Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Copycats & Doppelgangers ❯ The Copycat ( Chapter 1 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Copycats & Doppelgangers

(Part 1: The Copycat)

Summary: Sasuke develops a sudden fear for his sanity when he realizes he might like his best friend. Sai, Sasuke's unwanted doppelganger, becomes a greater thorn in his side when it becomes obvious the crass boy likes Naruto as well. YAOI.

Sasuke/Naruto/Sasuke some Sai/Naruto

Disclaimer: Naruto was created by Masashi Kishimoto. Then some people in suits turned it into an anime. They have names. I just don't know what they are. In any case, I am merely borrowing the characters.

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A/N: This was intended to be a Oneshot (in which I am both taking a breather from the Death Note fic (A Balm for Social Failure), and proving to myself I can write a story that is under 50,000 words. Kore de yoshi!)

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Spoiler Warnings & Other Stuff: Warnings for Sasuke's character development (and events surrounding him) up through episode 135. I make reference to some things that happened during that time and a decision he made.

The character Sai is from Naruto Shippuden, the next part of the series after the FILLER (eps 136-220). Minor spoilery thingies for him as well, but nothing massive. In the series, he became a part of Team 7 with Naruto and Saukra for a while while Sasuke was off doing other things. Aside from his debut in episode 1 of Shippuden (they did a Tarantino-esque peak into the future), he really comes in at episode 33.

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Part 1:

"Hey, Sasuke..." Naruto said ponderingly.

"What?"

"You remember when we were kids?"

Sasuke made a slight face of annoyance as he tried to keep Naruto from distracting him from the task at hand. "That's rather vague... A point of reference would be helpful."

"Pfft," Naruto scoffed before obliging. "Like when we first formed team seven?"

"I blocked out most of that due to Sakura," the black-haired boy said as he worked. "She was starting to traumatize me more than my dark, tragic past."

"Yeah, about that," Naruto cut in. "I know everyone thought you were awesome and all - enough to obsess over your every move - but they had it all wrong."

"I was good at what I did," Sasuke prickled defensively. Why wouldn't they look up to him for being an excellent ninja? "I was the ace rookie-"

"A master brooder," Naruto added obnoxiously, speaking over him.

"And top of our class-"

"Unoriginal."

Unoriginal? Sasuke paused, feeling mildly insulted, but also annoyed that Naruto might think less of him for something. Not that the blond had bothered himself to be specific... "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You're a copycat," Naruto said plainly, in an almost lecturing tone. "It's a nasty habit you've always had and it hasn't improved with age. It amazes me that all your supposed coolness has blinded everyone from seeing that."

"..." Sasuke stared at the blond. He felt his eye starting to twitch - a reaction Naruto excelled at invoking. "Not that it matters, but what are you going on about?"

One of Naruto's enormous blue eyes blinked at him critically as the blond regarded him over his shoulder. "I was paying attention back then, and it's been bothering me for years. We were all kids, but you were trying so hard to act cool that all you ended up doing was copying things people said and acting like you were the one who came up with it - and everyone bought it. You've even copied ME before."

"Impossible," Sasuke dismissed the notion that anything Naruto said would be profound enough to repeat.

"You DID," Naruto insisted. "Though usually it would be Kakashi-sensei or someone else." The blond's face scrunched up in annoyance. "ARRRRRGHHHHH it pissed me off! You were coasting on other people's coolness all this time and none of your fans even noticed! It was fraud--"

"Even were that the case-" he interrupted drolly before the blond really warmed up to his rant (Naruto could sometimes complain like it was an endurance sport), "-it never stopped you from following me around like a puppy with its tail between its legs." Sasuke punctuated the statement with a few well-placed elbow grinds into Naruto's bare back.

"Nnngh," Naruto groaned, eyes squinting shut as his muscles were kneaded so roughly. "Bastard," the blond said gruffly, switching to a combative tone as if to cover the peculiar quality of the noise he'd just made. "Who taught you massage? You're worse than the hag."

"It's me or nothing, Dobe," Sasuke reminded him warningly.

"Alright, alright," Naruto grumbled. "Don't stop...." He breathed out heavily as Sasuke found another knot. "But would it kill you to be a bit more gentle?"

Sasuke hesitated as he considered how to proceed. "How gentle? Like this?" He smoothed his hands down Naruto's back and rolled lazy half circles up along his spine. "I thought you liked it harder...?"

"Mmmmn."

Sasuke was surprised to feel the blond's response ripple through him.

