Almost Sucks

Almost Sucks
by Mashiro

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

first time: July 4th 2008, Friday
second time: January 23rd 2009, Friday

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

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70: Banned from you

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Epilogue 2.3: Naruto and Sasuke

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Naruto sat in the kitchen and looked out the window in the direction of Sasuke’s house. His elbows were on the table and his chin was in his hands. The snow was swirling outside making a haze of the distance and reminding Naruto of that dream he had had about Sasuke in the shower months ago when he and Sasuke fought. Naruto sighed. His fading black eye was itching and Sasuke was such an asshole.

He couldn’t believe how they could have felt so good together less than two weeks ago when now it was like they were in separate universes. He had thought they were okay, but now Sasuke was distant, snappy and ignoring. He hadn’t really looked at Naruto for over a week. Tuesday had been good, until first break when they almost broke the rules and Naruto showed Sasuke the photo. Was it about the photo? Was it about the rules? Naruto didn’t know and he tried to tell himself he didn’t care. Sasuke was just an asshole.

Kakashi had also been evil and decided that this was a perfect time to give Sasuke his own key. Yeah, ‘you’re grounded’ clashed with ‘you have to be at your boyfriend’s house or freeze to death’, but still... Because of the stupid key, Sasuke didn’t have to come over after school anymore unless he wanted to and, being an asshole, of course he didn’t. They hadn’t been together outside of school since that Monday when Iruka had bothered them. All Naruto’s attempts to visit Sasuke had been ignored or met with stupid excuses. The doorbell didn’t work; neither did shouting nor banging on the door.

Naruto had tried to be understanding through Sasuke’s awful, unboyfriendish behavior, but with yesterday and the punch he had had enough. Stupid, difficult, frustrating bastard. It hadn’t been as surprising and confusing as the time before they went to see Sasuke’s brother or as frustrating and out of control as when they fought those very first weeks, but nonetheless surprising and frustrating. The only reason Naruto had been able to keep himself from punching back was that he knew that the last thing they needed now was another sexless month; and it had still been a close call. ‘What’s wrong with you, you damned bastard!?’ Naruto had yelled as Sasuke hurriedly stalked away from the scene. Then he had gone from just being ignored to ignoring Sasuke back.

Before he went to sleep (and after school, and before school and for hours during the weekend), Naruto looked at the most precious photo he’d ever laid eyes on and remembered Sasuke saying that Naruto made him happy, that he was in love and that he still wanted to do this with him. That weekend felt like two years ago, not two weeks on Sunday. What the hell had happened?

Okay, so Naruto understood. Sasuke was proud and being turned down like Naruto had turned him down that Tuesday must have been a blow to the guy’s ego, but come on! It wasn’t like Naruto hadn’t wanted Sasuke; he had just wanted him more for the eleven sex crazy months that would follow the month without sex than he had wanted him for those twenty minutes of break. Yeah, okay, he could have been a little more gentle and diplomatic in his turning Sasuke down, but he hadn’t dared to! He had been seriously worried about the consequences of being less firm and determined. You couldn’t be wishy-washy when you were dealing with hormones. Sasuke was an idiot asshole if he held a grudge because of that.

There was Gaara’s explanation too. Sasuke couldn’t stand be together with Naruto without being together and therefore he stayed away. Naruto liked it, at the same time as it was silly. Hadn’t they been together all the time without being together before? In school and on buses and stuff. They had spent months going out without touching each other’s pants or the inside of them and it had been just fine. Sasuke wasn’t that needy, was he?

Or maybe sex really did change your life; there were surprisingly many things left out of that book. At the same time as he liked it and found to silly, Naruto found Gaara’s explanation horribly distracting. He thought about it, his mind wandered and wham! He was thinking about walls and Sasuke with his pants down and his legs spread and moaning and Naruto could just scream in frustration, because there were over two weeks left and hadn’t these ten days that had passed been hell in December? He could completely understand if Sasuke found being together without being together difficult. Not that that excused the bastard’s behavior. Naruto could understand, but did he run around avoiding Sasuke? No, he did not. This was not what Sasuke had meant that time when he said that he wouldn’t run away again. This did not count.

Naruto sighed again and let his forehead clonk down to the table. This was what no sex did to them? What had they been before sex? He hated being grounded. No, he hated when Sasuke was being a frustrating, idiot asshole. They could have worked around just being grounded. It was frustrating, but sort of a challenge too, a creativity game. Naruto had plenty of ideas that involved no rule breaking, but had to be very satisfying. Naruto groaned. The clock ticked away on the wall.

