Sex: M/F/Other?

Sex: M/F/Other?

By: ladygizarme

Beta: sasukeskyuubi

Spoiler Warning: names and/or physical descriptions of all Akatsuki members (as close to canon description as possible in this AU)

Now on with the show, dattebayo!


Chapter Five: Tattoo Taboo

On Monday, Naruto was shocked to find that, on his first day back to regular attendance, his rival was glaringly absent from school altogether. At first he thought the bastard was merely late, despite the knowledge that the Uchiha was never late. As the day went on, though, and Sasuke never showed up, Naruto started to wonder where he was and if he was actually sick. He couldn’t help but be suspicious, since he’d never seen the Uchiha miss a day of school before.

He’d most likely found out somehow that Naruto would be back in class today and was too chicken to face him in P.E. Everyone knew Naruto totally kicked the Uchiha’s ass in P.E.

As the last class of the day ended, though, Naruto couldn’t help but feel unsatisfied, despite the fact that his team won the baseball game. Without Sasuke there to insult, argue, and compete with, the game hadn’t seemed as fun. His own team mate, Sai, constantly teasing him with derogatory insults against his penis (or lack thereof) didn’t get anywhere near counting as fun to Naruto—and it wasn’t only because most of the teasing was unwittingly true.

Plus, getting a homerun or two against a lousy pitcher was wholly unfulfilling. One of Naruto’s favorite activities was testing himself against the Uchiha, who, at the very least, was the best pitcher in their grade. Sasuke even had a nickname from seventh grade—Number One Rookie—which he’d gotten when he was made a Regular on the school’s baseball team, despite being only a First Year. The name still stuck, even though Sasuke was no longer on the baseball team, and hadn’t been since the last trimester of First Year. Naruto was often curious why Sasuke wasn’t on the team anymore, since it was obvious the raven was still better than most if not all of his former team mates, but no one seemed to know. Like hell if Naruto was going to ask the Uchiha himself, though, and risk adding to his already-inflated ego.

Still, if Naruto wasn’t hitting off the best, what was the point?

Grumbling to himself, Naruto made his way to the locker room with the rest of his class. While his classmates headed for the showers, Naruto took the opportunity to quickly strip off his gym clothes, leaving his underwear and undershirt on, and put his school uniform back on. Just as he finished buttoning his shirt, leaving it untucked, he heard a dramatic sigh from behind him.

“Still too slow, but I almost made it this time,” a wet, black haired boy commented as he leaned against the locker next to Naruto’s, wearing just a towel.

“What the hell are you talking about, Sai?” Naruto grumbled, turning his back on the other boy as he sat on the bench to put on his shoes.

“No matter how quickly I shower, I never get out in time to see the proof.”

“What proof?” Naruto’s mouth said before he could stop it, and he inwardly cursed, sure he’d walked into a trap.

“What proof, indeed?” Sai replied with an exaggerated fake smile, whipping his towel away from his waist and standing there stark naked as he bent down and slowly dialed the combination for his small locker near the floor. “Honestly, Naruto-kun, I’m beginning to think you really don’t have anything between those legs.”

“Well, we all know you do, Sai, so please put your pants on already,” pleaded another boy who had the unfortunate luck of walking by as Sai was still bent over, his pale ass and everything that came with it on display for all to see. The boy walked away with a hand still slapped over his eyes, swearing he would find a way to burn the image from his memory before the day was through.

Sai merely chuckled at his classmate’s discomfort as he fished his underwear out of his retrieved pile of clothes and pulled them on. Then, turning around to see his prey hurriedly stuffing his tie and jacket into his backpack, Sai flung an arm around Naruto’s shoulders and pulled him against his side tightly.

Licking his lips, the taller boy leaned over and intoned suggestively into the blonde’s ear, “So, when am I going to get to see it, Naruto-kun?”

Naruto pushed him away roughly. “How about never? Kami-sama, you’re such a freak, Sai!” he proclaimed, shuddering dramatically to show his disgust as he frantically rubbed at his ear, convinced the other’s wet lips had touched it.

Sai merely laughed as Naruto stalked angrily away.

“See you in Art Club, Naruto-kun!” he called tauntingly after him.

Naruto growled to himself. He wished he didn’t still have the whole after school club time to endure the other infuriating boy. If only he wasn’t still restricted from joining sports clubs, he’d be happily staying in the gyms instead of making his way to the art room on the first floor of the Junior High, after a quick stop in the infirmary first to use the private bathroom and take care of things.

Naruto honestly couldn’t understand what Sai’s fixation with him was. He’d made it more than clear that he had no interest whatsoever in the other boy’s advances right from the beginning. Of course, a big part of his reasoning had to do with the nature of the other boy’s comments towards him—what guy in their right mind would be interested in someone that always goes around claiming he has no dick, or that his anger issues stem from an inferiority complex linked to having a small penis?! Sai had even made a comment like this the very first time he met Naruto, before he’d even introduced himself!

Still, that wasn’t Naruto’s only reason for rejecting Sai at every turn. Sure, the boy wasn’t bad on the eyes; some girls even compared his looks to Sasuke’s. To Naruto, though, there was just something wholly fake and untrustworthy about the boy.

His skin was pale—paler than Sasuke; in fact, it was an almost sickly-looking pasty white—yet it was obvious from seeing him in the locker room (try as Naruto might to avoid such an occasion, it was near-impossible since their lockers were near each other) the pale boy maintained a healthy, athletic physique. His hair was black, as was Sasuke’s, but Sai’s hair was rather short compared to the Uchiha’s, and the color was all wrong. Rather than the deep, healthy-sheen, so-black-it-looks-blue color Sasuke bore, Sai’s was a dull, flat black—sort of like the black of Naruto’s old, worn Converse.

In Art Club, Sai would usually make a point to face out the window as he was drawing or painting, as if he were using the landscape outside for reference. Yet, whenever anyone looked at what he was working on, it was almost always completely abstract. There was the rare occasion when it was a portrait, but he would still be gazing out at the gardens or the grounds!

The biggest thing to Naruto, though, was Sai’s smile. It was always completely fake, but Sai wore it like he was the happiest, most genuine guy in the world; as if he thought he was fooling everybody. But Naruto knew the truth. Underneath that smile, Sai was scheming; calculating; studying the people around him like some science experiment. The blonde wasn’t exactly sure what the other boy had up his sleeve, or why he was analyzing his classmates like lab rats, Naruto just had a feeling Sai was and his intentions were no good.

The fact that, even after months of Naruto telling him to leave him alone, Sai still kept pestering him with comments that were equal parts suggestive and insulting only served to further prove Naruto’s cynicism.

Finding his preferred seat open, Naruto sat down, pulled his sketchbook and pencil out of his backpack, and started drawing. Sometimes they were assigned a specific project to work on, like in class, but mostly it was just teacher-supervised free time. Today, Naruto decided, he would add to his collection of Gama-chan doodles.

*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*

Sasuke stared glumly out the window of his mother’s blue slate Infiniti, absently scratching his arm through the sleeve of his black jacket.

“Stop scratching, Sasuke, you’ll only irritate it more,” his mother advised sternly but softly.

At the reprimand, Sasuke looked at his mother from the corner of his eyes and consciously forced his fingers to stop their action after a couple more near-involuntary scratches. He continued to stare miserably at the grey sky outside the car window, the light classical music coming from his mother’s stereo the only background noise to his brooding as his mother let him have his peace.

The day had been a complete waste of time, in Sasuke’s opinion. They’d spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon in the office of one doctor or another, in search of a diagnosis of his chronic sneezing that would put his mother’s concerns to rest.

First, Mikoto took Sasuke to their family doctor at eight o’clock that morning, when he normally would have been going to school. He wore his school uniform and brought his backpack, thinking he would be taken directly to school once the doctor found nothing wrong. Mikoto had even suggested the possibility to the school administrator when she’d called in to inform them of Sasuke’s delayed attendance. He couldn’t believe his perfect attendance was being ruined by a stupid little sneeze, but hoped it wouldn’t count since he would only be missing a partial day. It wasn’t to be, however.