Stranger still was the combined oddness he felt at that, and the vague distraction of supple flesh beneath his fingers. It made him more aware of the body beneath him, causing him to give it more than a casual appraisal. Naruto certainly had a nice form... it was evident that he trained extensively. But this was the first time Sasuke had taken much note of it.

Sasuke frowned. Perhaps straddling the other boy's body was not the best of positions. Though it made massage easier, it suddenly seemed rather awkward. He could feel the blond's body heat warming his skin. It was both disturbing and disturbingly appealing.

He tried to ignore the fact that he was likely going insane. It ran in the family after all, but maybe it would go away if he ignored it.

"I never followed you around like a puppy," Naruto muttered sulkily.

"You still do." Sasuke worked over the muscles in the blond's shoulders, cutting off the other boy's retort with the deeply penetrating motion.

"Nnnn... do not."

Again, the sound affected him unexpectedly. Sasuke forced his mind from lingering on the curve of Naruto's hips between his thighs, which was nothing short of a feat to accomplish. "Don't argue with me, Dobe, you know I'm right."

"No, I know you're an uppity bastard. And you have a high opinion of yourself that is needlessly shared by everyone else."

Naruto had fine golden hairs dusting his lower back. They were soft, and pale against the tawny gold of his skin. Sasuke ran his fingertips over the ones just above the waistband of the other boy's pants without thinking.

The blond's body tensed. "S-Sasuke?"

The faintly tremulous tone to his voice was intriguing. "What?" he murmured.

"Um..."

"There was a piece of lint," Sasuke lied airily. "Calm down. Your tensing up is ruining all of my hard work."

Naruto's lean body tensed further beneath his hands as he resumed the massage. It seemed to shudder a little before slowly giving in to his request, which did nothing to distract Sasuke from some surprising and very inappropriate thoughts.

For instance, he was greatly regretting the fact that they were in one of the many public lounge areas in the Hokage's tower. If they had been at his own house, or even Naruto's sorry excuse for an apartment...

"Hey, Dynamic Duo," a particularly annoying voice, to Saskue anyway, grated from the open doorway.

"Sai!" Naruto piped up with a pleased grin - the antithesis of Sasuke's reaction to the intruding ninja. "When'd you get back? I thought you were in Grass Country for at least another week?"

Sai leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest in a manner that was vaguely stand-offish yet displayed his bare midsection in an inviting way. Sasuke had decided long ago that he hated that outfit, and the other boy in general. His sense of fashion was worse than Naruto's. Though, he admitted, Sai managed to look good even in bad taste; that was part of what irritated him the most.

"We finished early," the other black-haired shinobi said without expression. "Hokage-sama wanted to see you both... but I could tell her you are otherwise engaged?" A tiny, lewd smirk ghosted the corner of his pale lips.

Naruto seemed to become aware of the compromising position he was in and promptly scrambled out from under Sasuke with an embarrassed flush rising in his face. "No, no, it's nothing like that."

"Oh? Nothing like what?" Sai said dryly, looking quite entertained as Naruto waved his hands about in denial.

"I messed up my back, so I asked him to help me out with a massage." Naruto fidgeted. "There was no one else!" he added defiantly.

"Hmmm." Sai looked Naruto up and down and then Sasuke. "I wasn't aware Sasuke-kun was good with his hands."

Naruto coughed and busied himself with looking for his shirt and jacket.

"Sasuke-kun," Sai addressed him then, "Why don't you go see her first, hmm?" Get lost, was the unspoken message.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the other boy and his faux smile. His pale face was so blankly cheerful... and his eyes were closed as if to hide his true thoughts and feelings. It was annoying. "Very well." He got up off the couch and straightened, smoothing a few wrinkles from his white shorts, glaring at Sai the entire time.

"You know, Naruto," Sai was saying as Sasuke left the room, "I happen to be very skilled at massage..."

Sasuke ground his teeth, deciding that it was reasons like this that he hated the ninja that everyone thought was so similar to himself. Naruto's enthusiastic exclamation in response was another.

---

"Sasuke-teme, I said wait!" Naruto hollered.

Sasuke ignored him, pushing his hands deeper into his pockets as he walked at a fast pace. They'd spoken with the Hokage, they had their new mission, and his business with Naruto was complete. And he was not jealous.

"Go home, Dobe, I have things to do."

"Like what?" Naruto challenged, huffing as he finally caught up.

"None of your business." He didn't really have anything to do, but Sai always put him in a rotten mood. The boy liked to imply that there was something going on between himself and Naruto, only to have the blond vehemently deny it. Then the tankini-wearing bastard would give Sasuke a look that let him know that he was laughing on the inside.

It shouldn't annoy him that Naruto seemed to like the pale, socially-maladjusted pain in the ass. But it did.

