Self-Reliance

[copy and pasted from FF.net--please don't kill me Imbrium-dear, I haven't truly messed with your story]



SELF-RELIANCE



Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto. I don’t own Sasuke. But I still manage to have my metaphorical balls, despite the threats, how long this chapter took, and how fucking impatient for it some of you people were.



Summary: Sasuke gets pregnant. Shit happens. He and Naruto get together. More shit happens. They get back together again. Shit impends. And yes, that is the plot thus far.



Warnings: NaruSasu (omggay), mpreg (right, as if that was anything new), misuse of ice cream, and angst (again, nothing new).



Author’s Note Part One: I hate this chapter. Somewhat passionately. I ended up spending over a hundred hours writing and rewriting (this went through FOUR full rewrites), and I’m actually just sick of this chapter. I’m sorry if it shows. Unbeta’d, because my beta seems to be having some troubles ;;. So. Yeah. I don’t really care, anymore. ChoShikaIno has mostly edged NaruSasu out as my OTP, sadly, though I will see this fic out through the end. Unless people keep bugging the SHIT out of me about it.





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CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Sound of Settling



Sasuke started with the frailer areas that hurt, but which bled very little. He started where the dobe would feel it least, touches that would make him think it was a game. He began with pricks on his fingertips, dragging the flat edge of cool metal against the blue network of veins in his wrist, traveling until he met his chest. He drew abstract designs over his stomach and chest before biting down on his irritation and dropping his act; he plunged a senbon into his shoulder, into his side, into his thighs, into everywhere that would bleed and ache but wouldn’t kill him immediately.



He knew better than to use a kunai for this kind of risky business; he wanted it to be painful and to last, so he used senbon. Kunai would damage flesh, tearing off ragged hanks of muscle which the medic-nins would struggle to reattach and repair, but needles could be driven down deep, searing spikes of pain which would make him writhe and scream…they left pin-prick entry wounds, and the healers would have a bitch of a time accessing the deeply-embedded needles that he drove in until they were a mere stubble of metal points…



He sunk the thin silver gleam of a needle fully through the dobe’s leg, and wished that it was accompanied by a shriek of pain. Unfortunately, there was nothing---just the stillness of his bedroom and the ache of the pressure in his chest that the lack of screaming didn’t relieve. His ears rung with it, and he jabbed another needle into the general vicinity of the fox-boy’s kidney, catching his own thumb on the dangerous tip in his anger.



He should have felt a little bit guilty for the needles, but Tsunade had assured him that it was the best form of stress relief open to him for the moment. He couldn’t actually hurt anyone in his condition---her words, not his; he was certain he could strangle and maim just as well, despite the handicap of added weight and lost balance---so that was not a practical way for him to “get it all out”.



Tsunade had suggested stress balls---tiny little foam orbs the size of his fist, for him to strangle and maim and squish and chew on as much as he pleased. Sasuke rather thought that his idea for stress relief was a better one, as befitting an Uchiha genius. It had been his idea to use the needles on the dobe, and he wished that it had been more fulfilling. For the most part, he felt that the whole thing was a little childish. If he could just…just train…just for a little while…not even with anything too dangerous; he knew he had limitations due to the triplets he carried…



If someone would allow him twenty minutes with a practice dummy, Sasuke probably wouldn’t have had to sit and poke senbon into a rag doll bearing Naruto’s likeness. But no, there was no other form of stress relief, so he was forced to take his little fox-doll and torture it in all the ways he couldn’t torture his idiotic mate.



Naruto had skulked away like a beaten dog---as if the argument hadn’t been his fault, as if he’d been the injured party who was now nursing cramps and a temper that threatened to spill over at any given moment---saying that he was going to go ‘sort things out’. Personally, the only sorting the idiot had to do was to sort out what his mind wanted, what Kyuubi wanted, and what his dick wanted---and when it came right down to it, the second two jurors always cast the same vote.



As he thought, the deliberations didn’t take long. An hour or two passed, the moonlight drifted through his window at a new angle, and the front door opened. The creak of barely-audible footsteps made his eyes narrow. Sasuke set his doll aside, pincushioning its soft chest with his remaining handful of needles. It was Naruto, no doubt, come back to bitch at him some more. What would be the sob story this time?



Face it---if not for your clan restoration, you’d never have come to me.



The dense bastard just loved rehashing the past, didn’t he? He couldn’t think up any new arguments, so he threw out old arguments that hurt like bandages being ripped off crusty wounds---damn him, damn him twenty times over; he deserved whatever he…



The footsteps stopped at the door, and the floor creaked as Naruto stopped and shifted his weight uneasily.



He knew what the dobe was doing---he was staring warily at the door, because Sasuke had left him a note. Or, more precisely, a note with copious illustrations, seeing as the kyuubi-container was a little slow, and he didn’t think straight words would be enough to get his point across.



Sasuke had taped a piece of paper to the door with the words STAY OUT written with a heavy and hard hand; beneath this, a particularly foxy stick figure with nine bushy tails was lying dead and bleeding, a literal pincushion of kunai, shuriken, chain scythes, and many other sharp lethal objects. Some distance away from the fox-figure’s corpse, a lonely set of male genitals lay in a little pool of blood. The castrated fox would have been missing these sorely had he not been dead, but he had placed an arrow with the words PREMORTEM pointing at the genitals, just to assure Naruto that the unfortunate IDIOT of a fox had felt the loss of his balls.



Sasuke had even signed the bottom corner. After he killed Naruto, he’d hang it up on the refrigerator so that he’d have a working explanation for his children, who’d be born wondering what happened to daddy.



Sasuke sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead. No. That wasn’t the way to think. If he was going to explain to the kits why their father had deserved death, he wouldn’t do it with loose artistic interpretation.



They’d be young, still. A puppet show would be better.



There was another creak as Naruto shifted his weight to the other foot like a child just into potty training, and attempted to pull his thoughts together.



He could stand there all night as far as Sasuke was concerned.





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“Oi. Sasuke.”



“Fuck off, jackass,” Sasuke growled from behind the door with choked venom. He sounded like he was growling through a mouthful of pillow, and Naruto silently wondered what he would come in to find. This felt far too similar to their other big fight for comfort---the first real fight in years, the one that had left Sasuke a mess of child pains and frustrated emotion. His stomach knotted at the memory of walking into the Uchiha summerhouse to find Sasuke curled up on the floor, his arms wrapped around his then-slightly rounded belly, his face tight from pain and damp from tears. He was half-afraid that he’d open the door to find Sasuke stretched out on the floor again, this time with his thighs painted with the blood of a premature birth...



Naruto shook his head stubbornly. No. Not this time. He wouldn’t push his mate to that---they’d gotten lucky last time, and he had to hope his luck hung around.



Last time…hurt to think about. He still felt guilty for it, and for good reason---he’d almost cost them the triplets with that stunt, though it had been an ultimately needed obstacle to climb over in the uneasy progression of their relationship…



Naruto gritted his teeth. This was another such obstacle, and he wouldn’t let his fear of decapitation keep him from patching things up with his mate. Chouji had given him a much-needed emotional boost, and he had to work off that energy before he lost his nerve or allowed his irritation to reappear and strangle his resolve.



Taking a deep breath, he slammed open the door---and only just missed the senbon that nearly gave his left ear a fashionable piercing. A quick jerk to the side saved him his ear but he still caught the edge of the weapon across his cheek. It was a superficial hit, but still enough to make his adrenaline jet.



Sasuke was sitting calmly on the bed, cross-legged because his belly would not allow any other sitting position, a blanket drawn over his shoulders. He scowled at Naruto---his eyes crimson-hot with Sharingan---twirling a fine, long needle between his thumb and forefinger. It whizzed past the kyuubi-container’s left ear before he had even saw him twitch; he realized with a sinking feeling that Sasuke’s projectile arts had gotten better over the last several months instead of slackening. It was one of the few things left for him for anger management---“art” was a new development---and Naruto was starting to see that the thumps that had awakened him some nights had not been animals outside…



“Are you trying to kill me?” Naruto roared, clutching at his bleeding cheek.



“I seem to have failed,” Sasuke said flatly.



“Look, you,” Naruto snarled, slamming the door open all the way and ducking. Nothing else hit him---just a couple needles to keep him on his toes and voice his particular brand of frustration, then, and nothing more. Sasuke was angry, but he still wanted a mate and all that that entailed. That was a good sign.



“Look me what?” Sasuke snapped back, yanking another needle from the chest of a yellow-haired ragdoll. It thumped, quivering, into the wall behind Naruto, which already sported a forest of two-dozen spines. “I’ve looked at you enough for one damn evening, I think, and---“



The blond lifted his chin. He hadn’t accepted being looked down upon by Sasuke as a genin, and he sure as all hell wasn’t going to start right then. “I came to apologize!”



This was obviously not what Sasuke had expected to hear. He blinked, giving the third needle an experimental twist. “What?”



Naruto waved the bouquet of flowers as if it was a flag or a weapon or both---frowning, he threw the orange flowers to the side.



“I said some stupid things,” he said bluntly. “Most of them I meant, but I’m not gonna deny that they were stupid, still. The stupidity hurt your feelings, and that I am sorry about. I don’t want to hurt you. Beat you up a little from time to time, yeah, but that’s just---just the way we function. I don’t want you to leave me, and I want to take care of the babies, and I want to take care of you---not so much that you can’t take care of yourself, b-but because I can help, I know I can.” A pause, a deep breath, and then he added: “So I’m sorry.”



Sasuke’s eyes narrowed.



“Out,” he said, pointing an ominous finger at the door. Naturally, Naruto gaped.



“Out?” Naruto demanded, a wrinkle of confusion creasing his forehead. “But I---I apologized, dammit!”



“I don’t have to accept your apology,” Sasuke replied darkly. “And right now, I don’t intend to. If you want to stay in this apartment, you may sleep on the couch.”



“But I brought flowers,” the blond wheedled pathetically. He’d been so caught up in his minor epiphany and the need to apologize, he hadn’t thought for a moment that Sasuke would refuse him. Then again, he should have known better---Sasuke was anything but easy. Even when they were seeing eye-to-eye, he was something of a puzzle.



No. He was a puzzle wrapped in an enigma and shoved into a cupboard without any light. He was difficult and brooding and didn’t take well to extremes: too little love and he dug his own grave of pity, too much love and he began to sweat and lash out at the arms the embraced him. His father had bruised his soul, his brother had broken it, and Naruto was having all sorts of trouble trying to apply ointment and glue together the pieces at the same time.



But he knew that.



“I don’t like flowers,” Sasuke growled, and attempted to shut the door in Naruto’s face. Attempted, but failed---Naruto’s arm shot out and braced open the door.



“No,” he said, and not particularly kindly. “You’re not going to shut the door in my fucking face.”



“I’ll do whatever I damn well---“ he started to snarl, but Naruto grabbed him by the chin, catching him in a kiss that was hard enough to silence him.



“Sit,” he said firmly in the briefly-dazzled stretch of silence after he broke the kiss. It was one of the few places he could throw Sasuke enough to get a word in edgewise. “We’re going to talk. Civilly. Without any doujutsu, chakra, or pointy objects. Got it?”



“Naruto---“ Sasuke attempted to cut in, giving him a curious look.



“Wait, wait---let me talk. I’ve got the floor here. I’m not trying to ‘fix’ you. Maybe I am trying to make you better, to help you and shit ‘cause we need to have something that looks vaguely like a sane relationship if we want these kits to grow up happy, but I’m not trying to make you perfect, or force you to say or do anything you don’t want to.” He eyed the acupuncture needle in Sasuke’s hand---still spinning lazily, as if one slipped word would earn him something sharp and pointy in places poorly suited for similarly shaped objects. “Maybe this thing between you and me started because you needed someone to screw and I was lonely, but it’s not like that anymore. You’re not that shallow. I know that.”



