Self-Reliance

[copy and pasted from FF.net]



A/N: Before anyone else tells me that Sasuke can have blond babies---and then proceed to show me so in such detail that I start having flashbacks to my Biology 103 class---yes, yes, I know. I really appreciate that there are bright folks in the audience, but my secret confession is that in the Bio 103 test in which we covered genetic traits, I got my first and only D (I knew that eff-er would come back to haunt me, too; never thought it’d be in fanfiction…). I’m an A student. Like Sasuke, my pride suffered. In fact, the teacher came up to me after class and asked me if I was having problems at home or something (I was tempted to say that my older brother had murdered my clan, but I’m the eldest, so I can’t blame it on that)…yeah, for one reason or another, I’ve never understood genetics, so please…I love you all, but don’t remind me of my shortcomings again. I’ve decided on the babies’ eye/hair colors, sex and names already.



In other news, I realized that I’m going to have to post the ChoujixIno side-story after I’m finished with Self-Reliance ‘cause it’s chock full of spoilers to the ending of this fic. So sorry that it’s going to take a bit, but look what you get instead---another sickeningly long chapter full of mush and drabble and very little plot! Do a little dance, readers!



Although I had not read “Best Laid Plans” by Asuka Kureru before staring Self-Reliance---believe me on that one or not; reading it the other day was kinda creepy, seeing as it is similar to, although smuttier, than this---I must pay homage to her one-shot “Technicolor”, ‘cause I did steal her idea for Sasuke’s Sharingan-influenced nightmares. Meh. I’m such a copycat whore.





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SELF-RELIANCE



Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto. I don’t own Sasuke. But Kakashi loves cookies.



Summary: Sasuke is pregnant, Chouji wants to be pregnant, and sometimes manly bonding involves milk and cookies.



Warnings: Featuring SasuNaru angst, mpreg, and IrritatedAndFemme!Sasuke. Don’t like it, don’t read it. Like it, review. Review often. Reviews are my happy crack. If you’re going to flame, at least be witty about it.



CHAPTER TWELVE: RELIABLE SOURCES





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“Again, Chouji. C’mon, man---I know you know what a decent chick looks like. You married one. Think of Ino,” Naruto instructed with a sigh, air-forming the proper curves with his hands. “Slender shoulders, boobs, waist, hips, ass. You can do it. I know you can!”



Blushing, Chouji re-did the seals, shouting “Sexy-no-jutsu!”. Naruto had to will himself to keep his eyes open---his friend’s first…eight or so…tries at attaining a female form had ended up in nothing short of retinal agony. Konohamaru’s first goes at the jutsu had been better than this by leagues, but then again, Chouji wasn’t used to learning techniques outside of his family’s branch of multi-sizing and chakra control. Naruto himself wasn’t so choosy---he learned what he could wherever he got it, so as to make him well rounded. Chouji’s well roundedness came in a different form.



“Augh,” Naruto moaned, hiding his eyes. “Let it go, man. Please. Just…try again.”



They’d already been at it for two hours before any real success came---a half hour to memorize the seal patterns, and then try after try until he popped out a slightly-less-than-hideous female form. Naruto had run a victory lap at that, crowing in Gai-like delight, and had promptly forced Chouji into trying again. Teaching wasn’t Naruto’s forte---Sasuke was much better at it, though he was sharp, domineering, and demanding of both his sparring partners and those he deigned worthy enough to teach something to---but for Chouji’s sake, he was making a good go at it. And the big ninja was really, really trying to get the technique down, as surreal, laughable, and utterly sweet as his reasons for doing so were. Sasuke wasn’t about to admit it, but watching them caper around the back yard and pop in between genders with gales of laughter was actually quite cute.



Chouji’s final form---reaped from nearly four hours of constant popping of in and out, back and forth until he could hold a form that was cute enough to represent his male form---wasn’t all that bad looking, really. Unlike Naruto’s unabashedly sexual Sexy-no-jutsu, he’d decided to be as natural and close to himself as possible---therefore, his breasts were large only because that went with the rest of his pudgy body. It was oddly appealing---wide hips and a soft, pouty stomach, an apple-cheeked face and a shy smile---and Naruto thought that Ino would probably agree. Naruto was the type to like who he liked, more for personality than for body, and though he’d ended up with skinny little Sasuke, he had to admit that chubby Chouji wasn’t bad on the eyes, either. It never failed to amaze Naruto how people could be attractive, slender or plump.



“This feels weird,” Chouji murmured, blushing as he looked down at himself. “Will this really work?”



Naruto grinned, jerking a thumb over to where Sasuke was sitting, reading a book. His obviously pregnant belly poked out humorously into his lap, limned by a tight shirt. He was looking more and more pregnant with triplets daily, and Chouji had to grin halfheartedly at the Uchiha. Pregnancy with Naruto’s kits had softened both Sasuke’s body and expression substantially, though nothing short of pain of death would convince him to admit it aloud.



“Eh, it worked for him,” Naruto said, ignoring how Sasuke looked up from his book and glared. “So if Ino’s half of the jutsu works out, then we’ll be planning a baby shower in a couple months.”



“Naruto, I…” Unable to put his gratefulness into words, Chouji scooped the smaller man into a bearhug---which would have been a wonderful show of thankfulness had he not been heavily endowed out front, and somewhat blind to the fact.



“Chouji---boobs---can’t breathe---“ Naruto gasped, and Chouji extricated the kyuubi-boy’s face from his ample cleavage, blushing like mad.



“Sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I kinda forgot that I…um…”



“Boobs,” Naruto said shortly. “Be careful. Those things are dangerous.”



“Yeah,” Chouji said, blushing. “Forgot about the boobs. So…um…is that it?”



“There’s still more. I’ll take it from here,” Sasuke said, and Naruto trotted over to help his mate fight his way to his feet. It was getting troublesome to get up when he was lugging that much unbalancing weight up front. “The next step is my own addition to the jutsu---the dobe won’t know how to teach it.”



“I could figure it out,” Naruto said, poking his stomach. “And you’ll need my chakra to pull it off, so don’t whine about my inadequacies, bastard.”



“Nyyaaah,” Sasuke said, childishly sticking out his tongue. “You’re the bastard, bastard.”



“Oh, now I’m the bastard? Do you want to take a go at me, pudgy-boy?”



“I’m only pudgy because I’m carrying your triplets, dobe!”



“I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it a hundred times: you wanted to carry my babies!”



“You’re right,” Sasuke said, taking a fistful of blond hair and jerking him down to his height so that he didn’t have to strain up to give him a kiss. “Thank you, moron, and let’s move on.”



“Guys?” Chouji interjected timidly. “I’m still here...”



“Oh,” said Naruto, half bent over because Sasuke still had a fistful of his hair in his possession. “Right. Sorry. Got distracted.”



“The jutsu…?” Chouji prompted with an inviting wave. Sasuke kissed the blond’s cheek, setting him free.



“It’s easy enough,” Sasuke said, bracing his back with one hand as Naruto wrapped his arms around his chest. “Takes less chakra than the ridiculous full form of Sexy-no-jutsu, even. How good is your chakra control, Chouji?”



“Fair,” Chouji admitted, pinkening. “Um, I have a lot of chakra though. Big guy, lot of chakra…runs in my family.”



“You’ll need to be able to control the amount of chakra you allow the jutsu to burn,” Sasuke said. He tugged on Naruto’s sleeve. “Give me a boost, dobe. I’ll start full-female for the sake of demonstration.”



Naruto obediently offered chakra though their contact, threading it into his system. Feeling the fullness of the potent human-youma chakra, Sasuke quickly formed the seals, muttering “Sexy-no-jutsu”. The change was immediate---a gentle roundness to Sasuke’s face, softness to all his narrow angles, wider hips that cradled his belly and allowed it to slide lower, and small breasts heavy with new-forming milk. Sasuke heaved a sigh, rubbing his stomach.



