Dirty Magazine
---
I left home at the
age of thirteen
With a fist full
of cash and a dirty magazine
Now I never cared
for the things that I've seen
I just want to be in a dirty magazine
---
The ad had been simple. $1000 for a starring role in an adult film, $400 for a picture in an adult magazine, and nothing if you didn’t make the cut.
Uzumaki Naruto didn’t have a clue what exactly that “cut” involved, but he was hopelessly broke, and hopelessly desperate. He was a college freshman so horribly poor even ramen was too expensive, and he was quickly running up a debt to the ice machine.
He’d tried getting any and every job he could find. Even the graveyard shift at 7-eleven wouldn’t take him, and the pawnshop (which had already had two shootings in the past week) had called him under qualified for the position.
…not that he had any more, ah, experience with this job, of course, but desperate was desperate, and if he was going to resort to whoring his virginity out he might as well get it on film with a busty brunette porn star and no potential criminal charges.
So that was why he found himself standing in front of a big red warehouse in the better part of the bad part of town, in line with twelve shifty-looking, oily guys that had smiles reminiscent of child molesters and peeping toms, and four shame-faced girls, two of which looked like they were barely out of middle school.
Oh, and it was raining. And all Naruto had on were simple blue jeans and a white t-shirt, since the ad had also said “dress casual”, although from the way all the girls were in skirts and the guys had on polo shirts he suspected that was one of those oxymorons or antonyms or something. Hell, he didn’t know. He was an art major, for crying out loud.
A soaked, bankrupt art major. Auditioning for a role in a porno. He would have laughed if he were sure it wouldn’t make one of the perverts attack him or something. One looked like he had a shoulder holster on, and he didn’t want to be a soaked, bankrupt art major with a bullet wound too.
A sharp CLUNG sounded from the door they stood in front of, and the first guy in line barely managed to jump away from the steel door as it swung open, smashing into the side of the warehouse carelessly.
In the doorway, Naruto couldn’t help but gape at how the absolute stereotype of a director, puffy pants, beret and all, and a bodyguard, bald and muscled and black-suited, stood in the doorway. The director was glaring. The bodyguard was frowning. The line of applicants was very, very discreetly gawking because seriously, that guy’s muscles were HUGE.
“Everybody in here,” the bodyguard said, and immediately the two were back through the doorway, the little line of hopeful future porn-stars trying to keep up and still keep some sort of order. They walked through a thin corridor, Naruto nearly getting smacked in the face with a star-embellished door and a shrieked, “I asked for FRESCA, bitch!!!” before he leapt out of the way with a yelp that was hopefully not too girly.
They turned to the left. And went straight. And then turned to the right, and then a left, and finally through a door marked with “SCREENING ROOM”, where the director-guy lined them up shoulder to shoulder in front of a green screen, shoving a number into their hands. Naruto absently noticed his was 7, and proceeded to try very, very hard to listen to the…well.
Apparently the black-clad man built like a tank was the real director, since he was standing in front of them all, sizing them up like a prize turkey at a country fair, while the skinny director-pants guy glared at them all ominously from the corner of the room.
“…four, twelve, nine, out,” the director said through his still-frowning lips. One girl and two sleazy men walked out the door without much fuss. The director tilted his head to the side. “One, thirteen, fifteen and six, too.” And two more men walked out, one sending a very, very nasty look at Naruto that had him wanting to take a shower or wash his hair or something, it’s that dirty. The director moved disturbingly smoothly when he rose out of his chair for all that muscle, and quickly walked through a door in the blank wall Naruto and the rest of the applicants stared at.
A buzzing was the only warning they got before a painfully bright flash blinded them, leaving Naruto seeing spots and blinking like mad.
“Eleven, sixteen, eight and three, get out,” a speaker garbled out from the corner, and the four quickly left the room. If they decided to glare sludge at him, he was too busy being half-blind and disoriented to see it. “No---HEY! Eleven, BRING THAT NUMBER BACK! Ele- TONY, get that FUCKING sign back.”
“Roger, boss,” said a freakishly childish voice, and Naruto listened as someone was tackled to the ground, punched out, and dragged out the door.
It was so surreal, Naruto found himself smiling and chuckling. “Man, remind me not to try and keep a souvenir,” he muttered to whoever he had on his right – number 3, was it? Everything was moving so fast he could barely keep track.
“Oi, Jack, bring up screen 3- no, you imbecile, SCREEN 3—aaah, there we go, knew I hired you for some reason,” the huge director’s speaker, clearly forgotten about, scraped out. “Hmm. He’s not-”
“Mister Plywood!” a frantic, obviously female voice, called out frantically over the speaker. “Mr. Plywood, we have a MAJOR problem.”
A put-upon sigh. Naruto was happy to say he could almost see the boring white wall in front of them again. “What is it NOW, Culver?”
“Uh…Hound, uh…he kind of maybe stormed out after IgavehimFantainsteadofFrescapleasedon’tfireme…”
“…WHAT.”
“Oh! Plywood, the speaker--”
“WHAT DID YOU SAY, CULVER? DID YOU SAY YOU LOST ONE OF MY STARS OFF A CARBONATED BEVERAGE?”
“Y-y-yessirohgod.”
“Shit. Shit! FUCK, AND HE WAS-”
“QUINCY. THE SPEAKER--”
“FINE, fine! I’m GETTING THERE.” The director cleared his throat, and with a great screeching the speaker clunked off.
He tried to hold back the snickers. Really. But all that made him do was smile, shoulders shaking slightly.
“-OLD ME THE GODDAM SPEAKER WAS ON, JACK.”
“…Well, the speaker’s on NOW, Quincy.”
“Right. Fine. Okay, number 2, get out of my sight, 3 go out the door and turn left until you hit a green door and go in, 10 and 14 follow the IDIOT who’s going to come and escort you further, and 7, you just…stay there. Christ, he’s gonna kill me…” And with a rattling snap, the speaker shut off the final time.
Naruto’s brain felt like it was going to explode. He’d
actually MADE IT? HIM? The VIRGIN? Luckily, it was just his mouth that exploded
into a huge grin, but still. He was giddy like a schoolgirl or something, which
was AWESOME, because FINALLY he’d get FOOD again. Screw the fact his shirt was
still wet and his hair was probably drying funny! Ignore how he hadn’t eaten
anything but ice in two days! He was going to be a porn star.
And that? Paid. In MONEY.
When the director, frowning like he had his lips just naturally stitched together that way, entered the screening room, he sighed, then held a hand out to Naruto. “I’m Quincy Plywood, director of most everything high-class in the building.”
Naruto, grinning like the idiot he probably was, shook back happily. “Uzumaki Naruto, starving college student.”
The director smiled thinly at him. “Now, I’ve just got a couple questions for you, if you don’t mind. First, how are you around, uh, contrary people?”
Naruto frowned his brain around the question. “What, like angry-contrary?” He laughed. “Ahh, they’re either playing you or playing themself, you know? Nobody can really be that pissed at the world, right?”
“…Okay then. I guess that’ll do, if you’re not going to attack or something...Right. Next, have you ever done anything like this before?”
Naruto laughed. “Never. But there’s always a first time for anything, you know?”
The director just STARED at him. “…Never?”
“Nope,” Naruto grinned.