A lot.

Especially when Sai seemed to lavish a special sort of attention on the blond... Especially when said special attention looked a lot like flirting...

"Sasuke-bastard's a bastard," Naruto announced.

"Idiot blond is an idiot," Sasuke shot back with a roll of his eyes.

"Aw, c'mon, Sasuke!" Naruto groaned, "You were in such a good mood earlier."

"Was I?"

Naruto thought about that for a moment. "Well, a good mood for you. You were less pissy than usual."

Sasuke glared at the blond, who was smiling mischievously at him. "It's a wonder I haven't killed you yet."

"It's because you'd be sad if I weren't around to bug you all the time."

"Hn. I wouldn't be sad, I'd be ecstatic."

"You'd miss me," Naruto assured him, throwing an arm around his shoulders.

Sasuke almost broke stride. Almost. "Get off me, Dobe. Your jacket clashes with my hair." Good god, did he actually like Naruto? The unsettled feeling in his stomach said 'yes'.

"Yeah? Well your shirt clashes with my jacket."

Sasuke's mind supplied an easy fix for both complaints and the thought of seeing Naruto half-naked, and maybe also from the front this time, was almost too vivid.

"I'll lose my jacket if you lose your shirt," Naruto said in his ear.

Sasuke jumped back as the words stirred something in him he was positive would result in nothing good. He could feel the blush it had inspired on his cheeks, and felt nearly mortified at his reaction. Naruto was watching him with wide, blue eyes.

"It was a joke, Sasuke."

Sasuke wasn't sure he believed that, but he didn't handle embarrassment well. Those emotions he didn't know what to do with often turned to anger. "Well it wasn't very funny, was it?" he said sharply.

Naruto glared at him. "Well maybe it would have been if you weren't so uptight!"

"If I'm so uptight, then why the hell do you hang around me all the time when I want to be left alone? Go bother Sai or something, I'm sure at least he'd appreciate it." Oh god, why did I mention Sai? Don't bother Sai, Naruto.

"You're such an asshole," Naruto said through clenched teeth. His eyes were squinted shut unhappily. "I guess it's my fault for thinking that there was more to you underneath all that." He turned on his heel and stomped off in the other direction.

"Naruto," Sasuke said in frustration. The blond swatted a hand in his direction without turning around, telling him to piss off, but kept going.

Sasuke watched him until he disappeared from view around a building. "I am an asshole," he lamented. But he did not know how to deal with this new sort of fixation with the blond he was now becoming aware of. He knew his mood was not stellar most days, but if it continued like this, it would be rough times ahead.

---

Naruto tiraded at Sasuke in his head, and cursed himself for being stupid enough to say something suggestive in the first place.

He should have known Sasuke would react like that. Truthfully, he could have expected worse. But why bring Sai into it? He wasn't so optimistic as to believe Sasuke was jealous, though he did seem to dislike the ninja with the short black hair more than was warranted.

No, Sasuke was just being a prickly bastard, telling him to go somewhere he was wanted.

"Che," Naruto grumbled. He'd had enough of being unwanted. He didn't want to hear it from his best friend as well. He was tired of imposing on people. Maybe he would go and see Sai... his back still hurt and his spirits were low enough that he didn't feel like going home.

---

Sasuke, in his darkening mood, decided that the best thing to do was to stalk Naruto. 'Follow' Naruto, he amended. The blond had seemed really hurt this time... it was his duty as a friend to make sure he was ok.

Right.

Putting his skills of stealth to the test, Sasuke 'followed' Naruto. It was vexing indeed that after debating going home, Naruto seemed inclined to visit the tankini ninja, as Sasuke had unthinkingly suggested. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Sasuke berated himself. He leaned futhur around the side of a building as he crouched, watching Naruto ring the doorbell of Sai's apartment.

"Greetings, fair Uchiha," a spandex clad horror acknowledged him energetically, nearly scaring him out of his skin. "What brings you to this part of town?"

"Shhhh!" Sasuke threw a finger in front of his lips and glared at Lee. His eyes darted back to Naruto to see him disappearing through the doorway. "Dammit."

"Is there some reason you do not wish for Naruto to see you, Sasuke-kun?"

"Several," he replied cagily. "But now is not a good time, Lee. I'm busy."

Lee looked thoughtful. "It appears that you are infringing on Naruto's privacy. That is not something you should be busy with, Sasuke-kun. If you are lacking in stimulating activities with which to occupy your time, I would be more than happy to suggest a few--"

Sasuke rubbed a hand over his face. "No, that is quite alright..." He waved his hand at Lee in a shooing motion. "So if you'll just--

"Sasuke-kun," the bowl-haircut sporting ninja said resolutely, "I cannot leave you to this. Stalking is not a proper and healthy activity to engage in."

