Come Home With Me

Story: Come Home With Me
Chapter: Friends
Author: Sarah Keller
BETA: Rasengan22
Genre: Romance/Psychological Drama
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto hence why this is a FANFIC
Warnings: boyxboy gets more noticable, the hurting of Naruto's feelings, causing Kiba to loose brain cells, language
Pairings: NaruSasuNaru
Author's note: For clarification purposes, since it isn't stated in the text. Sasuke and Naruto are 18-19 years old.


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For what seemed to be the hundredth time in the seven months that he'd been in Konoha, Sasuke found himself in front of Tsunade. However, the blond woman usually looked better. Her eyes looked squinty, and there were bags under them. Small tension lines laced her lips. Sasuke simply chalked it up to the female Hokage getting so drunk that her age-defying jutsu was slipping.

"We've moved your exam up to today; actually, it'll be in about twenty minutes." She said wearily.

"Hn." Yes, Sasuke was shocked, but he could deal with the surprises Tsunade sent his way, after all, he doubted they could be any more scary than the ones Orochimaru had a tendency to spring on him.

"This will run slightly similar to the chuunin exam. The first step will require you to write down and explain out all the jutsus you have acquired and seen in your absence. Failure to identify all of them will result in you being put back onto probation and once again restricted to genin missions. The second step is a series of obstacle courses in which we will see how you respond to certain types of impediments. The last test will be a one on one fight. Do you have any questions?"

"Why the rush?" Sasuke asked, noting that something was off, it sounded almost as if she was in a hurry to have him placed and given higher ranked missions.

Tsunade sighed before answering. She looked carefully at the young man in front of her and asked, "Did Naruto talk to you about his mission?"

"No, he's been sleeping since he got back."

"That's understandable. The mission he just returned from was only B-ranked. Naruto, along with Kiba and Ino, had been sent to retrieve a document from a temple near the North border. There were other things entailed, but for the most part that mission was a success. The problem came when they were on the return home." Tsunade paused to see if Sasuke was paying attention, when the teen nodded, she continued, "Two, as of yet unidentified, Akatsuki members attacked their party as they prepared camp. Obviously, they made it back in one piece, but not after some intense fighting. Naruto was forced to use two large rasengan in order to allow Ino and Kiba to flee with the scroll."

Sasuke's eyes widened. Ignoring the sudden tightness in his chest, he seized onto the anger that suddenly burned in his eyes. He had a strong urge to go pull his blond friend out of bed and demand why he had failed to tell him about the attack. Try as he might, he couldn't keep from forgetting that Naruto had been pretty out of it the two times they had talked since he had returned from his mission. He also ignored the fact that he had to force himself to focus on the fact that Naruto knew Sasuke wanted all the information on the Akatsuki that he could get and not on the fact that the dumb blond had been in serious danger. Damn it all, focus, Sasuke, focus!

"Before you blow a gasket, Sasuke, I am fully aware that despite everything, you are still desperate to hunt down and kill your brother. Everyone accepted that fact under the condition that you not run off whenever you feel like it. So before you go all avenger on me, let me –"

"Let's make one thing clear, Hokage-sama. The people of this village are the ones that forced that avenger crap on me. If I haven't been following Itachi's screwed up plan for my future, I've been playing to theirs. When I came back here, it was with the purpose of taking everyone's idea of me and shoving it up their asses. I'm not as stupid as many people would believe me to be, despite the stupid moves I made. So as much as it may be ingrained in me to run off at the first mention of the Akatsuki, I do have some sense of who I really am and that person has no intention of running off blindly to battle someone on their terms."

"Are you quite done, Sasuke?" When said boy continued to simply glare at her, Tsunade continued, "I am very aware of how this village messed with your mind. I'm also very aware that one of the reasons you wanted Naruto living in the Uchiha compound with you is because you wish to use him as bait." Sasuke raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't think for a second that I wasn't able to get that out of him."

"And here I figured Iruka was the one to get it out of the dobe and then reported it to you." Tsunade glowered at the smug look on the young man in front of her. So what if he was right, she didn't really care all that much.

"Can we get back to the point?" Tsunade asked in an annoyed tone.

"Hn."

"Fine. I'm also aware that Naruto agreed to being your bate by making you promise that you wouldn't go after Itachi alone, that you would let him help out." Tsunade paused, happy when Sasuke's left eye twitched. Ha, that wasn't something I got from Iruka! "I was obviously OK with this," well, as OK as I can be, "otherwise I wouldn't have allowed him to move into your compound. My question is does Sakura know?"

Sasuke remained silent.

"I'll take that as a no. So long as you and Naruto keep with your plan, I want you to inform Sakura about the deal between the two of you. Also, I'm ordering that you fill at least three more houses with ninja."

