Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Copycats & Doppelgangers ❯ The Pests ( Chapter 2 )

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

Copycats & Doppelgangers

(Part 2: The Pests)

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: (See part 1 for full disclaimer.)

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A/N: This may be a little bit longer than I thought. Still aiming for short though! ^^

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Part 2:

Sasuke woke the next morning with a niggling feeling that something... something... was heinously wrong. It was almost enough to make him try to regain his previously unconscious state, but his mind liked to torment him relentlessly, so he found himself surveying his surroundings instead.

It did not put him at ease.

Oh, no. Not at all.

The state of chaos he found himself engulfed in was quite enough to make him run screaming into the dark depths of his own private hell, but that was typical of the mess in Naruto's apartment. What really got to him in that moment - besides the fact that he could not remember much of the previous night and that he was on the couch with tan arm flung over his naked stomach - was the sight of a used condom on the living room floor.

No, not only that...

What bothered even more, was that he could not even say whether its use had occurred during the gaping hole in his memory or even which of them might have used it.

Did we really...?

He stared at it as if it were about to move. He peered at it from where it lay enshrined by a lazy ring of scattered bottles of alcohol, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a knock at the door.

He shrugged out from under Naruto, grabbing the thin blanket that had been covering them to cover himself as he went to see who it was, and the blond didn't even twitch. Sasuke considered kicking him awake as he started to snore softly, but decided it would only increase the discomfort of the situation. He hobbled towards the door, cursing as he almost tripped and fell several times over the sprawling clutter that inhabited the floor.

This is all Sai's fault, he decided with irritation.

He wrenched the door open, feeling a storm cloud brewing over his head with every continuing moment of wakefulness.

On the stoop, looking back at him, was perhaps the last person he wanted to see. He stared at them a moment, then promptly slammed the door in their faces.

Their.

For there were, in fact, two someones on the stoop...either of whom would be the last person he wanted to see. He was starting to hate green.

"Sasuke?" came the sleepy yawn from the blond on the couch. "Who was it?"

Sasuke gave him a steely glare. Did you use that condom, or did I? Did we really have sex or are you just that much of a slob?

Naruto blinked back at him. "What?"

Sasuke then glared pointedly at the discarded piece of off-white latex in its fairy ring of inhibition-reducing wreckage.

Naruto leaned over the edge of the couch to look, promptly turned bright red, and started stammering out something incomprehensible - the clarity of which was further destroyed by the blond's discovery that he was very much nude.

The visitors could still be heard outside. One pounded on the door. "Sasuke-kun! Invite us in! You are being extremely rude, and that is not befitting of a ninja in the flower of his youth."

"Come back later!" he hollered back.

"Is that... Lee?" Naruto asked him with confusion.

"Sasuke-kun," a deeper voice called out. "Sodomy is not necessarily wrong, but I think you should take some time to reconsider..."

Sasuke put a hand over his face. "And Guy-sensei," he muttered.

"W-What's that he's saying about sodomy?" Naruto squeaked.

A sudden puff of smoke obscured Naruto from his vision as Guy appeared next to him. The older man put a hand on Sasuke's shoulder, startling the bejeebus out of him. He stood stock still, feeling very inadequate with the sheet wrapped around his hips. But not nearly as inadequate as Naruto, who was desperately trying to cover his boy bits with his hands. His blue eyes were as wide as saucers.

Sasuke locked gazes with him, and they were most assuredly thinking the same thing. Don't look at it! It was amazingly hard to keep their eyes from twitching to the rubber on the floor, disastrous as that would be.

"As I was saying, Sasuke-kun, there is still time to nip this in the bud...Hm? What's that?"

"UH.... Can I make anyone some tea?" Naruto offered quickly.

"Well, I wouldn't recommend it unless you put some clothes on," Lee said reasonably, having climbed in via the unlatched window. "You might burn yourself."

"I'll be fine," Naruto assured him, embarrassment burning his face as he jumped up, hands still positioned for maximum coverage. "What kind would you like, Guy-sensei? Green tea? Red? Oolong?" As he distracted the man with the choices, he sidled over to the fairy ring of bottles and kicked some clutter over top of it. "Haha, well, I'll just get dressed while you think it over."