True, the family doctor found nothing initially wrong with Sasuke. All his vitals were normal, and the cultures they took of his nose and throat (oh, how fun that was, trying not to gag for the two seconds that swab was rubbing the back of his throat) tested fine, as well. Unfortunately, just as Sasuke was anticipating finally being allowed to go to school (having already missed first period), he started sneezing out of nowhere again—right in front of the doctor!

Now, whereas most people would be sent home at this point—regardless of their apparent symptoms (perhaps with a nasal spray or allergy pills, just in case)—this was not the case for Sasuke. No, Sasuke’s doctor was well-paid and well-trusted for being very thorough—especially when it came to treating the upstanding leaders and servants of the community and their families. And, as Sasuke’s father was a well-known local policeman for several years, and was now a reputable Senior Detective, his family garnered the utmost quality of care.

For Sasuke, this meant a day full of tedious and/or torturous testing was ahead of him.

By the time they finally decided they were through with him, Sasuke had been sent back and forth from one lab to another, run through a gamut of tests until he felt like a lab rat and a pin cushion rolled into one, and still they’d found nothing. Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

Apparently, as they’d found out during the allergy scratch test, Sasuke had a mild allergy to some preservatives. However, seeing as most of the food Sasuke ate was freshly prepared by his mother (unless they went out, and then it was freshly prepared by a chef), so he rarely ate anything with preservatives in it anyway, Sasuke was more than a little disgruntled that he now had a mild case of hives on his forearm to go with his new, utterly useless bit of knowledge.

He’d been sent home with a prescription for Benadryl and told to come back if he had anymore problems. The doctor seemed to have completely forgotten about the whole, sternutational point of the original testing!

And Sasuke didn’t care if he was making up a word for it, because it was only in his head where no one could hear him, and he’d heard ‘sternutation’ so many times today while the “experts” were discussing his case that he figured ‘sternutational’ ought to be the proper word for “having to do with sneezing” anyway. Especially with how big of a deal had managed to be made about his sternutation. That is, of course, until the subject had been completely dropped in order to tell him he should try to avoid preservatives.

Sasuke rolled his eyes just thinking of it.

Mikoto knew where her son’s thoughts were, and she really didn’t need the clues of him sighing or staring out the window moodily, once again unconsciously scratching his arm, to know. It was clear to her, after all she’d made him go through today, with no conclusive results, that Sasuke would be perturbed. And he had every right to be, she couldn’t help but admit to herself. She was glad she’d decided to hold her tongue once the scratch test was done and they were being sent home. The next step would have been blood tests, and even she thought that was probably going too far in the search for a reason for her son’s sneezing.

As she pulled up to the pharmacy and Sasuke started sneezing again, however, she wondered if she’d made the right decision.

*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*

The daily after school meeting of Uchiha Sasuke’s Fan Club—which had been sanctioned as an official club by the school two years ago, after a five hundred name petition including the signature of a teacher willing to supervise (more than one had signed) had been provided—was in chaos. It was nearly as bad as it had been on Friday—both during the emergency lunchtime meeting and the regular after school meeting. In Ino’s opinion, that was saying something, especially considering the nature of the discussion during Friday’s meetings.

“Oh, my God, Sasuke-kun’s going to die!” a random girl announced in panic.

“No, he can’t!” her friend cried shrilly next to her.

Stepping up to the classroom podium, Ino reassured her fellow club members, “I’m sure he’s fine! Uchiha-senpai would have told us if Sasuke-kun’s life was in danger.”

The Senior Club President agreed with her Junior counterpart, “Yes, Ino’s right. All Itachi-senpai said was that Sasuke-kun had a doctor’s appointment this morning and would probably be quite late to school.”

“But he never showed up!” someone else piped up.

“Obviously something’s wrong,” yet another person added.

“Oh, Kami-sama, Sasuke-kun has AIDS!”

An uproar rose amongst the girls before the teacher stepped in.

“Now, now, girls, that’s a nasty accusation to make simply because someone misses school!”

“But, Kurenai-sensei, Sasuke-kun was seen with Haku on Friday,” one of the Third Year girls offered, as if it explained everything.

“And…?” the teacher prompted.

“You know,” the girl stressed. “He’s the boy that dresses like a girl!”

“I do know who Haku is, yes,” the woman replied, still waiting for the point.

“Well, he’s gay!”

“And obviously a sexual deviant,” another girl pointed out.

“Hey! That’s my friend you’re talking about,” Ino seethed at the girls.

At the same time, Kurenai-sensei said, “Haku’s choice of uniform is strange, I’ll admit. However, it does not mean he’s a sexual deviant. He’s a perfectly sweet boy.”

“He’s still gay, though,” the same girl insisted. “He still could have given Sasuke-kun AIDS!”

“Haku didn’t give Sasuke-kun AIDS, you idiot!” Ino fumed, clenching her fists and gearing up for a fight. “Even if Haku had AIDS—which he doesn’t—he couldn’t have given it to Sasuke-kun!”

“That’s right,” the teacher agreed, looking at the large group of girls reproachfully. “Don’t you remember what you learned during Sex Ed. in Health class?”

“Seriously!” Ino chimed.

“All of this conjecture is inconsequential!” The Senior Club President added, “Even if Haku had AIDS—which I’m pretty sure he doesn’t—or even HIV—which also seems pretty unlikely to me—what you people are suggesting is utterly ridiculous on the grounds that Sasuke-kun isn’t gay, without even having to touch your horrible inaccuracies and blatantly homophobic rhetoric!”

“Frankly, I don’t understand how the Senior Club members can be so bigoted and prejudicial, considering who their original club is devoted to,” Ino said with fire in her narrowed eyes.

It really didn’t make any sense to her. Itachi was gay, and they didn’t talk like this about him!

The Senior Branch of Sasuke’s Fan Club was actually a dually-devotional club, devoted to both Uchiha brothers. The Senior Club was originally devoted only to Uchiha Itachi, until the younger brother came to school and the Junior High girls decided to make a club for him similar to the one already devoted to his older brother. As the Third and Second Year Junior High girls graduated into the Senior High, it was suggested and voted that the two clubs be combined.

The Junior and Senior clubs combined for meetings on Mondays and Fridays, and any emergency meetings that were called. During this time, the Senior club’s supervising teacher, Kurenai Yuuhi-sensei was usually in charge. The rest of the time, the meetings were separate, each devoted to their preferred Uchiha brother and supervised by their respective teachers. As Itachi would soon be graduating, and the class of the girls that originally started Sasuke’s club graduated to Senior High, the club’s duality would soon become singular once again.

Itachi had been out of the closet since his last year of Junior High, so it wasn’t like the idea was completely foreign. These girls obviously hadn’t turned on Itachi and attacked his character the way they were doing to Haku, so why were they being so cruel now?

Not that Sasuke was gay, Ino reiterated mentally. In fact, she still couldn’t believe that both of Friday’s meetings, the five most popular new threads over the weekend on the Official Uchiha Sasuke FanClub Forum, and most of the lunchtime gossip today had been devoted to such a rumor! And now this! But if he were gay, that wouldn’t be a reason to suddenly act so hostile. Even though it didn’t matter, because Sasuke-kun. Was. Not. Gay. …But Haku is, and Ino wouldn’t stand for anyone talking about her friends like this.

Nodding to herself, Ino rejoined the conversation, which had evolved to Kurenai-sensei telling them they shouldn’t make assumptions about people without knowing the whole story, and suggesting the girls find out the truth before they started a cruel rumor about someone they claimed to care so much for. After all, what would Sasuke-kun think of them if he found out they spread such an awful untruth about him? She also recommended they devote meetings for the next couple weeks to re-learning the truth about HIV and AIDS.

Ino agreed with the teacher. The Senior Club President did also.

*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*

“H-how was your m-meeting today… Ino-chan?” Hinata asked her blonde friend as they walked together to the bus stop.

Ino sighed. “Frustrating and aggravating.”

“Oh? W…why? D-did s-s-s…so~mething… happen?”

Ino shook her head, “It was just stupid presumptions about things people have no understanding of whatsoever, just because Sasuke-kun went to the doctor today. It really pissed me off.”