Sasuke was suddenly wondering why the left half of his body was twitching. "I understand the need to inform Sakura and had planned on doing so, however I don't feel that you have any right to tell me who to-"

"Any right? ANY RIGHT!?" Tsunade practically yelled as she slapped her hands on the top of her desk and stood up. Her abundant bosom was heaving dramatically as she tried to calm down. "Now you listen here, child. I have every right to take away your property, wealth, and freedom whenever I so choose. You are a traitor to this village, and it was only through the promises of those people that call you friend that allow for you to walk freely, hell, to even breathe. I have bent over backwards to accept you back into this village, but do NOT take my kindness as weakness. I will take whatever steps are necessary to protect this village and the people that live here. Do I make myself clear, Uchiha-san?" Her last words were spoken like a threat and Sasuke took an involuntary step backwards. He now suddenly understood why Orochimaru had never really taken this woman on. "Now, you may choose who else you want to live in the Uchiha complex, or as you implied, I can choose them for you. Either way, I just made my mind up to have an ANBU squad stationed in the complex as well."

Sasuke was about to sputter a refusal when Tsunade's glare stopped him cold. He wasn't sure if Tsunade had Orochimaru's ability to show their victims their deaths, but Sasuke could definitely see that he may well die if he tried to say no. But he still couldn't simply say yes, could he?

"I will choose the three and pick the location the ANBU will be stationed at."

"Fine. Now, on with the testing." Tsunade smiled at him and Sasuke started wondering if he hadn't just been played.

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"Still kicking, Sasuke?" Kiba asked as the raven-haired teen approached Tsunade. Why a crowd had to gather for this, Sasuke didn't know, but there had to be at least two-dozen people watching his second test.

"That last obstacle looked like it did some damage." Temari snickered. Sasuke glared hard at the red head that stood silently next to the fan toting blond. His last "obstacle" had been a wall of sand. He'd had a nice little surprise when he realized that the sand siblings were here as well and that Gaara was "participating" in Sasuke's test. And, yes, the sand did some damage. Thankfully, Sasuke had managed to get passed the sand. He may not be as fast as Lee, but Sasuke could be hard to catch when he wanted to be.

"Congratulations. That only took 4 hours, 13 minutes and 51 seconds." Tsunade said throwing Sasuke a water bottle.

"And every second of it entertaining!" Kiba added with a grin. Sasuke glared at him as sweat plastered his hair to his head and caused his shirt to stick to him in uncomfortable ways. He had to admit that though the second test was hard, that wasn't the reason he was so pissed. Part of him wanted to know why Naruto hadn't dragged his idiotic self out to watch the spectacle of Uchiha Sasuke being put through the paces. If he weren't so tired he would have never admitted to himself that he wanted Naruto to be here, but he was tired, so his fury kept rising.

"Now you'll be fighting Shikamaru." Tsunade announced. Choji took a moment to pull his hand out of his potato chip bag and pushed the lazy nin off his shoulder. One would think that a person who for all purposes looked to be sleeping against his friend's shoulder would fall to the ground when said shoulder was gone. Shikamaru, however, simply straightened before walking out into the field. Sasuke's left eye twitched in that annoying way again before he glanced at the Hokage.

"Yep, you'll be having the third test now." Tsunade threw a scroll to him, which he caught easily. "Your job is to keep Shikamaru from obtaining that scroll. You may begin . . . now."

Sasuke's jaw almost dropped at the suddenness of everything. Turning quickly he was able to just barely jump out of the way before Shikamaru's shadow bind technique captured him. Securing the scroll in his pouch, Sasuke charged the other man. Shikamaru sighed before performing a jutsu Sasuke had never seen before. Suddenly, the shadows on the ground stood upright and blocked Sasuke's path. Sasuke had lost a lot of chakra in the last test and didn't have much left at the moment, something he blamed entirely on Gaara. He was slightly sloppy in his movements, but he grit his teeth together and dodged between the shadows. Too late he realized that he was going to get too close to one of the shadows and his hand brushed the dark surface. Surprisingly, the ink-colored shadows actually reached out and tried to take hold of him. Calling up chidori nagashi he exploded the shadow as well as the other ones near him. Sasuke jumped out of the maze of shadows and landed at a safe distance. Gauging his chakra level, Sasuke realized that he had no way to beat Shikamaru in the condition that he currently was in, especially after using that last technique. Weighing his options, Sasuke pulled out the scroll and glanced over to the sidelines. He smirked when he noted that Kiba was currently on his ass laughing for all he was worth.

"Fetch, dog breath!" Sasuke yelled, throwing the scroll at Kiba's head. The scroll hit Kiba's forehead dead center, causing the ninja to get laid out on his back, stars dancing before his eyes. Akamaru 'woofed' once at Sasuke, before picking the scroll up in his jaws. Sasuke turned back to Shikamaru and charged again. This move may knock him out for a week, but at least by the time he woke up, this stupid test would be over. Calling up chidori one more time, Sasuke put all his remaining chakra into it. He'd explode the shadows and take Shikamaru out in one blow.

