Naruto was never the brightest crayon in the box of art supplies that was Konoha. If he absolutely NEEDED to be nailed down to an exact color, the blonde would probably choose his trademark color- bright screaming orange. However, this would only be how he saw himself. In reality he would probably be closer to a brown. Perhaps a light brown, if he were judged by his performance at certain points during missions, but a brown crayon nonetheless. Unsurprisingly, his sensei would be a light gray, almost white. And Sakura's brightest girl tendencies would likely earn her the lovely shade of pink that new mothers often use to decorate their baby's room after, hopefully, being informed that their new buddle was going to be female. Ironically, despite whatever protests the boy might put up, Sasuke would likely be voted a bright, cheery yellow.

Coming back to the point, Naruto wasn't the most perceptive of people. But even he was able to tell that something was not right when the girl in his arms stopped responding. Drawing back, he spoke the Hyuuga heir's name softly. When this got no response, Naruto tried to look into her eyes, but found them angled in another direction, over his shoulder. It was only when he turned his own head around to try and see just what it was that held her attention that Hinata seemed to remember he was even there. He felt a warm hand close over his elbow firmly, even as his lower jaw dropped open.

"SASUKE!"

"Naruto!" Hinata's grip on his arm doubled, so that if his eyes weren't currently fixed on his rival in unmasked shock, he would have screamed at the sudden pain. Sasuke was just sitting there, perched calmly on the branch outside his window as he had done dozens of times before when Kakashi had sent him to wake the blonde up on days that he overslept. From the expression on the black-haired boy's face, one would think that it was completely normal for him to be where he was. Why WOULDN'T he be peeping in on his best friend and his naked girlfriend?

On that train of thought, Naruto came to the startling discovery that Hinata was EXACTLY what Sasuke's eyes were glued on. Even when he had shouted out the other ninja's name, the coal eyes didn't shift. Naruto felt Hinata's other hand come up to his shoulder to hold him in a grip just as steely as the first's. If she had caught his reflection in the window, she might have seen the fiercely protective look that came over his face.

"What the hell are you doing here!" Naruto screamed, or meant too. The fierce need to protect his mate probably appealed to something in the Kyuubi, or so Naruto told himself, and that was the reason he gave himself when his voice came out as a growl.

Sasuke blinked once, graciously sparing the blonde a glance before his attention refocused on Hinata; he seemed to be trying to convey something. Anger? Disgust? Threat? Naruto couldn't read the urgent emotion flickering in his teammate's normally blank face. He started to get up to approach him with the intention of demanding an explanation, but before he could rise three inches he was forced to notice the surprisingly strong white hands digging into the right side of his upper body.

Jerking her lover back down onto the couch, the future Hyuuga leader's expression was fierce when Naruto looked at her. She was staring right back at the Uchiha, so... seriously. Then, as Naruto studied his lover's face, he saw the eyes suddenly grow wide and felt her hands on him become lax. Though he heard the betraying little 'poof,' the demon-holder still swung his head around to face the window again, and was rewarded with the sight of fading lavender smoke. In the tree, exactly where his teammate had crouched, a kunai had its tip buried in the bark.

He really hoped that whoever suggested testing academy student's abilities through the bunshin part of the Academy exam was rotting in their grave...

Naruto got up to look around outside his window. Hinata didn't say anything as he muttered, more to himself than anyone else, "That pervert! How long did he plan on staying there before..."

"I need to go." When the blonde turned around, Hinata was already on the floor, looking for discarded clothing. The navy blue trousers were already pulled up to her hips though from the loose fit, Naruto guessed that they hadn't been buttoned. He watched, fixated, as the girl pressed her upper body against the ground so that she could look under the couch in search of the black tank top and bra. Her breasts flattened against the cold wood floor, making the girl shiver even as she tried to concentrate on her search. When she stood up with an exasperated sigh, Naruto forced his attention off the part of her body that bounced with her, peeked from the cool contact.

"You don't have to leave just because of him," he said, meaning to reassure. For a second it seemed that Hinata glared when her eyes focused on him. He blinked to clear his eyes, but when he opened them again the girl's sweet expression seemed to have returned.

