asks groggily, feeling at an empty pyjama pocket for a phone that obviously isn't there. I peer at my watch through the half gloom and grimace.

"5 o'clock," I inform him, holding out a hand to haul him up.

"Ah," Naruto responds, pulling a face. "No point in going back to sleep now then, I'd only be up again in an hour."

I frown at his words, feeling an unwelcome mix of strong guilt, because he's going to be exhausted later on and it's my fault though I did make it clear that he could leave any time, and curiosity. I don't normally care about other people's schedules. Call me self absorbed but having such knowledge holds little interest if it doesn't benefit me so I see no point in taking up valuable thinking space with such pointlessness. Suigetsu's schedule I've absorbed subconsciously through constant contact with the guy but in Naruto's case…I'll admit, I want to know all the mundane details.

"What requires you to be up and about at such an ungodly hour?" I ask, trying to think of university courses that require their students to be available at truly weird times of the day. It doesn't even occur to me to think he might have other commitments. I blame lack of restful sleep for the momentary loss of common sense.

"I work the early shift at the Shushuya on Tuesdays," he tells me evenly, grabbing my hand and pulling himself up. "I'm making toast if you want some, it'll probably help to settle your stomach."

I think about it and blanch at the idea of trying to put something into my sore stomach but nod all the same, knowing that I should try and ingest something after skipping meals yesterday then abusing my system with toxic fluids. Naruto beams encouragingly at me and leads the way downstairs into the kitchen, his movements sluggish with lack of sleep. As soon as his bare feet hit the kitchen floor, goose-bumps spread over his arms in a wave and he shivers unconsciously. I frown as I take a seat on the edge of the counter, fascinated with the way goose-bumps look on such tanned flesh.

Where does one get a tan like that anyway? It hasn't been properly sunny in months.

"So Count Grumpula," Naruto says through a half suppressed yawn. "How do you like your toast? I'm guessing an OCD guy like you always has it just so, y'know?"

I can't help the eyebrow that quirks in vague amusement.

"Count Grumpula?"

"Yup," Naruto says cheerily, reaching into the bread bin for the wholemeal and placing it under the grill. "You now have three derogatory nicknames, bastard, asshole and Count Grumpula. As previously stipulated on the night you invaded my bedroom, I will use any of these as I see fit."

I smirk as he reaches into the cupboard beside the oven to pick up the matches, flicking one of them over the scratch card on the side of the box and failing to get a flame to light. Clucking at him reproachfully, I snatch the box from his clumsy fingers, pick out and new match and deftly swipe it across the side so a spark catches.

"You know that means that I get to create a new nickname for you to even the playing field seeing as I only have two to use at the moment," I say, handing the match to him with an uncharacteristically smug flourish.

"Moron," I add pointedly as I hand it over.

Naruto rolls his eyes but takes the match none-the-less.

"Show off," he retaliates as he spins the dial for the gas and lights the grill, watching the bread cook.

"Careful, that'll make four derogatory nicknames you can use," I warn him. "That means I get to make up two new nicknames and who knows, maybe I'll choose to combine them to make the ultimate offensive verbal weapon."

I pause mockingly for thought and then jab a thumb at him.

"Dead last."

Naruto scowls at me half-heartedly but the expression doesn't reach his eyes and I know I haven't crossed the line this time to turn this into a serious altercation. It annoys me when I feel relieved.

"Show off isn't really a nickname," he decides as he turns the bread over to toast the other side. I notice that he hasn't let the bread fully brown on the first side which makes me smile a little despite myself. Seems he likes it like I do.

I wonder if he likes anything else like I do.

"It's more of a statement of fact," Naruto finishes thoughtfully.

I can feel the evil gleam in my eye as I respond and make a mental note to analyse this phenomenon later. I don't think this has ever happened to me before. Am I being…playful? Just what is this idiot doing to me?

"So is dead last," I supply, looking him squarely in the eye.

Naruto guffaws and to my never-ending discomfort, I feel the same elated bump in my chest as I did yesterday when I made him laugh, before I ruined it with that damnable kiss.

"Alright wise guy," he says amiably, turning off the grill and edging around me to get to the butter in the fridge. "You know, if you weren't feeling nauseous, I'd totally kick your ass for that right?"