Hinata nodded sympathetically to her friend, not really understanding the whole situation since she hadn’t been there, but hating when her best friend was upset.

Shaking the irritating memory from her mind, Ino asked her dark haired friend, “How was Speech Club?”

Hinata’s cheeks grew red with embarrassment as she answered timidly, “I-it was f… fine.”

A pale blonde brow rose at the squeaked response. “Hinata, it’s me, you know? Your best friend, Ino? You don’t have to lie to me.”

Hinata glanced at her friend and looked away quickly, blushing more. “I-I know…”

“So, I can tell something’s bothering you. What’s wrong?”

“W-well,” the smaller girl started softly. “I-I’ve av-voided presenting a s-sp-pe~eech the wh-whole year, b-but th-the… sen-sei says e-everyo-one h-has to p-p-present at the e-end of the y-year…” Hinata blushed harder.

Ino grimaced in sympathy with her friend. She knew Hinata hated that she stuttered so much, and it got even worse when she was nervous. The idea of speaking in front of people must have her shaking in her Mary Janes. Ino mentally cursed Hinata’s father for forcing her to join Speech in the first place. She knew he’d done it in the hope that it would help Hinata get over her stuttering, but it just wasn’t working. In fact, it was probably making it worse.

Ino growled to herself. Stupid man. Grabbing Hinata’s hand, she pulled her friend to a stop, causing Hinata to look at her. “Want to practice on me?” the blonde girl offered.

The panic in Hinata’s eyes calmed, though her cheeks were still pink, and she smiled at Ino as she nodded shyly.

Nodding confidently back at her to seal the deal, Ino started walking again, pulling a reassured Hinata along with her.

*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*

Sasori left the Senior Art Club, glad to get a few minutes reprieve from Deidara’s incessant arguing about the nature and meaning of art (as the blonde still had a lot of cleaning up to do), and met Itachi coming out of the kendo gym.

“Hey,” Sasori greeted his boyfriend.

Itachi nodded his greeting to the redhead and they walked together to the parking lot. They didn’t kiss hello or hold hands—they weren’t the type of people to be overly affectionate in public—but they walked closer than needed, and it was obvious that they cared for each other by their comfortable and easygoing body language.

“So what are your plans today?” Sasori asked once they reached his burgundy cargo van.

Itachi shrugged. “Sasuke never showed up today, so I don’t have to take him home.”

“Want to do something?”

“Have something in mind?” Itachi smirked, knowing full well what would be on his boyfriend’s mind.

“A few things,” the redhead replied, his eyelids already at half mast.

“Oh, get a room,” Kisame complained as he walked up to the van and saw them doing their version of flirting.

The two flirting boys smirked wider at this, leaning against the passenger side of the van as they turned to face him.

“So what are we doing today, yeah?” the loudmouthed Deidara called out to his friends as he jogged up to the car, a boy wearing an orange ski mask over his face—with small slits for his eyes only—following close behind.

“I think the lovebirds here are gonna leave us,” Kisame replied to the blonde.

“What?! No way, you ditched us the whole weekend, yeah, you’re not getting away that easily today!”

“Do we have something special to do today, senpai?” the muffled voice of Tobi questioned.

Deidara glared at him. “Would you take that mask off, yeah?! You look ridiculous!”

“But it’s cold and windy today, senpai,” came the muffled reply. “I don’t want to catch a cold.”

Deidara rolled his eyes and decided to ignore the idiot next to him in favor of his less annoying friends. “Well?!” he demanded impatiently.

Sasori stared at him blandly, resting slightly against Itachi’s side as they both leaned against the van. “Did you have something specific in mind, Deidara?”

Deidara glared at him. Why did he need specific plans to hang out with his friends?

“Let’s go to the mall,” he suggested.

“Why?” asked Itachi.

“We could get all gothed out, yeah, and go make fun of the posers coming out of Hot Topic! Ooh, and scare all the teenyboppers at the food court! Yeah!”

“Veto. We already did that this weekend,” Kisame said.

“So? Itachi and Sasori weren’t there, yeah!”

“Ve-to,” Kisame stressed again.

Deidara growled at him. “Fine! Let’s graffiti the back of the art museum! Come on, Sasori, you know you want to, yeah.”

“No, thanks,” the redhead answered. “We’ve done that before, remember? It doesn’t last. Besides, destroying public property is more your style, don’t you think?”

“What ‘destroy’? You’ve seen those blank, drab grey walls; it’s an improvement, yeah.”

Sasori nodded. “That may be, but in the eyes of the city…”

Kisame laughed, “I’d almost forgotten about that! You two were lucky Itachi’s dad was there when they took you to the station. You would have been in some deep shit!”

“Fuck that, yeah, it woulda been cool to get graffiti put on my record! But noooo, Mr. Prissy-Perfect-Pants over there can’t have friends who are criminals, yeah. I had to paint over all my artwork, yeah!”

Itachi cocked a brow at that. “Isn’t that your ‘thing’? Art that lives in the moment and isn’t meant to last? Besides, father decided on his own to speak up for you. I wasn’t even there, and if I had been, I wouldn’t have interfered.”

Kisame scratched his blue hair in thought. “He did it because of your grandma, didn’t he, Sasori?”

The redhead nodded slightly. “Chiyo-baa makes large donations to the Policemen’s Benefit every year. Uchiha-san thought it would be prudent to keep me out of the system. When she heard about it afterwards, she was not happy.”

“Oh yeah, you disappeared for the whole summer after that…” Kisame remembered aloud.

“Because of my delinquency, Chiyo-baa thought I wasn’t getting enough attention and supervision. She made me spend every last day of my vacation with her.”

Kisame snorted. “Bet that was loads of fun.”

Sasori shrugged, “We prepared and performed bunraku for her friends at the senior center.”

Tobi, who’d been whipping his head back and forth as he silently followed the conversation, chose this moment to chime in, “I didn’t know the senior center had a stage big enough for that, senpai!”

Sasori glanced at him. “Chiyo-baa also makes large donations to Konoha Civic Theater. They have a good size stage for bunraku and let her rent it at a huge discount. Their puppeteer troupe also helped with the performance, though we used our own puppets.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” Kisame commented.

Sasori nodded, “Chiyo-baa is starting to have arthritis problems so I made her sit out for the performance. I also did most of the puppet construction and detailing. Of course, we already had some of the puppets we needed—”

“Enough! Can we get back to the point, yeah?!” Deidara interrupted.

Everyone looked at him curiously, content to drop the subject as it was mostly over anyway.

“Thank you. Now… how ‘bout we drop fruit off the bridge over Hokage Highway, yeah? We can watch it splatter and try to make cool designs, yeah!”

“Okay, senpai!” Tobi agreed enthusiastically.

However, a monotonous chorus of, “Veto,” was the answer from Itachi and Sasori.

Deidara huffed at the two boys, “Well, why don’t you suggest something, yeah?!”

Itachi thought a moment. “Let’s go get tattoos.”

Sasori whipped his head so fast to look at his boyfriend, it almost looked comical.

Both Deidara and Kisame (and perhaps Tobi as well) had wide eyes.

Blinking to get over the shock of ‘Mr. Prissy-Perfect-Pants’ actually suggesting they do something as juvenilely rebellious as getting tattoos, Deidara finally broke the sudden silence by shouting, “Right on! I know just the guy to go to, yeah!”

Itachi climbed into the front passenger seat of his boyfriend’s van—he would come back later for his Escalade—and the three remaining boys piled into the back as Sasori took the wheel. There were no seats in the back, since it was a cargo van, but the dark carpet was clean and relatively new. There were also piles of folded blankets and furniture pads, and an assortment of rope and rubber bungee hooks hanging from the slots in the walls, as Sasori often used it to transport artwork, sculptures, antiques, and a number of other things for his grandmother. The boys in the back were glad to have the extra padding to lean against, since the walls of the cargo area were just cold, painted metal.

