Today's chapter title is in honor of the new Star Wars movie. Don't worry, it's just Sasuke being his normal, ominous self.

Merry Christmas and all that!

*Throws chapter at you and hope you forget I'm late*

Chapter 26: I've got a bad feeling about this

xxx

Sasuke was feeling on edge. It had started sometime last night, continued in the morning, and now during work he couldn't shake the feeling off that something was different. Maybe it was Naruto's terrible singing in the morning still lingering in his ears… But no, there was something and he didn't like not knowing exactly why he felt skittish.

It was almost as if he was subconsciously expecting this something, and not having it happen yet put his conscious thoughts on edge.

Sasuke didn't believe much in supernatural stuff but he did believe in his gut feeling, and currently it was telling him to watch out. It was probably Naruto's fault. At least it felt better to blame it on him, because then he could push it to the back of his mind and ignore it.

Either way, Naruto had seemed much happier after getting everything off his chest last night, so that much was good he supposed. It was just that, well, his happy had been a strange sort of happy. He'd caught him staring, not necessarily at Sasuke's face, with an almost curious expression before looking away again. It wasn't only curiosity, but he preferred not to dwell on the various emotions flickering across that tan face. He'd felt slightly relieved to leave for work, getting put on paperwork duty today.

Which was really fucking awful, because the filing system they used was giving him a headache as Fugaku's assistant Tomoko tried to explain it to him. She was an elderly woman, someone he wasn't sure he'd seen as a child, with a kind smile but merciless expectations.

"Alright," she started, in that voice Sasuke had learnt during the past few hours meant she was going to quiz him. "Your colleague hands you a report from the hearing of a victim of theft. The incident took place last night while they were asleep. What do you do with it?"

Last night… Naruto had been hugging him in his sleep. He'd barely been able to move at all, dammit.

"I mark it with today's date as date of hearing, then yesterday's date as time of incident, then check that the answers contain all the necessary information before handing it to the person in charge of assigning the investigations."

"Good," she nodded, preparing another question.

Sasuke was so utterly, terribly bored. He clearly wasn't cut out for paperwork, sending a wishful look after a couple of officers heading out for patrol. He'd spent so long travelling around and training, and then the past year was all spent outdoors building stuff. As much as he'd found construction work to be a menial task it sure as hell beat paperwork.

"And what does that necessary information consist of?"

Refraining from banging his head onto his desk, Sasuke rattled off the most important ones, only forgetting one of them.

Luckily he was left on his own soon afterwards, with Tomoko dumping a large pile of papers on his desk. She said they were old cases that could be stored away, asking him to double check their statuses and cross them out from the assigned investigations list (which was less of a list and more like a thick book) so that the officers wouldn't need to bother with closed cases.

It was slow work, and he got several pitying looks from others walking past him. Still, he felt rather satisfied by the end of the day when he'd managed to reduce the pile to half its size. Strangely enough he was starving, even though he hadn't even done any physical work besides turning papers and scribbling notes. Iruka had been nice enough to send him off with a bento, but apparently his stomach had already forgotten all about it.

He exchanged a few words with Tomoko before preparing to leave, surprised when she told him Fugaku wanted to see him in his office before he left. Walking over to the office, he knocked before being told to enter.

"How was your day?" Fugaku asked, smiling at him with a rather tired face.

"Fine," Sasuke replied stiffly, not exactly used to this type of conversation. "And yours?"

Fugaku laughed quietly, shaking his head.

"We've still got trouble with those escaped criminals," he admitted, rubbing his cheek where stubble was beginning to grow. "And then there was a married couple who wouldn't stop fighting even when physically separated… There's always extra work when ninjas squabble, all the damaged property."

He smiled despite his words, motioning for Sasuke to sit down.

"But enough of that. I feel like I haven't seen you in several days, Mikoto is worried you don't enjoy her cooking."

Sighing, Sasuke leaned back in his chair, feeling the strain of the past days in his shoulders.

"It's nothing like that," he said. "Naruto just keeps dragging me away."

"Well," Fugaku said with a teasing look, "he's quite fond of you."