“I could have told you as much had you decided to rein in your semi-murderous temper tantrum,” Sasuke muttered, adding another needle to the wall’s collection. He sucked again on his needle-stuck thumb, adding a dark “But you seemed to be having a wonderful time doubting my ability to raise my own spawn” around his finger.



“I never said that you’d be a bad parent,” he said very evenly. “I said that you and I are screwed up individuals, and we’re not exactly family material.”



Sasuke didn’t say anything to that. The needle just twirled a little faster, and the thought of a hurt expression flitted across his features.



“But I came back, right?” Naruto said quietly, “I think we can do this. Hell, I know we can do this. Sasuke, look…if you need to talk---I mean really talk, not all ‘how’s the weather’ and shit---I’m here. I’ll listen. I’ll sit still and be silent for as long as you need me to be, I swear.”



“You never listen.”



“I try.”



Sasuke snorted at that. “Like hell you do.”



“Oh, right, well I’m sorry for making a life-altering decision before asking for your ever-so-SAGE advice! I’m sorry that I didn’t include you in this! I didn’t want to worry you or stress you or hurt you or make you go into false labor again!”



“Review those words in your head, dobe. ‘Life-altering’. Meaning that you should consultpeople before you go into them blindly, especially your ma---“ He snapped his jaws shut as if the word was hard to spit out; he glared at the wall to the side and launched another needle with a loud curse. “Especially people who that decision will affect. Got it?”



Naruto, eyes wide, asked: “Bastard, did you almost call me your mate?”



“I did no such thing,” the Uchiha said tetchily, looking pointedly away.



“You did! You almost called me---“



A needle flew dangerously close to his face again. This time, Naruto had to duck in order to save himself from being stuck.



“---your favorite practice dummy,” he deadpanned. “Got it.”



Sasuke gave him a long look, dumping his weaponry off to the side and getting achingly to his feet. He stubbornly waved Naruto off when he moved to help him up---his pride would hold up as long as his legs and his equilibrium did, no matter how clumsy his child-heavy body became---and he straightened with a balancing hand at the small of his back and a frustratingly opaque expression tightening his features.



Naruto just looked at him for a moment---looked because the red-eyed Uchiha was keeping him right in focus, and to glance away would feel a little like giving up ground. Despite being a firm 5’6 and a lot less than waiflike, his mate looked oddly small to him, breakable. He didn’t know if it was because of the lighting or some other strange ambience, but Sasuke always seemed softer at night, weirdly delicate. Maybe it was something about the way he sort of seemed to blend in---his dark hair and clothing went flush with the encroaching shadows, leaving his ghostly skin almost luminescent by comparison. He looked determined, but not nearly as strong as he had been in years before. Sasuke had lost something, but he’d gained things, too, and Naruto didn’t think that the physical gain of three growing kits was the sole benefit.



Maybe the thought surfaced a little in Naruto’s expression---a touch of tenderness, a bit of understanding---because Sasuke gave up and looked away, his jaw clenched as if he didn’t want to fully accept that look on the blond jounin’s face.



“Stop being such a dumb fuck and shut up for once,” Sasuke muttered, and enfolded Naruto in a rough embrace. It caught him almost totally off-guard---the arms unexpectedly around his chest in almost a vice-like grip, the face buried hard into his shoulder, and the sudden, flooding warmth of an awkwardly-shaped body being shoved against his own.



“Whoa,” said Naruto, his eyes widening as he looked down at the dark-haired man clinging tenaciously to him. He couldn’t quite tell why his shoulders were shaking---anger? The need to throttle him put into a little less lethal of form? Tears? Oh God, not that; not again---and that sent up red warning flags in his mind. “Whoa, calm down, you’re squishing the kits---are you crying? You’re not crying, are you---Sasuke, hey, you okay?”



“Of course I’m not crying, dobe---“ Sasuke barked, though his voice sounded hoarse. “Don’t label me as such a woman!”



“I’m not---I’m just saying---I’m just making sure you don’t hurt yourself, bastard…”



“I’m not going to hurt the damn babies,” Sasuke said, an edge of irritation sharpening his words.



Taking advantage of his closeness, Naruto nudged up his chin and dropped a gentle kiss on his jaw. Sasuke gave a small, annoyed---and utterly unconvinced---curse, though it sounded weary and half affectionate, if a swear-word could ever have had that kind of connotation.



“I hope you realize I still won this argument,” the Uchiha growled, though he didn’t jerk away as Naruto’s warm lips traveled.



“Unlike you, I can waive my masculinity enough to admit defeat.” the kyuubi-boy murmured, kissing him again and ignoring the dubious red glare he received for his efforts. “So you won this round, but I’m totally winning the next one.”



“Name the playing field.”



“Ramen.”



“Hell, not that again…”



“Yes, that again,” Naruto said with his most saintly grin. “I’m going to go explain to the elders why I almost strangled one of their jounin---wish me luck on that; I was hoping to go with the she-used-to-have-sex-with-snakes angle, just to prove her as an unfit ninja---and you are going to do positively nothing. As Hokage, I think I might give you an official mission to keep off your feet and gain weight---and to deny the mission would be treason against the village leader, you know. I outrank you like a million times over now.”



“Somehow,” Sasuke muttered dryly, grabbing a hank of blond hair and dragging Naruto towards their bed---followed by a trail of “owie-owie-owie”’s from the idiot. “I’m not surprised that the moment you get power, the first thing you think of is the best way to abuse it. Get me to bed, dobe, and we’ll discuss your ego trips in the morning.”





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About four o’clock in the morning---after a healthy two hours’ rest---Naruto startled awake. He slipped out of bed on silent feet, half because he didn’t want to wake his mate, and half because something dark and ominous was registering at the edges of his mind, a dangerous tease that had stirred him from sleep. He was briefly surprised that Sasuke hadn’t felt it as well---he would have thought that someone with the chakra sensitivity Sasuke boasted would have been awake and tense before he had even sensed the presence---but he set that aside as exhaustion on his mate’s behalf.



The presence manifested itself as dryness in his mouth and a cold chill at the base of his spine. It was someone’s chakra---someone he didn’t have on mental register, and frightening because of it. He mentally gauged the distance between himself and the chakra, and judged that it was still outside. That was good. Maybe it was just another Konoha ninja, one of many insomniacs that roamed at night, passing by the streets outside their home. Naruto gauged it again, the coldness in his spine only inching upward to stiffen his shoulders.



No. This wasn’t some wandering soul who was reliving their particular war-horrors or dead friends---there was intent in this chakra, purpose. Stomach clenching, Naruto opened the window and swung up to the roof, to talk to the jounin posted there. They were young blood (Naruto considered them young blood at least; he had a somewhat skewed vision when it came to newbies and veterans, and though he hadn’t been a jounin for much longer than a year, he considered himself old. Had been for a while, but he and Sasuke were special circumstances when it came to power), and they might not have felt the change in their surroundings. It was a faint chakra signature, like smoke. It was probably his own familiarity with lavender that had woken him, then.



Two of the jounin were hunched by the chimney, smoking. Naruto waved at them shortly. He would have settled down a few feet away from them---he wasn’t particularly fond of the smell of cigarette smoke; he attributed it to having peaked senses---questioning them briefly about how the last two weeks had gone, but there was a scream and blood and suddenly his civility was derailed entirely.





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Sasuke awoke the next morning to a near-startling set of surprises.



Naruto was home. Naruto was in bed with him. Naruto was curled up against him, his cheek resting against the crown of his dark head and one arm draped over his side, his fingers splayed to cup the bulge of their growing kits. It’d been a full two weeks since Sasuke had woken up to heat and human contact, and the feeling brought blissful warmth to his otherwise weary muscles. He smirked slightly at the ceiling, not about to allow himself a full smile, even if the dobe was still asleep and therefore unable to bear witness. It felt strange at first, to enjoy human contact---the last six months had turned his entire life on its head; he realized that, but didn’t quite mourn swapping his avengerly life of no-contact for warm mornings like this---but now he survived off of it. The thought of waking up in a gray apartment, tangled in cold sheets and with nothing to look forward to but the day’s mission, was unexpectedly hard to swallow.



Maybe Naruto had infected him with something---Sasuke rolled over, groaning slightly as his passengers rebelled against the rude awakening via jabs and kicks to already sensitive internal organs. Right…he had ‘infected’ him with something, he decided ruefully, rubbing his stomach to calm them down. Kits. Three of them.



Infectious, infectious, Naruto. Yes, Naruto could be stupid. Yes, Naruto found the most obscure things to angst over. Yes, he loved the idiot, once the fights were over and all was said and done.



Wait. What was that last one? The moron doesn’t deserve it… Sasuke winced as he received another flurry of kicks from his unborn kits---kits he was almost positive were made up exclusively of elbows, knees, and other obscenely sharp angles. He gently pressed the heel of his hand down in retaliation until his full belly dimpled slightly---come on, stop that; I’m not a punching bag---but that only gave the babies somewhere to aim. Feeling nudges against his palm had been cute at first, strange and a little enjoyable, but now it was annoying. Then again, they were half Uzumaki…annoyance was to be expected.



Fine, fine, I’ll get up, Sasuke mentally growled, though getting up now included clever levering and took far longer than it should have. His shirt had ridden up during his nightly tossing and turnings; he fought with it for a moment before getting it smoothed back down as it should be, cursing that he hadn’t remembered to get pajamas along with maternity clothes when Sakura had taken him shopping. His nightshirt barely buttoned and he had to ride his pants far too low in order to stretch over his stomach with any kind of decency. Even so, he was not going to repeat that shopping episode, he groused as he shuffled to the kitchen. Sleeping nude was better than going back to that place of pain and pink (and he doubted Naruto would mind either way).



He had much more energy than he usually did, he realized as he put on water to boil for his morning tea. It was odd, really, because he ought to be exhausted---he’d pulled Sharingan out, what, twice last night?---but he felt refreshed. Be it a strange upswing in hormones or the backwash of waking up in the arms of a warm, fleshy blond, Sasuke finally felt as if he had some energy. He’d spent great portions of the last two weeks in bed, too tired and sullen to move, but now he felt as if he could actually do something, even though his lists of things to do was obscenely short. He didn’t want to attribute this energy to happiness at having Naruto back---“happy” was an empty word, and it imbued images of giddiness that made him mentally cringe---but yes, he was breathing easier, yes, he felt a little warmer, and yes, maybe it was sort of Naruto’s influence. Maybe.



Sasuke yawned, fishing a cup of yogurt out of the refrigerator in order to tide him over until Naruto came lurching out of bed with a beg for toast and coffee. He could funnel his energy into something productive while he waited: he could cook breakfast, he could do some laundry, he could clean, he could call Chouji up; see how he was doing with his altered jutsu---hell, he could even train a little with Juuken if he could get Naruto to look away for long enough. His stubborn masculinity wanted him to rebel against all that---again, he was not a housewife (if Naruto ever treated him like one, he’d have eight kunai to the gut before he could even blink his pretty baby blues), and he only listed those possible activities because he physically couldn’t pull off the exercises and training he itched to do.



Unfortunately, he didn’t have the range of movement to beat the stuffing out of a practice dummy. He couldn’t exercise the chakra control required for most of his shuriken art. When it came right down to it, genjutsu was all he had left at his disposal, and while his was certainly above par, training with it didn’t have the same gritty satisfaction as ninjutsu and taijutsu. Sasuke liked inflicting pain; he liked training until he was dripping sweat and hardly able to stand.



But with triplets swelling his belly and not even a fifth of his chakra available to his disposal? Impossible. So he cooked, cleaned, and tried not to be too bitchy about it.