“I forget how comfortable this form is,” he said, and Chouji had to bite back a laugh at his suddenly-lighter, alto voice. It was such a funny change from his usually deep, markedly masculine growls. “That feels unexpectedly good. Women really are better for baby bearing. If I had the chakra for it, I’d keep myself like this all the time.”



“And I wouldn’t mind ‘cause your little boobs are hella cute,” Naruto grinned, leaning in for a fondle. Sasuke slapped his eager hands away with a scowl.



“Don’t squeeze them, or they’ll leak. Anyway, the next step is fairly simple.”



“Okay,” the Akimichi said, nodding. “I’m ready, Sasuke-san.”



“It’s something of a slide,” Sasuke said, putting his hands together again. “Instead of allowing the jutsu to burn the same amount of chakra you invested to activate it, you slowly start to wean it. That part takes practice---you have to make sure to concentrate on keeping the jutsu active in your core, because it automatically wants to keep the outside going opposed to the inside because it’s nature is to be a cosmetic jutsu. Also, you cannot juggle the slide too quickly, or the jutsu will collapse entirely, leaving you totally male. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if you were pregnant and did that.”



“Sounds complicated,” Chouji murmured, slightly crestfallen. He had paled dramatically at the last bit, the thought of having a baby trapped within a fully male body enough to make the blood drain from his face. Unlike breasts and the rest of the female paraphernalia, babies did not just go ‘poof’.



“Yeah,” Naruto agreed, sounding shocked. “How’d you come up with it?”



“A lot of thought, practice, and creativity,” Sasuke deadpanned. “I am a genius, dobe, but the jutsu took me two years to develop and six months to master. I had to make sure I could hold it in my sleep, even, because losing the pregnancy to that kind of error is intolerable.”



“Two years?” Chouji and Naruto gaped, and his mate added a cry of: “You planned on sleeping with me and getting pregnant for two years!”



Sasuke had the decency to blush a bit.



“Five years, actually,” the Uchiha said dismissively. “Our battle at the Valley of the End made me realize that---never mind; we’ll talk about it later. Chouji, try the altered form of Sexy-no-jutsu.”



He did so---fighting to keep the slide even, sweat standing out on his forehead---but it broke down halfway through, jerking his body entirely male with a smoky chakra pop. Chouji sighed, rubbing at his tattooed cheek.



“Took six months for you?” Chouji asked desolately. “It’ll take me years, then…”



“Don’t worry, Chouji my man,” Naruto grinned, and gave Sasuke another stream of chakra, noticing that his mate had wilted slightly from the strain of jumping back and forth. “You’ve got the best teacher ever---even if he is crabby and a total perfectionist. He’ll have you sliding back and forth like a gender-bending pro by the end of the week.”



“You wouldn’t mind teaching me?” Chouji asked, genuinely surprised. His expression tweaked into something best fit for Hinata’s face---worried and nervous, jittery, and he suddenly had no idea what to do with his hands. “You’re a bloodline genius, and, um, I’m a fatass. I’m---I’m slow when it comes to learning complicated techniques…”



“Don’t worry,” Sasuke said, shrugging. He gave Naruto a brief appreciative look, silently thanking him for the helping hand. “I’ll need something to entertain me while the moron’s gone.”



“I’m not just the moron,” Naruto said sweetly. “I’m your moron, idiot.”



“You two fight…or whatever it is that you do to flirt, and I’ll just be off,” Chouji said, smiling and fetching his shirt from the porch. “Ino’s probably worried about me anyway.”



“See ya, Chouji! We’ll get you pregnant in no time!” Naruto said, waving enthusiastically with one hand. As soon as the other ninja was out of sight, he turned on his mate, poking his cheek with a frown. “And YOU…”



“Me what?” Sasuke growled, lowering the jutsu point even though it tightened his hips with a painful twinge. His male form carried the babies high, stressing his back and shoulders, but he didn’t have the chakra to spare to keep it going at that level constantly. It wasn’t like he could mooch off Naruto and Kyuubi’s chakra for three months, either---that was a laughable enough thought. Even if he was around that much, even if he was willing to give up his chakra, even if Sasuke would allow him to make that kind of sacrifice, and even though he loved Naruto, Sasuke was sure he wouldn’t be able to have constant contact with his mate. His sense of personal space would go on riot at having to cadge chakra from Naruto on a continual basis.



“Oi!” Naruto snapped, hands on his hips. “You’ve wanted into my pants since we were thirteen?”



“I first got the idea around then,” he said shortly. “Orochimaru made some comment about it being a pity I wasn’t a woman, and therefore unable to bear more Sharingan children. I didn’t ask if he was implying that he wanted to get me pregnant---“



“My head…” Naruto moaned, his face screwed up into a look of dire pain. “Him and you and…ooooowwww…Sasuke, the mere mental image of snake-babies in your belly is making my eyeballs burn!”



“You asked, dobe, and it was his comment about me not being female that reminded me of your stupid-ass technique. And then I went through the list of possibilities---Chouji and Neji are married men, Shikamaru is Temari’s bitch, Lee is eyebrows and Gaara is no eyebrows, Kiba---dogs---Shino---bugs---Kakashi has a heinously adorable relationship with Iruka-sensei, and though it’d double my chances of bearing children with Sharingan, I didn’t want to sleep with my homicidal older brother, so you happened to be on top of the list.”



Naruto’s expression of Dire Pain slid down into the Pure Agony category. He looked green.



“You…actually thought about sleeping with all of them? Kakashi-sensei? And Itachi?”



“Yes,” Sasuke said irritably, arms folded over his chest. “Before you came along and decided to make a relationship out of this whole mess, this was all about genetics.”



“Well, I’m glad I did, I guess, if it saved you from icky incestuous relationships. I was totally the best choice, y’know, ’cause my babies will be the cutest things ever,” Naruto said firmly, grinning. “And you want nothing more than to cuddle with me, fend off the horny fox that shares my body, and have litters of our nauseatingly darling kits.”



“Keep telling yourself that,” Sasuke muttered, and leaned over to pick up his book. He winced with a pained hiss halfway through the movement, holding his stomach with the crook of one arm as he doubled over. Naruto was at his side as quickly as ninja movements would allow; he had one hand on the small of his back and another splayed over his belly, his trained fingers searching for wrenched muscles or irregular movements from the triplets.



“Stop,” said Sasuke, waving him away. “I’m just a little sore, that’s all…”



“Sasu, be careful,” Naruto whispered, pulling him into his arms. Before Sasuke could form a muttered reply, Naruto scooped him up like he was taking his bride across the threshold. Sasuke flushed, embarrassed to be carried like some sort of invalid---which he wasn’t---or a sweet, girlish waif---which was even more laughable.



“Naruto---“



“Stop squirming,” he said strictly. “You’re not that heavy, scarecrow.”



“I can walk!” Sasuke snapped, sounding strangled.



“Stop trying to be macho---you’re not macho; haven’t been for months. You have two weeks to walk by yourself while I’m gone,” Naruto growled, taking him back inside. “While I’m here, let me baby you and carry you around---even if it is that you’re just sore. I’m sorry, though---I didn’t think that jumping forms would be good for you, and I should have said so---”



“I know my limit,” Sasuke said irritably.



“A coupla Chidori and then you keel over. I know. You know your limit when you’re not toting around extra passengers---but you’ve got three of them in you, Sasuke! I’m fucking going nuts at the thought of leaving you here when you’re so thin and sick and---“ Naruto deposited him gently on the couch, his expression pinched, lower-lip puckered slightly. “---and promise me you’ll take care of yourself. Please. Kyuubi and I are gonna go insane if we don’t have your promise on this.”



Sasuke really couldn’t say no to those sweet cerulean eyes.



