Self-Reliance

Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto. I don’t own Sasuke. But Sasuke is purty.

Summary: Uchiha Sasuke has known from a young age that renewing his clan is possibly the direst of his duties as the last heir. Unfortunately, he really can’t trust any woman to do it right, so Sasuke is forced to rekindle the Uchiha clan on his own. This leads to complications even he didn’t foresee…

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

CHAPTER THREE: PLANS AND PRANKS

*

On the subject of Bad Days, Sasuke had a second list, shorter than the Bad Day List, and infinitely more precious because of that. This list, named the Complete List of Good Days That Have Occurred In The Life of Uchiha Sasuke, had only three days that he named as ‘Good’: the lowest on the list being the day he’d been matched with Team Seven, the highest being the day he’d gotten positive proof of his pregnancy. Sasuke did not share this list with others---it was very personal to him, and it pointed out definite gaps in the ultimate emotional defense of Uchiha Sasuke, Ice Princess.

Sasuke didn’t always brood about bad things. Sometimes, usually under the influence of a bit of alcohol, he’d brood about the good things in his life, the things that made the day-to-day living to kill his brother endurable. The Third Best Thing Ever, being nominated for Team Seven, was one of those things he’d brood on. At first, Sasuke had been close to labeling that day as The Fifth Most Obnoxious Day In My Life, but looking back, he’d realized that that had been the first time he’d really belonged somewhere, totally and beautifully. Later in life, Team Seven would become an annoyance, but in a friendly way---the same way that siblings (not siblings that whacked ninety-nine percent of their family, mind) were annoying, but you really couldn’t get it into your head to hate them. Despite everything, Sasuke had never really hated Team Seven---the good memories outweighed the bad there.

Second Best Day, though he’d never admit this aloud, was Naruto’s eighteenth birthday, and for exactly the reason that leaps instantly to mind. Sasuke was not an intimate person; he did not exchange hugs, kisses, or brotherly pats on the back. He kept his hands to himself and expected everyone else to do the same. But for a couple hours, he had been Satori-chan, and therefore not the sexually inhibited Avenger he usually was. For those couple of hours with Naruto, Sasuke had allowed himself to indulge, to enjoy the task set before him, and to pretend that Naruto knew it was him, making the whole escapade completely and utterly consensual. For that night in Naruto’s arms, he’d allowed himself to be loved, and found to his own amazement that it’d made him happy---so happy that he’d ranked it Best Day Ever for the whole of two weeks, until it was topped.

The day he’d finally broken down enough to test himself for pregnancy was, undoubtedly, The Best Day In The Life of Uchiha Sasuke To Date. He’d carefully used a kage bunshin masked with the illusion of Akimichi Ino herself to buy the home pregnancy test, because if Uchiha Sasuke had purchased it, riot would ensue (and also because Sasuke believed that Ino sort of deserved it for stalking him for over a decade). Waiting for the results had been the most frustrating five minutes of his life; he’d stared at the box where the positive or negative sign was supposed to appear, fingers drumming nervously on his bony knees, and wondered exactly how crazy he’d become.

Honestly, the last two weeks had been a mess of nerves and worry, nausea and morning sickness. Sasuke was almost sure that the vomiting could have been caused solely from nerves and the stress of keeping Sexy-no-jutsu active, and not the fetus that may or may not be growing within him---it wouldn’t have surprised him that he hadn’t conceived even after the completed Plan, because it had been his first time, and it took some couples years, didn’t it? Who was he that one wild night with the kyuubi-boy automatically meant he was going to get pregnant? Naruto could be infertile for all he knew! It wasn’t like he’d actually asked him---neither of them fully knew what kind of an effect the Kyuubi-seal had on his body, and it might well be that he was unable to father children because of it. It’d serve Sasuke right if Naruto were sterile. Who was he, that…

…the cross-thing means positive, doesn’t it? Sasuke had thought wildly, the blue plus sign glaring up at him enough to jerk him forcibly from his brooding. With far less calm grace than an Uchiha should have had, Sasuke had ripped through the instruction booklet, just to be doubly sure of the test’s accuracy. His suspicions confirmed---the plus meant a positive marking of HCG in his system, proof of pregnancy---he slowly sat down on the toilet seat and wrapped his arms around his still-slender waist, numbed from the mess of shock, wonder and, despite his standing as The Avenger, exhilaration that was burning through his mind.

