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Fic Name- Onward To...Lakes and Alcohol
Category- comedy
Rating- T
Summary- Naruto and Sasuke were best friends in High School. But Sasuke was removed from his foster home. When they are finally reunited as roommates in college, Sasuke has NO idea who Naruto is. Now join them as they attempt to go out and have fun one Friday night. (Written in Naruto's point of view)

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“Glaring at the ceiling won’t get your assignment done.”

I turned my glare on my roommate.

“It makes me feel better.” I shot back at him. He shook his head slightly.

“Loser.”

“b*****d.”

Sasuke’s lips twitched into a smirk before he continued studying the passage he’d been assigned.

I sighed, looking at my textbook again. There was no point in stalling any longer. I wanted to get all my work done so I could relax for the weekend.

A thump on my door and then furious cursing pulled my attention away from my torturous textbook.

“Don’t invite him-”

“It’s unlocked!”

Sasuke glared at me for a moment before turning up the volume on his iPod and turning his head back to his own textbook, all in the name of ignoring Kiba.

The door crashed open to reveal a panting brunette.

“We almost left without you! We-Naruto, why are you guys doing your homework? It’s Friday night! Party time! Nothing but alcohol, fun, and picking up chicks.” Kiba’s eyes darted toward Sasuke and then back at me. “Or dudes.”

I almost-almost-slammed my hand into my own forehead.

“Kiba, shut up!” I hissed, glancing at my roommate. Either he was pretending not to hear us and doing a fantastic job, or he really couldn’t hear us. I prayed that it was the second option.

Kiba shrugged.

“Some of the older guys told us about this awesome lake. We’re heading over to it before the weather changes. You’re coming, right?”

Lake party with my friends or reading thirty pages from a textbook so boring it would put Gaara to sleep with a person I currently have a ‘love to hate’ relationship with…

Lake party, hands down.

“I’m in.”

“Cool!”

I stood up, stretching.

“Do I need to bring anything?”

Kiba frowned as I walked to the door, grabbing my room key.

“Ummm…”

I looked back at him.

“What do I need to bring?”

The brunette raised his eyebrows and looked back over at Sasuke.

“How about your roommate?”

“My…my-What?!”

“Naruto. Shut the hell up.” A deadly calm voice growled.

I looked at my raven haired roommate to find he had twisted around to face me while still lying down. He had also removed his earpieces and was glaring fiercely.

“I was trying to drown you out. And I was succeeding. But, for some unknown reason, you feel the need to shout. Care to enlighten me? Why do you need to shout?”

If he had shouted at me, I would have been less…scared. I wasn’t scared, really, but the complete lack of emotion Sasuke put into his words disturbed me.

“Well,” Kiba began, but he stopped short with an ‘ooof’ of expelled air as I slapped him on the chest.

“Come on. Sorry. We were on our way out.”

I felt Sasuke’s eyes glaring holes into my back as I pulled Kiba out of the room and shut the door.

“What was that for?” The brunette almost shouted.

“You can’t keep secrets, can you?”

“Yes I can!”

“Then stop hinting at me liking Sasuke!”

“I wasn’t!”

“Then what were you doing?”

“…You and Shikamaru said that he used to be a really great guy. And, well…”

“He’s not the same person! I don’t even know what happened to him. I-I care about him a lot, but I can’t let him know, because I don’t know him now. And-and…he doesn’t even know me. This Sasuke doesn’t let people in. I can’t even try-”

“That’s just it.” Kiba said suddenly, stopping me mid rant.

“What?”

“How can you expect him to let you in if you don’t try?”

I stared at him in shock.

“I get the impression that Sasuke,” Kiba jerked a finger toward the door, “went through something that broke his ability to trust people. If you want to be friends with him again, you’re going to have to prove to him that he can fully trust you. And to do that, you’re going to need to start small. Talk to him. Invite him to hang out. Something.”

“That’s why you want him to come with us?”

“That, and the fact that I feel bad for him. He has no friends. I mean, you’re the only person I’ve ever even heard him talk to, aside from our professors.” Kiba grinned. “Besides. If you wanna date him, you’re going to have to start somewhere.”