“I will,” Sasuke mumbled. “I’d hate to see what Kyuubi would do to me if I don’t.”



“If you think my force-feeding is uncomfortable,” Naruto said, and grinned halfheartedly. “You haven’t seen anything. Don’t let Kyuubi fool you---he’s even worse than I am when it comes to you and our kits. He wouldn’t stop at one or two popped buttons---he’d have you well rounded and bearing litters constantly, with only a couple months of breastfeeding breaks in between. His idea of a family and a good breeding bitch are a little different than ours.”



“I want to populate a clan,” Sasuke groused as Naruto draped a blanket over him. He tucked the blanket in around him, mothering in a uniquely Iruka-like way. His hands stayed longest in smoothing the fabric over the ripening mound of his stomach, and Sasuke didn’t miss the soft smile that tugged at his mouth (he didn’t want to guess how much Naruto agreed with Kyuubi’s mating philosophy). “Not a damn nation.”



“Rest,” the kyuubi-boy said, passing a gentle hand over his messy black hair as he stood and made his way into the pocket-sized kitchen. “I’ll make some tea.”



“Green tea?” he asked hopefully.



“Chamomile,” Naruto said stubbornly. “It’s supposed to calm you down and shit.”



“Great,” Sasuke growled beneath his breath. He attempted to roll over, but found that he was completely unable to move beneath the blanket. Growling with frustration, he slid his shoulders to the sides, his scowl deepening as he sighted a gleam of metal sunk into the couch cushions. “Naruto! Did you fasten the blanket down with kunai!”



“Maaaaaaybe,” Naruto trilled from the kitchen, bursting out into foxy laughter.



“Uzumaki Naruto!”



“That’s my name, you want my number?”



“Dobe, I’m not an invalid---I’m pregnant! I can still move and walk by my own!”



“I know,” Naruto said with a gleeful little laugh, and Sasuke resisted the urge to burn chakra on Goukakyuu no jutsu in order to free himself. That, and he’d have the problem of low control on the jutsu, which meant that he would more than likely set himself on fire along with the blanket. His babies would not appreciate it. “That’s why I’m going to make us some tea---which I will help you sip without spilling a drop; being a jounin is good for a couple things---and you, being pinned to the couch with a clever blanket-and-kunai trap taught to me by the great Hatake Kakashi, will not be able to squirm away. We’ll move on to dinner after that, and I will make every effort to make up for the fact that I won’t be able to feed you for two weeks.”



“Naruto…” Sasuke buried his face in the back of the couch and fought the impulse to scream. Naruto’s love could be…overpowering at times. Smothering might be an apt term, or downright suffocating. If someone could overwhelm and throttle by a bright aura alone, Naruto would have made a horrific sort of jutsu out of it by now. Sasuke closed his eyes and took a long, calming breath.



“Button-popping again? I’m wearing sweats, moron. I don’t have buttons to pop.”



“That should prove to be a new challenge, then, won’t it?”



“Keep going like this and I’ll be twenty pounds overweight by the time I’ve given birth!” Sasuke yelled, squirming as best he could inside Naruto’s stupid trap. Even straining didn’t pull the kunai out---Naruto was surprisingly efficient.



“Which you’d easily burn off the moment you started your usual training regiment,” Naruto assured him, reappearing with a pot of tea in hand and two cups balanced on his sunny head. He also carried a plate of toast, which he set on Sasuke’s belly with a grin. It tottered somewhat precariously. “Stop fretting over stupid things. I really, honestly don’t care, Sasuke. Shinobi’s honor. I’d rather you be chubby and safe than stick-thin and hurting.”



“More cushion for the pushing,” Sasuke intoned darkly, to which Naruto blushed and scratched the back of his head. He could almost hear Kyuubi’s raucous laughter.



“Not what I meant and you know it. Now drink your tea and stop bitching.”



“If I had the use of my hands, I would drink my tea, but unfortunately, someone has pinned them to my sides, rendering me immobile.”



“Mmmm…immobility. I just realized that I could completely take advantage of you like this,” Naruto grinned, stooping over to brush a kiss on his frowning lips. “Should I?”



“How keen are you on sharing a bed with me your last night in town?”



“Fair answer,” he admitted, and shrugged, sliding his hands into the crevasse between the cushion and the back of the couch in order to pull out his ingenious trap. “Fiiiiine, I’ll let you loose. Just take it easy, ‘kay? You know I have the best intentions in mind.”



“Right,” Sasuke sighed, reaching up for a kiss. “You win this round.”



As Naruto happily took his victory kiss, Sasuke slid one hand down and over his thigh, slowly, so that Naruto did not realize that he wasn’t flirting---he was silently undoing his mate’s weapons pouch, fingering the ball of wire and half-dozen senbon he had tucked inside. Before Naruto even realized that the tables had been turned, Sasuke whipped out the wire and had it wrapped around him eight times, pulling tightly to rope him in. This rendered the blond completely immobile. He fell to the floor with a thud, arms pinned to his sides, his blue eyes wide and shocked.



Sasuke smirked.



“Round two, dobe. You let your guard down.”



“No fair!” Naruto howled, wriggling helplessly in his binds. “Of course I let my guard down---I was distracted, you bastard! You can’t use my weapons against me when I’m distracted!”



“I can and did,” Sasuke said shortly, sitting down next to him and sticking a piece of toast in his mouth to shut him up. “Now I’m going to drink green tea because I despise chamomile, and you will quietly lay there and splutter. I’ll debate freeing you later, after my vicious revenge streak is through exercising itself.”



“Go’amn Avenger! I wash jush tryin’ to help,” Naruto grumbled crabbily around the piece of toast, chewing only because getting rid of it was his only way to ensure being able to talk again. Sasuke promptly shoved another piece into his mouth the moment the first slice of toast disappeared. It was a bit of a roundabout way to get peace and quiet, but it was oddly effective, too. Besides, the more toast he shoved down Naruto’s throat, the less he had to eat himself.



“Eat your toast, dear,” Sasuke smirked, patting his shaggy blond head as the kyuubi-boy bucked and writhed.



As usual, a knock at the door derailed the sure torture Sasuke would have implemented---starting with pokes and undoubtedly becoming more ferocious as Naruto giggled and squirmed---and so Sasuke got to his feet with a sigh. It was obvious that he was home---always home at this point, because the gawks he earned upon leaving the solitude of his apartment grated his patience. It wasn’t like he could just ignore whoever it was at the door, so he dusted toast crumbs from his sweats and answered the door with a glare and a terse growl of “what?”.



It was Konohamaru, playing nervously with the end of his long scarf. He looked up, found Sasuke to be standing there instead of Naruto, and instantly colored.



“Um,” Konohamaru said, his dark eyes darting furtively to the side. He was looking everywhere but at Sasuke’s belly---having learned the full extent of Naruto’s involvement with the Uchiha heir, Konohamaru had been both a little put off and slightly troubled. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that Naruto---Naruto, whom he had always admired growing up, Naruto, his very nearly straight friend, Naruto, who had obvious done a number on Sasuke in order to have gotten him so pregnant---could end up in a relationship with him. Konohamaru, being a sparkling young pervert, was extremely well-versed in what baby-making entailed, and the thought of Naruto…happily and willingly doing that to a disdainful asshole like the Uchiha bastard…it just irked him. Naruto deserved better, he thought. Naruto deserved someone just as bright and cheerily sunny as he was. And yet he’d settled for him, for that ass-on-ice, scowling brat of an Uchiha…had there been drugs involved? Konohamaru was almost certain that there had to have been drugs involved.



Konohamaru looked up at the eaves. Konohamaru looked down at the ground. Konohamaru looked at the street to the left and the slip into the back yard to the right. Konohamaru did not look at Sasuke, his clothes ruffled, his face lightly rouged, his round belly very, very there. Konohamaru did not want to know what he had been doing that had worked color into his face like that.



