Chapter Text
Against his will, Sasuke had an idea.
An idea he promptly scoffed at, turning over in his bed and choosing to forget whatever idiocy had possessed him to generate such an absurd thought. Then he woke up in the morning and remembered, letting himself indulge for a single moment before chuckling, dismissing the thought to the back of his mind.
Where it haunted him.
Sasuke was no stranger to being haunted, shoving unwanted thoughts so far away from his consciousness he barely felt them. It gave him the freedom to move, to train, to go forward. If he didn’t want to think about something, he simply didn’t think about it, and that kept him sane.
But there was something about this idea…it teased him. It wasn’t malevolent like all the other thoughts he shoved to the back of his mind, quite the opposite. It was an indulgence. It was titillating. It was taunting. Because Sasuke may be good at shoving the horror and pain and grief aside, but his loneliness was constantly being reaffirmed. He could pretend, for a little while, that the home he lived in was his alone, and had always been his alone, but he could never lie to himself that being alone was what he wanted or chose. That was just the way things were.
But they didn’t have to be.
Sasuke had given up his life for Naruto’s. It made daily training extremely awkward, but confronting that fact was necessary since it was a glaring weakness in his quest for vengeance. It didn’t make any damn sense. He lived for one goal, he fought for one outcome, but he’d almost died a damn genin in a foreign nation because his body had moved on his own. It had. He hadn’t considered the consequences, he’d just jumped. It had been simply inconceivable to imagine Naruto skewered and dead. Intolerable. He hadn’t been able to help himself. Which meant he considered Naruto worth protecting.
That alone didn’t make any sense, but Sasuke refused to torture himself by reflecting on what weakness lay within himself that he could have come to value a boy he’d once seen fully stick chopstick into his nose above his own life. The question remained was: what was he going to do about it? He’d let the awkwardness fall around them every time they sparred, so unwilling to broach the heavy subject that weighed down their interactions and curbed their insults. Above everything, he wanted the awkwardness to end.
Thus, the idea.
If Sasuke had thrown his purpose away so carelessly for Naruto, had somehow instinctively weighed his clan’s vengeance against Naruto’s life and deemed the latter more worthy, then Naruto had to be clan. Sasuke just had to make it official.
And this was the part of the idea where Sasuke would laugh or scoff or blush, because in the eyes of the law Naruto wasn’t a child he could adopt into being an Uchiha, he was an adult who risked his life for his village. Which meant there was only one way to make Naruto part of the clan.
But…the allure of clan made him keep coming back to the idea. The idea that someone else could know Uchiha secrets, could honour them, could pass them on to other Uchiha’s, made his breath pick up in his chest. Naruto could wear his clan’s symbol, could learn the fireball jutsu, could learn the secrets to the sharingan that Sasuke had unlocked to protect him. Then the next time Sasuke’s stupid body jumped in front of a fatal blow meant for Naruto it wouldn’t be some absurd instinct he couldn’t explain, it would just be clan protecting clan. It would be natural (it would be forgiven).
And for the first time in almost six years, Sasuke wouldn’t be the last Uchiha. He wouldn’t be alone.
It took quite a bit of time to force his pride aside and confront Naruto with his proposition, but the increasing confusion on his (ugh) friend’s face easily flipped his embarrassment to annoyance.
“I’m asking if you want to be an Uchiha, idiot.”
Naruto huffed, tearing up grass from the training field their team had used that day, both of them huddled together as their two teammates had left. “I get that part, but I don’t get why.”
“I-” Sasuke swallowed, clenching his jaw and crossing his arms. This was a stupid idea. “Why not?”
“I can think of about a thousand reasons,” Naruto scoffed. “You don’t even like me!”
Sasuke just stared at him, refusing to consider the dichotomy between the type of unpleasantness he’d usually find in Naruto’s character and the stark warmth he felt in its place. A hand came up against his will and rubbed his neck, finding the spot where Haku’s senbon had pierced him easily even though the wound was fully healed. Naruto traced his movement, and the heavy feeling of unsaid words came around them once more.
Naruto cleared his throat. “What would it mean…to be part of a clan.”
