Conquest

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Chapter 10
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“I… need a place to stay.”


Naruto’s brain was doing several double takes. His heart was pounding at around a million beats per hour and he was fairly sure that that was the same rate at which The Dagger was twitching. Taking a deep breath, he calmed both heart and cock down. Although his mind was still going, ‘huh?’ switching it up a little with, ‘what the fuck?’


Naruto’s eyes narrowed to slits as Sasuke started to explain exactly what he meant. Of course Naruto knew what Sasuke was asking, why he was asking was what made his expression look so constipated. Naruto began to glare when Sasuke’s speech slowed down a little and his voice was raised ever so slightly.


What, exactly, was it about this bastard that evoked so many different emotions in him? One moment he wanted to pound his ass, the next he just wanted to pound on him. Naruto was disturbed to discover that he could quite happily do both at the same time.


Naruto was resisting the urge to growl now but his fists were clenched. His hot temper always seemed to get the better of him around Sasuke who was still calmly explaining to him that Professor Hatake was very ‘difficult’ to live with. Naruto was still coming to terms with this stupid friendship thing that he’d suggested to the asshole. And now said asshole wanted to move in with him.


“So, since you have a spare room…” Sasuke trailed off uncertainly. Naruto looked carefully into the coal black eyes. Looking for some sort of give away that this was a trick, another way for Sasuke to humiliate him.


And then it hit him again.


The loneliness in Sasuke’s eyes was as clear as daylight to Naruto. How similar they were to Naruto’s own baby blue ones. The feelings they echoed, that the TA probably wasn’t even aware of. Naruto could see it because he felt that depth of emotion all too well when he looked in the mirror every morning. Naruto could identify with whatever was going on in Sasuke. His past was a heavy burden and it looked like Sasuke was carrying one too. He could almost see his reflection in Sasuke’s eyes and his anger faded away.


“Why are you looking at me like that?” Sasuke spoke bluntly, starting Naruto out of his calm. You would think, since he was asking such a huge favour of Naruto, that he could be a little nicer.


“No reason.”


They stood in silence for a while longer, Naruto with his new found calm in life and Sasuke getting increasingly uncomfortable.


“Sure,” Naruto’s heart fluttered a little as the word escaped his mouth, containing himself, trying a little too hard to remain cool and offhand.


“What?” Sasuke actually looked somewhat bewildered at Naruto’s response. Naruto grinned. It was good to see Sasuke looking a little ruffled.


“You can move in with me.”


And there was that damn eyebrow again.


“Just get your shit together and here is the address to your new place.” Naruto stepped closer and reached for Sasuke’s hand containing the notepad with a shopping list on it and a pen attached.


Their fingers would have brushed in a pleasant sensation, probably sending tingles up their arms. But no, instead, Naruto was too busy trying to snatch the notebook which Sasuke was holding on to with a death grip.


“Bastard… let… go…!”


Finally wrenching it out of the pale fingers, Naruto recomposed his nonchalant manner. He glanced down at the notepad and started snickering. On one side was a long list of the various types of dog food and on the other was an even longer list of hair products that had all been scribbled out.


He bit his tongue as he wrote down the address on a small corner, amused eyes glancing up to see twitching ones. Sasuke grabbed the list back when Naruto had finished.


“I’ll be there later this evening,” Sasuke murmured, wheeling the trolley in the opposite direction.


Even though Sasuke was once again walking away from him, the image of that night at the restaurant didn’t superimpose on this one. Yes, Naruto still wanted to grab out at him but his heart wasn’t heavy. The mood wasn’t dark and there was one last ramen cup at the back of the shelf and that alone indicated reason for hope.


“Hair products are on aisle four!”


Sasuke didn’t turn back, simply responded with the middle finger.


...


Sasuke was rubbing his temples which indicated the level of his frustration at that moment. He had just informed Kakashi that he had found a place to stay and the man was ignoring him for porn.