Sensing the icy wall the boy had put up, Sasuke instantly reverted to Sasu the Crab mode. He glared at Konohamaru, leaning on the doorframe.



“What do you want?” He asked briskly, perfectly willing to slam the door in his face if he didn’t reply quickly enough.



“I was wondering if Naru-nii---uh---Naruto was around. He was supposed to meet me at Ichiraku earlier to talk about our mission tomorrow, but he didn’t show up.”



If he hadn’t known better, Konohamaru would have thought he saw Sasuke smirk.



“Naruto’s a bit tied up right now,” he said. “Can’t come to the door. I assume you want me to tell him you came by?”



“Yeah,” the boy said slowly, wondering what in the world could be more important to Naruto than ramen---Konohamaru hadn’t really seen that much of his friend since he’d returned from his last ‘mission’, and he’d been certain that bribing him with an offer of free ramen would at the very least get his attention. “Just tell him that I’ll see him tomorrow morning, and that he’d better get his damned head out of the clouds…geez.”



Sasuke decided that this was as good an opportunity as any to slam the door.



“It was the pervy little brat,” Sasuke said as helpfully as possible, stuffing the last piece of toast in Naruto’s mouth as the fox-boy groaned, glaring. “Said something about cloud watching.”



“Never letting you take my messages again,” Naruto grumbled. “Fox-ears, remember? I heard him---he said to get my head out of the clouds, not watch the clouds, Mr. Lost in Translation. I have a feeling you try to be disagreeable sometimes.”



“Sometimes,” Sasuke agreed, making sure Naruto’s binds were snug enough that they kept him firmly in place, but not so tight that they cut in. He didn’t want to hurt his mate---just wanted to show him exactly how wonderful aggressive loving was. Maybe he’d think twice about submitting him to it next time if the loving session was painful enough.



“Crap, I did forget about meeting him earlier, though…never gonna hear the end of that one. ‘Maru thinks I’m giving him the cold shoulder as is.”



“Are you?”



“No, of course not. You’re just a little higher on the list right now, y’know? I mean, ‘Maru’s like the horrible little brother I never had, right, but until you get yourself healthier, you and the kits are my top priority. Anyways, all he and I ever talk about is chicks and who’s gonna get Hokage first, so it’s not like I’m missing much.” Naruto grinned a bit at the ceiling. “It’s his first A-level. Do you remember your first A-level?”



“I think it involved a hostage situation with a Fire Lord’s daughter,” Sasuke said absently, taking a sip of tea as he stretched out on the couch. He curled up on his side so that the weight of the babies didn’t have to rest against his spine---he was having bad enough back problems as it was. “She hit on me ceaselessly---Sasuke-kun this, Sasuke-kun that, Sasuke-kun, you really have the most amazing eyes. It was awkward.”



“Sasuke, I’ll write novels on your eyes if you’ll let me go,” the kyuubi-boy wheedled pathetically. “I can’t feel my fingers anymore. I won’t be any fun at all if I don’t have fingers, and you know it. You’d be sorry.”



“Serves you right,” Sasuke replied stiffly. “Belting me down to the couch like I’m some kind of infirm two-year-old…this pregnancy hasn’t changed me all that much, dobe. I can still kick your ass, even carrying triplets.”



“I hazily remember something about a birdbath,” Naruto agreed, rolling his eyes. “But you gave me a CONCUSSION, so it’s not like I remember much.”



“Whiner,” Sasuke accused, pillowing his cheek against his arm and glaring down at him.



“Bastard,” Naruto growled back.



“Dobe.”



“Bastard.”



“Half-wit.”



“Bastard.”



“Naruto---“



“Bastard.”



“Would you just shut up? Sometimes I wonder if you’re mature enough to be a parent!”



“I’m probably not, you know,” Naruto said cheerfully, smiling with all his vulpine exuberance. “But I’m sure that changing diapers and somehow juggling three babies with the whole of Konoha will teach me to grow up some.”



“You have matured,” Sasuke said, sobering suddenly. “Do you think I’d push this kind of responsibility on you if I didn’t think you could do it?”



Naruto chewed on that for a moment, biting back the comment that wanted to surface: seems like everyone’s pushing responsibility on me lately, huh? He didn’t say it because it sounded both trite and childish, and he didn’t want to be either. That, and it wasn’t like he didn’t want this kind of burden---mate, kits, possibly the leadership of an entire village of ninja that’d hated him his entire childhood…it was just a lot of things very quickly. He was still trying to wrap his mind around most of it, and the solidity of Sasuke’s rounding belly and the activity of the kits within was a sureness that grew on him, relaxing him into the enormity of that particular responsibility. The issue of the village and his nomination as Rokudaime Hokage was a little more abstract.



“I want this responsibility,” Naruto said seriously, locking Sasuke in an earnest blue glare. “More than anything else, I want to be your mate and the father to your kits. That’s why…” he trailed off, grinning crookedly as the fingers he’d slowly been working towards each other finally met in the familiar cross formation. “…I’m doing this! Kage-bunshin-no-jutsu!”



Before Sasuke could properly protect himself, three clones had freed Naruto from his binds, and he cheerfully tackled his mate, carefully straddling his thighs and giving him a loud and cheerful kiss on the tip of his nose. He nuzzled his belly with a purr.



“I should have seen that technique coming,” Sasuke groaned, rolling his eyes. “Ugh.”



“I so win,” Naruto said, grinning from ear to ear. “What’s my prize?”



“My word that I won’t smother you in your sleep tonight.”



“Ooooh, a cheapskate, eh? Am I going to have to work my victory prize outta you, then?”



“I’d like to see you try, dobe.”



Naruto did try. And he won most spectacularly, as usual. Not that Sasuke was playing to lose, of course. No, of course not.



Curled up with the dobe on the couch later, sleepily explaining all the flaws in the book he was reading, Sasuke suffered through having his hair pet like a favorite cat, knowing that Naruto wasn’t paying even an iota of attention to his plot-rant. He didn’t need to be listening, really---he just needed to be there, warm and exceedingly orange. Naruto filled those prerequisites nicely, happily offering a thigh for Sasuke’s pillow and playing with the long strands of his blue-black hair that fell into his lap. Much as he complained about Naruto’s incessant need to pet and tease, they both knew it was all necessary Uchiha bluster. Sasuke liked the attention, and he found himself less than eager to go two weeks without it now that he’d become so used to it. Reliant on it, even, like a newly-domesticated animal craves human touch.



“Dobe?” Sasuke inquired quietly, having paused in his examination of characterization errors in the novel. “If I have to promise to keep myself and the babies safe, it has to go both ways. You have to fight smart if a battle should occur. No screwing around---you do what you have to and be done with it.”



“It’ll be fine,” Naruto replied cheerfully. “I’ve got Konohamaru and Neji with me, and they won’t let me die so easily as that.”



“Naruto, the brat is pissed with you, and Hyuuga Neji could care less if you launched yourself from the Hokage-head mountains. He doesn’t give a damn.”



“You’re right,” Naruto realized, rubbing his chin. “Maybe I should’ve requested Lee instead, huh? His greenness might counteract my orangeness.”



“Moron. Just…don’t do anything stupider than usual,” Sasuke muttered, this being his best try at voicing the knot of worry that had started to worm its way into his chest, thick and uncomfortable. It was heavy, and difficult to breathe past. He wasn’t sure if he could live with it for two weeks.



Naruto blinked down at him for a moment, translating Sasuke-ese in his head, and then quirked a soft smile because everything about his body language spoke of something he was desperately trying to explain, but couldn’t find the fitting words for. Sometimes it was damnably hard to be a ninja whose vocabulary consisted almost wholly of new and exciting ways to say “I’m going to kill you so dead”. Gentler things were difficult, weren’t they? Less logical.