So he hadn’t imagined the dim spark of chakra deep inside his core. So the nausea he’d experience during his usual training routines hadn’t been stress. So he hadn’t worked himself up so much as to be sick; it’d been real morning sickness. So he was going to be mother/father to a baby, his baby, in another eight and a half months.

So that’d made October 24th the best day ever. He’d left for his “training mission” two months after that, as soon as he’d started to develop a slight bulge low in his abdomen, and had thought that the worst was over.

Ah, but no. He had a full ranking of Hideously Bad Days ahead of him, most of them caused by Uzumaki Naruto, Ruiner of All That Is Good in The World.

*

“What’re you doing?” Naruto asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Sasuke didn’t even turn to glare at him; he simply frowned at the blond’s reflection in the mirror and finished applying his lipstick.

“Putting on makeup,” Sasuke replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He blotted his very red lips with a square of toilet paper, glaring at the blankly bemused look Naruto was giving him.

“But why?”

“Because I need to go shopping,” Sasuke said, shrugging. “And as far as the village is concerned, my name is Umichi Satori and I’m a pregnant woman. I made up some paperback-romance-worthy story about how I’m staying here to get away from my older and very insensitive husband, whom I was forced to marry. Tired of his harshness, I had an affair with a dashing Konoha ninja, and I’m carrying his lovechild. My husband wants me to abort it, but I’m holding out for my true love to find me and our baby---blah, blah, blah. It’s a shit story, I know, but it keeps the village gossips from broadcasting my living here. They’re too afraid my rash husband might appear at any moment. It works to my favor.”

“Wow,” Naruto said appreciatively, sounding amused. “You ought to talk to Ero-sennin about that. You’ve got some talent in the seedy romance category.”

“Don’t even,” Sasuke muttered, rolling his eyes. “It’s bad enough that Sakura’s romance novels and Kakashi’s porn have rubbed off on me. I hate having to pretend to live out one of those goddamn, beaten-down plots, but I am pregnant, and I am starting to show. I can’t just explain my way out of it by using the old standby of ‘don’t worry, I’m a ninja’.”

“So that’s why you’re wearing lipstick?”

“So that’s why I’m wearing lipstick,” he agreed, wetting down his tenaciously cowlicky hair in an attempt to smooth it down in the back. He made very little progress with that---it seemed that nothing short of a ninjutsu would tame his wild hair. “I don’t need to wear anything more than that, because they accuse me of wearing mascara as is, and my complexion is good enough that I don’t need foundation. I used to rue looking so much like my mother, but now I’m somewhat grateful.”

“I’m glad you’re so well-versed in makeup,” Naruto grinned crookedly. “Hand me the brush and I’ll make a go at your hair.”

“Just leave it be; brushing does no good. And you should know a thing or two about makeup, too---a ninja ought to be prepared for anything, even living as the opposite sex.”

“With my version of Sexy-no-jutsu, people are too distracted by my incredible breasts to care about whether or not I’m wearing makeup.” Naruto said soberly, nodding with a foxy frown. “So, what are we going shopping for?”

“I’m going shopping,” Sasuke corrected with a withering glare. “You’re staying here and not touching anything until I return. Especially anything sharp or flammable.”

“Oh, come on,” Naruto argued, hands on his hips. “How am I supposed to protect you if I have to stay here and not blow things up? I mean, honestly…how else am I supposed to entertain myself if I don’t get to pester you?”

And that was a very valid point, really.

“Fine,” Sasuke sighed. “But don’t do anything stupid while we’re out. I don’t have the chakra to spare on cleaning up whatever mess you make in town.”

“I will be as quiet as a mouse!” the kyuubi-boy grinned, snapping a smart salute. “I will trail you and make sure you don’t get into shit, but I will not make a mess, sir! This is the springtime of our lives, and we should---”

“My patience with you is dwindling,” Sasuke growled, and had he not looked quite so much like a dainty china doll, Naruto might have been cowed by the look of death in his dark eyes. But the fact of it was, Sasuke did look very much like a dainty china doll---his reddened lips brought out his Sexy-no-jutsu-rounded face, making his dark-as-night eyes stand out against the soft curves of his china-white skin. Sasuke was ridiculously pretty as a boy, but even more so as a pregnant boy pretending to be a girl. Even with the beginnings of a baby-belly straining out his shirtfront, he was still unreasonably pretty.

