Breakfast was unsavory at best. Naruto had left his half-full plate sitting on the counter all night, giving the kitchen an unpleasant reek. For Sasuke, that made the prospect of eating his own leftovers less than appealing. It didn't help that Naruto was sitting across the little table from him, slurping up cold sticky ramen from the container he had spotted in the refrigerator last night. Sasuke managed two bites, enough to acknowledge that the food did in fact taste better cold, before giving up in disgust. He did not have a weak stomach. He had survived off rations, raw meat, even spoiled food, without it affecting his performance on missions. But that had been out of necessity. There was no excuse for the smell in the room or that...stuff...Naruto was eating. The fact that Naruto didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with the situation told him this was normal for him, a habit Sasuke would have to break quickly or learn to live with. He had no intention of getting used to this. Unfortunately for him, he suspected teaching Naruto manners would be more difficult than teaching himself to be 'happy' with his new life. It was not an issue he would even attempt to tackle today.

Naruto called after him when he left the table, but didn't follow him. He sat on the couch, leaning forward over his knees, and stared at one of the pictures on the shelf across from him. It featured the hokage, looking young and healthy, and a smiling woman Sasuke could only assume was Naruto's mother. There was no resemblance. Muted sounds carried from the waking village outside and Sasuke closed his eyes on the urge to move to the window. He would get his first look at Konoha when Naruto was ready for him to. He refused to ask when that would be.

His muscles ached in places he didn't even remember straining last night. Some of it was due to the days of travel without exercise or sustenance. He had lost his edge with all of the inactivity. He hadn't realized sex was that strenuous so it had never occurred to him to prepare for it beforehand. But Naruto hadn't done anything beforehand, either, and he didn't seem to be suffering at all. Which meant it was him. Just how much experience did Naruto have to build up that sort of endurance? He could attribute Naruto's quick recovery time to him being a pervert and using a bunshin to do half the work for him. But he hadn't just recovered quickly, he had shaken it off entirely. Only a few minutes after they had finally disentangled themselves, Naruto had been bouncing off to shower as if they hadn't done anything. Meanwhile, Sasuke had barely been able to drag himself out of the bed, and he had been forced to sit down halfway through his shower because his legs refused to hold him up any longer. Seeing how perky and refreshed Naruto looked this morning made him all the more aware of his own aches. All he wanted now was to get out and run. Even a few hours with nothing but a training post to beat on would have greatly improved his mood.

He was leaning his forehead on his folded hands when he heard Naruto come in to hover a few feet away. He didn't bother lifting his head, merely flicking a sidelong look at him. There wasn't a mark on him. Sasuke clearly remembered creating one on his neck, but there was nothing there now. His own neck looked as if someone had strangled him and followed up with a few dozen senbon just to be thorough about it. Naruto took a quick step back, and he realized he had been glaring. He closed his eyes.

"What did I do?" asked Naruto. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Naruto made a weird noise and sat heavily on the couch. "That wasn't a nothing look," he sighed. "I won't know what I did wrong unless you tell me. Or do you want me to guess?"

"It's not you," Sasuke muttered quietly. He was feeling inadequate and he resented it. That wasn't Naruto's fault. He had never handled that emotion well. He dropped his hands and turned a sober look on Naruto. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"You mean today? We should probably go shopping first." Naruto winced. "I'm sorry about the lousy excuse for breakfast. Sakura told me to go shopping, but I forgot about it. There I was lecturing you about not eating on your way here and now I don't even have food for you."

"There was nothing wrong with the food," that he'd been eating, Sasuke finished to himself. "I'm just not hungry."

"Liar."

Sasuke snapped a sharp look at Naruto and was met by a sober frown. What did he know about him? "If you think I would starve myself to death, you're mistaken."

"I know you wouldn't, if only because you were warned not to commit suicide. I wasn't implying that. But you're not thin enough to be the sort who eats as little as you have been. Your appetite should be about as big as mine, especially after that work-out last night. Which means it's either the food or the company." He sighed, scratching at his head. "I was hoping it was the food, but it's not, huh? It's about last night. Is it because I bothered you again, or is it something specific that I did?"

"It's nothing you did," Sasuke scowled. Why did Naruto bother asking if he wasn't going to believe his answer? The sex had been depraved. He was fully convinced of that. But he hadn't objected to it. If he had recovered as easily as Naruto, he might even look forward to the next time. As far as enjoyable challenges went, it was certainly one of the more interesting things he had done in the last few years. He snorted at that. "Where did you get the idea to use the kage bunshin jutsu for sex?"

