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: June 30th 2006, Friday
second version: September 12th 2008, Friday

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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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27: Thursday afternoon ass kicking

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Was it normal to be confused, frustrated and perfectly okay at the same time? And on top of that feel like feeling that was fine and natural? Was it normal to feel comfortable and at ease with weird emotions? Sasuke didn’t know, as he walked down the street with Naruto on his left side and the road on his right. They had gotten out of the play house, eventually, scaring the hell out of the cheerfully playing kids in the process. One of them, a boy, had fallen off his swing. Naruto had yelled apologies while hurriedly walking away, while Sasuke had just hurriedly walked away.

It wasn’t like they weren’t allowed in the playground, so why should they apologize? They were kids. Sort of. Fifteen-year-olds could play in the playground. And while Sasuke didn’t think the manufacturers had planned for that exact usage when they fashioned the playground construction, they must have known that kids were creative. Kids played with their toys in ways their toys should not be played with. Everyone knew that, it was practically a law of Nature.

But Naruto had apologized. Now he was acting like their playground stunt had never happened, humming cheerfully and smiling at Sasuke when their eyes met; like they hadn’t just been stuffed together in a play house made for five year olds, lips against lips, hands against skin and crotch in need against crotch in need. Had he been faking that hard-on he’d been pushing against Sasuke to make Sasuke feel better about liking their making out so much? How could he just switch the need on and off like that? Sasuke was so frustrated he found it difficult to focus on anything else.

And hey, when was Naruto going to get stripped? Why was Sasuke always the one that got his clothes pushed aside? Sasuke sighed. How come a small town blond guy was so difficult to figure out? Maybe he wasn’t a retard at all, just a nutcase. Then no wonder they made a nice couple. Were they a nice couple? Was it normal to be unable to stop thinking about things that really didn’t matter?

“Hey, looks like Kakashi-san’s home,” Naruto said and pointed, Sasuke frowned and looked. Naruto was right. Kakashi’s car was parked on the driveway. Both Sasuke and Naruto stopped, at the same time.

“He shouldn’t be home,” Sasuke said, still frowning but glad that a new and better confusing thing could distract him from the old confusing thoughts, emotions and questions racing through his head.

“Does that mean you won’t come over?”

Part of Sasuke wanted to say ‘no, I’m coming’, even though he knew Naruto was just going to tease him and not even think about moving below the waist no matter how much Sasuke wanted it. And hadn’t Sasuke been anxious about that before? Going further? Now it felt like the most important thing in the world. ‘Why don’t I just make him?’ Sasuke’s mind asked. ‘I have hands, right? I can undress myself, I don’t need his permission.’

“I should go home,” Sasuke said, concentrating on looking at the house so that his eyes would not stray, though he didn’t know why he didn’t want them to. “See if something’s up, I… I could stop by later. If you want.”

He looked anyway; glanced Naruto’s way and caught a glimpse of Naruto’s eyes and his smile.

“Yeah! I want that. Iruka’s got a meeting, so he’ll be home late.”

Sasuke gave a smile too, but he was certain his was smaller.

“Alright.”

Was it normal to always come back to the same things? No matter what door you pick, no matter what road you start running on, was it normal to always end up there? Here. With them together and what they did.

Had there ever been a year without Christmas?

‘Maybe I am just a hormonal teenager.’

-

Kakashi came out of the kitchen when Sasuke opened the front door, so fast that he must have been waiting for him.

“Sasuke!” the man shouted, looking like Sasuke had been gone for years and just suddenly come back. “Where have you been?”

Kakashi didn’t seem worried, like someone they knew had been hurt, just frustrated and in a hurry. Sasuke stared for a moment to annoy him and wondered how he had managed to get away from work. Maybe they had some sort of event day today at his school?

“At school?” Sasuke raised his brows, then sighed and came in; closed the door behind him.

“The bus came hours ago!”

“It can’t have been hours,” Sasuke said, dropped his bag on the floor and began to peel off his shoes with his toes. “I was walking. Why do you care? And why are you home?”

“Don’t take your shoes off!” Kakashi hopped into his own shoes, snatched Sasuke’s bag off the floor and ripped open the door. “We’re leaving. We’re already late, shit.”