The white hands sprang together over the girl's stomach, clinging to each other like barroom brawlers. "I-I d-don't want my family to find out th-that I snuck out." Even as she spoke, Hinata's eyes swept along the floor. Naruto wondered why she didn't just activate her Byakugan if she was in such a hurry to find her clothes.

"But if they haven't noticed you're gone by now..." Naruto trailed off when a sound from outside made the Hinata jump to her feet. It was literally a one-minute-she-was-on-her-knees-the-next-on-her-feet, jump. This time Naruto could not resist the reflex that was born into him by training with not one, but two legendary perverts, as his attention shot to appreciating the movement's effect on certain parts of the girl's body.

Hinata snatched up her jacket, apparently giving up the other two pieces of clothing as lost. One arm was thrust into its sleeve so quickly that Naruto imagined hearing the fabric rip. "You okay?" he said, not at all forging the concern after her head turned again and he glimpsed her expression.

"H-Hai," she said. "I should probably...just...get home..." When Hinata had started speaking her eyes were on the window behind Naruto, but as they began to focus more on the blonde she noticed that while she had been hurrying to get dress, he had simply stood watching her. Hinata's face turned red. This might have been done partially to the fact that without clothes, the result of Naruto watching a half naked girl scurry about his living room was not at all hidden.

A silence followed. Hinata's eyes kept raking up and down the blonde's body thoughtfully. The blonde shifted his weight uncomfortably when he realized that Hinata must have also inherited the ability to go for long stretches of time without blinking. Maybe it was a part of their bloodline limit.

"Uh...Do you want me to walk you home?" Naruto offered, his hand went behind his head to scratch at some imaginary bug.

"NO!" the Hyuuga heirs eyes snapped away from the blonde. Her temporarily immobilized hands began to once again work the jacket onto her body, noticeably making an effort to do so more calmly than before. "If anyone saw us out this late, they might think that we were doing..."

Two blue eyes flicked away from the pale skinned girl as she trailed off. If bitterness came into his voice, he insisted that it was only because of the name he was using while he filled in the end of her sentence. "What Sasuke saw us doing?"

Hinata's right hand was on the door knob, the left pulling up the zipper of her white coat, effectively hiding the last of her body from him. "Naruto... uh, goodnight." The sound of the door closing announced the Hyuuga's exit. Naruto walked forward just enough so that when he fell forward in frustration, he landed on the couch. Rolling over, he glared at the ceiling. Stupid Sasuke, ruining everything...

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The moment the door of apartment 69A closed, Sasuke took off running. All pretenses the Uchiha heir had of putting up a good Hinata performance where gone as he let his jutsu go. A simple puff of smoke blossomed around the slender girl's body for a moment, and then was left behind as a frantic young man rushed out of it.

Sasuke nearly crashed into the door leading into the stairwell. His feet couldn't move fast enough to satisfy his nerves. Daring gravity to bring him tumbling down, he took the steps two at a time, jumping at three when he came close to the large concrete slabs used to keep the stairs continuing in a square-shaped spiral.

He remembered the orders that he had given his clone before coming to Naruto's apartment. Only come if the plan is discovered. Someone had vanished Sasuke's clone while it tried to warn him outside Naruto's apartment. Whoever it was must have been close to the Hyuuga estate, and either clever enough to recognize a clone, or angry enough to kill. Sasuke cursed as he jumped down the remaining three steps to reach the ground level. The fact that his body was already starting to feel a faint soreness despite returning to its proper gender was not going to help him if he was planning to run.

The yellow light was still on when he reached the ground floor. There was no one to be seen through the glass windows in the lobby as Sasuke slowed to a walk on his way to the door. As a genin that should have been promoted years ago, he knew that showing panic on a mission was giving yourself over to death. Even if it was a horribly failed mission, it was important not to show signs of fear to an enemy ninja. Sasuke kept this going through his mind while his inner voice screamed at him to start running again, pointing out that if he had followed its original orders he would have no problem listening to it now. He saw his reflection for the third time that night, first time as a male, as he passed by the same little shop he had stood outside earlier that evening. The bored mask had slipped back into place without his noticing; if he weren't in such a hurry, he might have smirked at himself for the accomplishment.

