title: growing pains
pair: (The boys of) Team 7, with a side-dish of SasuSaku
dedication: To dearest, Mets-obsessed!Missa, who never fails to bring me up when I'm down. Dearest Missa, who has free reign to flay me alive for making this fic so horrendously late.
prompt: handcuffs! Since she gave me free-choice, and that was my prompt for her. :D

summary: Now, now, Sasuke, no need to get huffy. Are Naruto and I going have to give you The Talk?

notes: um. Crack, ahoy?

disclaimer: None of it is mine. NUUUUUUU.

Uchiha Sasuke stared blankly at the contents of Naruto's Christmas gift—a joint present to both the former avenger and his girlfriend—

("She's on loan, you bastard! One day, she'll see the awesome that is Uzumaki Naruto and leave you for the real prize!"

"Are you calling me your property, Uzumaki Naruto? Because that's certainly what it sounds like to me!"

"Oh-oh! Sakura-chan! Didn't see you there! Um, wow, you're looking really, really pretty today! All bright and shiny like, um, ice chips and diamonds, and uh,—"

"Idiot. Just stop talking.")

Haruno Sakura. The latter had yet to arrive, choosing instead to go to the gift-exchange she'd organized with Yamanaka Ino, Hyuuga Hinata, and Tenten, with a promise to come a little later on the evening.

"I can't leave my boys alone, for too long, can I," she'd asked cheerily, and with a wink, and a quick kiss to the Uchiha's cheek, she'd flounced out the door.

Leaving the two alone.

With Kakashi.

Kakashi, who had been reading porn, until this latest unveiling.

Kakashi who'd looked eerily…interested in what the blond had chosen to get his best-friend-slash-rival. There was a glint in his one visible eye, which Sasuke thought with trepidation, couldn't lead to anywhere but the road to—

"What the hell are these?"

Naruto dropped the obnoxiously orange handmade sweater he'd received from his dear Sakura-chan, and looked at Sasuke with a pitying expression.

"They're handcuffs, Sasuke-teme," he said slowly, enunciating the word with careful precision as though he were speaking to a particularly dim-witted child.

Sasuke glared.

"I realize that, you moron. What the hell are Sakura and I supposed to do with these?"

Kakashi mock-sighed, and tucked Icha Icha Paradise into his kunai pocket. Clearly, the show unfolding before him was bound to be infinitely more interesting.

"Now, now, Sasuke, no need to get huffy. Are Naruto and I going have to give you The Talk? Because we can if you need us to, but really now. It makes me wonder what you and Sakura have been doing for the past six months."

Naruto snorted.

"We probably should, sensei. From what I overheard, this bastard has some serious issues when it comes to the fuc—"

"We're just taking it slow," hissed Sasuke, almost defensively. He berated himself for even rising to their not-so-subtle jibes.

Naruto raised a brow in disbelief.

"Slow? Why? Isn't six years of foreplay long enough?"

"Shut. Up. Now."

Kakashi patted Sasuke on the head, snatching his hand back quickly before his former student could (attempt to) rip his arm off and force-feed it to him.

"Yes, do be quiet, Naruto. You know Sasuke's delicate. It's not nice to make fun of him for something he can't help."

Naruto waved him off, and looked at Sasuke with relish.

"There's no reason we can't help them along, though."

As though working with one shared mind—and later, Sasuke could be heard loudly voicing his agreement to such an assessment—in one swift motion, Naruto made a few hand seals resulting in one infuriated, tightly-restrained, chakra-string-bundle of Sasuke.

As this was happening, Kakashi whipped out a bright orange covered video tape and slid it home into the player.

After Naruto had gagged their unwilling teammate, Kakashi pressed play. A raunchy tune began to fill the air, and Sasuke's eyes bugged out.

They wouldn't…

Kakashi smirked at the look of horror on his protégé's face.

"Oh, Officer! That's a…big stick, you've got there…"

Sasuke attempted to flail his way to freedom, dignity be damned.

Naruto snickered, before turning to walk away. He certainly had no intention of staying to watch—

"Hey! Lemme go, you pervert!"

After a few moments of struggle, Kakashi smiled, his eye curving into his customary happy n-shape. When he drew back, there was a bundle of tied-up Naruto sitting next to Sasuke.

