{naruto}

Taking his leave, booking a cab and getting to his flat was the easy part, getting from the front door to his room was the difficult part.

"Naruto! Kurama spent the whole day guarding the window. Someone broke in again, didn't they? Who was it?" Sakura blocked him in the entryway, demanding to know. "Why don't you ever tell me anything?!"

"Uchiha." Naruto threw out in an attempt to distract her as he tried to dance past her. Though, in fact, it has been Uchiha who broke in so technically he was giving her the answer she was asking for.

She was having none of it. "Ah yes, why pray tell are you getting drunk and making out with Uchiha Jr all over the internet?" she waved her arm to the TV that was playing some or other gossip story.

The headlines said Caught Lip Locked! Some blue haired lady was talking to the host.

"Can we not do this right now, Sax?" Naruto's nose scrunched up at the TV as he tried to push past her, heading towards the corridor that led deeper into the flat.

He needed a shower, because at this point he felt he embodied a liquor store counter after a shoot up. He then needed to place a call... to Gaara. He'd gotten so drunk that he had missed his daily call to the redhead and he would pay for it.

Sakura blocked his path to the corridor, stubbornly playing defense. Her eyes narrowed. "Oh no you don't, this happens now! Do you know what a PR nightmare this would have been to clean up if Shisui was...anyone but Shisui? Kakashi isn't a magician. He can't pop a magic trick every time you screw up. You could start to look like a loose cannon that parties all the time!"

Naruto let Kurama fuss over him, sniffing and nipping at his hand. Naruto gave in and patted his head. "Maybe I am exactly that, Sakura."

"Okay, first of all, you aren't. And second, if you are, the world doesn't need to know. And third, you know all of that! Stop being a child! I know very well that you just want to annoy me with your argument so I get frustrated and stop. But that's not going to happen, I know you too well for that." She sighed when Naruto concentrated on Kurama, pointedly ignoring her.

Grabbing him by the elbow, she hauled him over to the couch, forcing him to sit. She remained standing, looking down at him like he was a naughty child. His shoulders slumped in resignation.

"Rasengan will put you on the map. You will get all kinds of scripts and auditions but it doesn't look great if you're caught making out with the producer's younger brother. This affair can put a question mark on your talents, Naruto!"

Sakura frowned and sighed heavily when Naruto didn't respond.

She knelt in front of him, folding her hands on his knees, resting her chin on them. Kurama licked at her cheek but she ignored him. "Look, I know that it's difficult for you. I get that. I really do. You didn't get the chance to live your teen years but our goal is to get your face all over the world and you can do it, it is very possible at this point and you'll ruin your chance if--"

"Sakura-chan, I really like Sasuke!" Naruto blurted, cutting his roommate off. Sakura was silent for a minute, caught between fuming silently or punching something violently.

"You've got to be kidding me. Are you high? Did he give you something? Are you defending him because you could get in trouble? You can be honest with me."

"I do not appreciate those accusations, Sakura. Sasuke isn't like that." His protest weakened at the end because her hands had started tightly gripping his knees.

"What do you know what he's like? You don't know him better than me. I mean except his mouth, you went on a thorough exploratory tour of that cave! He's been arrested and tried for arson! Arson! Do you know what that means?" She was tearing at her hair by then. "He lights things on fire! For fun!"

"Well that explains why my body is still burning then, doesn't it?" Naruto said with minimal infliction. He dully wondered if he should just tell her he point-blank that was going to be dating the Uchiha as she let out a high-pitched groan, still pulling at her hair while one her knees in front of him.

"I think I could even love him." Naruto admitted aloud, softly.

"Naruto!" She exclaimed in desolation, her hands in her hair again, pulling at pink. "This is not the time to be distracted by hot boys! You are so very young! There will be time for that later!"

"No Sakura," Naruto shook his head. "I'm saying could actually be happy with him."

"There is no happily ever after for anyone! Once a criminal always a criminal! His past will bite you in the ass!" She said, finally hoping to talk him out of it with reasoning.

"Then bring out the handcuffs and him and I will live unhappily ever after!" Naruto refused to be reasoned with. Plus, our pasts are intertwined already.

Her jaw dropped. "Naruto. You could actually be the only exception and you could be throwing away your best chance!"

"And Kurama too!" Naruto added when the big guy barked and hopped a little in hopes of receiving some attention. "See, he's up for the challenge."

"Naruto! This is bad!"

