Sasuke slowly stirred to the distant beeping of his alarm clock. He rolled over and stretched, slowly letting himself adjust to being awake. A soft tickling sensation itched his nose. He twitched in discomfort, hoping whatever it was would just go away. But the soft substance stayed put, playing with the tip of his nose whenever he breathed.
He moved his hand to try to swat it away, and his hand was greeted with something fuzzy and hard. His eyes jerked open in surprise and he almost jumped back when he saw Narutos head tucked up near his own, the blondes tan body curled up as if snuggling up to the older boy.
'That's right,' he reminded himself, 'he fell asleep in my bed last night, and I didn't want to sleep on the floor.'
The raven hair-ed boy sat up and stretched, figuring he might as well get up now as his usual wakeup routine was already ruined. He crawled out of his bed, grabbed a change of clothes, and headed to the bathroom. He returned to the room a few minutes later, finding the blonde still sleeping soundly.
He picked up the book he had bought the previous afternoon and sat down on the edge of the bed to read. He was just finishing the first chapter when he heard the blonde boy start stirring from his sleep. The younger boy squeezed his eyes shut against the sunlight from the window, moaning as if in resistance. He blinked his eyes open in defeat and huffed indignantly into the pillow.
"It's about time you got up." Sasuke said, closing his book and moving to place it back on his nightstand.
Naruto lifted his head up a little off the pillow, glaring at the older boy smirking down at him. "Shut up." He said, burying his face in the pillow. After a moment, something occurred to him, "Wait, if I slept on the bed," he asked, pushing himself up so he could sit, "where did you sleep?"
"On the bed, of course. This is my house, I'm not going to sleep on the floor." he said, tilting his head a little to the side, a smug expression upon his face.
"You mean you slept with me?!" he more shouted than questioned in disbelief, appalled at the idea.
"I slept in the same bed as you, yes, but that's all I did. It's not like I molested you in your sleep." he shrugged it off.
Naruto, however, couldn't let it go at just that. He kept pestering the Uchiha all morning about it, and made sure to add 'thinks nothing of sleeping with other boys' to his quickly filling journal.
He had calmed down by the time they were leaving to meet their sensei, but he still refused to talk to the older boy, but Sasuke wasn't complaining. On the contrary, he was enjoying the silence he had grown so used to.
As they approached their teammate, she seemed to be a little more prepared. "Why are you who coming from Sasukes house?" she asked, being careful with how she phrased her question, hoping her assumptions were incorrect.
"He go kicked out of his apartment," Sasuke replied, motioning towards the blonde, "so he's crashing at my house."
"Oh," she said, clearly relieved.
"Why, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked eagerly.
"Shut up, Naruto! I'm talking to Sasuke-kun!"
"I'm glad to see you're feeling better." Kakashi said, his smile visible from under his mask.
"Yes," she said, slightly taken aback at his sudden appearance.
"You ready for more missions today?" their sensei asked cheerfully.
Naruto and Sakura groaned loudly about an unfair amount of useless missions.
"Why do we always get stuck with the lamest missions? We can handle more! We have before!" Naruto protested.
"I haven't even told you what we're doing yet, but if you really don't want to, I guess I'll just tell the Hokage you're not ready for them yet…"
"No way! Come on! We can totally ready! We can take anything you've got!"
"Well in that case…"
"You and your big mouth, Naruto." chided Sakura, heaving a shovel full of wet snow and watching it plop a few feet from her.
"How was I s'posed to know this is what he meant? He made it sound like we had some cool mission for once. And you got excited too, Sakura-chan."
"Shut up, no I didn't!" she protested angrily, trying unsuccessfully to lift another shovelful of snow.
"He's right, for once." chimed in Sasuke, who was standing a few feet from them and having no problem shoveling another pile of snow.
Sakura fell silent, but Naruto glowered in outrage.
"What do you mean 'for once,' teme? I'll take you on! I bet I can shovel twice as much as you!"
The shadows on the street were slowly getting longer as the sun set behind Hokage Mountain. The streets were mostly empty now, most citizens enjoying a nice warm dinner with their families Sasuke waked down the lonely street, paying attention to nothing but where he was going. Naruto walked a few paces behind him, though one could hardly call what he was doing 'walking'. He was lolling behind the dignified boy, exhausted from overexerting himself. Who knew shoveling slosh-y snow could be such a tedious, tiresome job?
Also unlike the boy in front of him, he seemed to be paying attention to everything and anything but where he was going, finding himself much more content to watch the villagers in their houses, complaining about how he was hungry and tired, which is probably why he didn't notice Sasuke had stopped, and accidentally bumped into him.
"What are you doing, teme? Watch where you're going." he chastised, turning his attention to the boy in front of him.
"Hop on," Sasuke said, leaning forward slightly and bracing himself.
"What?! Why?! I can manage on my own, by myself, without any help from you!"
"Then stop complaining," returned the older boy.
After a few more moments of walking, Naruto quietly called out, "Hey, teme?"
"Yeah?" Sasuke asked coldly, though Naruto paid this no mind.
His voice still quiet, and face directed toward the ground, "Is that piggyback offer still valid?" He lifted his eyes to meet Sasukes.
Sasuke was slightly surprised by the younger boys question and he smirked, but even he could feel that it wasn't as demeaning as it normally was, "Sure."
The older boy once again braced himself, and was slightly taken aback at how light the boy way. He enjoyed the warmth of Narutos body against his back in the cold evening air. The younger boy wrapped his arms around Sasukes neck and rested his head on his shoulder, finding an odd sense of security in being close with Sasuke, but he didn't give this much thought, shrugging it off as he buried his face in Sasukes high collar.
The two went on in silence. "Hey, Naruto, we're almost home." Sasuke said, finding it odd how he sort of considered his own home Narutos too. "Naruto?" he asked. When he heard no response at all, he turned his head to see that the blonde was fast asleep. Sasuke wasn't surprised, Naruto had been working really hard, doing almost twice the work he needed to do, and putting in almost twice as much effort because every time he messed up, he had to start over. And because of his carelessness, he messed up a lot.
Sasuke gently readjusted the boy so he could open the door and support Naruto. He managed to get them both inside and upstairs to his room. He half dropped, half placed the blonde on his bed and went down stairs to start dinner, hoping the smell would wake up the other boy, but he had no such luck.
He ate his dinner in silence, like he usually did, but he felt like something was missing. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he missed the obnoxious company of the boy sleeping only a floor above him. The idea of waking him up sounded good, he needed to eat too, right? Something inside him told him he should just let the boy sleep, so he did.
After a quick shower, he changed into his pajamas, checked his alarm clock and crawled into bed, and was out as soon as his head hit the pillow.