Deidara directed Sasori to a little tattoo and body piercing parlor he knew of on the south side of town, ‘The House of Pein’. The redhead turned his key in the ignition, pushed the cassette-converter connected to his iPod into the van’s tape deck, and cranked it up, the bass vibrating the back of the van from the subwoofers he’d installed when he first got the van from his grandmother. When they got there, Sasori found street parking without a meter a little ways down, in front of a small, rundown bar. Everyone climbed out of the back and headed down the sidewalk, past a pawn shop and toward the House of Pein, Sasori and Itachi trailing behind them.

“You’re really going to get a tattoo, Itachi?” the redhead asked his boyfriend.

“Yeah,” Itachi answered with conviction.

“What are you going to get?”

“A red scorpion.”

Sasori looked at him quickly, and Itachi gave him a small smile. The smile vanished, though, when he saw Sasori was frowning.

“What?” Itachi asked evenly, though inside he was a little worried.

Sasori’s eyes narrowed and he grabbed Itachi’s wrist. “We need to talk,” he said, and pulled Itachi back to the van.

*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*

“Where did Itachi-senpai and Sasori-senpai go?” Tobi asked, looking back as they reached the door.

Deidara looked around, his long, blonde bangs and ponytail whipping around his head.

“I think Sasori dragged Itachi back to the van,” Kisame answered.

Frowning glaringly, Deidara said, “Screw those guys, yeah. I’m still getting my tattoo.” Then he opened the door.

Inside, the sound of nu-metal came from a small radio and the smell of patchouli incense permeated the air, though none was burning anywhere in the lobby. The lobby was small—even smaller than it had seemed it would be from the outside—and decorated completely in black and red, with a few white or chrome accents here and there. Directly in front of the door was a long, red hallway lined with black doors with silver handles.

To the boys’ right was a small sitting area, and a glass encased counter, with trays full of different styles and sizes of body jewelry inside. A sparse amount of spotlights provided the only lighting, and most of them were trained on the jewelry or the large, mounted photos of tattoos on the walls. The only window was a small, rectangular one at the top of the wall behind the chairs, which let in a thin strip of natural light (or would have, if it wasn’t cloudy out), but was too high to actually view the outside—unless you counted the scarce amount of sky you could possibly glimpse through it. Even Kisame, the tallest of the boys, couldn’t reach to see out of it.

A woman with kohl-lined eyes, a thin strip of indigo eyeshadow on her eyelids, a white rose in her blue hair, and a silver spiked labret stud stood behind the counter, flipping through a rock magazine. She wore a black, slightly-ruffled, knee-length skirt, and a skintight, white camisole under a black fishnet shirt with her thumbs and middle fingers hooked through holes she’d made in the slightly-ragged cuffs. Over that, she wore what looked like a lab coat, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, buttons open, and hem falling to just above her knees. Instead of being white, however, it was black with white-outlined red clouds, and red lining inside. Her fingernails were painted black, and she wore a silver ring on her right middle finger.

When she heard the bell over the door chime as they entered, she looked up and put her magazine down behind the counter. “Welcome to the House of Pein. What can we do for you today?”

“Tattoos, yeah!” Deidara answered enthusiastically.

The woman nodded mutely and beckoned them to the counter.

“Do you have a particular design in mind, or would you like to have a look at our book?” she motioned to a huge, black binder sitting beside the radio on the black counter behind her, full of photos inside protective sleeves.

“Can I draw something myself, yeah?” Deidara asked eagerly.

The woman nodded again and handed him a piece of paper and a pencil.

“Ooh, will you draw mine, too, senpai?” Tobi asked excitedly.

“Fuck off, Tobi,” Deidara answered, not looking up from where he was hunched over the counter, drawing.

The woman looked at Kisame with a bored sort of expectancy.

“I’ll just take the book,” Kisame answered, giving the attractive woman an appreciative leer. “By the way, my name is Kisame. What’s yours?”

“Konan,” she answered blandly as she handed him the book, making it clear the attraction was entirely one-sided.

Used to rejection, but not easily deterred by it, Kisame continued. “Do you do the tattooing, Konan?”

“Sometimes,” Konan replied in the same tone.

“Will you be doing mine today?”

She gave him a quick-but-obvious once-over with just her eyes. “No.”

“That’s a shame. I guess you’ll just have to wait until later to get your hands on me,” he said with his version of a suave smile.

A thin, black brow rose at the suggestion. “How will I ever bear the wait,” she asked sardonically.

“I guess you’ll just have to be satisfied with the sugar rush you get from this eye candy for now,” he answered smarmily, wagging his brows.

“I’ll make sure to take my insulin,” she said in monotone.

Kisame decided to take a break from attempting to flirt and look through the book she’d handed him.

Konan got out three clipboards full of forms, and handed them to the boys at the counter.

“Read through these consent forms and fill in your information. The top part is aftercare instructions. Please make sure you read them and understand them clearly before you sign.”

“Cool, yeah,” Deidara said as he glanced over the forms. He filled it in and handed it back to her with his design—a strange, stylized bird.

Konan accepted them with a nod and looked over his forms. “Where are you putting it?”

“On my left pec, yeah.”

“And this is the size you want it?” She motioned to his picture, which was about the size of his palm.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll just need to see your I.D. and I’ll get you set up with an artist.”

This reminded Deidara of why he’d chosen this particular parlor for their tattoos. Since they weren’t twenty yet, they weren’t legally allowed to get tattoos yet. Most places in Konoha wouldn’t even allow it with a parent’s consent. So, he made a show of checking his pockets, then, grinning sheepishly at her, he said, “I must have forgotten my I.D. But Hidan works here, yeah? He can vouch for me. Is he working today?”

Konan narrowed her eyes slightly at him, noticing that he and the other two boys seemed to be wearing high school uniforms, but finally nodded and said, “I’ll go get him.” Then she disappeared down the hallway and into one of the back rooms, her chunky high heels clacking heavily on the black, tiled floor.

When she came back, an even stronger smell of patchouli came with her, along with a guy with slicked-back silver hair and a wide, devilish grin. He was shirtless, with silver rings in his pierced nipples, and wore a long, silver chain with a large pendant of a strange triangle-within-a-circle symbol. It appeared vaguely religious, but none of the boys recognized it. He also had on a pair of worn-in, low-slung, washed-out blue jeans and white, non-descript crosstrainers.

“Oi, Hidan, yeah!”

“Deidara! You maniac, how the hell are ya?”

“I’m great, yeah! My friends and I came to get tattoos,” he motioned to the guys behind him with his thumb.

“Finally decided to take me up on my offer and see where I worked, huh?” the guy identified as Hidan asked.

“Yeah, dude! But I forgot my I.D.,” Deidara added meaningfully.

“No problem, man, I can vouch for ya.” He turned to the woman next to the counter. “He’s cool, Konan. They all are.”

“And, let me guess, they all forgot their I.D.,” Konan remarked dryly. “You know Pein will have your ass if you get the studio in trouble again, Hidan.”

“Don’t worry about it, Konan, it’ll be fine,” he replied, waving off her concern. “Why don’t you go let the guys know we have some customers?”

She gazed at him with a look of disdain, but left the lobby without saying anything.

“How ‘bout you two? Got your shit ready?” Hidan asked Kisame and Tobi once Konan had left.

“Can I get my whole face tattooed?” Tobi asked eagerly.

One of Hidan’s eyes squinted with a grimace. “I don’t know, man, I mean… we do have somebody here that’ll tattoo the face and neck and palms and sensitive shit like that, but I don’t know if it’s a good idea this time. I’ll vouch for ya for a little bit of ink, somethin’ you can cover up and hide from your parents easily. But inkin’ the face… no way, man. That could get us in some major shit if your parents complained. Pein would kill me, not to mention what Kakuzu would do if we lost money because of it.”

He suppressed a shudder at the thought of what his boss’s money-hungry, penny-pinching business partner/accountant might do.

“Aw, come on, old man! Tobi’s a good boy! Tobi won’t get you in trouble!”

Hidan cocked a glare at the ski-masked boy. “‘Old man’?! Fuck that shit, Tobi gets no ink!”

Deidara started laughing, “Right on, yeah! See, Tobi? That’s what you get for being a pest, yeah.”

“But Tobi’s a good boy, senpai!”

“A pest, yeah,” Deidara repeated.

“We hear we have clients,” a new voice said from the hallway.