Embarrassed but not sure why, Sasuke shrugged and let his eyes sweep around the small office instead. It was filled with books and stacks of paper, diplomas hanging neatly on a wall. He wondered if this was how his own father's office had looked like.

"If you can, try to join us for dinner tonight. Shisui's in charge of making dessert and he always creates the most interesting things."

Not so sure that sounded promising, Sasuke still nodded dutifully.

"And now, to move on to business. I know that your current situation is a lot to deal with, and we're all happy to see you back on your feet again. But I wanted to ask you if, after you've had a couple days to recover, you'd like to come with me on a mission?"

Sasuke's stomach made a somersault, his breath caught in his throat for a moment. Join Fugaku on a mission? He couldn't help the conflicting emotions of apprehension and excitement.

"What kind of mission?" he asked carefully, reminding himself that he hadn't been on active duty for a year, and that he hadn't exactly been doing any regular types of missions before that. He didn't want to screw up because he didn't know the routines.

"We've gotten reports of a certain wanted man being seen over by the border to the Land of Tea. It's a couple days of travel, but they've requested our aid since they don't have any ninja of their own."

"I assume this guy is rather dangerous."

Fugaku nodded, clasping his hands in front of him as all humor left his expression.

"He's an exiled ninja from Suna. Some years ago they discovered him selling secret ninja techniques to whoever paid the most. He's one of the escaped prisoners, and it would definitely look good if we caught him again."

Sasuke swallowed. He hadn't expected that his first mission as a ninja of Konoha (even though this was a different Konoha) would be to capture a missing nin.

"I'll consider it."

Another nod, and then Fugaku relaxed again.

"And before I forget, I noticed you and Naruto left your forehead protectors at home." Opening a drawer, he pulled out two headbands, both dark blue. "Please use them as you like."

Feeling everything switch to slow-motion, Sasuke felt his heart pound in his ears as he reached out automatically to accept the items. He opened his mouth but no sound came out, feeling their weight in his hand.

Neither he nor Naruto had worn theirs this past year. Of course, Sasuke only had the old, scratched one that Naruto had kept (and wasn't he just something else for holding on to it this long). For some reason, Naruto had decided he wouldn't wear his either until Sasuke was reinstated as an official ninja again. He wondered if he would have been by now if they hadn't ended up here.

In Sasuke's opinion it was rather silly that Naruto refused to wear it, he was working in the Hokage tower for crying out loud. But his friend had stubbornly held on to his promise, storing both their forehead protectors away in his apartment.

"Everything alright?" Fugaku asked in concern, obviously noticing how Sasuke kept staring at his hand in silence.

"Yeah," he forced out, lowering it and looking up again. "Thank you."

After promising yet again to try and show up for dinner, Sasuke left the police headquarters in a daze. The forehead protectors rested in a pocket, feeling strange there. Out of place. He hadn't worn one in so long, and hadn't even been sure that he would start even after becoming a ninja again.

But still. In this world, things were different.

In this world, he worked under his father. In this world, his mother worried he didn't want to eat at home. In this world, he had a brother and cousin, and a whole clan.

Maybe he could wear it, after all.

His feet took him to Iruka's place, having promised Naruto he'd come by after work. Coincidentally, Naruto seemed to have just arrived back with the kids from the Academy, all of them milling around the front door. Instead of joining, Sasuke stopped just inside the gate, leaning against it and lifting his face towards the sun. Getting used to all these emotions was so tiresome. How did people even keep up with it? Sure, he'd been doing just fine as a child but that was long ago, enough to feel like a different life. Being as expressive as Naruto would have to be insanely tiring.

Soon enough, Naruto managed to shove all the children inside and came jogging back outside to meet him.

"You're early," he commented, stretching his arms high above his head before letting them fall back down.

"More like you're late," Sasuke retorted, his mind working on overdrive to try and decide what to do with the contents of his pocket.

"Nah, but they all insisted on staying for a while to watch some other kids spar. It was pretty cute."

"Hn."

Squinting, Naruto snuck closer to him, inspecting his face.

