AN: Idk -rolls around-

Disclaimer: K. Masashi's bitches.

Waking up by getting hit in the face with a newspaper definitely wasn't what Sasuke had in mind when he knew that consciousness was going to hit him eventually. Of course, Itachi never was someone who would be nice to his little brother—not obviously, anyway.

"Get up, driveway needs shovelling," the older teen called before disappearing.

And of course, all Sasuke thought about that was that Itachi was being a rat-bastard, because why else would he hit him in the face with a newspaper?

Throwing it angrily to the ground, Sasuke stood and shuffled into his bathroom, glancing across the room to look out his window, mostly out of habit. He stopped and stood staring for a few seconds when he found Naruto doing pull-ups, his back to the window so that all Sasuke could see were his muscles shifting with each pull. He smirked to himself, pleased to know the fine specimen across the street belonged to him, and continued into the bathroom.

Relieving himself and then brushing his teeth, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a random shirt and made his way downstairs. Grunting a good morning to his mother, he put on his boots and shuffled into the garage, hitting the button and watching it lumber upwards. Grabbing the shovel, he sighed and stepped out towards the driveway, glaring at the ground angrily before looking up at the sky.

"You're punishing me for how long my showers are, aren't you?" he muttered to Mother Nature, shaking his head and beginning to shovel.

He knew he could very easily walk across the street and knock on Naruto's door to get him to help, but somehow that felt cheap. Naruto wasn't his hired help, he was his boyfriend, and truth be told—Sasuke kind of liked how normal they were together. Sasuke wasn't some rich guy with a chauffer, a butler and a maid to do everything for him. Here, he was just like anyone else. While he knew Naruto wasn't rich like him, the guy definitely wasn't poor, either, if his parents could afford a winter home.

Maybe they even were almost as rich, but hadn't wanted Naruto to grow up like—well, like Sasuke. Spoiled. And as much as Sasuke hated to admit it, he was spoiled. Naruto was deliciously normal, and the Uchiha really liked that about him.

So, for today, he was just going to shovel the walk on his own, and not think about asking the blond God across the street to help him.

He was almost done when something hit him in the back of the head and he turned to glare at Itachi. He was standing on the porch with a cup of coffee in one hand, the other pushing itself into his pocket.

"Breakfast is ready. Dad says you can finish in a second."

"I'm almost done, I'll be right in," he returned, then continued what he was doing. He heard Itachi walk over to grab whatever he'd thrown—Sasuke noticed when he turned slightly that it was the newspaper again—then the older Uchiha walked back into the house.

About five minutes later, Sasuke returned the shovel to its spot in the garage and walked into the house, removing his boots and jacket before entering the dining room. He cocked an eyebrow when he saw a toasted bagel on a plate, with some cream cheese sitting on the table. No one had made him breakfast, he'd been expecting pancakes or eggs or something.

He couldn't help but be suspicious, sitting down slowly and looking around as if someone was going to jump out and stab him. All he could think was that Itachi had done this, but why, he had no idea. And his parents were nowhere to be seen, so how his dad had said he could finish later... something was up.

Spreading cream cheese over half of the bagel, he started to take a bite when something hit him across the back of the head again and he turned to throw the bagel at his brother, just barely pleased when he caught it cream-cheese side up.

"What is your problem?"

"Nothing," Itachi replied evenly, then walked into the kitchen to get rid of the bagel.

Sasuke growled angrily and started to turn back around when his eyes caught sight of the paper. It was a little wet, which meant it was the same one as outside. He couldn't help but remember how many times he'd gotten hit with it and, suspicious, he picked it up and flipped it open. He found what was so important on the third page.

Again, Itachi was never openly nice. Especially not to Sasuke. So simply handing him the paper or telling him about what was in it wouldn't be his style. Hitting him repeatedly with it until Sasuke saw it—it was just the right level of mean to counteract the niceness of what he was trying to do.

And being Uchihas, of course, Itachi would never acknowledge he'd done it on purpose to show Sasuke the third page. So Sasuke, naturally, didn't thank him for it.

"Is dad up?"

"Yeah. I think he's in his study." Itachi walked out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee—probably the same one as before, reheated.

"Hn."

Sasuke finished his breakfast alone, Itachi moving back upstairs to do God knew what in his room. When he was done, the raven picked his plate up and put it in the sink, then moved towards the stairs to go talk to his dad.