Naruto worried about letting Sasuke out on his own. If his ninjutsu had been in perfect working order, there wouldn’t have been a problem---Sasuke could more than take care of himself. He could level forests and redecorate entire landscapes when in a bad mood, so a couple of non-nin hoodlums drawn in by his good looks should be no problem. Unfortunately, he was pregnant, and the child’s development was tied exclusively into his core chakra systems. This drained him to pre-genin levels, whether or not he openly admitted it.

Sasuke couldn’t take care of himself. Not really, not with a weakened body and decimated chakra. He needed someone else watching over him---someone who was careful enough of his Uchiha pride to watch him silently, without stepping on his toes. Sasuke didn’t like being reliant on others, so that was why he had quietly left on his own to carry and birth his baby, away from friend and foe alike. Naruto respected his standing as an Uchiha, and did not mind taking care of him in act but not in word. That made him the perfect guardian.

“Okay, okay,” Naruto said, relenting with raised hands. “I’ll stop with the Gai-sensei-spiel if you’ll stop bitching about me being here. It’s my mission---the least you can do is respect that.”

“Fine,” Sasuke repeated, a hand against his stomach as he tugged down his shirt.

“So then, let me ask again: what are we going shopping for?”

“Food that isn’t in any way ramen-based and clothes that will fit me in the coming months. I’m getting to the point that I’ve outgrown everything I brought here with me, save for my sweats and a few baggy t-shirts. I might visit the bookstore, too, in case they’ve gotten anything in worth reading.”

“Food, clothes, and books,” Naruto said, and then sighed. “Why couldn’t you have just asked Sakura to go with you when she was here? She likes shopping! Gah…I guess I’ll go, but I won’t like it. I hate shopping.”

“Such sacrifices you make,” said Sasuke with a huffed sigh of his own. “Just shut up and don’t bother me. I don’t like shopping either, but I’d rather not pop out of my clothes. Bah.”

“Bah,” Naruto agreed. “Bah indeed.”

*

Shopping with Sasuke wasn’t all bad. Watching him was interesting---like most ninja, he was a very good actor. He played the part of pregnant girl to a T: he moved delicately, offered a rare smile when the conversation called for it, and put up with tummy-pets and the coos that older women gave him with a graciousness Uchiha Sasuke had never owned. Obviously, it was all a particularly good sham---Sasuke didn’t drop his cards in the least, and pretended to enjoy the attention the village women lavished on him and his growing baby.

In all, Naruto was impressed. Sasuke was truly taking this mission of his seriously---might as well have been an S-class mission with the seamless skill he was applying to it. Naruto sometimes forgot exactly how finessed Sasuke was---he deserved to be a recon jounin in all actuality, and he would have made it too if not for the insufferably bad luck of being matched up against Naruto in the final battle of the exam. If not for that resulting loss, he would have made jounin, and if he had made jounin, he wouldn’t have gotten himself pregnant…

Naruto sighed at that train of thought, shouldering the grocery bags Sasuke had shoved at him to carry (with a mutter of “make yourself useful, dobe”, no less). Yeah, it was his fault. A lot of things were his fault, or the Kyuubi’s fault, or some vile and mischievous mixture of the two. He knew that the baby was his fault in more ways than one, and he was willing to take responsibility for his mistakes.

And that meant carrying the groceries and meekly following Sasuke around Aido’s Bookstore as Sasuke tossed paperbacks and dirty looks at him. The owner of the bookstore (Aido, obviously) was a short girl with a lot of frizzy brown hair and a ready smile. She was friendly in that cheerfully open way that made for good librarians, and, being scatterbrained and more than a little clumsy, she was good for little else. Sasuke was friendly with her, though, Naruto noted as he ducked a hardcover that had been chucked at his head. Aido chattered and Sasuke nodded and muttered at the right times, talking about his baby and the best books for him to read on the subject.

Naruto wandered around the stacks of books and pretended to skim titles as he listened in on their conversation.

“So, Satori-chan, how have you been doing? I haven’t seen you in a couple weeks---you look good, by the way. Did you enjoy Mon Raion? The author put out a sequel if you’re interested. How has the morning sickness been? Bad?”