The idea of what to do with his misery and the afternoon came to him suddenly. Because getting ignored when you tried to do something was really very frustrating and because he had decided to ignore Sasuke back, neither yesterday nor today after school had Naruto been over to try and get Sasuke to open the door, or called to see if the boyfriend answered. With this new idea however, Naruto might just be able to get around Sasuke’s frustrating ignoring and that would change a lot. After a short moment of deliberation that resulted in him deciding that it was just the next level of knocking (right?), Naruto got dressed and ran outside.

He knew for a fact that one of their next door neighbors was out of town. They had left for a vacation on some sunny beach island, or so Iruka had said. That was good. It made things less complicated when he didn’t have to ask for permission before borrowing their ladder and answer probably slightly tricky questions about what he needed it for. It was also fairly early in the afternoon so few had returned home from work yet, which was good because answering questions about why he was running down the street with their out-of-town neighbor’s ladder in the middle of snowy December could be kind of tricky too; better if you didn’t have to. Naruto almost stumbled and fell on Sasuke’s lawn when he ran over a slippery spot, but he managed to stay on his feet.

It was a bit shaky, the ladder was long, and the snow kept blowing into his eyes. When he had fantasized about taking the window to Sasuke’s room, this was not how he had imagined it. He had thought he could climb the rain gutter or just the wall, jump from on the window below or the nearby tree, or something similarly cool and creative. Using a ladder was so un-ninja like. But those fantasies had been in the summer, this was winter and snowy and cold; Naruto did not want to slip on a spot of ice and fall and break his neck. He wanted more sex! Being cool would have to get used to losing to the possibility of more sex (it already had yesterday when Naruto didn’t punch back). Besides! Back then he hadn’t been banned from Sasuke’s room and now he was. It wasn’t like he could hold onto the window pane for the entire ‘what’s wrong with you? Let’s talk about this...’ talk. Sasuke would think he was crazy. He would be crazy!

Naruto almost fell anyway when he reached the window and looked inside because Sasuke’s close-up-and-staring-in-disbelief face was the first thing that greeted him. He startled, yelped and found himself swaying for a second before balance sorted itself out again. It was kind of worth it though, with the look of panic that ran to Sasuke’s face. ‘He does care...’ Naruto had time to think and his insides warmed despite the snow and cold whirling around him.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sasuke snarled through the window, disbelief returning and anger quickly replacing the panic once he saw that Naruto was okay.

“I wanna talk!” Naruto shouted. “I don’t want you to ignore me anymore!”

“Get down from there and stop screaming.”

“No!”

Sasuke looked frustrated beyond words.

“You’re a fucking idiot!”

“And you’re a fucking bastard!”

The beautiful angry boyfriend looked surprised by the choice of embellishment; Naruto was a bit surprised himself, but it felt fitting. Err... because it was a strong word, not because... Naruto scrunched up his face and thought ‘oh, whatever...’

“Last week, I really wanted to do you!” he shouted. “I really, really wanted to, but I didn’t want to get banned from you for a whole year!”

Surprise and frustration on Sasuke’s face turned to embarrassment and frustration and Naruto thought he could see a hint of red on his cheeks. He really wanted the month to be over with.

“And I did what you said, I haven’t put the photo on my wall I just keep it in my nightstand drawer, but I do look at it every night before I go to sleep. I’m sorry I turned you down so hard that time, but I don’t trust myself around you. My hormones drive me crazy sometimes and I really don’t want to have to stay out of your pants for a year.”

It looked like Sasuke sighed. He rested his forehead against a palm and his fingers were beautiful. There was something in the air of him that told Naruto that it would be fine again.

“You’re still a bastard for hitting me though!” he gathered more air and shouted before he couldn’t be upset anymore. “Look at my eye! You don’t have to get violent! I... I know I said it’s better than you running away, but... every time? You should take that up with your shrink. And you’re an asshole for ignoring me!”

“Could you stop screaming?” Sasuke muttered and Naruto barely heard through the glass. He sounded more tired than frustrated now and relief fluttered in his voice. One part of Naruto muttered and wondered what Sasuke had to be relieved about when it was he that had made a mess of everything in the first place, but the rest of him was just relieved too.

“If you stop ignoring me and let me come in,” Naruto shout-muttered. “If you don’t I’ll stand here and scream until Iruka comes home.”

“You’ll leave when Iruka comes home?”

“Yeah. We need sex as soon as possible.”

Sasuke snorted at that and the glitter in his eyes reminded Naruto of the most amazing photo ever. They looked at each other and the frustration and anxiety and all wrongness slip away. Sasuke really looked at him. Finally. Naruto had to smile.

‘I missed you,’ he said with his eyes, and Sasuke seemed to say ‘sorry’ with his.

“We don’t have any hot chocolate,” the beautiful guy on the inside said eventually and Naruto’s smile grew.

“I just want to warm my hands,” he said. “And kiss you.”

Sasuke’s lips curled softly and his eyes glittered even more. Naruto really loved seeing him smile.

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