Knocking on the door, he entered when he received the affirmative to do so, then moved to stand beside his father. "Dad, would you mind if I went to Paris tonight? With Naruto?"

His father didn't usually mind, especially not when he was engrossed in his work, but it was always safer to ask when a large sum of money was about to disappear from his bank account.

"Hm?" Fugaky asked, distracted. "Why?"

"There's this concert there. It's a band I really like, and I was thinking of taking Naruto. Kind of like a Christmas present."

"Sure, whatever you like," his father said, waving his hand slightly in dismissal.

Sasuke snorted, but supposed he should be thankful for the easiness of the task. He was about to leave the room when he saw a bunch of newspaper clippings under some of his dad's work. He moved closer and shifted the pages off, looking at them.

He smiled a little, making sure to wipe it off his face immediately so his dad wouldn't see, when he noticed it was newspaper articles and pictures of him and Itachi. Being part of the Uchiha family, they unfortunately ranked close to movie-star for some odd reason. He supposed that was true of every huge corporation, but he'd never known he was in the paper so much, nor had he known his father saved the clippings.

Pulling one out from his first day of university—Itachi had one arm wrapped around him and the other held out towards the camera to block the shot—he noticed another picture underneath, and frowned. Pulling it out, he stared at the image of an imposing-looking woman walking across the street with a teenager who had both hands in his pockets, a baseball cap, and his head down. Beside the teen, he saw Naruto.

"Who's this?"

"Hm?" Fugaku turned to look at what he was looking at, then snatched the article from his hand. "No one. I saved it because I thought you might like a picture of Naruto for when you go home."

Sasuke cocked an eyebrow, not sure what to make of that statement, but just shrugged and looked through some of the pictures for a few more minutes before leaving the room.

Walking down the stairs, he pulled on his jacket and boots again and headed out the door. When he looked up, there was an unfamiliar black car in Naruto's driveway, and a man with white, slicked back hair was putting a backpack into the trunk. Naruto was standing on his porch talking to his parents.

Frowning, Sasuke made his way down the driveway, and saw Minato motion him. Naruto turned, and grinned, waving before turning back to his parents and kissing his mother's cheek. Turning, he ran down the driveway to meet Sasuke in the middle of the street.

"Hey, I was just about to come over."

"Going somewhere?" Sasuke couldn't help the iciness in his tone, but hoped Naruto hadn't noticed.

If he did, he didn't comment on it.

"Yeah, just for the night. I'll be back tomorrow." He grinned. "Don't miss me too much. Should I leave you a picture to jack off to?"

Snorting, Sasuke punched him in the arm, some of his defensiveness lowering a little. "Where you going?"

"Ah, just to France for a while. Christmas shopping for my mum."

Sasuke was pretty sure that was a lie, but he tried not to let it get to him. Besides, it wasn't like he was a lie-detector, maybe Naruto just didn't feel comfortable telling him where he was going and why.

"You're going to France? That's kind of cool, maybe I can go with you."

Naruto's face paled considerably, and Sasuke became suspicious again, but he continued nonetheless.

"There's this concert in Paris by this band, All That Remains? It's tonight, and I'm pretty sure I could get us tickets. I was thinking we could go as like, I don't know, my Christmas present for you or something."

The blond opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked at a complete loss for words, and only a very loud, very long honk from the car in his driveway jerked him out of his momentary shock. He turned to look at the car, then looked back at Sasuke.

"I'm sorry, but I-I can't. I would have loved to go with you, no word of a lie, but I can't."

"Oh." Sasuke wished he could say he was disappointed, but given he knew that would be Naruto's answer, it was hard to be too crushed. He was kind of pissed Naruto was lying to him, though. "Want some company? I could probably get some stuff together in less than five minutes if your driver's willing to wait."

Another long and angry honk suggested he really wasn't, but it wasn't like he could leave without Naruto, so if he went with Sasuke to get some stuff, they'd still have a ride when they came back out.

The blond glanced at the car again, and when he looked back at Sasuke, he kept his eyes on the ground.

"Sorry, I'm—I gotta go. I'm gonna be late so..." He leaned forward and kissed his cheek lightly, then turned and ran for the car. He got into the back and seconds later, the driver backed out, almost taking out Sasuke in the process.