“Bad,” Sasuke agreed, catching her at one of her short pauses and answering one out of ten questions.

“Well, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a book on it,” Aido said, and rubbed her chin. “But…you’re going to have to give me a little info.”

“Info?” Sasuke echoed blankly, blinking at the deviously grinning, bespectacled girl.

“Info.” She arched her eyebrows over his shoulder, an appreciative look on her face. “On him---the hot boy-toy you brought in.”

“He’s nobody,” Sasuke said dismissively, putting down the book he’d been looking at with perhaps more force than necessary.

Aido’s grin made Sasuke’s stomach turn.

“Not nobody,” she drawled. “The blond’s a ninja---the way he moves screams it. Is he that ninja, by any chance?”

“That ninja…?” Sasuke repeated, glancing over at Naruto. Then it clicked: the ninja of his little cover story, the one who’d fathered his baby. Er…yes and no, actually… “Him? N-no, very, very no. He’s just---just a friend.”

“Ah,” said Aido, and Sasuke had a feeling that she was completely and utterly unconvinced. “Well, if you’re looking for books on fetal development, they’re over on the top shelf by the self-help books. Get your ‘friend’ to reach them for you---he’s pretty tall. And pretty handsome, too. If he’s not that ninja, does that mean he’s unattached?”

“No,” said Sasuke before he could stop himself. “He’s taken.”

“Ah,” said Aido again, knowing in that smug way of females. “I thought so.”

Sometimes, Sasuke thought his aversion to women was completely justified.

“Oi!” Sasuke yelled over at the dumb blond, pointing to the shelf the bookkeeper had indicated. “Fetch, dobe!”

“I’m not your dog!” Naruto yelled back, hands on his hips. “Get your books yourself, Sas---uh---Satori!”

“You want me to strain my pregnant self in order to get hold of books that are obviously too high for my reach? For shame, dobe. Did Iruka-sensei teach you no manners when it comes to dealing with ladies?”

Naruto grumbled, but eventually caved and fetched the books. Sasuke decided that Sakura was right---he could definitely take advantage of Naruto’s insufferable niceness when it came to dealing with his pregnant rival, even though he thought that said niceness stemmed solely from the fact that that was how Iruka had taught Naruto to be around pregnant women (or men inwardly turned female due to Sexy-no-jutsu).

But then again, Sasuke was very bad when it came to estimating Naruto.

Naruto was very good at hiding how good at certain things he really was---that there was an unexpectedly intelligent mind lurking under that messy blond mop. Rumor had it that he was the son of Konoha’s Yellow Flash, the Yondaime Hokage---of course he’d be on the bright side, with that kind of genius as a father. Underneath all his foolishness and attitude, Naruto hid a trickster nature honed by sharp perception and the ability to judge people very, very well. He kept his secrets (from the fact that a S-level youma shared his body to the fact that he had a laughable weakness for triple-chocolate ice cream), and enjoyed exploiting his strengths in the form of pranks.

Like drinking. Drinking was terrific. The best prank ever.

Why?

Because it was physically impossible for Uzumaki Naruto to get drunk. The Kyuubi had it in his head that alcohol was a drug, a poison, so the fox broke it down in his system before his carrier could get properly intoxicated. For Naruto, drinking was just a social thing, because all it was to him was drinking foul, throat-burning water that didn’t make him tipsy in the least. The only reason he drank, then, was because a) everyone else was doing it, and b), it was a hell of a lot of fun to act like he was completely smashed. For a prankster, that ability was terrific: to drink enough to sedate a cow, and then stagger, cling, and pretend to be drunk, just because people would put up with it.

Naruto had quickly found that he could get away with things when he played drunk. Things he would normally be unable to do, things that only a drunkard could be forgiven for.

Like telling Sasuke he was beautiful. Like clinging to Sasuke as he ‘stumbled’ home, breathing in his scent as their bodies pressed together. Like kissing Sasuke. Like making love to Sasuke. Those were things that Sober!Naruto was not meant to do---things that were damn well taboo. The last had been a surprise to even him, but Sasuke had come on to him. He’d pulled a version of Sexy-no-jutsu (Naruto could only surmise that Sasuke thought him to be a lot more heterosexual than he actually was, to have slid into that kind of form) and teased him, expecting him to react---and react he had, before even he had realized what was going on. Naruto had kissed him the way he’d always had wanted to kiss him---tongue active, tasting him, exploring him, rough and desperate because he fully expected Sasuke to jerk away and then beat the shit out of him.

