A/N: Ogawd, how long has it been? There's been so much going on and…eeeee….I love you all. Pray for me to finish this research paper…
Edit: Now with more Neji and Gaara. Just a smidge. ;3
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The Sitter
Part Eleven : Lawsuits. Everywhere.
- Behold, sandwiches as metaphor. …Or something. -
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As he sat, staring longingly at his steaming-hot bowl of carbohydrate-intensive goodness, Naruto was aware of two things:
One, that it was really damn hard to eat ramen with your dominant arm in a sling, and two, that his shiny new boyfriend was kind of an asshole.
Sasuke, for his part, displayed remarkable composure for a pampered rich boy on a half-busted bar stool watching his significant other swear up a blue streak—and a green streak, and a yellow streak, and a purple streak—at his soup.
It had only been a few days since they had come out. Or been outed. Whatever. Naruto was pretty sure it didn't count as coming out when there was a mob of angry coeds waiting outside the closet door with bricks in their handbags.
He was also pretty sure that he was developing a reflexive twitch in response to the standard camera phone exposure sounds. At first, they'd made him feel guilty—like he was doing bad, and every female in the vicinity was preparing to make a citizen's arrest.
And then it had started to piss him off.
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So he hooked up with Mr. Popular.
So what?
It wasn't like Naruto had woken up one morning and decided to hit Sasuke with the Suck Me Stick. If anything, Sasuke had been the one to coax Naruto into the whole 'Two Dudes, One Relationship' thing.
Try explaining that to Them. Yes, 'Them'. As sad as it was, Naruto found his ability to enjoy the company of the females of his species severely hindered by the local flora's tendency to attempt—if not to kill him, then—to handicap him hard.
So eventually, it became a lot easier to grab the first ugly pink cellular monstrosity that came just a little too close to his face…and snap it in half.
The petite redhead had nailed him pretty hard in the gut, but he was pretty sure her hand was smarting just as much as his stomach. Either way, the feeling of euphoric triumph was only bolstered by the sudden and absolute silence that followed his little fit of destructive rage.
He could just see the hesitation in their beady little eyes as they tried to determine whether or not photographic evidence was worth risking their trendy plastic lifelines.
And then one of them had lifted her phone, snapped the picture of him standing there, claws still tightly wrapped around the listless remains of his pageant pink nemesis, and declared, "Uzumaki, you are so fucked."
"Not yet, I'm not." He growled, one fucking chirp-snap-crunch away from the edge of a sexually-frustrated paranoia-fueled meltdown when Sasuke decided that it was probably time to diffuse the situation.
A lot.
He cleared his throat and straightened himself out, gracefully unfolding from where Naruto had left him—just a little flustered—against the art studio B lockers. Initially, he'd been pretty opposed to the blatant PDA thing, but the school-wide surveillance kick left him feeling a whole lot more exhibitionist.
Still, he probably should have seen this coming.
He moved to stand by the cracked blonde, prying open his fingers to allow the broken phone to fall to the ground. It landed with a cheap smack and made a sad, fizzling peeping noise before finally giving up the fight.
(Sasuke cheered inside his mind.)
Then, adopting something frighteningly similar to his brother's 'corporate takeover, bend over please' smile, he made his announcement:
"The next person who takes a picture of myself or Naruto without our verbal or written consent can expect a nice, cripplingly expensive lawsuit within three business days. Any takers?"
"U-umm…" Of course. There had to be at least one aspiring pre-law student in the mass of tech-savvy stalkers. "Actually, I'm pretty sure we've got some wiggle room here—(G-d, Sasuke hated that term)—I mean, as long as no one sells the picture or posts it or anything, you can't possibly win a lawsuit like that."
Sasuke didn't miss a beat.
"It's nice to think so, isn't it? But, ah, win or lose—you could be tied up in litigation for months. Red tape is awfully sticky."
"You…you can't do that!"
"Do you have an attorney?"
"…My family does."
"Ah, mine has one or two. And we like to play a little game. Go to your attorney, and mention the words 'lawsuit' and 'Uchiha Itachi'. See what happens. Just not near any windows."
And then he grabbed Naruto's hand and led him away. Before rounding the corner, though, he tossed the girl another faux-cheerful smile and said, "Or you could just leave us the fuck alone."
-x
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They called Iruka and Kakashi into the office.
Naruto was a college student, and they called his parents into the office.
After the mandatory awkward introductions—"Oh, you're the father. No? Yes? Is it you? You're…both…the father."—the dean had laid it all out on the table.
