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I thought I knew what I was getting myself into.
I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.
It was like the more I tried to not think about sex, the more I thought about sex. And he knew it.
“Stop,” he growled, putting down the sponge in the sink in a way that somehow made the whole house shake.
I looked slightly above his head, focusing on the curtain rod over the window. “Stop what?” I asked innocently.
“Stop,” he repeated, turning abruptly back to the dishes he was washing.
I swallowed and kept my eyes on the curtain rod. Curtain rods were safe, and not phallic at all. Phallic. Phallis. Penis. Sex.
“Go home,” he said, not looking at me.
“Sasukeeeee.”
“You promised me.”
I fell quiet.
His back was tense, and he washed the dishes with a stiff, jerking motion of his hand.
“I’m sorry,” I offered quietly. “It must be the full moon or something, I dunno why I’m so horny.”
“So this is going to be a monthly occurrence?” he asked with a sniff of disdain.
“No?” I tried. “I don’t know.”
Sasuke rinsed the last of the dishes and put it in the drainer. He still didn’t turn around. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me,” he finally said.
I almost snapped at him that I wasn’t even looking at him, but then I thought better of it. “I know.”
“Then why are you still doing it?”
I took a deep breath. “I can’t control it.”
“Everyone is the fucking same,” he muttered. He pulled out a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and poured himself a shot.
I got annoyed at that. “What do you want from me?! I haven’t tried anything, have I? I respect you and your boundaries compl-”
Sasuke snorted at that. It was a very un-Sasuke-like sound if you didn’t know him like I knew him.
“I’m sorry, did you have something to say?” I growled at his back.
Sasuke threw back his shot and slammed the glass back on the counter.
“And you’re not going to pour one for me?” I added.
He pulled down another shot glass and pushed the bottle towards me.
I approached him carefully, taking the bottle and pouring my drink.
Sasuke moved away abruptly, going to sit at the table.
If it were Hinata, it would be so easy to fix. I’d rub her shoulders, tell her a joke. The anger always melted away easily. At least until the very end. Then it became an unmovable thing.
Sasuke was not Hinata.
I sat next to him, but not too close, setting the whiskey bottle between us. “Don’t be mad at me.”
“Who’s mad?”
“You, obviously.”
Sasuke sniffed his disdain at me.
I offered my hand to him.
He ignored it.
I pouted.
“You’re a grown man,” Sasuke muttered, shaking his head.
I poured us both another drink. “A full-grown man,” I agreed.
“Then stop acting childish.”
“I’m getting drunk with my soulmate. That doesn’t seem like an activity for children,” I said. I took a long drink to prove my point. It probably wasn’t the best idea, because I was used to drinking the swill they served at the bars in town, but Sasuke only kept the good stuff in his house. “Damn, that’s strong.”
Sasuke half-smiled. “Pussy.”
“You’re not good enough at drinking to be looking down on me,” I complained.
“Better than you.”
“You want to test that hypothesis?”
“It’s been tested and validated. Many times over.”
I scowled at him. “I will definitely drink you under the table tonight.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Don’t patronize me!”
Sasuke smiled full-on, refilling my glass. “Let’s see it, then.”
“Oh, I’ll show you,” I muttered, taking a drink.
Our shoulders brushed.
“Keep up,” he hummed near my ear, refilling his empty glass.
“You’re not mad anymore?” I asked, giving him a pathetic look.
“I’m not mad anymore,” he said. He touched my arm.
I felt relieved, tugging him closer and giving him a chaste kiss.
Sasuke bumped our noses together, then pulled back. “Keep up,” he repeated.
I quickly fell behind.
“You would think that with all the practice you have that you would be better at this,” Sasuke hummed.
“Shaddup, jerk,” I grumbled from where I was sprawled out on the floor.
Sasuke put down his glass and lay beside me.
I pulled him to my chest, and he let me. I held him close, feeling like everything could be okay.
But it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t.
Sasuke woke up cranky, because as much as he was better at drinking than me, he was still a middle-aged guy drinking too much.
Also, I told him that, which didn’t help his mood.
“Why are you here?” he growled at me, throwing his blanket off of himself and onto my head.
“I live here,” I complained from under the blanket.
“You most certainly do not.”