I stared.

How could such well thought out words come out of Kiba’s mouth?

“You’ve thought about this for a long time, haven’t you?”

The brunette grimaced and shrugged.

“Whenever I come invite you to do something and we ignore him. Can you imagine what that must be like? That I actually come to you and tell you that we’re going to have fun, and he’s just there, and can hear everything we say and…Could we try and see what happens?”

I nodded, not saying a word.

I knew what that felt like. I’d never even realized that I did it.

What kind of heartless idiot am I?

“You’re not a heartless idiot.” Kiba said.

I started.

Did I say that out loud? No…I didn’t. Then why…?

“I took psychology for three years in high school. I always got the top grades in it, too.”

“So that makes you able to read minds?”

“No. You allow your emotions to become very visible. I could see that you felt guilty, and, knowing you, I thought you’d think of yourself as a heartless idiot.”

“That was exactly what I thought.”

“Oh, good. Maybe I can use you and Sasuke as test subjects this year.”

I frowned before hesitantly opening my door. The light was still on, and it occurred to me that I had no idea what my roommate did when I would go out.

“Sasuke?”

The raven didn’t answer, but that didn’t surprise me. He was probably still working on his drowning out technique.

I poked my head into our room and looked toward Sasuke’s side. He was still lying on his bed, and I thought he was still reading, until I was that he’d closed his textbook and put it on the floor.

“Sasuke?”

He had his arms wrapped around a pillow and had pressed his face against it. I took a moment to make sure he wasn’t crying. I honestly didn’t think Sasuke would sit by himself and cry, but if he was, I didn’t want him to know I’d seen. He’d probably get mad at me.

As it was, he wasn’t crying. He just appeared to be a little tired.

Maybe I shouldn’t ask him, if he’s tired. He hasn’t noticed me yet, so I could just leave, and no one would be any wiser.

I felt Kiba staring at me between my shoulder blades.

Alright, so I have to ask…

“Hey, uhhh, do you-”

Right. He can’t hear me.

I approached Sasuke’s bed and hesitantly reached a hand out to touch his shoulder and catch his attention.

I wasn’t expecting him to jump, get very tense, and then slowly turn to look at me with eyes wide in…fright? Something wasn’t quite right about that.

He made a slightly faltering move to pull his headset away to hear me.

“What?”

I didn’t miss the barely noticeable quavering in his voice, but I didn’t say anything about it.

“Uh…I’m-we-Kiba and I, and maybe you-were going to a party-get together thing.”

Sasuke arched a single, dark eyebrow, as though saying ‘so?’.

“Do you want to come?”

His apparently temporary composure disappeared once again as his eyes widened slightly in surprise.

“What?”

I swallowed.

“Do you want to come with us?”

“I-” He stopped speaking in favor of staring at me. I could see that he didn’t really know how to respond. Luckily, Kiba was there to help him out.

“It’s one of those yes or no typed questions.” The brunette told him as he entered the room.

“I-yeah-uhhh…” Sasuke stammered.

Sasuke wasn’t one for stammering, so my question must have really thrown him.

“Yes, no, yes, no…It’s really kind of easy. Come on. Say yes. You know you want to. Come one, let’s-”

I hit Kiba for the second time so far tonight.

“Shut up.”

“What?! I’m trying to speed up this process. If he wants to go, he’s going to have to get up and start moving, before our ride disappears.”

After a moments hesitation, Sasuke opened his mouth to ask a question.

“I-I’m allowed to go?”

Kiba nodded.

“And you want me to go?”

Kiba stared at the raven, before slowly asking, “You have very low self-confidence, don’t you?”

The slightly open, slightly surprised, almost nervous expression on Sasuke’s face disappeared in a heartbeat.

“Thought so.” Kiba said with a shrug. “Let’s go. The car is going to leave and second.”

The brunette reached out a hand to pull Sasuke off of his bed, but the raven leaned away.

“Ummm…okay. Naruto, you get him to get up.”

“What if I said I decided I didn’t want to go?”