It was simply unacceptable for a maturing young man like Naruto to damage other people's property over a simple misunderstanding.
By the time the pasty old man had wound around to the end of his guilt-trip/discipline shtick, Naruto was about ready to vault over the pricy oak desk and do some real damage—
"…And apparently, there was also a threat of legal action? You know, that's an awfully serious thing to be throwing about like that."
"Okay, that was so totally not me."
"Who was it, then, Mr. Uzumaki?"
"My younger brother."
There was no knock, no warning, just Itachi Uchiha filling up the doorway in his expensive suit, briefcase at his side, elegant brow arched. He was like the poster boy for meticulous corporate homicide.
"I'm sorry, sir, this is a private conference."
"I understand that you feel the need to hold a parent-teacher conference in order to infantilize my client, but I think I may have something here that can clear this whole thing up."
There was an imposing 'thud' and a stack of papers roughly the thickness of a junior bible settled on the administrator's desk.
"I find it deeply disturbing that a so-called institution for higher learning would enable this kind of red light behavior in its students. Stalking? Harassment? Invasion of privacy? Are you familiar with those terms? Because they make a few appearances."
"I…"
"Let's take a look through your school's financial statements, shall we?"
The conference ended early.
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Later, lying together on Sasuke's bed with a dozing Kazue between them, Naruto finally remembered to ask the question that had been nagging at him.
"Hey, I know you said that you could keep someone tied up in legal BS for a while without any real cause, but couldn't that get your brother in a lot of trouble?"
"Itachi and I… My father told us something when we were little. You know what it was?"
"'Take no prisoners'? 'Go forth and conquer'? 'Only one of you will leave this place alive'?"
Sasuke stared blankly at him until the silly grin faltered and he grumbled an embarrassed apology.
The dark-haired man snorted, unable to fight off the little smile as he toyed with a few soft strands of his nephew's hair.
"Whoever tells the best story wins."
"Oh. So…?"
"Think about it, but don't dwell on it." Sasuke transferred the smile to his boyfriend for a moment before Kazue stirred in his sleep.
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But if there was one thing Uzumaki Naruto tended to do—other than inhale ramen, win over children and laugh at stupid jokes—it was dwell.
If there were a leasing agreement for tenancy in what Sasuke had told him, it would have been signed in Naruto's blood.
So as soon as his counterpart rolled off the bed to take Kazue to his mother, the wheels in the sunny blonde's head cranked into overdrive. There had to be something he could tell all of those girls to get them to stop glaring at him—or at least to do it from a less noticeable distance.
Naruto was a naturally happy person—the kind that meant it when they asked how you were, and who would run out into a 2 AM thunderstorm and wade hip-deep in mud to help push your truck out of a rut.
It made him happy to make people happy.
…And this whole 'palpable fog of hatred' thing was seriously affecting his cheer-o-meter.
If it kept up for too much longer, he worried that he might shrivel and wilt. And then they'd trample all over him to get to Sasuke.
"Aaaugh!" Naruto huffed, puffing out his cheeks and tossing his arms over his head.
There had to be a way out of this!
Sure, most of the girls didn't like him, but that didn't mean they couldn't pity him at all, right?
Hell, even Sakura took pity on him now and then—it hit him.
Not as hard as the redhead whose cell he'd trashed—and he had to admit she packed a pretty decent punch—but still—
Boom.
Sakura.
If anyone could claim leadership over the pack of angry coeds waiting to assist him in an impromptu flight down the nearest set of stairs, it was Sakura.
The other girls, he didn't really know—but if he could tell a story good enough to convince Sakura…
"Hey. You look like you're going into labor. What the hell are you thinking about?"
Naruto blinked, too surprised to stop himself from pouting up at his smirking boyfriend. It wasn't all that bad, really, once the Uchiha laughed and reached out to touch his hair.
"Ha ha!" Naruto quipped triumphantly before snatching the looming wrist and using it to pull the other man down on top of him. "Victory for the Neanderthals!"
Sasuke struggled to prop himself up, but stubborn tanned arms squeezed him to the blonde's warm body. Naruto felt him snort into the fabric of his tee-shirt, and wondered briefly if Uchihas were allowed to do that.
"You're such a loser."
Naruto was quick to put away the thoughts from moments before.
Because if there was one more thing Naruto tended to do, it was to enjoy the hell out of tactfully-stunted Uchiha Sasuke.
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Asshole.
The proper term was asshole.
Preceded by 'Sasuke is an'.