Because he was Uchiha Sasuke. Mr. Avenger. Mr. Icicle Pants. Mr. Asexuality Himself. Saying that Naruto had been surprised that Sasuke had kissed him back, knotting his hands in his shirt and straining up on his toes to find purchase on his mouth, was a grievous understatement. Naruto had nearly had a heart attack, drunken act forgotten.

Then Sasuke had suggested they take it inside. Sasuke. Sasuke had implied that he wanted to take it further, and they had---all kisses and bites as they half-stumbled, half-crawled up the stairwell, all popping buttons and ripped seams as they hastily and unceremoniously undressed each other, and all passionate mess and disarray as Naruto (impatient as ever) scooped Sasuke up, tossed him over one shoulder, and marched him to bed. Sasuke had laughed when he did that---laughed, really laughed, in a carefree way that he hadn’t known he even could laugh. Was Sasuke really a ‘normal’ person underneath it all, a person who still had the capabilities of laughter and tears? It barely sounded logical, but still…

He hadn’t been surprised that Sasuke had disappeared by the time he woke up, but the sheets still smelled of him, a reminder that it’d been a hell of a lot more than a dream. He hadn’t expected Sasuke to treat him any different afterwards---and he hadn’t; he’d been just as crotchety and ill-tempered as usual, if not more so---but something had changed. Sasuke had changed. Sasuke avoided him for weeks after The Night, so Naruto had trailed him---and when he wanted to, Naruto could be a damn good ninja---and had found things, little things, that were infinitely amiss.

Sasuke would train at five o’ clock every morning before reporting to Tsunade for missions. He’d warm up with shuriken art, a couple of taijutsu kata, and sometimes some chakra control exercises. Light stuff, stuff that Sasuke could do in his sleep. But the thing of it was, Naruto discovered with growing trepidation, Sasuke couldn’t pull off a lot of the things he usually did without thinking. He’d stop his kata halfway through, shaking, sweating visibly, and breathing heavily, and during his chakra exercises, he’d sometimes stumble into the bushes to get sick. One time---and it’d taken everything in Naruto’s ninja self not to burst from his hiding place and demand to know what the hell was going on---Sasuke had passed out after practicing the fireball jutsu he’d been able to easily use since twelve years of age.

Naruto had been unaware that Sasuke was capable of fainting.

He could only surmise that he’d somehow broken the youngest Uchiha.

Naturally, his worries had only mounted when Sasuke announced that he was leaving for a training holiday (“NO HE’S NOT!” Raged Inner Naruto to nobody in particular. “HE’S LEAVING BECAUSE UNPROTECTED SEX BUSTED HIM AND HE’S NO LONGER FIT AS A NINJA! ARGH!”), because then he couldn’t even watch out for Sasuke, making sure his somehow weakened state wouldn’t lead to harsher injuries. Naruto had hoped for the best (“He’s just going on a holiday,” he justified to Inner Naruto. “He’ll be fine, I’m sure. Hell, he’s Uchiha Sasuke---what could happen?”), but Sasuke hadn’t checked back after two months’ worth of holiday.

So Naruto, in a fit of blind worry, convinced Sakura and Kakashi that they should find Sasuke, just to make sure he hadn’t injured himself during training. Sasuke, he’d rationalized, was too damned proud to ask for help, especially when he needed it most.

Naruto had not known how right he was. Many, many things clicked into place upon finding Sasuke, though, (“Can’t be mine,” Inner Naruto had squeaked, staring at the gently curved belly of his teammate, rival, and one-night-stand. “No way. Nope. Never. Not happening. …oh shit, man. It’s so mine...”) and Naruto found himself awash in a sea of confusion and denial. The only logical thing to do was to stay with Sasuke and make sure he didn’t get hurt/killed by the numerous criminal organizations that wanted him dead, and try to figure out what kind of ramifications this crazy pregnancy would have.

Then the realization that he was going to be a father had hit Naruto.

Best Day Thus Far In The Life Of Uzumaki Naruto.

*