The Uchiha glared after the car angrily—not only at the driver, but at Naruto, too—then kicked at a pile of snow before turning to go back to his house.

"Sasuke."

He was startled when Minato spoke, turning to look at the man walking towards him with a kind smile. He nodded hello, and shifted his weight, feeling somewhat awkward since he hadn't really spoken to the guy much aside from during dinner that one night.

"Sorry about Naruto taking off on you," the man said, looking down the street after the car, as if silently telling his son off. "He's not very good with juggling."

Sasuke frowned. "Juggling?"

Minato chuckled and slapped him on the shoulder. "I was going to go into town with Naruto later to get some more firewood. Seeing as how he's not here, I was thinking maybe you and I could go."

The raven's eyebrow cocked in confusion. Why was Naruto's dad asking him to go out shopping? If the guy popped the "what are your intentions with my son" question, Sasuke was out of this relationship.

"Uh..." A speechless Uchiha. That was new.

"I promise it'll be harmless. And I'll tell you anything you wanna know about Naruto." He grinned at him, and it was so like his boyfriend's that he found himself nodding before consciously agreeing that he would go.

"Great. Let me just get my good coat." Minato turned to head back inside, then paused and looked back at Sasuke. "Feel free to invite your brother, if you like."

Sasuke definitely didn't want his brother coming, so as awkward and weird as it would be, he'd go to town with Minato.

How bad could it be?

"I still don't understand," Sasuke said slowly, picking at what was left of his grilled chicken. He had a smirk on his face, but he still didn't get it. "I still don't understand how someone like you..."

"How someone like me ended up with someone like Kushina?" Minato finished for him, taking a sip of his water. He laughed afterwards, putting it down and picking up his fork to finish up his pasta. "Well, I guess the same could be said for how you and Naruto ended up together."

True, Sasuke silently agreed.

Hanging out with Minato hadn't been as weird or awkward as Sasuke had anticipated. The guy was surprisingly normal, considering how psychotic his son was, though he'd noticed that before during their dinner. Still, he couldn't help but worry the blond man was going to randomly jump on him or say something perverted every now and then, because he looked so much like Naruto.

They were sitting having dinner now, in one of the restaurants in the mall. Kushina had called to complain about not being fed, and he promised he'd stop on the way to get something for her. Sasuke had called his own family to tell them not to wait for him, and Itachi had complained about being stuck alone with their parents. Sasuke hung up on him, not feeling the need to listen to his brother whine.

"Naruto kind of tricked me into our relationship, I think," Sasuke admitted with a smile, taking another bite of his food.

"Who do you think he learned it from?" Minato cocked an eyebrow pointedly, and Sasuke laughed, shaking his head.

"Can I ask you something?" the raven asked almost hesitantly, glancing up at Minato. The other man nodded, taking another sip of his drink. "How did you react when—did you care? About Naruto's orientation?"

Minato wiped his mouth with his napkin before putting it down and smiling at Sasuke. "No, I didn't care. Naruto's my son, and what he does and who he loves isn't any of my business. As long as he's happy, and healthy, and safe, that's all that matters. That's all that should matter to a parent."

"Not all parents share your views," Sasuke said in a low voice, putting his fork down and pushing his plate away a little bit.

His father hadn't reacted badly; his father hadn't reacted at all, actually. Sasuke was sure he hadn't really noticed until this Christmas, even though he'd been gay for years. Same with Itachi. He never said anything about it, he didn't even acknowledge it.

"Maybe not, but yours do."

Sasuke cocked an eyebrow, glancing up at Minato.

"Your father and I, we're not so different, you know. Maybe how we are with our sons differs, but as people, we're fairly similar. He's a very smart man, and despite what his actions might suggest, he loves his family. He works hard because he wants to make sure when you and your brother take over the company, it's still doing well and he doesn't leave you with a crumbling empire."

"That may be so, but has it occurred to him that doing that for us might not mean as much as having him around?" Sasuke shrugged, trying to get rid of the feelings of guilt creeping up from his gut. "I bet he doesn't know my favourite colour."

"I don't know Naruto's." Minato shrugged. "Things like that aren't really important to parents. But the thing that is, is the fact that every year, they take you away for Christmas." The blond pushed his plate aside, folding his hands together and leaning forward on the table. "Christmas is the one holiday of the year specifically designed to keep families together. It's all about family, and your parents following through with that proves it. Sure your father works leading up to it, but I bet you can't honestly tell me you spend Christmas day without seeing him."