When Naruto finally came up with a plan to win the pink-haired girl's forgiveness—and hopefully her alliance—he decided not to tell the dark-haired boy. After all, Sasuke would probably just mock him and say something about 'oversexed harpies' again.
While Naruto took remarkably well to exploring his newly-expanded preferences, he wasn't really up for deriding females as gene-usurping monsters. And he doubted he ever would be.
It freaked him out a little to imagine a girl he'd thought of as an earthbound goddess for the majority of his snot-filled childhood as an evil force bent on his destruction, all for the sake of procreation.
Granted, he'd laughed at the image the first day, but it was a little painful once reality sunk its teeth in.
He'd become the Number One Enemy to Women on campus, beating out even Professor Orochimaru's creep factor just by going on a date.
Clearly, the universe had Kakashi's sense of humor.
When it all came down to brass tacks, Naruto was an optimist. He wanted to execute his plan with a smile on his face and hope in his heart, and Sasuke would probably have put a damper on that little expedition.
In retrospect, Sasuke might have been a little bit right.
But he didn't have to rub shit in.
Especially not while Naruto was sitting on a hospital cot, coddling his still-throbbing limb.
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After Naruto had done his level best to win Sakura's favor with a somewhat prettied-up version of the coerced date, and the sudden sweet friendship that had welled up between two boys lost in a sea of uncertainty as the world of adulthood loomed ever closer, she studied him quietly for a few moments.
"Wow," She said finally, "Are you sure you're not an English major?"
The blonde winced a little, though he'd been distantly proud that there was a form of recognition for the masterful bullshitting he had performed.
At least she wasn't going for the eyes.
…Or the gut. Damn if it wasn't still sore.
He rubbed thee spot gingerly as she looked him over again, arching a brow at him.
"I've known you since you were gumming race cars into my hair, you moron. Do you really think I wouldn't see through a story that ridiculous? Did you get pointers from Lee?"
"…Maybe a little. But he's always apologizing—for, like, everything! And you're nice to him, so I figured—he really likes you, by the way. I think he compared your eyes to gemstones, or something else that's really expensive. I kind of stopped paying attention after the third seasonal analogy…"
His nervous babbling petered off as her expression remained unimpressed. Yeah, her eyes were rocks, all right—hard and heavy and not involved at all with the boy who'd obsessed over her for years.
She was probably even regretting those times she'd been nice to him.
"You're a horrible liar, which makes it even more insulting. 'Blossom of youthful friendship' my ass, Naruto—you're nothing but a jerk. You've always gone out of your way to embarrass me, but this? Are you joking? Who am I kidding, you're always joking. Well, this isn't funny. You know, people told me all the time to just cut you off, but I thought eventually you'd grow up. I thought you were just an awkward kid, but this is…this is scary low."
Something in Naruto trembled and snapped as Sakura went about his thorough dressing-down. She…she didn't understand him at all, did she? He'd tried for years, thinking that she'd eventually warm up to him, when all he'd been to her was a pity case—a dumb dog.
He didn't feel like such a cheerful person, anymore.
"Shut up."
Sakura glared at him, prepared to retaliate in force, but stopped short at the look on his face. …She'd never seen that look, before. Not even when the loudmouth started picking fights with any jerk dumb enough to mention his family. And he was a monster when people insulted his family.
That look wasn't supposed to be leveled at her.
"You're right. I was lying. Mostly to myself, it sounds like. See, I thought you were such hot shit." He laughed bitterly, "I mean, I used to think about these stupid little things—like one time, maybe a year or two after we started school together. Kakashi and Iruka were really busy, and Iruka forgot to pack me a lunch. I thought they were mad at me, that they didn't want me anymore. Do you know how scary that was? I thought you did, 'cause I was sitting out on the swings while everyone was eating and talking and not giving a shit, and then you came over and asked if I wanted to share your lunch. I thought you were G-d, Sakura. You didn't even ask why I was crying—you just told me if I kept up like that I'd puke and get even hungrier, and that mommies and daddies forgot sometimes. And then you shoved a sandwich at me. It was peanut butter and bananas, Sakura. I remember what fucking flavor it was."
By this point, his eyes were squeezed tightly shut. She stayed quiet, and he continued.
