Family Portrait

by Kami

Disclamer: I don't own the characters of Naruto nor the song Family Portrait, I do own the characters Joi, Taizen, and Namida and also the premise for this story.

Summary: In a family portrait, looks can be deceiving.

Warnings: Contains yaoi, mpreg, and domestic violence. Not your thing? Then don't Read! By the way, Sasuke is a little bit of a bastard in this story...I never really liked him anyways. So if you don't like stories where Sasuke is a bastard to Naruto, this story is not for you.

A/N: This first chapter is written as it appears in Joi's journal. After this chapter, the remaining chapters will go into third person and be more descriptive. Please don't be too judgmental and flame me because of that. Feedback is welcome, Flames will just be used to toast my marshmellows.

Mama please stop cryin'
I can't stand the sound
Your pain is painful
and it's tearin' me down

I hear glasses breaking
As I sit up in my bed
I told God you didn't mean
Those nasty things you said
You fight about money
about me and my brother
And this I come home to
This is my shelter

It ain't easy, growin' up in World War 3
Never knowin' what love could be
You'll see, I don't want love to destroy me
Like it has done my family

Pink

Chapter 1-Where It All Began

It hung in the middle of the wall in the livingroom above the TV in the Uchiha Mansion. The portrait consisted of five smiling faces, two blonds and three raven heads. Mom and Dad, me, my little brother and little sister. We looked to be a happy family in that picture, but looks can be deceiving. We were far from happy.

My name is Uzumaki-Uchiha Joi and this is my story of how my family fell apart. I'm grown now, but the pain from so long ago is still there. My therapist tells me that writing my feelings down on paper can help me in my recovery, though I have my doubts. So, I guess here goes nothing.

Where to start? Well, my parents met in grade school, but didn't fall in love until high school. My mom, Uzumaki Naruto, was the out cast in school. He was often made fun of and became the butt of many practical jokes. My Dad, Uchiha Sasuke, was one of the most popular boys in school and instigated a lot of my mom's problems. When he told me about how they became friends, he talked about the cruelty he inflicted on Mom with regret. But he didn't realize that in some ways he was still being cruel to Mom.

After his parents were killed in a wreck caused by his brother Itachi's drunk driving, things changed. He didn't take joy in anything anymore. That's when he started noticing the cruelty that Mom was enduring. He started taking up for him and the two became inseparable. Up until High school they were almost like brothers.

Dad had said that it was in the 9th grade that he noticed his attraction for guys. Actually one guy in particular, Mom. He noticed how beautiful Mom was with his sunshine blond hair and how it shown when the sun hit it just right, with his Mediterranean blue eyes how they sparkled when he was excited, and how his lithe form, though still masculine, curved with a feminine grace. And who can forget Mom's smile, one that could light up a room and bring sunshine to someone's cloudy day. Dad knew he was in love, but was afraid on how to approach Mom on the subject.

When he finally did tell Mom how he felt, Mom rejected him, at first. Mom's reasoning was his condition which he felt made him a freak. Though he knew that their friendship might end because of this, Mom told Dad that he had Tetragametic chimerism, a rare condition that only affects 1 of the worlds population. And because of the chimerism, he not only had male sex organs, but female as well, which allowed him to carry children. But instead of Dad shunning him, he embraced him, telling Mom that they had a gift given to them and that one day they could have children of their own.

Dad was never ashamed of his relationship with Mom and never had a problem with public displays of affection. They were often seen holding hands while walking to class or even making out in the hallways between classes. Everything seemed like sunshine and roses, up until the 10th grade when Mom got pregnant...with me. Then everything seemed to go downhill from there.

