Almost Sucks

Almost Sucks
by Mashiro

Naruto fandom, series, no spoilers
AU, BOYS LOVE: Naruto x Sasuke, Kakashi x Iruka, Lee x Gaara

first version: May 26th 2006, Friday
second version: August 26th 2008, Tuesday

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DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the rights to the Naruto series or characters and I make no money writing this. I’m just a fan. This is fan fiction.

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22: Almost two months

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Kakashi was in the shower when the doorbell rang and Sasuke was at the table eating breakfast. He had bitten off a bit too much whole-wheat toast and was struggling to chew.

“Get the door, moody teenager,” Kakashi shouted happily from behind the bathroom door. “Or I’ll get it myself and you’ll be embarrassed! Maybe it’s a neighbor!”

‘Neighbor’ had turned into code for Naruto; though Kakashi said it like it meant Sasuke’s not-so-secret secret lover. Sasuke couldn’t understand why almost everyone around him these days was an idiot to some degree. Was it karma? Had he wronged someone somewhere that he didn’t know of?

“I’ll get it!” Sasuke croaked when he’d finally managed to swallow the damned lump of bread, left the table and grumbled all the way to the door. He should have just let Kakashi get it. Sasuke wouldn’t have been the one getting embarrassed. It was probably just that damned Naruto anyway; the blond had developed a habit of visiting before school, claiming he needed to know if Sasuke was sick or not. ‘So I’ll know if you’re walking or staying home if you don’t show up on the bus,’ he said grinning. Naruto was such an idiot. Would half an hour of wondering whether Sasuke would come to school or not kill him? He was the most idiotic of the idiots around Sasuke.

This morning though, a sunny late September one, it wasn’t a smiling, overly energized blond standing on the porch when Sasuke opened the door. The smiling part was right and the hair color, but this blond stood tall, long tresses in a ponytail and smile sparkling with lipstick. Her eyes sparkled too, once she’d removed her sunglasses, and her nails. Her huge chest was barely contained by the top, leaving a cleavage you didn’t have to be straight to stare at.

“Yo!”

Sasuke had once run into some guys he knew during one of the outdoors sessions and introduced the woman as his shrink. The gaping mouths and saucer eyes had been priceless. She had loved it. Saying Sasuke was surprised to see her here and now was an understatement.

“Tsunade?”

“I come unannounced,” the woman declared. “Just go with it. I want to see how you live.”

“Sure,” Sasuke frowned and opened the door further. “But I’ve got school, you should have come...”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Kakashi said, leaving the bathroom with his hair and skin still dripping, a tiny towel around his hips covering about as much as Tsunade’s top did. “Good morning, dear lady!”

Sasuke groaned and covered his eyes.

“Morning, Kakashi!” Tsunade said happily. “Pretty place you’ve got here.”

“Isn’t it? We both love it. Did you make it without getting lost?”

Tsunade snorted.

“Of course I did.”

“Do you want some breakfast?”

“No, no. I ate before I left. I could steal some of Sasuke’s amazing coffee though, if there is any.”

“Sure there is!” Kakashi chirped. “Go make some coffee, Sasuke!”

“Get dressed,” Sasuke grumbled and took off for the kitchen again, happy to get away from the practically naked man. Tsunade followed him.

“And don’t worry about school,” Kakashi shouted. “I called yesterday and told them you were sick.”

“Of course you did,” Sasuke muttered under his breath.

She had said she came unannounced but Kakashi had known about it. He had been unusually chirpy this morning and last night.

Tsunade was another one of those idiots, it didn’t matter that she was a professional psychologist with many diplomas in her office. She might know how to fix the troubled minds of others but her own was apparently beyond hope. She smoked, drank and gambled; and not in moderation either. It was amazing that she’d managed to keep her license. But maybe that was the reason Sasuke liked her. Tsunade wasn’t perfect. More importantly she knew she wasn’t perfect and didn’t pretend to be. She talked like she knew what she was talking about. Really knew; not like ‘I read it in a book once’. Sasuke had met a lot of professional psychiatrists over the years and Tsunade was one of the few that he respected. It was scary really, how many clueless shrinks there were out there.

