Together We Make A Lollipop

Chapter 1 ~ First Taste

Things were not adding up for one dark, broody Uchiha. Crazy, loud-mouthed blonds weren’t supposed to look so good. They were supposed to be beaten to a bloody pulp, not kissed till they were breathless. It’s all that damn moron’s fault for forgetting his jacket Sasuke thought as the previous day played in his head.

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~•Sasuke Mind Theatre Presents•~
•Flashback No. 1•
Sasuke was sitting at Ichiraku next to an unusually-contemplative blond idiot, Watching said idiot stare stupidly into a cooling bowl of his favorite food.
“Ch, dobe, you going to eat?”
Naruto looked up toward his companion. “Sasuke... Ano…” He blushed and looked back to his noodles, chopsticks still unbroken.
“Ch.” Annoying baka. What the hell is with him?
Naruto stood up then and walked away, his bright orange jacket lying forgotten at the stand. Sasuke watched his sometimes-friend leave and didn’t notice the jacket till Naruto was no longer in sight. While Sasuke was figuring out where the hell the blond idiot had gone, the gray clouds above decided to release their burden onto the world. Great, rain. The only places I can think of that idiot going are his house and the training field and his house definitely isn’t in that direction. He grabbed the offensively-bright jacket and took off towards the training field.
Upon reaching the training field he watched Naruto from the shadows, masking his chakra so he wouldn’t be sensed. Naruto was staring up at the darkened sky, rain-soaked tresses framing his upturned face, Black tank top clinging to every hard plane and dip of his torso, and rain-darkened orange pants clinging to his hard-earned muscular legs. Sasuke shook himself out of his stupor. What is happening to me?
“Oi, dobe!” Sasuke called, ignoring the growing heat in his gut. “You forgot your jacket.” Naruto, surprisingly unsurprised by Sasuke’s sudden appearance, grinned sheepishly.
“Arigatou, Sasuke.” The blond walked toward the darker nin, hand held out for his beloved orange jacket. Sasuke, acting on impulse, swung the item around the other’s shoulders, and allowed his hands to linger there.
Naruto Blinked a few times and blushed as Sasuke's hands lingered. “Sasuke… I… um… well…” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the other’s pale ones. Almost as quickly as it began, Naruto ended the kiss. Unsure if Sasuke minded his advances, Naruto winced in preparation for a punch to the face. Sasuke’s hands, however, remained on Naruto’s shoulders. The Kyuubi-vessel peeked out of one eye. “Sasuke?” Both eyes open now, he gazed into the limitless depths Sasuke called eyes.
“Naruto…” Sasuke pulled him closer, into an embrace, and slightly chapped lips found each other again. A shy tongue flicked over pale softness, seeking entrance to the warm, wet caverns beyond. Lips parted, tongues met, eyes slid shut. Naruto tasted of many things, springtime, cinnamon, and ramen. Lots of ramen.
Suddenly Sasuke’s eyes flew open. He remembered himself, where he was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with. He broke the kiss, replaced his carefully-crafted emotionless mask, and shook himself free of Naruto’s grasp. Act as if nothing happened.
Naruto blinked a few times and stared at Sasuke. The dark shinobi, feeling himself melt under that intense blue gaze, disappeared. From the shadows he watched Naruto sit down and touch his kiss-swollen lips almost gingerly.

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“Sasuke-kun let’s go out for lunch!” Sakura purred as she latched onto his arm. A disgusted expression claimed his face as he jerked his arm away. As Shikamaru would say how troublesome. He lost Sakura with the simple-but-effective kawarimi no jutsu and wandered aimlessly for a while. He ended up back at the training field and decided to take his stress out on the three wooden stumps.
Damn that dobe, damn his beautiful body, and damn t hat delicious mouth. Why do I care so much? Why can Naruto affect me this way?
He punched and kicked and slammed and threw kunai at the stumps until they were nothing more than millions of splinters, even his own body was littered with the sharp remains. He fell limply against a tree and slid down to the base. Intense training for so long was not easy, even for an Uchiha. He exasperatedly pulled his hand over his upturned face and thought. As if thoughts could summon, he felt a very familiar chakra grow near.
Oh shit, why is he here? More importantly, what does he think about yesterday? To Sasuke's surprise he heard no taunts, no teasing remarks, not even pleading for another kiss. He pulled his elegant, if splintery and bleeding, hand off his face and directed a stony gaze at a confused looking fox-child. He ignored the sudden urge to reach out for said fox-child and pull him into an embrace as the other returned his stony gaze with one of thoughtfulness.
“What do you want, usurakontachi? As you can see my hands are bleeding so I don’t have time to play with you” he said in his I'm-so-much-better-than-you voice. Naruto opened his mouth as if to speak, but seemed to decide against it as he closed his mouth again. Sasuke stood up. “Yesterday… it didn’t happen, understand?”
Sasuke could see Naruto struggling to swallow a lump in his throat and his bright blue eyes sparkling with tears that were threatening to overflow. “H-hai, I understand. Gomen, it won’t happen again” the blond replied at long last, his voice hoarse and cracking with withheld emotions.
Sasuke nodded but he felt weird. The idiot usually didn’t give up so easily. The darker shinobi was almost disappointed. Disappointed and well… for the first time in so many years the icy bastard felt bad for hurting someone. For some reason he didn’t want to understand the tears welling in those crystalline eyes hurt him worse than the splinter-ridden, blood-gushing gashes on his hands.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have wounds to tend to.” Naruto nodded, eyes concealed by the unkempt blond locks drooping over them, and Sasuke vanished in a cloud of smoke.
Upon reaching his house, Sasuke pulled all the chunks of wood from his mangled flesh, cleaned the gashes, and bandaged them. He then padded over to the living room and plopped unceremoniously onto his couch and surrendered his mind to a flashback of the day before, bringing us back to where we started. The rest of the day was commandeered by strangely enticing thoughts of a certain blond dimwit.
Did Naruto really cry? I wonder what he’s doing now. An image of his fox-faced companion shut in his room, curled up in his bed, holding himself popped into the ravens head. Great, now I feel even worse. He headed for bed. He and the rest of team seven had a mission in the morning. Naruto would be there and things would be normal. Sasuke liked normal.

