Muse

Muse

By Acacia-Brown

Disclaimer : I do not own the copyright to Naruto (as of yet) one day I hope to…well you’ll see.

Summary: When Naruto is a well known flirt and Sasuke is a high scoring (repressed) student who seems to have nothing on his mind apart from academic achievements and no time for personal ‘romantic’ relationships. So when Sasuke meets Naruto and develops a full blown crush within five minutes of meeting him it comes as something of a shock.
Although he doesn't really understand any reason as to why he should be attracted to the blond and determines to get Naruto out of his system as quickly as possible. But the trouble is, the more time they spend together the less time they seem to want to spend apart. Except Sasuke’s hiding more then he lets on.

AN (1)- Hello! I wanted to try my hand at writing an AU and a college fic decided to be the best bet as I can relate to it more easily myself. This is a NaruSasu, and an idea that wouldn’t leave me alone.
Started this chapter, left it for a bit, plot completely changed (woe is me), hopefully you guys will like this- or like Itachi. One of the two.

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Chapter one

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Sasuke Uchiha was mad at himself.

You could tell just by the way he opened the fridge, the door swinging forcefully on its hinges and clattering into the wall.

It was stupid really, stupid stupid idea, and he was even stupider for saying yes.

What had he been thinking?

And it was all because this guy had smiled at him.

“He has a nice smile,” Sasuke told himself as the cool air of the fridge rushed against his forehead and he leant down to pick out a bottle of mineral spring water.

The inadequacy of the excuse seemed to hang in the kitchen for a moment, before it flopped onto the floor completely and began to decay.

Sasuke scowled and lifted the glass top of the bottle to his lips and let the liquid slip down the hot rough insides of his throat.
What had he been thinking? Although the fact of the matter had probably been that he hadn’t been thinking, at all.
He’d had butterflies when the blond had bounced up to him, all impossibly yellow hair, tanned skin and that fantastic smile. He hadn’t been aware of the fact that he had said “Yes.” until after Naruto had walked off giving Sasuke a cheery wave over his shoulder.
Leaving Sasuke to be stared at by what he thought must have been the entire University.

Which was bad.

It was very bad.

Disastrous, really.

He could remember the exact way Gaara had crossed his arms and looked at him with a certain amount of knowing on his face. Sasuke didn’t have many people who knew him well or cared for him deeply, being distrusting, brusque and somewhat what one might call antisocial in behaviour, those he was closest to boiled down to a grand total of three people in the entire world.
The list consisted of his brother, his cousin, and Gaara.
Being close to Itachi wasn’t something Sasuke could really help. They’d gone from admiring younger sibling and cool older brother to: I tolerate you, then: You really irritate me, then: You irritate the hell out of me I hate you and then back to: I tolerate you again.

Itachi was within words obnoxiously perfect; he always knew everything and how to deal with it. He was serious when he needed to be serious and funny when it pleased him. There was no situation he couldn’t deal with an he knew it, confidence made strangely attractive and alluring, but he’d never in his life made a stab at a committed relationship.
Arguing that he just couldn’t be bothered.
Itachi had looked after Sasuke, argued with him, bickered, bitten, rolled on and hit him on a number of occasions when they’d had full on fights.
But it was still Itachi that without fail had always been able to wiggle information out of his brother.

If Itachi Uchiha had a hunch something was afoot and you weren’t telling him what it was, he’d hold your head down the toilet until the blood rushing to your brain or the water flooding down your nostrils convinced you that anything better than this, and you obligingly spilled your guts.
Then for some reason he’d always order take out.

Sasuke swallowed the last few droplets of liquid and set the bottle down on the black marble countertop and found that he was unconsciously gritting his teeth.

He wandered aimlessly for a while about the large kitchen, not really hungry, feet curling against the under floor heating, looking for something to do while he waited for the…for that…idiot.

On several occasions he caught himself peering at his reflection in the reflective surface of the fridge, even on occasion running his fingers through his hair, although he didn’t know why he bothered. His hair insisted on sticking up at the back like that, no matter what he did to it.
It was when he tried brushing the bangs away from his forehead to see whether or not he looked better with his hair away from his face that he realised he was acting like a school girl with their first crush.