“You like being late,” Sasuke said, frowning and confused. “Where are we going?”

The only reason Sasuke let himself be dragged out of the house and into the car was because he was confused, stunned, and because the situation was strangely interesting. Usually Sasuke didn’t like being stunned and confused; he didn’t like when normal situations like coming home from school turned weird on him last minute, but this time it was fine. It was distracting and therefore fine.

Kakashi slammed the door on Sasuke’s side and nearly jumped over the car to get to the driver’s seat. Sasuke fastened his seatbelt as his foster father turned the keys and practically threw the car out the driveway with the gas.

“Why aren’t you at work?” Sasuke asked. “And I’m going to pretend I didn’t ask before and ask you again, where are we going?”

“To school. I got off early.”

“School? What school? My school? What have I done?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s not your school. It’s… You have to save our honor.”

“Excuse me?”

“Our honor! We’re a family, right? We have a family honor. You have to save it.”

“I didn’t know you got it in trouble,” Sasuke muttered and looked out the window. Houses were flashing by, along with trees and yards and people out walking.

“Maybe save is a bad word,” Kakashi said thoughtfully.

Then it was quiet for a moment. Kakashi drove and Sasuke looked out the window.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” the man said eventually.

“You’re speeding,” Sasuke said and glanced over. Kakashi grinned.

“Not enough for them to take my license. Did Naruto do something good?”

“Mind your own business,” Sasuke snarled, trying to ignore his warming cheeks. “What did you need me to do?”

You couldn’t actually see on someone what they had been doing right? Besides hickies if you’d been kissed. Kakashi hadn’t seen anything, he’d just made a guess that he knew was embarrassing because he liked seeing Sasuke embarrassed. Sasuke shifted his legs.

“There's this guy that you need to fight,” Kakashi said and got more slightly serious. “And beat.”

“Fight?”

“Yeah!”

“What guy?” Sasuke frowned.

“Oh, just the kid of a colleague of mine.”

“What kind of fight? You know I haven’t trained in months.”

“Come now, you don’t forget things like that. It’s like riding a bike.”

For some reason getting to fight someone seemed like good news. Not that Sasuke was a sadist and liked beating guys in fights; well, he did, but not because he liked hurting them. At least most of the times. He just liked fighting.

Sasuke hadn’t fought someone in ages; at least it felt like it. Naruto didn’t count, no, Sasuke meant a real fight. A fight that took time, took all your energy, left your muscles aching and completely spent and your head clear and nicely empty. He even liked hurting afterwards. Maybe he was a masochist more than a sadist.

Sasuke had done a lot of fighting when he was younger and more ambitious. Kakashi had trained him, Orochimaru had trained him (the man was not just a music store owner). He had fought in both controlled environments and on the streets, for practice and for real. He’d been good, really good.

Maybe a fight was just what Sasuke needed now, to blow off some steam. Get his mind off Naruto combined with the inside of his pants.

“So how good is this kid?”

“I haven’t met him,” Kakashi said. “But he’s good, according to Gai. I suppose we’ll see.”

He looked at Sasuke and grinned; Sasuke shook his head and smiled. His fighting nerves were starting to hum; not knowing whether you’d win or get your ass kicked always presented a thrill. Yeah. This might be just what he needed. The name seemed familiar though, Gai. Where had he heard that before?

-

‘No,’ Sasuke’s mind said, the very moment the guy showed up. ‘No, no, no.’ He tried to get his voice to pick up on it, to take the hint. He also tried to get his body to move away from the scene, toward the doors preferably. But it didn’t work, not the former and not the latter.

Kakashi looked bored, but Sasuke knew it was just his image, covered-up confidence. The Gai guy was confident as well, but he definitely didn’t try to hide it.

They looked quite alike actually, father and son. But the son didn’t just look confident. There was a lot of focus in those… big eyes. What was Gaara of the Sand thinking!? This wasn’t a cooler version of the dorky kid in the pictures in Iruka’s kitchen. This was an even dorkier version! Bigger and more muscled, definitely not a kid anymore, but still a dorkier version. But there was no doubt in Sasuke’s mind. There could be no one else looking like that, and he remembered now where he’d heard Gai’s name before, when Naruto talked about his birthday party; ‘Lee and Gai were there’, he had said. So this would have to be Lee. Lee, Naruto’s friend; Lee, Gaara’s boyfriend. Who still cut their hair like that?