“The offer was revised. You have no choice. Let’s go.”

Sasuke looked startled. Then he scowled. Then he somehow managed to both pout and glare.

“Fine.”

Kiba cheered and reached a hand out again. With a growl, Sasuke knocked the offending limb away and sat up, jumping off his bed.

“Be a cold hearted-”

“The car?” I cut in.

“Oh yeah. We’ll be lucky if they didn’t leave without us.”

Kiba hurried toward the door and I followed, locking it after my roommate had walked through.

As we headed outside, I let my eyes and mind wander. My eyes landed on Kiba and my mind landed on parts of a book I had recently read. Something about judging a person by the way the walked and held themselves.

Why not?

Kiba walked with his head held high, a grin on his face. His arms swung freely at his sides. He also seemed to bounce a little with every step.

So let’s see…He doesn’t’ care what other people think about him. He is happy at the moment, and maybe even a little excited about something. Yeah. That sums him up…How about Sasuke?

I peeked at my roommate.

He stood with his back straight and his head bowed, eyes downcast.

Proud but humbled…

The word ‘broken’ floated through my mind without warning, but I chose to ignore it.

What else?

Right now, he was taking small steps, but by no means going slowly.

Thinking about something…maybe a little apprehensive. He doesn’t really wasn’t to go, but he doesn’t not.

The last thing I could even try to guess at was the hands in the pockets.

Closed off. Not going forward, not going back.

I didn’t really want to think of my former best friend being like this, but it was true.

“Yo. You going to walk all the way there?”

I blinked and looked around, and found myself outside, a few steps passed where Kiba had stopped beside a somewhat full pickup.

“You expect us to fit in that?” Sasuke asked, doubtfully watching the crowd of chattering people in the bed of the truck. No one seemed to have even noticed the three of us yet.

Scratch that. Someone just did…

“Ah! Kiba has returned and brought Naruto! And is that-It is! The roommate has finally decided to join us in this joyous celebration of our youth!”

Sasuke looked slightly bewildered by this odd exclamation.

“Don’t worry. It’s just Lee. He’s always like that.” I heard Kiba saying to Sasuke as I walked closer to them.

“And you’re going to let him get drunk?” I asked.

“If I had a choice? Probably not. I can’t really force him not to, though.”

“Drunk?”

“Huh?” Kiba turned back to Sasuke.

“Drunk?”

“What? You thought this was going to be a dry party?”

Sasuke shook his head. “Not really.”

“Kiba?” A voice asked. We saw someone approaching us from the other side of the pickup.

“I thought this thing looked familiar.” I said, slapping the side of the truck. “Good to see you, Shino.”

“Good to see you, Naruto.” Shino said with a nod. He turned to Kiba, raising an eyebrow. “You said you had someone to bring along. That’s two people.”

“We had to bring him. Leaving him behind wasn’t and option.”

“What? Is he suic-”

“No. It was a guilt thing.”

“No one gets left behind.” I said with a small nod.

Sasuke made a small sound.

“‘No one gets left behind’? Since when? Before today it was every man for himself.”

“Well, up until now, you were always-”

“Seating arrangements!” Shino said, clapping his hands. “You three pack yourselves into the back as best as you can. Good luck.” The future insectologist disappeared to wherever he’d come from.

“Pack ourselves in?” I asked, looking at the people who were looking out at us.

I saw an arm clad in tight green fabric reach out and grab the front of my shirt, pulling me closer to the pickup and a figure with horrible bowl cut hair and bushy eyebrows.

“Naruto! Please hurry! The girl that I love is going to be at the lake! We must go swiftly so that I may sweep her off of her feet!”

Hesitantly, I grabbed the side of the truck and hauled myself up and over. I sat down awkwardly and looked up to see Kiba had done the same. Sasuke was still standing beside the truck and looking a bit shy.

Kiba leaned over as far as he dared before calling;

“Uchiha! I was going to say that we never invited you to anything because you were such as prissy little princess!”

Sasuke’s self control wavered for just a second as he glared at Kiba. When the brunette ducked out of his sight, he grabbed the side of the truck and climbed in, apparently fixed on murder.

