Disclaimer: Still applies. Don't own, not making money, etc, etc…
Warnings: See first chapter.
Author's Note: Dudes! Here's the next installment of this. I know a bunch of you want the next part of "I Love Teaching" to come out, and I am writing it, but I'd already written half of this when I published chapter three, so it was the easiest to finish…
But I will publish chapters of "I Love Teaching." Chapter 7 is in the works. But in the mean time, enjoy this one, okay:giant kitty eyes:
Chapter 4
Sasuke was...surprised.
As a member of the Uchiha family, it went against Sasuke's genetic code to feel strong emotions of any kind. Ideas such as fear, shock, joy, etc. were just that to Uchiha—ideas. So, when Sasuke's...erm, teammate...arrived at his apartment at two in the morning, absolutely sopping and shivering something wicked, Sasuke was simply surprised.
Really, really surprised.
...Yeah. Surprised. Let's call it that.
"Naruto," Sasuke said, his voice almost perfectly expressionless. "What...are you doing here?"
Naruto's characteristic cheesy grin faded into a pout. He crossed his arms and began tapping his foot, bare toes squishing wetly with every thump against the porch.
"Excuse me? 'What are you doing here?' Oh hell no," Naruto said. "I did not just come out of my way—in the rain, Uchiha, it's raining, ya know —to subrogate—"
"Subjugate," Sasuke corrected.
"—myself to this shit," Naruto continued, ignoring Sasuke's interruption. Naruto turned around and began retreating down the porch. He raised a hand in a half-wave.
"Fuck this shit. I'll see you tomorrow, fuck."
Naruto continued walking to the porch steps, and was about to descend when he paused, one foot hovering above the first stair. He blinked, seeming to come to an extremely important realization. Comically robotic, he abruptly pivoted on his heel. He marched back over to Sasuke's front door, squish-squish-squelching all the way.
"...Heh-heh," Naruto said awkwardly, using, as per usual, a huge grin to mask his discomfort. "Um...could I just...dry off a bit before I go?"
Sasuke blinked slowly, trying to process the increasingly bizarre circumstances he was being presented with. He'd always known—since he and Naruto had met—that Naruto was a seriously weird kid. But showing up at Sasuke's house (and how the hell did Naruto figure out where Sasuke lived, anyway? He made sure to keep the location of the Uchiha compound a secret to his teammates…) in the middle of the night was going above and beyond Naruto's typical level of abnormality. This was almost too weird to deal with. And, admittedly, extremely awkward, too. Especially since this was the first time the boys had seen each other since Sasuke had gotten out of the hospital. Since—
Sasuke commanded himself to stop thinking immediately.
"Sasuke?"
Sasuke blinked, refocusing on Naruto's face. The younger boy looked suddenly vulnerable, luminous eyes huge with nervousness. He took a half-step backwards, anticipating Sasuke's rejection.
It never came.
Sasuke reached out and grasped Naruto's wrist with his calloused hand. The iciness of Naruto's skin contradicted its warm, sun-kissed color. Naruto looked into Sasuke's face, clearly confused.
"…Well, come in already," Sasuke commanded gruffly. "You're flooding my hallway."
Naruto stepped into the mansion immediately. Sasuke shut the door, since Naruto was occupied with rubbing warmth back into his arms. Now that he was inside, Sasuke knew, Naruto would be feeling even colder than before. The sudden heat of the house would be a shock to Naruto's system, which had adjusted itself to being extremely wet and cold.
Goose bumps on Naruto's skin were visible even from where Sasuke stood, more than a foot away. The younger boy was shivering so violently, it looked like his body was being shot through with electric bolts.
"Um," Naruto said, teeth clicking together loudly. "C-Could I bor-row a towel or s-something?"
Sasuke blinked.
"Yes," he said, berating himself for not thinking of this immediately. "Of course."
Sasuke ran into the closest bathroom and snatched one of his towels off towel rack. He trotted back over to Naruto, who was hugging himself desperately and bent slightly at the waist. At Sasuke's approach, Naruto straightened.
Jesus. Naruto's clothes were plastered to his body, making him seem skinny and sad, like a wet bird with all its feathers stuck to its skin. His blonde hair dripped torrents of water down his face, and his skin had paled beneath his tan. Even the brilliant blue of his eyes seemed paler, less vivid than usual. He looked so, so cold.
Before Sasuke even realized what he was doing, he was wiping the rain off Naruto's face with a corner of the towel. Naruto froze—even his shivering subdued slightly. Feeling oddly disconnected from his body, Sasuke ran the towel over Naruto's skin, pushing the wet bangs off his forehead, brushing the tip of his nose, drying his cheeks. The towel crept lower. Sasuke watched, fascinated, as it caught the corner of Naruto's mouth…
The boys jumped apart simultaneously. Sasuke threw the towel into Naruto's face and spun around, not eager to see what was sure to be panic in Naruto's eyes.
Get a grip, Uchiha. What is wrong with you?
Sasuke glanced around the living room, suddenly wanting to do something with his hands. His eyes fell on the stairs in the corner of the room that led upstairs—to his bedroom. He looked away quickly.