“I love you, too,” Naruto said, taking his hand and kissing his callused palm. “That’s what you were trying to say, right?”



Sasuke sighed. He inhaled deeply---thick and warm, boyishly sweet and just a little bit salty---and forced himself to remember that scent, though his sense of sight was so much more attuned than his nose. He wanted to be able to recognize that smell in the sheets even after Naruto had left. Even if it was just a reflection, that was a piece of him.



“Yeah,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. “I think that’s pretty much it.”



“Don’t worry,” Naruto said, and grinned.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Don’t worry,” Naruto said quietly, so calm and gentle that he knew he was going to die. Something vital had been hit; his entire left side from shoulder to hip was a mess of shredded flesh and oozing blood. He didn’t have the energy to laugh and take Sasuke into an embrace with his good right arm. He barely had the strength to keep standing---his beautiful blue eyes were hazed, deadened with pain and a sheen of tears he couldn’t even shed. He staggered, half-fell---his bloodied cheek rested on Sasuke’s shoulder, and the hand not mangledbySamehadefanned over his curved abdomen. “Don’t worry, Sasuke…it isn’t bad.”



“It isn’t bad?” Sasuke repeated incredulously, half-stifled with tears he didn’t even know how to cry. “Naruto---“



“I was thinkin’…” Naruto interrupted him, his glazed eyes lending an innate urgency to his words. “…that if we have a little girl, we should name her after Sakura. Not ‘cause she’s my old flame or your…old girl…but ‘cause she’s always been a friend to us, don’t you think? She’s gotten to be such a woman---we’re still just boys compared to her…it’d be lucky to name our daughter after her, I think…”



“Don’t talk about that now,” Sasuke demanded, choked. “We’ll get Sakura to see you---she can heal something like this easily---“



“Not enough time,” Naruto murmured, drawing a gentle circle with his palm. His hand shook---the protective little movement took effort. “Kyuubi…Kyuubi’s quiet already. He’s drained dry, but it was worth it…you’ll be okay now, right? I killed Kabuto and Kisame…Itachi…I don’t know, but…” His rough voice dribbled off into incomprehension.



“Fuck Itachi!” Sasuke barked, hysterical. “There is---I---I can do something---“



“The babies need the chakra, stupid…don’t waste it on me…wouldn’t be…”



“Waste it? Naruto, Naruto look at me---“



“’M tired, Sasuke,” Naruto whispered hoarsely against his throat. “Can we just sleep tonight? Just you, me, and the kits…that’s more’n enough…I…”



Naruto’s eyes were closed. His breaths came hot, short, and shallow, an assurance that suddenly slowed, and then stilled altogether. The hand on his belly went lax, fingers curling, and he exhaled one last time. He might have said I love you, but Sasuke would never have been sure---all he could be certain of was the fact that he was dead and cooling, so much older when that bright foxy face lost the light that animated it.



“NARUTO!”



Sasuke sat up in bed, hunching over and fighting for a full breath past the clamoring thoughts clouding his mind and tightening his throat. The triplets---awake and nervous because of his stress---kicked and squirmed, as if trying to beseech an answer from their startled, tear-damp parent. He wiped his face with one hand---the tears had been real even if the vision had not---and then slid his hands to gently cradle his belly, rubbing circles with his fingertips and taking deep breaths in an effort to calm both himself and them.



Dad’s fine, kits, Sasuke thought at them, having long since adopted Naruto’s foxily idiosyncratic nicknames. A little shaken up, but fine. Bad dreams, that’s all…you’ll be able to sympathize soon enough if any of you get our bloodline.



Sasuke was surprised that the jounin posted outside didn’t run inside, weapons drawn, at having him wake up bellowing Naruto’s name. Either they didn’t care that their charge was having some definite issues, or they hadn’t heard his scream---they weren’t particularly good jounin, he’d realized in the last couple of days (he’d set up various traps to keep them on their toes when patrolling outside, but they seemed to have lost toes to them). He wouldn’t put such an oversight past them. They’d only be posted for two days now, and he was already losing it---their omnipresent brushes of chakra coupled with the absence of one familiar, bright chakra signature was enough to effect Sasuke in the dream world, though he denied himself the pleasure of tipping it to all the worried friends that visited him.



Just a Sharingan-dream. Nothing more. Naruto is fine, he forced himself to repeat the assurances like a mantra, desperate for whatever comfort could be drawn from the knowledge that he had not suffered through a memory---real as it had felt, it was not reality. Just a nightmare, the unfortunate side effect and curse of his bloodline.



Sharingan was not just about eyes. Sharingan was a technique for the whole body, a gift through the blood at birth: Sharingan was keen observations learned through the family at an early age, three times the visual memory and ocular brain structure, tight, stringy muscles that could be jerked into copying damn well anything, and a memory bank quite unlike any other. Most Sharingan users had photographic memories. It came with the blood---this inability to forget, and, in the case of the Uchiha clan, this inability to forgive as well.



It came out in his dreams, whether or not he liked it. Such dreams, such nightmares, such surreal reality. It was all so authentic, so undeniably real: the grown-out blond locks hanging into enraged crimson eyes, his pupils drawn into hateful slits, the sizzling red chakra boiling in thick whorls around his hunched form, the black blood clotting his ravaged shoulder and chest, the painful knowledge that Naruto was going to die of his wounds…every eyelash had been outlined in his mind. Every goddamn dark-blond eyelash, the droplets of blood beading like tiny, imperfect rubies. He could still call it up in his mind, right down to the fine white scar beneath the kyuubi-boy’s right eye from one of their earliest and most brutal scraps, and the pronounced canines in that last bloody smile that tried so hard to be reassuring…



Sasuke exhaled shakily. Naruto, like some kind of sunny and infinite nightlight, had staved off the nightmares for a long time, but something about his new weakness, new loneliness, and the old bloody house brought them back with a vengeance. The ghosts just wouldn’t let him alone now that his bright shield was gone.



Just a nightmare, Sasuke told himself, taking deep breaths. Having waddled to the kitchen for whatever support the familiarity had to offer, he forced down another glass of milk, focusing on the act of tiny sips rather than the sharp, clear flashes of the dream that wanted to tangle their claws in his mind. Don’t invent new reasons for the dobe to call you a woman. Naruto is safe, wherever the hell he is. I’m safe. The triplets are safe in me. There are--- He paused, briefly throwing out his senses. ---four jounin on the roof. Itachi wouldn’t be able to take out four jounin without making enough noise to tip me off. I’m safe. That---all that---couldn’t happen. Itachi can’t touch us here, and Kisame and Kabuto---they’re both a billion miles away as far as I’m concerned. Naruto’s probably not even to the Water Nation yet…he’s only been gone for two days. Everyone’s safe---no need to pace and fret and---shit---



“My, you’re up late, Sasuke-kun,” a familiar voice chuckled, though Sasuke hadn’t been able to reign in his first and most violent impulse: he’d thrown the cup of milk at the sound, making Kakashi duck so that he wasn’t met with a littering of glass in his silvery hair. It cracked and shattered on the wall behind his old sensei, an explosion of milk and glass. Kakashi smiled sheepishly beneath his mask at the reflexive outburst. “Ah…bad day?”



“Don’t sneak up on me,” Sasuke hissed in a tone of pure venom, shaking slightly. He hadn’t heard the jounin’s approach---he’d been too deeply engrossed in his thoughts to be aware of much, really---and he was both ashamed to have missed something like that and angry at himself for not keeping more aware. He was slipping, and he didn’t like to think of himself as anything but the finessed ninja he’d been half a year ago. Weakness was not something Sasuke was accustomed to, and that left him irritable. Then again, most things left Sasuke irritable.



“Gomen,” Kakashi said shortly, arms crossed lazily across his chest. He wiped a dribble of milk from his cheek, the folds of his mask curving into a grin. “I heard you moving about down here, and thought I might see what had you up.”



