Grumpy-pants

Merry Christmas, Kantayra! You are the bestest friend one could wish for and I am very grateful to know you

*glomps*

…

Sasuke slammed the front door behind him. With sharp, angry gestures, he took his shoes off, then his ruined shirt. Just a few feet away, Naruto peeked out of the kitchen, a bowl and chopsticks in his hand. He slurped a mouthful of ramen noodles, his eyes roaming over Sasuke's bare chest.

Glaring at the bowl in Naruto's hands, Sasuke stalked forward and into the kitchen. He pulled tomatoes from the basket on the counter, washed them, and started preparing a proper dinner for himself.

"All fixed, then?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke made a sound that could have been agreement. Or an insult. Possibly both.

More slurping, and Naruto asked, "Maybe we should have, you know, actual plumbers look at the entire building? Fix stuff before it breaks?"

"We?" Sasuke repeated, throwing a glowering glance back at him. "I didn't see you help me today."

Naruto shrugged, unabashed. "I know nothing about plumbing. Plus Karin doesn't want me in her apartment, remember?"

Sasuke didn't reply and chopped his vegetables a little more fiercely. He knew Karin would never have let Naruto in, knew Naruto had no more experience with plumbing than he did, knew that this was only the beginning of problems brought on by fifteen years of neglect, knew he had nowhere near enough money to fix everything that needed fixing in the compound – but he also knew that it was his responsibility.

"Hey." Naruto's arms slipped around him from behind, his hands covering Sasuke's and stopping the knife. "It'll be okay. We'll fix things as we go. And if Karin has to take a few cold showers, well, okay, it won't help her bad mood, but it's not like she's such a ray of sunshine to begin with."

Sasuke closed his eyes and – he couldn't stop himself – snickered. "You should have seen her. Drenched and flailing like a fish out of water and she kept gesturing and dropping her towel—"

Naruto's teeth sank into Sasuke's neck, right where, long ago, a mark had stood stark and black on his skin. "I really don't want to hear about you ogling Karin," Naruto muttered. "I'd much rather ogle you."

Turning back to him, Sasuke shrugged. "Well, that can be arranged…"

It was quite a while before Sasuke finally had dinner.

…

Arms crossed over his chest, Sasuke refrained – just barely – from tapping his foot impatiently.

Just half an hour earlier, he had brought a pile of documents for Naruto to read and sign. He'd even told him that he didn't really need to read them since Sasuke had already done that and rejected the ones that ought not to be approved. It was all routine, really. Sasuke would have signed the damn things himself, but it was, after all, the Hokage's job.

And Naruto, of course, couldn't manage to do that much.

He cleared his throat again, louder this time, and seriously considered throwing a katon jutsu at Naruto. It'd serve him right to get out of this with singed eyebrows or something, it might even teach him not to fall asleep at his desk. Unfortunately, the jutsu would have destroyed the documents that still need to be signed, and Sasuke did care about that – one of them had to.

Naruto was still snoring, his sleep completely unperturbed.

Sasuke stalked over to him, leaned in close enough to brush a kiss to his cheek… and yelled as loudly as he could. "Wake up!"

He jumped back before Naruto's flailing arms could catch him straight in the face.

"Huh? What? What?"

Sasuke crossed his arms again and glared.

"What?" Naruto said again, blinking owlishly. "I was just resting my eyes, that's all."

"And the snoring was what?" Sasuke snapped. "A new jutsu you're developing? How to render opponents deaf with obnoxious sounds?"

Naruto didn't even have the grace to look abashed. "Well," he said slowly, "it's not my fault if my desk is so comfortable."

Sasuke eyed said desk in disbelief. It was fairly clean, apart from that pile of unsigned papers – mostly because Sasuke kept it neat. But comfortable? What on earth was Naruto going on about, now?

He understood when Naruto climbed onto the desk and laid down. His coat was unbuttoned and framed his body. His suddenly naked body. That was a very useful jutsu.

"You should climb up here," Naruto said, tongue in cheek. "You'll see how comfortable it is."

Sasuke huffed. He knew it was. They had done this before. Many times.

His pants hit the floor just a second before the pile of papers did.

…

Sasuke looked around the dojo and glowered. A full inch of dust covered the floor, only slightly disturbed where he and Naruto had walked in here just days after Sasuke had come back to Konoha. He hadn't returned to his old family home since then, hadn't even wanted to, and now he wondered what folly had taken him when he had offered to move their growing family in here. It'd have taken a lot less work to move to another house – preferably one that hadn't been abandoned for close to twenty years.

"We can still move elsewhere," Naruto said behind him, his voice quiet and curiously devoid of emotion.

Sasuke didn't need to ask where the kids were; he could hear them, playing in the garden. Isas' laugh was brighter than Sasuke had ever heard it before. Misaki wasn't laughing, not yet, she was still confused about it all, but he could hear the beginning of joy in her voice as she called for Isas.

"They sound like they like it here," Sasuke said, and without much enthusiasm, he started sweeping the dust from the floor, only to be stopped right away when Naruto clasped his arm.

"But you don't," Naruto said when Sasuke had turned to him. "If you're going to see ghosts and bad memories every time you enter a room—"

Sasuke's mouth opened, ready to explain that right now, all he was seeing was dust, and how much work it would be to clean this mess, but the words remained stuck in his throat. What came out instead was a gruff, "I can't keep running away from this for the rest of my life."