“No room!” Someone announced.

“We’re ready?” Shino asked from somewhere in front of us. “Let’s go!”

And then we were in motion.

And someone was very suddenly sitting in my lap.

The face full of dark hair and the growl of “Someone pushed me…” was all the answer I needed.

Well, that and Kiba grinning wickedly in my direction.

“How troublesome…”

Kiba’s grin faded slightly as the two of us turned to where the voice had come from.

“H-hey, Shikamaru.”

Shikamaru nodded in Kiba’s general direction, but kept his eyes on me.

“So, Naruto. Having fun?” He asked innocently.

I was about to say something like ‘Yes. As a matter of fact, I am. Who wouldn’t be?’ when Sasuke slid off my lap into the haphazard jungle of legs, arms, and bodies.

“I was.” I said.

Shikamaru chuckled.

“You still haven’t told him-”

“Shhh! Don’t say anything about it!” I said, trying not to speak too loudly. “There are people around.”

“There’s always people around.” He commented sagely.

“Amen.” A random guy said, turning to look at us. “People are always there when you don’t need ‘em. And when you need ‘em, you can’t find ‘em.”

“I don’t care if there are always people there.” I said in a hushed voice as soon as the guy has turned away. “I just don’t want to talk about that in a group of people I don’t really know. And especially when he’s less that five feet away!”

“Five millimeters.”

“Wha-”

Someone touched my leg lightly and my head whipped around.

“You’re back.” I said in surprise as Sasuke crawled back into my lap.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” The raven quipped, looking away.

As a car with its headlights blazing passed, I could see Sasuke’s face.

“You’re blushing.” I accused.

“Am not.” He said stubbornly.

“Of course not.”

Shikamaru was chuckling again.

I could feel someone staring at me.

Kiba.

He was trying not to laugh out loud.

“Why’d you come back?” I waited for an answer, but Sasuke refused to give one. “You can’t ignore me from where you’re currently seated.”

“Watch me.”

I scowled at the back of his head for a full minute.

And then I started to fidget ever so slightly.

Finally, I decided it was now or never.

Carefully, I wrapped my arms around Sasuke’s waist and pulled him a little closer.

“W-what are you…”

“My leg was falling asleep.”

“Hands?”

“No where else to put them.”

“O-oh. A-alright.”

“Alright? I thought you’d put up a fight.”

“Put up a fight? Why would you think that? I wouldn’t.”

I removed one of my hands from his waist and gently rubbed his back.

Sasuke shivered.

“Why are you so nervous?” I asked softly, close to his ear.

“I-” Sasuke shook his head. “I’m not nervous. I…”

“Why you come back?”

“…I’m not nervous.”

“Okay. Why are you sitting in my lap?”

“I-ummm…you…”

No matter what my roommate said, something was making him nervous. I continued the gentle back rubbing I had started, hoping it was soothing.

“I don’t speak gibberish. And I know you normally don’t. So come on. Speak in complete sentence’s.”

“…there really isn’t any room here. And I…trust you. I knew you wouldn’t do anything. So…” Sasuke shrugged almost helplessly.

This would probably have something to do with his fear of touching. It makes perfect sense.

“I understand.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No problem. I don’t mind at all. And it’s not like you’re really heavy or anything. Actually, you’re kind of really light…”

To say we sat in companionable silence from then on would be wrong. We were both tense, but our minds were a bit more at ease.

Eventually, Shino called back to us that we were almost there. Minutes later, we pulled off the road and onto a small gravel parking area.

I waited for Sasuke to move as everyone else jumped excitedly from the pickup. I heard a door slam, and knew Shino had gotten out. I was still waiting for my roommate to move when Kiba appeared beside us. He playfully grabbed Sasuke’s arm and tried to yank him away.

“Come on, Uchiha. You’re holding Naruto up.”

I felt Sasuke’s whole body go rigid as he slapped Kiba’s hand away.

“Don’t-”

“Pfft. Well then, let’s go!”