Naruto's eyes widened and he dropped them with a furious blush. It reminded Sasuke of the way he had reacted when he asked him how often he would need to have sex with him. Naruto had no problem doing it, so he didn't see why he should have difficulty talking about it. He looked him over carefully, trying to determine if that reaction was due to embarrassment or shame. There was nothing shameful about using one's ninjutsu. Perverted, yes, under-handed, certainly, but not shameful. If Sasuke had been as obsessed with sex as other shinobi he had met, he was certain he would have been able to come up with some creative uses of the jutsus in his own arsenal. He wouldn't even need to put them into practice himself. With the sharingan, he could lock his partner in an illusion as strong as the real thing without any of the messy after effects. Of course he was more likely to use that sort of twisted technique to torture an enemy, but it was the same principle.

"Is that why you're upset...?" Naruto asked quietly.

"No," Sasuke snapped. "I'm not upset." He was getting annoyed, though, at Naruto's refusal to let it alone. "If you had done something that upset me, you can be sure I would have told you the moment you did it. I asked about the bunshin out of curiosity. If you're unwilling to talk about it, just say so."

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest, frowning at him. "It's really obvious that you're upset about something, Sasuke. And since you're not telling me about it now, when I'm asking, it's hard to believe you'll tell me the next time I do it. You're the one unwilling to talk about it."

Tenacious. Sasuke had to give him that. If Naruto was going to push like this every time he showed a negative emotion he would have to stop showing them. He had never agreed to share his every thought with him. The arrangement gave Naruto free access to his body, but he wasn't getting any more than that. Only a fellow sharingan holder could get into his head, and even he would have a hard time of it. "I'm not going to argue with you," he told Naruto evenly. "Believe what you like."

"Guh!" Naruto groaned, grabbing his hair in frustration. "This is worse than trying to get straight answers out of Ero-sennin." He grumbled for a while, watching Sasuke with a squinty-eyed scowl. Then his face gradually smoothed into a knowing smirk. "Okay, Sasuke, I'll play your game this time. You want to know about my bunshin? The truth is, the kage bunshin was the first 'forbidden' technique I learned. Of course, I later found out that half the jounin in the village could do it, too, so it wasn't so much 'forbidden' as it was a Konoha favorite. Since you recognized it, you can probably do it, too, so it's not even limited to Konoha or anything. But I went to so much trouble to get my hands on it that it's always been the jutsu I fall back on in a pinch. Puberty was one really big pinch for me. I told you about that."

"You mentioned going to whore houses," said Sasuke. He didn't understand how that was connected. The shadow clone jutsu was definitely not limited to Konoha, but even if it had been, he didn't see what that had to do with anything. "Are whores trained in ninjutsu?"

"What? No!" Naruto laughed, "At least not the ones I met. There is a branch of special jounin, kunoichi mostly, who use whore houses as their cover during missions, but that's different. The women who actually work there are just normal women. I mean, sure, they go through their own training, but they're not shinobi. But some of the houses cater to shinobi, see? So they're used to clients asking to use jutsus on them. Henge, usually." He folded his arms again, looking a little embarrassed. "The first time I went to one it turned out so badly that I went to one of the houses that specialized in shinobi clients with Ero-sennin instead. That's my god-father, Jiraiya," he said as an aside. "He doesn't stay in the village much, but you'll probably meet him eventually. Anyway, I tried using a henge on one of the girls, but she still smelled like a girl, you know? Or maybe you don't know. Just take my word for it that the scent is totally different. I tried it with one of the guys, too, but there was still the chakra difference. You can always tell a ninja from a civilian by the untrained chakra. That was nearly as bad as the smell. And I had that guilt about messing around with people who weren't you on top of it. That's when I thought of using the henge on one of my bunshin. They smell like me, but at least it's a male scent. And they have trained chakra, even if it's different from yours. The important thing was that they're just me, so it was masturbation, not cheating. Once I figured out how to keep them from poofing out right away, it was easy."

Sasuke felt his lips twitch at the proud, yet embarrassed, way Naruto said that. This wasn't what he had expected to hear at all. He had thought Naruto had used the bunshin with the women, some sort of orgy, perhaps. It had never even occurred to him that Naruto might have been having sex with them himself. While one of them was transformed to look like him? It was outrageous. Yet, it did explain how comfortable Naruto was with the idea of them having sex with each other. Naruto had already been having sex with him for some time, apparently. His mouth twitched again, though he still couldn't tell if it was a smile or a grimace. Now he couldn't help but wonder how he had compared to the imitations. "I see."