My Jijii, Iruka, was furious when he found out. He took Mom out of school and demanded that Dad take responsibility for his actions. Which he did; they married when Mom was three months pregnant. They struggled at first, staying with Jijii until I was born, then getting a small apartment in downtown Konoha. Dad had to work full time and go to school, while Mom stayed home and took care of me and the apartment and did the shopping to meet our needs. They fought constantly, Dad over how Mom wasn't pulling his weight and how Dad had to work and go to school while Mom lounged around the apartment all day, and Mom arguing that while Dad was working and going to school that he had to juggle taking care of me, keeping the apartment clean, and doing home school so that he could graduate high school and that Dad had no right telling him that he was a lazy dobe. The fighting went on for months, and it seemed that my parents' relationship was doomed to fail.

Then, finally, Dad caught a break. He had written a poem entitled "Daddy's Little Girl" for a literature project and handed it in to the teacher. My dad's teacher thought it was so good, that he had submitted it to Reader's Digest that was holding a poetry contest, first prize was $500 and the poem would be submitted to a publisher to be published. Dad's poem won, of course. So imagine his surprise when, one day, he walked into his Literature class and the teacher handed him a check for $500.

Since that time, Dad had become an accomplished writer and had written 5 novels, three ending up on the Best Seller's List. Things started getting better between him and Mom. The arguing decreased a great deal, but still, they argued over some things, just not as often. They waited five years to have another baby. I was only five when Taizen, my little brother, was born. Then two years after Taizen, Namida was born.

It wasn't until I was ten that I noticed that things were not as they seemed. I thought we were a perfectly normal happy family and everything was great. How wrong I was.

It was near the end of May, the time when things started really feeling like summer. Taizen had gotten his test results back from the company where Mom bought our home schooling supplies and where he sent our tests, and they stated he had a 6th grade reading level and he had scored high on all other subjects as well. Mom was so proud of him, he decided to order pizza for our supper as a reward. Mom teased him, ruffling his raven hair, saying he was just as smart if not smarter than Dad, causing him to blush and hid his sapphire blue eyes hoping Mom's gushing affection would dissipate by the next day.

We were just in the middle of eating the second sausage and mushroom pizza, Taizen's favorite, Dad arrived home from the meeting he had with his publisher. He glanced around the table at us and then spied the pizza. He fixed Mom with a stony glare.

"Who said you could order pizza?" His tone sounded dangerous, and I wondered what he was so mad about. It was just pizza.

"Well," Mom began, flashing his sunshine filled smile at Dad, hoping to calm his anger with the explanation, "Taizen's test results came back and he scored extremely high. So, I thought-"

"You thought?" Dad interrupted and I could swear his onyx colored eyes turned red. "You thought you could just blow some fucking money without consulting me first?"

Mom jumped at the language my father used, his azure blue eyes widened with fear. He then turned to me, "Joi, take Taizen and Namida and go to your room. Now!"

I nodded in compliance, lifting Namida in my arms, her long blond hair swishing in my face as I adjusted her onto my hip, and grabbed Taizen's hand, lugging him towards my room. I closed the door behind me and set Namada on her feet. There was a worried look in her onyx eyes.

"Why is Daddy so mad at Mommy?" She questioned looking close to crying. If I had to say, I was a little worried about Mom myself, never seeing Dad get so worked up over money like that before. I opened the door a crack to peer outside and see what was transpiring between our parents.

"What's going on?" Taizen inquired, trying to get between me and the door so he could peek out it too, but to no avail.

"Shhhhhhh. Be quiet," I hissed in reply as I keened my ears to hear what was being said.

"-to find you pigging out on fucking pizza!!" I could hear my dad yell, and I began to chew on my bottom lip as he continued, "Do you fucking realize we are on a budget? Do you even think? No, you don't fucking think! You just do it!"

SMASH!! I jumped at the sound. A plate thrown on the floor by my mother, I could see the fierce determination and anger in his face.

"Damnit, Sasuke!!" He screamed shrilly, and I shuddered, I had never seen them fight like that, "Taizen is our son!! I was doing this for him!! And you had to come in and fucking ruin it for him!! And we don't do this kind of thing for our kids that often, so why don't you get off my fucking back!!"

"That's not the point, Naruto!" My father growled in retort, "You could have called me and fucking asked me about it!!"