So, Sasuke told him. He told him about the fireball jutsu, about how it meant an Uchiha had come of age. He told him about their clan symbol, how the uchiwa fan was to highlight their fire justu. He told him about clan bonds, how you devoted yourself to your clan just like how you devote yourself to a village. A clan was a big family, that’s really all it was, and how you had responsibilities to that family but also got unconditional support and a safe place to return to when everywhere else lay danger.
“It’s identity too,” Sasuke finished, a bit breathless and looking away. There was a pressure building up in his chest he refused to name. “It’s about where you belong.”
Silence filled the empty training ground, the full afternoon sun suddenly stifling. He felt like maybe Naruto was laughing at him silently, and took a moment to steel himself against the mockery. Naruto didn’t have a clan, he couldn’t know how important this was, so he couldn’t take his refusal as the cataclysmic rejection it would feel like when he finally forced the words out.
But when mustered the courage to look his friend in the eye he startled, bringing up hands to soothe the wetness in Naruto’s eyes before remembering himself and dropping them.
“You want me,” Naruto breathed, his own hands wringing desperately in his lap, “to be that? For you? And you for me?”
Sasuke cleared his throat. “Well, I- I mean of course. A clan ninja without a clan to support them is weak.”
And it’s not like I can stop myself from protecting you. My damn body moved on it’s own.
Naruto said nothing, watching him in such a way that Sasuke refused to meet his gaze.
“Okay,” Naruto said, rubbing a hand over his eyes. A tremor had worked itself through his body, but as a grin stretched across his face, Sasuke believed it was excitement. Maybe a bit too much. “So how do I join?”
Well, that was the tricky part.
***
After a very painfully long explanation where Sasuke danced around the literal word needed to convey what he was asking of Naruto until he decided, fuck it, he either went through with it or refused. Naruto, after a brief period of confusion followed by bashfulness followed by laughter, like what they were going to do was the funniest prank alive, agreed.
That same day they went to the civilian registry to get married.
As soon as ninja got their hitai-ate and joined the ranks of the military they were considered full adults, and their ninja I.Ds gave them privileges other twelve year olds couldn’t claim. Despite the fact they were only allowed to marry because of military reasons, marriages were still civilian concerns and it was a relief to deal with the slender man behind the massive desk, someone who’d obviously not seen a day of combat, looking over them like they were two dumb kids about to do something really, incredibly, stupid.
“Do your parents know you’re here?”
“We’re orphans.”
“Ah.”
Their case worker was a bit of a dick.
But he processed their information and issued their marriage licenses that day and then stood witness to their marriage, which was essentially just an exchange of a verbal contract, like all marriages were. The Uchiha had traditional vows they demanded of those that married into the clan, and Sasuke may have dug through old clan files to find the right words before he’d even, er, proposed. Well, his foresight was correct in any case.
“Do you, Uzumaki Naruto,” Sasuke began, speaking the words with the severity and honour they begot, even while red flushed his cheeks at how he was forced to clasp Naruto’s hands in his, “swear to honour the name of the Uchiha? To observe our traditions, respect our clan head as your own, and fight for our clan in the name of your own from now until the end of our line?”
Sasuke hated the last line. Like it was tempting fate.
“I swear,” Naruto replied, his cheeks just as flushed but his throat was hoarse, moved by the ceremony easily because he was an emotional idiot.
The case worker coughed pointedly from behind the desk, and Sasuke suddenly realized Naruto wouldn’t have a script he could read for what words he could put into their marriage contract.
Apparently Naruto knew exactly what he wanted to say, because his hands moved surely, if a bit shakily, from Sasuke’s grasp until he was the one holding Sasuke’s hands, looking up at him with so much intensity it was like looking into a hurricane.
“Do you swear to be my friend until we die.”
Sasuke took a breath, feeling both a relief that he hadn’t said something moronic but also an overwhelming amount of…muchness. Naruto didn’t have to ask this, it was implied by being clan that friendliness would always remain, but suddenly Sasuke’s own echoes of longing for a clan felt reflected in the longing of Naruto’s words for friendship. Mere friendship.
“I swear.”
“Great!” their caseworker exclaimed, startling them away from their hold. “Sign here, please.”