Naruto must have read his mind because he leaned forward with an expression that was far too serious for the absurd conversation they were having. "It didn't compare to the real thing," he insisted. "At all. Fantasies are nothing like being with another person. I couldn't even guess what it would be like to actually do it with you. Besides," and he drew back with a wince, "I got older but you never did. It was okay when I was just a little taller, but then I hit a major growth spurt and had to stop doing it. Even if it was just a bunshin, I still felt like I was taking advantage because of the age difference. It was bad enough that I couldn't stop fantasizing about it in my head without trying to make it real."

"Age matters?" asked Sasuke. He didn't know what Naruto could have found attractive about him at that age, but he didn't see what Naruto found attractive about him now, either. The size difference would have made it difficult for him to do it to Naruto, but it wouldn't change anything if he were on the receiving end. Maybe that was the problem. Naruto had wanted it both ways.

"It should matter," Naruto huffed. "It didn't matter to me because it was you, the only you I knew. It's such a relief to see you now. I felt like an old pervert, fantasizing about a little kid."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed, "I was not a little kid. I may have been only been twelve, but I had already done more A rank missions than the pathetic excuse for a jounin the Sand village assigned as my teacher."

"You think I was insulting you? I know you were a skilled shinobi even back then, you wouldn't have survived otherwise. And it was obvious you'd had a lot more field experience than I had, which is half the reason I went on so many missions after our run-in. If one of us thought like a kid back then, it was totally me. But you still looked like a kid. You know?" Naruto blushed, looking away and shifting in his seat. "When I imagined you naked, you were about the same size I was back then. That's the image of you I had when I hit puberty and, yeah, you're not supposed to lust after something like that when you're my age. Only by the time I realized that, it was already too late. I'd gotten used to you looking that way. When I tried to imagine what you might look like now, it was too weird, it wasn't you, because that was the only you I could see."

Sasuke still didn't see what the problem was. He might have changed physically since then, but he certainly hadn't changed very much mentally. If Naruto wanted to feel guilty about something, he should should have felt guilty for imagining him naked in the first place. Or for actively fantasizing about him at all. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel about that. It was flattering, in a very bizarre way. Naruto hadn't even been content to fantasize, he had actually projected those fantasies onto his own clones and tried to make them a reality. Sasuke had enough trouble wrapping his mind around attraction and lust. He couldn't guess how it would feel to be overwhelmed with both to the point where he had to seek an outlet for them. Naruto was hung up on the age issue. For Sasuke, it was the desire itself. If Naruto didn't feel guilty or ashamed for having lusted after him in the first place, then he didn't see why his age at the time should matter at all.

"Would you feel guilty for fantasizing about me as I am now?" asked Sasuke.

Naruto gaped. "No way! You're gorgeous! I love your hair. Your face is perfect and your body is-"

Grimacing, Sasuke cut him off. "Then it's better than the way I looked back then?"

"No... You were gorgeous back then, too. That's the problem, see? I should be able to say, 'Yeah, you made a cute kid, but now you're hot.' I can't because as far as I'm concerned you were hot when I first saw you and you still are. Even if you hadn't grown at all since then, I'd still think you were perfect. I do like your hair better now, though." He shrugged, smiling shamelessly. "It's a little longer in front and looks great whether it's falling down around your face or spilling back over the pillow. I never had a hair kink before, but I'm definitely getting one now."

Sasuke snorted, amused despite himself. If Naruto liked long hair, then it was a pity he had met him in that forest instead of Itachi. Then he could have fulfilled his sharingan kink and his hair kink. And gotten a slow painful death to go with them. Somehow he doubted Naruto was that much of a masochist. "I won't grow my hair out for you," he warned him. Itachi had taken after their father, while he had taken after their mother. Yet now that they were closer in height they looked similar enough that the easiest way to tell them apart from a distance was their hair styles. "This is as long as it gets."

"That's fine!" Naruto said quickly. "I like the way it feathers in the back. I wouldn't ask you to change your appearance for me, anyway. By this point, I'm pretty sure I'll like the way you look no matter what. If you suddenly decided to shave your head bald, I might freak out a little bit, but then I'd probably develop a bald head kink or something. Like, I've never had a thing for fat people, but a chubby Sasuke? I'd definitely be down with that. As long as it's you, it's fine by me!"

"And yet you were perfectly willing to change your gender to suit me," Sasuke drawled. Naruto was far too eager to accommodate him without expecting anything in return. "I wouldn't attempt to create a female version of myself, but I am perfectly capable of using a henge to alter my appearance. I've done it often enough on missions. All you have to do is ask."

"I won't. I don't want you to change. Really!"