I pulled the blanket off and tried to fix my static-y hair. “Sasuke. When was the last time I didn’t sleep here?”
Sasuke looked like he was about to retort, but then his brows drew together in confusion. “When… was… the last time?”
“Can we just agree that this is a common law marriage already?” I requested, getting up and going to the sink to get two glasses of water.
“No, we cannot,” Sasuke said, looking offended.
I handed him his glass of water. “Would you wanna get married again?”
“Is this a serious conversation?”
“Kinda,” I said, sitting next to him on his futon and drinking my water.
“Why would I want to go through that again?” he asked sharply.
I sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I got it.”
“You don’t get anything.”
I sighed more loudly.
“You like to pretend that you’re such a benevolent, understanding guy, and it is complete and utter bullshit,” he informed me.
“Tell me how you really feel.”
“And can you take care of that ridiculous thing?!” he demanded, gesturing dramatically at my morning wood.
“Rude,” I muttered. “He didn’t mean that, darling,” I murmured soothingly to my penis.
Sasuke made a disgusted noise.
I looked at him for a long while. Then I set my glass down, and took his out of his hand, setting that down, too. I grasped his hand tightly in mine. “Sasuke. Baby. Sweetie. Love of my life.”
His glare got darker at every term of endearment.
“You need to get over my dick.”
I left Sasuke sputtering while I got ready for work.
He did not look happy when I was ready to leave. “You didn’t eat,” he muttered, shoving a brown paper bag at me.
“Yeah, today’s gonna be busy,” I said, taking the bag. I peeked in to find a nice loaf of bread, stuffed with jam. “You coming in later?” I asked, kissing his cheek.
“Training your son.”
“Better you than me,” I said, deciding to go in for a real kiss.
Sasuke met me halfway, lips pressing firmly to mine.
I smiled into it, feeling relieved. It wasn’t like we were really fighting, but we were definitely fighting.
“Don’t smile,” Sasuke muttered, pulling away. “You don’t deserve to smile.”
“Do you even listen to yourself talk?” I asked with a laugh. “You’re such a horrible person.”
“I’m your horrible person,” he said, kicking me out the door.
“I love you!” I called as he slammed the door in my face.
Oh, yes, we were definitely fighting.
I went to the office, ready for another dull day of endless paperwork.
Hinata came in after lunch time, tired from chasing cats with her team all morning.
“Hey,” I said, putting down the contract I was reading.
“Hey yourself,” she said, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. “You haven’t forgotten that you’re having dinner with Himawari tonight, right?”
“I booked a reservation at Ichiraku’s for two,” I said, giving her a dazzling smile.
“Okay, I’ll send her over at six,” she said, coming over to the desk and handing me her mission report. “Boruto said he was sorry he couldn’t make it.”
“He did not,” I said with a snort.
“Okay, no, he didn’t,” she said, giving me a rueful smile. “He keeps going off training with Sasuke at all hours of the night. I’m sure you’ll see him later,” she said, hesitating over the last part.
The thing of it was, Sasuke and I hadn’t actually told anyone that we were together.
I think it was just assumed.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t have any missions over the weekend, and then maybe I can get him to spend some time with his old man for once,” I said, flipping through the report.
“Thank you, I think that would be good for him,” Hinata said.
I glanced up at her.
She was giving me a tight smile.
“What?” I asked, wondering what I’d done wrong now.
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head.
“Hinata…”
“I have work to do,” she said quickly. “Himawari will be coming here at six, so I expect you to not keep your daughter waiting.”
“Of course,” I said, even though I knew it was going to be tight getting everything done before then.
“Goodbye,” she said, and then she was gone.
I’d never once in my life imagined that Hinata and I would get divorced. Now I couldn’t understand how we’d lasted as long as we did.
Hinata devoted her existence to being the perfect wife and mother. It was easy for me. It was convenient. I never stopped to think about what she was giving up.
She stopped being a person to me. She stopped being a person to herself. She simply lived to serve her three children.
She seemed happier now.
“Daddy, let’s go!”
My eyes flew up from the paperwork I was signing. “Shit.”
“Dad,” Himawari said, crossing her arms over her chest and shaking her head.
“I didn’t curse, no need to tell your mother,” I said shiftily. “It’s already six?”