"And what's the matter with you?" he asked, squint turning into a frown when Sasuke only swallowed and gripped the fence behind him tighter. "Did something happen?"

Averting his eyes, Sasuke couldn't understand why he was making such a big deal out of this. All he had to do was give Naruto one of the headbands and that was that.

"You look kinda pale," Naruto mused, brushing a few of his bangs from his forehead, and Sasuke sucked in a breath.

"I'm fine," he exhaled, still refusing to meet Naruto's eyes.

"Yeah well, usually when you say that you're actually not fine at all."

Sasuke pressed his lips together, wishing Naruto didn't have to be so close. He felt trapped between him and the fence, wondering why his heart beat so fast when Naruto's breath washed over his mouth.

His need to escape the situation was bigger than the reluctance to tell Naruto, and so he shoved his hand down his pocket and all but pushed the headbands into Naruto's face.

"I got these from Fugaku," he muttered, glancing at the other's surprised look before crossing his arms and turning his head to the side. "He said we can do what we want with them."

He could feel Naruto staring at him, uncharacteristically silent. If only he would say something! Sasuke didn't want to stand there with all the tension building up, digging his nails into his arms and drawing shallow breaths.

Naruto was turning the headbands over, examining them, eyes distant in thought. The sunlight caught in the metal, reflecting it perfectly since both surfaces were polished and smooth. Definitely unused.

"You shouldn't have to wear this," Naruto broke the silence with, thumb running over the metal on one of them. "It's-"

"It's just a forehead protector," Sasuke interrupted him with, unable to deal with the sad, regretful look on Naruto's face. "I'm wearing the police symbol, aren't I."

Naruto's eyes ran along his arm to where the symbol was sewed on, a tightness to his mouth as he squeezed the metal plates in his hand.

"This is different. I wanted to give you one when-" He caught himself, cheeks dusted pink as he rubbed his neck. "Well, you know."

"Nothing says I would have accepted it."

As soon as the words left his mouth he regretted them. Naruto had flinched, both hands wringing the forehead protectors now.

"I wouldn't leave," he added softly, biting the inside of his cheek when Naruto raised his eyes, so blue and filled with emotions Sasuke didn't want to think about.

"Yeah. You told me."

Sasuke felt his breath leave him, lungs impossible to fill again as Naruto's gaze held his. He didn't want to feel like this. Why did Naruto always have to make things so, so irrational. He found himself itching to do things he wasn't supposed to, rushes of what could be fear or exhilaration filling his body as he stood frozen. Had this been a fight, he would have pulled out a kunai and cut himself just so he could regain control, but even that wasn't possible as Naruto came closer, the heat from his body like scorching fire as fingers brushed over the back of his hand.

"What are you going to do?" Naruto whispered, and Sasuke couldn't remember why he was asking that.

Do? About what?

Naruto's eyes flickered down at the headbands he still held, and Sasuke felt the tension leave his body for a glorious second. Then it was back, but at least he could breathe, blue eyes determined as Naruto lifted his hand to run light fingertips across Sasuke's forehead.

"I'll wear it if you do," he continued, but Sasuke barely registered the words.

No, he was much too occupied with the crashing waves of emotion wreaking havoc in his body. When he concentrated, he could sense two opposing sides doing the crashing. One was that colorful brightness he'd felt during his coma, the one he'd groaned and suffered through and pretended he'd never felt before.

The other side was pretty much every other emotion.

"Sasuke?"

Closing his eyes, Sasuke took a deep breath and begged the storm inside his body to pass. He didn't know how to deal with this. Hell, he hardly even understood what was going on! So much for being a genius…

"It's whatever," he forced out through clenched teeth, everything so wound up and it needed to stop.

He heard Naruto sigh deeply, and only when the other ninja relaxed did Sasuke realize that Naruto had been this tense, too.

"I wanted to do this properly, but…" Naruto trailed off, and while Sasuke still had his eyes closed he could hear him put one forehead protector into a pocket and then raise the other with both hands. "Lean down a little."