“Mmm, alright,” Kakashi was currently sprawled out on the couch, his feet propped up on the arm rest and his cloth covered nose an inch away from a worn green book.


“Well, ok then… bye,” Sasuke turned to begin the process of packing up his belongings. It wouldn’t take long as he practically lived out of a suitcase at the moment.


“Have you told Gai?”


Sasuke paused mid-step, his back stiffening. No. Kakashi wouldn’t do that to him. Well, indeed he would. Sasuke turned to see Kakashi flip open his phone. He was sitting upright now, his legs spread in a lazy position as he scratched his head with one hand. With the other hand holding the mobile, his thumb was flying across the digits of the phone.


A text. His escape plan had been ruined with a text.


...


Naruto was flying around his apartment. The moment Sasuke had left his sight completely, what he had done had dawned on him. He had invited Sasuke to come and live with him. And he hadn’t completely thought it through. He had just been thinking how nice it would be to live with someone again. But Sasuke was not to be a replacement for Kiba.


And then of course he had remembered the state of his apartment. No food in the cupboards. Clothes everywhere, clean and dirty alike. Not to mention the dishes that had been left for so long that they were now an eco environment. He didn’t want to offer Sasuke a place to live only for him to walk in, take one look at the place and walk straight back out. Naruto had standards. He just didn’t have guests all that often.


Which was why Naruto was flying. He wasn’t doing a very good job because he kept tripping over some object on the floor. Pizza boxes, clothes, Christmas tree lights. It seemed that the more he tried to clear the mess, the more of it developed. It was like a mutating alien. One that Naruto would defeat.


When Kiba arrived however Naruto was losing the battle. The moment the dog lover had managed to make his way through the door he had his arms full of a far too heavy Naruto wearing yellow washing up gloves. They had started babbling at each other immediately. Naruto with his legs wrapped around Kiba’s waist, holding on to his ex flat-mate for dear life.


“I need help!” Naruto shook Kiba’s head by his hair.


“I need to hide!” Kiba wasn’t quite sure where to put his hands.


Naruto was soon dumped on the floor. It was a soft landing. They talked over each other for ten minutes not really registering what the other was saying. That was until Naruto had enough and clamped his yellow-gloved hand over Kiba’s mouth and proceeded to talk at him in that manner.


“Sasuke is coming here!” Naruto conveniently forgot to mention the reason why.


Naruto then started babbling about how the cleaning product, Mr Muscle, really doesn’t do the jobs you hate. Kiba managed to listen for a while before slapping his own hand over Naruto’s mouth and in turn talking to him.


“Hinata’s dad and Neji don’t know that we’ve moved in together!” Kiba’s problem was much higher on the Richter scale. “And, I think he kinda, sorta might have found out…”


Naruto’s eyes reduced to slits. “How?”


“It’s… uh… just a feeling I have…yeah.”


...


In the matter of an hour, Maito Gai had assembled an impromptu leaving party for Sasuke. Complete with his student Rock Lee, whom he was teaching people how to bake the perfect soufflé in Kakashi’s kitchen. Asuma and Kurenai had also stopped by. Maito Green Beast Gai was a force to be reckoned with. They were all now standing aimlessly around with ‘hip’ pop music blaring out the speakers and vodka-less punch in their hands.


Sasuke’s grasp on his glass was getting dangerously tight. He still hadn’t managed to pack his things, as few as they were, and it had just gone nine. Gai had somehow coerced them into playing various board games. The most recent of which had been particularly scarring.


The game was called Twister. A large plastic sheet with coloured dots was placed on the floor. The idea was that, with the aide of a spinner, each person was instructed where certain body parts had to be placed on certain coloured dots. The results had been horrifying.


The remaining two had of course been the Green Beast duo. Sasuke was completely certain at one point, when Kakashi told Gai that the spinner indicated left hand to a red dot that he was being mentally tortured by the Professor. The two had ended up in a very provocative position of standing up doggy style. Gai’s green spandex had stretched across his buttocks and outlined his prominent balls.