"Um," he said brilliantly. "I'll get you some clothes."
Naruto didn't respond, just continued to rub his face with the towel.
Sasuke dashed upstairs and snatched one of his t-shirts and a pair of pants from their respective drawers in his bureau. He ran back downstairs, trying very hard not to think about Naruto wearing his clothes, keeping his mind from imagining the way Naruto's wet thighs would stick to the insides of Sasuke's pants…
Nngh.
Sasuke stopped half-way down the stairs, blinked hard a few times, carefully rearranged his features into an expression of bored superiority, then reemerged from the staircase and walked over to Naruto. The younger boy was vigorously towel-drying his hair. Naruto stopped abruptly and shook himself like a dog, water flying everywhere. Sasuke got splashed.
"Oi!" the sixteen-year-old snapped. "Cut that out!"
Naruto froze and blinked. His blonde hair was thrown everywhere around his head and face, sticking up in little yellow tuffs. He looked about eight years old.
Naruto grinned cheekily. "Oh, heh-heh, sorry, Sasuke," Naruto said, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's kind of a habit."
"Well, break it," Sasuke said. "It's annoying. And you'll get a concussion if you keep shaking your head around like that."
Naruto attempted to scowl, but as an unfailingly joyful person, the best he could manage was a pout. "I'm not going to get a concussion. You're just pissed off 'cause I got you wet."
Nngh. "Pissed off" isn't exactly the term I'd use…
Sasuke threw the clothes into Naruto's face.
"Put those on," he said.
Naruto hesitated, clutching the clothes to his stomach.
"Well, what are you waiting for? You're dripping all over my floor."
Naruto hesitated for another moment before reaching for the hem of his shirt and stripping it off. And everything went really quiet all of a sudden and the shirt hit the floor with a wet splat loud enough to startle, but Sasuke wasn't really paying attention to it, because Naruto's chest was beautiful and unscarred, and his stomach was flat and sloped downward into his pants and the dip of his navel looked obscene, and there was a lewd little notch right in between his collarbones that made Sasuke want to sink his teeth into it and feel the arch of Naruto's throat as he threw his head back…
Sasuke turned around.
"Come upstairs when you're done," he said, heading for the steps and trying to ignore the heat coiling around and around in his abdomen.
There was a tentative knock on Sasuke's open bedroom door a few minutes later, and he looked up from where he was pretending to read a book on strategy.
"Ne, Sasuke," Naruto said, tugging at the waistband of Sasuke's pants. "I think these clothes are too big."
They were. They almost fit height-wise, since Naruto had just gone through a growth-spurt, but because of said growth-spurt, the blonde was left as a beanpole that his muscles couldn't quite compensate for yet. Sasuke's growth was much steadier, so his body had been almost perfectly proportional since he was about ten. As a result, Naruto was shorter and skinnier then Sasuke was, and the Uchiha's clothes hung off Naruto's frame the way a trench coat would hang off a scarecrow. And they fit even worse because Naruto was wet, clinging in odd places and drooping in others. Namely, the shirt was loose over Naruto's stomach but grabbed his hips and shoulders, and the pants were loose over his calves and ankles but the inseam licked his legs from his knees to his groin. Sasuke became very busy not staring at this for several seconds.
"…Whatever," Sasuke said eventually, because he was pretty sure Naruto had asked him a non-rhetorical question a minute ago.
"What about my clothes?"
"I'll dry them in the morning."
"So I'm supposed to just walk home like this?"
"Unless you'd rather be naked."
Naruto rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. Sasuke felt a very strange thrill at seeing Naruto's skin pressed against his shirt. "What if someone notices?"
"What?"
"What if someone notices that I'm wearing your clothes?"
"They won't. Those clothes don't have the Uchiha crest."
"Yeah, but…what if they notice anyway?"
"Oh, I don't know, Naruto!" Sasuke said, frustrated. "I guess they'll assume we slept together or something!"
Naruto's face flooded with color. Sasuke felt his own face do the Uchiha-equivalent. Sasuke resisted the urge to clear his throat.
"…Whatever," he said after a few incredibly awkward moments. He got off his bed and left the room and after a second, Naruto followed. Sasuke opened a door next to his room and gestured for Naruto to enter. Naruto stepped into a well-kept, incredibly impersonal bedroom, with expensive, bland furniture and a moderately-sized bed pressed against one of the white walls.
"Here," Sasuke said. "Now go to sleep. We'll wait until the sun rises before we talk about why you had to come wake me up at two in the morning."
And Sasuke left the room and closed the door before he could do anything stupid.
He flopped down on the mattress in his own room and stared at the darkened ceiling. The moon was very bright, and a sliver of light cut into the room where Sasuke had failed to fully shut the curtains. Somehow, that one sliver of light made the shadowy room seem even darker than usual.
Sasuke rolled onto his side and stared at the wall. The wall, the wall that was the only separation between Sasuke's bed and Naruto's in the next room. Sasuke reached out his hand and placed it on the cool plaster. He swore he could feel Naruto's body heat leaking through.