Now that he thought of it, that was true. Christmas day was the one day of the year where they all had breakfast, opened presents, watched movies, went out to lunch, watched more movies, went out to dinner, watched even more movies, then went to bed. All four of them. His dad even had his cell phone off sometimes.

"I never really thought about it."

"I'm sorry you may not have the relationship you want with your father, but he does care. He notices. And he knows how to separate his work life with his personal life."

"Why do you say that?" Sasuke asked, confused.

Minato smiled. "Lets just say I've got an insider's view on the inner workings of your father's mind." He waved to a waiter and asked for the bill.

Paying it, he led the way back towards the car and they drove home in comfortable silence. When the car was parked in the Uzumaki's garage, Sasuke exited and leaned against it, looking over at Minato.

"Thank you for dinner, Mr. Uzumaki. It was—enlightening."

The man laughed and nodded. "You're welcome, Sasuke."

"Good night." He turned to leave, and got halfway down the driveway when the other called him back.

"Sasuke?"

He turned to regard him.

"Do you know you haven't asked a single question about Naruto? You had me all day, and not a single question."

Sasuke shrugged. He honestly hadn't wanted to spy on his boyfriend. It wasn't really his style, for one thing, and for another, he didn't think he wanted Minato to report back to his son about all the things Sasuke asked about.

"Everybody's got secrets. He'll tell me his when he's ready."

"I'm glad to hear you feel that way." Minato shoved his hands in his pockets. "Naruto's a little bit strange sometimes. He bites off more than he can chew, and eventually it comes back to bite him but—I hope you know he really cares for you, and he'd never intentionally hurt you."

Somehow, hearing something like that from Naruto's father made Sasuke feel like he was going to get hurt really badly. He tried not to dwell on it and nodded a thanks, then turned and walked back towards his house.

A light knock at Sasuke's door caused him to turn away from his computer, his mother opening his door and smiling in at him. He managed a smile back, even though his mind was on other things.

"Still awake?"

"Yeah, I'm—just thinking," he admitted, rubbing his face with both hands. "Dad asleep?"

"Yeah."

"Itachi?"

"Working on something, I think. When isn't he?" She smiled, and Sasuke smiled back genuinely this time. He hadn't really thought about how much he loved and appreciated his mother until he'd met Naruto.

"Are you going to bed?"

"I think so, yes." She laughed. "I've been staying up much too late these days. Kushina is a bad influence."

"I'm glad you met her." Sasuke said sincerely. "You two get along really well, and I know it can't be easy living with the three of us. So I'm glad you have her here."

Mikoto looked taken aback, but then she smiled brilliantly. "Thank you, Sasuke. I'm happy, too. This vacation has been really nice."

"For me, as well." He knew she'd understand what he meant, but he hoped she would also know that spending time with his family hadn't been completely horrendous this year.

"I'm glad." She smiled. "Well, I'm going to bed. Good night."

"Wait," he called out when she turned to leave. Hesitating, he stood up and walked over to her, then leaned closer and kissed her cheek. She seemed even more taken aback than before. "Good night, mum."

She smiled brightly at him again, patted his cheek, then turned and left the room. He heard her bedroom door shut a few seconds later.

He had to admit, his mother looking that shocked before he kissed her good night made him a little sad, and thinking back, he really wasn't very open with his mother. Not like Naruto and his, for sure. He felt he should change that, considering everything she did for him.

Sighing, he turned to glance at his computer, then looked out his bedroom door. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about the picture he'd seen in his father's office earlier that day. So much so he'd spent most of the night trying to look for it, but no dice. Now that his father was asleep, he figured it was as good a time as any to check it out.

Moving silently through the hall, he inched open his father's office door, then shut it behind himself, groping along the wall for the light switch. Finding it, he turned it on, then moved to his father's desk and sat down.

Shuffling a few papers around, he found the stack of articles and sifted through them once more for the picture, but he didn't find it. He did, however, find another picture of the creepy woman from two years ago. The same kid was with her, looking virtually identical to the other picture. Head down, baseball cap on, and hands shoved in his pockets. This one was closer, and looked almost like a picture taken from high up. There was no caption, and the article present only spoke about stock markets, which led him to think that the article linked to the picture had been cut out.

"What are you doing?"