The blond scuttled out of the room backwards, somehow not tripping over the piles of junk, and Sasuke was left alone with the two bowl-cut sporting ninja.

"Ah...." Sasuke said. Awkward did not properly express the unpleasant feel in the air. "So what brings you by Naruto's so early in the morning?"

"SODOMY," Lee announced.

Sasuke successfully prevented himself from losing hold of the blanket as his hand spasmed in startled surprise, but it was close. This candid little scene was forcing his eyes wider than he would have thought possible, and his skin was itching with the need to be anywhere else right now. His dark eyes whipped to the side as Guy, despite Sasuke's fervent wishes, began to make this even more torturous by speaking.

Guy nodded in affirmation of his pupil's proclamation, and addressed the half-naked Uchiha. "I heard of your concern for young Naruto, and thought I would check up on him for you." He rubbed his chin and leveled Sasuke with a stern look. "Sodomy is a tricky beast, Sasuke-kun, you must be aware of its potential to occur at ANY TIME and be prepared to resist temptation." He nodded sagely. "Deeply caring for a friend or a pupil can lead to danger..."

Guy smiled then, a sparkle glinting off of his teeth, nice-guy style. "It's a good thing we got here when we did."

Sasuke, meanwhile, was edging towards the other side of the living room, trying to escape.

He could borrow clothes from Naruto, he thought. As long as the two spandex-clad ninja didn't realize he was as bare as the blond was under the shield of his blanket, he could coast on their misconceptions.

"Uh, hey, Sasuke, you wanna borrow-"

Naruto's voice startled him, making him turn slightly to look, gaining him the inception of the Worst Case Scenario. Something from the junk heap caught at his foot and he was falling.

Falling.... and losing the blanket. It waved before his outstretched fingers, flapping just out of reach as he hit the floor. Shiiiiiit!

Dignity prevented Sasuke from remembering the following three and a half minutes.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting in Naruto's room, on his bed, wearing a pair of grotesquely colored boxer shorts that had little 'X's over a plethora of Uchiha clan symbols and were accompanied by obnoxiously happy evil smilie faces. They were purple.

"Er... about those," Naruto said with embarrassment. "I forgot to do laundry - I mean - they uh... aren't mine..."

"Nevermind that, Naruto, give me some pants, and tell me what the hell we're going to do about THEM." He jerked his head towards the direction of the living room.

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" the blond gestured wildly. "For all I know, they're crazy. Maybe you should tell my why they keep going on about... about..."

"Sodomy?" Sasuke said drolly.

Naruto flushed slightly. "Yes, that. By the way, I really haven't done any laundry. All I have is what you're wearing and a pair of my usual pants...." he trailed off. "That I...uh, wore for a few hours the other day. Sorry."

Sasuke gave him a Glare of Death. "Where are they?" Better the pants than being caught in these boxer shorts.

Naruto cringed and leaned over to pick a pair of blindingly orange pants off the floor. He held them out apologetically.

Sasuke growled, but accepted them, putting them on with an expression akin to curdled milk. As he fastened them, he noted they hung low enough on his hips (he was a little slimmer than Naruto) that the wretchedness of the boxers was exposed. Great. Purple, orange and black. He felt like a fucking Halloween party favor. "Shirt?" he demanded.

Naruto shook his head mutely.

Sasuke wished he would stop staring. "Dobe," he cursed. He felt ridiculous enough as it was without the blond gawking at his less than perfect appearance. Besides, Naruto had no room to laugh at him - he was wearing a pair of black boxers that proclaimed "Sassy" all over them in various colors of neon text. Sasuke didn't ask. He didn't want to know.

"Do they, uh... know anything?" Naruto asked nervously, his eyes trained on Sasuke's bare torso.

Naruto was SO not asking him this right now, Sasuke fumed internally, feeling the color rising in his cheeks.

Blue eyes met his awkwardly as the other boy continued, "That we... um..." The blond scratched at his arm and then began studying the floor as if with great interest as his face began to darken with a blush. "...you know."

"No, I don't know," Sasuke said gruffly, grabbing him by the shoulder. "I can barely remember coming over here last night, where we must've drank a hell of a lot judging by the bottles on the living room floor." He leaned in, gazing unflinchingly into the oceans of Naruto's eyes and the blond leaned away, looking cagey. "Just what happened last night?"