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“Go on, Sakura. We’ll wait for you and Naruto right here.” Kakashi grinned as he shooed an irate, pink-haired Sasuke-fan-girl towards Naruto’s apartment. She fumed and stomped off muttering about stupid, lazy, perverted bastards under her breath. Sasuke leaned against the rail of the bridge and Kakashi pulled out his little orange book.
Time passed slowly without Naruto’s foolish antics to distract and Sasuke soon found himself wondering what the hell was taking Sakura and the idiot so long. Kakashi suggested they go retrieve the two “missing-nin”. Sasuke scoffed at the horrible joke but went with him none the less.
When they arrived, the door was shattered into pieces, probably due to a pissed Sakura’s super strength, so they let themselves in. Sasuke sat on the couch and Kakashi sensed for the other two. He hadn’t really needed to though considering that at that moment a certain kunoichi moaned out loudly in pleasure. Sasuke bristled and gripped the arm of the couch tightly.
A few minutes later, the two walked out of Naruto’s bedroom, or what Sasuke assumed was the bed room. Not that he really cared that Naruto had had Sakura in his room, doing that of all things. No, Sasuke didn’t mind at all. That was their business not his. Sakura immediately turned bright red. Naruto on the other hand growled.
“What the hell are you two doing here!?”
“We have a mission today, idiot.” Sasuke replied in a dead monotone, his face betraying no hint of emotion.
“Sakura was sent to fetch you and she never came back so we came to you.” Kakashi responded sounding a bit too amused with this whole situation.
“And you couldn’t knock?!”
“Look at your door, baka.”
Naruto quieted down. “Oh. I forgot.” Sasuke released his death grip on the couch, stood up, and walked out of the apartment. “What’s stuck up Fan-boy’s ass?” Naruto asked quietly, unusually aware of Sasuke’s mood. Kakashi merely shrugged and followed Sasuke’s lead. Their mission went off without a hitch. How boring.
“Sasuke-kun~!” Sakura purred.
“Shut it. Especially not after you did that with him.” Sasuke snapped.
Sakura looked hurt, but Sasuke couldn’t bring himself to care much at the moment. The crestfallen kunoichi looked from one team mate to the other as tears welled in her eyes. She then ran off refusing to cry in front of them.
“Sakura-chan, matte!” Naruto called, getting ready to run after her. He seemed to realize its futility though and gave up before he began. Kakashi had disappeared and Naruto and Sasuke were left to one another’s company. They just stood there for a while, Sasuke glaring off into space and Naruto staring at his toes.
“Thanks a lot, Sasuke-teme.” Naruto mumbled. “You’ve ruined everything. Sakura-chan will never so much as lay a finger on me again, and you… You’re just an icy bastard. I'm starting to think that snake pedophile actually might have taken over your body.” Sasuke leveled a near-hysterical Naruto with his patented Uchiha-Sasuke-glare-of-eternal-doom-and-destruction. “Well that’s what I want to believe anyway. That way I’d know why you’re going so far out of your fucking way to make my life hell. I can’t take it Sasuke!” He looked up revealing the tears cascading down his cheeks. Then he did something so utterly unlike Naruto. Sasuke almost didn’t catch his wrist in time to stop the beyond-sharp knife from going right through his wrist.
“Baka usurakontachi.”
“SHUT UP FAN-BASTARD AND LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE! WHY SHOULD YOU CARE IF I DIE OR NOT?! YOU’VE TAKEN EVERYTHING FROM ME! I HATE YOU” he screamed.
Sasuke blinked once. “You done, dobe?” he stared at the shorter one. On the surface he was dispassionate; on the inside he was scared. What would happen if Naruto wasn’t there? No. I refuse to think that way. Sasuke caught Naruto in a hug. Not because he felt bad, and not because he wanted to comfort him. He just felt like hugging the idiot, so he did. Naruto hung listlessly in the indecisive bastard’s arms for a second before pushing him away.
“Naruto?” …silence.
“Naruto?”
Naruto turned his back to Sasuke with a muttered “maybe Sai was right.” Sasuke disappeared, leaving Naruto to wallow in his own self-pity. He’d had enough of this emotion stuff to last him the rest of his life and his head hurt.