“Yes, and we’re going to eat ramen, so get up,” she said, tugging on my arm.
I let her drag me out of the office. I could always finish working later.
“Did you get taller?” I asked as we walked.
“Since last week?” she snorted.
I looked at her feet. “Since when do you wear high heels?!”
“I thought I’d dress up for our date.”
I was suddenly suspicious of all the prying eyes looking at my daughter. Sasuke would definitely have scolded me for it. He said I was kind of misogynistic, which coming from him was just the pot, the kettle, and all the blackness.
I forced myself to relax once I had ascertained that no one was looking at Himawari too closely, and just enjoyed spending time with the only member of my family who still liked and respected me.
“I’ll be in Suna next week,” she said as I walked her back to the house.
“Did I send you on an out-of-towner?” I asked, scratching my nose.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Be safe,” I said, kissing the top of her head.
“I’ll stop by your office before I go,” she said. She stood up on her tippy toes and hugged me tightly.
“Okay, love you, baby girl.”
“Love you, too.”
She disappeared into the house that we had lived in together for so many years.
It was weird how I missed living in a place I’d spent most of the last five years avoiding at all costs.
Hinata was always nagging me, especially after everything with the Ootsuki clan finally came to an end.
“Why can’t you come home and eat dinner with your family?”
“I have work.”
“What work?! We’re at peace.”
“The village doesn’t run itself.”
“You always find time to go drinking.”
The ‘with Sasuke’ was implied.
I dragged myself back into the office. Shikamaru had long since left, so I burned the midnight oil alone.
It was the early hours of the morning, and I thought about going to my apartment. I quickly dismissed the idea and went to Sasuke’s. Why break a perfect streak?
Sasuke was asleep when I arrived, Boruto passed out next to him on my futon.
I changed quietly and snuck into bed with Sasuke.
“Idiot,” he muttered, voice cloudy with sleep.
I curled into his chest and closed my eyes with a mumbled, “Night.”
My son was staring at me when I woke up.
I rubbed my eyes, grumbling at the sun that was shining in them.
“Naruto, you’re going to be late,” Sasuke said from the kitchen area.
“I don’t wanna go to work,” I whined.
“Tough shit,” he said, throwing a kunai at me.
I shrieked and dove out of the way. “What’re you doing, you maniac?!”
“Come on, Boruto, we’ll have breakfast and then go to the training grounds.”
Boruto gave me one last long look before traipsing after Sasuke.
He hadn’t been happy with me since the divorce, and while he hadn’t reached his pre-puberty level of rebellion yet, I missed when he at least vaguely respected me.
My week became a blur of paperwork. Sasuke was off doing Sasuke Things, and we didn’t see each other much beyond waking up in the morning and dashing out the door. Then it was finally the weekend, but I’d promised all my time to my ungrateful son.
“I thought Sasuke would come with us,” he complained when I picked him up for our camping trip.
“What part of father-son camping made you think that Sasuke would be joining us?” I complained.
“Well, you two are… whatever you are,” he said with a shrug.
It would have been so easy to just get Sasuke to come with us. Boruto would be happy, I would be happy, Sasuke would pretend to be miserable but would actually be happy.
But I didn’t want to keep making the same mistakes. “I’d rather spend time just the two of us.”
“Cool,” he said, leading the way as we took to the roofs.
Sasuke was in his garden when I got back the next day.
I hesitated a moment, still feeling the unresolved tension bubbling under the surface. Then I ignored it and threw myself at him.
Sasuke put down his gardening shears and caught me wearily.
“HiImissedyou!” I said, smothering him with affection.
“The house was… quiet,” he said, which I decided to interpret as he was very lonely without me. “How was camping?”
“It was good,” I said, pressing my forehead insistently to his. “Sometimes Boruto and I just need to spend time together.”
“Did you talk to him?” Sasuke asked.
“Huh? Of course I talked to him,” I said, swaying our bodies in a music-less dance.
He rolled his eyes at me. “I mean about us.”
“What about us?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“Everyone already knows, don’t they?”
“People still like to be told things.”
“Did you tell Sakura and Sarada?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” I said, losing the rhythm of our swaying. I looked at him.
“Yes, really,” he said flatly.
“What’d you say?”