"I didn't go out of my way to embarrass you, Sakura. I just thought you were pretty much the only girl since my mom worth calling beautiful. Because you brushed me off a lot, but then you turned around and did things that made me think I wasn't such a giant waste of space. I wanted you to pay attention to me, because it felt nice when you did. I was even freaking out about you—before I even knew Sasuke was that guy—because I don't know. I've just always liked being around you. Maybe I was just misguided the whole time, about being in love or whatever. But right now I'd really like all of this shit to go away, because there's never going to be another peanut butter and banana sandwich. Because you think I'm just here to mess things up for you, but I'm not. I'm really not. …It's just with him, it's like that day on the playground times a hundred and I didn't mean to, Sakura, but I thought you'd get it somehow, because that started with you. I thought if I could just tell you right, you could smile at me and tell me that sometimes people just forgot."
He opened his eyes, tears burning at the edges, and saw a blurry Sakura shifting uncomfortably where she stood.
He was turning to leave when she finally croaked, "Wow."
"…Yeah. Wow."
"Friday afternoon, I—tomorrow. That's tomorrow afternoon. I'm teaching a kick-boxing class. If you, uh…you can help me do an exhibition, that is…I can probably forgive you."
The tears had cleared enough for him to see a little tremor in the stubborn set of her chin and the tension in the muscles of her crossed arms. Like she had been trying to squeeze all of the air out.
"Tomorrow at…"
"Town Center. At two. If you're late, I'll kill you." She finished harshly and stormed away. Naruto fancied he could feel a breeze kicking up as she passed him by.
He heard her mutter, "You're still a jerk."
And then she was gone in a typhoon of quivering pink mystery.
Naruto didn't get girls.
At all.
He wasn't exactly sure what had just happened, but it definitely wasn't funny anymore.
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And it really wasn't funny when he showed up, tired and vulnerable for Sakura's afternoon class only to have him grab her so she could take his arm, twist it, and then vault him over her head before twisting it up and behind him and everywhere but where it was supposed to go.
He screamed—not like a little girl, thank G-d—and women started panicking and running for their personal belongings so that someone could dial 911.
For the most part, things were fuzzy, but he could remember looking up at Sakura, standing stock-still above him, her chest heaving like she was fucking Xena or something. For a second, he thought his heart was breaking, until he realized that she was crying.
It was a little embarrassing to admit, but he'd passed out a couple minutes after that.
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The next thing he knew, he was in the hospital and his arm hurt like hell. There was someone messing with it, but they looked official, so he decided not to bitch.
"Ah, Mr. Uzumaki. You're awake. I'm sorry to ask this, but could you sit up for me?"
He did so obediently, swinging his feet over the side of the bed and letting them dangle there as the medical prodding continued.
He looked up from the smooth-looking floor and realized that Sasuke was sitting straight across from him in the visitor's chair. It might have reassured him if he didn't feel completely exposed and idiotic in the backless gown.
And if Sasuke didn't go straight to, "So I heard you volunteered to help with Sakura's kick-boxing class."
Naruto growled a little, averting his eyes.
"Iruka nearly had a stroke—it was nice meeting him, by the way; Kakashi introduced us. They're filling out paperwork. Neji and Kiba and a few other people are downstairs trying to find a suitably obnoxious get well animal."
The blonde furrowed his brows, staring accusingly at his lap. "Okay, so I'm a moron, are you happy? I'm a horrible, stupid person and I thought maybe if I got through to the 'queen of the harpies', she might take pity on my worthless soul."
"Oh, I wouldn't say she's a total harpy." Sasuke waved a hand towards the bedside table. Naruto leaned forward to get a brief look at the contents before the nurse scolded him back upright. Flower arrangement…Ziploc baggy?
He shot Sasuke an honestly clueless look, but the dark-haired man just shook his head, "She rode in with you, I think. On the ambulance. Because the women in her class freaked out and dialed the EMS instead of just driving you to the hospital. She ran out when I got here, but she came back with that, and told me a little about what happened."
"You must think I'm pretty stupid, huh?"
"Wouldn't say that, either."
The nurse finished up, jotted something down on his chart, and left with a little wave, not wanting to interrupt.
"…I just didn't think you were that gullible."
Naruto finally got another look at the mystery baggy, and suddenly he was crying like a baby—a little baby on a swing set.
Sasuke smiled a little at his scrunched-up face, realizing that this was somehow significant and willing to forgive a little, just this once, for the sake of the zany blonde with his stupid jokes and sunny smile.
"She said it was peanut butter and banana."
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By the time that Neji and Kiba came back upstairs with the most obnoxiously amazing stuffed animal Naruto had ever seen—a purple, green and orange cartoonish zebra in huge 'nerd' glasses sitting upright in a wheelchair—he was pretty sure that he was on top of the world.