"Yeah, well neither is sodomy, but people still do it."

"W-What is that? Your tone implies something exceedingly inappropriate."

"Oh, and it is," Sasuke agreed blithely. "That's why I am making sure it doesn't happen to Naruto. You better ask Guy-sensei about it- it's very complicated and I'm sure it will be easier to understand coming from him." I'm evil. But an ends to a means, right? "You should go ask him right now; then you can help me keep Naruto on the path of virtue."

To Sasuke's delight, Lee got a very determined look on his face before sprinting off in search of his teacher.

He smiled. So, naivety was good for something!

Speaking of naive, Sai was most certainly not. Naruto was in danger.

Sasuke ninja-ran to Sai's building and pressed his back to the wall, so he would not be visible from the windows. He heard something inside... voices, perhaps. Creeping up to a window that would belong to Sai's unit, he listened closer.

"Nnn... no, not there..."

"Shhh, you'll come to like it..."

"Ahhh!"

"Mmmm, so hot..."

Sasuke could not believe his ears. He flushed hot with rage and something else as the muffled voices painted a picture in his head. He could see Sai (the bastard!) leaning over Naruto, lifting long, tanned legs as he...

The image shifted. Sasuke could see himself, leaning over Naruto, lifting long, smooth, tanned legs as he moved between the other boy's thighs... Naruto's face would be flushed, his eyes partially closed as he bit his lip in pleasure...

Sasuke mentally slapped himself. Really hard.

Another moan sounded from inside and Sasuke's frazzled nerves snapped. He couldn't let Sai do that to his best friend! He couldn't let that pervert have him! (By the sound of things, it's a little late for that, isn't it?) his inner voice asked. Shut up! he growled at it and broke down the door.

...Or he would have, but it happened to be unlocked. He fell into the apartment rather ungracefully as two pairs of eyes turned his way.

"Can I help you, Sasuke-kun?" Sai asked.

"Sasuke??!" Naruto said.

"Er..." Sasuke replied intelligently as he noted the two other boys were both fully clothed. He stared at Sai's deadpan expression and then Naruto's shocked face.

"Oooooh, yes," a voice from the television set moaned.

"Nngh-- Ahhhhh."

"Harder, Ah!"

As Sasuke watched, Naruto's face slowly blushed a bright red.

"Ummm, this isn't what you think," Naruto said nervously.

Sasuke blinked at him, and then looked over his shoulder at the screen which showed two actors that were both unmistakably male. "It isn't gay pornography?" he asked skeptically.

"No!" Naruto stammered. "I mean, it was just on... it's not like we wanted to watch it or rented it or anything. Sai, turn that off!"

"But it's about to get to the best part," Sai said without embarrassment.

Heavy panting and gasping issues from the TV, scandalizing to hear.

Naruto looked rather desperate and started searching for the remote.

"Looking for this?" Sai asked, holding it aloft. "But maybe your friend here wants to watch it," he said slyly.

"Sai!" Naruto stage-whispered, his face turning redder by the moment. "Please. I'll do anything."

Sai took a moment to smirk at Sasuke before complying. The sound powered off right as one of the actors let out a full-throated groan of completion.

The ensuing silence was deafening.

Sasuke felt very uncomfortable indeed. His best friend was watching gay porn with the guy that seemed to want to jump him AND had just agreed to do anything the pale-faced bastard wanted. To top that off, Sasuke was not left unaffected by the noises that had accompanied the depiction of lovemaking, and all he could do while hearing that is stare at Naruto and wish they had been doing the same. Insane. I'm insane.

The other problem he had was that he had just busted into Sai's apartment unannounced. He searched for something he could say to explain as the blond started to give him the hairy eye. "Uh... Naruto..."

"Why are you even here, Sasuke?" Naruto spat. Apparently he, too, liked to use anger as a cover for embarrassment. "You told me to get lost, and now you're following me around? Just what is it with you??"

"I'm sure you two have a lot to talk about," Sai said lightly, standing up to stretch. "But Sasuke-kun, you are an uninvited guest. Please remove yourself. I have business with Naruto-kun and you are intruding upon that."

Sasuke gaped. "No," he said with horror. He knew the peaky bastard would try to turn that into something perverted! "Any business you have, had better not be--"

"It's none of your concern, Sasuke," Naruto said. He looked shifty, as if he didn't really believe his own words. "Just leave."

"Or stay," Sai said, pulling Naruto up off the couch and into a deep kiss.