Sasuke sniffed and let his gaze drift across the room to the pictures again. It seemed wrong that there was no blonde baby being held by one of the parents. The photos of his parents in his own home had all included Itachi, him, or both. The second picture on the shelf featured a large group of children, pre-genin by the looks of them. Except Naruto was right in the middle of them and he should have been at least a chunin by that age. He eyed the photo closely for a moment, noting exactly which of the children Naruto's attention was on the most, and performed a quick henge. Naruto wasn't quite as surprised as he had been by Naruto's transformation last night, but it was close. The blonde yelped and leapt off the couch, landing halfway across the room. Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "You had a crush on her, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but!" Naruto remained in a half crouch, but he cringed back a little, his face a mottled red. "I don't anymore! Even if I wanted you to use a henge, I definitely wouldn't want you to turn yourself into someone else. The whole point is to have you!" He sent a wild look at the curtained window, as if they could possibly be seen from outside. "Undo that, okay? Sakura would kill me if she thought for a second that I'd conned you into it. She hasn't looked like that in years. And besides, the voice is all wrong. Where did you get that?"

"It's mine. I used my apparent age to my advantage on my first missions. My voice at that age was gender neutral enough that I continued to use it when posing as a child or a young woman. It's convenient. Even those who should have been watching for a henge never saw through it." He performed a second henge, taking very close note of the way Naruto reacted. He had only used this particular disguise to get within striking distance of those who targeted children or had a soft spot for them. Those hiring him had always been impressed by the way he could mute and disorder his chakra to pass as a civilian child. He never told them that he was merely mimicking the way his chakra had actually been at that age. He had only been taught to control his chakra after proving he was able to carry out a mission without it. Naruto was wide-eyed and pale. Sasuke made it a point to blink his own eyes rather than narrowing them and ruining the illusion of innocence. After going on about how wrong it was to like him at twelve, Naruto couldn't possibly be attracted to him at this age. "What is it?"

Naruto shook his head sharply, frowning unhappily at him. "You really looked like that. I can't believe they made you do missions when you looked like that. Just looking at you makes me want to scoop you up and hide you away from the world. What were your parents thinking?"

"That I could be useful," Sasuke said sharply. He should have known Naruto was the sort with a soft spot for seemingly helpless children. Assassinating him would have been far too easy. He dispelled the henge. "You were strong enough to enter Anbu when we met. You couldn't have become a shinobi any later than I did. Did you question your father for allowing you to prove yourself? I thanked mine."

With a sigh of relief, Naruto came back to the couch. "I don't like that henge at all," he said, as if he hadn't already made that clear. "I'm glad you used it, though. It helps me understand more about you. I didn't start taking solo missions until after we met." He nodded solemnly when Sasuke's eyes widened. "I went through the usual D and C rank missions just like everyone else here has to as a genin, but unlike them I couldn't be on a real three man team because I couldn't leave the village. Everyone knows who I am. They've been trying to kill me since I was a baby. I had just taken the chunin exam a few months before we met. I had to wait until I was strong enough to defend whatever team they put me on as well as myself. I couldn't risk anyone else being used as a hostage to get at me. Baachan - Tsunade, the one you met - she worked with Sakura for a year before we entered so she'd be able to take care of herself and heal our third member if things went wrong, but even then, we barely made it out alive. It turned out that our third member was another assassin. Can you imagine that? We were so worried about not endangering him and then he turned out to be working for Sound the whole time. That's when I decided to stop going through the usual channels. I took the Jounin exam a month after passing the Chunin exam, and then I went straight into Anbu. At least there I'd have a mask hiding my identity. But then we ran into you..."

Naruto leaned back, his eyes moving restlessly around the room. "I've done a lot of missions since then, and seen a lot of things I'd rather not have seen. Konoha turns away more requests than it accepts. I knew someone had to be taking them, mercenaries. I've run across some of those, usually missing nin who are in everyone's bingo books. But somehow I never connected you to that. I thought you were Sound. Then, when we identified some of the bodies, I thought you were like them, just someone Sound had found somewhere, unaffiliated with anyone in particular. Even after Gaara told me you were an Uchiha, it never occurred to me what that really meant. You're a clan of mercenaries." He shot a quick look at Sasuke, as if he might be insulted by the truth. "It's nothing like living in a ninja village, is it?"

"I wouldn't know," said Sasuke. "We settled near Sand village, but I had little contact with those living there until I came back with the sharingan and was assigned one of their shinobi as my teacher. I do know that they refused to accept me the first time the clan pushed me as the best available for one of their requests. They took one look at me and said I was too young." His eyes narrowed, flicking away. "They demanded that a sharingan holder go instead. He died. I wouldn't have." They'd had so few reproduction aged sharingan holders left even then. In the end, Itachi had been forced to finish the mission and recover the body. If Sand had accepted the clan's first choice he could have gotten in, killed the target, and gotten away without performing a single jutsu. He had been trained to do exactly that. "I was almost ten before they finally acknowledged me as a genin. Even then, they refused to accept me for anything higher than C rank missions. The clan wasn't willing to waste me on that, so I never did any missions for Sand at all."