Sasuke jumped a mile high and whipped around to find Itachi standing in the doorway, eying him. He was leaning against the jamb with his arms crossed, looking perfectly at home spying on Sasuke.

"Lurk much?" he snapped to cover up his shock.

"Dad's gonna kill you if you mess up his piles."

"I'm not messing up his piles," he shot back, turning to the desk again as if to make sure he was telling the truth. "I just found a few newspaper pictures earlier and one of them had Naruto in it, so I was just trying to find it."

"Why?"

"Well, why does dad have it?" Sasuke demanded, turning back to his brother. "It's kind of weird, isn't it? He has a picture of my boyfriend, and then a picture of this woman with her kid." He waved the current picture in the air, then tossed it back onto the desk.

"You might not know this, but dad documents things like a machine. He cuts out any pictures that relate to anything about you, me, his business, and anyone else he knows, whether friendlies, subsidiaries or competition."

"Yeah, but Naruto?" Sasuke cocked an eyebrow.

"Maybe it was from before you even knew him. Who was he with? I mean, no offense to your boyfriend, but he's not front-page news."

Sasuke ignored him and turned back to look at the desk, shifting through the newspaper cuttings to find the one of him and Itachi again. He found it weird how most of these pictures he didn't even remember. When and how had people taken their photo, and really, why[? People made it seem like being an Uchiha was like being a movie star. It really wasn't.

They were richer.

"Come on." Itachi moved up behind him and kicked the back of the chair. "You should get out before dad finds out."

Not wanting to listen to Itachi, but knowing he was right, Sasuke moved everything back to where it used to be to the best of his ability, then stood and turned off the light, closing the door behind himself. He walked after Itachi, the other turning into his room. Sasuke followed, moving to his bed and falling down onto it.

"Deidara and I have fucked on those covers," Itachi informed him while sitting in his desk chair.

Sasuke promptly stood up.

"What are you doing?" He moved up behind his brother to look over his shoulder, but he minimized the screen. All Sasuke saw based on the minimized window link was that he was looking up one of their father's larger competition. It looked like their official site. Why Itachi was doing that, he didn't know, but if he was trying to get brownie points with their dad, he was already years ahead of Sasuke.

"Why are you looking that up?"

"Why is that any of your business?" Itachi replied smoothly, turning to look at him. "Why didn't you go to the concert?"

"Why is that any of your business?" Sasuke shot back dryly.

"I like knowing when you and the boy toy aren't around. Your presence makes me uncomfortable since I know you're being inappropriate whenever no one's looking."

"Same could be said with you and Deidara." Sasuke smirked. "Oh wait, you guys would have to be together to be inappropriate."

Itachi's face darkened and he stood, looming threateningly over Sasuke. The younger Uchiha stood his ground, but he had to admit, his brother was kind of scary when he was mad—and sex-deprived.

"I've given up on Deidara. He was too easy. And be careful, Sasuke, or I'll be sure to steal your boy toy to make up for my lack of stress relief."

Snorting, Sasuke brushed him off and turned to leave his room, finding satisfaction in knowing he'd frustrated his brother. Not having someone to fuck seemed to really be getting to him, and sadly, Sasuke could relate.

Returning to his room, he brushed his teeth and changed into his sleeping pants, then turned off his light and crawled into bed. Putting both hands behind his head, he frowned up at his ceiling, thinking back on two days prior when Naruto had been all ready to fuck him and then had stopped.

He wanted to think that Naruto had just lost his nerve, but the blond was way too confident for that. He'd been fucking sucking him off in the shower when his mom almost walked in on them, so to think he'd chicken out before fucking Sasuke was almost laughable.

But then what? Why else would he have stopped?

And—again, his mind strayed to the moronic brunet rolling around in the snow with him. What if they were dating? What if Naruto wanted to be with Sasuke, but had to break up with the other guy first, and didn't know how? And he didn't want to fuck Sasuke until he could do it honestly?

Well, first off, that would piss Sasuke off more. Because then he'd be a liar and a cheater—and nobody liked either of them, especially during poker.

Rolling onto his side, he tried to shake off the uneasy feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong soon. Minato's words mixed in with Naruto's sudden departure earlier that day... it all just pointed to something unpleasant, and as much as Sasuke loved Naruto, he really wasn't willing to open up to someone who couldn't even be honest with himself.