Sasuke paused in mid-bite of yogurt, wondering why Naruto hadn’t joined him yet. Usually, the kyuubi-boy would have woken to the scent of cooking toast, gleefully trotting up behind him and circling his rounded waist, nuzzling his nose into his shoulder and purring contentedly. But Naruto wasn’t up yet…he had been up at ungodly hours the night before, though, and fresh off a mission to boot…he had every reason to sleep in, but still…



At the sound of an imploring little mew, Sasuke realized that he had managed to wake up at least one blue-eyed member of their household: he looked down with a smirk as Baby wound her furry little body around his ankles, a piteous beg in her squeaks. She was obviously under the impression that she was starving to death, despite her pudge-rounded sides. When he ignored her pleas, Baby leapt up and began to scale his leg, her prickle of claws traveling upwards as she nimbly climbed up to her favored perch on his shoulder. The kitten rubbed her whiskered face against his cheek and mewled again, the epitome of cuteness, fur, and oh-don’t-you-pity-me-enough-to-offer-me-food?



Undoubtedly, she wanted a handout, and she’d assault him with kitten cuteness until her exact demands were met.



“The yogurt’s mine,” Sasuke announced with an astounding amount of surety, despite the sheer level of cute the kitten was exuding. It was difficult to fight, but he was an Uchiha, and therefore naturally gifted with a will of steel when it came to dealing with high concentrations of cute. He took the kitten from his shoulder and set her back on the ground, frowning down at the pitiable expression and hugely sad blue eyes she offered up to him. “You have cat food already set out, you insufferable glutton.”



“Don’t be calling the kettle black, Sasu-chan,” Naruto grinned widely, leaning in the doorway. He had dressed already in his favorite orange jacket and a pair of jeans---something that set Sasuke aback momentarily; Naruto usually didn’t dress until he was forced to leave their apartment, and they had yet to even have breakfast---and was just a bit ruffled from sleep.



Sasuke, of course, bristled at the dobe’s implication.



“Calling me fat now, on top of everything else?” Sasuke glowered around his spoon, utilizing whole new levels to his patented Glare of Death---levels which made Mangekyou Sharingan look like nothing more than a gothic fashion statement. Jibes at his weight had begun to do that to him, and Naruto was one of the few who would poke at matters despite Sasuke’s willingness to bite. Naruto was also one of the few that didn’t quail, cry, or fall to pieces when leveled by his Glare of Death---he’d worked up an immunity to that particular glare long ago.



“Never that,” the kyuubi-boy said in mock seriousness. “As far as I see, you’re bonier than Kimimaro, and that’d better change ASAP.” He stole Sasuke’s cup of tea, taking a sip---and then making a greatly exaggerated face. “Sasuke, your green tea tastes like sweaty balls---and I know what sweaty balls taste like, so this is an educated statement. What did you do to it?”



“It’s Chouji’s battle strategy against my current state of Kimimaro-worthy boniness,” said Sasuke, taking back his tea and downing half of it in one gulp. Naruto was over-exaggerating, as usual---it did taste odd, but it didn’t taste exactly like sweaty balls (and Sasuke was just as educated on the matter as the dobe was). It was sweet---sticky sweet and so thick as to be difficult to swallow, but it had a warming effect that made it nearly worth drinking. He’d had a week’s worth of doses to get used to it, although he personally felt that adding it to his green tea was nothing short of sacrilege. The ‘after-taste’ made it worthwhile: heat curled up in his stomach as the sweetness slid down his throat, unfurling through his limbs in thick, relaxing waves. He’d made a habit of simply going back to bed after he drank his tea, to sleep off the warmth and lethargy of the Akimichi tonic until the resulting hunger pangs woke him up.



“Chouji’s a good guy, and he knows a thing or two about weight. I mean, geeze, it’s what his clan does for a living,” Naruto said, abandoning his sweaty-ball-tea and foraging for his own preferred morning beverage---sugar with coffee in it, in that very order. “I dropped in on him last night---y’know, just a checkup since I’m like his Sexy-no-jutsu-sensei or somethin’. He said he’s close to finish the altered jutsu. That true?”



“True enough,” Sasuke murmured, sipping his tea. “There isn’t much I can help him with from here, in all reality. He has to have practical application of the jutsu to learn how to hold it better.” He snorted. “For some reason, he blushed madly when I suggested he tries intercourse with the Sexy-no-jutsu active, so as to desensitize him to ‘thinking’ about the jutsu while holding it. Much as he might disagree, that would help him tune it out as background thought... I think Ino might’ve already suggested jutsu-sex to him, by how brilliantly red he turned.”



“I wouldn’t put it past her…it’s Ino. Hey, did you know that he and Shikamaru and Ino…?



“Dobe,” the Uchiha said flatly, shaking his head. “I think you’re the only one who didn’t know.”



“Well I thought that Chouji and Shikamaru were kinda friendly, b-but---but anyways…” He blinked as his search for coffee brought to light a black sheep. He picked up the container of non-dairy creamer from the cupboard and waved it at his mate. “Hey, since when have you used coffee creamer? I thought Sakura said that coffee’s bad for the kits!”



At that, Sasuke’s expression darkened almost immediately, but he didn’t growl anything. Naruto, knowing better than to nitpick a small matter when they had trouble enough with the larger issues in their lives, dropped the subject, sighing. So what if Sasuke was drinking coffee; they had much more pressing issues to deal with than his caffeine intake.



“Fine, fine, be bitchy,” the blond said, rolling his eyes. Leaning into Sasuke with his sugar-coffee in one hand, he brushed back his long bangs and dropped a dry kiss on his temple. After a moment’s hesitation, Sasuke kissed him back---one of the few times that Sasuke gave a kiss instead of taking it, which made the kyuubi-boy beam inwardly---though the kiss was awkward. It was impulsive and sharp, Sasuke turning his head slightly and straining on his toes to meet him. Naruto braced the small of his back so as to help him up, dipping in to meet him halfway. It was harder than their kisses had been lately, and he didn’t know whether to attribute that to some kind of desperation on Sasuke’s behalf, or if it was just because he’d had to kick something very avengerly and very masculine internally to bend himself to give kisses.



Naruto didn’t complain that the kiss tasted like tonic-sweetness and strawberry yogurt. He gently tousled his dark hair, smirking. “I’ll be back in a bit. I’ve got some errands to run before I get ready for Tsunade-hag’s big announcement. It’ll only take me an hour or two at best, ‘kay?”



“Take your time,” Sasuke said shortly, as if not affected by the matter either way. Even so, Naruto didn’t miss how he licked his lips with an unexpectedly soft expression, as if he was silently savoring their mixed tastes. Naruto found himself eager to get the entire day over with, because he had a feeling there were other tastes that Sasuke had probably missed, all of which he was more than happy to offer. It was good to be home, and, for the moment, not fighting. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”



“Rest up,” said Naruto, and downed his coffee. He grinned one last time at his mate before leaving, a moment’s pause as he put on his sandals, and then the click of the front door behind him.



Glad that only one whiny and obscenely adorable kitten was present to see his smile, Sasuke pawed his hair back into the arrangement of mess he was used to. He set the mostly-finished cup of yogurt down for her, deciding that that would be payoff in case the kitten got it into her head to tell Naruto exactly how weak he was when it came to cute, blue-eyed things. Leaving the kitten to greedily lap up the sweet residue of his yogurt cup, he chose to finish his tea and take a nap before Chouji arrived to train, because he had a feeling he wouldn’t be spending a lot of his evening resting.



It was good to have the idiot home.





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

There were three places in Konoha that Naruto could walk to with his eyes closed: they were the three places that constituted his mental vision of what ‘home’ was, and he could find them by scent and instinct alone. The first was the apartment he and Sasuke were living in---anywhere that held Sasuke and his kits was home, now, and it made him purr inwardly to realize that his life had come to that. The second place was Ichiraku Ramen, listed because of the many years he’d spent on his favored stool, begging a meal out of any friend susceptible to sweet blue eyes (and, thankfully for him, there were many such suckers in Konoha). The third place, like his apartment, was ‘home’ because of the people who occupied it, not because of the building itself.



Naruto planted himself at the foot of the apartment complex where Umino Iruka lived, sighting out which window was his out of memory. He’d thrown pebbles at the window often enough during his childhood to pick it out from its fellows, also recognizing the wind chime he’d given his favorite teacher for his twenty-first birthday. The paint had long since faded, but it still chimed sweetly in the early-morning breeze.



Naruto grinned, shoving his hands in his pockets and taking a deep breath.



“Iruuuuuka-senseeeeeeeiii!” Naruto bellowed up at the window---and, being outfitted by nature to be noisy and obnoxious, the kyuubi-boy could certainly up the decibels when he put his mind to being loud. There was no way that anyone---including Iruka and all those unfortunate enough to be his neighbors---could ignore him. He’d perfected the act of being irritating as a child, when he’d had no other way to garner attention, and it had yet to fail him.



Silence, save for the chirps of some irritated and newly-wakened birds and the tinkles of the wind-chime.



“SENSEIIIIIII!” Naruto howled, wondering in the back of his mind if scaling the apartment building and ninja’ing his way through the window was better…but then again, there would undoubtedly be traps, and he had a habit of tripping soundly on any and every trap available…



Fortunately, Iruka heard the bellowing, recognized the voice---and who else could it be, really?---and peered out the window, looking half-alive at best. The schoolteacher half hung out of his window, rubbing at his dark eyes with one hand. He’d obviously been asleep, and if the grinning, silver-haired jounin hovering over his shoulder meant anything, he hadn’t been alone.



“Naruto,” Iruka called down with an incredible patience, considering it was what most deemed ‘the wee hours’ of the morning. “Do you realize what time it is?”



“Do you realize what day it is, Iruka-sensei?” Naruto challenged back, grinning so widely as to look near-manic. He bounced lightly on his feet like a small boy that was either very excited, or had to go to the bathroom very badly. It was something of a tossup, but Iruka decided that it was probably the first option.



“Too early for hypothetical questions,” the older man mumbled, blinking owlishly. “Come in before my neighbors start throwing things---they’ve already agreed that it’s acceptable to use lethal force with you.”



Naruto was up and through the window before his former teacher could blink; he dive-rolled in and grinned happily.



“Guess what, guess what, guess what!”



“What?” Kakashi asked, clearly humoring him. He rubbed at his bristly cheek and yawned widely.



He puffed out his chest. He couldn’t help himself. “I’m the Hokage!”



Iruka blinked. Opened his mouth to say something, shut it with a frown, blinked again, and then shook his head as if trying to clear it of something.



“Try that again. What was that, Naruto?”



“Hokage. Me,” Naruto smirked impishly, pointing to himself. “Rokudaime.”



Iruka was functioning a little slow, it seemed. “I’m going to get coffee. You’ll probably make a hell of a lot more sense once I do…want anything?”



“Caffeine? Preferably in a purified form?” Naruto wondered hopefully. “I’ve already had one cup of coffee, but I only got like three hours of sleep last night, and I kinda have a full plate for today. I’ve gotta go get bitched out by the elders, and Sasuke probably needs to get checked out by Sakura…and shit, I’ve still got the mission reports to fill out, and probably an inquiry as to why I strangled Anko…”



Iruka’s eyes flew wide, and he choked out a strained cry of: “You strangled Anko-san? Naruto---“



“Almost!” Naruto cut in quickly with a wave of his hands, as if that made all the difference. “Almost strangled!”



“Coffee,” Kakashi decided firmly as the two bickered. “Black coffee.”