"Oh yeah, like you could," I scoff on a reflex.

"Hey, you're still sporting the evidence of my last ass kicking," he tells me triumphantly.

"That was a fluke," I state authoritatively. "I wasn't quite…on form that night."

Distracted by your appearance, completely besotted at first sight like some fucking love struck teenager, freaking out because this has never ever happened to me before. I didn't even realise something like this was possible for me.

Naruto is gleeful as he spreads the butter on the first toast slices and thrusts a plate into my hands.

"Excuses, excuses Uchiha," He sing-songs at me, buttering a slice of toast for himself and taking a colossal bite.

The two of us fall into companionable silence as we each work on our slices of toast. It takes me a few minutes to work up to taking that first bite, my stomach protesting raucously against the unwanted sustenance but once I've swallowed that first bite, I do feel infinitely better. Naruto's already on his second slice by the time I've made my way through my first.

"So…uh…do you remember much of yesterday evening?" Naruto asks nervously, his eyes flicking out the kitchen window to the back garden which is becoming more illuminated as the sun rises properly.

I angle my head at him, trying to ignore the sudden spike in my pulse.

I realise that by asking if I remember anything, he's sort of giving me a way out of admitting to consciously trying to kiss him and I actually feel like I'm in favour of taking it. His rejection is still fresh in my mind, fresh and therefore painfully raw. I don't think I can go through that again so soon and not when we're actually being more or less civil to each other, not when I feel like there is a slim chance we can actually be friends in the future.

"Not much," I lie, scratching the back of my head and trying to look sheepish.

"I have a vague recollection of you coming home and then Suigetsu being around at some point."

I shrug and carefully watch his response, feeling an aching twinge in my chest as relief floods his face.

God, it's not like I ever expected that he would be interested, that we'd ride of gaily into the sunset or anything cringe-worthy like that…I guess I never really let myself expect anything. After seeing the guy at the party like that, I never thought I'd run into him again but then Suigetsu just had to go and take matters into his own hands.

Now I'm stuck here with the first guy I've experienced an infatuation for, watching that infatuation strengthen while he's made it perfectly clear that my feelings are unrequited.

Fuck. I may just have to kill Suigetsu and bury the body after all. Damn meddling imbecile. If he'd left well enough alone, it might have been possible to forget Naruto, pass it all off as some unhinging dream.

"You should be careful who you drink around," Naruto says soberly, a contemplative frown in place that causes me to raise a questioning eyebrow at him. When he catches sight of my expression, his cheeks redden and he coughs slightly, pulling at his pyjama shirt.

The sight of it causes heat to pool in my stomach.

"Heh, I should go catch a shower if I want to get to work on time," Naruto says hurriedly, chomping down the last of his toast and reaching into the fridge to get a swig of orange juice. He drinks directly from the carton which makes me cringe outwardly, something he doesn't fail to pick up on and, grinning, he does it again, taking a longer, slower chug this time so I can see his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows.

"Ugh, stop that you damn Neanderthal," I tell him, waving a disgusted hand in his general direction.

Naruto snickers as he closes the fridge door and backs towards the kitchen door.

"You know, if you count 'dead last' as use of two derogatory nicknames then 'Neanderthal' would make a fifth for you to use against me which means I get to think of another for you, dickface."

My expression morphs into something reflecting how unimpressed I am with his creativity.

"Dickface?" I ask disdainfully.

"Hey, I could have gone with my trump card, bogey head, but you and I both know you aren't ready for that one."

My lips twitch traitorously as he turns on his heel and makes a break for the kitchen doorway. I hate to admit that it takes everything I have to keep within my usual spectrum of facial expressions, ranging from stoic to mildly and normally disdainfully amused, rather than breaking down into a laughing mess like I want to.

It's official, I've gone completely insane.

I can't remember the last time I wanted to laugh like this.

Chewing on the last of my toast, I follow Naruto back upstairs, intent on getting at least some sleep before lectures start for the day but I end up pausing outside the bathroom, listening to the sound of the shower through the thick wood as his body disrupts the flow of water.

It takes all the self control I can muster not to see if the door has been left unlocked.


So they're finally starting to sort of get along. Will they keep this up or beat the shit out of each other before this fic is over?