“I said, ‘Naruto and I are together.’”
“Was Sakura mad?” I asked, eyes probing his.
“Yes.”
“Like, really mad?”
“No.”
“Oh. Okay. How did Sarada take it?”
“She said something to the effect of, ‘no duh.’”
I laughed, resuming our little dance. “I didn’t know you were going to tell them.”
“You’re the one proposing marriage after two months of dating,” Sasuke said, rolling his eyes.
“I wasn’t proposing, I was just… ya know, seeing where we stood,” I hedged. “And come on, we’ve been together way longer than two months.”
“Officially together,” Sasuke corrected himself.
I put my head on his shoulder, feeling his arm tighten around my waist. “Hey, do you hear music?”
“No.”
I rested my hand over his heart, feeling a faint thump against my hand. “I do.”
“Naruto, please do not say that the music you hear is my heartbeat,” Sasuke groaned.
“It is,” I whispered in his ear.
He tried to give me a disgusted look, but he was smiling.
I grinned. I gave him a smooch on the cheek before resting my head on his shoulder again. I didn’t know why we were slow dancing in the garden, but it was nice.
“Let’s go inside,” Sasuke said when it started to get dark.
I kissed his neck, not quite ready to separate.
Sasuke squirmed.
I pressed my cheek into the bare skin instead, and felt him relax. “Sasuke?”
“Yeah?”
“We need to talk…”
He straightened up, his body stilling.
I tried to loop my fingers in his, but he just brushed by me. Of course I’d ruined the perfect mood we’d had going.
“Take in the laundry,” he ordered me.
I sighed, stopping where the laundry was hanging. I folded it all into a neat pile and carried it inside.
Sasuke was making tea in his angry Sasuke way.
“I don’t see what you’re so angry about,” I said, knowing before the comment had even fully left my mouth that it was the wrong thing to say.
“Who is angry?” he growled at me, his tone frosty.
“You,” I said.
“Do you want to see me really angry, Naruto?”
“God, no.”
He smiled at that, but it wasn’t a nice smile.
“Sasuke, come talk to me,” I said, sitting at the table.
“I’m making tea.”
“Does the water need you there to watch it boil?” I teased.
“Yes.”
“Sasuke, come here,” I said. “Please,” I added for good measure.
He came, sitting across the table from me.
“Do you have to be so far away?” I asked.
He stared at me.
“I’d like it if you came and sat next to me,” I tried.
“I’m more comfortable here,” he said, unmoving.
I nodded my acceptance. “Okay. Well. So.”
“Do you want to have sex?” he asked, eyes unblinking.
“Uhhh… what…?” I said, thrown for a loop.
“Do you want to have sex?” Sasuke asked again. “With me?” he clarified.
“Uhhh… yessss…?” I said, scratching my nose. “But you’re not offering?”
“Wasn’t that an offer?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
His head tilted slightly to the side, and I felt pretty confident that I’d given the correct answer. “I’m offering,” he said, turning up the intensity in his stare.
I hesitated. “No, you’re not.”
“If I undressed right now, what would you do?” he asked, hand absently sliding against his kimono and revealing more of his neck.
I swallowed. “Uh, I dunno.”
“Think harder,” he said, still expressionless.
“Um,” I said, adjusting myself. “I guess come in my pants?”
His whole façade cracked into a giant eye roll. “Really? Are you an adolescent? The sight of a naked man just causes you to spontaneously ejaculate?”
“I’m really pent up!” I protested, trying to defend my honor. “And to be fair, you’re not just any naked man, you’re like the most eligible bachelor in the Land of Fire.”
“Only in Fire?” he sniffed.
“God, your ego,” I muttered. “Yes, my love, you are the fairest in all the lands.”
He looked pleased.
“I don’t know why you like revel in me being attracted to you, but then get mad at me for being attracted to you,” I pointed out.
The look immediately soured.
“We need to clear the air on this,” I continued. “Things were fine before.”
“Before we started dating,” Sasuke put in, a certain look in his eyes.
“Before we started officially dating, yes,” I agreed. “But we were… pretty together before that. And it was fine.”
Sasuke didn’t deny it.
It wasn’t like our relationship had changed much since our first kiss. The only real difference was the kissing itself, and that I’d gone from sometimes living in Sasuke’s house to always living in Sasuke’s house.