"What are you saying Sakura? You're the one who said there is no such thing as bad publicity." Naruto shrugged, untangling her hands from her hair and smoothing her fingers out on his knees, patting them in a somewhat soothing manner. "So I'll be the bad boy everyone loves. That's it. That's all it is in the end anyway...a persona."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't notice bad if it shoved a crow down your throat!"

Naruto huffed. "I heard your complaint. I'll think about everything you said. Can I go take a shower now?"

She sighed and stepped aside. "You torture me."

Naruto dropped a kiss on her forehead as he passed by her, opening the door to his room. "You tolerate me," he replied.

He stepped into the room and froze. Sitting in the middle of his bed with his legs folded under him Indian style sat Gaara. He looked like he was probably meditating. Hands relaxed in his lap, back straight, eyes closed and slow breathing was involved.

"Gaara!"

"You didn't call." his voice was soft, unconcerned but questioning. His eyes remained closed.

"I'll leave you to your domestic." Sakura couldn't help a grin and tease. Knowing if Naruto said he'd think of it, he would.

"We're not having a domestic." Naruto shot at her while he ushered her out of his room because she had meandered in at some point. Like the pain in his ass she was.

"Shouldn't have cheated on him with baby Uchiha," she added, popping her head back in after he'd closed the door on her.

"We're not couple," Gaara added half-heartedly. The accusation didn't bother him as much. He could see the point she was making. "Although I agree, we'd make a decent couple."

"Gaara, you know I'll always love you. What I have for you is not something fleeting, it's beautiful, it's called a pseudo-romantic friendship. We draw the line at platonically drunk-making out a couple of times. Also I am currently seeing someone, sorry." Naruto shrugged after delivering those lines, internally grinning at her shocked response.

"You what?" Sakura popped her head back in, her hands buried in and pulling at pink locks. "Uchiha?! Why can't Uchiha be your pseudo-romantic sometimes make out platonic thing on the side?!"

"Because that would never work. He's--" Naruto cleared his throat. A forest fire, is in bad taste after that not-so-little factoid about arson. "He's different."

Gaara looked at him for a long moment, teal eyes opening for the first time, and then started laughing.

"Uh, what is going on?" Sakura asked.

"I don't know. Maybe, uh, maybe corny shit is right up Gaara's funny bone." Naruto replied as he sat down and pulled his shoes off.

Sakura observed the scene curiously. "Why wasn't that the first thing you told me?" she demanded when she figured Gaara wasn't losing his mind. Which, in her defense, had been known to happen.

"I agree with Sakura. I was thinking way worse than you just getting laid!" Gaara dropped back onto the bed, laying down.

"You got laid?" Sakura tried to push her way back into the room as Naruto tried to shove her out. It was a rather embarrassing because she was putting up a great fight.

"I didn't get laid!" He told Gaara because Gaara often was very imaginative. Then he turned to Sakura and repeated. "I didn't get laid."

"Didn't you?" Gaara said thoughtfully. "How curious."

"For God's sake! Hey, Sakura, can you let us have our domestic?"

"So you accept that you two are going to have domestics?" Sakura pressed.

"Uh-oh." Sakura laughed when a couple of green frog slippers smacked at her as she ducked out of the room again.

"I'm okay with polyamory." Gaara offered.

"For fuck's sake!" Naruto tackled Gaara off the bed as Kurama wandered in, joining the puppy pile on the floor.

~

{Sasuke}

Sasuke watched the cab pull away. Naruto had said that he wouldn't be staying the night as Sakura basically moms him when she's home, so he would be missed. Sasuke slowly headed back up the driveway, easing the door to the front entrance shut behind him.

Of course he would be missed. A presence like his is unavoidably noticeable.

A light clicked on in the living room, dramatically highlighting not even half of Itachi in a dim orange glow. "Do come closer, brother mine."

"Itachi, I'm afraid to inform you that you are, in fact, a drama queen."

"Be that as it may, since you include me in your nightly schedule of sneaking out, by checking to see if I'm otherwise occupied before you make your escape, oūtoto, I think it's only fair I ask where you are going."

"Nowhere. See, I'm here. Home. Just went out for a breath of fresh air."

"More like a breath of fresh air came over." Itachi corrected, he was leaning forward with interest now, elbows on his knees.

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"Okay, you aren't going out tonight, but you did go out frequently. What have you been upto, then?"

"Research," Sasuke replied, a small smile playing on his lips.