Both Naruto and Sasuke signed where they were instructed, and the caseworker signed as an observer. They were married.
“So, er,” their caseworker said, scratching his head as he stared at their files, “I assume the little blond one is changing his name?”
Naruto sucked in a breath, whipping around to stare at Sasuke with wide eyes. He held up a hand. “No. He’ll still be ‘Uzumaki Naruto,’ he’ll just be…of the Uchiha clan. Just put the Uchiha clan in his clan affiliation spot and make it known he’s an official member.”
The man made a sound of annoyance, editing Naruto’s file as such in sloppy penmanship to be reviewed and reprinted at a later date. “And I assume you want the Uzumaki clan in your clan affiliation?”
Sasuke opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked to Naruto, who looked at him, before shakily turning back to the man. “Uzumaki clan?”
“Yeah,” the man shrugged. “Like, from Uzushio? Famously wiped out after the last great war? Well, I guess not all wiped out, er, sorry kid.”
Naruto couldn’t breathe, Sasuke could see it in how his face turned red and his eyes started to water. He pat him on the back, though it could much more aptly be called a punch in an effort to get his lungs working.
“How do you know this?” Sasuke asked the man carefully.
“I’m from around there,” the man shrugged. “It’s not like it’s a secret.”
But Sasuke was beginning to suspect it was. He was also starting to suspect the man had lived in Konoha less than a week if he felt the need to treat Naruto’s clan with a bit of decency while he barely glanced at Sasuke’s.
“So, same treatment?”
Sasuke swallowed. He hadn’t come here to put his life in another clan, but the news had felt almost expected to him, in a way. He’d instinctively felt like Naruto was clan, and here he was finding out the reason why Naruto was an orphan, why he had no one, was because of the same reason Sasuke was an orphan. How many people could say they were the sole survivors of mass murder? That they were the last ones left of their kind?
Naruto was an Uchiha. Then that had to mean Sasuke was an Uzumaki.
But, really, the decision was Naruto’s if he wanted to bring Sasuke into his clan. If he was the last one, then he was clan head, just as Sasuke was.
“…Can I..?”
Naruto, whose head had been bowed as he clenched his stomach in thought, flinched. Then he slowly raised his head to look at him like it was he that had given him a gift. He hadn’t thought Sasuke would accept his clan.
“The same treatment,” Sasuke grunted out. The man did as instructed.
In the end, they were presented with their marriage certificate and a promise that their new status as husband “and, er, husband I guess” would be processed starting Monday next week. Then their caseworker kicked them out, waving them off with a rueful call of good luck that neither he nor Naruto cared to thank him for.
***
They spent the weekend together.
Sasuke pulled out basic scrolls, containing Uchiha ideals that they used to teach children. It wasn’t a very special set of rules, just the usual ‘respect everyone, value the clan, respect your elders’ spiel that most clan children got, but Naruto soaked up the information with a rigour he’d never shown in class. He approached every fact about his new clan like it was a gift, and Sasuke gave it with enough reverence and love that made it feel so.
However shaken Naruto was at finding out he had a clan attached to the name Uzumaki, he got over it quickly with a sheepish grin and an apology for ‘being so lame on their wedding day,’ which Sasuke took to mean he wanted to a fight, so, they also did quite a bit of sparring.
It wasn’t all…comfort. Naruto was excited to be a part of something, but somehow the idiot had realized something Sasuke hadn’t; he was marrying into tragedy. Sasuke, as usual, repressed the things he didn’t want to deal with so, as usual, his feelings sneaked up on him when he led Naruto around he deserted compound, showing him the shrine, showing him his home. It was Naruto’s home now, if he wanted it, though they’d already decided they’d live separate (as too much togetherness wasn’t really Sasuke’s style). Sasuke was on edge the whole time, both from the flood of emotions he fought to keep at bay as well as wariness as he led someone like Naruto through such a vulnerable process for him, expecting a crude remark even if only to dissipate the heaviness around Sasuke, a remark that would cut too deep despite how light it was made. Naruto didn’t say anything like that. Well, he was crude, and dumb, but that was to be expected.