When it noticed that the ‘no’s weren’t working, Sasuke’s mind tried to reason. ‘Do you really want to get your teeth knocked out and your nose broken?’ Or at least, half of his mind tried to reason. The other half of it was more ‘yeah, this will do me good. The worse the better. Bring it on. And who knows, maybe I can do it.’

But did he want to? Would Gaara be pissed if Sasuke beat up his boyfriend? No, the logical part of Sasuke’s brain knew that he probably couldn’t beat Lee. Yeah, Sasuke knew he could fight, but Lee had to be better. If even half of everything that Naruto had said about his friend had at least some grain of truth to it, Lee was better. Though it hurt to admit it, with the way the guy looked. Then what would Naruto say about his friend beating up his boyfriend? Did Lee know he would be beating up Naruto’s boyfriend? Did he even know what Sasuke looked like? Naruto must have said at least something about him, right? Gaara hadn’t been uninformed.

Sasuke had changed into his gym clothes again, because that was the best he had; he had stretched and warmed up. Kakashi had thrown him some gear for protection when they arrived; yeah, the thing was planned alright. Lee wore some sort of green pajamas thing under his protection, which looked much like what Gai was wearing. The fight would be embarrassing, yes.

They kept to separate sides of the hall while getting ready and met on the middle when it was time, Gai facing Kakashi and Lee facing Sasuke, each with his own expression on; from enthusiastic to bored to focused to ‘just get this over with already’.

“This will be interesting, Kakashi. We may be equal in strength, but how about our children? Which one is the stronger?”

“Huh?” Kakashi frowned and looked confused. “Oh, he just needs some workout. Don’t you, Sasuke?”

Sasuke wanted to roll his eyes and groan as the Gai guy reacted loudly to the teasing, but refrained and met Lee’s focused gaze instead. He wondered if you got used to those eyes over time, and how long it took. But something had seemed to catch up with Lee and that focused gaze was invaded by confusion.

“Sasuke-kun?”

“Yeah,” Sasuke said and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“Forgive me, but would you by any chance be… Naruto’s Sasuke-kun?”

This time Sasuke did roll his eyes. ‘Here we go...’

“I know him, if that’s what you mean,” Sasuke sighed and muttered. Lee was suddenly smiling, and for some reason he didn’t look as weird when he did.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you!” the guy exclaimed and grabbed Sasuke’s shoulder. “Naruto has told me so much about you.”

“Really?” Sasuke wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Yes! But don’t worry, it’s mostly good things.”

‘Hopefully no embarrassing good things’, Sasuke’s mind muttered.

“Right,” Sasuke said, then he looked at the “adults” that had gone quiet.

“Do you know each other?” Kakashi frowned.

Sasuke sighed again, but Lee kept smiling, extending his hand.

“I’m Lee. A friend of Naruto’s. Pleased to meet you!”

“Ah, um… Sure.” Kakashi didn’t seem sure of whether he should keep playing bored and cool or act like a normal person, but grabbed the hand and shook it nonetheless.

“You’re a friend of Naruto’s?” the Gai guy asked Sasuke and Sasuke wanted this over with.

“Yeah. Kind of.”

“What a coincidence!” Gai exclaimed and shook Sasuke’s hand even though Sasuke hadn’t held it out. “My rival’s son is a friend of my son’s friend! Why didn’t you tell me, Kakashi?”

“I suppose it…” Kakashi had gotten his bored face back in place and frowned. “Slipped my mind.”

Either the Gai guy was stupid or he liked getting himself riled up.

“I could never let something like that just slip my mind!”

Sasuke closed his eyes and took some deep breaths. It was amazing that he wasn’t screaming in frustration yet. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Lee and he was still smiling, though it had faded somewhat. He seemed to sense that Sasuke didn’t want to be there.