He immediately left the kitchen.

Sasuke Uchiha was twenty years old, just.
He was also first year University student, studying Law in the country’s capital. It was his first semester and he was already top of all his classes.

Not that that surprised anyone, Itachi had gone to the same college and had graduated with a First with what people had described as being with disgusting ease.
But then again that was all to be expected from an Uchiha.
If his father had still been alive, then he probably would have been proud of both of his sons. Or at least that’s what Itachi would tell him sometimes, in a slightly querying voice over a glass of coke and rum, as if he doubted the truth of the statement himself.

Their father had been strict to the extreme, and it had always been hard to determine whether you had done something right or wrong from the domineering quirk of their father’s eyebrow without going to their mother about it first. Of course that had all changed after the plane crash, and now all Sasuke had left to go to was Itachi.

It would have been alright, maybe even allowed Sasuke to open up a little, had it not been for the fact that Itachi was very nearly always out, he was always doing something, some prior engagement that he couldn’t break, or some commitment about work. He’d disappear off with the words “We’ll talk about it later.” Only when later came he was usually so exhausted the only thing he could manage to do would be to collapse into bed with all of his clothes still on. To which Sasuke would habitually remove his shoes whilst he was sleeping. This was more out of practicality than common courtesy. As Itachi had once had something over the bottom of his shoes which had gotten all over the sheets, and as Sasuke had insisted contaminated the washing machine and had badgered Itachi into buying both new sheets and a new washing machine. Itachi thought Sasuke was slightly neurotic, Sasuke didn’t tell him that it was because the washing machine had eaten his favourite pair of socks and he was bitter about it.
Despite the fact that he had a good relationship (usually) with Itachi, Sasuke had learnt to be silent not just about his feelings towards their parents’ sudden deaths but everything else under the category of personal relationships.

He disliked talking about his feelings, and as such had a tendency towards shutting people out. It probably accounted for the reason he had less than a handful of friends not that he wasn’t popular, with men and women.

But there’s a difference in being able to tell a person your deepest darkest secrets and being admired from afar. Sasuke had had quite enough of the admiring to last a life time, throughout secondary school he had found love notes in his locker, in his desk and Valentines Day was a habitual nightmare, climaxing one awful Thursday afternoon when between fifty to a hundred girls had appeared outside his house with homemade chocolates and confessions of undying love and then proceeded to try and annihilate each other.
It had ended with Itachi threatening to call the police, whilst Sasuke from the safe confines of the house had sarcastically pointed out that “Aniki, you are a policeman.” to which Itachi had pulled out a gun from beneath his undershirt and proceeded to shoot three times into the air.
Which wasn’t strictly allowed, but no one was going to argue with him (being the old Chief inspector’s son) in that mood.
The front garden had been trashed, their mother’s petunias having been trodden on and the lawn, dug and torn up in places.
Itachi had carried on for a week about lawsuits, money in reparations and women in general, before he realised Sasuke refused to say anything on the subject, quickly dropped it and fixed the front garden himself.

That had been the last Valentine’s Day Sasuke had ever spent at home.

Sasuke’s problem was probably more along the lines of not being able to express himself, he was bad with words, and communicating his feelings in a house where his father believed in keeping a stiff upper lips had stunted his skills of communication even further. He’d developed a temper; a somewhat unconscious arrogant expression and a magnificent way of raising his eyebrows that would make the person on the receiving end feel three inches tall.

To call him self-important would have been a mistake; he was neither driven nor obsessed with absolute perfection. He’d lost his drive a while back, along with the smoking cinders of his parents’.

He was however filled with the confident notion of the fact that he was in fact better at certain-most things then the average person was.