From his place by the coffee machine Sasuke glanced at Tsunade, seated at the table. Her small smile and the look in her eyes told him that session had already started. To most of the shrinks Sasuke had met ‘session’ was always in their own offices, at the appointed time, with lots of notes scribbling. Tsunade however could have a session anywhere with anything or anyone.

Once, a couple of years back, Tsunade had taken the car and brought Sasuke out of the city, to the countryside and a place even more remote than this. She had found a small bumpy road and let Sasuke take the wheel. ‘The new version of shock therapy,’ she had said, not even trying to make it serious. It had been Sasuke’s first time driving a car and more fun than he had thought it would be, even with the short off road detour that had followed Sasuke’s reaction to suddenly sharing the road with a huge stray cow.

Sometimes Tsunade took their sessions to restaurants or cafés, making a casual conversation out of something that would have been analytic and serious in the office. Sometimes she asked Sasuke to bring Shikamaru as well. And other times they were just in the office having a normal therapy talk. You never knew. Sasuke supposed that was another reason he liked Tsunade. She wasn’t predictable and she wasn’t conventional. You never quite knew what she had planned. What amazed Sasuke the most about Tsunade’s unpredictable sessions was that she was always right. What needed to be talked about always got talked about, no matter where they were. It always fit. They were always at the right place at the right time. It never got inappropriate or difficult to talk; they were always alone when they needed to be.

If she was clever or just lucky, Sasuke didn’t know. One might think it had to be intelligence, because Tsunade’s lack of luck was famous (at the casinos anyway); though, others claimed that Tsunade just wasted all of her luck on her work and didn’t have any left for her gambling.

Sasuke brought two steaming cups to the table, handing one to Tsunade and kept the other for himself. He went back to finishing his toast.

“Aww,” Kakashi came into the kitchen, chest still bare but at least he had pants now. “What about me?”

“Make your own,” Tsunade scoffed.

Sasuke smirked. Kakashi pouted.

“Lovely weather today,” Tsunade said. “A bit chilly, but it is almost October.”

“Yeah,” Sasuke agreed.

They both sipped at the hot coffee.

“Mm, this is heavenly,” Tsunade tapped the cup with a colorful nail.

How it could make a difference who made the coffee when it was a machine, Sasuke didn’t know.

“Oh, by the way,” Kakashi drawled from the counter, his tone setting off alarms in Sasuke’s mind. “I called Naruto too. So he doesn’t worry about you.”

Extra weight was placed on the blond’s name. Sasuke narrowed his eyes and mentally snarled. You had to be an idiot not to get the implication and Tsunade was no idiot like that. Sure enough, she raised a brow in ‘really? Who?’

“You know he tends to do that,” Kakashi continued. “That dear boy really cares about you.”

“Worry about yourself,” Sasuke growled.

Tsunade was smiling.

Fortunately Kakashi was back in the bathroom when Naruto passed the house on his way to the bus. Unfortunately Sasuke couldn’t help looking at the blond or looking away quickly when he realized what he had done. Tsunade was not a successful shrink because she was bad at reading people.

“Cute,” she said, following Naruto with her eyes.

Sasuke sighed.

“He’s an idiot.”

The blond was looking up toward the house and for a horrified second Sasuke wondered exactly what Kakashi had said, if he really had called. What if Naruto decided he wanted to know more and came over? Sasuke did not want to stand in the doorway and explain the situation to the blond while Tsunade stood behind him waving and Kakashi stood behind her being an idiot. It would be chaos, he just knew it.

“He can still be cute, can’t he?” Tsunade said, frustratingly playful as she tiptoed around the subject. “He’s got… natural bed hair.”

Fortunately Naruto kept going.

Half an hour later Kakashi left for work. Sasuke and Tsunade stayed at the kitchen table for a while, talking about meaningless things; the weather, the house and how quiet the neighborhood was. Tsunade was a city person as much as Sasuke was, though she cared more about what the city had to offer than the city itself. While it might sound strange Sasuke could admit that it was the city itself that appealed to him. Tsunade however liked the casinos, the horseracing tracks, the bars that opened at noon and the fact that you could always find a kiosk selling cigarettes within two minutes of walking.