He turned back to the TV, ignoring the quiet threats of dismemberment being aimed at him by his visibly seething former students. Sasuke was taking turns between glaring daggers at him, and taking vindictive comfort in Naruto's misfortune. Naruto on the other hand, was saving all his rage for his turncoat teacher.

Kakashi sighed, leaned back into the comfortable plushness of the love seat, and proceeded to enjoy the show.

-

"Bye guys! This was great! We're doing it again next year, yeah?"

"Definitely!"

"You bet, Forehead!"

"Yes—it was a lot of fun."

Haruno Sakura waved as she fit her cap snugly on her head.

"All right, then! I'm leaving now!"

After the customary chorus of goodbye, she stepped out, locked the door behind her, and shifted the bags she was holding so there would be an even amount of weight in both hands.

She smiled.

It was time to go home to her family.

-

"Oh…don't stop, I'm so close—oh! Yes, oh yes, oh yes, yes, yes!"

Naruto, long ago resigned to his fate, watched the tape with barely concealed boredom. While he didn't much like porn, he certainly was no stranger to it, having traveled with Jiraiya for a good chunk of his teenage years.

He looked at Kakashi, who was watching the television with rapt fascination, a steady bluch creeping over the fabric of his ever-present facemask.

On his other side, Sasuke looked infinitely worse for wear.

His eyes were crossed. After a few initial moments of mingled shock and anger, his morbid curiosity—and a healthy dosage of repressed!avenger hormones prompted him to open his eyes to take a look.

He barely suppressed the urge to throw up.

Boys…did that? And girls liked it?

Did that mean Sakura would—

"I'm home!"

Kakashi, whose face—or, his eye anyway; how did he manage to be so expressive with that single feature?—had registered a mild panic at Sakura's sudden greeting, composed himself and calmly pressed the stop button on the VCR.

Naruto's head snapped up, panic writing itself across his features. Somehow, someway, he knew he would be blamed for this.

Sakura breezed into the living room of her apartment, taking careful note of the strips of wrapping paper strewn around in haphazard disorder. No matter, there'd be time enough for—

"Naruto."

Hi, Sakura-chan!"

"Sasuke."

"…Sakura."

"Do tell why you're both tied up on two of my dining room chairs."

When no one answered, he began to tap her fingers in careful rhythm on the sleeve of her pink sweater.

Kakashi took careful note of her rising half-ire, half-hysteria, and ruffled her hair.

"Hi there, Sakura-chan, lovely to see you again. Got-to-run-your-gift's-under-the-tree-don't-hurt-them-too-badly-take-care-bye!"

And with that, he poofed out of existence. Or rather, out of the pending warzone.

She turned her attention to the two left.

"Well? I'm waiting."

"Kakashi made us watch porn, and I didn't want to, but he sat us down and made us," Naruto piped up in one breath, hoping to save himself from his precious Sakura-chan's formidable wrath.

Sasuke glared at him.

"Sasuke-kun?"

"Hn."

Sakura breathed in, and with a flick of her wrists, dispatched the last of the ropes binding Naruto—the others, he'd halfway gnawed off in a last-ditch attempt for freedom.

"You can go, Naruto. Thank you." Not once did she remove her eyes from her beloved Sasuke-kun, who was still sitting, barely pink-faced—interesting, her Inner Self noticed, before cackling gleefully—staring into nothingness.

Naruto smiled nervously at her and turned to leave. His eyes caught on the handcuffs he'd given them, buried under piles of wrapping paper. With a quick bend, he'd taken them out and tossed them to her.

"Merry Christmas, Sakura-chan! Use it wisely!"

With that, he ran out the door, leaving one pink-haired girl with a tied-up Sasuke in front of the television. She regarded him thoughtfully, eyes switching from his still-dazed form and the bit of metal in her hands.

After a few more moments of silent contemplation, Sakura made her move.

A click, and something cold surrounded his wrists. He found himself standing, and facing the wall, wondering how dazed he must have been, to find himself caught in this position. He felt a hot breath brushing over the nape of his neck, and swallowed past the lump in his throat.

"You, my dear, are under arrest."

-

FIN.

I hope you liked it, my dear. I'm so sorry once again, for the wait!

(squishes you all!)