It didn’t make him perfect (he’d leave that to Itachi) but it made him superior to most. True excellence in another person was always to be recognised and admired from a distance and a few of his peers impressed him, but never to the point of actually starting up a conversation or, heaven forbid, smiling at them. So he carried on in the way that he was, formal, almost cuttingly polite, the air of a private schooled middle class University student from an influential background with nails that were perfectly manicured and hair that was jet black and as dark as his eyes, which were an ashen shade of grey.
One might have described him as handsome, even beautiful but a sorrowful sort of good looks, like one might describe a single flower in a sea of grass as beautiful. Lonely and melancholy and pinned into an icy fraction of time that splintered the universe. It might have been that which made him so attractive to other people, the idea of perhaps saving himself from, well himself.
But as far as Sasuke was concerned he didn’t need saving. He was happy getting good grades, impressing his professors, doing adequately as well as Itachi had done at his age, he didn’t sign up for extra activities, and ignored the drama department as though it contained the plague. He didn’t sing, he didn’t paint, he didn’t draw, he didn’t write, he didn’t dance; he didn’t like bossing other people about, and he didn’t laugh.

No.

He was quite content with becoming a lawyer building up a successful career and then marrying some quite dispassionate strong woman who wouldn’t object to raising children and he would never have to think about anything ever again. That was ‘The Plan’ anyway, or at least it had been until two minutes past three this afternoon when something dreadful had happened.
So outrageous, so unexpected, so unlike him he had to take a step back and wonder if this was really him at all.


He had a crush.


Uchiha’s don’t get crushes. Neither are they moved passionately, they marry for background and fortunes purposes only, thinking with your head at all times. Matters of the heart were dangerous, unpredictable and foolish; to be ultimately avoided at all costs.
Sasuke had never had a crush before, or even a fleeting fancy romantically for another person within his whole life, so why out of the blue on that particular Friday afternoon he should be struck so thunderously and start reacting, and thinking in all these different ways was beyond him. He kept comparing the turquoise clay vase that stood on the antique Chinese cabinet to the blue of Naruto’s eyes, and the milky cappuccino he’d made earlier to the healthy colour of Naruto’s skin. Sasuke had poured the cappuccino down the drain when he had caught himself sighing over it, and had put the vase inside the cabinet rather than look at it and feel his heart constrict within his chest one more time.

Part of him wanted to claim that it was an awful, terrible mistake, that he was sick, tired even. He’d only met him that afternoon and albeit it hadn’t been about wanting to meet him anyway. Naruto had been looking right through him at something else and Sasuke had gone and given in anyway despite the fact that his brain had told him to kick this guy in the balls and then walk away for simply having the audacity to come up to him out of the blue just like that and ask him for his help.

But he couldn’t…hadn’t been able to and didn’t want to say no.

So he’d said, “Yes.”

Quietly, almost wonderingly and watched as the fox like seductive smile had become even wider, whilst Gaara looked incredulously on at him.

Oh, it was a crush all right and Sasuke had no idea what to do about it.

He couldn’t threaten it, he couldn’t blackmail it, and it was damned near impossible to ignore as well. On his way home on the tube his eyes had kept flickering to each passing blond head that had passed in and out of the carriage, an odd uncomfortable hopeful feeling followed by an unpleasant squelch as he realised that it wasn’t Naruto, and what he was doing.

Itachi might have laughed but Sasuke didn’t think it was very funny, he’d gone home, thrown his lecture notes and his audio recorder all over the living room, gone out into the garden and scared off the neighbour’s cat by throwing both his shoes at the fat thing and then gone and locked himself in his room in something of a seething temper.

It wasn’t mature or a very bright thing to do, in fact it had given Sasuke ample to time to reanalyse all he could remember of Naruto’s face like how long his lashes were, or the dimple in his left cheek when he smiled, or the way one eye seemed to close more than the other when he spoke sometimes or the soft burgundy curves of his wide mouth and the…

He might have considered drowning himself at that particular moment had not Gaara called him on his mobile, which was unfortunately on his person at the time of said reminiscence. Sasuke was just glad his curtains had been drawn so no body could see exactly what it was he had been doing.