Naruto's eyes darted toward the bookshelf, a guilty look taking over his face. Sasuke didn't bother asking. He crossed the room and lifted the face-down photo, activating his sharingan at the same time. He should have guessed. That explained how Naruto had been able to teleport him directly into the apartment. The room had been set to his chakra signature all along. He brushed a finger over the back of the frame, wondering what sort of identifier was hidden in there. A single hair would do. He eyed the photo, noting the anger captured in his own nine year-old face. "This is the only photograph I've ever stood for since becoming a shinobi," he commented. "They insisted on testing me according to their own genin level. It was demeaning." Even admitting that, he was surprised how much of his anger had shown in his eyes. The entire procedure had been one insult after another, but he had thought he was hiding his anger perfectly. A wry smile pulled at his lips. Apparently he hadn't been as good at hiding his emotions back then as he had thought he was. He replaced the photo face-down. A moment later, Naruto was next to him, placing it face up.

"I shouldn't have tried to hide it," Naruto said quietly. "Sorry. Gaara gave it to me when he told me who you were. He said it was the only photo Sand had of you, and he couldn't risk upsetting the clan by trying to take a new one. Our Anbu took samples of your hair after they finished transporting you. I got one so I could bring you straight here. I didn't want anyone to see you walking through the village in those cuffs, not if I could help it." He stared at the photo in much the same way he'd stared at Sasuke's henge. "I'm surprised you wore a Sand forehead protector if you never did missions for them..."

"I only wore it for the photo. I never wore it again until I came back, and then only because my jounin teacher insisted on it." His eyes narrowed as he stared at the photo of himself. His teacher had liked for the clan to see him wearing it, as if to remind them that they hadn't been willing or able to train him themselves.

"I can't give it back to you-"

"I wouldn't wear it if you did," Sasuke cut him off. "I never considered myself a Sand shinobi to begin with."

"I can't give it back because I want you to wear one of ours," Naruto finished. "I know it's not fair, but..."

"My father gave me to Konoha. My life belongs to the Hokage to do with as he likes. If he wants me to wear the Leaf symbol, then I'll wear it."

"I'm starting to hate that blank face of yours," Naruto sighed. He pulled him into a hug, not minding when he made no move to reciprocate. "Your life does not belong to my father, no more than you belong to Konoha. But, speaking as the future Hokage, if you ever want to belong we'd love to have you. Did you know that the Uchiha clan helped found this village, Sasuke? For you, coming here is a prolonged death sentence. For Konoha, it's like having a long lost child come home. I want you to wear Konoha's symbol because you'll be fighting at my side, and we'll be fighting for this village. My father wants you to wear it so no one who sees you will mistake you for anything but a shinobi. But we both want you to wear the Uchiha symbol, too, because that's who you are. We didn't take you away from your clan. We welcomed a part of that clan back home."

Sasuke's gaze drifted over Naruto's shoulder to the young blonde man in the photograph near him. "Why did the clan leave Konoha? Do you know the reason?"

"I know why," Naruto admitted. He released him and stepped back, but his head remained bowed. "I can't talk about it. I'm sorry. It's one of those things that-"

"I understand. You don't have to tell me anything."

"Sasuke-"

"It's fine," Sasuke said sharply. "I've never heard anyone in the clan speak of it, so why should Konoha?"

"It had to do with Kyuubi!" Naruto blurted. "It's not restricted information or anything like that, it's just... It hurts to talk about because it's personal. I don't want to keep you in the dark, but it's one of those things that I don't-" He took a sharp breath, his eyes closing as he turned away. "I can't talk about it. I'll find someone willing to talk to you about it, I promise. Someone who can answer any questions you have. I just can't do it myself."

"I meant what I said," Sasuke said quietly. "You don't have to tell me anything. About anything. Whether you keep quiet for personal reasons or because you were ordered to do so, it makes no difference to me. I'm accustomed to being kept in the dark."

"You've been in the dark your entire life, from the sound of things. Sorry," Naruto winced, when he caught his expression. "I just hate contributing to that. I'm still coming to grips with the way you were raised. One of my teachers grew up during wartime and he became a chunin at six. He never had a childhood because his skills were needed by the village. You probably have more in common with him than you do with me. My father had me trained as if we were still at war, but I was given plenty of time to interact with kids my own age. The village didn't need to use me for the missions I was qualified to do because there were always enough older shinobi to handle them. Konoha gets its share of gifted kids, but we try not to advance them too quickly. They live longer that way."