Drained and weak now, Sasuke's shoulders slumped as he did as told, a shiver running down his spine when Naruto's fingers held his temples gently and lowered his head even further. He felt fabric touch above his eyebrows, and then something brushed over the middle of his forehead, so quick it was barely there, but-

Sasuke's eyes flew open, staring unseeingly at the ground as Naruto tied the ends together securely around his head. Was that- But- It couldn't be-

"That should do it," Naruto mumbled, stepping back and letting go of him. "You look…"

Forcing his heart back down his throat, Sasuke swallowed thickly and straightened up again. He wouldn't look at Naruto, though, raising a hand to the forehead protector instead. It seemed as if Naruto's words had failed him because he stayed silent, not moving as Sasuke adjusted his hair around the fabric.

At this point, he was feeling so much he'd turned numb. He spent much more time than needed to arrange his hair, his brain stuck on a repeat of why what the hell was that did he really but what do I do and why can't I just fucking BREATHE.

Was it going to happen now? That something he'd been expecting, was that now? Because he was not fucking ready, and Naruto was still too close and now-

And now he was hugging him, holding him tight against his body, and all of a sudden Sasuke felt so nice and calm and warm. He drew in a shuddering breath, holding it in for a moment before slowly letting it out again. It was completely irrational that he'd calm down this fast simply from a hug. Glancing behind himself, he could see Naruto's arms glow faintly of chakra. Oh. Figures.

But there was no need to hug him then, was there? He wasn't in a position to complain though, because right now things were feeling pretty damn good compared to earlier.

"I'm sorry," Naruto mumbled into his shoulder, making Sasuke frown in confusion. "I didn't notice you were so upset."

Upset? Sasuke hadn't been upset. He'd just… suffered from hormones or something. He was fine. Totally. His jaw just needed to unclench so he could open his mouth and say it.

Naruto pushed the forehead protector off his head, but Sasuke barely noticed that. He didn't care about it. What a silly thing to be bothered by. No, there was something much worse going on here, and he needed to occupy himself so he wouldn't have to deal with it.

"I'm-" he started, stopped by Naruto's fingers digging into his back.

Okay, so he wasn't fine, but it's not like he was dying or something.

"Let's get you something to eat, and then you should take a nice long bath and go to bed," Naruto ordered, Sasuke huffing in disagreement.

Those things didn't seem like good distractions at all. Nope, that just wouldn't do.

"I promised Charasuke to train with him today," he lied, though it was only a technical lie because he'd promised to do it soon, just not at a specified time.

"What?! You are not going to-"

Sasuke promptly shoved his hand against Naruto's mouth, a rather difficult feat since he was still being hugged.

"I've been hunched over paperwork all day, I didn't bring it up for discussion."

Naruto glared at him, seething, which was funny because he never said no when Sasuke asked to train with him.

"Fine," he hissed, "But I'll be watching you."

"Your threats mean nothing to me," Sasuke droned, looking off to the side, another difficult feat when Naruto was practically in his face.

He felt much too comfortable to shove him away, however. He could feel the last slivers of tension drifting off, driven by Naruto's chakra. Though he would rather die than admit it, he couldn't help but bask in the sweet feeling of it, no stupid emotions flapping around with Naruto's chakra running through his veins. He could have probably asked him to do this instead of taking that calming drug Orochimaru had given him, but yeah that was just never going to happen.

"You are such a bastard," Naruto complained, letting go of him and throwing his hands in the air. "And Kurama agrees with me!"

"Tch, whatever. Let's go."

He turned, opening the gate again and making his way down the street, Naruto catching up to him after a couple of seconds.

"Where are we even going?"

"My parents' house."

Sasuke faltered in his step, but Naruto put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him forwards.

"Oh, sweet! I was wondering when we'd go there again."

"Hn, Shisui's in charge of dessert though so I wouldn't expect too much."

"Eeh, what's he making?"

Sasuke shrugged, all too aware of Naruto's hand lingering in its spot. He decided to ignore it.

If he could also ignore life and just go to bed for a few years, things would be fucking great.

xxx

Charasuke wasn't pouting, and he certainly wasn't hiding either. He just didn't feel like being social, that was all. And it didn't have anything to do with his brother and cousin playing husbands in the kitchen, either.