"N-Nothing! I don't know!" Naruto was a horrible liar. He also looked strangely appealing with sleep-rumpled hair.

"I um, have to brush my teeth," he exclaimed, shrugging off Sasuke's hand. He bolted out of the room.

Sasuke stared at his hand, still feeling the warmth of tanned skin on his palm and a misguided desire to bring his lips into contact with his friend's. Insane. Definitely going off the deep end fast. He left the room and tried to convince himself that he hadn't also been checking out Naruto's bare chest with more than passing interest.

---

Naruto was not usually self-conscious, but bugger all - today was an exception.

Every time he caught his best friend's dark eyes on him, he was having the unerring tendency to fumble what was in his hands or stutter 'um's like they were going outta style. Nasty habit. He hated being nervous. He also hated spilling hot tea all over his hands simply because he got distracted looking at the epic perfection that was Sasuke's washboard abs.

So here he was, making tea for his unwanted guests AGAIN, all the while fretting over the fact that Sasuke didn't remember their night of sordid love. Not that he completely remembered either... they really had drank more than was advisable. But after their brief interlude outside Sai's apartment... God, just remembering how it had felt to touch his friend like that...

After that, there was no way he was going to let Sasuke change his mind about going further. And the dark-haired boy had been showing signs of reconsidering by the time they'd made it to Naruto's apartment. For his own part, he was feeling jittery as well, so he decided that getting themselves totally smashed was a bloody fantastic idea.

Unfortunately, the haze of alcohol, while allowing them to act on impulses that might never see the light of day, had obscured the little details. Like who had buggered who. Though whichever way it had been, it had been the most incredible feeling of Naruto's life.

Had Sasuke really forgotten everything?

Naruto risked another look at the dark-haired ninja. He was gorgeous.

"Fuck," Naruto seethed as realized he'd knocked over the sugar jar. That's it. Sasuke was bad for his health. Bad for his concentration, his motor skills, and bad for keeping his thoughts from sinking even further into the gutter that they were happily making into their new home. Why now? He'd decided ages ago that he would never let on to his sort-of attraction for his best friend, and now it was raging out of control.

Stupid Sai. It was all his fault!

A hand on his caused Naruto to nearly jump through the ceiling. Sasuke. He froze, more than a little aware of how close the other boy was standing, and that he could feel the heat of Sasuke's body radiating against the bare skin of his back. His hand clenched tighter on the sugar jar's lid where it rested on the counter.

"Dobe, I should have known you couldn't even handle making tea," Sasuke said under his breath in mild exasperation, leaning over the blond's shoulder. His voice was right next to Naruto's ear and contained a deeper thrum than usual. The blond's thoughts were having a field day in that gutter. "Let me," the dark-haired boy insisted, encouraging Naruto to release his death grip on the ceramic lid.

Slim, pale fingers pried Naruto's off of the piece of crockery. Naruto was overly preoccupied with the fact that Sasuke's arms had to encircle him to do so. The gutter-thoughts were dancing. They almost died of joy when Naruto felt lips brush against the side of his neck. He himself almost died of embarrassment for, unlike them, he remembered they had company.

He jumped back and slapped a fake grin on his face. "T-Thanks, Sasuke, I'll leave it to you then!" Being overly exuberant was a nervous habit, too. Retreating to the safer distraction of green spandex clad guests, he noticed (and thanked the gods) that the two ninja had been holding a conversation and had missed the whole thing.

"Naruto-kun," Guy said, waving him over to the third barstool and pulling him into their discussion.

It was nothing worth mentioning.

He glanced back at Sasuke, who quickly looked away, busying himself with tea. Strange. The mugs and spoons were already out so he wouldn't have been needing help finding anything....

A few minutes later the dark-haired shirtless ninja brought over a tray with the tea and began handing them out. Guy, Lee, and then Naruto. He paused at Naruto, quirking a slender brow in query as he gave him his mug.

Naruto wrote it off as nothing, and took a sip of his tea. It was as he lowered the mug that he realized the reason. It was that mug. One he never would have taken out for company. A gift from Sai on his last birthday, the black mug proclaimed: "Blonds do it harder, faster, longer" in a yellow, gothic font and had an unremovable pair of mini handcuffs dangling from the handle. His face started to flush. Sasuke must've snooped in his cabinets while he wasn't looking and switched it out!