Sasuke had started gulping down his punch when his eyes presented him with that view, completely forgetting that it wasn’t spiked.


Sasuke set his glass down on the table when that visual swam before his eyes for the fiftieth time in the past minute. He ignored the way all eyes zeroed in on him as he walked self-assuredly towards his suitcases that sat by the sofa. He needed to get going. It was already late and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he needed to stay on Naruto’s good side. Which in retrospect might have been a little too late.


He began stuffing whatever belongings he could find into his suitcase, continuing to ignore the way Kakashi’s one eye was no longer fixated on his porn, or the way Asuma’s cigarette was little more than a stub hanging off his bottom lip.


He walked into the bathroom, brushing past Kurenai who was on her way out and began collecting his belongings from there.


Once everything was packed he turned to face the three seated on the couch. Hoping Gai’s soufflé would at least keep him occupied.


“I’m going now. Thank you for letting me stay,” he nodded in Kakashi’s direction, who only glanced up from his porn momentarily before returning to his novel.


The masked Professor spoke though as Sasuke turned away.


“Have you said goodbye to Gai?”


Every muscle on Sasuke’s back pulled taut and then his shoulders visibly slumped.


...


It wasn’t good when Naruto panicked and it certainly wasn’t good when Kiba panicked. Being together panicking wasn’t exactly a sensible idea either. Naruto was still running around his apartment like a headless chicken trying his best to tidy, while Kiba followed, talking at high speed about what had happened.


“So it was going great, right?” Kiba was explaining the extravagant setting he had laid out for his first time with Hinata. “And she was so beautiful!”


Naruto wasn’t really listening. If Kiba was going to continue describing Hinata as, ‘beautiful,’ or, ‘heavenly angel,’ he wasn’t interested. He had already learnt his lesson for asking her size, so right now he had to concentrate on his immediate problem. He didn’t want to even think about what he had to do to his bathroom.


Dumping some cleaning products in the Kiba’s hands, he nodded along while scrubbing at the kitchen floor. He may have been going a little overboard with this cleaning frenzy, but he didn’t want to give Sasuke any reason to think his place wasn’t good enough. It had nothing to do with the fact that he actually really liked the idea of Sasuke staying there with him. No. He just didn’t want that arrogant asshole walking off for what would probably feel like the twentieth time.


“And I managed to escape in time, we heard him park his car outside and I took the stairs and you should have seen me Naruto, I put James Bond to shame. Inuzuka, Kiba Inuzuka.” Naruto rolled his eyes as Kiba made a show of slicking his hair back.


“But then, Hinata called me, and she said he was looking for me and I just know he knows… you have to help me hide.” There was that panic again and it only made Naruto scrub harder. “He does karate!”


“Kiba, Sasuke is coming over. Look at this place, and it’s all your fault as well. Get scrubbing dog boy or I’m going to give Neji an anonymous phone call. Move. Now,” Naruto growled out, throwing a scrubbing sponge at Kiba who bared his canines in retaliation.


But it did get them into action after Kiba explicitly told Naruto that if Neji did stop over he was to lie his ass off. That proved to be a wise promise to extract from a university student turned cleaning lady.


...


Hyuuga Neji was furious. White hot rage flowed through him all the way down to his fingertips. He drove his car with quick sharp turns, yanking the steering wheel from side to side, paying no attention to traffic lights, his foot pressed hard and consistently against the accelerator.


His mind flashed back to what had happened just an hour ago as his fingers gripped harder onto the wheel, white and bloodless. He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid. He had been paying his baby cousin a visit in the evening, to see if she wanted to go out for dinner.