“Well.” The director let out a sigh, staring up at the ceiling for a moment. “This will certainly be interesting, now won’t it.” With a thin, stressed smile, he turned back to Naruto as they started towards the door. “So. Which would you prefer to do, top or bottom?”
The blond frowned. “What, like choreography?” He thought for a minute, since this seemed like it might be important. On bottom, they’d probably see his face more, and as far as he knew that could get very, very embarrassing. On top, they’d just see his back! “Top. Definitely top.”
“Well, you’re certainly adventurous, aren’t you?” the director snorted. “Think you can handle a professional first-time around?”
Naruto frowned. “I’d think that’d make it easier, wouldn’t it? I mean, if at least one of us knows what the hell we’re doing?”
“True, true,” the director laughed, and they turned down another corridor, this one eerily familiar, but with a new stain in the carpet in front of a star-marked door with the clear markings of a name being torn off. “Well, we’re certainly going to see if that’s how it works out, aren’t we? Ah, in here, Mr. Uzumaki.”
The director held open a simple swinging door, and Naruto stepped through to see a set of silk and silver, a strange set that looked almost like the inside of a metal drum with a bed inside of it.
And on said bed sat a gorgeous woman clad in loose, almost masculine black pants and a tight black shirt, silver bracelets and black bandages adorning muscular yet wiry arms. And there was just something incredible about those shoulders that Naruto couldn’t really explain. True, her hair was a bit…eccentric, but it still looked great with the outfit, and he was sure it probably looked better from the front.
“Ah, here we are,” the director said lightly, obviously nervous. “I’m sure you heard what happened with Hound, yes? Terrible, terrible tragedy, I’m—WE’RE—so terribly sorry you had to go through all that-”
The head tilted juuust enough to send a bland, obviously pissed glare at the director. And again Naruto found himself doing a tiny little happy dance in the back of his mind because she was HOT, too, and those eyes were really just SOMETHING. Dark and moody and still fierce.
As if the word had summoned his costar’s attention, the book she’d been reading was immediately shut and thrown across the set, landing neatly in an empty chair so that she…uh…er…that is…
“Who the fuck is this.”
…Yep.
Definitely a guy.
…at least he had a nice voice? And body? Or…something? Come on, positive thought, happy thoughts, fluffy bunnies and ramen and oh shit there was NO way he could turn this down he needed money and FOOD and to hell if it was a guy or a girl he needed a job! And come on, the guy already looked pretty enough to be a girl, right? Right. No problem. You can so do this, Naruto. Definitely. Who cares that you’re going to lose your virginity to, you know, a…uh…
…aaaand he was back to just sort of staring.
“Real winner you’ve got here,” the MAN he was supposed to HAVE SEX WITH said blandly.
“Aha…well. Ah. Uchiha Sasuke, meet Uzumaki Naruto. He’s got great potential, really.”
“Potential for what, the Dumb Friends League?” Sasuke griped.
That snapped Naruto right out of his funk. “What the hell is wrong with you?! I haven’t even SAID anything to you yet!”
“…Dumb means mute, idiot.” A tiny smirk teased the guy’s lips. “Seems like you can switch definitions pretty easy, though.”
“You…you BASTARD,” Naruto barked out, glaring right back at this Sasuke guy.
“Now, now, Naruto,” the director smiled, practically ripping his shoulder out of the socket with the grip he had on his shoulder. “Let’s all be friends, eh?”
“Not likely,” Sasuke said simply.
“FINE,” Naruto bit out, grinning viciously. “We’ll be BEST FRIENDS.” Except he had to SLEEP with him, oh god. And it was going to be in that bed. Right there.
…maybe starving wouldn’t be that bad?
“Great!” the director smiled out. “Naruto, to makeup. Sasuke, I assume you know what you need to do?” Quincy Plywood paused. “Oh, and Naruto’s topping.”
“WHAT?” Sasuke hissed out.
“Huh? What’s that mean?” Naruto called out, but was suddenly swarmed by young women with makeup brushes and hair brushes and horrifying advice involving fingers and lubricant and treating blood with cold water, but it didn’t keep him from hearing the sick smacking sound of Uchiha Sasuke punching the director in the face right before the door to the makeup room slammed shut behind him.
---
Everyone makes
sacrifices
---
“…great! Splendid,” the director called out hurriedly, hustling Naruto over to the set. Which, considering the side of Quincy Plywood’s muscles, was NOT hard to do. “You look gorgeous, Ninny.”
Naruto didn’t respond, feeling too numb and horrified to say anything.
He’d been airbrushed everywhere, in cracks and curves he hadn’t even known he had. He felt like he had a mask of gold leaf on, too, considering all the makeup those girls had put on him. He also felt like a very fluffy porcupine, with how they’d blow-dried his hair into soft blond spikes that looked almost like little pyramid pillows he could pop out at any time.
Eating his own hair was his second choice for how to survive, followed by somehow managing to win the lottery or becoming a beautiful young heiress’ aspiring artist kept man. But since his hair would probably only last about a week with how much Naruto ate and that beautiful young heiresses were in short supply, he tried to swallow the huge lump in his throat and tugged on the black tie he’d been put in.
That was another thing he wasn’t sure about. Uzumaki Naruto preferred painfully bright colors, the type that seared your retinas and made day-glo seem like cream and pastels. He liked attention.
…well, yeah, he’d get attention in this suit, true. It just wasn’t the type he wanted.
The suit was all black. Black pants, black jacket, black shirt (silky and almost chafing), black tie (which he had to keep his fingers off of, it was just that incredibly expensive and smooth), and even a pair of black sunglasses. He felt like a walking tub of asphalt. A walking tub of asphalt with poofy, spiky blond hair and gallons of makeup and no shoes on which didn’t seem very sanitary considering what had probably happened on this floor—
AND OH GOD HE WAS GOING TO HAVE TO SEX UP A MALE PORN STAR.
“—loosely going off it. Consider the script more guidelines than anything else, alright? And don’t worry, I’ve had plenty of first-timers in front of the camera.”
“Really?” Naruto asked hesitantly, hoping he hadn’t missed anything very important.
“OF COURSE!” the director laughed, pounding Naruto on the back HARD. He could probably send a hospital crying to its construction company with a smack like that. “Everyone’s been a virgin at some point, after all. If anything, you should be relieved it’s with someone you know is experienced!”
Naruto whimpered. “…and a guy.”
“HAH!” Quincy shoved Naruto forward this time. “Just think he’s someone else then, if you’re not interested in the boy.” The director paused. “I gotta say though, Uchiha Sasuke is very hard to not be interested in.”
And speak of the devil, there stood his costar, still decked out like a pissed-off punk kid but in a blue shirt that was…actually kind of nice. In a, you know, nice sort of way. Yeah.
The guy looked like he was about to sneer or sneeze or something with how he was looking at the wall. Naruto was glad he wasn’t a stationary object, since they couldn’t fight back when given a look of “RAWR I HATE YOU DIEEEEEE”. Because really, fighting was actually kind of fun…
Heeey. He could just go be a boxer or something, couldn’t he! No more having to be videotaped losing his virginity to an admittedly attractive but MALE porn star! No more scary golden airbrushing that make him feel dirty even though it’s supposed to make him clean! He could get food without having nationally-published sex recorded and distributed to people who might actually recognize him.