“I really have been looking forward to meeting you,” Lee said, his voice lower this time; more normal talk than enthusiastic exclamations. Sasuke wondered if people saw similarities between him and Kakashi too; not that they were really related, as these two had to be, but still.

“Yeah,” Sasuke cleared his throat. “Me too.”

“Naruto never told me you were fighting,” Lee said. “I mean, I know you were fighting in school, but...”

“He never told you because I never told him”, Sasuke said.

“Oh! I see, well then,” Lee smiled. “Do you want to go now?”

The fight was still on it seemed; even though Sasuke was Naruto’s friend (did Lee know about the boyfriend part?). Fortunately. Sasuke didn’t want to be robbed of his frustration relieving ass kicking.

“Yeah,” Sasuke said and took a few steps back. Tried out his muscles. “Definitely. Let’s go.”

Win or lose, knocked out teeth or not, Sasuke needed this. He wanted to do it and he wanted it over with. He glared at Kakashi and Gai, the men for some reason still bickering, in their own way, about what in the end was nothing but some stupid pride thing.

“Move,” he said, meaning business, then turning back to Lee. The guy had gotten his focused eyes back and assumed a cocky ‘come and get me’ pose and Sasuke did the same, but differently. They didn’t even check to see if Kakashi and Gai had gotten out of the way.

-

It didn’t take much time but Sasuke got what he wanted. His energy was gone, his muscles and his body were aching and his head was clear and nicely empty. He felt like after a brain shutdown, only with more aching.

“How’s it going?” Lee asked and his worried face came into view once again.

“I’m fine,” Sasuke said, though it sounded muffled and odd with the towel pressed against his nose. Nothing was broken, but it hurt when he touched it and was bleeding. Sasuke was staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore the taste of blood in his mouth and feel of it in his throat. At least it wasn’t that bad anymore.

He had another trickle of blood running down his arm, from his shoulder, and a third down his leg from his knee, but they were both small enough that the bleeding had stopped on its own. Most of the blows he’d caught had just been bruising. Sasuke was glad that PE was so far away, but at the same time sure that the bruises would still be there a week from now.

Would Naruto get angry? At him or at Lee? Was he waiting for Sasuke to come over? What was he doing?

“You shouldn’t do that, you know,” Lee said.

“What?”

“Sit with your head back like that. You’ll swallow the blood.”

“Already did,” Sasuke said, lifted the towel carefully and sniffed softly. “I’m fine.”

Lee smiled softly. They were in the locker room, had left the grown-up kids outside.

“You’re good,” Lee said. “Very good. And you catch on really quickly, almost like you’re learning while you’re fighting, a lot more than you should have time to. I’d say you could beat most guys on my team.”

“I’m not interested,” Sasuke said.

“What do you mean?”

“Joining the team. I’m not interested.”

Lee looked both confused and surprised for a moment, then his face broke into a grin. He had a bruise beginning to form on the right side of his face.

“You really reminded me of Gaara just then,” he said. “He can read minds too.”

“You two are dating?” Sasuke asked casually, not wanting to pretend it was a big deal.

“Yes,” Lee said and smiled. “We’ve been together for almost two years now. Is it almost a month for you and Naruto?”

He asked like it wasn’t a big deal either. Sasuke’s stomach swirled as he realized this was the first time someone he didn’t really know had asked about him and Naruto, and surprised by how different it felt and sounded when there was no teasing or overly curious or concerned tone behind the question.

“Yeah,” Sasuke said. “Next week.”

“He’s really happy that he met you,” Lee said and the words struck something in Sasuke that both warmed and chilled. He didn’t know if he should feel happy or scared.

“How long have you known him?” Sasuke asked.

“Since he was in first grade. He challenged me to a fight and I beat him.”

Sasuke couldn’t help but snort and smile, tension that he didn’t know when it had built up releasing. His nose started bleeding again.

“Shit,” he said before he had to press the towel back over his nose. The ceiling was a dirty cream covered with small dots in various shades of green that looked like they were splattered in place with a paint brush. Really ugly. He could hear Lee smile.

“That’s ironic,” Sasuke said musingly, sounding stupid because of the towel.

“Yeah,” Lee agreed. “But it was nice meeting you. It was a good fight.”

Sasuke had to agree.

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