Turning his head, Sasuke looked up at Naruto's apartment window. The light was still on in the living room, where Sasuke was no longer sure if he would ever be able to visit again as himself. He didn't know if he could sit on that same couch and not remember the way it had grown warm and sweat-sticky under his back, or if he could resist smirking if his eyes fell on places where his hands had pulled and stretched the already worn fabric during the moment Naruto had first entered him.

Or rather, entered Hinata. With a shudder that wasn't really caused by the cold and absence of the over stuffed white jacket, Sasuke thought to himself, I know she's a virgin now.

That was a bit of information that he really never would have thought about under any other circumstances.

Even with his mind wandering, Sasuke had been aware that there was a ninja nearby that could spot him at any moment, so when two hands grabbed him by the collar it wasn't too great of a surprise. His mask managed to stay in place. Even if he hadn't planned on being so easily yanked into an ally and pushed up against the damp brick wall, while a pair of icy white eyes bore into him.

"Uchiha." Somehow, Neji managed to make his greeting sound like an accusation.

Sasuke made a point of keeping anger from his voice when he responded. "Hyuuga." The two most silent ninjas of Konoha stared at one another. It was the second time that they had been totally alone with each other and, like the first time, neither wanted to make conversation. But unlike that day on the bridge, when Neji had set everything in motion that led up to this moment, both ninja knew that escaping the situation without speaking was not a possibility. Still, that didn't mean that either wanted to be the first one to break the silence.

Neji's hands moved just a little, one at a time, as he got a better hold on the Uchiha heir's shirt. The staring contest that came up between them wasn't broken. Or at least, Neji thought that there was a staring contest. In reality, part of the Uchiha heir's ability to keep his face expressionless was to focus his thoughts inward, and right a that moment, Sasuke focused on the thought that he really, REALLY wanted a shower after tonight's... mission. Neji was the one who spoke first, dragging Sasuke away from his thoughts. "What were you doing in Naruto's apartment?"

The coal black eyes stayed trained on the white, though if the disgusted look that came to Neji's normally passive face meant anything, Sasuke guessed that he wasn't able to control his blush. Still, he kept his voice cold. "None of your business."

White eyes narrowed as Sasuke was reminded of his thoughts on comparing the Hyuuga eyes to a dead man's. "Then why were you pretending to be Hinata?"

The Uchiha's body stiffened in the long haired ninja's hold. In the back of his mind, he heard the echo of his teammate's earlier shout. Pervert!

The accuracy of Sasuke's imagination was so real, that his body actually started to quiver. He was at a loss when Neji's head turned back toward the mouth of the ally where orange tinted light spilled so earnestly in to try to flood out the shadows. He was forced to follow the other ninja's lead when a painfully easy-to-identify voice shouted, "THERE YOU ARE, YOU BASTARD!"

The quivering became outright shaking. If Sasuke hadn't had such a well developed self-control, his legs might have started twitching as his unknowing lover came closer. Neji looked at him with an eyebrow raised. Footsteps rapidly approaching could be heard by both dark haired ninja.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING BACK THERE!" Naruto's shout echoed off the walls of the ally, enhancing the sound of the blonde's voice. Clearly, Naruto had no consideration for his neighbors. Sasuke wondered briefly if this would be put into Tsunade's new little Naruto-column in tomorrows newspaper, as three different curtain sets shifted in the building behind Naruto's head. Sasuke's mouth went dry -actually, his entire throat shriveled up as he watched his glaring teammate come to a stop next to him, blue eyes burning brightly in the darkened mouth of the ally. He was so close… Wishing that he could lean farther away, Sasuke wondered if the Kyuubi could smell Naruto's scent on him.

Naruto didn't notice Sasuke's obvious discomfort as he stabbed a finger at the angel-faced ninja, nearly hitting the other boy's nose in the process. "If you tell ANYONE what you saw back there I don't care if your whole freaking fanclub comes after me, I WILL KILL YOU!"

"Na... Naruto," Sasuke wasn't sure whether he was more surprised by the weak voice that came out of his mouth, or the fact that his tightly locked throat allowed sound to come out at all. Naruto's angry gaze was still on him, threatening to change into a sweltering, slit red glare. Sasuke was almost glad when the third occupant of the ally spoke before he could.

"What did he see?"