They talked around the things that they would talk about later, when they were out of the house. Tsunade might be ‘in session’ already, but she wouldn’t talk serious in the house. She had come to visit Sasuke at home before back when he lived in the apartment, but they had always gone out for the actual therapy stuff. ‘Home is not an office,’ Tsunade said, even though apparently the rest of the world was.

So she would ask him out on a “date” later. They would go for a walk, a longer one or just a trip to the nearest bench where they would sit and smoke together for a while. Or they would take the car to some odd and unexpected place, or a not so unexpected one.

Sasuke was nervous about today’s serious talk. He worried she would ask about Naruto, because if she did, Sasuke didn’t know what to say.

He didn’t know why but something had changed that day when Sasuke passed out and Naruto was there to see it. Something had calmed down; like the ‘air after a storm’ afterglow had pressed itself into Sasuke’s pores and not come out. Their conversations were more than just exchanging insults now and they spent time together even if they didn’t have to. Naruto was still annoying with his endless energy and enthusiasm, his loud voice and occasional brainless comments, but it was like the annoyance didn’t stick anymore. Sasuke sighed, rolled his eyes, shrugged and kept walking, not really minding that the blond followed.

He tried not to think about it; tried not to think about how he was the brainless one, keeping such company. Naruto wasn’t the type Sasuke made friends and got along with, but Sasuke wasn’t even protesting anymore. It was better not to think about it. Just let things be.

That was why Sasuke worried. If Tsunade wanted to talk about Naruto, Sasuke would have to start thinking again; he would have to be ready. She would push him off the cliff whether he wanted to or not.

Actually, ‘worried’ was a weak word. Sasuke was scared. He had no idea what thoughts he’d end up with if he had to start thinking again. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to jump. He wanted the cliff to never have existed at all.

“What do you say?” Tsunade said and stretched when they ran out of pointless things to talk about. “You want to go ruin our lungs?”

Sasuke’s stomach swirled. He knew what she was really saying. ‘Are you ready for ‘serious’?’

“Yeah,” he said, but wondered if he really was.

They went for a walk. Tsunade shared her cigarettes with Sasuke, goodhearted as she was, and they went side by side down the street, passing Naruto’s house. It was a nice day. The sun was out, sharing the blue sky with some clouds but without arguing. The air was chilly, but the sun warmed. They were alone on the streets, the closest thing to company being a woman standing in her window shaking mats, snapping sounds echoing between houses. She glared at them; maybe didn’t approve of fifteen-year-olds smoking together with women in their forties on schooldays; or rather, women in their early thirties, because Tsunade looked younger than she was.

“So tell me about the cute blond,” Tsunade said once the mat woman was out of sight. “He reminds me of someone. Was it Naruto?”

“Yeah,” Sasuke sighed and blew smoke. “He’s a guy from school.”

“But he lives here?”

“That yellow house,” Sasuke looked over his shoulder and nodded in the direction. “Kakashi was flirting with his dad, that’s how we met.”

“Oh? They’ve broken up now?”

“I don’t know if they ever really dated. And I don’t care.”

Tsunade nodded as if thinking about that. She seemed surprisingly un-shrinkish this morning, but Sasuke supposed she could be just starting out light.

“So you and Naruto became friends?”

“Not... really,” Sasuke frowned and found himself wondering about how this whole thing had started. “He just wouldn’t leave me alone. We got into fights and...”

“Oh! It’s that kid!” Tsunade laughed. “I got a call from your school counselor. Didn’t think he’d be a cutie.”

“He’s not that cute,” Sasuke muttered.

“You get along better now?”

“I suppose. We... hang out and stuff.”

“Good!” Tsunade said. “Friends are good for you.”

‘We’re not friends’ Sasuke wanted to say, but he was afraid she would challenge his statement and have him realize that they were; friends. It sounded too precious for an annoying, loud blond.

Tsunade changed the subject and asked Sasuke about the move. She went into real shrink-mode with that and Sasuke’s attention was focused away from Naruto completely. He told her what he missed about the city and what was different here. She asked some good questions, from a therapy session point of view, and he had to think.

Then, before Sasuke knew it, they were suddenly back at the house again and ‘serious’ was over. Tsunade wanted more coffee and Sasuke made some. When she wanted something sweet to go with it he looked through the cupboards.