“Ah, I’ll make it,” Iruka quickly interceded with a forced smile at the jounin. He remembered all too well how Kakashi’s cooking escapades usually turned out, and he wasn’t entirely sure that his idea of black coffee would be any different than Iruka’s own idea of toxic sludge. Maybe the jounin had Sharingan’d the Akimichi clan’s talent for having stainless steel stomachs…it would certainly explain a lot…



“Thank you, Iruka-sensei,” the kyuubi-boy beamed, plopping himself down on the couch.



Naruto watched Iruka’s retreating back, his forced smile slowly, slowly fading with each step. Finally, his expression matched the coldness in his eyes, and Kakashi was not altogether surprised to see it there. His shoulders had been too tense, his brightness too false, for any of his signals to have meshed.



“Kakashi-sensei, my good news isn’t the only reason I dropped by,” Naruto said, sobering as soon as Iruka was out of earshot.



“Bad news?” Kakashi asked with a yawn, squinting his good eye as if he didn’t care all that much, but acting as if Naruto might as well tell him anyways. That was one of his masks, one that wasn’t made of dark fabric---he smoothed his cheerful attitude over his true personality like wood putty, ironing over the pocks, cracks, and crevasses. He lived his life better when he pretended that the pervy-porn-loving-sensei was the core of Hatake Kakashi, and not the harsh, rule-oriented boy that had condemned a now-dead friend to an eternity of being a last-place.



“Bad news. Damn, isn’t there always bad news? I’ve got some shitty news, really.” Naruto sighed heavily, rubbing at his forehead. As soon as he let down his fiercely bright act of cheerfulness, it became apparent exactly how little he had slept lately, and exactly how heavy his worries had become. The circles beneath his usually lively eyes were as dark as bruises. “They’re already starting with me. Already trying to kill me, that is.”



“’They’?” Kakashi questioned with a raised silver eyebrow. The boy clasped his hands together until the knuckles were white, his lip curling with an impulsive snarl. He lowered his voice so as to mask it with the bright clinks of ceramics from Iruka’s ministrations in the kitchen.



“The Akatsuki, neighboring Nations, our own elders---I don’t care who it is; if it’s one of them or all of them, or why they want me dead, but they do. Not five hours after I said I was going to take up the position of Rokudaime, I got my first assassination attempt.” Naruto glared venomously at a fixed spot on the floor, baring his clenched teeth. “Not five fucking hours, Kakashi-sensei. Thankfully, I was able to catch ‘em before he killed off any of the posted jounin or woke up Sasuke, but---but it’s still there. Being Hokage isn’t going to be easy.” He looked down at the carpet, the anger dribbling away and leaving his blue eyes immeasurably weary. Judging by the pearlescent, nearly black hollows beneath his eyes, he hadn’t slept since leaving for his mission. Kakashi didn’t know when the boy would get a full night’s sleep again, if ever. He wished he could be certain the kid knew what he was getting into. “Those who know me will trust me just because I am me, but those ignorant enough to just see the youma---I’ll get their allegiance out of fear. Maybe. Or they’ll side with the rest of the naysayers and try to kill me, too. And here I am bringing kits into this mess the bastard and I call a life? What am I, crazy?”



“More like very poorly prepared,” Kakashi mused, yawning negligently again.



“Oh yeah, sure, like I could’ve foreseen even half of this,” he muttered waspishly, plucking loose down from one of the pillows on the couch. It was something to do with his hands, other than strangle his sensei where he lounged. “It’s more like bam, kits. Bam, Sasuke. Bam, Rokudaime. Bam, we’re going to kill you so dead.”



“You’ve proven difficult to kill in the past,” his old teacher said in a tone he obviously thought was helpful. “Unless everything evil in the world from Orochimaru to the common cold decides to gang up on you, you’ll be fine.”



“And Sasuke?” Naruto asked quietly. He didn’t have to say anything more than that: and Sasuke can protect himself from everyone, our village included? No. We both know he can’t. Not now, and not for another six months or so. His pride may say otherwise, but he’s not strong enough to fight---especially at the level of our enemies. He won’t be ‘fine’. They’ll gut him, take my kids, and giggle about it at the next evil tea party.



“Ah, here we go,” Iruka interrupted cheerfully, having not sensed the oppressive mood between the jounin. He set the coffee cups on the table along with the sugar bowl---and grimaced as Naruto reached over and promptly emptied precisely half the sugar bowl into his cup.



He downed the coffee in three loud gulps. Iruka had obviously forgotten his predisposition for gulping, or his ability to finish off a bowl of ramen in one breath, much less the weaker foe of a coffee cup.



“Refill?” Naruto asked entreatingly, holding up his empty cup in both hands. Iruka rolled his eyes---one could almost see the acidic mental comment of I’m a schoolteacher, not a waitress in his grimace. Still, he took the cup with a sigh and trudged back to the kitchen.



Kakashi didn’t have to see the change in Naruto’s body language to know he had more to say---more that he wanted to spare Iruka from. He had to wonder when the boy had become the adult, the caretaker. Iruka would be crushed to realize he wasn’t the protector anymore.



“Oi, Kakashi-sensei,” he said slowly, chewing on his lower lip. “Just how often do the elders dispense missions without the Hokage’s consent?”



“Not very,” the silver-haired jounin admitted. “Why?”



“Mitarashi Anko was given a secondary mission with the whole Hanabi debacle---a mission that clashed with what Godaime-sama instructed me to do.” He paused purposefully. “She said that she took her orders from the elders.”



“That’s unusual,” he said in a carefully bland tone, slightly opening his left eye to gauge Naruto’s expression---as well as his chakra flow. The whorls of red chakra simmered close to his point endings, dimly throbbing like half-banked coals.



“That’s shit, that’s what that is,” Naruto said crossly, his eyes narrowed. “They didn’t tell the hag that they wanted to kill Hanabi. From what I could gather between the old woman’s sake-gulping and mutters about Hanabi’s bastard, it was this whole thing with the old families…the Hyuugas, mostly…” He growled something quick and venomous that Kakashi didn’t quite catch, but his ears wanted to assign it as “Their own kit”.



“…Naruto.” Kakashi’s voice held a low warning note, but the young man ignored it.



“I’m not going to let them do this. They’re fucking nuts---everyone’s known that for years, but nobody does anything because of this bloodline or that relation, and I’m getting sick of it! They know that, too. That’s where the assassin was from, I bet you anything---an outside contract brought in by either the village elders or the clan elders, because they can’t stand the thought that I might fuck with this sweet thing they’ve got going---”



“Naruto,” Kakashi repeated darkly, pinning the fuming blond with his unwavering, mismatched gaze. “You, more than anyone, should know how dangerous it is to accuse a high-ranking household such as the Hyuuga of treason against their own village.”



Naruto glared, but remained silent---save for the deep growl throbbing in his throat, a fox’s irritation voiced through a basically human body---as Kakashi continued.



“I understand your frustration. I do. But you need to think. You…” Kakashi sighed and looked over at Iruka, who was busy trying to balance two mugs of hot coffee on top of a steady hand, looking, for once, like he actually worried about something. He didn’t seem to be paying an ounce of attention to their conversation, as if it were all just background noise. “I would have expected you to be smarter about this, Naruto. Don’t you think the other Kages have tried to change things? That you’re not the only one that wanted things to be different? Yondaime wasn’t always a hero; before Kyuubi assaulted the village, he was nothing more than an impish revolutionary.”



Naruto’s eyes widened slightly at that, clearing.



“The Fourth…but he…?”



“The elders may laud him now, but during his life, he was looked down upon because of his youth. He was a brilliant leader, but he tried to change too much. His politics were weak---if not for the Kyuubi…most of his ideals would have been lost. Fortunately, a hero is always looked upon with a kind of affection…” Kakashi trailed off, sipping his coffee. “Yondaime-sama failed to remember one important thing before he tried to change things: that a Hokage needs to be powerful in all respects – physically, mentally, and publicly. You need to gain the villager’s trust and rally some support behind you before you eradicate over a hundred years of tradition and way of thinking. The roots of the old families go deep.”



“The support I already have isn’t enough, you mean?” Naruto asked, his forehead wrinkling as he pulled a pained expression. “A lot of the old rookies from my class still like me, and the Akimichi clan’s one of the old noble clans---”



“That’s a handful of people,” Kakashi cut in, though not rudely. The truth was always best when it came from him, and he knew that Naruto listened, despite what kind of fluff others might think filled his ears. “One clan out of four. It won’t be even close to enough, I’m afraid.”



The blond chewed on his lower lip. “How will my… my relationship…thing…with Sasuke affect the supporters I do and don’t have?”



“Damaging,” the jounin said bluntly, softening the ultimatum with an addition of: “But not completely hopeless.”



“I have a feeling that the elders will capitalize on that like there’s no tomorrow. Shit, now Sasuke has even more to worry about than Sir Sleaze Weasel and the King of Pedophiles. What would be the best way to minimize it?”



“I would strongly suggest digging a deep hole and hiding him in it. There’s an Icha Icha on the subject, actually, and you’d be surprised how sultry mole-like love can---“



“Aside from hiding him in holes, locked towers, secluded caves, sand castles, and-or broom cupboards?”



“Other than that? Not much. Though, I’d tuck away this newfound knowledge for future use: don’t bite off more than you can chew. You usually choke, gurgling curses”



“He’s the one that wanted to get pregnant, not me,” the kyuubi-container clarified with a nod.



Kakashi smirked. “But you’re still undeniably smug about the whole thing, aren’t you?”



“Oh,” Naruto beamed cheekily. “Absolutely.”



“Ah… completely hopeless,” said Kakashi, his smirk widening as he sipped his coffee. “I don’t know how Sasuke can stand it. But, back to the matter at hand, if you want to have this go smoothly, I’d suggest you remain nonchalant about the whole Sasuke issue. If you treat it as if it’s not a big deal, your opponent most likely will as well. That is, if you do it convincingly.”



“Damn, how convincing do I need to be? Are we talking about changing the subject whenever they mention the S word, or do I say ‘Uchiha Sasuke who?’ and play dumb? I’m actually pretty good at that.”



“If you deny knowing Sasuke, he’ll probably jump off the clan representative table and strangle you where you stand. Downplay it enough to sidetrack the elders and focus on a more important matter. One that won’t make you any happier to discuss, I’m sad to say…”



Naruto sighed loudly, like an old dog that had been prodded to wakefulness.



“Yeah. The whole ‘bijuu’s bitch’ argument. That’ll be buckets of fun.”



“It’ll be enough to sway the elders from focusing on Sasuke, which is what you want, correct?”



“Yes,” he said tightly, seriously, with that rare determination he saved for the more important matters in his life. “I do.”



“Then you know what you have to do. Make sure you do it soon; I don’t know how much longer you have before the public starts to become uneasy.”



“I will. Thanks… Kakashi.”



It was the first time he’d consciously dropped the ‘sensei’, despite having totally freed himself from his tutelage at the age of sixteen. It might’ve been a small step of rebelliousness, a nod that he was older now, and outranked him at that, but it hit Kakashi as slightly bittersweet. He wasn’t twelve anymore. He suddenly understood that tangled emotion that had bled into Iruka’s expressions lately when Naruto was mentioned in conversation---the weight of realization, the act of watching this now-adult boy slip through their fingers.



“You’re welcome,” Kakashi said, breaking off his own train of thought with a cough. “While I’d love to chat more about this with my darling formal pupil, I must see to Iruka… I fear my concentration jutsu is nearly worn off, and he’s going to remember what he was doing fairly soon. Just remember this, Naruto---“



“Naruto, ah---exactly how much sugar do you like in your coffee?” Iruka suddenly piped up, blinking a bit as if he had lost his mental train of thought and was having trouble reclaiming it.