"You were in a fucking meeting with that Orochimaru asshole!!" Mom screamed almost to the top of his lungs, "It's not like I can call and interrupt and you not get pissed off!! And why the hell do I have to consult you with every fucking decision I make?!"

"Because I'm your damn husband and I bring home that money you've been spending!!" Dad's face was only inches away from Mom's when he said this, "I can't sit around all day expecting money to land in my fucking lap like you do!! When's the last fucking time you got off your ass and looked for a job?!"

"Don't you dare say I sit around here and do nothing!!" Mom's words were laced with venom, "I don't work so I can take care of the kids home schooling and make sure you don't have a nasty fucking house!! If it wasn't for me, this house would be falling apart!! I never fucking complain when you leave you're nasty clothes in the floor or when you track mud in the house!! I do every fucking thing you tell me to do and it's still not enough, because I'm just a lazy mother fucker in your eyes!!"

"If the kids are such a fucking problem and that's why you can't find a job, then why don't you send them over to your damn father's?!" Dad spat out, "I'm sure that he'd be more than happy to take them off your hands!"

"Don't you dare refer to MY babies that way!!" Mom shoved our father away from him, "They're the only thing that make living with YOU bearable!! I am sick of your shit, Sasuke!! If I want to treat one of MY babies to something because they did a good job, I'm gonna fucking do it!! We have enough money to treat them once in a while! You would see that if you weren't such a bastard with the money!!"

SMACK!! I gasped seeing our father's closed fist connect with Mom's face, his small frame on the floor cowering beneath our father's. He looked at Dad in total shock, tears starting to pour down his tan scarred face. Our father seemed to be unshaken by what he had just done, glaring down at our mother with an apathetic expression.

"I'm going out," He said his voice now calm as he made his way to the door and grabbed the car keys off the counter, "This shit better be cleaned up by the time I get back." And he was gone.

I closed the door to my room, not believing what I had just witnessed. I ran my fingers through my long raven hair as if I was trying to wipe away that horrible memory. I was shaking, I wanted to cry but forced back the tears.

"What...happened?" Taizen spoke breaking the silence. I turned to him seeing that his brows were knitted together with worry.

"Nothing," I lied, giving him a small smile, "Nothing at all. Let's get ready for bed."

That morning, the kitchen looked as though nothing had happened. But the memory was far from erased from my mind. I looked up at my mother as he set pancakes on the table for our breakfast. His left cheek was sporting a large ugly purple bruise, the only evidence that the fight the night before was real. He noticed I was watching him and gave me a sad smile and a kiss on top of my dark haired head. Dad looked as though nothing had transpired between them, as he looked through the advertisement section of the daily newspaper.

"Mommy?" Namida blinked her dark eyes in question at the bruise on our mother's cheek, "You've got an owie."

Mom gently touched the left side of his cheek, and smiled softly at her, "Oh, this? It's nothing, sweety. I just...fell." A lie.

Namida nodded her blond head, satisfied with Mom's answer, and continued to devour her pancakes.

"Hey, Dobe," Our father spoke finally, "There's a housekeeping job in here that's offering a few hours a day. It shouldn't keep you from the kids that much, so, it would be perfect for you."

"Sasuke-koi," Mom couldn't prevent the frown from marring his face, "I wish you wouldn't call me that in front of the children."

"Why?" Dad glanced up at him, tearing his eyes from the newspaper momentarily, "It's true...you are a dobe."

I saw the hurt expression on Mom's face as he said that. Mom walked over to the sink, turning on the faucet, and prepared the water to wash dishes. I saw his shoulders trembling and his head hang low to where his blond bangs covered his eyes. I walked over to place my plate in the water, glancing up at him. I was surprised to see the tears rolling down his cheeks. Mom was crying. As I walked away from the sink and back to the table, I heard him utter one word, "Teme..."

TBC...

A/N: Well, there ya have it. I know, I know...my first chapters always suck. But my second chapters come out better. I will have the next chapter ready in...well, it depends on the response. Ja ne!