”Wait, so did everyone have lanterns with the Uchiwa on it? Did you have to go somewhere to get it specially made?”
“Idiot. It’s just paper, we can make it ourselves.”
“But what about the clothes? Is there a shop just for the Uchiha?”
“No, we paid shopmakers to dye the clothing. Or we’d just dye it ourselves.”
Aside from all the raw emotion threatening to emerge, there was a certain level of joy to be had in getting to tell someone about the clan. In getting to teach new clan their ways. It gave him an excuse to revel in his clan and feel what it truly was without the horrible violence of that one night overshadowing everything. Maybe there was even a level of…catharsis.
***
Naruto sat on the floor in his bedroom, his knees pulled up to his chest as he examined the sewing kit Sasuke had stolen from a cupboard somewhere. Sasuke had a bunch of Uchiwa’s pre-printed onto a stack of cloth, holding up one to Naruto’s horrible orange jumpsuit before scowling and reaching for a smaller one.
“Sorry for the trouble,” Naruto said, lips twitching in a way that said he wasn’t sorry at all, “but I’m not giving up my jumpsuit. You’ll just have to sew the thing onto me.”
“Idiot. What do you think I’m doing.”
Naruto made a noise of offense, but like all of Naruto’s usually exaggerated expressions these last few days, they were more subdued, if no less genuine. It was like joy was tempering his hyperactivity, something bigger weighing on his mind in the good sort of sense. It made him easier to talk to, if nothing else.
“Mah,” Naruto huffed, crossing his arms and letting his eyes go all squinty in feigned offense. “You should have to wear something from my clan too.”
Sasuke pursed his lips. “You don’t have to wear the uchiwa-”
“No! I’m gonna wear it!”
Sasuke rolled his eyes, letting himself get distracted looking for black thread.
“But, I mean, fair’s fair,” he said, licking his lips. “You should wear something from me.”
“And what would that be?” he asked, before thinking he shouldn’t. Naruto not knowing anything about his clan, even their crest, wasn’t something to point out.
Naruto pursed his lips, looking around like the answer would come to him through the walls. Sasuke groaned, making a gesture for Naruto to hand over his jacket so he could start stitching the pattern on. Naruto shrugged it off, grumbling a bit before a wicked grin stole his features, the kind of grin that usually meant Iruka-sensei causing permanent deafness in his students and classes running late. He, truly, did not like that look.
“Orange,” Naruto said smugly, waving at the jacket in Sasuke’s hand. “You gotta wear orange.”
“I’d rather die.”
***
In the end, Naruto had the Uchiha clan symbol stitched onto his left shoulder, the only true free space on his jacket complimented by the whirlpool symbol on his opposite shoulder. The white and red were unobtrusive to the (truly hideous) design Naruto wore and Sasuke felt confident his stitches would hold during combat.
Sasuke, after a grueling session of cajoling, now wore orange. On both of Sasuke’s arm guards Naruto had painted little flicks of orange flames, small enough that they took up only a small portion of the white guard. Naruto was surprisingly knowledgeable about the effects of paint and which to use to dye the pattern (maybe he’d gratified the hokage monument enough to know?) and at the end of the day the colour wasn’t the stark orange he associated with Naruto’s poor fashion sense, but instead a pale shade, flicking out from his wrists like real flames. They looked…tolerable. Naruto said they looked cool, but what did he know.
***
Waiting for Kakashi had slowly become tolerable, to a degree. There was nothing he could do to speed up the process so he waited on the bridge every day with his team, listening vaguely as Naruto steamed while Sakura tried to corral him into respecting their sensei, a task that, like clockwork, she would abandon when the half hour mark rolled around and join in on insulting their sensei. Predictable.
“Um, Naruto, what’s on your shoulder?”
Sasuke glanced over, watching how Naruto squirmed under her scrutiny, but refused to cover up the uchiwa. He looked like he wanted to brag, but even Naruto knew enough to know the news of becoming an Uchiha wouldn’t go over well with the girl who’d almost definitely doodled Uchiha Sakura onto her workbook.
So he didn’t say anything, just flushed and decided now was a good enough time to inspect the sharpness of his kunai.