Bastard! he glared at his friend in outrage. Said bastard merely smirked in amusement, obviously curious to know why such a mug was in his possession.

Damn you, Sai!

"So, Naruto..." Guy was saying, turning to face him.

Naruto hurriedly tried to cover as much of the mug's text as possible while preventing the mini-cuffs from jingling. OW! It was HOT! "Mmmhmm?" he said through a pained smile.

"I hear that Hokage-sama is sending your team out to Water Country tomorrow..." He paused. "Sai seems an odd replacement for Sakura..."

Sasuke set his mug down with a thump. "What did you say?"

"That Sai is replacing Sakura-san," Lee repeated. "You were aware that she injured herself last week while training for an advanced medical technique, were you not?" His tone implied that Sasuke had better be aware.

"Of course," Sasuke scoffed. "Even Naruto knew that. Right, Naruto?" A brief flick of dark eyes let Naruto know it was a bald-faced lie and that he had better back up or else.

"Um, yeah," Naruto said, inwardly cursing his 'um's. "But we hadn't heard anything about Sai."

"Hmm," Guy said. "I did just overhear it from Shizune... Maybe she got it wrong."

"Or maybe you mis-heard?" Sasuke suggested, annoyed that the teacher-nin perpetually avoided admitting fault, as if it were merely unthinkable that he could be wrong.

Guy waved off the comment. "In any case, you two should sort this out so you can begin making preparations."

The man downed the rest of the tea and let out a sigh of appreciation. "Thank you for the tea, Naruto." He turned to Lee who was diligently chugging his tea in imitation. "Come, my pupil, for we must train," he said in his talk-show host voice. "A lazy ninja is a dead ninja." He let out an echoing, embarrassingly cheesy laugh and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Lee finished his tea, and set the mug down with emphasis. "Kyaaaaaaaaa-" His fist came up to his face and his eyes gleamed with tears of awe. "Isn't Guy-sensei just amazing?? And so profound, too." He jumped up from the stool. "Well then, I must be off. Thanks for the tea, Naruto."

Naruto nodded, and Lee was off in a flash.

Sasuke turned to the blond, an annoyed look on his face. "They did realize that I made it, right?"

Naruto let his head rest on the counter. "No, probably not.... But at least they're gone."

---

The mission's participants were just as Guy had predicted, and the atmosphere lived up to what Sasuke had dreaded.

The four of them sped towards Water Country, leaping from bough to bough in the dense forest outside Leaf Village, on the first leg of a journey which promised to be every bit as painful as the pre-mission meeting.

-000-

"Eh?" Naruto had complained upon the Hokage's debriefing. "We need a team leader? What the hell, hag, we're adults!"

Sasuke nodded in agreement, despite wanting to beat Naruto in the head for being so loud and annoying this early in the morning.

"Shut it, kid," Tsunade growled. "Now, as I was saying--"

"What's wrong with one of us being team leader?" he persisted. "Like me!"

The Hokage frowned and folded her fan with a snap. "Let me lay it to you straight. You, Naruto," she whipped the fan in an arc, stopping it just under the blond's nose, "you are too brash, excitable and impatient." The fan pointed at Sasuke. "You, Uchiha, let your anger get the best of you and are not very good at working with others." Her eyes flicked to Sai for emphasis before settling on the pale boy fully. "And you, Sai, know very well why I cannot entrust you with this mission."

Sai nodded, his mask of a placid smile not wavering from his face.

"Huh?" Naruto said, looking back and forth.

"Dobe," Sasuke muttered under his breath, "it means she can't be certain of his loyalties due to the stuff that happened last year with Danzou."

"Oh-" Naruto started to say.

"And for you, Sasuke-kun," Sai said in his cordial voice, smiling and not bothering to look at the other boy. "It was nice of the Hokage to refrain from mentioning your lack of suitability due to your untrustworthiness. I'm surprised she even let you back in the village after your escapades with Orochimaru." He smirked as Sasuke emit a low growl. "I would say that anger management is the least of your failings. Your ability to utterly betray everyone you ever knew, however..."