"STOP!" Tsunade roared over the sound of the sudden applause. Sasuke skidded to a stop and blinked at the blond woman. "Congrats Sasuke, you passed wonderfully. Now go home and see me tomorrow to find out the results and receive your next mission."

Sasuke's body was still humming with adrenaline, and he was so drained, chakra wise, that he wasn't quite sure he understood what was going on, not that he'd let that show. Crossing his arms over his chest he approached the Hokage.

"What exactly was the point of that?" Sasuke asked while doing his best to kill the leader with his glare. The third test had barely been 10 minutes long.

"I'm surprised you haven't figured it out, Sasuke. The whole point of these tests was to tire you out." When Sasuke didn't respond, Tsunade grinned and decided to put the poor teen out of his misery. "The first test is meant to drain you mentally. For someone with sharingan to sit around and write down all the jutsus they know and have seen is simply ridiculous. Such a task would take, say, almost 7 hours." Tsunade grinned deviously at Sasuke. "Seven hours of tedious paperwork. The second test was meant to drain you physically. You were to face obstacle after obstacle until you started to appear fatigued. All of this was designed to set you up for the final test, protecting the scroll." Tsunade held out her hand and Kiba placed the scroll in her hand.

"That hurt, asshole." Kiba muttered.

"It was meant to." Sasuke stated simply. Kiba muttered something else, that Sasuke didn't bother to register, and walked off while rubbing his sore forehead.

"You were given an impossible task; to defeat someone you couldn't defeat. And once again, congrats, because you did the right thing, Sasuke. You handed the scroll off to an ally and attempted to distract or destroy your enemy, giving said ally time to escape with the scroll."

"That is why there were spectators." Sasuke noted. Tsunade nodded.

"Now go home, it's almost dark anyways. Remember to eat something too; you haven't eaten anything today since I made sure you were summoned before you could eat some breakfast." Tsunade smiled happily and sauntered off, leaving Sasuke glaring after her.

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"Yo, Sasuke!" Said teen could not ignore that oh so familiar voice. Stopping at the entrance to his mansion, Sasuke glanced over his shoulder to see that Naruto was not only awake, but his old self. The blond was waving maniacally at him as he exited his house. "Sakura's got food, race you over to her house!" Naruto prepared to race the other teen when he actually stopped to take a good look at the Uchiha. Sasuke's clothes were ripped in some places and dirt covered him from head to foot. Naruto looked harder and could have sworn he saw sand clumped in Sasuke's oddly wilted hair. The trademark Uchiha glare finally got through to Naruto, and he blinked.

"Congratulations, it seems as if the light bulb above your head has finally turned on." Sasuke deadpanned.

"Whoa, when I heard that the hag put you through the paces today, I never figured you'd look this bad by the end of it." Naruto said, nearing the other teen to get a better look at the disheveled Uchiha.

"Really? And when were you conscious enough to find out I was being tested today?" Sasuke turned to face the blond while crossing his arms over his chest. The raven-haired teen was only getting more pissed off as time passed. He successfully convinced himself that it was because Naruto hadn't told him about the Akatsuki attack, blatantly ignoring any other reason that tried to pop into his head.

"What's got your panties in a twist? It couldn't have been that bad. Sakura said Tsunade wouldn't let your second test go over 5 hours." That's when it dawned on Sasuke that Sakura hadn't been among the spectators either, but that didn't seem to upset him more than he already was.

"You would know what happened had you bothered to show up and watch instead of sitting around and gossiping all day. What did you two do, sit around and watch soap operas, too?"

Naruto blinked at Sasuke in surprise, if he didn't know better, he would have sworn that the other teen was pissed because he hadn't been at the test. A thousand ways to piss the Uchiha off even more ran through Naruto's head, but for some reason the blond simply wanted to pacify Sasuke. Naruto admitted that part of him was scared that Sasuke was going to run off again, and so he took a bold step forward until he was standing on the porch with the other teen.

"I got up once, to take Sakura lunch at the hospital and to get myself checked out, Sasuke. I was with her maybe from 2 to 4 before I came back here and went back to sleep. I figured you'd want to concentrate more on the test so I didn't go and bother you. If I had known that you wanted us there I would have got her to switch shifts so we could have cheered you on." Naruto said as sincerely as he could.

Suddenly Sasuke felt uncomfortably hot. Naruto was close enough to him that he could feel the teen's breaths against his cheek. Looking down into Naruto's blue eyes Sasuke saw that the other boy was apparently searching for something in his face. Sasuke quickly looked away. He had only in the last year acknowledged that for as long as he could remember, he had been playing the part someone else gave him. He was his father's lesser son, Itachi's shadow, Orochimaru's key to power, and even this village's genius avenger. Sasuke was still unsure of who he thought he was, and he realized that he didn't want Naruto to see that insecurity in him. Naruto, the one person who had always seemed to know who he was, and where he was going. Turning away from the other teen, Sasuke pushed open his door with more force than was necessary.