Neji smacked the horn as a car blared by, more out of frustration than to tell the idiot driver to watch it. Pushing a hand through his loose locks he took a deep breath. It wouldn’t do to be seen as some depraved maniac. Uncle Hiashi had entrusted Hinata’s well being to him, since her father lived so far away and she had so desperately wanted to attend the same university as her cousin. Hiashi had relented, on the grounds that Neji was to make sure his daughter, heiress to his fortune, was protected suitably. And clearly, Neji hadn’t been doing a very good job.


Hinata had answered the door, beet root red and stuttering worse than ever. If that wasn’t a smoke signal for danger Neji didn’t know what was. It hadn’t taken him to long to piece together that Inuzuka had been paying more attention than necessary to his cousin. The hastily put out candles and the sound track to Titanic still playing softly in the background had also been a dead giveaway. Neji had internally hit the roof. Outside he had calmly instructed Hinata to put on something more suitable while he methodically tore up the apartment looking for the man who had been attempting to violate a member of his family.


The only other place that Neji could think of was Uzumaki’s place. He had already stopped by the Union bar with no luck of getting information out of the lazy barman who would mutter, “troublesome,” every so often under his breath.


He brought the car to a stop, smoothly slid out, slamming the door while straightening his jacket. To business. More specifically, the castration of one Inuzuka Kiba.


...


Sasuke’s perfect eyebrows furrowed as he made his way to Naruto’s home. He hadn’t needed a map as he was aware of the location of the housing complex and knew it to be close to the university. However, currently he was receiving little shocks up and down his spine. It was like permanently having déjà vu. And it was irritating him. He had been in this area before. He just couldn’t remember when, why or how. And it was irritating him.

He located the building number that matched the one scribbled on the shopping list. Uzumaki’s handwriting really was appalling.


...


“Neji! What, uh, brings you here?” Naruto plastered a smile across his face, one he had learnt from Sakura which was meant to be completely deceiving. Only Neji just brushed past him.


“Inuzuka is here.” His movements were smooth and fluid but his eyes were scanning across the apartment as if he had x-ray vision. Naruto didn’t doubt that he had and Neji probably wouldn’t use it for good like Superman.


“What? That’s crazy talk!” Naruto tried to pull his arm away from his neck where he had automatically started scratching in reflex.


“He lives here, does he not?” Neji turned his freakishly pale eyes on Naruto and the Naruto’s automatic reaction was to cringe slightly.


“He’s staying with his sister! In France!” What Kiba’s sister and France had to do with anything was anyone’s guess.


“You won’t mind if I have a look around then, will you?” Neji turned away from Naruto to start towards the bedrooms at the back.


“Uh…” Naruto’s eyes widened with every step Neji took towards the bedroom. “That’s trespassing!” Neji turned, a black eyebrow rising.


“Say Neji, while you’re here… you seem like the cleanliness is next to Godliness kind of guy, wanna help me clean?”


And the eyebrow kept on rising. White eyes fully taking in Naruto dressed in old sweats and a T-shirt, a plastic apron wrapped around his waist and yellow rubber gloves on his hands.


“I could really use some help, the bathroom is the worst. Here if I get you some toilet bleach, maybe you could start in there?” Naruto’s eyes went impossibly large.


“I see you have your hands full here, Naruto. I’ll be going.” Neji’s mouth curled slightly in disgust as he made his exit. Naruto was quite tempted to stop the Hyuuga and con him into helping. But he was certain that Kiba, who was currently cowering under Naruto’s bed, wouldn’t appreciate it.


...


He stalked along the corridors, paying no heed to the man with the long black hair walking past him. Reaching the door he knocked with three sharp taps. The door opened. Uzumaki’s face appeared and bellowed into Sasuke’s own face.


“For the last time, Neji! Kiba is not here! Stop coming back unless you’re gonna help me clean!”


The door slammed shut again.


Sasuke blinked slowly. He counted to five.


The door reopened. Naruto’s face reappeared. His cheeks were tinged with red. “Uh… Sasuke…. Welcome!” And then a bright grin was plastered across his face as he stepped aside to let the TA in.