He squinted at the silver-haired pervert, gauging his expression. Yes, he decided, he’d heard him screaming, and was now inventing reasons to check up on his pupil. This was as curiously kind and thoughtful as Kakashi got---something he’d picked up from Iruka, but he was in no way verbal or outward about it like his chuunin lover. Call it backhanded mother-hen-ing.



“For the joys of late-night TV. Why else would I be up at two in the morning?” Sasuke deadpanned, getting another glass from the cupboard and filling it again with milk. Acting as if nothing had happened was a chief talent of the Uchiha clan, and he was very good at it. “What are you doing here---I’d thought that Tsunade would spare only her newbie jounin to watch over the nonexistent threat growing in my belly.”



“Not a wizened old veteran bent on watching over the former student carrying said nonexistent threat?” Kakashi asked, carefully stepping over the mess of glass in order to better engage Sasuke in conversation. Hanging about the doorway was no way to convince him into talking---many years around the boy and having a similarly prickly personality made Kakashi an old pro in dealing with Sasuke.



“You’re thirty-two, Kakashi-sensei,” Sasuke said firmly. “You are not old in any way. And yes, I know that all the jounin out there except you are new blood---two have already succumbed to the simple traps I set up, and they walk about up there like a small herd of elephants. How they got to be jounin is beyond me entirely. Ibiki must be getting lax in his old age.”



“Ibiki’s thirty-two as well, you know,” he grinned, to which Sasuke only snorted.



“He’s old. You’re not. Your students still have the aptitude to set decent traps, at least.”



“Ah, so now we know who’s been setting the traps,” Kakashi mused. “Not precisely a nice prisoner, are you? Not that I’d expect you to be…you never have liked being babysat. Not even when it was me, the kindest and fondest teacher you’ve ever been graced with, doing the babysitting.”



“Living with you was hell,” he growled, scowling. “If I had known that leaving the village for the enemy’s stronghold meant that I was going to be under house-arrest the moment I got back, I never would have left. You were not a good guardian. You are barely a rational adult. How Iruka-sensei manages to live with you and not kill you marks him as nothing short of a saint.”



“That, or it marks me as incredibly difficult to kill. It’s a tossup.”



Sasuke had lived with Kakashi for a full two years: though they hadn’t been altogether unwilling to allow Sasuke back in the village, the elders hadn’t exactly welcomed their prodigal prodigy with open arms, either. There was no way for them to tell how pure his intentions were, so they’d needed assurance in the form of a guardian. Kakashi had offered (after Naruto had bugged him ceaselessly; none of the other jounin had been willing to take the turncoat under their wing, and Naruto was not about to see his old teammate turned away from the village on technicalities alone), but two geniuses under one roof had proved a bad mix.



They both liked their space. Unfortunately, Kakashi’s apartment had been very small, leading to Chidori-laden threats, stepped-on toes, and more than a few issues over cleaning details. Sasuke had literally counted down the days until his eighteenth birthday and his subsequent freedom from his porn-reading, teasing, gleeful sensei. He had become sick and tired of the Naruto-jibes (and how right Kakashi was about Sasuke’s feelings for the dobe) and incessant banter: a practiced pervert and a boy with the sexual prowess of an ice cube made for poor housemates.



Although, looking back, Sasuke missed his incredibly sharp conversations with Kakashi. A little. When they weren’t related with Sasuke and his plethora of Naruto Issues. Naruto didn’t always understand him, but Kakashi did---a fellow loner and an old hand at loss, they spoke catches of the same dialect. Living with him, Sasuke had found the worn photograph of a young and surly Kakashi surrounded by live and vibrant friends, and the bright orange goggles marked with the Uchiha mon. He didn’t know what they meant---didn’t know the stories, didn’t know the names---but he had a feeling that they matched his thoughts to near perfect waves. Kakashi had always been a kind of mirror to him…an inverted mirror, perhaps---white hair versus black, forced laughter versus emotion caught into neat bundles with tags reading feel this later---but at the core, they were frighteningly similar.



Maybe that’s why he felt safe to talk to, even if the workup was always slow, and laying out his weaknesses always made him feel as if he’d slipped a notch in Kakashi’s eyes. It was still necessary, especially now.



“Would you like a glass of milk, Kakashi-sensei? I’d offer more, but we haven’t got a lot in the fridge. Too many guests lately.”



“Milk sounds promising,” Kakashi agreed. He slid down his mask and smiled absently, having grown used to Sasuke seeing the lower hemisphere of his face. That’d taken almost two years of living with him, and a monumental argument---Sasuke still winced to think about it. A little more alcohol under his belt than he’d admit to having drunk (self-medication---he’d been bad about it for a while), he’d accused Kakashi of not understanding him---when the real problem was the jounin understood him far, far too well. Kakashi had lost his laughing vestiges at that, his temper rampant at the sorest of his buttons being pushed, and then had ensued a philosophical yelling-match for the record books.



You think I don’t understand your fear of love? Kakashi had raged, jerking down his mask and truly snarling at the younger man. The air had crackled with suppressed anger; Sasuke had half-feared a spontaneous Chidori to form in the air between them, exploding in firework-worthy displays of frustrated emotion and potent chakra. He’d jabbed fingers at the fine scars on his pale face: one beneath his lower lip, something like the aftermath of a possessive nip, and the long one that curved from his left brow to the flare of his cheekbone, over his infamous Sharingan eye.



I’ve killed everyone who’s loved me---the girl that gave me this, and the boy that gave me my eye! Don’t you think I fear for Iruka? Don’t you think I fear that I’ll lose him, too, and maybe put a lock of his hair beside Obito’s goggles and Rin’s medic pack so that I can drink with his ghost on lonely nights? Hypocrite! At least I’ve tried! You---you will wake up one morning, Sasuke, and wonder where it’s all gone: your life, your love, your soul, and you’ll realize that your vengeance devoured it all. Naruto will move on without you. He might have already, while you sit here, rage, and do nothing. Risk nothing, gain nothing. I’ve risked and lost, risked and lost, and gained again…but you don’t have anything. He’d laughed then, bitterly. I’d like to say I pitied you.



Sasuke hadn’t told Kakashi---didn’t want him to know he’d won the argument, really---but he was the one who’d pushed him into initiating The Plan on Naruto. Not six months later, he’d swallowed the considerable lump of his Uchiha pride and had taken Naruto to bed, telling himself that it was for this reason or that reason, and not because the kyuubi-boy made him feel things---anger and tenderness, a whole spectrum of emotions he was usually denied. Naruto made him feel awake, as if everything else before had been a sleepy morning best forgotten. Yes, they bickered, but it was emotionally charged---loving bickers, angry bickers, and everything in between. With Naruto, something was awakened in him other than blasé irritation with the world at large.



And yelling at Kakashi had made it all possible. There was something fitting about that.



Interrupting his brooding, Kakashi looked down at the glass of milk he’d been offered and gave a small sigh.



“Any cookies?”



“Naruto probably has some hidden around here somewhere,” Sasuke said, setting down his glass and waddling over to rifle through the pantry. “You wouldn’t believe his sweet tooth. I’ll eat ice cream now and again, but he’d have a sweet with every meal if I allowed him---cookies, suckers, soda, dango…anything sweet he can get his grubby fox-paws on.”



“Like taking care of a five-year-old, isn’t it?” Kakashi grinned. “And to think that he’s matured since I first started with the two of you. I believe you remember the raw material I started with, and then lovingly sculpted into the fine young man we see today. Our little idiot is off saving the world and having babies…have you got a hankie, Sasuke-kun? I might need to dab at some tears.”



“Iruka-sensei hasn’t been able to pound the sarcasm out of you, I see,” Sasuke said darkly, and tossed half a package of Nin Scout Cookies at his sensei.