…except then the Sasuke guy did something just really nice with his arms and stretching and the director shoved a floppy, barely ten-page packet of papers in his hand and said “read-through, page 1!” and Naruto found his strangely tight throat mangling out an “Okay then” and looking everywhere but at how really nice that shirt was.
“You won’t get anything from me, except a rotting corpse and used bullets,” his costar said blandly as the lighting suddenly changed, sounding completely disinterested and bored already. “Face it. My father has disowned me and I’m not afraid to die.”
Naruto nervously cleared his throat, and began reading. “If you can’t pay your debt, you’ll have to…uh…” he squinted, because really, that lighting was just obnoxious. He took off the sunglasses, throwing them casually onto the bed for a better look. And then he shouted out, “YOU HAVE TO WHAT?! WHO THE HELL WRITES THIS CRAP??”
A rolled up packet of papers slapped into his face. “IDIOT. People aren’t watching for the riveting plot and witty dialogue.”
“I KNOW THAT,” Naruto steamed. Except for that part where he, you know, really, really didn’t know that. He’d always stuck to magazines, really. “But…COME ON! A mobster asking his hostage for a…uh.”
A sneering face was suddenly clear in his vision. Apparently the lighting had FINALLY been corrected. “You can’t even say it, can you?”
Naruto glared back at Sasuke. “Say what? I’ll say whatever the fuck you WANT me to say, bastard, so long as it gets this over and done with.”
“Over and done with.” Sasuke’s head tilted to the side…and no he wasn’t looking at how nice that shirt was, even though it really really was a great shirt. “Have you ever even kissed anyone?”
“What does it matter?!” Naruto shouted. “That muscle-guy already said it! EVERYONE was a virgin at some point!”
“You think that, then,” Sasuke said, and sloooowly smirked. “You haven’t even touched anyone, I bet. Pathetic.”
Uzumaki Naruto was nothing if not decisive. He was also a man of action. So, figuring the best way to shut his bastard of a co-star up AND get them both away from each other as quickly as possible was to get the sex over and done with, which usually started with a kiss.
Since Sasuke was clearly a bit surprised (okay, maybe an understatement and maybe Sasuke was more half-screaming out “WHAT THE FUCK” but ignore that), Naruto took the opportunity to its fullest. Left hand on the shoulder because really that shirt was something, right hand just brushing his costar’s lips, the blond leaned in, shut his eyes, and pressed his lips against Sasuke’s.
It was actually kind of nice. Softer than he’d expected, almost like a warm marshmallow shrinking away from him. And shrinking away seemed like A Bad Thing at the time, so his arms wrapped around Sasuke AND WHAT THE FUCK THE BASTARD BIT HIS LOWER LIP eeeeexcept really that wasn’t all that bad actually because, as Naruto’s body clearly decided, anything that involved tongue was spectacular and incredible and should be repeated as soon as possible.
Sasuke made a pleased yet somehow still bitchy noise, so Naruto growled and stuck his tongue in the other boy’s mouth since from what he’d heard that tended to shut people up mighty fast. And the Tongue Is Good rule skyrocketed on the “wisdom of the world” chart to rest right up there with Don’t Eat Yellow Snow and Sunburns Always Peel because as soon as Sasuke’s tongue was up against his (which was fast) it was like lighting racing down his body, making him whimper and probably get a little too close to Sasuke for either of their personal space bubbles when he clung for what seemed like dear life because falling down was looking like a very good option.
Since Falling Down Is Bad (probably #15 or so on the wisdom of the world list), Naruto’s mouth pulled away, earning a disapproving absolutely ADORABLE little noise from Sasuke and okay fine he’d admit it was kind of hot too.
“N…not bad,” Sasuke breathed out, but not before Naruto decided that the bastard’s jaw line needed a nice big hickey of DOOM on it because if he wanted to act all high and mighty Naruto would make him pay SOMEHOW.
…hah. Humor always was in the little things.
“If you’re unable to pay your DEBT--” (he punctuated this with a bit of a bite, which earned a VERY satisfying noise from Sasuke) “—you’ll have to think of another way to pay, won’t you?”
“Funny how you can only say the right thing at the very, very wrong time,” Sasuke said, probably much quicker than he’d wanted.
Naruto’s fingers slid under that very, very lovely shirt as he grinned against Sasuke’s ear. “I bet you can’t remember what to say next.”
Sasuke tried to glare at him, but was clearly distracted by how Naruto’s fingers- artist’s fingers, used to measuring and sculpting and smoothing and brushing – worked across his skin. “Like you ev…even know it,” he managed to get out. It even sounded mildly pissy. Naruto was impressed.
Naruto just chuckled against Sasuke, probably enjoying how that marvelous shirt was slowly, slowly being rolled up against a pale, sculpted abdomen a bit too much. “Need a hint?”
Just out of curiosity, he tweaked one of Sasuke’s nipples.
Sasuke’s hands jumped for Naruto’s shoulders, tangling in soft blond spikes and shaking as their owner whimpered. And it was a very nice whimper, one that was half a choked-off moan and the rest sounding almost pleading. To stop or do it again, though, he didn’t know.
But he remembered quite vividly that Tongue Is Good. So he pushed the strangely accommodating Sasuke down onto the bed and rolled that simply stunning shirt up and off, lips already moving on pale, smooth skin that shivered and twitched and tensed in a way that was wholly remarkable and fascinating and almost as thrilling as those broken noises that twisted themselves through clenched teeth.
Hmm. Teeth.
With a playful little chuckle and fully aware he’d hate himself in the morning and not caring a bit, he abandoned the reddening skin for Sasuke’s mouth, which seemed all too pleased to have him back. They kissed hard, with nothing sweet about it, but plenty of that feverish urge to get closer and closer and hotter until they felt like they’d explode from it all.
It probably would have surprised Naruto that Sasuke was quickly working at opening the buttons holding that suit jacket thing on, fingers getting distracted along the way with little touches and not-so-little touches, but he was past caring about his wardrobe remaining in its original pristine condition. And when Sasuke’s hips rolled up against his own, all he could do was bite down on whatever was closest – which happened to be his collarbone – and groan, more than happy to join in and bring them both to a frantic, sweaty rhythm against each other, the jacket falling carelessly to that land where socks disappeared to.
Sasuke’s hand slipped beneath Naruto’s shirt, which was nice. And then it slipped into his pants and Naruto didn’t even realize he’d slammed the bastard back against the bed, growling, and kissing the shit out of that smirking, sexy mouth, and moving down to his collar bone, licking and sucking at the previous bite, grinning and turned the hell on as Sasuke arched against him, muttering and whimpering and gripping Naruto’s hips with a white-knuckled grip, manicured nails sharp enough to possibly draw blood.
Not that Naruto cared, of course. He was too busy practically ripping Sasuke’s fly open and sucking at his neck and trying to get every squirm and whimper and pant and curse he possibly could out of the bastard. For the most part he was succeeding, but Sasuke was also growling and using just about the same amount of finesse to rip the clothes off Naruto, drawing the tie off with his teeth and, smirking and smoldering with the fabric in his mouth, wrenching it off his neck in a move that left Naruto hissing at the sting and slightly disturbed at how fucking hot the thought of Sasuke in the tie was.