Sasuke felt like he’d been robbed of something; like he’d been listening patiently to a joke only to miss the punch line. Yes, he was scared shitless of what thoughts might be lurking behind his non-thinking, but... She’d been such a good excuse to get off the cliff without actually jumping. He should be talking about this. A good shrink wouldn’t let her patients hide their thoughts. He needed to talk but now serious was over.

So Sasuke was surprised when the question came; because he hadn’t thought it would come at all, but also because of its construction.

“What you’re doing with Naruto,” Tsunade said. “Is it like what you did with Neji?”

It was deep and not at all like their usual before serious and after serious talks. Sasuke had to think for a long time before answering.

“No,” he said finally.

Sasuke and Neji had started out very strangely. They had run into each other at parties and other gatherings, both more or less drunk, and had for some reason always ended up making out on some couch. They had eventually tried to have some sort of more serious relationship that didn’t just involve loud music and alcohol, after some nudging from Shikamaru, but the attempt had been announced a failure after only one week. They had been just friends ever since.

Sasuke’s relationship with Naruto wasn’t like his relationship with Neji. Yes, the feeling of inescapable repetition was there in both cases (even if the feelings towards the inescapable repetition weren’t the same). It hadn’t mattered how Sasuke and Neji’s evenings started out, they ended up making out; and here it didn’t matter what Sasuke did, Naruto still kept coming back. Sasuke and Naruto also had sort of made out that first time when Sasuke had wanted to scare the blond off, but...

Naruto and Neji were completely different persons. Neji had never shouted anything about marriage and he never would have stubbornly followed anyway if Sasuke told him to stay away. Neji was way too proud to willingly look like an idiot and would rather pretend he didn’t care even if he did.

No, what Sasuke had done with Neji was not what he did with Naruto. Sasuke wasn’t sure what he was actually doing with Naruto, but he knew it wasn’t that. Tsunade was talking about the week when Sasuke and Neji tried to get together seriously. It had been the first time Sasuke had ended up with the same guy so many times and he had mistaken that for... whatever it was that made up real, serious relationships. It had been the same for Neji. They had tried to find something that they didn’t have, because... Well, Sasuke was slightly embarrassed to admit it, but because that was what people did. They found someone special and got more serious.

With Naruto there was no such searching. Hell, if anything it was the opposite of such searching. Instead of trying to find something that didn’t exist, Sasuke... hated to admit it and hated how his stomach swirled at the thought of it, but... he was fairly sure that he tried to ignore something that existed.

Crazy, retarded thoughts and he wanted to stop thinking again.

“So, what’s it like?” Tsunade said and her voice was softer than usual. This wasn’t official, Sasuke realized; this wasn’t serious. Sasuke knew now that was why she had waited. This was her caring, as a friend, and Sasuke wanting to share, or not.

“It’s... I don’t know. It’s weird. I hated it. I really didn’t like him at first.”

Sasuke realized he was chewing his lip and stopped.

“Now I don’t know. Now it’s just... it keeps going, and I don’t know if I want it to stop or if I’m okay... with it. He’s so damn stubborn.”

Sasuke ran out of words. He ran out of air in his lungs, things to say and of urgency. The kitchen was so quiet. He wasn’t sure what he had said and wanted to take it all back.

Tsunade didn’t say anything. She sipped her coffee and through the ‘what the hell did I say?’ embarrassing annoyance Sasuke was grateful. Like he didn’t know what to say, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear; if he wanted to hear anything at all.

An idea struck him like a bolt of lightning from the sky. Maybe it was just that he didn’t want to hear from her. Maybe she was not the one he wanted to talk to. It was a scary thought, but it wouldn’t let him go.

When Tsunade finally spoke, it was about something else.

“It’s two months tomorrow, isn’t it?” she said. “Since you guys moved out here.”

Sasuke had to think. Two months felt like a very long time. Had it really been that long? But when he thought about it, he found that it was true.

“Yeah,” he said. “Two months tomorrow.”

“Good work,” Tsunade smiled. “And you don’t have to worry about those other things. I have no doubt that you will sort it out.”

Sasuke had to softly smile.

“Alright.”

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