“Much as he’s tried,” Kakashi agreed cheerfully, ripping into the cookies with enthusiasm. “Although I suppose my pounding has been more effective than his when it comes to convincing anyone about anything. Mmm. Minty.”



“Don’t need to know about the state of your personal pounding,” Sasuke groused, trying to mask the blush that threatened to dust his cheeks.



“Looking pretty pounded yourself,” the pervert teased, his visible eye arching amusedly along with the curve of his cupid-bow lips. “Triplets, right? Naruto certainly doesn’t shortchange on these sort of things…when you told him you wanted a clan, he damn well gave it to you.” He paused, nibbling on a mint cookie. “You did talk with him beforehand, didn’t you? You left as soon as you began to show, he waited a bit to join you so as not to arouse suspicion, and you only came back because you needed to see a medic-nin. A fair plan, actually.”



Sasuke’s guilty silence was answer enough.



“No?” Kakashi tried, silver eyebrows shooting up to his hairline.



“Not…exactly. He didn’t know at first. It happened---between us---after the babies,” Sasuke admitted, deciding that if he had to say it, he was going to blurt it out in as few words as possible. “It’s a long and complicated story, and it’d take more than a glass of milk for me to tell it. Try later, once I’ve given birth, stopped breastfeeding, and can be thoroughly inebriated.”



“Ah,” said the jounin, and tactfully left it at that.



Sasuke took a cookie and ate it gingerly, if only for the needed pretext that one cannot talk with food in their mouth. They sat in the kitchen and ate cookies for a while---making Sasuke feel enormously silly; what was he, three? Kakashi broke the silence with a ruminative sigh, scratching idly at the silvery stubble on his chin.



“They’re not like us, you know,” Kakashi said, knowing without having to think about it that Sasuke understood---again, they spoke the same sparse language, knitted together piecemeal by pride and masculinity, genius status and years of frustrated loss. Sasuke nodded briefly.



‘They’ were always the two centers of their otherwise depressing universes: Iruka and Naruto, who, just like Sasuke and Kakashi, were uncannily alike. Old pranksters, illogically and almost absurdly caring, brimming with life and love which they positively reeked on anyone who came in contact with them. Men like that were a rare salve for the broken ones.



“I know,” he said, drawing his fingers through the beads of moisture that had condensed on the outside of his glass. The kanji for sunflower appeared after a couple of strokes at the perspiration, and he rubbed it out with his thumb, silently agreeing. If they were anything, they were sunflowers, especially Naruto---always turning towards the light instead of shying away from it. “They’re brighter. Irrational.”



“Refreshing because of it.”



“Yes.”



“They don’t understand us sometimes.”



“Much as they try,” Sasuke decided. He sighed. “They try too hard, I think.”



“Agreed. I wonder if we deserve it.”



“Probably not. But at this point, I’ve decided not to complain.”



“Wise strategy.”



“I am a genius.”



“True.”



Silence again.



“I’m going to go back outside again. Don’t want the newbies to think you distracted me with your pregnant-ness and were garroting me with a bra strap, or some other nonsense,” Kakashi said, dusting cookie crumbs from his fingers and righting his omnipresent mask. Sasuke had learned that despite what anyone else would say, that mask was more to keep Kakashi in than others out. He said things, frivolous things, when the mask was settled down past his chin, and Iruka and Sasuke were perhaps the only ones he felt sure he’d brain-picked enough that he could trust them to take the frivolity right along with the serious and dangerous jounin he was. Sasuke had walls, Kakashi had masks. It was anyone’s guess as to which one was a stronger defense.



“Once I can drink again, I think we ought to talk about…things,” Sasuke said carefully, not about to say that he needed guidance on these decisions in his life that were ripping him to shreds inside. Do I deserve Naruto, do I even deserve these children---what kind of parent will a person like me make, can I raise three kits simultaneously and not have at least one of them end up like Itachi---shoved into the spotlight because they’re deserving of praise, and yet hating themselves while their siblings resent them? Can Kakashi even help me with these kind of problems---look at him, not ever worried about having children because the person he loves most is a man, and he doesn’t think his genius genes ought to be passed on anyhow…he’s not like me, he doesn’t need another legend---first the White Fang, and then the Copy Ninja---they need no follow-up act…



“Sasuke-kun,” Kakashi said gently, with more than a little humor warming the edges of his tone. “The answer is yes.”



“Yes?” Sasuke repeated, narrowing his eyes. It’d be just his luck if the old perv had somehow managed psychic mind-picking or something equally as laughable. Sasuke could affirm most definitely that Sharingan eyes could not see the future. “You don’t even know the question, Kakashi-sensei.”



“Don’t need to,” he said equably, pocketing four cookies for later. “It’s simple: if you already know that the answer is yes, form the question so that the resultant answer is favorable. It’s one of those peppy, can-do teacher things Iruka pounded into me. Might work out some of those knots in your shoulders if you heed the advice. Worry will get you nowhere save a hospital bed at this point.”



“I realize that,” Sasuke said, and quietly finished his milk. “I think I’ll get back to bed, Kakashi-sensei.” He paused, threw around the thoughts in his head for a moment, and added: “Thank you.”



“From one genius to another,” Kakashi said cheerfully, and gave him an askance wave over his shoulder as he disappeared out a window. “Now get to sleep before I sic Iruka and his eternal mothering on you. He’ll make you tea and wash behind your ears. Don’t push me to it.”



“Go away,” Sasuke grouched, depositing the cookie-wrappers in the trashcan and glaring. The moment, though brief, was definitely over. When he didn’t get an answer, Sasuke turned off the light and shuffled off back to bed. He didn’t have any more nightmares---just an odd and somewhat comforting dream about his mother lecturing him on how he needed to care for himself; three babies on the way and look at his state! He woke up in a good mood, lazy and warm, though when his wandering, sleepy fingers found the sheets to be cold and empty beside him, the mood was abruptly slaughtered. Sasuke woke up and sighed, hating how perfectly untouched Naruto’s side of the futon was. In a rash burst of childish impulsiveness, he bunched up the covers as if the dobe had slept there, and refused to make the bed all morning, though it irked his neat-streak.



And so the third Naruto-less day began with a whimper, not a bang.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took two days at a fair pace to get to the Water Nation’s capitol, Bunsuikai, and it was spent in relative silence. Konohamaru kept to himself on the whole, feverishly ripping through Icha Icha Piracy---having connects with his hero, the illustrious Jiraiya, he had gotten an early copy of the next installment of smut---and making miffed little grunts whenever Naruto tried to talk to him. Naruto was confused as to why---yeah, he’d forgotten to meet him for ramen, but wasn’t that one of those things that easily fell into the Forgive and Forget category? He decided it best to leave the boy alone, seeing as he wasn’t keen on divulging why he was snappy, and Neji’s almost-presence made it difficult for the two to jibe and punch and be manly enough at each other that they forgot why they were fighting in the first.



Honestly, though, Naruto had enough on his mind to keep him busy. Though he’d liked to have centered his thoughts on Sasuke---Sasuke, who had refused to see him off, Sasuke, who was still having trouble putting on the nourishing weight he needed, Sasuke, who probably didn’t want him to know how scared he was to have his mate leaving, Sasuke, whose eyes completely betrayed him once one learned the tiny nuances that broadcasted his smothered emotions---he was a team leader, and therefore needed to take everything from back home and stuff it into a mental box he quickly labeled later and set aside.



The mission came first, as much as that irked him. Hanabi had to be found and interrogated, and then and only then would they be able to call it quits and traipse back to the village. Of course, the moment he came back through the gates, he would have to settle on whether he was going to claim the worn chair and robes and ascend to Hokage, or if he was going to be a working jounin for the rest of his life, though that would send him further and further into danger and thousands of steps from his strange new family…



First things first, he had the mission ahead of him. He had to exercise their sources, find suitable garb for the three of them to blend in easily into the festival, and see if it wasn’t altogether impossible to wrap this mission in under a week. If he could do that, great weights would be lifted from his shoulders---Sasuke couldn’t get himself into too much trouble in just a week, Sasuke…



Can’t think about Sasuke, he told himself fiercely, grimacing. Later, I can think about him all I want, but not until we find the missing-nin. Later. Later, later, later.