Itachi looked at it for as long as it lingered. He then shot out of his seat and grabbed Sasuke's face so he could look at it properly. "Do that again."

"Do what? And get off me!" Sasuke tugged at Itachi's sleeve.

"Smile like that again," Itachi demanded.

"No!" Sasuke frowned exaggeratedly deep instead.

"What were you thinking about?"

There were the beginnings of that smile again. One pair of impossibly dark eyes met another and the smile was clamped down on.

Itachi's smile puts a stop to Sasuke's attempts at prying on the hand still on his jaw. "You better not be up to something bad, Sas. Especially arson. That was a difficult one to fight."

"A necessary evil, I assure you, Aniki. Now, let me go." Sasuke let go of Itachi's hand and simply waited. Ready to wait Itachi out.

Itachi returned the favour and let him go. "Tell me. What were you doing?"

"Stop Itachi!" He sounded a bit whiny then. Even a bit pouty at being prodded. "I was just... trying to...make friends."

"You get too intense about people. Who have you been stalking for the past couple of weeks, brother? Will I be seeing a restraining order soon? Or a jealous groupie of yours trying to harm my star."

"No."

"So is it Naruto, then? That video wasn't a stunt to lure someone else out. You actually like my star."

"Okay, you have to stop calling him that."

"But it's true."

"Just fucking stop, okay?!" Sasuke yelled and then they both tensed in surprise at his outburst.

"Good lord, you really fancy him a lot."

"Is it so hard to believe?"

"Not at all..." Itachi paused. "But..."

"Don't."

"Isn't he a bit young?"

Sasuke groaned.

"He just turned twenty. And you'll be twenty-six in a bit."

Sasuke looked like he would throw a fit. "If he's okay with it, and I'm okay with it, then what is your problem?"

"He's okay with it? You've spoken to him about this, then?" Itachi sat back down but still leaned forward, his smiling face completely in the shadow.

He doesn't want to share but he wants Itachi know, so Sasuke mutters his reply softly, "Yes, we have a date."

"Are you sure this is mutual?" Sasuke's glare made him backtrack a bit. "Okay, okay. I just I meant to say...You work fast."

Sasuke flushed at that.

"Congratulations."

"Shut up!" Sasuke fumed as he stomped away. The way Itachi spoke to and treated him always made him feel like he was ten again. Damn that man.

"I do believe I owe Kakashi." Itachi said thoughtfully.

Sasuke stomped back into the room. "You bet against me?"

"I won last time." Itachi shrugged and Sasuke glared at him. "Kakashi is just a romantic."

Itachi grabbed a stress ball to toss about as he opened his laptop to observe the footage on his laptop of the commercial they had shot. The promotional clip Naruto had altered right before Sasuke's eyes. It was so rare to see someone that could get on Itachi's level and get such a reaction from him.

"He's quite the hopeless romantic..." Itachi added while watching him make notes on a sheet. A sheet that had a lot of orange markings on it.

Sasuke took a minute watching the clip of Naruto's character storming into the police station claiming to not know who he was. It sure looked even better through the angles and lighting used.

Sasuke smiled. "Let him have hope then."

Sasuke promptly left so as to avoid having his brother read something more in his posture. Or worse yet, ask more questions.

Sasuke headed into his room, he flipped the light on and paused. On the bed sat a note.

He had not noticed it before. Had he left the room before Naruto? In retrospect, Naruto had definitely said something about having left his shoes.

Dear bastard,

Tuesday, 7.

I'll leave the window open.

N x

The note just sat there.

Physical proof that he'd get to hopefully spend undisturbed time with Naruto. Sasuke was quickly getting tired of wanting to be with someone without knowing who they've been for so long. Without knowing who they want to be.

His future to him had always been crystal clear, a path chosen for him, a tough journey, a fight, an uphill battle. A nightmare - but it had always been clear to him and he'd started to work on it.

With Naruto in the picture now, parts of his life had turned into unquantifiable variables. He was uncertain where he was going because it now connected foundationally to where Naruto wanted to go. His future was now riddled with magic eight-ball answers;

I don't know.

Ask again.

Is the sky blue?

It may not be decidedly so.

Don't count on it.

My sources say.

Until and unless he had Naruto's past mapped out, how could he help with Naruto's future? As that is what he'd chosen to do. Be involved in this man's life however he could. Sasuke determined that their date would see him taking charge and asking all the right questions.

It was high time he had some answers.