Despite the presence of Konoha's loudest ninja, another silence fell while Naruto for the first time noticed the long haired Hyuuga who was so considerately holding his rival captive for him. The blonde head turned as if his eyes could not travel on their own, between the two pale faces, then to where Neji firmly held onto Sasuke, then back to Neji again. Sasuke could almost see his teammate recalling the hurried excuse about Hinata worrying that her family would miss her.

Sheepishly, the blonde ninja said, "He, uh...just scared me while I was asleep..."

Even while Naruto spoke, Neji's eyes were traveling over his hastily thrown on clothes and bare feet. Sasuke was also sure the white eyes caught the swollen lips, the bite mark he had put on the tanned neck. Then he looked over at Sasuke for a minute too. What he saw in the shadowed, filtered light couldn't have been much better. When he finally did speak the voice was hard and cold and his eyes remained focused on Sasuke's. "He came here with me. I needed help with something."

Naruto would have been an idiot to have not thought about the hostile hold that Neji was still inflicting on his said "helper." The hands were tightening, even under the blue gaze, to a point where the normally wide collar was coming close to threatening its owner's air supply. Tensely, he asked, "What did you need?"

The white eyes didn't even blink. "I found someone on the Hyuuga property that ran here."

Naruto, still a dobe no matter what the time, didn't seem to recognize the Get-Out-Of-Here voice when he heard it. "Er...Doesn't Sasuke live-"

"He was in the area." ...Well, Sasuke couldn't blame the blonde for trying to help….

"Er... do you still need help finding him?" Naruto looked reluctant to let Sasuke go. He might have been worried that Hinata hadn't made it home yet.

"No," Neji said. "I already caught him."

The blonde's eyes darted to Neji's hold on his teammate once more. "Uh... okay."

Neji, impatient, made it clear that Naruto was no longer wanted in the conversation as he turned his head away from his captive. "Goodnight, Naruto."

"... Goodnight, Neji." Sasuke watched as his rival took one, reluctant step away from him. Then another. At the mouth of the ally, the blonde turned around and walked off in the direction of his apartment building. Though even with Naruto's foot prints fading out of ear shot, Sasuke could still feel his chakra signature clearly, and knew that Neji must have also. The dobe must have used kage bunshin, but it was so like him to forget something as basic as hiding his chakra.

The knowledge of the Uchiha's teammate nearby and ready to jump back into the ally at any moment only faze the white eyed boy for a second. Ruthlessly, the hands holding onto his collar jerked the opening wide so that when Neji leaned close, he could easily bury his nose there. Sasuke heart quickened as he heard Neji breathe in the musk trapped between his shirt and body. At first he wasn't sure what the Hyuuga was doing until the perfectly cared for head shot back, the eyes wide. Again, like a dead man's. The hands immediately tightened; closing off the opening again as if the smell of sex would leak out to attack him if left alone. By the half light from the street, Sasuke saw the shadows on Neji's jaw move as he spoke each word, "Don't ruined Hinata's relationship, Uchiha. If you tell Naruto what you did tonight…" If there was more to Neji's sentence, Sasuke didn't hear it. He hadn't fought the Hyuuga once since he had been caught, and as a result of that Neji had let his guard down. The other boy's expression couldn't be clearly seen when Sasuke's knee came up sharply to hit him directly in… the stomach (he wouldn't sink so low as to attack other places). He twisted while hands were loosened in surprise, darting away and jumping up onto the roofs. The dull soreness grew to regular pain, but he refused to stop. He knew that Neji's Byakugan was likely activated and watching him, and that if Naruto was watching too, he wouldn't believe that he was really Sasuke. But he couldn't care about that now. All that his mind had the strength to process was that he had let himself lose control, he needed a shower, he was sore in awkward places, and damnit! Someone knew about everything!

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A/N:

Hey everyone, look! Neji's back!

So, now Sasuke's carrying. garnishes a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting I come from an unbelievably large family, and I plan to exaggerate everything I hear about pregnancies for poor, beat-your-friend-to-a-pulp-and-run-off-with-a-snake-man Sasuke. Suggests are also highly welcomed.

I'd like to thank my new beta for checking everything for me! THANKS, UNERASEBLE SIN!