Even grinding against each other on the bed, flushed and panting, Sasuke still managed to look like an arrogant son of a bitch who was somehow winning, as if it was some sort of competition. And Naruto realized that really, it was a competition. The bastard did this for a living, after all – this was nothing new to him, this was just another nameless costar to him, another virgin newbie.
Naruto, right then and there, realized that this was all just Sasuke waiting for him to lose control and be just another hopeless, sleazy bastard. Another one of those slimy men who’d been standing in the rain with him, waiting to get paid to fuck someone. And what had he been up to that point, other than just a indifferent bastard who thought yeah, this Sasuke bastard was damn pretty and kissed like a nuclear explosion, and was just going to get off and go?
No. That was just what Sasuke expected. Just what the director and everyone else expected. And from the dark, bitter, arrogant look in Sasuke’s eyes, he thought Naruto was exactly like them, nothing better, never going to amount to anything.
He realized Sasuke was staring at him right about the same time he realized he’d stopped moving, simply staring down at the guy.
Naruto wasn’t going to be that guy. He couldn’t be that guy. So he rolled to the side and kneeled next to Sasuke, just staring down at him.
“…what the hell is wrong with you?” Sasuke growled, propping himself up on his elbows to give a good, hard glare at Naruto.
Naruto just looked at him, and smiled, holding a hand out. “Nice to meet you! I’m Uzumaki Naruto.”
Sasuke just stared at him like he had suddenly sprouted neon antlers that spelled out “PSYCHO”.
Assuming the guy wasn’t about to help him any, he leaned forward and kissed Sasuke softly, just a nice, friendly, sweet sort of kiss. And when the bastard tried to deepen it and harden it and turn it into one of those train wreck sort of kisses Naruto pulled away, smiling, and kissed Sasuke’s cheek.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sasuke growled as Naruto nuzzled at his neck, kissing it lightly.
“Losing my virginity how I want to,” Naruto answered truthfully, one hand cupping the dark-haired man’s cheek as he kissed him again, this time with just a hint of tongue, just enough to get Sasuke mouthing at the air when he pulled away, frowning.
“Then stop it and just fuck me,” Sasuke growled as Naruto’s arms wrapped around him in a warm embrace, kissing his already bruised and bitten collarbone. In a motion Naruto could tell was instinctive rather than intended, Sasuke’s arms circled his shoulders softly. “You’re not getting paid by the minute, idiot.”
“Hah,” Naruto smiled against his chest, kissing a trail down to the already destroyed pants. “If I was, I’d have just fidgeted in the corner for a half hour and jumped you.”
“Moron,” Sasuke muttered, and Naruto was pleasantly surprised to see the Uchiha was actually blushing.
“I’m an art major, don’t expect me to know all that tech stuff,” Naruto murmured, nipping at Sasuke’s hip hard enough to earn a sharp moan-hiss. Satisfied with the reaction, Naruto shut his eyes and moved forward and just licked until he found his target.
Being a virgin obviously meant he’d never done anything like this, but from the way Sasuke was pulling at his hair when Naruto started sucking too, he couldn’t help but smirk a little, satisfied.
But then he accidentally opened his eyes to look up at Sasuke (who was totally unhinged, it was awesome, he was digging his heels into the mattress and barely keeping himself from throwing his head back and just fucking moaning) and after he saw Sasuke, he realized he was sucking on Sasuke’s cock, and that he was almost getting off on the sight of Sasuke all panting and sweaty and HOT, and so he accidentally scraped his teeth on Sasuke’s cock, which earned him a strangled scream and a feverish glare of DOOM.
Oh shit, oh shit, Naruto thought, and tried to distract the other man by intensifying his efforts, and from the way Sasuke gasped as he twisted his tongue and sort of…blew (hey he was making this up as he went alright?!), he succeeded. Proud of himself, Naruto barely slid his teeth across Sasuke’s cock, tongue sliding along in a good rhythm he was getting into-
And then Sasuke, with a weird “NA-NNNNGH” sound, wrenched Naruto’s head away just in time for Sasuke to come all over his cheek and a bit of his hair, panting and breathing erratically and sagging back onto the bed, eyes wide as his chest heaved.
Cautiously not thinking about how achingly hard he was right now, he crawled over to Sasuke, looking at his face to see if he’d accidentally killed the guy. And considering Sasuke just STARED at him like he was Jesus or something (it was creepy), Naruto guessed that no, he wasn’t dead.
Especially when Sasuke’s hand fisted into Naruto’s fluffy blond hair and pulled him down for a very…strange kiss. It was half sweet and half train wreck, kinda like when lions swat at each other, but, you know, fucking hot and full of tongue and lip and it left Naruto gasping when Sasuke pulled his mouth away, drawing them both into crouches and proceeded to….
….holy shit. Sasuke was licking the come off Naruto’s cheek, treating it like whipped cream or strawberry icing, mouthing his hair and sucking it off the strands.
And the worst part was how Naruto realized he found it unbelievably, insanely sexy and was working on giving Sasuke the world’s biggest nail marks on his shoulders as he clung, probably about to embarrass himself and come all over the next thing he rubbed against.
But then Sasuke pushed Naruto down onto the bed almost gently and there was a weird squirting sound and all he could do was watch as Sasuke put lube on them both.
Lubricant. That meant it made things go smoother. Which really, as far as Naruto could see, was a LIE because Sasuke stuck a finger up his own ass and all Naruto could do was gape, and pant, and moan at the look on the other boy’s face as he added another finger. It was like Sasuke was a painting or a sculpture, something raw and beautiful and caught in between pleasure and pain for ever and ever, trapped between love and hate, and always, always, so breathtaking. A work of art that left people staring for hours that they thought were seconds.
And even though Naruto thought he’d been caught up in the sight for hours, maybe years, just judging the curve of his neck, the way his strange haircut clung to sweat and semen, it was just a moment.
Sasuke looked him in the eye, and, his expression quite possibly the most erotic thing Naruto had never even had the imagination to dream up, lowered himself onto Naruto.
He probably screamed. Maybe shouted something. But before Naruto even knew what he was doing he’d moved, hips rolling up and making Sasuke take a sharp, pained breath in. But that wasn’t the only move, oh no, Naruto’s thought process was caught on SASUKE IS PRETTY and so he’d done the sit-up from HELL and was kissing Sasuke with a fervor that made train wrecks look tame, put explosions and fireworks to a sulking sort of shame as they slowly started moving together, thrust for thrust, rasping, gasping breath for each other.
“Sasuke-” Naruto managed to get out, Sasuke panting against his shoulder as they moved. “Sa…sasuke I-I-”
And then Sasuke bit him, and that was it, that was IT, there were stars and comets and motherfucking supernovas as his vision went blank for a moment and he came. He was probably screaming or something because deep down he was probably the bad-ass reincarnation of a ten-year-old girl, but sound pretty much didn’t exist anymore, he was just clutching Sasuke to him who was holding him just as tight, hard enough to bruise, and finally, breathless and really, really thirsty, Naruto could breathe again.
He breathed in. And there was Sasuke. Panting, flushed, beautiful Sasuke.
He should probably exhale.