And of course that now Sasuke was repulsed by my sexuality.
He hadn’t even cared before.
We had gone to the public baths a few months ago, and I had shamelessly ogled him the entire time. Sasuke had laughed about it. And he’d flirted with me. Well, Sasuke-flirting, anyway. Telling me how uncool I was while smiling softly. Looking at me like I was dirt while letting his hand rest next to mine, pinkie fingers just barely brushing.
Then there was the time he basically touched my dick.
We’d been drinking at the bar like usual, and Sasuke was sitting kind of too close, or I was sitting too close to him, and he just smelled good, so I’d told him so.
He’d leaned in, lips brushing against my ear as he said, “Getting a hard on because your friend smells good is pretty gay, Naruto.” He’d concluded it with a pat to my thigh, almost-not-quite-but-sort-of touching the very obvious bulge there.
That was probably when I’d really come to terms with being gay for Sasuke, because I had gone from not even noticing my little half-chub to being fully at attention.
He’d just smiled and poured me another drink.
“Why does it bother you now?” I asked directly.
“It doesn’t bother me.”
“I am going to kick your ass if you don’t start being honest,” I grumbled.
“I would like to see you try,” Sasuke said, giving me a dangerous look.
Of course it went straight to my groin.
He made a disgusted noise.
“You don’t get to do that!” I snapped.
He stared at me.
“No. Enough already,” I said. “I don’t attack you for your sexuality, so you don’t get to attack me for mine.”
“No one is attacking you,” Sasuke said, looking down his imperious nose at me.
“Shut your yap and listen to what I am saying.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Oh, I heard you, but I think you want to rethink your choice of words.”
“No, I’m good with it.”
Sasuke did an amazing thing. He didn’t retort.
I was kind of taken aback, and it took me a minute to get back into my groove. “It’s not wrong or bad or whatever for me to be sexually attracted to you.”
“Your attraction is unwanted,” he interrupted, because of course he couldn’t stay quiet.
“Well your fucking unattraction is unwanted, but I know that you’re not going to change, so I accept it as part of you and move on.”
I could see in his eyes that he was hurt by that.
“Sasuke…”
“Get out of my house.”
“No?”
“Fuck you.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “You’re not being fair.”
“Why do I need to be fair?” he snarled.
“Because we both want the same thing?”
“No, Naruto, we don’t,” he said, his hand clenching into a fist. “We don’t want the same thing at all.”
“To be happy? To be together? You don’t want that? Because that’s all I’m asking for.”
“It’s not all you’re asking for!” he snapped, slamming his fist on the table and making the wood splinter.
I did the only manly thing I could think of and teared up.
“No, no fucking emotional blackmail!” he shouted, but the fury was already draining out of him. “We can’t fix this, Naruto.”
“It’s just a stupid, stupid, meaningless thing,” I said, blinking excessively. “Why is this turning into the end of our relationship? It’s stupid. We were happy ten minutes ago. Why are we fighting? I don’t get it. I don’t get you. How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t care if you’re whatever you are? I don’t care! I’m happy! I love you! Why do you have to be so obsessed with sex? I don’t care, Sasuke! I don’t care!”
“So this is my fault?” he said, trying to be angry but cracking around the edges. “Of course I’m obsessed with sex, because you’re obsessed with sex! You’re always staring at me, and I know what you’re fucking thinking. You want and you want, and I can’t give you what you want, and it’s just…” he trailed off and mumbled something about being useless.
I scrambled onto the table and grabbed his shoulders, gripping them tightly. “No, no, no, don’t say that, no.”
“Don’t touch me,” he said, looking away as he shrugged off my hold. “I don’t want you to touch me right now.”
“But I need to,” I said desperately, sitting on my hands.
“Isn’t that the problem? We’re not compatible. At all. This is never going to work.”
“Sasuke,” I whimpered, not bothering to hide the desperation in my voice. “Please don’t do this, please, come on.”
“We’ve just been fooling ourselves,” Sasuke mumbled, refusing to meet my eyes. “This was all too easy, and we for-” The words froze in his throat as the sound of splintering wood cracked through the air.