“About half a cup, give or take!” Naruto shouted over his shoulder, and his teacher could almost see his strength and maturity burrow beneath his sunny shield again. It was almost eerily like Kakashi’s own teacher’s hot-cold-young-old temperament. Sometimes, when the lighting was right or his smile was turned a certain way, the resemblance to the Fourth was uncanny. Naruto turned back around, and he was simply Naruto again, foxy and bright. “So what were you saying, Kakashi-sensei?”



The veteran jounin smirked a bit, shrugging.



“Never mind. The moment’s passed.”



“Half a cup?” demanded Iruka, sounding exasperated.



“What---it all dissolves eventually!”



“After it’s rotted your teeth out!”



“Fine, no sugar,” he groused childishly, and gulped down the hot drink as soon as it was given to him. “Thanks, and I’ll see you later, Iruka-sensei,” Naruto grinned, handing him back his coffee cup.



“You’d better clean up first,” Iruka advised, not able to flag down his mother hen instincts before he spoke. “Shave, put on a nice shirt that is less than forty percent orange---and a tie, please, even though I’m certain that believing that you own a tie is wishful thinking on my behalf. Borrow one from Sasuke-kun if it comes to that.”



“I do so have a tie,” he replied crabbily, though it was fairly obvious from the way he was glaring at the ceiling that he so did not.



“Naruto…” the schoolteacher said in a warning tone that he had used from the moment he’d met the boy---what was it now, almost a decade ago? Time’s passage was a slippery thing, and no one realized that more fully than Umino Iruka as he watched a favorite foundling grin at him---a boy who was now a man, now high-ranked, now attempting to settle down with his mate-rival-friend (their relationship was complicated; again, this was something that Iruka understood) and start something that resembled a sane, normal life. Iruka had yet to talk with Sasuke about…about everything that was going on in his sudden new life, mostly because the thought of speaking with his obviously pregnant and famously introverted student probably wouldn’t be the most refreshing exercise he had tried. Past conversations with Sasuke had gone in the same way as beating his head against a wall for a long time---it didn’t really get him anywhere, nor did it accomplish anything, but after a while the pain made him think he must be doing something.



But then again, neither Naruto nor Sasuke were children anymore. They’d changed from the loudmouthed idiot and the closemouthed genius. Naruto’s ascension was proof enough of that.



“Alright, alright, I’ll steal one from Sasuke. Geeze.” He opened one eye, giving his former teacher a clearly hopeful look. “So, are you gonna be there?”



“You think either of us would miss it?” Iruka grinned back, catching Naruto around the neck and giving his unruly mop of blond hair a friendly noogie. Naruto screeched and squirmed, but he didn’t complain as loudly as he could have, or fight the arm lock.



Kakashi smirked to himself and took a sip of coffee. He wondered somewhat idly what it was about geniuses that made them subconsciously advertise “Literal Genius: Loudmouths Welcome”. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t entirely a bad thing.



Iruka and Naruto wrestled playfully for a moment with yelps and chides from both the student and teacher, though Kakashi, being Kakashi, made a few snide comments that left the two red-faced and horrified at the implications. Kakashi believed he had a real talent for utterly horrifying people, and he executed it to its fullest---much to Iruka’s misery, since he was a particularly apt subject. He blushed too easily for his own good.



After Kakashi had recovered from a group tackle---Naruto (in a much better mood than he’d arrived in) waved them off and left to get ready for one in a chain of Very Important Meetings. He still bounced like an Academy student on their first day of school, but, again, that was just his way. Personally, Iruka found it a little heartening. Dark days were lit solely by bright people.



Iruka and Kakashi finished their coffee together in relative peace---the younger man looking back at the years he’d spent with his unexpected adoptee, the older man looking forward to all the trouble he’d give the boy who suddenly outranked him. Iruka paused after a long moment of inward thought, feeling warm and pensive and ready to get back to bed if they had enough time before classes or missions (and usually, Kakashi made time if they didn’t; he had a completely offbeat idea of punctuality, as his former students could well attest to).



“What Sasuke and Naruto have,” Iruka mused, leaning into Kakashi’s invitingly strong shoulder as he thought about what age had done to the number one rookie and his last-place. “Is oddly sweet.”



“Just don’t tell them that,” Kakashi said, and grinned laxly into his coffee cup.





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





“Just out of curiosity,” Sasuke said after watching Naruto struggle hopelessly for a few minutes. “Are you trying to hang yourself?”



“The Uchiha clan was a clan of policemen,” Naruto growled back, tugging at the miserable knot the tie had become. Like any good pseudo-son, he’d changed out of his orange jacket and was trying his damnedest to get the tie around his neck in an arrangement that was less ‘knot’ and more ‘tie’. He wasn’t getting very far with it, though Sasuke had tried to work him through it verbally. Learning high-level jutsu in constricted time periods---nothing. Tying a tie---daunting for any young ninja. “Not a clan of comedians, Mr. Oh-So-Witty. So what---I can’t tie a tie, and I think they’re stupid to begin with. Why would anyone think that sticking a noose around their neck was a bright idea? They’re just asking to get strangled, if you ask me.”



Watching Naruto attempt to ‘clean up’ was enjoyable enough; he ran in circles with a shirt in one hand and a razor in the other, yelling about not having enough time to get ready (and yet the act of circle-running burnt up far more time than just calmly getting ready would have. Hysterics were fun to watch).



“Moron---“ Sasuke rolled his eyes, grabbing a fistful of his shirtfront to jerk him close enough to work on the tie. “Stop, you’re just making it worse…”



Naruto didn’t mind that Sasuke had to lean in in order to wrestle with the knot/tie, or that his kit-filled belly pressed up against his flat one; he grinned a little and crept his arms around his waist, drawing him into a half-hug as he worked at the tie with gripes and grumbles. Most of these gripes fell away as Naruto’s fingers worked out the equally thick knots low in his back---equivalent exchange and apology rolled into one.



“So how do I look? Ready to be Hokage?” Naruto asked, hands still rubbing his back.



He cleaned up nicely, Sasuke noted with an askance look---something about dark colors brought his eyes out as even brighter, his skin a deeper tan. Naruto was clean-shaven, had thought about brushing his hair, and was wearing clean clothes---that was the zenith of formality for a boy who’d never had to deal with family functions and formal dinners. He looked like a rebellious teenager in his black shirt and tie, but that was just his way. Iruka would sigh that Sasuke, the more responsible of the two, hadn’t forced him into a dress shirt for the meeting, but he would smile a little, still. There was no peeling the attitude off of Naruto, Hokage or not. He hoped the elders didn’t expect him to ever wear formal robes, because anything more than a clean shirt was far from his league.



Sasuke seemed to think about his question for a moment, rolling something around in his mind and testing it sufficiently before he offered his thoughts. He took a deep breath, and said, firmly: “You’ll need my help.”



“I’ll what?”



“You’ll need my help,” Sasuke repeated slowly, unblinking. “You’ll need someone to help you through the Hokage work. Image is one thing---there are those in the village who will follow you simply because they look up to you, what you’ve done, but that is not enough.”



“You mean I have to be smart and pretty?” Naruto demanded in mock horror, a hand on his cheek. “God, Sasu, I don’t know if I can do that.”



“Shut up for a moment,” Sasuke said, pointing his spoon at him as if readying to throw it. Knowing Sasuke, he might’ve, and he probably would have found a way to make that spoon a near-lethal instrument. “Don’t get me wrong. I am not offering to be your secretary---get someone sweet and willing like Hinata to do the smaller processing requests.”



“Aww, you won’t be my secretary?” Naruto asked, giving him his best ‘kicked puppy’ look. “That sucks. Office sex would’ve been fun.”



“I’m saying,” Sasuke said loudly, as if he had not heard that last remark. “That you’ll need my help with the larger matters---the ones that will affect the future of Konoha, such as team assignments and inter-Nation politics. The ones where you’ll need the input of someone with half a brain. Tsunade could barely do all the paperwork herself, and she had the advantage of being competent.”



“Oi---“ Naruto started to growl, but forcibly reined himself in. He glared sideways at Sasuke, inching a bit closer in order to nip at his earlobe. Sasuke shivered lightly, and he almost thought he had done his job of utterly derailing the conversation right there, but one dark glare from his mate told him otherwise. He was serious about this, and licks and teases weren’t going to work until Sasuke had said whatever it was that was on his mind now. “---right, we’re not going to fight about it. Yeah, I can read, even if I’m not the best at it. I do agree that it is a big job for one person, though.”



“Delegate things to me,” He said, squirming away to save himself at least a little seriousness, a bit of respect for his flagging self-image. “The team compilations, mission overviews, political courtesies---anything you don’t think you can do with your brash attitude, hand over to me. You’re bad at paperwork to begin with, and your ability to concentrate for long periods of time is damn well near nil. I’ve seen squirrels with longer attention spans. I can’t do much else but sit around and read for the next few months up until and just after the birth of the kits, so I can be…” He shrugged slightly, as if a little embarrassed to give his jumble of uneasy feelings a name. “…I can be useful if you take advantage of my ‘maternity leave’.”



“Do you think you’re not useful right now?” Naruto asked in a voice that was meant to be light, but which mirrored a great deal of the seriousness that had settled into Sasuke’s eyes.



“Don’t start it, dobe,” Sasuke said, which was as much of a not-answer as was humanly possible. It could be a yes, could be a no, but was definitely a don’t touch the matter.



Naruto ignored the silent subtitle. He wasn’t one for such fine points.



“I already did start it,” the blond said, nodding to his own answer. “And the answer you should be spitting out is ‘no, dear, I don’t think I’m useless at all. I’ve patiently carried our kits for six months, and what with snaky bastards and weaselish sociopaths mucking about, that’s damn well near an S-level’. So say it.”



“The day I call you ‘dear’ with a straight face is the day I allow Jiraiya baby sit our children. Which---before you start proclaiming the unexpected dependability of erotica novelists---will never happen.”



“You know what I mean,” Naruto grumbled. “You’re doing your best. You’re nourishing them and protecting them. I mean, between you and the village, it’s smooth-sailing from here on out, right?”



Naruto did not like the tone of Sasuke’s resulting silence. It was thick, tangible, bitter---humiliated. It was the silence of a child who’d skinned their knees doing something their mother had told them not to do, the silence of someone who’d hurt themselves and was far too ashamed to admit it.



“Right?” The jounin repeated shakily, disliking the way Sasuke refused to meet his questions and gaze. His dark hair dipped as he looked down at his half-finished lunch, his conveniently long bangs obscuring whatever emotions were or were not gathering on his face. “Right, Sasuke?”



“We should step up the security around the house,” the Uchiha said finally, in a small, though calm voice. “Not to keep me in, of course, because I have no desire to leave in the condition I’m in. Not to keep me in, but to keep…others out.”



Naruto’s voice was equally calm, though it hid a fox that wanted to shriek all sorts of fury.



Someone was here, someone could have touched him, could have touched my kits, could have touched him as only I am allowed to touch him---proud bitch won’t tell us either way. If it was the snake that touched him before, the snake that sealed him--- Kyuubi’s mental rant reached a headache-inducing roar. He bore fangs, furious. ---if it was that snake, I will rend him apart piece by piece. I will gouge out his eyes for looking at our bitch like that; I will break his hands for touching my kits. I will---



Naruto ignored him. In a voice dead of his sunshiny humor, he demanded: “Who was it?”



Sasuke still wouldn’t look up.



“My brother.”



There was an odd sort of possessiveness to that---he didn’t say Itachi, or that man, or anything that was easier, though remote. Sasuke took responsibility for him with that phrase: my brother, for good or ill, my brother, my blood which has bathed in my blood. Saying my brother meant Sasuke was accountable, and he usually skirted that responsibility by dropping more reserved titles like a certain man, Itachi, the missing-nin of the Uchiha clan. My brother gave him an uncomfortable attachment, an intimacy which made Naruto’s stomach crawl.