“What?” he had snapped down the phone, sure of who it was before he had even picked up it was too early for Itachi to ring and Sakura would have used his home line.
There was a pause down the other end of the line and a slight crumpling of static.
“You sound breathy,” was Gaara’s to the point and somewhat analytical remark that made Sasuke flush with self awareness and peer once again around his room for hidden surveillance cameras.
“Would you like me to call back later? You sound like you’re in the middle of some ‘alone’ time.”
Sasuke told Gaara in less than a sentence where he could shove it and screw off to and felt somewhat placated when he heard him laugh down the line.

Gaara had two older siblings; so of course he was immune to any form of verbal insults.
“I was just ringing to check you were okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Sasuke snapped at him, he put the phone on loudspeaker and began to rifle through his closet rather than hold that accusatory tone of voice next to his ear.

Although he knew Gaara knew already.

How could he not?

Static again and the slight burble of laughter and people talking in the background, “Just thought maybe…” Gaara replied somewhat enigmatically.
There was a rise of laughter down the phone line again and Sasuke caught himself thinking petulantly that Gaara was having fun without him.

And then assured himself quickly that he didn’t actually care.

“Where are you anyway?” He found himself asking before he could stop himself.

“Kankuro dragged me here,” was the despondent reply in Gaara’s thick hoarse voice, “his band’s playing something for an evening gig and apparently I’m supposed to be here. Not that I was ever told.” He finished somewhat irritably, and Sasuke knew him to be looking over his shoulder with his dangerous eyes the same colour as slaked lime, mouth curled down.

Sasuke felt slightly better.

They talked for a little while, in which had the seeming onslaught of calming Sasuke down for the most part, until Gaara managed to slip into the conversation that Kankuro was good friend’s with Kiba Inzuka, who was, incidentally (Sasuke didn’t think so) one of Naruto’s roommates and had so far been able to establish that Naruto was in fact single, bisexual, obsessed with Ramen and was as noisy as general gossip made him out to be.
Before Sasuke slammed the phone down on Gaara he made sure to tell him that he would strangle him the next time he saw him, and left the room with the sound of his own embarrassment ringing in his ears, leaving behind…his dignity.

It only got worse as time went on.

The more Sasuke had tried to reason with himself, the worse the hysteria had become, he’d started checking the clock every five minutes, drinking too much water to keep himself hydrated because he was stressed, and then having to go to the bathroom in periodical sprees every fifteen minutes and was probably wearing a hole in his bladder.

He’d changed outfits on four separate occasions, one was too formal, one was too casual, one was too old, and one was too new. He’d combed his hair, put gel in it, then washed it, partially blow dried it and then told himself he didn’t care and had allowed it to dry naturally which was a mistake because it was doing that defying gravity thing at the back again.

He’d finally given up and thrown himself onto the living room sofa sending a flurry of what had once been carefully organised notes up and into the air when the front door bell rang and he fell awkwardly off the sofa and felt as if his stomach had been sucked directly out of his body.

He was still wearing slacks and a white t-shirt when he padded out into the hallway, thinking how stupid this all was, and wondering how on earth he’d got himself mixed up in this…mess.
Through the stained glass of the door he could make out the back of someone’s head as they stared out at the front garden, hand raised above their eyes against the sun, and if he wasn’t much mistaken there was the distinct sound of humming on the other side.
Sasuke placed his fingers on the handle uncertainly, convinced that this would lead to something, some life altering event that he would probably end up regretting for the rest of his life.

The door swung open, and Naruto stood there dressed in an old orange leather jacket over blue faded denim jeans and a t-shirt that had the words ‘Dead or Alive’ imprinted in dark bold letters. His hair was still as impossibly bright as it had been that afternoon but Sasuke had forgotten just how blue his eyes were, and how catching that smile was, he was almost smiling himself.

“Naruto Uzumaki!” Said Naruto, sticking out his hand and tilting his head to the side so his hair that went all ways but down moved from his eyes and across his forehead.

Sasuke Uchiha’s heart skipped a beat and then seemed to stop altogether.

This was worse than trouble he thought, this was down right dangerous.

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And if you enjoyed it…review? X3

Love Acacia