The boys’ attention focused on the new person, who turned out to be a guy with short, spiky green hair. Just like Hidan, he was shirtless. However, that was where the similarities ended. Whereas the silver haired man’s skin was a pale peach complexion, and appeared to be ink-free (as far as they could see, anyway), this new person was a completely different story. Half of his body—including his face and neck—was tattooed solid black, and the other half was solid white. He wore black sweats, black shoes, and seemed to be wearing custom color contacts, which made his entire eye yellow.

Deidara’s brows rose at his appearance; that was a bold statement.

“Yeah, these are them, Zetsu,” Hidan told the tattooed man.

“We are ready when they are,” Zetsu replied.

Apparently unperturbed by the strange, plural way the man referred to himself, Hidan said, “Alright, man. Well, I’ve got Deidara here covered. Junior there just got himself banned from ink today, so you wanna take the blue giant?”

“We don’t care.”

The two tattoo artists set to work discussing what would be done with their clients. Hidan traced Deidara’s bird onto transfer paper and took him back to his studio. Against his better judgment, he allowed Tobi to come watch, under the threat of imminent sacrifice to “Jashin-sama” if the younger boy touched anything or caused any trouble.

When he turned to walk back into the hallway, they saw that he wasn’t completely ink-free after all. On his back was a large tattoo of what looked to be him as a grim reaper. His skin was colored black and white, with the white parts made to look skeletal. A black cloak with red clouds hung from his muscular form, and he carried a huge, three-bladed, blood red scythe. It looked awesome.

Kisame was having trouble choosing a tattoo design. He thought it would be cool to get a great white shark tattooed on his bicep, or maybe a big one—with gaping, toothy jaws—on his back. But a big tattoo would take a really long time, and Kisame was still on the fence about the art in general. It might be creepy to girls he would try to score with, and he really didn’t need to purposely hinder his chances with the fairer sex. He contemplated getting the shark on his bicep still, with a heart with “Mom” inside it underneath to even out the creep factor, but it seemed too cheesy. Finally, he decided on a simple tribal arm band, and Zetsu took him back to his room to do it.

*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*

When Itachi and Sasori were seated back in the van, Itachi turned to Sasori.

“What’s wrong?”

“I should ask you that,” his boyfriend countered.

Itachi looked at him questioningly.

“A red scorpion, Itachi? That’s like getting my name tattooed on you! You’re inviting bad luck if you do that.”

Itachi looked at him skeptically, “What, you mean that thing about breaking up after you get your lover’s name tattooed? Don’t tell me you believe silly superstitions like that.”

Sasori merely gazed back at him, conveying wordlessly that, yes, he did.

Itachi rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll get something else, then,” he said, reaching for the door handle.

Sasori leaned over and grabbed his shoulder, pinning his boyfriend back to his seat.

“Wait, Itachi. What’s really wrong?”

Itachi frowned at him in question.

“You’ve never even talked about getting a tattoo before, and now you’re suddenly gung ho about getting one, and one linked to me no less. What happened to make you do this?”

“Is it too out of character for me to want a permanent mark of our relationship?”

“Why you need a permanent mark is what I’m more concerned with,” Sasori replied.

Itachi sighed and made himself relax against the seat, relenting to his boyfriend’s questioning.

“Father was there when I went home last night.”

“Oh. I take it he wasn’t too happy?”

“He said we needed to talk, and gave me the usual lecture about wasting so much time with, as he puts it, “the philanthropist’s screwup grandson” when I should be concentrating on my studies. I said it’s not like I need to study, anyway, since I’ve already passed the University entrance exam and final exams are just a technicality. Then he took me to his study and told me it was time I get serious about my life.”

It was Sasori’s turn to frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, though he had a sneaking suspicion.

Itachi’s frown deepened. “It’s just more of the same shit. He and mother think my homosexuality is just a teenage rebellion and my relationship with you is just a phase I need to “get over”,” he finished, uncharacteristically, with air quotes. Then he added, “He gave me until graduation to “quit my foolishness”, or he and mother will start their own search for my future wife.”

Sasori felt rage building up inside him. Itachi could tell from the way the hand still resting on his shoulder squeezed almost painfully.

“What are you going to do?” Sasori asked tightly.

Itachi grabbed the redhead’s hand and looked into his eyes with meaningful determination. “Father can fuck himself. I’m not going to change who I am to please him.”

Itachi pulled Sasori to him, and their mouths met in a heated kiss. Lips moved against lips, opening up to taste each other, letting their tongues meet and wrap sensuously around each other. When their mouths broke apart again, Sasori looked into his boyfriend’s eyes amorously.

“So that’s what put this idea into your head, huh? A permanent tattoo to prove this is permanent?”

The answer was clear in the depths of Itachi’s eyes; full of a determination to prove to his parents they couldn’t control him; that he would live how he chose. Seeing this, Sasori felt a strange swelling of pride in his heart, knowing Itachi was also standing up to his parents for him.

“Hmm… okay,” the redhead said finally.

“Okay what?” the raven asked.

“Okay, I don’t mind you getting the scorpion. It’s not exactly the same as getting my name—it won’t be kanji, after all. And, I have to say, I do like the idea of marking you as mine permanently,” Sasori smirked. “However…”

Itachi cocked a brow at him in question.

“You’re not getting it done at this place,” Sasori finished.

A dark look came into Sasori’s red eyes, and Itachi suddenly found himself pulled off his seat and shoved roughly to the floor in the back of the van. The redhead settled himself between the raven’s sprawled, slightly-bent legs, and leaned over him until their mouths were a hair’s breadth apart. Sasori traced Itachi’s lips with his tongue, pulling away deliberately as soon as Itachi reacted by leaning up and parting his lips.

Sasori sat back on his haunches—still between Itachi’s legs, which were now bent up at the knees completely, his feet flat on the floor. Sasori grabbed the front of Itachi’s school uniform with both hands, yanking him up to glare into his eyes.

Itachi could never be afraid of Sasori, though he knew well of his boyfriend’s temper under the right provocation. The other boy had never and would never lay an abusive hand to him, though; and, even if he did, Itachi was no pushover—he was the one out of the two of them with training in several fighting styles, after all. Even so, the heated intensity in those red eyes definitely got his undivided attention (nevermind that most of that attention was more on the lustful side than the intimidated side).

Sasori attacked Itachi’s mouth, pressing hard against him, biting down on the raven’s bottom lip and sucking until it was full and red. Then he pulled his teeth away and plunged his tongue into his boyfriend’s mouth. Itachi allowed him to dominate the kiss as long as he wanted, quickly becoming turned on by Sasori’s aggressive passion. Their hands and hips joined in on the action, mussing up clothes and hair as they fondled and grinded against each other.

The redhead again clamped his teeth on Itachi’s lip, then pulled away slowly, the heated glare still in his eyes as he leaned up, hovering over Itachi. One hand lifted from the floor of the van to drag down Itachi’s now-bare chest—his uniform shirt having been unbuttoned and pulled open during their excursion. Black painted nails scraped lightly down Itachi’s abs as red eyes watched the creamy skin pinken slightly from the action.

“No one will put a mark on your body except me,” Sasori growled possessively before swooping down to attack the bare skin with his mouth, Itachi groaning in pleasure from both the words and actions.

*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*

Kisame, Deidara and Tobi returned to the van some time later, once they were done in the tattoo parlor. Kisame had removed his school shirt, leaving just his undershirt on so his new tattoo—a tribal band in the shape of waves wrapping around his right arm—was uncovered. Deidara didn’t wear an undershirt, and had his uniform shirt unbuttoned completely, though he still wore it to keep his arms warm. Both boys carried their discarded clothing. Tobi was the same as usual, though a bit sulky since he’d been denied any ink.

“Why the fuck didn’t you come in, Itachi?!” Deidara exclaimed through the closed passenger window at a contently-bored-looking Itachi. As he opened the side door behind Itachi’s seat he continued, “I never thought I’d see the day you chickened out of something you suggested, yeah.”

He began to climb in, but stopped with one foot in, sniffing slightly and then making a face.