“He didn’t hurt you?” It probably should have come out as a statement, but the impossibility that Uchiha Itachi had appeared and had not attempted to put Sasuke out was difficult to wrap his mind around. Hence the inclination on the last word, the furrow of Naruto’s brow, the callused hands that went to Sasuke’s belly just to make certain he still carried live kits.



“I don’t think he wanted me,” Sasuke admitted. Still looking down---now at the tanned hands that were massaging gentle circles over his stomach---he laughed softly, bitterly. “He wanted coffee creamer.”



Naruto blinked, the ridiculousness of his statement derailing his anger.



“You’re kidding me. He came by to cadge creamer from you? What else did he need---a freakin’ cup of sugar for the Akatsuki bake sale?” He closed his eyes tightly, teeth gritted as he let go of a heavy sigh. “Let’s step back for a moment, shall we? Tell me what happened.”



Sasuke didn’t resist him when Naruto tugged him down to sit, even if sitting in the bathroom and trying to put together some sort of piecemeal explanation as to his brother’s visitation sounded ridiculous to the part of his mind that was less emotionally-driven. The sopping, emotional part of his mind that seemed to be running in near-hysterical mode lately just quivered a lower lip and begged Inner Sasuke to curl up with Naruto until the ‘bad man’ went away. The logical part was chiding the emotional part, and while they were busy harping at each other, Outer Sasuke was left bedraggled and sullen, helpless as to where to start.



Where to start, indeed.



I woke up a couple of days ago because I felt a chakra signature in the room---or, more precisely, I woke up because I felt a chakra signature on me. My brother came by to see his unborn nieces or nephews---and I mean that in the most literal sense, seeing as Itachi has Sharingan, and could see them through me---and he stuck around for coffee. He played around a bit, mocked me openly for being pregnant, ungainly, and ultimately lacking in fraternal hatred, but when he really started to dig in the kunai, Chouji appeared and shooed him away. Yes, that’s right: Akimichi Chouji scared off Uchiha Itachi. That one boggles me, too. I haven’t heard from my brother since, but I have a strong feeling that he’s probably lingering far too close for comfort. Might be watching Chouji and me train. Might be watching me studying scrolls. Might be watching us sleep at night.



Right, Naruto will take this wonderfully.



“He wanted to put me in my place,” Sasuke said tightly, his shoulders stiffening as he dug his fingers into the edges of the bowl. The earthenware was heavy, stable, and strangely comforting, even as the rim bit into his thin fingers. He wasn’t going to sugarcoat it or downplay anything that had happened---if Naruto didn’t know what was happening, he wouldn’t be able to protect either of them, and the unfortunate reality was that Sasuke had no other mode of protection. He had to rely on Naruto, even if that meant ducking his rages or downplaying his own bouts of anger. “Itachi wished to remind me of the grand eventuality of our lives: that Orochimaru will have my currently very pregnant body for his own, and that the Akatsuki will have you. That he’ll…have Kyuubi, and that he looks forward to the day that he can peel Kyuubi out of you and leave you for dead. It only makes the deal sweeter that I claimed you, and that your death will hurt me…” Naruto’s eyes widened marginally at that, because hearing that possessiveness voiced was both rare and warming---if he could set aside the context, of course. “…even if I’m only some small, isolated, and utterly powerless part of Orochimaru, tucked away as he uses my body…it will hurt me, and Itachi will find some perverse satisfaction in that, I’m sure.”



“Since when have you bought into anything Itachi has to say?” Naruto asked, but then stopped himself. He sighed. “Stupid question, I guess. You put more into his opinion than anyone else’s. You always have.” He sighed again, this time with a hard edge of exasperation to it, a hint of growl. “I wish you’d listen to me when I say ‘I’m going to protect you’ instead of him when he’s all ‘Orochimaru is going to sell your premature fox-babies to the highest bidder and then fill you full of snake-babies’. It’d make our lives tons easier if you’d just believe me for one damn second. I mean, hell, I want to protect you so badly that I almost consider it unsafe---I think I beat out old Oro when it comes to being creepily possessive.”



“That’s not true,” Sasuke growled.



“Which part?” Naruto asked, blinking.



“The whole spiel about me not believing you---the rest of it I’m ignoring for the moment, because I don’t know how you can possibly think that I’d put Itachi above you---“



“It is the truth,” the kyuubi-container said, firmly silencing his denial. “Let’s examine the track record: Itachi said that you were supposed to kill him to avenge your clan, and you based your childhood around that, pacing yourself to become a killer. Itachi said that you weren’t strong enough to kill him, so you spent your teens inventing new ways to get stronger. And now that Itachi says that you’re going to end up as a snake’s sex toy and I’m going to end up dead beyond words, you believe him.” He snorted, as if amused. “For a genius, you sure are dumb. Your brother isn’t God, Sasuke. He’s not fate either, which means you can fight what he says.”



“No, I can’t. Not by myself, at least,” Sasuke said, his head bowed and his teeth clenched. Admitting it was like breaking his own fingers, but he still had to force his way through it. No more games, no more pretending. This was the truth, and he could no longer avoid it---Itachi’s appearance had made that ever-so-clear. He had hoped that Naruto would silently understand that, allowing him to skate by without having to verbalize it, but the dobe was either dense or wanted to hear him say that he needed help. “I can’t defend myself like I should; maybe I would’ve been able to fend for myself had I kept to the summerhouse and had carried just one baby, but with my build and triplets, I’m---I’m defenseless. Beached whale, cow, whatever horrible mammalian analogy you want to make---yes, I’m like that right now.” He set down the bowl---it was shaking, and the last thing he needed now was to break it---and fisted his hands into the loose fabric of his pants, almost hissing with the tightness of his clenched jaws. Not even Naruto’s hands folding over his was enough to make him relax.



“Sasuke…chill. Don’t get worked up.” He sighed, passing a gentle hand over the curve of his stomach. “Bad things happen when you get worked up, remember?”



“Don’t get worked up? Do you think I don’t know how dangerous it is for me right now---do you think I feel these emotions willingly? Itachi walked into our room while I slept and I was too chakra-exhausted to feel it. I can barely call myself a ninja anymore! What next? Orochimaru slides into bed next to me and I don’t notice until he’s got his tongue wrapped around my throat? It’s unacceptable.” He shuddered, as if saying this made him both sick and angry. It probably did; he was more than likely replaying that cat-got-the-canary smirk of Itachi’s in his head and hating it more and more with the passing seconds. “I need help. Your help, the village’s help…Kyuubi said pride would be what killed me. I don’t want him to be right.”



“It scares you to say that,” Naruto murmured, cupping his shoulder and leaning him in close. For once, Sasuke relaxed slightly and curled to the touch, much to his relief. “Doesn’t it?”



Half-muffled by his shirtfront, he gave a small “Yes,” that barely befitted an Uchiha, much less Sasuke. It was difficult for Naruto to hear him say it---to hear in his quiet confession how much of his rival had broken down due to his pregnancy, to realize how little remained of the harsh, glaring concoction of cold blood and steel walls that had been everyone’s favorite Avenger. He’d torn down the wall brick by brick---it currently stood at knee-level, so that those who realized that there was no longer a tower encasing the Ice Princess could simply step over what remained of the wall and drop by for a visit. At lot of it would be carefully rebuilt---the moment Sasuke was able to train again and go out in the field---but some of it lay in tatters of broken brick and dust, never to be picked up again.



Maybe it was better that way, Naruto mused. Then again, maybe not. Maybe that ice and apathy was what Uchiha Sasuke was all about, maybe that was simply what Uchiha Sasuke had become. Maybe this strange little upstart clan jostling in his abdomen was an excuse to let the pain of the dead clan go. Maybe that’s what Sasuke told himself, at least.



“You’re not gonna die over being an asshole, bastard,” Naruto said, forcing on a bright attitude. Even without all the bluster, Sasuke still didn’t like to be coddled in a soft voice, petted and told that it’ll be alright. He would never buy into that sort of frivolity, so Naruto would grin and tease because that was an accepted form of comfort. “’Cause if you could die of being an asshole, we wouldn’t have to fight guys like Orochimaru and Itachi to begin with. Don’t worry about what Kyuubi says---he’s wrong, like, ninety-nine percent of the time. He’s mister ‘gee, storming the village sounds fun’, remember? The only thing he’s ever done right was keeping me alive long enough for us to get us together.” Naruto grinned absently, the arm looped over Sasuke’s side falling to its favored spot around his stomach, resting just below his ribcage, on the soft spot where his belly began to curve out. Sasuke didn’t scowl, squirm away, or threaten to take his arm off at the elbow, so he decided they were officially ‘made up’ again. Good. If this pleasant mood lasted until after his talk with the elders, maybe he could do some things that would distract Sasuke from his angst and shut Kyuubi up for a bit…



“You probably wouldn’t have slept with me if not for his…intrusion, shall we say,” Sasuke agreed dryly. “And I would not be having triplets, and you wouldn’t be with me, and so on and so forth through the whole mess. Old news. Tell him to stop bringing it up---that, and my weight. I don’t care how gleeful it makes him that his bitch can no longer run away fast enough to elude him---he can stop bringing it up, already.”



“Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep that in mind. We’ll see what we can do about the whole Itachi thing---he might’ve been able to slip in once, but he doesn’t have the whole surprise thing going for him this time around. And besides…I’m here now, and I’m going to be sticking around ‘cause of the whole Hokage thing. So no worries, right?”



He didn’t have to say anything more than that. That was promise enough.



“For some reason, I thought you’d be much angrier about this,” Sasuke mused, closing his eyes. “I kept seeing this scenario in my head where you went all Kyuubi and started yelling and throwing things at anything that looked even remotely like Itachi. And of course, I’d be a prime target, being within firing distance and very close to Itachi’s general build---without the stomach. Though he’d probably be much easier to hit if he was sporting a gut like this…”



“Got my yelling quota filled last night,” Naruto said amiably. “Kyuubi says he wants to have a go at Itachi---“ he squinted, blanching. “---and I really hope he realizes that that would be my body he’s using, and---ugh---goddammit, Kyuubi; I don’t need to see that…”



“Not going to ask,” Sasuke muttered, feeling the warmth of slight amusement tickle against the corners of his mouth. Kyuubi’s predictability was becoming something of a joke---his two modes seemed to be ‘bitching mode’ and ‘fucking mode’, and there wasn’t much of a difference between the two.



“He wants to…” Naruto trailed off, the faintly hazy look in his eyes meaning that he was seeing inward, having a brief and probably fiery conversation with his irritated tenant. “Fox, that’s not even possible with a human body. I don’t bend like that. What? Well, of course I could---not that I would---gah. Don’t you dare repeat that. Ever.”



“You’re talking to me, remember?” his mate said with a twitchy smirk, his own thoughts on what Kyuubi was planning to do to break Itachi’s spirit being far too much for him to handle at the moment. He was distraught enough as was, above and aside from the mental images of Kyuubi exacting his rather perverse ideas of revenge. He’d probably justify it with the fact that Itachi did want Kyuubi---just not that much of him, and not like that…



“I know,” Naruto grinned briefly, his eyes clearing as he shut off the inner ramble and nuzzled close to Sasuke with a purr. “He’s…well, he’s Kyuubi. He’s pissed off about having had to leave to begin with, and then I was stupid enough to get you all worked up---again, he adds, again; yeah, I know---and with Itachi on top of that, all his grr-grr possessiveness has been brought out. He loves you, Sasuke, as weird as that sounds.”



“He loves his kits,” Sasuke replied warily, not liking the thought that the fox had any kind of attachment to him aside from being ‘the bitch’, or ‘the carrier of my kits’.



