Another tie scene, but I have this thing for Sasuke fussing over Naruto, in his own backwards little way. Takes place in their hotel room in Yamaguchi, right before they leave for the wedding. I admit this was such a spur-of-the-moment kind of fic (apparently it seems hard for me to write Sasuke without issues), although as silly as I prefer them, I'd still like to think there's a reason they fit together.

...

"The way you're behaving, you'd think I was actually trying to kill you."

...

Lead Me to the Space Beside You

"Come here, Naruto."

"...I don't know, Sasuke. You don't look sane right now."

"Come. Here."

"Look, I don't want to die so young. There're too many things out there I still haven't seen. So much I still haven't had the chance to do in this world. So much I still haven't had a chance to do with you. To you."

"Naruto."

Cautious, Naruto leaves the relative safety of the large bathroom and stands in front of the threshold.

"So..." Straightening his shoulders, he takes a deep breath, chest slow to rise and fall. "How do I look?"

"You look..." Almost transfixed, Sasuke stares for a few seconds, quiet, with an abnormally stiff set to his shoulders. "Fine. You look...fine."

"All that torture you put me through," Naruto mutters, grudgingly walking towards Sasuke, "I was expecting something a little more than just—"

He yelps when Sasuke grabs both ends of the loose light grey tie haphazardly thrown around his neck to pull him forward. "Did you really need to do that?"

"Yes." Releasing the tie, in one swift motion, Sasuke lifts the collar of Naruto's white dress shirt. "Now don't move."

"I'm never letting you convince me to wear a tie again."

"And I'm never letting you convince me you're responsible enough to dress yourself for this kind of occasion—hold still." Placing a firm hand on Naruto's shoulder to make him face forward, Sasuke scoffs. "The way you're behaving, you'd think I was actually trying to kill you."

"Keep pulling that thing around my neck like that, yeah, you might as well be."

Sasuke pauses. His fingers fall away to let go of Naruto's tie still left undone, and he lowers his gaze, stares at Naruto's black dress shoes shiny and brand new standing so close to his own. "...there's still time to look up the train schedule, if you want to go back home."

"Mm, I don't know." Naruto tilts his head back with a sigh, looking for absent cracks on the plain off-white ceiling above them. "I kind of liked taking a plane for once. As much as my parents used to travel out of the country, they didn't take me with them much. Besides," he says, trying to catch the gaze of dark eyes obscured by the hair fallen over Sasuke's face, "your aunt already paid for our tickets, so..."

Once more, Sasuke reaches for the loose ends of Naruto's tie, giving them a gentle tug. "It's not her fault you're so hopeless with this kind of thing."

"Then staying here, I guess it really can't be helped."

"Not with you."

"...your hands are shaking."

"No, they're not."

Taking one of Sasuke's hands in his own, Naruto intertwines their fingers. He smiles a little, soft, with a simple laugh short-lived and unassuming. "Okay, they're not shaking."

"I'm not nervous."

"I didn't say you were nervous."

"I'm not," Sasuke says, finally raising his head. The corner of his mouth rises just a little, but he presses his lips together, looks down again and then back up, makes another attempt at a smile that comes out a little too strained. "I just..."

The way Sasuke won't stop looking at him, holding him still under the scrutiny of such credulous eyes, Naruto has to fight the urge to fidget. "It's been almost three years."

Sasuke hums, squeezing Naruto's hand in his before letting go. "Almost three years since I've seen them, since I left Yamaguchi, but I...now I'm suddenly subjecting my entire family to someone like you, and I—"

The chaste touch of lips is brief against the corner of Sasuke's mouth, and Naruto pulls away before Sasuke can blink.

"Normally," he says, "I'd have a better comeback against that kind of—"

"No, you wouldn't."

"I would too," Naruto says, barely able to contain the whine creeping into his voice. "And a really good one if you ever stopped insulting me long enough to actually give me a chance to come up with something."

Sasuke makes a noncommittal noise that almost turns into a smile as he again reaches for the ends of Naruto's tie, crossing the wide part of the tie over the narrow end.

Keeping his head held high, Naruto inhales as Sasuke begins to tie a complicated knot. "...you know I like you," he says, voice firm growing low and softer. "I really like you, Sasuke, and I know you know that. So why would I want to go back to Narita when I came all the way to Yamaguchi just to be with you?"

Still for only a moment, Sasuke brings the wide end of the tie through a loop for a third time and pulls it to the front. He tightens the knot, both hands adjusting the tie to lie centred over Naruto's shirt. "...it took us less than two hours to get here."

"You really do know how to ruin a moment, don't you?"

"What moment?" Sasuke says, straightening the collar over Naruto's tie.

"Seriously, though, I didn't fly eight hundred kilometres for Itachi to treat me to fugu in Shimonoseki."

"...tell me he didn't say that."

"He did. When I was on the phone with him this morning. Actually, he called it fuku. And then I had to ask him what he was talking about."

With a sigh, Sasuke's cheeks inflate, and he drops his head on Naruto's shoulder. "He wasn't being serious."

"Using such an outdated word and making that kind of serious invitation to eat food that has the potential to kill me—no, it sounded like a threat to me."

"My brother wouldn't threaten you, Naruto. He likes you. He's just...that's just his sense of humour. Skewed."

"If you say so, sure, but as indifferent as you like to pretend you are, it's even harder to tell with someone like your brother. He did say you'd probably react like this, though. Something about you looking like a pufferfish?"

Head raised in one sharp motion, Sasuke levels Naruto with a steadfast glare.

Naruto snorts, lips tight in a firm line and starting to tremble. Slowly, cautiously, he lifts a finger to poke one of Sasuke's slightly puffed cheeks, instantly making both of them deflate.

And then the dam breaks.

"I c-can't believe," he tries to say, words lost between overtly obnoxious guffaws of laughter. "I actually thought Itachi was lying, but it—it's just like he said. You do. Y-you really do kind of look like a—"

Sasuke yanks on Naruto's tie, pulling Naruto against him to whisper in his ear, "Guess what I won't be using these cheeks to do any time soon."

All traces of humour gone, Naruto sputters when Sasuke releases the tie and pushes him away. "W-wait, Sasuke, I was joking—joking. It was a joke, but I didn't really think it was that funny. Listening to Itachi, I was just trying to do the right thing by being a good brother-in-law in order to impress my future family. Come on, you can't threaten me by withholding doing that sort of thing. Not when I—"

"Naruto."

"...yeah?"

"Shut up."