"The Uchiha clan isn't large enough to have that sort of leeway."

"I know that," Naruto frowned. "I still think their priorities are backwards. If you risk the most promising children, then who's going to build the future?"

"That's where you have it wrong," Sasuke explained. "I wasn't promising as a child. There was never any reason to believe I would develop the sharingan. It took me months to learn the simplest katon jutsu, which even an average Uchiha my age should have learned within a week. Those likely to gain the sharingan have excellent chakra control. I didn't. Even when Sand tested me at genin rank, my chakra control was still wasteful. More importantly, I'm a second child. By the time I was old enough to begin training, Itachi already had the sharingan. There was never a question as to which of us the bloodline favored. No one could have foreseen that we would both develop the sharingan. That simply doesn't happen anymore."

"As far as you know. If they make a habit of considering the second child expendable, then maybe some of them would have developed it if they had lived long enough to."

"Or those with the potential would never be pushed into developing it at all," Sasuke countered. "You're saying they should be coddled on the off chance they might develop the sharingan later in life. But I wouldn't have gotten mine at all if I hadn't been set against your squad, with death as the only likely outcome. The sharingan is a bloodlimit awakened during battle. Without a life or death fight, even Itachi might not have developed it. And keep in mind that even without the sharingan, I never failed a mission. By completing them myself, I spared the important members of my clan from risking themselves. I was superfluous, expendable, but never useless. There are no useless Uchiha."

"I hate your clan for teaching you that," Naruto said bleakly. "Sorry. We could argue about it for years and I still wouldn't agree with any of that. I guess my dad's right. We really do see things differently."

"Are there no bloodlimit clans in Konoha, then? I thought I saw a member of one on my way here." He wasn't surprised when Naruto flinched. "Should I assume his clan is more aligned with Konoha's morals than mine is?"

Naruto let out a disgusted breath, "No. If anything, the Hyuuga clan is worse. I just hate the clan mindset itself, especially the extreme ones. The clan heads have nearly as much say in the way the village is run as the Hokage does, with a lot more autonomy. Some of the clans have traditions that run counter to everything Konoha stands for. One of my biggest goals when I become Hokage is to find a way to change those traditions without driving the clans themselves away from the village."

"Good luck with that."

"Yeah," Naruto snorted. "I know."

A short time later, Sasuke found himself back in the bedroom, rifling through Naruto's very limited wardrobe. As he had discovered when he was washing his own clothing out in the bathtub, laundry wasn't something Naruto paid much attention to. Half of his clothes were dirty and a good portion of the clean ones were torn beyond repair. The t-shirt and shorts Naruto had lent him last night were fine to sleep in, but he didn't look forward to having to walk through the village in them. He had healed the cuts on his hands, both from his own teeth and Naruto's fingernails. The bandages he had wrapped around his neck and right knee were much more conspicuous. Naruto had taken one look at them, blushed an orangish red, and retreated into the hall closet. Sasuke took that to mean Naruto found the bandages more suspicious than the bruises they covered. If there was anyone in the village who didn't know he was sharing Naruto's bed, he wasn't going to be the one to inform them. An outfit suitable for a shinobi would keep anyone from wondering about the bandages at all. The problem was that Naruto didn't seem to own anything suitable for a shinobi.

"Those are my lounge clothes," Naruto said breathlessly, as he hurried into the room with a box in his arms. "I only wear uniforms when I'm leaving the village, on missions where I have to look the part. Our uniforms are great, don't get me wrong, but it's so much more comfortable without them. Or maybe I only think so because I've done so many missions dressed as lightly as a genin. Anyway, here." He pushed the box at Sasuke and stepped back to hover worriedly when he finally took it. "It's my chunin uniform, so the pants and vest will probably be small on you. If you bandage the ankles on the outside of the pants, I doubt anyone would know they're short, though. And you don't have to wear the vest, anyway. The shirt has a high collar and I only wore the uniform a few times, so it's just like new. And it's just for today, so-"

"This will do fine," Sasuke said, cutting into the worried babble. "My clothes will dry quickly, so I can change into them later if necessary."

Naruto shuffled in place, his eyes falling to the floor. "I'm really sorry I marked you up so badly. I've never given anyone a hickey before. I didn't realize they'd be so...noticeable."

Sasuke shook out the dark shirt. It was musty from being stored away, but perfectly serviceable. He changed into it before commenting. "There are mouth-shaped bruises overlapping each other all over my neck. Of course they're noticeable. Yet there isn't a trace of the one I left on your neck." He shot a resentful look at the spot just as Naruto's hands rose to feel at his own neck.