“Ow,” I said, feeling dazed. I sat up, surrounded by the rubble of the table.
Sasuke was staring at me.
“Ow,” I repeated, looking at a long gash dripping down my arm.
Sasuke was still staring at me.
“I think we broke the table,” I said.
He let out a startled bark of laughter.
I shifted uncomfortably.
“Get off of there, idiot,” he said, holding out his hand to me.
I took it, and he pulled me over to him, assessing my injuries.
“Nothing Kurama can’t heal,” he murmured, pausing to pull a splinter from my leg.
“I’m sorry about your table,” I said pathetically.
“I’m sure I broke it when I hit it,” he said, fingers stroking restlessly along the gash on my arm as it healed slowly under his touch. He started gnawing on his bottom lip, one of his nervous ticks that rarely made an appearance.
“Sas’?” I prodded carefully.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“For punching the table?” I asked, scratching my nose with my free hand.
“No, stu-” he stopped himself, taking a breath. “No. For all of this. I didn’t mean it. I don’t care. Everything is fine. We’re fine. I’m sorry.”
I needed to touch him, a pathological need that I tried to sate in just reveling in the feel of his fingers skirting up and down my arm. “We’re not fine.”
I saw the doubt flicker in his eyes. “We are.”
“No, we need to talk this out all the way,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not going away, no matter how much we ignore it.”
“I know,” he said. He was just holding my arm now, his grip slightly too tight on the still-healing skin. “I know it’s not, but if we… I don’t want this to be over.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” I sighed. “I feel like this is all just a big miscommunication.”
“I fail to see what’s not being communicated. You want to have sex with me. I don’t want to have sex with you. There you have it.”
“I don’t want to have sex with you,” I said, squinting at him.
Sasuke looked at me like I was the stupidest human being on the face of the earth. “Your constant horniness seems to contradict that statement.”
“Okay, so my dick has suddenly come back to life after like seventeen years of disuse…” I agreed. “But it’s just ’cause I’m happy, yeah?”
“You’re happy, so you have a constant erection?”
“It’s not constant,” I protested.
“Naruto.”
“What’s wrong with me getting a woodie now and then?” I protested. “Let me tell you, nothing! Absolutely nothing! Who knew that I could still be so virile in my forties? You should be proud of me, dammit. You should be proud of my upstanding dick!”
Sasuke’s face was frozen.
I knew he wanted to laugh.
He turned his head away, a little tremor running through his shoulders.
“Don’t you dare,” I said. “If you laugh, me and Corporal Naruto will be so insulted.”
“C-corporal?” he sputtered. Then he dissolved into laughter. He let go of my arm and pulled me into a hug.
I threw my arms around him, clinging.
“Too much,” he said quietly.
I loosened my grip and put a little space between our bodies.
“Okay.”
“Very okay,” I agreed, so happy to feel his warmth, to smell his Sasuke-smell.
“You’re so weird,” he muttered
“That’s why you like me.”
“Who says I like you?”
“You do. Like on a fairly regular basis.”
“I do like you,” he admitted.
“I like you, too,” I said, staring into his eyes. “I like you so much.”
“We have to stop having these academy-level crush confessions.”
I laughed, rubbing my nose against his. He did make me feel like we were twelve years old again sometimes, and it was a nice feeling. It made me feel like I hadn’t wasted the last thirty years of my life, becoming some old man that I didn’t even recognize.
“I don’t know how to change,” he said, eyes sad.
“I don’t want you to change,” I repeated for the millionth time.
“Something has to give, Naruto. This isn’t working.”
“You keep saying that, and I don’t get it.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.”
“Explain it to me.”
He eased away from me, glancing at the demolished table for a moment and shaking his head. “How much more clearly can I say it?”
“A lot more clearly,” I said. “You keep saying that I want to have sex with you, which I don’t.”
“What the hell are you always getting hard for, then?” Sasuke snapped.
“Okay, well maybe you should stop wearing these damn traditional clothes that you love so much around the house,” I said, pulling at the top of his kimono. “Why’s it always gotta be so open? Have some class! Wear your ugly vest and your stupid but appropriately cut cape that you always wear outside of the house.”