“More than that, though,” Naruto argued, and brushed back his dark bangs. “There’s something he keeps hanging up on, something that makes him want you alive---aside from the fact that ‘live’ you puts out more than a dead you would. I don’t know what it is about you that he likes so much---aside from the fact that you’re damn fine---and every time I accuse him of liking a creature outside his species---and a male to boot---he gets all growly and shit. But there’s something there, I can tell. Old Blue Balls has a crush on you, I think.”



Sasuke rolled his eyes. “That makes me feel special. The fox-demon who will screw anything with legs has proclaimed to have a certain fondness for me. That’s rare, I’m sure.”



“Oh come on, you know I’m right. Think about it---even when we were kids, he was always saving your ass. The whole thing with Haku? And then when Orochimaru’s snake was going to make a snack out of you during the Chuunin Exam? I could go on, you know…” Naruto rubbed a gentle and familiar hand over his side, creeping around to rub circles low at his back (whether it was to free up his knotted muscles or for a pretext to sneak his fingers lower, Sasuke could only scowl and guess). “Maybe Kyuubi knew, somehow, that we’d end up here, just like this.”



“Doubtful,” Sasuke said, swatting away his hands with a snort as they became a little too adventurous for his mood. “He probably foresaw you ending up with Sakura, getting her hugely pregnant instead of me. I don’t think anyone could have foreseen me doing this.”



“Even me,” the jounin admitted. “But I’m not complaining.” He sighed, resting his crossed arms on his knees. “So…anyways…about Itachi. If you don’t want me out of your sight, I won’t be. I will hover like a plague of orangeness and you won’t be able to get rid of me even if you try. Even if the elders don’t throw a bitchfit, it’s going to be a couple of weeks until I get inaugurated---time enough for Tsunade to pack her bags and plan some kind of bash, and time enough for the villagers to get used to…to the idea of me, I guess. Until then, I’ll request to take most of the paperwork and shit home---so that you can help me with it, and walking to the Tower and back daily will be enough exercise to keep Doc Sakura happy with you, too. Will that work?”



“If I can put up with you being around twenty-four-seven, it should,” Sasuke said stiffly, though Naruto read this as a relieved and emphatic yes; oh god, yes. He was learning to read between the lines, his fluency in Sasuke-speak becoming more effortless daily.



“Good,” he beamed, and planted a loud kiss on his mouth, wet, childish and exaggerated. Drawing away, he added: “So I’m ready now, right? Clean and pretty and outfitted with a sexy not-quite-secretary.”



Sasuke didn’t partake of the silly glibness. Right, there was always something more…



“Naruto---one last thing.”



“I don’t like the sound of that,” Naruto said, crinkling a slight frown. “But never mind that. Shoot.”



“I’ve thought about it since Itachi came,” Sasuke said slowly, as if plucking the words from some outside source. “I’ve thought about what we can do now, and I think the best plan now would be to move.”



“Move?” Naruto echoed, aghast. “Again? But we just moved in here!”



“Yes, I know that, but I believe that the house I grew up in would be a more secure place for us. I know the layout better, and many of the traps and tricks my father built into it are still active. Itachi will know most of them, but I can modify many of them and reinforce it more. Besides, this place is far too small to raise three young children.”



“You sure?” Naruto asked, his frown deepening. “That place…”



“I haven’t gone there for over a decade. Still, I think…I think that it’s our smartest choice.” Calmly, softly, he added: “There are ghosts I need to sate. I’ve avoided them in hopes that one day I could tell them I had avenged them, but now I doubt that eventuality. If I can’t give them vengeance, maybe I’ll give them a new clan. That might be enough.”



“You don’t need to give them anything,” Naruto said gently, not liking the suddenly cold expression on Sasuke’s face. Even kisses weren’t enough to dissolve expressions like that.



“No, I do. You never had a family, Naruto. You don’t understand what it means to be a son.”



He didn’t pursue the matter further, because it would have laid open far too many tender spots in the wreckage of his Ultimate Defense; he just cleared his throat and left that ominous statement to roil in the back of Naruto’s mind when he watched his mate tremble from nightmares. “So, we’re going to start over again?”



“Kinda. Mostly.” He shrugged, forcing a smile. “We’ll see if we can get it right this time, or if we’re going to end up in another chain of yelling matches. It’s anyone’s guess.”



“Yeah,” Sasuke said, reclaiming his bowl, scraping out the last bite of rice and sighing. “Almost damning, when you look at it that way.”



“Damning? No, not really. We’re both too stubborn to give up on it, so we’ll get it right sooner or later. No worries,” grinned Naruto, straightening.



“Hn,” said Sasuke, and went to deposit his bowl in the sink and get ready to leave.



Naruto smirked, shoving his hands in his pockets. In Sasuke-speak, ‘hn’ was a general all-purpose expression that usually meant “I’m slightly amused by your resolve, but you’re not worth the energy required to express said amusement”. It meant he agreed with him, but would not stoop to gushing exclamations of “yes, yes, we’ll work with this relationship, because we were meant to be!” or something equally as laughable. He’d snort, nod, and move on, because they’d already invested far too much energy on the matter for his taste. He’d been deiced, but he hadn’t fully thawed yet.



Naruto wasn’t the only one with an un-peel-able attitude.





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

For the second time in under a month, Sasuke was in the council hall, listening to the elders and clan representatives mutter and sigh and generally look very haughtily down upon the man seated in the presenter’s chair. Of course, instead of occupying that chair himself, Sasuke sat at the table with the other clan representatives and their secondaries, watching the blond boy in the chair explain his case like the politician he was not.



There was something ironic about Sasuke’s position. He represented a clan that scarcely existed anymore, being its sole recognized member. The other adult member was off God-only-knew-where---he was silently banking on far, far away---killing God-only-knew what. The ‘junior’ members of the Uchiha clan were making a joint go at bruising his lower ribs. It was difficult to look as if he was paying attention to the delegations when he had to silently fight with his cranky children, giving his belly quick rubs when he was certain that most of the attention was on Naruto. The secondaries---Hyuuga Hinata (who should have been clan head already, by all means, but who had stepped down as head upon marrying her husband. There was still friction within their clan because of it; branch family members were never meant to be head, blah, blah, blah), Akimichi Chouichi (who had inched Chouji out by the six years between them, though Chouji probably gave up his political position gratefully), Inuzuka Hana (and no less than four dogs), Nara Shikamaru (who looked bored at best to be present; miserable at worst), and Aburame Shino (whose expression was difficult to judge behind his glasses, though Sasuke tried); ninja of his own generation, accompanying their fathers because they would be the clan heads someday---gave him short looks, either sympathetic or withering. He was used to such looks by now, and he ignored them for the most part.



Watching Naruto monopolized most of his attention, because Naruto held his own. It was just as fascinating to watch as a freak jutsu---he took the questions with surprising grace, and spoke clearly, and as if he knew exactly what he was speaking about. No ‘um’s. No stumbling. No exaggerated hand-gestures and bouncing on the balls of his feet. Just a tall young man with his head slightly bowed, his hands clasped loosely behind his back and his jaw squared resolutely.



It was eerie to say the least. He wondered, and not idly, exactly how much Naruto had changed without his noticing. Little by little, day by day, he was standing a little straighter, a little prouder. This reminded Sasuke all too much of their fight on the roof as boys---seeing the blond hitch himself up, and not out of false buoyancy or super-inflated ego. Seeing that he was strong. Seeing that he was stronger. Seeing that he had changed. It wasn’t just the new jutsu that thirteen-year-old Naruto had pulled out that had unsettled him back then. It was the fact that he’d looked him in the eye without a twitch.



It’d been the first time he’d acknowledged the dobe as his equal. That’d been the start of a personal tug-of-war that had seen its three-year intermission under a waterfall, and…



“AH, SASUKE-KUN!”



Sasuke stiffened, mid-sip of water. The elders had called a break to talk amongst themselves, and he had lost himself to his thoughts. He knew that voice, though, and at the moment, he didn’t want to turn to face the old man. It would take too much patience---far too much patience---to not cave to his irritability and kill the hermit.



But then again, Jiraiya was a Sannin, and therefore not very easy to kill.



“Go away,” Sasuke growled over the lip of his cup, darting a sharp black glare up at the old man. Jiraiya shrugged off the assault, beaming at extraordinary levels of sheer perversity.



“So! I assume that you’ll be marrying my idiotic little pupil,” Jiraiya said, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin. “Given your current figure, I’d think that you’d wait until after the birth…then again, a bride with a belly blossoming with her new husband’s children is quite touching to behold, though a dress to fit might be difficult to find…”



“I’m not marrying him. I’m not his bride. And under no circumstances am I ever wearing a dress.”



“Oh, that’s what you say now,” Jiraiya said, waggling a finger as well as an eyebrow. “But I’d bet my next book deal that if Naruto-kun was moaning your name and asking for you to wear a dress, you’d do so in a heartbeat.”



“I don’t believe you have another book deal,” Sasuke said imperiously. “And I happen to be friendly with Aido-san, so if you ever want to sell another copy of that trash in this nation, I’d suggesting shutting the hell up.” He took a deep breath, exhaling and thinking incredibly calm thoughts. He didn’t need the little nags that had decided to bruise everything between his hips and ribs to remind him he needed to be calm. “Now what are you doing here---answer in ten words or less, or I’ll make good on that last threat.”



“I’m…here to check the integrity of Naruto’s seal,” the old man said, ticking each word off on his fingers just to double-check. “---ha. Nine words. May I have another ten with you?”



“Four words for you, Jiraiya-sama: go the fuck away,” Sasuke ground out, shifting his awkward weight to get out of the chair and stomp down to where Naruto was undoubtedly waiting for him. Jiraiya clamped a large, rough hand over his forearm, applying enough pressure to let the Uchiha know he wouldn’t be shrugged off easily. He narrowed his eyes up at him, but the old man’s eyes were sad, dark, belying his familiarly wide, lecherous grin. Sasuke was momentarily rocked, but the Sannin quickly skipped over his own bearing with an ever-cheerful bellow of:



“There, there, Sasuke-kun---no need to overexert yourself! Let Grandpa Jiraiya give you a hand, yes…”



Sasuke shouldn’t have been surprised that Jiraiya used such syrupy exuberance to cover up his true feelings. He was Naruto’s teacher, after all, and therefore a master of carefully mixed signals. He let the big man pull him to his feet, and though he pushed off the hand on his arm, he followed him to one of the alcoves inset on the elders’ balcony. It wasn’t ‘away’, per se, but it was a quiet lull away from the conversing elders and representatives. They probably were discussing their votes, and he knew with a sinking surety that it would be close. Neji was having a forcibly demure argument with Homura, the male component of the Konoha elders. Sasuke could catch their moving mouths over Jiraiya’s shoulder: ---head of my clan, my decision as to my cast vote; ---being ridiculous, your acceptance of that deviant brings shame to the Hyuuga name---



Ah, wonderful. He and Naruto were causing political unrest between the elders and the clans.



“I wanted to talk to you about this risk you’re stepping into, Sasuke-kun,” Jiraiya said in a measured undertone,



Oh. Even better.



“Which risk?” Sasuke deadpanned, shifting so that he could catch more of the conversation between Neji and Homura. The thick veins surrounding the Hyuuga’s eyes were starting to twitch and surface, despite how calmly he was holding himself. “The dobe and I are compiling a list, and it was quite long, last I checked.”



“Which risk---?” Jiraiya itched the tip of his nose, as if settling on whether or not he wanted to sneeze. Old man had no tact, not even when dealing with serious subjects. Sasuke feared, detachedly, that Jiraiya was something like a vision into Naruto’s future. “The big one, obviously. Your relationship with him.”