Naruto twitched as their bodies pressed full-length against each other, and tried to pull away but Sai was persistent and eventually the blond's eyes closed in defeat. The shamed blush that blazed across his tanned cheeks incited Sasuke to fury.

Sasuke leapt over the couch, intent on strangling the life from Sai before the other boy could fully molest his best friend.

He managed to knock Naruto aside and rode Sai to the ground, wrapping his hands around his throat and pinning the other boy's legs with his as he sat astride him. Sai gripped his wrists so that his windpipe would remain whole. He smiled up at Sasuke.

"That's enough," Sasuke growled.

Sai's eyes cracked open, and held his. "Is it?" he said lightly. "I can feel you digging into my hip."

Appalled, Sasuke released him and tried to gain some distance, but Sai held on, his smile widening to a grin.

"I wouldn't mind showing you how things work, since you seem so shy, Sasuke-kun," he said teasingly while grinding his hips upward.

Sasuke shuddered at the foreign feeling. Naruto, Naruto, Naruto. He knew it was Sai and yet his brain was fixated on how this would feel with the blond. Doing things with Naruto... things like what he had seen on that video. GOD. "Sai, you sick freak! Let go of my arms before I'm forced to hurt you." His voice sounded a bit odd to his own ears, but reasonable authoritative.

As he moved to stand, he felt himself being hauled to his feet by an irate Naruto. Not only hauled to his feet, but dragged outside, where he expected a torrent of verbal abuse for infringing on the blond's privacy and embarrassing him.

Once they were outside and a little ways away from Sai's building, Naruto shoved him against a wall, glaring at him as he gripped the collar of Sasuke's shirt in his fist.

The next thing he knew, Naruto was kissing him hard and dirty, and Sasuke's stomach was doing somersaults as his spine melted. It was better than he had ever imagined a kiss could feel. He pulled Naruto against him, reveling in the heat of his body and the harder heat pressing into his abdomen. His head was spinning as Naruto's hands slipped under his shirt and smoothed firmly up his back.

Sasuke had never been this aroused in his life.

He panted as Naruto kissed down his neck and sucked at his skin. It was overwhelming. It was wonderful. It was torturous. His belly was aching with desire and he wanted nothing more than to push Naruto down onto any horizontal surface, and take things as far as they could go.

"Naruto..."

"I can't believe you let him do that," the blond muttered against his neck.

"..." I didn't let him do anything, he wanted to say, but Naruto was speaking again.

"If I had known you weren't a total prude, I would have said something sooner..."

"I'm not a prude," Sasuke said angrily, though it came out rather breathy.

"You are," Naruto assured him hazily, as he moved in to recapture Sasuke's lips. Sasuke shuddered at the sensual tone of them. He'd never seen Naruto like this. He was so... so...

Sasuke found words were failing him. Sexy, demanding, vulnerable, none of those things fully captured how the blond looked and felt to him in this moment. "You let him kiss you," he accused suddenly, a belated come-back he hadn't meant to voice. Oh, why can I not keep my mouth shut? He didn't want to piss Naruto off, or otherwise ruin the moment...

"I'll kick his ass for that later," Naruto said distractedly. "And for trying stuff on you... but..."

"What?"

"Would you hate me if I said... that I loved the look on your face as much as I wanted to knee him in the nuts?"

"Ah..." Sasuke wasn't sure how to respond.

"I couldn't stand it anymore... seeing you make expressions like that..." Naruto's hand trailed down Sasuke's stomach. "Stupid Sai." Naruto's mouth latched onto his neck as the blond's questing hand palmed him.

Sasuke smothered the noise that threatened to escape him, as his focus narrowed to the where Naruto was touching him. This was not the place for such things... they were barely in an alley for God's sake. But... Oh, he couldn't bear to make Naruto stop. "Naru...to..." he groaned as the blond's hand slipped underneath his waistband unbidden and took hold of his desperate flesh. "Ah..."

Naruto's fingers were like the hand of god, seeming to transform him with every brush. Every stroke was bringing him closer to the shining edge of this painful desire. He was so hard he felt he would burst. He gripped Naruto's shoulders, thinking suddenly that they should stop, that he should push Naruto away before anything happened to change their relationship to something more than friends. "Do...be," he panted, not finding the strength to do more than hold on to his best friend as he was kissed again thoroughly. He cried out suddenly into the dampening hush of the blond's mouth as his body began to shake in staggering tremors of release.

"Sasuke," Naruto said huskily, brushing his lips over the other boy's flushed cheeks. "Will you come to my place?"

Dazed, Sasuke agreed.

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TBC