“Excuse me, I’m not going to be criticized by the man in the orange jumpsuit,” Sasuke said, looking very offended, and not even bothering to affect any modesty as his damn kimono slid open even more. “Shit, the tea,” he said, getting up and going over to the stove.
“Do you not like me thinking about you sexually?” I asked, scratching my nose. I glanced at the rubble of the table and wondered where we were supposed to drink our tea.
“Are you going to blame me for the way I dress again?”
“Well you are kinda askin’ for it…”
“This is comfortable,” he said.
“How is it comfortable to have your man-titties out for everyone to see?”
“Come over here.”
“So you can beat me?”
“Yes, and to drink your tea at the counter.”
I got up and accepted the tea, taking a sip. “Sas’, I think you’re super sexy, and obviously you fuel my sexy thoughts with your slutty house clothes. But my fantasies about you are pretty unimpressive. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that I have no idea how gay sex even works, so…”
“Oh my god, Naruto, you just find a hole and stick your dick in it, it’s not that complicated,” Sasuke said with a sigh.
“Yeah, but like that hole?”
“Do you have another orifice that we’re not aware of?”
“I don’t know,” I whined.
“I’m not going to give you a sex education class,” he said. He drank his tea in his angry, sexy Sasuke way. “You are really stupid,” he added as an afterthought.
“Well aren’t you just a man of the world,” I said. “I can count the number of times you’ve had sex on one hand.”
He frowned at me. “And yet I can still figure out how two men have sex. So I stand by my assessment of your intellect.”
“Is that any way to speak of your hokage?”
“If that hokage is you.”
“You should at least address me with an honorific.”
“Idiot Hokage-sama.”
I tried to feel insulted and not turned on. I wasn’t having much success.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered.
“But why not? Do you want me to try and hide it from you?”
“I think you should just get castrated.”
“I’m not getting castrated! Whatever that means!”
Sasuke paused. “I know I joke about you being stupid, but really, Naruto? You don’t know what that means?”
“I’m not a walking dictionary!”
“Can we just start over?” Sasuke sighed, putting his cup in the sink and picking up the sponge to wash it.
“Whaddya mean?”
“This day, this conversation,” he said. “This relationship.”
I hopped on the counter next to him, sipping the last of my tea.
Sasuke held out his hand for the cup.
I gave it to him, and he washed it.
“We’ve always just worked,” he said quietly. He set the cup in the drying rack, but stayed in front of the sink, staring out the window. “I’ve never had to… I can always be myself with you.”
I waited, watching the complicated emotions crossing his face.
“I wish we never put it into words, because now I feel like there are these expectations, and I just can’t… I’m never going to want you. Ever. If you’re holding on thinking that someday I’ll just love you enough to…” he trailed off, shifting uncomfortably.
I made sure he wasn’t going to continue before I spoke. “Sasuke. Who had to sit through all of your drunken rants about Sakura molesting you?”
The forlorn look left his face, shifting into annoyance.
“I know you think I’m an idiot, but I was listening,” I continued. “I get it. Well, I don’t really get it, but I get it. I don’t think that our love is spec- well, no, okay, our love is the greatest love of all time, but I know that despite that, it’s not going to magically transform you as a person, okay? I’m not biding my time. I’m happy with my autographed picture and my right hand.”
He looked uncertain.
I grinned at him.
“You really use that picture…?” he finally said, his attempt at lightening the mood.
“Heck yeah!” I said emphatically. “I fantasize that the picture is really you, and that you’re watching me and making disparaging comments.”
He breathed out a laugh. “And that gets you off?”
“God, yes. You telling me that I have the stamina of a geriatric sloth is my finishing move.”
He laughed a little louder.
“I love making you laugh,” I said quietly.
“I’m sorry I’m such a shit partner,” he said, staring into the depths of the sink.
I held my hand out to him.
He waited a beat, and I almost thought he wouldn’t take it, but then I felt his warm fingers curling around mine.
“We’ll figure this out,” I said, squeezing.
He nodded. “Yeah. We will. We always do.”
I felt like my sense of balance had been restored.
“I need a workout,” he said suddenly, letting go of my hand.
“You mean an asskicking?” I asked, grinning as I hopped down from the counter and followed him out into the woods.
“Try me,” he said, turning to stare me down over his shoulder.
I went at him with everything I had, and he gave it right back.