Reading this book was much better than Itachi's cooking show, anyway.

After another couple of minutes of reading the same page over and over, however, he gave up and threw the book towards the other end of his bed. Just as he'd relaxed back against his pillows, a knock on the door had him scrambling to pick it up again, managing to get into position just as the door opened a crack.

And people called him slow.

"He's not here," he heard an all too familiar voice say, closing the door again.

"Don't be a moron," another familiar voice scolded as the door opened again, revealing none other than his alter ego with a sullen Naruto trudging behind him.

"Hello, Sasuke," Charasuke said, not necessarily happy to see him but right now he'd prefer him over the others.

"And what about me?!" Naruto yelled, causing both him and his alter ego to roll their eyes.

"You didn't want to see me anyway," Charasuke huffed, crossing his arms after dropping his book to the side. "And why are you here?"

"For dinner," Sasuke shrugged, looking so nonchalantly cool that Charasuke wanted to throw the book at him. "And then our training session."

Eyes widening, Charasuke was just about to exclaim his surprise when Sasuke made a face at him, motioning towards Naruto.

"Oh, right," he said. "I almost forgot."

"Sasuke needs rest," Naruto muttered, glaring at him for no reason.

"We already went over this," Sasuke sighed.

"We did not! You just decided things for yourself!"

"I wasn't aware I couldn't."

The clipped tone seemed to work on Naruto, since he sucked on his lips and settled for glaring. Charasuke wondered if they were having a fight, but they didn't exactly look like they were considering how close they were standing, and how Naruto's glare didn't really have much anger behind it.

It must be nice to be so in love, he thought sullenly to himself.

xxx

Two hours later, Charasuke was regretting ever agreeing to this. He was sure that if Sasuke tried teaching him on his own then things would be pretty great, but for the past half an hour, training had consisted of Naruto constantly arguing with Sasuke over the correct way of teaching, and Sasuke arguing back.

It didn't help that Sasuke had first asked him to show them what he could do, asking to spar against him. Now that had been embarrassing on its own, but when Charasuke had to show all his techniques one after one, both the other two ninjas hadn't been able to hide the worried looks between them.

"Is that all?" Sasuke had asked, and it was almost worse that he sounded pitying rather than insulting.

Charasuke had been sure Sasuke would give up on him right there, but instead they'd started that argument over how they should proceed to teach him everything they thought he needed to know.

"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, waving animatedly with his hands. "He can't even do a proper clone! Like not even a normal, useless clone!"

"And what good are those anyway, if you don't have enough chakra to use them in a fight?"

"But that's like, one of the first things we learnt at the Academy!"

"No, it's one of the first things everyone except you learnt. All you did was run around and throw kunais off target!"

"What?!"

And that was pretty much how it went. At first Charasuke had felt insulted, then he'd found them kind of amusing, but now he was just bored.

"Are you going to actually start training me or do I need to go and buy earplugs?" he shouted at them, surprisingly succeeding in getting their attention.

They stared at him, then stared at each other, and come on, Charasuke could practically taste the tension between them. He wasn't particularly interested in getting caught in some weird kind of foreplay, when he wasn't invited for the main course.

"You know what," he continued, standing up from his seat on an overturned log. "I think I'm gonna head back home, and we can do this again when you've decided on a training plan."

Sasuke frowned at him, but then he nodded.

"You're probably right. This moron is just going to waste your time like this."

"Excuse me?!" Naruto yelled, but neither of them paid attention to him.

"Alright, great. Thanks for, well, doing this I guess. See you later."

Raising his hand in a wave, he turned and left. He'd barely made it a couple of steps before the argument started again, this time debating whether or not Sasuke had a right to call Naruto a moron.

What a stupid couple.

So, looks like Sasuke has something to think about too, right? I was thinking about how those two always progress as a pair, so it makes sense that they start figuring things out at the same time. And we'll get more scenes with Charasuke later, with some actual training:3 I'll try to write lots more now during the break!