The whole world.
He could plug a volcano with his thumb and let it burn off and he wouldn't even care because things were looking good right about now.
He didn't say anything juvenile when Neji pulled Gaara into the room and introduced him as his boyfriend, and he didn't throw anything at Kiba when he claimed, loudly that Naruto and Sasuke were 'totally contagious, man!'.
He did crack a smile when Gaara quietly orchestrated a rather spectacular face plant for Kiba's squawking 'enjoyment'.
When Konohamaru, Moegi and Udon burst in with Iruka hot on their heels, he was genuinely pleased at the squirming mass of adolescent affection. And then Konohamaru turned back to give the Uchiha his best shit-eating grin before drawling, "Hey, Naruto—wanna buy a duck?"
For a moment, Sasuke looked as if he might have an aneurysm, but then he got that evil look in his eye. After wading through the mob of rugrats, he seized the blonde's chin and planted a firm kiss on his lips, earning a disgusted squeal from three retreating monster-babies. And one Inuzuka.
Naruto snorted.
Yeah. He could stay like this for a while.
And then his arm knocked against the bedframe.
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There was a brief, glowing moment of joy as Naruto finally managed to coax a mouthful of noodles out of the bowl and towards his mouth with his remaining hand, but his hopes and dreams were shattered as they splashed back down, splattering hot broth on his face and shirt.
He let loose another impressive stream of curse words and threw down his chopsticks. He'd have asked for a fork, but Teuchi was in the middle of washing all of the utensils. There weren't many people who came around at this hour, and the old man was mostly staying open for his favorite dumb kid.
He glared sidelong at his boyfriend, who couldn't hide his own dark amusement, "You know, it's a good thing I don't have any dignity. And that I'm not hungry, or anything. Because that would really suck."
Sasuke chuckles a little before shaking his head and pointing with his chopsticks—a rude gesture, but not an unsurprising one, from Sasuke—off to the blonde's other side.
He turned to look just as he felt himself being hugged from behind. Tightly, by something soft…
Houston, we have breasts.
"I'm not going to lie. For a second I was kind of happy I broke your arm. Except then I realized that I broke your arm, and that even though you do so much stupid shit, you've still always been really sweet. You don't deserve any of the bad things that have happened to you, and I'm pretty sure that thing about your mom was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I'm a bitch and I've been a bitch for a long time, but I'm hoping you can forgive me."
Naruto looked first at Sasuke and then at the bowl for some sort of answer, some elusive 'next step'.
"Without breaking your arm?"
He felt her flinch a little, but she stayed put, "…please?"
Naruto looked heavenwards, as if he were some world-weary saint before sighing, "Two conditions."
"Name 'em."
"The first is that you have to give Lee a chance. A real chance. Because if you think what I said about my mom was nice, you should listen to him go on about just you. It might be kind of long-winded and sappy and awkward but he really means it."
She paused for a moment, contemplating the idea, and Naruto gave Sasuke a scolding look when he widened his eyes disbelievingly and held his fingers up to resemble Lee's eyebrows.
"Okay. What's the second one?"
Sasuke could swear he nearly got whiplash when the blonde looked pointedly at the bowl of noodles and let out a long, pathetic whimper:
"Feed me!"
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A/N: So this update's been a long time coming. I'm not sure if I'm looking at a solid 'plot', per se, but I've definitely had some interesting concepts in my head. I hope I can get them out promptly for all of you.
Please tell me what you thought!
Originally, I planned to play the kick-boxing class for laughs. Just have Sasuke go to Sakura, tell her some silly story, get called out, goo a little about Sasuke, and get her to offer him 'the atonement'. It was just going to end with that. Dumb story, gullible Naruto, teasing Sasuke, annoyed-but-satisfied Sakura.
And then I started typing, and it made me cry.
A few people have asked that I try to write a few pieces on Naruto's childhood with Kakashi and Iruka. I really want to, but I'm not that familiar with the custody/legal circumstances. Or the ages, etc. If anyone knows anything, I'm seriously thinking about giving it the old college try. (And if that fails, fluff and maybe some porn. -.-)
If/when it does get written, the peanut butter and banana thing will probably be in there, because I might not be a fan of Sakura, I just….FFFFFFF…did I convert myself? At least in this canon? Oo
I want that zebra.
Psst. Yes, I am aware that 'handicap' is not a verb. I just liked the way it fit. Don't hurt me. T.T
I hope you'll stick around for more!