…but he decided to just kiss the shit out of Sasuke instead, who seemed more than willing to let that happen.
The kissing turned from apocalyptic to explosive, and then from explosive to fireworks, and finally a sweet picnic on the Fourth of July, and when Naruto pulled out of Sasuke they were just clinging to each other, breathing together, staring.
“…holy shit,” Naruto’s hoarse, dry, girly little voice choked out.
Sasuke suddenly turned rigid, and practically threw himself away from Naruto, just as someone very far away started screaming out the word CUT for some reason.
Naruto blinked, and he realized he was sitting alone on a mussed bed on the set of a pornographic film, one of the hairdressers quickly handing him a robe and the director screaming “DID YOU GET ALL THAT?!” at the cameras and Sasuke, already robed, was walking off the set.
“SASUKE,” Naruto shouted out, wrenching the robe on as he ran toward the other boy, tying the damn thing as fast as possible, but it was too late. The door was shut, the door was locked, and Naruto was standing on the other side of the star-printed door, shut out.
“YOU, my boy, have a future in this industry,” the director crowed from behind him, smashing Naruto to his side in a manly, heterosexual version of a hug. “I think at least three of the cameramen came in their pants! That was HIGH. QUALITY. You HAVE to sign on with my company-”
“But I just did it for the money, just the once,” Naruto protested, trying to get back to the door that the STUPID director was drawing him away from. “I don’t WANT to be a porn star-”
“That’s the first time anyone’s been able to make an Uchiha come on camera, you know that?” the director said, completely ignorant of anything Naruto was saying. “And if you can do that, imagine what you could do to someone else-”
“NO,” Naruto found himself shouting out, and decked the well-muscled director. The man, obviously not expecting this, went down hard and stared up at Naruto with wide, stunned, and finally aware eyes. “This was a one-time thing. I’m an art student, not a porn star, get it?”
The director looked up at him, finally taking Naruto seriously. “Alright, Mr. Uzumaki. I can deal with a free agent,” he said, and stood up, offering his hand. For a moment Naruto just stared at it, but he finally shook it. “If you’re ever looking for work, though, please. Our door is ALWAYS open to Uzumaki Naruto.”
If only it was the open door he wanted.
Naruto nodded mutely – dumbly, the masochist in him reminded – and walked back into his own dressing room.
He took a shower. He changed back into his jeans and t-shirt. And after one last ditch effort of knocking on Sasuke’s star-marked door, Uzumaki Naruto left the building.
---
Some girls got
class and some girls got dreams
Some girls are
sweet as a ripe nectarine
I’ve got no big
plans and I ain't no beauty queen
I just want to be
in a dirty magazine
---
Naruto knew the moment he walked through his dorm room’s scratched green door looking drenched, muddy, and desolately lost even though he’d just walked into the only room he could really call home, that he should have just slept on a bench, covered with soggy newspaper. And he knew it all from the two dark eyes that glanced up over a laptop.
His roommate was lounging on his completely unmade bed, playing solitaire on his laptop. The young man looked about ready to become one with his mattress. Either he hadn’t moved since Naruto left at nine (and it was now around four in the morning), or the mattress was slowly eating Shikamaru over the semester. It’d explain so many things.
“So troublesome,” Shikamaru muttered, already starting another solitaire game since Naruto and his squishy, squeaking shoes walked into the room looking like a puppy dunked in the bathtub. “You actually did it, didn’t you.”
“Why’d you wait up for me?” Naruto frowned, already behind his closet’s doors and stripping down, hanging the sopping clothes from the conveniently placed hook. “No, wait, how the hell do you know who-WHAT I did? Or that…gah, Shikamaru, you know what I mean.”
Shikamaru sighed, watching the clothes slap against the faux wood and trying not to note how the squishy thunking sound made a good rhythm that he was clicking his cards away with. “The massive bite marks, hickeys, and suddenly ephemerally glowing skin tell me everything I need to know,” he said dryly. Naruto, blushing, stepped out from behind the closet, wearing nothing but a new pair of boxers, trying to get a look at himself.
“…is it really that bad?”
Shikamaru blinked, and then sighed, snapping his laptop shut. “You look like you were mauled by a tiger in heat.” The laptop slid down beneath Shikamaru’s pillow (Naruto had learned long ago that sometimes it was easier to just not ask about this sort of stuff), Shikamaru’s head following it down quickly. “Get some sleep. And I turned off your alarm. You’re not going to classes tomorrow.”
“What? Shikamaru! I have a scholarship-”
“Mauled by a tiger in heat,” Shikamaru emphasized, and Naruto glared at him, flicking the light switch off.
“It can’t be that bad,” he muttered, climbing into his own drab white-and-orange bunk with a sigh.
“You make Kiba look like an Abercrombie and Fitch model right now,” Shikamaru sighed. “I’ll send Ino up around one to give you some ointments.”
“Oh god, I’ll never hear the end of it,” Naruto groaned into his pillow, already nodding off despite himself.
Even half-asleep with his eyes nearly closed, Naruto could see his roommate’s smirk. “I’m just interested to see the title of your film.”
“…jerk,” Naruto managed to yawn, and he was out, dreaming of a shadow he just couldn’t coax far enough out into the light to touch.
He was woken up by a clinical hand rubbing his scalp with something powdery, and before Naruto could scream something out about the RA’s rat poison fetish he noticed Ino’s dark, intelligent, and downright smirking eyes in front of his face.
“So I hear you’re a porn star now,” Ino said brightly, taking Naruto’s awakening as permission to strip the sheets off him. While Naruto winced, Ino whistled, impressed by the wounds. “Damn, you must have had a hell of a night.”
Naruto really didn’t want to have her put whatever her healing lotion of the day was on all the scratches and bites and hickeys. In fact, Naruto wanted them to last until the next time he saw that bastard, just so he could point them out and say “SEE? SEE WHAT WE DID?!” and hope Sasuke would get that it wasn’t just another gig, just another man climbing on top of him in front of the camera. It was the only gig.
Ino, of course, didn’t give a damn what Naruto thought. Her orders came from a higher power, one named Nara Shikamaru, and that meant her mission of putting salve on all of Naruto’s (rather sexy) bite-marks would be finished. She was in pre-med, so she knew what the bunching of Naruto’s shoulders meant, so she decided to distract him.
“I liked your last piece a lot,” she said idly, hoping the distraction of art would work on an artist. “You really do have an excellent sense of shading.”
Naruto pouted. “It was purple. It was supposed to look sick.”
Ino shrugged, grinning. “You know, we’ve always wondered, why do you do projects like that? You always have such beautiful backgrounds, but you just paint pieces of people. Like the one time you just stared at my feet for three hours, and then painted them right on top of this beautiful landscape you’d done. It seems like such a waste.”
Naruto shrugged, batting her hand away from the bite mark on his shoulder. “Your feet just went there.”
Ino blinked at him. Then, she smacked him on the forehead.
“OW WHAT THE HELL,” Naruto hissed, rubbing at his scalp in frustration. Flecks of hairspray and…uh, something else fell onto his pillow.
“Naruto, You paint beautifully, but you always end up adding some human element right on the foreground, like you’re ashamed of the painting beneath it,” Ino glared. “You’re here on an art scholarship, right?”
“…right,” Naruto contributed, not liking in the least where this was going.