Sasuke launched himself at the other boy, intent on his blood. So I made a mistake! Fine! I don't need this sarcastic little bitch rubbing it in my face!

Sai's eyes opened and the smile dropped off of his face as he reached for his scroll and ink brush. He looked ready and willing to fight.

Before the two could collide, Tsunade hooked an arm around Sasuke's neck with lightning speed, placing him in a choke-hold with her inhuman strength. "SAI," she barked at the other boy, stilling the short-haired ninja's attack. He paused with his brush just touching the paper. "Kids," she muttered.

After a fifteen minute lecture on people skills and learning to hold your temper, she released them. "Good luck, kiddos," she said with false cheer, and kicked them out of her office.

Now, nearly an hour later, mission underway, Sasuke was still seething. He knew the Hokage would be watching him closely since his return, and that he would have to work hard to prove himself. For god's sake, though, he'd only been 15 at the time. Everyone makes dumb mistakes when they are young. Plus, he hated the whole thing being brought up in front of Naruto, whom he'd hurt the most. Naruto, whose eyes always dimmed and whose face assumed a painfully fake smile at the mere mention of it.

Fucking Sai.

Tsunade probably only assigned Kakashi as team leader because she knew how likely Sasuke was to try and kill his mouthy doppelganger. Otherwise, this mission could have been handled by a three man team, one of them acting as the authority.

Kakashi, with whom Sasuke had trained extensively one-on-one, his sensei, was rather blasé about the whole affair.

"Kill each other if you want," he'd said blandly the moment they were ejected from the Hokage's office, nose in his illicit book. "But please do it after the mission is completed, or else I will be forced to intervene."

-000-

Sasuke shuddered. If there was one person you didn't want to cross... (well, on the 'good guy' side, he amended) it was Hatake Kakashi.

The Scarecrow.

The guy fought dirty, and seemed to have no compunctions about it. And his perversions knew no bounds. The two made a deadly combination.

He glanced at the silver-haired ninja who was well ahead of their group. Maybe now...

Things had happened so fast the other day, and what with the sudden awkwardness between himself and the blond, they had parted ways before ever really... discussing what had happened. It wasn't everyday that you woke up naked in bed with your best friend. They needed to talk about this, or at least, agree to forget about it. "Naru-"

"What are you thinking about, Sasuke-kun?" Sai said then, dropping in beside him and ruining his opportunity to pull Naruto aside. His tone was innocent, but Sasuke knew better. "You look so serious. I could almost say that you were pondering something deep and meaningful, if I didn't know you better."

Sasuke said nothing in reply. He wouldn't manage to be civil if he spoke, and another fight would be in the making.

"Ah, and now you are ignoring me," the pale boy said with mock hurt. "It's rude, Sasuke-kun, though quite consistent of you."

"Isn't there someone else you could be bothering?" Sasuke said though clenched teeth.

"Hmn, I suppose I could lavish my attention on Naruto-kun, but I get the feeling you would have a hissy-fit, so I refrained in the name of keeping the peace. One of us has to be mature, after all."

"You..." Sasuke could feel his eye twitching. He could not, for the life of him see how Naruto and Sakura had been able to stand this guy being on their team. Everything he said was offensive and skewed!

"By the way, it's totally obvious that you two pounded each other. Was it good? I bet you were on the bottom."

Sasuke lost his footing.

He used his chakra to keep from falling but ended up hanging upside-down under the large branch. What in the hell is with this guy??! He allowed himself a moment of deep breathing, before righting himself, and counted to 10, twice.

Sai backtracked, and crouched down to look at him from a nearby bough. "You ok? We're falling behind." His face was bland, as usual, giving no indication of the outrageous things he had just said.

"Just fine," Sasuke growled.

"Hey, don't get so touchy. It's not my fault you got so drunk you can't remember anything."

"Wha-" How in the hell did he know about that??

"Hurry the hell up, Sasuke-kun, they're getting too far ahead of us." He leapt to Sasuke's branch and offered him a hand. Sasuke ignored it, which they both expected, and righted himself. "Oh, and to answer your question," Sai said with a smile, "Naruto-kun told me." With that, the short-haired ninja moved ahead and left Sasuke trailing behind.

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TBC