“Yes… I’ve been aware of it for a while, actually. And your point is?”



“The talk around the council has been mostly about your relationship with him, how serious you are about your family, especially given your… track record.”



Track record. He made it sound like the elders were cheerfully keeping score. Incomplete revenge on the parricide of his clan: -5 points. Failure to marry at all, not to mention well: -5 points. Carrying future clan heads he conceived out of wedlock: -5 points. Fucking the Kyuubi: -100 points. He highly doubted his score was a positive integer.



“Ah. So, the council feels that because I sought out Orochimaru for power to kill my brother that it automatically makes me unfaithful to familial duties? I’d think that, if anything, my dedication to my brother’s demise would show---“



“They don’t care about that, Sasuke-kun,” the hermit said, waggling that finger again. Sasuke glared pointedly at him for it. “And I think you realize that. The score with your brother is a childish vendetta, and---and shit, did you just bite me?”



Sasuke quickly dropped his hand, which now sported two graceful red arches of tooth punctures. The bobbing I-Told-You-So finger had been far to frustrating to let lie. He pulled a face.



“Biting is what I’m relying on until I can use my Chidori again. It’s not a very good trade, but it’ll do for now.”



Jiraiya seemed amused, if nothing else. “I think I’m starting to see why Naruto-kun likes you…mind if I use a bit of this in my---“



“Do it and die. Back to the matter at hand. What am I supposed to do to convince the elders that I’m set in this relationship? I’m---“ He sighed loudly, seething in that quiet, dark way that had attracted girls and enemies alike to him in his adolescence. “I’ve got a gut full of his babies and they’re still not convinced? What else can I feasibly do?”



“You’re the genius, right? You’ll figure something out, I’m sure.”



“I’m so glad I have your vote of confidence,” Sasuke growled, his lip curling slightly.



“I know, and I’m sure it’s a deep comfort for you, given your condition,” Jiraiya said, a lewd smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He patted the high, jutting curve of his belly. “I’m sure you can guess how this’ll all lay out. You’ve got the Akimichis for you, since they’re all for seeing families together. Tsunade has sided with you and Naruto-kun---which we all knew she would. She’s always liked the brat, and you…you were a constant pebble in her heels that begged to be dealt with. This, I’m sure, is her way of dealing with you. I’d imagine you’re a lot easier to manage sporting that gut and decimated chakra levels. Now, Homura-sama is undoubtedly opposed to the idea. Koharu-sama is neutral and the key to granting Naruto-kun the title of Hokage. If you play your cards right and gain her trust, Homura-sama’s vote will be overruled in the council. How you get her to take a shine to you, however…” Jiraiya rubbed his chin, closing his eyes and nodding sagely. “I don’t know.”



Sasuke sighed, and it came out mostly growl. And just when he thought the old goat had something useful to say…



“Great,” he said, brushing his bangs out of his face. “Wonderful. Just…peachy.”



“Ah, don’t worry about it for now, Sasuke-kun. What will be, will be,” Jiraiya said, and looped an arm around him to guide him back to his seat. “Until the deliberations are over, I will be staying with you and Naruto-kun. I’ll make certain these troublesome things don’t vex your delicate state.”



Sasuke had to remind himself that the Sanin were like living history. Monuments. Natural wonders of ninja finesse. They were to be treated with honor and respect, having etched their names irrevocably in the logs of Konoha’s history.



This did not mean that the Sanin currently leering at him couldn’t easily be drugged and stuffed under the couch.



Sasuke found that thought particularly comforting.





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OMAKE THE FOURTH: (because who the hell would I be if I didn’t put in another omake?) ICE CREAM



It was a Monday night, so the carton of ice cream had come out. It wasn’t so much that Sasuke disliked Mondays, and the work load they brought---he needed the sugary comforter more because Mondays wore him out, and he didn’t want to complain about it. Naruto was already trying to find excuses to keep him out of the Hokage Tower and off of his feet, but Sasuke was stubborn, and therefore had to cave to sweets to assuage his weariness after ten hours of paperwork.



As usual, Naruto was sprawled on the couch next to him, taking chance bites of Sasuke’s double pistachio ice cream. Mondays wore him out, too, so they’d sort of gotten into the habit of eating ice cream together after work, because busy mouths didn’t bitch quite so readily. Sasuke would settle down on his side of the couch in a nest of blankets and pillows, and Naruto would strip off his Hokage robes and crawl into the nest next to him.



Sasuke usually didn’t mind Naruto’s aversion to clothing, but for some reason, the sight of his tanned, finely-muscled body and flat stomach made him twitch somewhat. It might have been a bit of jealousy, but he didn’t voice it immediately.



He gave Naruto an exceptionally sour look.



“Put a shirt on, dobe.”



“What?” Naruto blinked mock-hurt eyes at him, jutting a perfectly injured lower lip. “Don’t you like my body?”



“I don’t like that you seem fond of mocking my body by flashing yours,” Sasuke replied darkly, taking a particularly large bite of ice cream so as to dull his pain. Ice cream usually did a very good job of that sort of thing.



“Oh come on, I’ve gained weight, too,” Naruto said, pinching an inch of belly skin between his thumb and forefinger---that in itself was almost a mock; it was hardly fat, just loose skin from his slouch. “Look at that. Right there. Sympathy blubber.”



“Bastard,” Sasuke muttered, glaring right back. Naruto had ‘tucked him in’, ever-conscious of how sore he was, and from his position among all sorts of blankets and pillows, he looked both sullen and horribly cute. Naruto would have even deemed his expression a pout, if he was feeling somewhat adventurous---and he would’ve teased his mate about it, but that would have earned him something sharp to the spleen before he could’ve blinked. Only a fool would have thought that Sasuke would be without some sort of hidden weapon, even eight months pregnant, not exactly outfitted to fight, and clearly enjoying his ice cream. He got some sort of material comfort in weapons. He was the type.



“I’m dead serious!” the blond said, put off. “I’ve gained, like, five pounds with all this ice cream we’ve been eating.”



“Oh, how you suffer for our kits. I stopped paying attention at thirty,” Sasuke said dryly, his glower deep. “That was somewhere near month six.”



Naruto blinked, curious. “How much weight have you gained?”



“Shut up now if you want to live.”



“Touchy, touchy. Geeze. It’s not like much has changed in my mind, you know. Yeah, you are a bit softer now,” Naruto said, diving in for a quick bite of ice cream. He sucked on the spoon, grinning. “A lot rounder, of course, but that’s alright, too. Carrying the kits has made you much more sensitive---the list of spots I can lick that cause you to make funny noises has gotten so long, I’ve had to alphabetize it. For example---“



Before Sasuke could even attempt to squirm away, Naruto leaned in and grabbed his jaw, drawing a slow lick from his chin to the quavering pulse at his adam’s apple. The warm tongue was good, but the cooling saliva was better; Sasuke shivered a bit before he could stop himself.



“Chin, the underside of, and elbows are the first two,” the kyuubi-boy purred, happily going through one of his favorite lists. He took Sasuke’s free hand, and curled his tongue around his index finger, sucking lightly before letting go---Sasuke, despite himself, made an odd sound in the back of his throat. It sounded half like a mewl, but nobody was willing to attribute such a sound to such an Uchiha (and hope to live to see another day). “Fingers are next, and one of my favorite spots, I must say, though the undersides of your knees---next, alphabetically---are very nice, too. You twitch a little when I lick there.”



“Bastard,” Sasuke half-muttered again, though he was cut off by the next one on Naruto’s list---neck, followed up quickly by nipples. He almost didn’t care about the humorous damp spots that the dobe’s kittenish licks and nuzzles left in his shirtfront---then again, by the time he got to nipples, he was basically too distracted to care about much.



“After nipples, we go on to ribs, the bottom of---“ He drew a couple of fingers over where Sasuke’s flat chest began to curve out into very round stomach. “---which usually gets you hotter than most of the other ones, for some reason I have yet to figure out. Not complaining, though---petting your belly and getting you to blush for me is fun.”



Sasuke didn’t have much to say, other than: “Bastard.” He had to say something, but not much was coming to mind. Naruto, looking like a fully satisfied cat, had drawn away with his ice cream spoon again, beaming that he had momentarily derailed his pregnant mate’s quest for calories.



“And those are just the ones that I can lick in public,” the blond grinned proudly, giving his spoon a long and lascivious lick. He took great pains to draw out the motion, blue eyes sliding to the side so as to gauge his mate’s reaction. Sasuke had paused with his full spoon in the air, his arrested mouth half-open. It stayed there for a few seconds before he remembered what he was doing and hastily shoved the bite in his mouth, flushing.



The damn tease. He knew every button to push, didn’t he?



Sasuke glared at the ceiling to hide his blush. Naruto added ten points to his personal score. When he wanted to be, he could be ultimately distracting.



“You lick my nipples in public and I’ll kick your face in,” Sasuke grumbled around his mouthful of ice cream, still a bit red-faced.



“I’d like to see you try,” he laughed, and poked his stomach, tight as a snare drum and smooth beneath his baggy shirt. A rough thumb rubbed around his comically poked-out bellybutton brought even more color to the Uchiha’s face, and Naruto mentally added that to his list for further experimentation: navel, in and around. “You can’t kick any higher than shin-level with this belly in the way.”



“Still a ninja,” Sasuke said shortly, valiantly fighting his blush with a sour expression. “Still flexible.”



Naruto grinned hugely. He gave his turned-out navel a wet lick, dampening his shirt and making his knees twitch a bit. Sasuke probably hadn’t realized he’d dropped his spoon until Naruto burst out laughing---he’d dropped the spoon back into the tub at the lick due to suddenly nerveless fingers, exhaling loudly in that way that meant most people would’ve shrieked reflexively at the touch. His self-control was better, but not complete.



Check that---navel, in and around: extremely sensitive…



“You know I’m going to test that theory,” Naruto said, purring away.



“Bastard,” Sasuke muttered again, and Naruto took that to mean do that again!.



In Sasuke-speak, that was probably a direct translation.





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Okay. And now for my tiny angry rant.



THIS RANT IS NOT FOR YOU NICE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN PATIENT AND SUPPORTIVE. THIS IS FOR THE PESTERING ENTITLEMENT WHORES.



If I keep getting harassing emails and comments, I’m going to stop posting Self-Reliance on I’ll post it in my LJ writing journal, friends-locked, so that I can control who does and doesn’t get it. When people continually comment with ‘update, you bitch’ and similar ilk, all the fun gets sucked right out of writing. I write for myself before anyone else, and when certain folks start acting like I’m some kind of fanfiction-pumping machine, I tend to stop liking what I’m doing. When you makes this a chore, I treat it just that way.



Please don’t make me stoop to that. I LIKE writing Self-Reliance, and I know that you all like reading it. So please, please cut me some slack. It might sound silly, but my health and my RL situation DO come before my writing. I could update quickly during the summer because it was just that---the summer. During the school year, I’m a full-time college student with 17-19 credits, plus I hold two part-time jobs. Put that all together and I have the equivalent of two full-time jobs. This last term, it was rare for me to get more than four hours of sleep a night, if any at all. I may be crazy, but I made an executive decision that sleeping was better than pumping out fanfiction.



Don’t harass me into updating. Don’t ask me when it’s going to be updated. It’s not like I am hoarding chapters to myself and tittering “hee hee, they’ll never read them now:D” to myself. When I finish a chapter, it goes to my beta THAT DAY, and it is usually posted within three days. If it’s not posted, it’s not finished. Ergo, asking me weekly/daily if it’s finished just pisses me off.



Lay off. I have a life. Kthnxbai.



Anyway. An update will come, sooner or later. Check my LJ (www. livejournal .com / users / theninjakitty) for snippets and other Naruto-fandom stuff.