“Naruto…” Sakura growled, inching closer. She reached out in the violent way she was used to treating Naruto, and Sasuke tensed, not wanting her to touch his clan symbol without permission, but she just grabbed Naruto by the front of his jacket, reeling him in to wring answers out of him. Sasuke relaxed.
Naruto threw his hands up in surrender, smiling awkwardly. “Mah, uh, Sakura-chan did you see Chouji the other day? He ate three whole chickens in one sitting! It’s a new record-”
“Why the fuck are you wearing that.”
Sasuke shuffled awkwardly, wondering what he was supposed to do. Ignoring Sakura when she was like this had always been the best strategy in the past but this was more personal. Then again, it being more personal might mean staying out of it would be best.
“Yo!”
Kakashi appeared in a whirl of leaves, not batting an eye at the attempted battery happening between two of his students.
“Sensei!” Sakura cried, dropping Naruto just so she could point an accusing finger at him. “Naruto’s wearing Sasuke’s symbol!”
Kakashi followed her finger, his cheerful demeanor faltering a bit at the Uchiwa on Naruto’s shoulder. He glanced at Sasuke, who glared because his team was damn annoying, then he looked back to Naruto.
“Er, Naruto,” Kakashi began carefully, but with a hint of sternness that was usually missing, “it doesn’t matter how cool you think it is, it’s not okay to just wear someone else’s clan symbol-”
“It’s his clan,” Sasuke scoffed, crossing his arms.
Naruto flushed even further, trying to fight back a pleased smile.
They all quieted, taking in Sasuke’s words and trying to draw meaning from it. Sasuke could see Kakashi’s mind whirring and he rolled his eyes.
“Maaah,” Kakashi said, leaning back and stuffing his hands in his pockets with such deliberate lightness there was no way it wasn’t fake. “What do you mean by that, Sasuke?”
Sasuke scowled, suddenly faced with the reality of being forced to explain himself. “He’s Uchiha,” he chose to say, shrugging like it was no big deal.
“Yeah!” Naruto huffed, all the manic energy he’d been repressing suddenly returning. “I’m an Uchiha now! Deal with it!”
“Naruto…” Kakashi said, before sighing and turning to the other boy. “Sasuke. You can’t just make someone part of your clan just because you want to. That’s not how it works.”
“I know how it works,” Sasuke snarled. “Naruto is legally Uchiha. We got it done the other day.” He’s mine, he almost said, as if it were the most natural thing to say.
“Yup!” Naruto cried, jumping up and joining Sasuke’s side, throwing an arm around him in a way that had Sasuke twitching with annoyance. Little did he know Naruto was about to multiply that annoyance tenfold.
“He’s my husband!” Naruto said proudly, his smile going so wide his eyes got all squinty, his face flushed and sincere.
Sasuke’s mild embarrassment suddenly skyrocketed, his mouth dropping open as he turned red because couldn’t the idiot realize he’d been deliberately dancing around saying-! There were connotations to the idea that didn’t apply to their situation! People would read into things that weren’t there.
But he couldn’t deny it, it was the truth.
A new silence fell across the group, a silence that seemed only comfortable to Naruto (who he was so going to pound into the dirt later). Sakura was whitefaced, all her limbs tense as her eyes below her creased brow flew from Naruto to Sasuke, judging the validity of the claim from Sasuke’s reaction. Sasuke was defensive, arms pulled close, but also defiant at the judgment he knew was coming. He’d made his choice and there was no going back from it. Once an Uchiha, always an Uchiha.
Kakashi was so still it was like an explosion had gone off. Silent like he was waiting for an enemy to attack, ironic considering he didn’t even flinch when a ninja suddenly appeared next to them, anbu mask over their face.
“Squad seven needs to report to the hokage tower immediately,” the nin said, full of emotion they barely squashed before they disappeared in a rustle of leaves.
Kakashi suddenly slumped, rubbing a hand over his face. “Let’s go kids,” he intoned, dread etched into his every action as he led them back into the village proper, Sakura following with stiff limbs.
Sasuke rolled his eyes, flicking Naruto off of him so they could follow, and praying the dramatics would be over soon.