“Deidara, would you move your ass already?” Kisame demanded from behind him, pushing against the blonde’s back as Deidara braced himself in the doorway. “It’s fuckin’ cold out here!”

“Keep your shirt on, yeah!” the blonde growled back, finally climbing in.

He sat down gingerly on his discarded school blazer, eyeing the back of the van scrutinizingly. Either not noticing or not caring about Deidara’s strange behavior, Kisame jumped in and took his seat against the neatly folded blankets immediately. Next, Tobi hopped in and closed the door behind him before sitting next to Deidara.

Deidara’s eyebrow rose at the neatness of the blankets behind Kisame. Yes, Sasori generally kept them folded pretty tidily, but they inevitably got rumpled when Kisame (or any of them, really) sat against them. Blue eyes glinted in the semi-darkness as he noticed something else and snorted. The clear, plastic trash bag that hung from the back of Sasori’s seat, behind which Kisame sat, had what appeared to be a couple crumpled tissues, an empty condom wrapper, and a used condom.

He knew it smelled like sex in here. Well, more so than usual, that is. Fresh-like, yeah.

“You egotistical bastard, Sasori, yeah,” he remarked, grinning wryly but mischievously at the redhead driving the van.

Red eyes shifted briefly to the large rearview mirror, but otherwise made no acknowledgement.

“Just couldn’t let Itachi get anyone else’s artwork put on, could you? Had to prove whose he is, yeah?”

Kisame frowned at this statement for a minute before it clicked. Hesitantly, he peered around, noticing the impeccable cleanliness in the back of the van. He looked at the occupant of the front passenger seat. Itachi was looking put together as usual; school uniform in place and worn properly despite it being after hours. However, he noticed the slight smirk on Itachi’s face next. His hair tie was also missing now, and his shoulder blade-length black hair was down and looked fluffier than usual—as if it had recently been brushed.

Almost too scared to look, Kisame finally looked at the trash bag hanging beside him, brushing against his bare arm occasionally when they turned a corner or hit a bump. Sure enough, incriminating evidence was contained there. Going slightly green in the face (which really didn’t go well with his blue hair), he quickly scooted away, snatching his things along with him to sit all the way at the back of the van.

At his actions, Deidara burst out laughing.

Kisame growled. “Deidara! You knew, didn’t you?! You knew and you just let me sit there!”

Still laughing, Deidara gasped, “I’m surprised you didn’t notice! I smelled it as soon as I opened the door, yeah!”

“Smelled what, senpai?” Tobi questioned, looking between the two boys confusedly.

“It always smells like that in here, though!” Kisame argued, ignoring Tobi. “You can’t blame me if I’ve gotten used to it!”

“Gotten used to what, senpai?”

His answer was more of Deidara’s uproarious laughter as Kisame shuddered, frantically shaking out his clothes and rubbing the willies (literally?) off himself.

In the front seat, two normally stoic boys chuckled also.

*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*

Sasuke was glad to be back at school the next day, and ecstatic that his rash from the scratch test had cleared up the previous night. Of course, no one but his mother—and perhaps his brother—would be able to tell from the trademark bored-because-I’m-better-than-you expression, occasionally accompanied by a scowl or smirk when he deemed the situation called for it. Even so, as the day progressed, his paranoia from Friday returned and he became acutely aware of everyone that looked his way. His fangirls also seemed to be swarming around more than usual, which was cause for slight alarm as Sasuke found it increasingly difficult to avoid them touching him in any manner, let alone avoid them talking to him.

During lunch, a gaggle of them cornered him as he was trying to get some peace in the library, and demanded to know all the details of his doctor’s appointment the day before. Utterly bewildered as to how they knew, but unwilling to show it, Sasuke told them it was just a checkup. The girls seemed only partially relieved by his answer, having received no real details other than what they, apparently, already knew. Sasuke managed to escape them, though, by excusing himself to the restroom. He didn’t come out until lunch was over.

He wasn’t hiding. He was merely making sure all the sinks, toilets, and urinals were in proper working order, and making a detailed inspection of the cleanliness of the facilities. As part of his duties as Junior Student Council President. …Yeah.

Alarmed as he was by the way the fangirls were swarming, it was even more alarming when he had a sneeze attack during class. Not because of the sneezing—oh, no—but because of their reaction. Rather than the expected fawning to see if he was okay and offerings of tissues (some of the more obsessed girls wanting the tissue back), most of the girls looked at him worriedly but silently—some actually looked on the verge of terrified—and several people seated near him scooted away in apparent fear!

Was it so strange for him to sneeze that people would treat his sneezes like an outbreak of the Plague?

He tried to ignore it and just go through his day like normal, but it didn’t help his paranoia any to see people that normally practically worshipped him reacting this way.

As far as Sasuke could tell, only Uzumaki and that lazy Nara kid (who was more than likely asleep behind the book propped in front of his face) didn’t have a strange reaction, though he did notice Uzumaki was giving him this weird stare. Weirder than the other stares he’d noticed recently, though Sasuke wasn’t exactly sure what was different about it.

Finally, it was the end of the day, with only one more school period to survive. If he had known that morning that, by the end of the day, he’d rather have been back at the doctor’s office than at school, he would have just stayed home.

Sasuke changed for gym, largely ignoring the people around him. Since his fangirls didn’t come into the boys’ locker room (usually), his instinct for self-preservation lowered considerably, so he didn’t notice the way a lot of guys in the room were taking care to not expose themselves around him. Or, the few times he did notice, he figured they were reacting to Sai, as usual.

They were still playing baseball in gym and, as usual, he and Uzumaki were the captains of the opposing teams. Sasuke was glad for the athletic distraction, even if baseball still carried bitter memories when he allowed himself to dwell—which he tried not to let happen often. Sports in general actually didn’t hold much interest for him, though he had a natural athletic ability that allowed him to play like they did.

What really pulled him in was the competition; the opportunity to prove himself better than everyone else, in all things. It was practically the only way he really knew how to keep up his self-esteem, seeing as he was used to always being compared to someone better than him, since birth. Obviously, the true test of someone’s worth was to test them against other people, therefore Sasuke loved the competition in sports—if for nothing more than the chance to rub his opponents’ faces in the dirt as he once more claimed a victory; constantly and continuously proving he was worth more than all of his classmates, even if he could never compare to Itachi.

But he wasn’t thinking about that right now!

Right now, it was the bottom of the ninth, and he was on the pitcher’s mound. He’d struck two guys out already, but two more had managed to take a base. And now Uzumaki was up to bat.

Sasuke squinted against the sun—why did the sun have to be behind the dobe? And why did the dobe’s hair have to reflect sunlight so perfectly? He could swear it was a conspiracy. The blonde finally covered his head with a batting helmet, but the sun continued to glare off the top of the shiny, green plastic. Sasuke continued to squint at the catcher’s sign, but once he saw it he disagreed wholeheartedly.

A slowball for the dobe? Was Nara a baka? The blonde would have plenty of time to aim and hit it, and Sasuke knew if Uzumaki got a piece of it that ball would be gone. Shaking his head at the sign, which earned him a roll of the eyes and half a headshake from the catcher, Sasuke wound up for a fastball.

Releasing the pitch, he smirked, knowing it would be past the dobe and in Nara’s glove before the blonde could even think to swing. Sasuke had been out of practice the last time he’d pitched against Uzumaki, so the dobe had gotten lucky because Sasuke’s fastball hadn’t been as fast as it should have been. Now, though, Sasuke had had two days of practicing in P.E. without the dobe there, and his fastball had vastly improved in that time. It was even faster now than it had been in his Number One Rookie days.

Suddenly, Uzumaki swung his bat and, with a crack, hit the ball way over Sasuke’s head. The outfielders scrambled to catch it, but it passed them too, leaving the baseball field and flying over the soccer field to land somewhere near the track field, giving the blonde a homerun and allowing his other two teammates to run home as well.

Uzumaki let out a long, loud whistle in admiration of the distance the ball had gone, before dropping the bat and helmet, starting to round the bases with a bright grin on his face.

“Thanks a lot, Uchiha!” he called cheekily as he rounded second. “That’s the longest homerun I’ve ever hit!”

“Che,” Sasuke grunted. “Lucky hit.”