As soon as the brunette had gone, I let my arms tighten around Sasuke’s waist. The raven twisted his body slightly to turn and see me. It was dark and I could barely make out his features, but I had the feeling he was staring straight into my eyes.

“You know I don’t…how do you…”

“Hmmm?” I knew he couldn’t see the confusion on my face, so I let it be heard in my voice.

“No, uh, never mind. It’s-it’s nothing.” Sasuke said, shaking his head, a motion I could only just make out. I could feel him hesitate before he continued, voice wavering slightly. “…ummm…could I ask you…to do something?”

“Depends.” I answered, a small smile on my lips. It occurred to me that at the best of times, my roommate barely tolerated jokes. And right now wasn’t the best of times. “Anything.” I amended.

I felt Sasuke nod, this time due to the small featherings of hair which tickled my cheek.

“Can you…watch out for me?”

“…watch out for you?”

“I don’t want to do anything…”

“Afraid you’ll get drunk and say something you didn’t want to say?”

“…yes and no. I do really stupid things when I’m drunk.”

“Define ‘stupid’, Is it like ‘I’m going to be really happy’, or ‘I’m looking for a good time’?...or is it something like ‘Sure, I’ll jump off that bridge’?”

“…stupid.”

“That…” Well, that clarified things.

“I don’t remember what I do. I just do it and get told about it later.”

“…oh.”

Sasuke was staring into my eyes again, I was sure of it.

“What?”

“Are you going to…”

Me and my apparent short term memory…

“Of course. I’ll watch out for you.”

A soft sigh against my cheek told me how much this simple statement relieved my roommate.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You know, all you ever have to do is ask.”

We sat in silence for a few more moments, before I had to speak once again.

“So…are you comfortable, or are we going to get going?”

“Yeah. I was just about to tell Shino to leave without you two.” Kiba’s voice said beside us. A flashlight clicked on, glaring into our eyes. “I forgot to say ‘boo’.”

Sasuke growled something indistinguishable under his breath as he slipped off my lap and then climbed out of the pickup. I followed him, half expecting him to storm away. He didn’t, though.

The three of us walked (Sasuke stalked, actually) to where Shino was sending people off.

“…what do you mean, ‘the climb’?!” the guy who’d talked to us earlier was saying.

“You have to do a little climbing before you get to the lake. Now hurry up. Your group is leaving.”

The guy stated walking, complaining to his friends as he went.

“Hey Shino?” Kiba called questioningly. “Are there more people here than there should be?”

“No. We weren’t the only truck of people coming. There were four or five others.”

“Oh. Well that explains it. You said something about groups?”

“Yeah. It’s so no one gets lost. You, me, Shikamaru, those two, and-”

“Ah! Such youthful spirits!”

“-and Lee make up the last group from my run.”

“S-Shikamaru?” Kiba asked.

Shino frowned slightly. “You’ve met him before, right?”

“He has,” I said, nodding.

“Uhhh…yeah. Cu-the lazy brown haired guy who was Naruto’s friend in high school. He’s under the tree over there.” Kiba grinned as he continued. “He said something about liking Naruto’s other high school buddy, Hinata.”

“Hinata?” Shino asked. “As in Hyuuga?”

I nodded.

Shino grimaced slightly.

“Better not mention that around Neji, then.”

“Are either if them coming?”

“…I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Good.” Kiba said with a nod and sigh. “Hyuuga’s are…intimidating.”

“I never thought-”

“We must train our bodies!”

I frowned at that interruption before continuing as though it had never occurred.

“-that Hyuuga’s were intimidating. You just need to know how to handle them.”

“Easy for you to say. You-” Kiba was interrupted, just as I had been.

“My love! I am coming for you!”

Shino sighed. “Lee’s getting antsy. We should probably start moving.”

We started walking. Kiba was in front of me. Suddenly, he stopped short.

“Hey Shikamaru!” He called, turning around. “Get your lazy self up! We’re moving!”

The pony tailed boy grumbled, but began walking, passing Kiba.

I stayed in the back as Lee bounded ahead.