For some reason, that made Naruto smile. He took the broom from Sasuke, set it against the wall, and rested both hands at Sasuke's waist.

"You stopped running a long time ago," he whispered, his lips brushing against Sasuke's. "Maybe you just need to make better memories in this house. Make it your home again."

Apparently, better memories involved kissing and grinding against each other on the floor until they were both so hard it hurt – and until the kids came running in, blabbering excitedly about a blue bird they had seen in the garden.

Sasuke looked at Naruto, sitting on the floor next to him, his hair, his face and his Hokage cloak all gray with dust. He couldn't help himself. He laughed.

…

Sasuke huffed.

Next to him on the bed, Naruto didn't stir at all. Either he hadn't noticed or he didn't care. Sasuke huffed again. Louder now.

Naruto sighed. "Go ahead, say it."

Another huff. "I've got nothing to say." He turned onto his side, presenting his back to Naruto.

"Riiiiight." Naruto sighed again. "You've got nothing to say. And you haven't been giving me the cold shoulder all day. And I bet you're not upset about Dai-chan either, huh?"

Sasuke gritted his teeth and didn't reply. He wasn't upset that Naruto had brought another orphan kid home. When Sasuke had seen that report, seen the words 'the child has no other known family', he had known that it would end up like this. He didn't mind, really. His reticence about the way Naruto was repopulating the Uchiha clan had long ago been vanquished by Isas' smile, and Misaki's. But just the same…

"Come on, Sasuke," Naruto said, his hand creeping over Sasuke's hip and toward his crotch. "Don't be mad. She's cute as a button and the kids already love her."

With a quiet growl, Sasuke turned over. He knew, when Naruto jerked back in surprise, that his eyes had to be spinning, but he didn't give a damn. "I'm not mad that you brought her home," he snapped, keeping his voice quiet enough that he wouldn't be overheard from the other bedrooms. "I'm mad because you were so sure I'd say no that you didn't even ask. After all this time, after we've lived together for so long, after we've been a family—"

Naruto stopped him by pressing his mouth hard against Sasuke's. When he pulled back, he looked uncharacteristically serious – and just as unexpectedly contrite.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You're right. I should have asked."

Sasuke huffed again and lay back down on his back. He wasn't sure he was ready to forgive Naruto yet, but at least the idiot looked like he understood.

He also looked like he knew just how to ask for forgiveness… He ducked under the covers, and soon he was guiding Sasuke's pajamas down his legs with one hand, and stroking his cock lightly with the other.

"I promise next time I'll ask," Naruto said, his words muffled by the covers.

Before Sasuke could wrap his mind about that - next time? - Naruto's mouth was on him. It was a long time before he could form a coherent thought again, and by then he didn't care about much anymore.

…

Naruto was tired. Not physically; his body was growing old but he was still fine, and he could still beat Sasuke's sorry ass every other day. No, he was mentally exhausted. There had been a plethora of not so good news again today, and while by every measure the village was thriving and the loss of ninjas was at its lowest level from the past fifty years or even more, Naruto still took every death as he would have a physical blow.

Leaning against the windowsill and watching the village at his feet, he couldn't help but remember the day, long ago, when he had stood in his very spot with Kakashi – and Kakashi had asked him if he was ready to become the Seventh Hokage. Maybe he ought to ask himself if he was ready to find the Eight Hokage already. Part of him yearned not to be responsible for so many people anymore; and still, another part, louder than the other one, refused to let go. They were his people, and taking care of them was what he had wanted to do for as long as he could remember.

As his gaze rose, no longer looking at the streets below but finding the mountain and the faces carved there, his attention stopped on the fourth one. Had it been as difficult for his father? It was just one more question he wished he could have asked him.

Even as lost in his thoughts as he was, he couldn't fail to notice the door opening, and knew at once that it was Sasuke approaching. He didn't look back but waited for Sasuke to join him – and nearly jumped a foot in the air when, without warning, Sasuke's hands slid under his coat, bunching it up just a second before he pulled Naruto's pants down.

"What—"

A hand at the back of his neck stopped Naruto from turning around and pushed him forward until he was bending against the window.

"You're brooding," Sasuke interrupted briskly. "That's annoying."

Naruto's reply probably would have included a reference to pots and kettles, but it was difficult to say anything more eloquent than "nnngh" when Sasuke's fingers were inching their way inside of him, already finding with eerily familiarity that spot that made Naruto's knees turn to jelly.

"Of course it's hard," Sasuke muttered, now rubbing the wet tip of his cock against Naruto's ass. "What would be the point if it wasn't?"

For a second or ten, Naruto thought Sasuke was talking about his cock. But then, just as Sasuke pushed in excruciatingly slow, it occurred to him that it wasn't it. Sasuke was just continuing the conversation Naruto had been having with himself. Close to three decades together, and Sasuke could apparently tell what Naruto was thinking about from the next room and behind a closed door.

Laughing quietly, Naruto arched back, forcing Sasuke's cock deeper inside him. "Keep the lectures – ngh – for another… time. And fuck me already."

That was the good part about being the Hokage. People usually did what he said – even Sasuke.