“Then stop hiding everything you paint!” Ino said, throwing her hands up into the air. “Stop putting hands and necks and ears on top of modern art pieces that could make you millions. I’ve been to the gallery showings, and every time a critic gets to one of yours, they just have to wonder ‘what’s with this arm here?’ or ‘why is this foot in the way of the painting?’”
“What the hell are you trying to say, Ino,” Naruto growled out. He didn’t like where she was taking this conversation. It was his art, one of the only things he had to his name, and like hell he’d be changing it any time soon.
“Either paint the person, or paint the picture,” Ino sniped out. “If the critics don’t like it, your scholarship will be gone before you blink, and then where would you go?”
Nowhere echoed across his mind, but he was too busy shouting something at Ino, probably something crude and cutting, something to hurt her just as bad as she’d hurt him. When he was done shouting, done throwing his tainted pillow at her and growling like a wounded fox curled in on itself and ready to swipe at its enemy, Ino looked him straight in the face, and spoke.
“Paint your person, or paint the picture,” she said again. Ino packed up her oils and lotions into a studded pink-and-metal pack, and walked out the door, slamming it behind her.
For a long time, Naruto looked around his room, looked at the art supplies he had stowed beneath his bed, looked at the cheap gear he’d had to save up to paint with, looked at the quality of his side of the room versus Shikamaru’s. He wasn’t the smartest kid in college, not by a long shot, but he was the most used to surviving, to making ends meet, to living against all odds.
He now had a thousand dollars.
With barely a pause in his thoughts, Naruto put on a pair of pants and a ratty old t-shirt, a pair of sandals along with it, and practically ran to the campus bookstore, where he spent two hundred and ninety seven dollars, and then he ran into the abandoned studio in the art building that nobody remembered, the one that was practically an attic. Dust scattered with his footsteps.
First, the new easel went up, smooth as butter. Next the canvas, already gessoed and ready to be painted on.
The person or the picture, Ino had said. No more hiding the landscape behind the feet. No more hiding feet in front of the barren, ice-covered forest with intricately huddled owls and chipmunks behind someone else’s feet.
He painted with a fury that rivaled the angriest of musicians, every brush stroke a slash of skin, a bruise, a scratch he remembered digging in. He painted as if possessed, the figure slowly growing in the canvas always facing away, always too far away to reach, always tense in the shoulders and breathless, always hurting, always running in place.
The sky darkened, and he barely noticed he was painting in the dark. The dusk settled into the shadows of Sasuke’s skin, and the twilight his hair, still damp and on end, settled into the dim shadow of a golden star inlaid on his back, practically a shield from any attack.
There were no lights in the attic room, but he didn’t need them. He could practically feel his painting, feel the cold they both hunched away from, see the way goosebumps made their way across both their shoulders. And when nothing but the moon lit the area, he let Sasuke do as he was crying to, let the background fade into the darkness he hid in, the coarse blackness he tried to let consume him.
And as the sun rose, Naruto stared at the painting.
There was no hiding from this one.
He gently pulled it off the easel and headed down the stairs and into the Advanced Painting class he was officially enrolled in. Each student had a place to set their piece on the wall. Currently, Naruto’s held a seascape with Kiba’s grin set across it. As if possessed, Naruto flung the painting to the wall, ripping the naming plate off the wall as well and hanging Sasuke for the whole damn world to see. And on the back of Kiba’s name plate (“Piece 49”, he had named it) he slashed the words Lost Star By Uzumaki Naruto, the words the reverse of every other picture hanging on the wall, considering it was white writing on a black, sticky background mounted with a good-old-fashioned hammer and nails.
The gallery lighting in the room would probably make the subtle undertones shine through. The painting would probably save his whole damn career, but by now he was so worked up he didn’t even give a shit.
He hadn’t eaten in 24 hours and it was freezing outside, so Naruto decided a quick trip back to the dorm room for his coat before he walked back to the studio was a good idea. Get a coat, steal some of Shikamaru’s carrots and chips, and head back into the den of pornography and make the bastard talk to him.
Which was why he was so surprised to see said bastard sitting across the hall from Naruto’s locked door, fingers pressed together against his lips as he stared at the faces on the door (their placement demanded by the RA), one of Naruto, one of Shikamaru.
“…hey,” Naruto said, blinking at the beautiful, dark-haired man sitting in front of his door.
“Hey,” Sasuke said simply, eyes turning toward the floor for a moment as he breathed. And when he looked up, he was smirking. “You’re covered in paint, idiot.”
“I’m not the idiot here,” Naruto snapped, grabbing Sasuke by the hood of his coat and pulling him into the abandoned stairwell. “What the fuck are you doing here, Sasuke? How did you find me? How did you get here, for Christ’s sake?!”
“I-” Sasuke began, only to cut himself off, glaring. “I…oh, fuck it,” he said, and lunged forward, catching Naruto’s mouth with his own and kissing him hard, making Naruto groan into it and back them into the nearest wall, panting. “Fuck.”
“I thought you were the smart one, bastard,” Naruto growled out, desperately trying to stop himself from the way he was nibbling and kissing his way down Sasuke’s jaw line, Sasuke’s arms wrapped around him. Finally he managed to pull his mouth away, breathing against Sasuke’s ear. “Answer my questions, damn it.”
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Sasuke growled. “I don’t know why I had to find you, I don’t know why I had to walk all the way here, I don’t know why the hell I just…just…want you.”
And with that, Sasuke began an almost frantic assault against Naruto’s mouth, and Naruto finally realized that these trainwreck-type kisses weren’t just meant to clash, they were desperate, needy, as if Sasuke needed some sort of confirmation that only Naruto could give him. Naruto gave as much as he could, his cold, paint-stained hands catching in Sasuke’s hair, still as brittle and beautiful as ever.
“You’ve driven me insane, you know that?” Naruto muttered as they tried to breathe. “Fucking insane. I haven’t eaten in a day, haven’t slept in a good twenty hours, all because you’re driving me crazy.”
“We could leave each other alone,” Sasuke whispered. “You could forget me.”
Naruto stared at him, only to laugh out loud. “And you call ME dumb! What the hell, Sasuke. Think I’m going to get you into trouble with the rest of the porn star gang?” He paused, and then glared. “And what the fuck was up with you locking me out.”
Sasuke glared right back. “Why exactly do you think anything I do has anything to do with you?”
“Because you looked like someone ran over your cat when it was over, and then you wouldn’t listen to a damn thing I said afterwards! You ran away!” Naruto accused.
Sasuke’s glare intensified. “Why should I tell you a damn thing, Naruto? Tell me that. Why the fuck should I tell you a thing about me?”
“Because that’s what people…that’s what people in…” Naruto said, but paused, backing away a little bit. “Friends tell each other what’s wrong.”
Sasuke’s head developed a sardonic tilt to it. “Is that what we are, then? Friends?”
“I don’t know what we are, Sasuke,” Naruto bit out. “But we understand each other, don’t we? Deep down, we understand each other. We both know that, just from one night.”
Sasuke just stared at him. Naruto could watch as his dark eyes took in the paint stains on his pants and shirt, even occasionally in his hair. He was dirty, and cold, and this wasn’t how he’d wanted to see Sasuke again, but at least he got to see him, got to touch that bristly-smooth hair again.