“If you say so, former Number One Rookie!” the blonde taunted further.

“Hn,” was Sasuke’s response as Kakashi-sensei called out that the period was over and he left the field with his teammates.

Sasuke was dumbfounded. The dobe’s team had won again, and it was obvious this was largely due to Uzumaki’s performance. The team lineups had been practically the same when the blonde was hiding out in the infirmary for whatever reason, and Sasuke’s team had won easily then. Then again, from remarks Kakashi-sensei had made before today’s game, it was apparent Uzumaki’s team had completely slaughtered Sasuke’s during his absence Monday. Sasuke knew he was still in good form, yet Uzumaki continued to compete with his status as best player in P.E. Was Sasuke actually being rivaled by that blonde idiot?! He shook his head, unable to believe he was thinking such a thing.

Heading into the locker room with his classmates, Sasuke ignored them as usual, going to his locker and gathering his freshly-washed towel and the small, waterproof bag he kept his shower things in. A glance in the mirror told Sasuke his hair was desperately in need of restyling, a task Sasuke was loathe to undertake in front of his classmates. However, he refused to be seen with helmet hair for an extended period of time, so washing his hair was definitely in order.

Sighing to himself, Sasuke decided once again he would be taking an extra long shower today, just as he had all last week, waiting for the locker room to empty in order to avoid anyone witnessing his meticulous hair styling regimen. He undressed and wrapped his towel around his waist, heading for the showers. He took great care not to let his eyes wander, ignoring the other boys around him in various states of undress.

Once he was in the showers, the task was given painstaking care, for though Sasuke had no interest in any of his classmates socially or romantically, that didn’t change the fact that quite a few of them had nice bodies. In fact, quite a few of them were downright sexy, when judged solely on aesthetics. Sasuke didn’t want to take a chance of becoming aroused, especially at a time when it would be so noticeable, so he just preferred to pretend they didn’t exist. Luckily for him, that was the usual way he treated the other students around him, so it didn’t seem suspicious when this attitude followed him to the showers.

As he stood under the water, Sasuke also had to avoid letting his mind wander, as lately being in the shower was like an atmospherically physical reminder of things that had happened recently in the very stall he now stood. It would do no good to think of such things with the surrounding showers full of boys that were blissfully unaware of Sasuke’s sexual preference or preferred extracurricular activities—after all Sasuke would like them to keep their ignorance.

While washing his hair, Sasuke thought he heard a few mutterings of ‘fag’ and ‘queer’ echo in the showers, but disregarded it despite his earlier paranoia. He was in class with Sai, after all, and that boy was notoriously fruity and often the topic of locker room scorn.

Sasuke couldn’t understand how the other boy seemed to let it all simply roll off his back, but Sai never defended himself one way or another against the insults. Not that Sai really had room to deny them, but what was with his stupid smile all the time? It was so obviously fake, yet Sasuke could find no emotion hiding underneath, either—like the other boy really didn’t care that he was the topic of such derision, or even found it slightly amusing.

It both baffled and annoyed Sasuke. What must it feel like to be so comfortable with your sexuality that you didn’t care what other people thought? Not that Sasuke would ever act or even want to act the way Sai did, but to have the freedom to do so must be awfully… liberating, to say the least.

Then again, Itachi was comfortable with his sexuality, too, wasn’t he? He was on Sasuke’s case about his own enough that he must be, not to mention the whole being-out-of-the-closet-even-to-their-parents thing. Sasuke doubted Itachi felt very liberated, though, what with their father being on Itachi’s case all the time ever since Itachi had come out to their parents. It was a big part of the reason Sasuke refused to do so. He was already seen and treated as inferior to Itachi, but being straight while his brother was not was a chance to gain his father’s favor. What would happen if their father ever found out the truth? Sasuke didn’t even want to consider it.

Deciding to put an end to that train of thought, Sasuke cleared his mind and focused solely on the task of showering. The stalls around him were empty now, the locker sure to be the same momentarily, so he rinsed himself off, turned off the shower, towel-dried his hair and then his body before wrapping said towel around his waist and walking back to his locker.

He was right in assuming the locker room would be empty. After all, most guys didn’t take too much time showering or getting dressed in general, and almost as a rule took even less time when doing so in school—especially in the last class of the day. They probably figured there was no point. The guys heading to sports clubs afterwards often didn’t shower at all, since they would just be getting sweaty again soon anyway. Sasuke really didn’t care what they did, as long as they weren’t bothering him (or he didn’t have to smell them); and, seeing as there were different locker rooms for the sports clubs, Sasuke was completely unperturbed. He could almost be described as happy, even, if such a term could ever be applied to the oft-moody raven. After all, he had the whole locker room to himself now, and no one to irritate him or comment on his hygiene and haircare procedures.

Now that the room was empty, Sasuke’s mind decided it was okay to wander a bit now, too. Memories and images of what he and Kimimaro had done in here last Thursday came unbidden into his thoughts as Sasuke dressed and did his hair on autopilot. Thinking about it now, Sasuke couldn’t help but blush slightly; he couldn’t believe he’d actually done that in school. It was so unlike him; so reckless; so rule-breaking. So hot.

Part of him wished Kimimaro would accost him in here again, especially since the memory of last time was quickly turning him on. However, the logical part of him was glad Kimimaro had returned to his routine of actually going to his basketball club. They had been too careless last time, and had gotten caught. Sasuke knew he was extremely lucky the person that had caught them apparently had no problem with him being gay (Sasuke guessed she must not be in his fanclub since she didn’t get all rabid), and had been discreet about it, not even ratting him out to faculty.

He wouldn’t count on that luck to hold out, though. Not even to find himself a bathroom stall and relieve his growing tension himself.

Instead, Sasuke took a few calming breaths, and tried to think of something to make his erection go away on its own. Thinking of school work, boring and/or stupid teachers, and even annoying fangirls finally irritated him enough to do the trick, though he knew it wasn’t a permanent solution. Hoping he would be able to meet up with Kimimaro later, Sasuke left the gym building and headed for the junior library—his usual secluded haunt while everyone else was in clubs.

*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*

“Unnhmmm,” Sasuke groaned as Kimimaro’s tongue plundered his mouth and the hand wrapped around Sasuke’s length stroked him firmly. Kimimaro’s other hand squeezed his, reminding Sasuke of his nearly-forgotten task and causing the younger boy to tighten his own grip around his boyfriend’s cock. The older boy’s hand returned to Sasuke’s hair, tugging and tilting his head back as Kimimaro’s mouth moved along his jaw, back to his ear, and down his exposed neck.

Sasuke moaned lowly, craning his neck further back against the seat in the back of Kimimaro’s Jeep to encourage the attentions. His hips undulating in time with Kimimaro’s hand, it was almost too much when the older boy leaned his head down and took one of Sasuke’s nipples between his teeth and gently sucked. Feeling his orgasm quickly approaching, Sasuke tried to speed up his hand on Kimimaro to bring him along with him.

Kimimaro returned to kissing Sasuke thoroughly, the actions of their tongues mimicking the actions of their hips, thrusting and rubbing quickly; almost desperately. Suddenly, Sasuke came with a loud groan, his cum coating Kimimaro’s hand.

The bleached haired teen broke from his younger boyfriend’s mouth to taste the cum on his hand, staring heatedly into Sasuke’s dark eyes as he did so. Groaning again from the eroticism, Sasuke redoubled his efforts to bring his boyfriend to orgasm, only to have Kimimaro pull his hand away in the next instant.

Sasuke looked at him questioningly, only to have Kimimaro leer at him smugly.

“You know what I want,” Kimimaro answered the unspoken question, tracing a finger of the still slightly cum-covered hand on Sasuke’s kiss-pinkened lips.

Sasuke gulped in anticipation and slight apprehension, but licked his lips—tasting the familiar flavor of his own cum on them—and wrapped them around Kimimaro’s cock nonetheless. Kimimaro braced his hand on Sasuke’s head, fingers opening and closing in the spiky raven tresses as the teen’s head bobbed on his length. Sasuke bobbed and sucked in short, fast bursts, preventing his boyfriend’s erection from touching too far back on his tongue or in his throat.