"What makes you think I wanted you two there, dobe?" Sasuke snapped.

"The way you're acting for one. Why are you so pissed, Sasuke?" Naruto asked grabbing hold of Sasuke's forearm.

"I'm not pissed!" Sasuke barked, obviously contradicting himself. Naruto's eyebrows rose in disbelief. Sasuke took a calming breath, but Naruto was still too close to him. When he inhaled through his mouth, he was practically able to taste the other nin. As his mouth filled with the air tainted by Naruto's person, Sasuke's mouth seemed to both go dry and salivate at the same time. Naruto's lightly perspiring skin gave off a scent of male musk and strangely enough, jasmine. Distantly, Sasuke remembered planting the white flowers along the back of Naruto's house. The vines had taken told of the back wall of the structure and covered most of the wall now. Since Naruto's bedroom was on the back of the house, Sasuke wondered if the blond had absorbed the scent during his sleep.

"Maybe I'm pissed because I had a test sprung up on me. A test that would decide whether or not I'd get my rights reinstated! Maybe I'm pissed because I just spent 12 hours doing said test. Or perhaps I'm pissed because someone didn't tell me that he got attacked by the Akatsuki!" Sasuke tried to shake Naruto's hand off but the blond's grip only got tighter. He noted with vicious satisfaction that Naruto's brows came together in anger.

"I didn't tell you about that because one, I was half out of it every time we have talked since I got back, and two, Tsunade said she'd talk to you about it after she ORDERED me not to talk to anyone about it. Something I was going to ignore if she hadn't told you about it by now!" Naruto now had both hands fisted in Sasuke's dirty shirt and in retaliation Sasuke kicked the blond in the stomach with his right foot, successfully dislodging Naruto from Sasuke.

"You should have told me the second you saw me, Uzumaki!" Sasuke's muscles were protesting their use to soon after the tests, which only further pissed Sasuke off.

"Fuck, Sasuke, you sound as if you're more pissed that I got attacked, rather than not telling you who did the attacking!" Naruto threw back. Sasuke saw red, and despite already having little chakra left, the sharingan came to life, turning his eyes from black to red.

"Like I'd give a flying fuck if you got hurt, you could die and I wouldn't give a shit!" The moment the words left his mouth, Sasuke wanted to take them back. He was tired and angry and yes, he'd admit it, worried. That didn't give him any right to take it out on the closest person to him. The sharingan immediately deactivated and Sasuke reached out to grab Naruto's arm.

Naruto's chest started burning painful after Sasuke's words hit him like a fist. He took a step back as if he had been physically attacked and was shocked to discover that tears had sprung up in his eyes. Fighting the obscene things back, Naruto schooled his face to show no emotion as he took another step back and out of Sasuke's reach.

"Naruto . . ." Sasuke started only to watch the blond turn and start to walk away. Preparing himself to have the crap kicked out of him, Sasuke cut off Naruto's retreat and grabbed hold of both of the blond's shoulders. He was surprised when he wasn't attacked. Instead, Naruto looked at Sasuke with a slightly questioning glare. Taking a deep breath, Sasuke stepped further into Naruto's personal space, bringing the two nearly flush against each other. Looking deep into the blond's eyes, Sasuke made sure he had the teen's attention. Choosing his words carefully, Sasuke dropped his mask and spoke, "I wanted you to be at the test."

"You should have asked me, then." Naruto responded in monotone.

"I know." Sasuke took another deep breath, filling his lungs with Naruto's scent. "I'm sorry I lashed out at you, I didn't mean any of it. I'm truly sorry, Naruto."

Naruto remained still for what seemed to Sasuke like an eternity. Finally, Naruto sighed and nodded to the dark haired teen. "I forgive you, Sasuke. I also believe that you didn't mean it." Naruto nodded again as if to affirm his own words.

"I'm surprised you haven't decked me yet." Sasuke admitted with a small smile.

"You said it yourself, Sasuke; things are different. You and me included." Naruto paused before taking that last step that brought them flush against each other. "And you never really did give me an answer to my question. So, Sasuke, I ask again; where do we go from here?" His last words were breathed against Sasuke's cheek. The dark-haired teen's eyes dilated suddenly and his hold on the other boy tightened, drawing them that much closer to one another. Looking down, Sasuke saw the look of expectation in Naruto's eyes. Going completely off his instincts now, the Uchiha let the rigidity leave his neck and his head fell forward.

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Pictures:
Kiba gets maimed http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/35651319/ (gift)