Before he’d even really thought it through, Naruto leaned in and kissed him again, slow and deep, one paint-stained hand cradling his jawline as their eyes slid closed. Again, Sasuke just seemed to pull Naruto closer to himself, this time managing to get them chest to chest, the kiss quickly heating up before Sasuke, smirking, pulled away.
“You need a shower,” he said, breath tickling Naruto’s ear.
Naruto knew an invitation when he heard one, so he grinned and snatched Sasuke’s hand in his own paint-stained digits, opening doors and unlocking doors until they were practically running down the sleeping dorm’s hallway, the door to the bathroom opening with a fumbling of his keys and slamming shut behind him.
If it weren’t for the fact Naruto lived there, they probably wouldn’t have made it past the toilets. The toilets were passed by the sinks, and finally they reached the showers, Sasuke already driving him insane with the way his free hand was fumbling at Naruto’s belt.
The showers were nice – three tiled walls with a sturdy glass door, latch included, that nicely stretched all the way up to the ceiling, a tile seat for…whatever in the corner. The claustrophobics in the halls hated them, but right now, with the door slamming shut behind them and Naruto pretty much ripping Sasuke’s shirt off, locking the shower door behind him, Naruto decided that they were wonderful showers, the best ever, and that Sasuke needed to be naked. Right. Now.
Sasuke, on the other hand, seemed to have other ideas. The water screeched on, a steady, hot temperature that pelted the both of them, and he was smirking in a ridiculously sexy and EVIL way that made Naruto just want him naked even more.
Instead, Sasuke was practically kneeling on the ever-sanitized floor, stripping their shoes and socks off and then opening the door to toss them out. He paused.
“Oh god don’t you fucking DARE-” Naruto hissed, but it was too late, Sasuke had already walked out the shower stall, dripping wet. “SASUKE YOU BASTARD I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU-”
He was cut off by the sight of Sasuke sans-ripped-off shirt, one eyebrow arched, with a bar of soap and shampoo in his hands. He smirked, tossing the soap and shampoo into the corner of the stall, and put a hand on each side of Naruto’s damp head. “Murder threats aren’t usually a turn-on,” he said, deceptively bland as he leaned in and kissed Naruto, wet and hard. Naruto’s hands glided up slick, smooth, gorgeous skin, finally reaching Sasuke’s shoulders just as Sasuke started on his jawline again.
“What do you want me to do?” Naruto whispered, panting, and Sasuke froze, his lips still caught just beneath Naruto’s ear. “Sasuke, tell me. What do you want.”
The shower’s hot water pelted down on them as Sasuke stared at him, expression unreadable, and swallowed. And when Sasuke did speak, the world crashed around them.
“I want you to make love to me.”
Now, Naruto, while not known for his wisdom or cognitive abilities, certainly knew there was a difference between ‘fuck me’ and ‘make love to me’. A hell of a difference. A difference like comparing a grain of sand to the moon.
Naruto could have done many things. He could have freaked out because yes, this would be more gay sex, but since it was most definitely enjoyable he really didn’t give a shit about that. He could have punched Sasuke, could have called him a whore, could have screamed about how Uchiha Sasuke was a porn star – someone you fucked, someone you, at the most, had sex with. NOT someone you make love with.
Instead, he smiled. “That sounds really, really nice, but I think a dorm bathroom’s shower stall isn’t a good place to make love.”
Sasuke was suddenly puffed up like a blowfish – something Naruto already knew as the dark-haired young man’s version of a pout.
“Tell you what,” Naruto grinned, suddenly almost painfully giddy. “I’ll have sex with you here in the shower, and then we can work on that whole ‘making love’ thing, alright?”
“What the hell are you talking about, idiot?” Sasuke scowled, but nonetheless was pulling Naruto’s shirt off. “I see nothing wrong with a shower.”
“But I do,” Naruto grinned, and practically whipped Sasuke’s belt off, making the already wet pants sag a little lower on his hips. “I want to do that right, you know? But…you know,” Naruto added, smirking. “I see absolutely nothing wrong with sex in the shower.”
Sasuke snorted, and all of a sudden he was shoved back onto that shelf thing in the corner, pants yanked off, and he had a firm, almost teasing hand around his cock.
Naruto practically screamed, but the sound was cut off by another kiss, this one softer, more reassuring than anything else as Sasuke’s hand started to move, and Naruto started to move with it, whimpering at the steadily quickening movement, still-stained hands half clutching Sasuke’s head to kiss him deeper and the other holding onto the bench with a death grip as he groaned.
“You’re such a virgin,” Sasuke muttered around his mouth, adding a wicked twist to his strokes, and in response Naruto bit down on Sasuke’s lower lip, thrusting hard into his grip.
“And that makes you so happy, doesn’t it,” Naruto hissed out, panting. “That everything I’ve ever done I’ve done with you.” Growling, he smacking Sasuke’s arm away and threw them both to the floor of the shower, water running down their naked bodies as Naruto stared fiercely down at Sasuke. “I make you so hard because you’re the only one.”
Sasuke gasped, and for good reason. Naruto ground against him, hard, shuddering. “Think you own me or something, don’t you?”
“No,” Sasuke rasped as Naruto turned his own tricks against him, stroking him hard and biting hard at his neck. “No no no I don’t own you.” He gasped. “I don’t want to own you.”
“Then what is it, Sasuke?” Naruto growled, straddling the paler boy and planting his arms on either side of his face to get a good, hard look into Sasuke’s eyes. “We’re both possessive bastards, aren’t we? So why the fuck is it me you want?”
“B-because,” Sasuke whispered, almost undone from what Naruto could see, muscles tensing as he moaned and grabbed onto Naruto, dragging them as close and as tightly together as possible. Naruto made a noise that was a whimper, a purr, and a groan, all in one, and Sasuke kissed it from his lips, holding on as if his life depended on it.
“Why?” Naruto hissed behind clenched teeth as they ground against each other.
“Because you want me too,” Sasuke whispered, and actually smiled up at him. It was one of the most beautiful things Naruto had ever seen, like walking through the mountains in fall and catching the sunset at just the right moment. “Because you want me.”
It was a weird thing to hear from quite possibly the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, but Naruto was too busy doing that wimpy screaming thing as he came all over Sasuke, panting, and a bit stunned as the porn star did the same, kissing Naruto with that desperate trainwreck of a kiss that Naruto was beginning to love, just like everything else about the young man beneath him.
For a long time they just sat their under the spray of water, kissing and touching and whispering to each other, things so important and trivial that they were practically forgotten after spoken.
When they finally did get up, Naruto was immediately forced back onto the bench…thing, and soaped down until not a fleck of paint remained on him, his hair getting squirted with something that smelled…fruity. Naruto glared up at Sasuke.
“It smells fruity, Sasuke,” Naruto frowned.
Sasuke just raised an eyebrow. “And I care why?”
Naruto glared at him. “I smell like a girl! That’s why you should care!”
“Just shut up and take it,” Sasuke said, accenting it with a smack to the head that sent tiny bubbles flying through the stall. “Smelling like citrus is better than paint, glitter, and old semen in your hair.”
Naruto smirked up at him. “Well, you’d know.”
Sasuke just smacked him again.