0o0o0

Lee must have a crush on an amazing person…

The moon had finally come out of hiding, and I used its pale light to watch Sasuke hesitantly reach a hand up and pull himself to the top of a huge rock outcropping. The moonlight had this amazing ability to make Sasuke’s nearly unearthly beauty appear, well, more unearthly.

I’m so sappy…but whoever Lee likes can’t even be compared to who I like…

I reached up and grabbed onto the rock. Sasuke, crouched at the top, looked down at me.

“My legs are too long. And I was never any good at climbing.” I announced when I failed to find any suitable places to put my feet.

Sasuke sighed, inching towards the edge. Slowly, he extended a hand, which I gratefully took. When I’d been hauled halfway up, an ominous cracking sound floated through the air.

Our eyes met and then, seconds later, Sasuke’s feet slipped out from under him with a small shower of pebbles. Somehow, I managed to both let go of his hand and push him backwards. He landed with a loud gasp as the air was forced from his lungs.

But at least he went backwards. If he fell forward…I looked around. If he fell forward, he would have really hurt himself, if not worse…

“Sasuke? Sasuke?!”

Slowly, the raven sat up, gingerly rubbing the back of his head.

Through sheer luck and will power, I scrambled up the rock to hurry to my roommates side. My hand hovered inches away from his shoulder.

I don’t know if touching him right now is such a good idea…

“Are you alright? Did you get hurt? Can you move? I-”

“Stop.”

Sasuke pulled his knees up and pressed his forehead against them.

“Give me a minute. Everything’s spinning.”

“You hit your head. I’m sorry I shoved you into rocks.”

“Not much else around here. And you don’t have to apologize. If you didn’t do what you did, I’d have still hit rocks. Except I would have broken my neck.”

“I still feel bad.”

“You’re hopeless.”

I grinned. “At least I’m friendly and hopeless.”

A single dark eye squinted in my direction.

“How many of me are you seeing?”

Sasuke blinked. Once, twice, three times.

“…one too many.”

“Well, tell them to go away.”

My roommate lifted his face higher, and I saw his lips twitching, as though he was physically keeping himself from smiling.

He probably is…

“You know, you can admit to being human.”

“…I’m going to have a headache for a week. Human enough for you?”

“…For now. Can you walk? The others are going to start thinking…”

Oh no. Kiba. I don’t think I want to know what he’ll think.

I was pulled from my thoughts as Sasuke stood up. He wavered for a moment, but managed to stay standing.

“Headache for a month…” He murmured.

I smiled faintly. I didn’t enjoy seeing my roommate in pain, but the fact that he had let a barrier down made me happy. He didn’t feel the need to act like a superhuman around me.

0o0o0

“It took you two long enough!” Kiba called with a loud snicker.

“We had our reasons!” I called back.

“Yeah! I bet you did!”

“Kiba, get off of Naruto’s back.”

“O-okay, Shikamaru.”

The lazy pony-tailed boy raised a hand and waved us over.

“What happened?”

“Uhhh…” I glanced at Sasuke. Kiba snickered again.

“You finally-”

“Shut up!”

Sasuke rubbed the sides of his head.

“I’m not even going to ask what you’re talking about. Quiet voices, please.”

“Dude! You just said please!” Kiba shouted. I hit him over the back of the head just as Shikamaru hit his shoulder. “Owww! What’s with all the abuse?!”

“He asked for you to stop yelling. If you persist, stronger, more painful methods of abusing you will be found.”

“Oh.”

I rolled my eyes and then watched as Sasuke settled down on the ground, back against-what else?-a rock.

“So…we were climbing, and I needed some help. Sasuke tried to get me up this mammoth boulder, and then he slipped, because I guess he was on a weak spot. I pushed him backwards, and he hit his head. And so, here we are, twenty minutes and a headache later.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“You know what you need?” Kiba asked.

“Do I want to know?” Sasuke asked, slightly hesitant.

“A good drink. I’ll be right back.”

“…getting drunk won’t help. I’ll just have a worse headache in the morning…”

-End-

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HAH XD genious!!
gah! now i'm just gonna start drawing more sasunaru XD