"You marked me?" Naruto asked. His voice rose in an oddly high pitch, and his eyes were wide and excited. "On which side?"

"The left. But there isn't a trace of it now."

Naruto let out a disgusted sound, actually stomping one of his feet. "I can't believe you marked me and I didn't even get a chance to show it off! That's not fair...!"

"Show it off?" Sasuke repeated, his upper lip rising slightly. "It isn't a badge of honor."

"Coming from you, yes it is. Absolutely. But I can see how you wouldn't view it that way." Naruto huffed moodily and dropped onto the edge of the bed. "I'm not saying I want to flaunt our sex life around or anything. It's just that leaving a kissmark on someone is like staking your claim on them. I'd be proud as hell to wear your claim for everyone to see. Not that I'd actually do it if it bothered you, but I'd like to at least have the option. I never even got to see it in the mirror. Was it dark?"

Sasuke had to think carefully to recall the last time he had actually seen the mark. He was sure it had been there, pink darkening to red, before they had gone to bed again. "It wasn't very dark. When you came back from your shower it was still red, but it was gone this morning. I thought you healed it."

"I never even realized it was there," Naruto sighed. "That's Kyuubi. His chakra seeps a little when I'm injured, so I heal faster than normal people. Believe me, I wouldn't have healed it if I had a choice about it. It's an automatic thing. I never really learned the healing jutsus, otherwise I would have taken care of that bruise on your cheek last night."

He would have healed the light bruising on his face but not the dark ones on his neck? Sasuke considered asking the question, but decided against it. He was more interested in the demon's chakra having a healing effect. "Does that chakra seepage help with general physical strain, or just injuries?"

"It's only really noticeable with injuries. I have a lot of chakra on my own, so I don't need any of his to recover from training or a long mission. My stamina and chakra reserves are my strong point," Naruto said proudly. "His chakra is set up to seep a little when necessary, to augment my own. But I don't rely on him any more than I absolutely have to."

Which meant there was a reason Naruto had recovered from their 'exertions' so easily. Some of Sasuke's resentment eased with that knowledge, though he now wondered if there was any point training with Naruto at all. His chakra reserves were hardly noteworthy and stamina was definitely not one of his strong points. That didn't even take into account how much the demon's chakra could enhance Naruto's natural abilities. Yet there had to be a drawback or else Naruto wouldn't hesitate to draw on the demon any time he liked. He racked his brain for anything he might have heard about Gaara's demon and came up empty.

Sasuke finished dressing in the shirt and pants. He bound his ankles and then eyed the vest, still lying in the box. "Do all chunin wear this uniform here? Even if it were the right size, that vest would still be cumbersome."

"I'm told they get used to it," Naruto said, with a weak grin. "Chunin and Jounin both wear the same basic uniform. The biggest difference is the vest, but some people just stick with the one they like best or forgo both. Konoha isn't very strict about uniforms unless there are clan heads or dignitaries to appease. Personally, my favorite uniform was the Anbu uniform. My own clothes borrow from that a little. Pockets are great and all, but I don't use a lot of tools as a rule, so I lean more for mobility than added protection."

Sasuke's eyes flicked toward the first clothing he had found in Naruto's closet, the ones that looked worn most often. "And the orange?"

"Only in Konoha," Naruto explained. "I picked that up as a kid. It's hard to ignore someone in orange even if you try to. I kept the color later because, being a target anyway, I figured I might as well make myself easier to see. It keeps other people from getting caught up in my problems. But don't worry, I promise not to be the only spot of orange in the forest when we go on missions."

"I should hope not."

Naruto snorted, a wry grin pulling at his mouth. "Blue and white doesn't exactly blend into the canopy, you know."

"Those were my lounge clothes," Sasuke said, borrowing Naruto's term. "They ended up suiting that mission just fine because I wanted to be seen." He knew why Naruto commented on it, though. The other boys on that mission had all worn the standard black and grays one would expect, most of which had been supplied by Sound as they owned no uniforms of their own. He hadn't been given time to do more than arm himself before setting out on that mission. He considered himself lucky not to have been wearing the Uchiha symbol on his back. But had he been given a choice, he probably would have dressed in colors even more striking than what he had gone with. His goal had been to catch and hold their attention, after all, not to disappear. "Unless the client provided a uniform, I usually wore black on missions. That one was an exception."

"We would never have tracked you so far if it weren't for those white shorts. Your ass looked great in those, by the way." Naruto winced when Sasuke shot him a disgruntled look. "Sorry. That just slipped out. I swear, my mind isn't always in the gutter. It's just that I had dreams about those shorts, how they were the only thing visible in the dark, and you did just get changed right in front of me so I couldn't help but notice how much those boxers I lent you remind me of those shorts, and yeah, I'll shut up now." Naruto pressed his lips tightly together as a light blush broke out on his cheeks.