It was already nearly five in the morning when they finally got out of the bathroom, both stealing towels from whatever poor fools had decided to neatly stack four nice white towels on the bathroom sink, carrying their sopping wet clothes down the hall until they reached the room Naruto and Shikamaru shared.
“…I’m not going in,” Sasuke said, but it was already too late. Naruto had yanked the porn star into the dorm room, locking the door behind him.
“And this is?” Shikamaru asked drowsily. Even half-asleep, he managed to sound smart. And sardonic.
“Sasuke, meet my roommate Shikamaru,” Naruto said easily, opening up his closet and tossing a pair of baggy pajama pants at Sasuke. “Shikamaru, meet my gay boyfriend Sasuke. He’s a porn star.”
“Boyfriend-” Sasuke sputtered, only to be cut off by the lazy young man already back to three-fourths asleep.
“That’s special,” Shikamaru muttered idly. “No fucking in the dorm room when I’m here.”
“No problem,” Naruto grinned, emerging from the closet in a pair of ratty old boxers. Sasuke changed quickly behind the closet doors, still scowling at the blond. “We’ll just be spooning in our sleep.”
“What?” Sasuke hissed, but was already being wrenched into the drab bed, Naruto pulling the covers over them with a contented sigh, curling around the dark-haired boy.
Sasuke turned around in the bed to turn around and glare at Naruto, but instead his arm became the blond’s new pillow and his chest became the best place for him to curl up around.
“Sleep well then, gay boyfriend Sasuke,” Shikamaru muttered, amused and sounding fully awake despite his eyes being shut and breathing like he was fully under.
And despite the constant misgivings Sasuke had about it, he really, truly did.
---
Can you speak of
my disgraces?
Look at all the
smiling faces…
---
When Naruto’s eyes finally opened again, he saw two things. One was a slip of paper that had almost but not quite been quietly enough slipped onto his poor, broken pillow, and the other was a frozen Sasuke, fingers still cradling the edge of the paper.
He was fully dressed, and within three seconds Naruto could tell the bastard was avoiding looking at him at all cost, dark eyes hidden behind those weird bangs of his as he removed his fingers and backed away.
“Sasuke?” Naruto frowned, voice groggy as he sat up, chest still bare. It was cold in the room, colder than he could remember it ever being, and he wasn’t sure it was just the temperature.
“…You sleep like a log, idiot,” Sasuke said, cold and arrogant and edging for the door, the paper slowly slipping from the pillow onto the floor.
“Logs don’t sleep,” Naruto snapped, and was already sliding out of bed, not giving a damn about how he was shaking and in nothing but bright orange boxers.
“It took an hour to pry you off me, and I’m already late,” Sasuke rolled his eyes, ignoring the comment and shouldering the dorm room’s door open.
“Late for WHAT?” Naruto snapped out, growling and having little to no idea what. He just had some gut feeling, something pulling at him that said don’t let him run away again. He ran last time, and like hell would he get away again.
He was still terrified of a door slamming between them again, Naruto realized, and Sasuke seemed terrified of one not.
“You know what, moron,” Sasuke snapped out, finally meeting Naruto’s eyes to glare venom at him. “I have a job, Naruto, you remember that, right? It’s how we met, after all.” The other boy muttered something under his breath, something Naruto couldn’t catch even when he’d been awake for more than half a minute.
Naruto’s face scrunched up, frowning at Sasuke. “What, you have to work at two in the afternoon? I thought-”
“I HAVE TO LEAVE,” Sasuke finally shouted out, slamming the crack of open door shut and striding forward to shake Naruto by the shoulders. “I have to GO, I can’t stay here with you, you moron, you utter, hopeless moron, don’t you get it?”
“No, I DON’T,” Naruto shouted right back, throwing Sasuke’s arms off and shoving him backwards. “I don’t understand ANYTHING about you, you bastard! I don’t get why the fuck you keep trying to close doors between us, I don’t get why you showed up in front of my door, I don’t…I don’t understand anything, Sasuke, and I think it’s YOU who’s being the moron!”
Sasuke sneered at him. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“EXACTLY,” Naruto practically screamed, arms flying out in frustration. “But I want to, Sasuke, believe me, I want to know you, but you just keep running-”
And that was it. Without another word Sasuke had moved forward and punched Naruto in the chin with a mean right hook, eyes smoldering. Years of bullying and roughhousing immediately had Naruto grabbing onto Sasuke’s legs as he fell, bringing them both down.
Sasuke clearly wasn’t used to fighting hard and dirty like Naruto, who for a very long time had depended on beating the beaters just to keep his lunch ticket at school, so it was no surprise to Naruto that he had him pinned on the floor, immobile, at a downright disturbing speed. He glared right back.
“Get. Off. Me,” Sasuke seethed.
Naruto felt like the bastard had stabbed him through the heart with all this shit, and finally let the expression show.
“Tell me, Sasuke,” Naruto said, quiet and simple.
“GET OFF ME,” Sasuke said instead, trying his best to break a hold that Naruto knew had held down people much bigger and stronger before.
“I’ll get off of you when you tell me what the HELL is wrong with you!” Naruto shouted back.
“GET OFF ME, NARUTO,” Sasuke said, and suddenly an arm was loose. Before Naruto could do anything, Sasuke had a hand clenched around Naruto’s throat, eyes burning with both fear and anger. “I have to go, I have to be there, I have to try to get him, and you make me forget him and I CAN’T, so get off me NOW.”
Naruto rolled to the side and stood, staring down at the panting, near-tears, fragile version of Uchiha Sasuke that lay on his floor.
He felt empty and strange.
“…you’re in love with someone else,” Naruto stated, and Sasuke shuddered, closing his eyes.
“Fine. Yes. Madly,” he said, words jagged and simple as he stood up from the floor, not looking at Naruto.
He was glad for it, feeling lost and trying to remember if there had ever been any hint, any clue he should have latched onto that it was someone else Sasuke was thinking of whenever-
“Do I look like him or something?” Naruto asked, voice hoarse as he sagged back onto the bed. “The guy you love?”
Sasuke’s swallow was audible. “…you could be the same person,” he said quietly. “He’s…he…”
The dark-haired porn star didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he walked out the door and slammed it shut behind him, leaving Naruto closed out and behind him all over again.
Time passed, enough time that Shikamaru came into the room with a steaming hot bowl of ramen that he set on Naruto’s school-issued desk and sat on the opposite bunk, staring at him. And then more time passed so that the steam dissipated and left, and Shikamaru left after tossing his dark green robe at Naruto, and that he numbly put it on. Enough time passed that he gathered the courage to pick up the paper and stare at the top of the folded up note, like the ones kids used to pass in middle school.
Naruto, it read. Nice and easy. The handwriting was spiky and scrawled, just sloppy enough that the letters rolled into each other.
Shikamaru came in again. Another cup of steaming hot ramen, this one accompanied by Ino, who gave him a firm hug and sat next to Shikamaru anxiously, frowning at him.
I’ve been in a gutter, been in a latrine,
I’ve been in the back of a black limousine
I’ve been just about everywhere in between
And if I had the choice to live dirty or clean
I tell you I’d live in a dirty magazine
Yessir I would live in a dirty magazine
A dirty magazine
A dirty magazine