Sasuke gave the Naruto a cool look as he entered. The apartment was different to how he remembered it, it was almost obscenely clean


...


They had been arguing for twenty minutes now and all Naruto wanted to do was shove Sasuke into his own room and try to wash away the smell of bleach from his hands. It hadn’t helped when Kiba had emerged from beneath his bed waving a part of Naruto’s porn collection around exclaiming that Naruto had been, ‘holding out,’ on him. If anything it had only made Sasuke more irritated with him.


Naruto slumped down on the sofa. He was tired of arguing now. It wasn’t until five minutes later that he registered that Sasuke had stopped talking as well and that silence reigned in the immaculate apartment. They sat there in their silence with Naruto now itching to break it.


“I’m sorry,” Sasuke spoke first. Naruto turned to look at the man sat stiffly at one side of the furniture. If Sasuke’s damn loneliness or whatever it was that Naruto kept seeing in his dark eyes would just stop hitting him in the chest every time he was caught unaware then maybe Naruto could stop wanting too.


“It’s fine, come on, I’ll show you to your room.”


This had to work out. Naruto suddenly felt like there was so much more riding on this then just his friendship with Sasuke.


...


Naruto woke up to sounds emanating from his kitchen. Rubbing at his face, he pushed aside the covers. Padding out of his room he went in the direction of the light, his feet leading him while his brain went into a half conscious state.


He stopped at the entrance to the kitchen to see Sasuke there. He had forgotten Sasuke was there, he had thought it had been Kiba.


Sasuke hadn’t noticed him standing in the doorway and Naruto was in no rush to make his presence known. It felt nice not to be arguing with Sasuke, even if the idiot didn’t know they weren’t arguing.


The TA had the fridge open and he was putting three plastic bottles of water into it. But Naruto wasn’t concentrating on that. He shifted to lean against the frame of the door as he watched the way the refrigerator light illuminated Sasuke’s ethereal face. It highlighted the paleness of his skin and showed the blue undertones of his hair and eyes. No one had ever looked so good in fridge light. Naruto’s mouth hung open a little as he continued with his voyeur antics.


“Naruto, you’ve been standing there for a while now, it’s rude to stare.” Sasuke’s voice was soft spoken as he moved things around in the fridge to accommodate the bottles.


Naruto automatically glared as he met Sasuke’s amused eyes. But it soon fell away to a sheepish smile. He walked over and hopped onto the bench beside the fridge, holding the door open.


“I like to drink cold water,” Sasuke explained at the unasked question. Naruto nodded.


“You can have most of the shelves if you like, but the cupboards are mine for ramen,” Naruto rested his arm on the fridge door, the cold causing goose bumps across the skin of his arms.


His eyes made contact with Sasuke’s dark ones, and then dropped to his lips. The Uchiha’s mouth suddenly seemed so much closer. Naruto’s tongue darted out to lick his own lips when Sasuke turned away to put a bottle in.


Sasuke turned back, bottle in hand, leaning in further to push the bottle to the back, he turned slightly and then it occurred again; his pale mouth was so close. Naruto could make out the shape of it, the light causing a greater contrast between the soft and dark tones. This time Sasuke didn’t turn away, his eyes weren’t amused, and there was no arrogant stance to his eyebrows. Sasuke lent in a little, the gap closing slowly between them.

Sasuke was so close. Too close. He could feel the other’s breath on his face now, warm and even. If he leaned in a little more, their lips could brush. Their mouths could mesh and it would be different from their kisses before. Because Sasuke wasn’t pushing him away. Dark eyes were watching his as the gap grew smaller, his mouth drew close and his nose was almost touching the skin of a pale cheek.

Naruto froze.

Sasuke stumbled slightly when the fridge door was pushed towards him, causing him to step back as Naruto got off the bench.

“I better get back to bed, got an early lecture tomorrow, night!”

“…Night.”