Kimimaro inevitably thrust into his mouth, however, causing Sasuke to gag despite his efforts. The black haired teen couldn’t help the glare he sent up to his white haired boyfriend at the action, which only deepened as Kimimaro smirked slightly at him and pulled his head back down. Nevertheless, Sasuke took a deep breath through his nose and continued his efforts to bring his boyfriend off.

Finally Sasuke felt the telltale signs that Kimimaro was about to cum. He tried to prepare himself for what was coming as the hand in his hair tightened and held his head in place, but it was no use. Kimimaro’s hot cum shot into the back of his throat, and Sasuke gagged almost preemptively, coughing around the still-twitching cock in his mouth. Spurts of cum dribbled down Sasuke’s chin and down Kimimaro’s length as Sasuke opened his mouth a bit and just let the fluid shoot in only to slide back out. This didn’t eliminate all of it, however, and Sasuke suddenly lurched away and out of Kimimaro’s grasp, scrambling for the door handle as his stomach threatened to rebel. Opening the door with a desperate grip, he leaned out the door and coughed and hacked the rest of the spunk out of his throat.

Once he was done, he closed the door, but did not look back at Kimimaro. He could tell his face was red from both embarrassment and the exertion. It was also cum and tear streaked (he wasn’t crying, damnit, it was from the violent gagging!), and Sasuke suspected his nose was starting to run now as well. Kimimaro understood this, and said nothing as he handed Sasuke a towel from the gym bag he kept in his car for basketball.

As Sasuke was cleaning up his face and Kimimaro was digging around for a water bottle, Sasuke’s cell phone rang. Or, rather, a familiar and quite annoying voice came from his phone, saying, “Sasuke-chan, pick up the phone, it’s your dear aniki. Sasuke-chan, pick up the phone, it’s—”

“What?!” Sasuke growled annoyedly into the small, black super slice phone.

“Is that any way to answer the phone, Sasuke-chan?” Itachi replied smoothly.

“What the hell do you want, Itachi?” Sasuke demanded, ignoring the reprimand.

“I just thought you should know that father is coming home for dinner tonight.”

“So?” the younger Uchiha asked, scowling at the seat he was still kneeling in front of, as Itachi wasn’t physically there to scowl at.

“So,” Itachi replied. “I thought it would be wise of you to know ahead of time. You see, I was driving across the Hokage Highway bridge and couldn’t help but notice a familiar red Jeep parked at that dead end on Kataoya Road. I also couldn’t help but notice a boy that looks very much like my otouto, but in a surprising state of disarray, open the door of said vehicle and… shall we say, dispose of certain fluids?”

Sasuke choked on a breath and held it a moment. Itachi had seen?! He’d thought the deserted dead end Kimimaro had suggested on the rural edge between Oto and Konoha would be a safe place for them to “park”. Sure, there were a couple houses further down the road, but they were obviously abandoned. Okay, it was relatively near the highway, but he’d figured cars would be going too fast to notice what was going on in the back of the jeep parked at least a hundred feet away, separated by a smaller road, grass, and a chain link fence… but Itachi had seen. Sasuke’s mouth went even drier than it already was, and he grabbed the water bottle from Kimimaro to take a quick drink.

When he was able to speak, he asked cautiously, “Who else was with you?”

“No one,” Itachi reassured plainly. “I’d just finished dropping Deidara off.”

“Sasori wasn’t with you?”

“Hn, not that it would matter, but no. He had to deliver some things for his grandmother this afternoon.”

“Kisame?” Sasuke questioned, shutting his eyes tightly as he heard his voice crack with worry.

“No. And before you ask, Tobi is not with me, either.”

Sasuke sighed in relief, opening his eyes again. As he did so, he suddenly remembered his state of undress. His flaccid cock was peeking partway out the slit in the front of his boxers. His pants were around his ankles, and his shirt was missing completely, having been tossed randomly somewhere in the jeep when Kimimaro took it off of him.

Glancing over to his boyfriend, he noticed Kimimaro had already redressed himself, and Sasuke moved to do the same.

“Okay, Itachi, I’ll be home for dinner.”

There was silence on the other end, which Sasuke knew to be a pause for Itachi to nod his head in answer. Sasuke made to end the call, but stopped himself just short of pressing the button with his thumb, the thin, black phone still on his ear.

“Itachi?”

“Yes?”

“…thanks.”

Another silence for a nod was his answer, and Sasuke hung up.

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Sasuke got home just before dinner, having made Kimimaro drop him off five blocks away from the brick “gated” entrance that led into his neighborhood. From there, he had walked twenty minutes to his house. It was chilly and windy, and the wind whipped his hair around his face. For once, Sasuke wasn’t too annoyed by this, though, as it gave him an excuse for the state his hair had already been in.

“Sasuke, is that you?” his mother called as he entered the house, setting his black bag down, and taking off his shoes and jacket at the door.

“Yes, mother,” he answered, picking his bag back up and heading for his room upstairs.

“Dinner will be ready in five minutes,” she called after him.

He didn’t answer, but continued quickly to his room to wash up and change. His mouth was sorely in need of cleaning.

Once he’d brushed his teeth, Listerined, washed his face, and fixed his hair, Sasuke changed into a pair of black slacks and a dark blue buttondown. Then he joined his family at the dinner table. As warned, his father was sitting at the head of the table, looking stern as usual. Sasuke apologized quietly for being late, and took his seat at the table.

Dinner went as it usually did when his father was there, though things between his father and brother seemed a bit strained. Finally, after all the usual conversation and questioning, the meal was almost over and Sasuke was ready to breathe a sigh of relief and escape to his room and homework. He’d thought too soon, though, as was soon proven when his mother then began to speak.

“Graduation is coming up soon, Sasuke. Do you have anyone you’d like to bring to your party?”


TBC

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A/N: Oh, I had so much fun writing this chapter! Itachi and his friends are so fun to write. They’re like… comic relief or something, lol. (As if Sasuke’s freaking sneeze attacks weren’t comic enough! I know I might’ve overdone it a bit, but once I started I couldn’t stop! Lmao, poor Sasuke… suffering at the hand of my devices…) I wasn’t even gonna put Hidan and them in until later (after Itachi graduates), but they decided now was the time so I said… eh, why not?

Oh, hey, here's a link to an awesome pic that inspired Hidan's tat!
http://sven-da-man.deviantart.com/art/Hidan-39780004

BTW, in case you didn’t notice, I changed the summary. I like the new one a lot better. I think (hope) it fits the tone of the story better, despite still involving serious issues.

Anyway, I’ve decided to stop lamenting this fic taking too long to get to the point, cuz these character interactions I keep getting distracted with have their purpose, too. Little by little, the story is coming together. Hope everyone sticks around! (Though hardly anyone’s reviewing…)

And on that note!

Thank you so much, lokivsanubis, for being my only reviewer last chapter! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well, and keep coming back! I can’t wait for Sasuke to find out also!

To everyone else: thanks for reading, also! Please take a minute to click the review button below and tell me your thoughts.

Now, beware, for the following conversation may disturb you. It’s one I had with my 12-yr-old bro (AKA S2) a week or two ago…

S2: You know when I went to [that camp], there was this kid that sat across from me at breakfast that never drank his milk from his cereal!

lg: …yeah, and…?

S2: I’ve never known someone that didn’t drink their milk!

lg: Lots of people don’t. A lot of little kids don’t…”

S2: Why? Because it comes from cow penises?

lg: What?! O.o

S2: Milk, it comes from cow penises. *is totally serious*

lg: *is trying to talk while bursting out laughing* I-i-i…it doesn’t come from COW PENISES!!! *guffawing hysterically*

S2: Yes, it does! *is seriously adamant* Haven’t you ever seen a cow? They have penises dangling between their back legs!

lg: *still in hysteric fits of laughter* Cows don’t have penises! They’re female! That’s called an udder; it’s the cow’s boobs! *leans on table to avoid falling down laughing*


So yeah… bet you never knew your supposedly-innocent breakfast cereal was soaking in COW CUM! *still laughing thinking about it…*

‘til next time…

&hearts

~ lg