“When did you start painting your nails?” Konohamaru asked, wrinkling his nose at his older friend. His carefully-framed, touchy question jarred Naruto from his thoughts; he turned to the shorter boy and spared him a brief grin.



“Since Sasuke started painting ‘em,” Naruto beamed, curling his orange toes in his sandals.



“You two…together…still kinda hurts my head,” the boy admitted sheepishly. “I mean…I always thought that Sakura-chan was your ‘thing’, and I thought you’d have kids with her, right? Not…”



“Not with Sasuke,” Naruto agreed. “But he’s turned out to be my special someone. And hey, he is hot, isn’t he?”



“Much as it pains my heterosexual self to say it…yeah, he’s really hot.”



“And isn’t his pregnant little belly cute?”



“Naruto-nii, you’re straining my straightness. Please don’t make me admit to liking a pregnant dude.”



“Don’t worry, ‘Maru,” Naruto said cheerfully, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Today will definitely confirm your heterosexuality.”



An hour later, having eventually reached their destination past Naruto’s clear inability to follow even the most rudimentary directions, what the grinning kyuubi-boy meant by his ominous words on sexuality became perfectly clear. Konohamaru forced himself into taking deep, even breaths. He swiped one hand beneath his nose, just to make sure it hadn’t started dribbling a fountain of betrayal.



He’d read about these kinds of places before in Jiraiya-sama’s works of literary magnificence, but as a seriously underage nin, he’d never visited one himself. It was a work of sheer, sultry genius: at the very end of a street that screamed its status as A Bad Neighborhood, the storefront decorated with an austere sign proclaiming “we’re ALWAYS open” propped up, and with windows marred by strand upon strand of shiny, heart-shaped beads, it could have been the brainchild of Jiraiya himself. The scent of cheap perfume was heavy in the air, tickling at his nose and urging it closer and closer towards a nosebleed.



“Naruto,” he said slowly, carefully, as if explaining something to a small and rather dull child. “Why are we going into a brothel?”



“Because these chicks get around,” Naruto replied proudly. “They’re entertained every know-it-all in this province, probably, and we’ve got pretty faces to our favor. You’re cute, I’m blond, and Neji has OMG hair. If we flirt and play our cards right, they’ll tell us what we need to know about Hanabi. She’s got a distinctive face---pretty cute, and with those eyes, people are gonna remember seeing someone like that.”



Neji gave him a long look. It was withering. “Does Tsunade-sama know about this?”



“The hag? Of course. I was taught by the great Sannin Jiraiya, who patented this unique technique of information-gathering.”



“He also has more STDs than a sex-ed textbook,” the Hyuuga pointed out fairly.



“We won’t be sleeping with anyone, don’t worry,” Naruto said, scratching the back of his head with a nervous laugh. “I’ve got a mate and babies on the way already…and dude, if I did have an affair, Sasuke would go all clan-killy, I’m sure. It’s best if I play it straight with him and his volatile temper, seeing as his family doesn’t have the best record when it comes to mental stability.”



“’Straight’ wouldn’t be the most apt term,” Konohamaru drawled, looking disinterestedly down at his nails---as if his friend’s relationship didn’t bother him in the least, thank you very much.



“Doesn’t mean I don’t love the ladies,” Naruto grinned. He grabbed the boy by his scarf, dragging him forcibly into the seedy, pink-lit front though the attempts he made at resistance were weak at best. Neji followed solely because jounin law forced him into keeping his team leader in sight at all times, unless otherwise instructed. “C’mon, ‘Maru, and I’ll teach you a thing or two…”





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OMAKE THEATER SPECIAL: KISAME AND ITACHI



Someone asked what Itachi is doing right now, and the answer came to me in the form of an omake. You may take this seriously, or you may take it as my frazzled nerves exploding into craziness again (last time gave birth to Chibi’d, if memory serves). When I have madness like this, I usually leave it out, but I thought that the image this conjures up was good enough to leave in. Makes me laugh, at least.





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“Orochimaru,” Kisame grumbled, flicking chipped polish from his square nails. “Is on a rampage.”



“Yes, I know. He’s been bad since Sasuke so unceremoniously dumped him,” Itachi agreed, licking his thumb and carefully turning a page in Stir-Fry for Dummies. “Thinks he’s God’s gift to mankind with that tongue, and then having Sasuke leave him---shattered his poor fragile ego, I’m sure.”



Kisame rolled his eyes. “Old Oro seems to have misplaced his favorite body-to-be---no one has had contact with Sasuke for some months now, so he’s on the warpath. He’s positively having kittens over your brother.”



“Odd,” Itachi said absently, glaring at the chapter head. He was starting to think that simply Sharingan-ing a cooking show would be easier than having to memorize and follow these laughably difficult recipes. The hell was a smidge? “Sasuke is having babies.”



Kisame dropped the kunai he’d been cleaning his nails with, blinking fishy eyes at his partner.



“…babies?”



“Three, I believe,” Itachi clarified, turning another page, his tongue caught between his teeth in concentration. He skimmed the type with one purple fingernail to keep his place---his vision kept going blurry, but Uchiha pride forced him to not blackmail Kisame into reading it aloud for him. “My Sharingan saw three extra chakra signatures at his core, but one can never tell with these things. Kisame, do you know what the difference between braise and broil is? I seem to be sketchy on the details.”



The Shark’s blue complexion was turning rapidly green; his gills flared uncertainly.



“…babies?” He repeated again, enunciating carefully, as if he’d somehow misheard past translation issues.



“I’m to be an uncle,” the Uchiha said, shutting the cookbook with a sigh. Focusing on the type was giving him a headache. “Thrice over, even. One can only wonder why the deemed it best not to invite me to the baby shower.”



Kisame did not say anything for a long time after that. Finally, he stood, shouldering Samehade with a malicious, fang-filled smirk.



“I’m going to go tell Orochimaru.”



Itachi returned the smirk. “You know he’ll cry if you do.”



“I hope his mascara runs,” Kisame said with a vicious cheerfulness, rubbing his rough hands together with glee. “Should I take pictures for you?”



“Please do,” Itachi nodded. “As for me, I’m going to take a nap. We’re having stir-fry for dinner, Kisame, and I shall be moved to violence if you’re late again. You know the lettuce wilts beneath the noodles if I leave it out too long.”



Kisame left the apartment chortling evilly.



Owari





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ARGH. MUST KILL MON RAION MANUSCRIPT MOST DEAD. GAAAAARRRRRGH…



Sorry…my serious writing is bugging the hell out of me right now. Fanfiction is so much easier…plot is a much looser concept here, and the kyuubi in my serious!writing isn’t half as much fun as Naruto’s Kyuubi is. Man.



I’m debating starting up an LJ, where I’d post update snippets and some of the drabbles that collect dust on my hard drive. I’m trying to get into the habit of posting regularly, but I have a fairly boring life, and I’d hate to bore my readers to death on the stresses of Being Me. Blah. If I do put one up, the link will be on my bio page sooner or later…



To the reviewer who asked about the picture of the triplets I did, no, the tails aren’t really theirs. If you full-view the pic, you can see that the tails are tied on with string, and the ears are on headbands. Had they been born with perky fox-ears and tails, the Konoha elders would’ve rioted for sure. Haha, imagine if Sasuke hadn’t ended up with Naruto, and then had had kids with furry appendages. He’d be in so much denial, still.



This was a long rant, I know. But it was also a long chapter, so I feel entitled.



Review, please :3.