Sasuke stared at him until that blush darkened and Naruto dropped his eyes. Was this another kink? "Was I always wearing the same outfit when you used a henge on your bunshin?"

Naruto winced, his hands fussing with the blanket. "You think I'm a complete pervert, don't you. I should never have told you about that. I want to be completely honest with you about as much as possible, but...I should have kept that to myself. Normal people don't do things like that."

"Have you ever used a kunai during sex?"

"What?" Naruto's head snapped up, a wary expression taking over his face. "You mean like for bondage...?"

"No, I mean for penetration." Sasuke watched the color drain from his face.

"Is that what you think? That I'm the sort of person who-"

"No, I don't think that. But I've met shinobi who boasted of having done that and worse," Sasuke explained. "From what you told me, your use of clones was creative masturbation at best. I don't know what shinobi here consider normal during sex, but I doubt you have anything to worry about. Compared to the ones in Sound, you might not even count as a pervert."

Naruto shook his head, that sick look remaining on his face. "Are you sure they were talking about sex and not torture...?"

"I don't know that they differentiate between the two," Sasuke admitted. "I usually went out of hearing range when they began talking in detail about their exploits. I hadn't been trained in either subject and didn't care to pick up misinformation."

"Thanks," Naruto muttered. "Now I have another reason to hate that village. That explains it, though."

"Explains what?"

"Why you assumed sex with me would be torture and that all shinobi go through some sort of sexual torture training. They don't," Naruto said sharply. "Not here. There are shinobi who use sex during missions, and they do get trained for that in particular. But they choose to go into that specialty. As for torture, only those in the interrogation fields take any detailed training courses for it. Missions are assigned carefully so that the shinobi is qualified to handle the risks involved, whether that involves using his or her body, or withstanding torture if captured. Most shinobi do learn all about sex by the time they become jounin, but that's because their life expectancy is shorter. I wouldn't say sex is casual, but it's certainly a popular way to relieve stress. They learn by experimenting with each other. Because they want to, not because they have to."

"Then you haven't received any sort of sexual training?"

"None. Everything I know, I learned from reading, listening, and trying things out myself."

With whores and bunshin. That made Sasuke wonder how many other shinobi did similar things when they didn't have convenient partners available. Although the stories he had heard in Sound were the worst, he had overheard sexual exploit huddles all over the place. It was always the same, shinobi bunched together, sometimes with alcohol, chortling and slapping backs as they talked about how many and how long and with what. More than once the people talking had been younger than him, so he had assumed sex was something that had been left out of his own training. Were all shinobi perverts, then? For all he knew, what he considered perverted could be perfectly normal in the eyes of others.

He lifted his right hand and eyed it speculatively. "Is it strange that I didn't like touching that breast of yours last night?" Men were always talking about breasts, yet he had found the squishy texture repulsive. Naruto didn't answer right away. He looked up to find him biting his lip. "You said it never fails to get a positive reaction."

"It never has before," Naruto said reluctantly. "But that doesn't mean much. You might prefer small breasts. Or maybe it was the fact that you know I'm actually male that turned you off. It could be any number of things. This is hardly a normal situation, you know? Don't worry about it."

Sasuke accepted that with a nod. He would never marry, so it didn't matter that he might never have enjoyed touching his wife's breasts. "I'm glad you told me about your bunshin," he offered in return. "I do consider you an unmitigated pervert, but since I don't know what 'normal' is, that doesn't mean much. Don't worry about it."

Naruto snorted. "Thanks. I tell you what, if you ever do want a 'sex training' course, I'll use my perverted imagination to devise one for you. I could even teach you how to practice on your own bunshin, if you like."

"I don't think that will be necessary," Sasuke drawled in amusement. "Just having sex with you will probably teach me more than any course could."

This time Naruto actually laughed. "I still have things to learn myself, but I know the important parts. Sex is supposed to be fun and pleasurable. As long as you've got that down, anything else is just a bonus." He hopped off the bed and grabbed Sasuke's arm, tugging him toward the door. "Now let's get out of here before this unmitigated pervert gets it in his head to teach you something. I've got bondage and white shorts on the brain and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be up for the combo right now."

"Definitely not." Even as he said it, Sasuke could feel his curiosity stirring. Luckily he had enough aches to remind him of why he wanted to get out of this apartment and stretch his legs. He wanted to work out his own kinks, not give in to another of Naruto's.

.-.
TBC