The drunker he was, the harder it got to make the bottle end its spin onto appropriate people without anyone catching on. A good thing that the drunker they were and the least likely they were to notice.
Karin broke away from Naruto's mouth with a wet noise and slinked off his lap, leaving him blushing and stammery. She sent Sasuke a smouldering, 'jealous yet?' look over Naruto's shoulder; Sasuke blinked back blandly.
"Congratulations, moron, you just made out with your cousin. Welcome to the world of inter-clan relationships." He toasted Naruto with his drink, deadpan.
Naruto and Karin started flailing around asking each other what he meant. When Suigetsu helpfully informed them, they started trying to tell themselves, each other, and the rest of teams Kakashi and Taka, that surely there were a bazilion degrees of separation between them and it hardly counted, which made nudging this spin a lot easier than the previous.
He'd shoved Karin at Naruto because she'd been trying to land on him all evening, and because Naruto had asked for it with his inbreeding cracks and his sulking about this being a sausagefest and how if he had to kiss Sai again he might just swallow a kunai, but now... now it was time to advance his master plan.
Especially now that Sakura's chuckling grin had gone strained and twitching at the corner, due to the way Naruto and Karin were grabbing at each other's hands and in each other's face, forgetting to be flustered about the R-rated tonsil exploration from two minutes ago.
It was a surprise to everyone but Sasuke when Naruto's spin ended on Sakura.
(Well, no, actually, he was pretty sure Juugo could tell, but Juugo could also be trusted to keep his mouth shut and indulge Sasuke. Sasuke made a note to tell Juugo he was his favorite kid. Aw fuck, he was turning into Kakashi. Note to self, water his next drink.)
Naruto and Sakura exchanged a look that was nothing but pure awkward, the same way they kept getting every time the topic, the mood, shifted away from purely comradely, not-intimate common goals or Sasuke himself and onto each other. He'd been aware of it ever since he came home back to the village and little by little it had started irritating the fuck out of him, like a painting on the wall one bare half-inch out of alignment. They were still close friends, and competent, well-synced teammates, and they still laughed with each other, but there was that embarrassed thing in the middle that just pissed him off, like some stupid invisible elephant that everyone kept tripping the fuck over.
It needed to put its trunk away before Sasuke chopped it off. Yeah.
"Uh, heh. Er. Wanna, um, maybe the closet, Sakura-chan?"
Sasuke's brow furrowed. There was indeed a closet in the building nearby, for ease of kissing in case any of the seven of them got a sudden attack of bashful, but it hadn't been used even once. Not even by Juugo and Sakura, who were the only two here in possession of anything approaching modesty. (Sasuke wasn't modest, he was touch me and lose the hand. He didn't give a crap who saw him do what in which suit, unless it would encourage them to go right on touching afterwards -- which was why he did not go towel-less around either Karin or Suigetsu at the hot springs.)
"But then how will we know you respected the rules?" Sai asked pleasantly. "You could agree to not kiss and say you did. That'd be cheating."
Alright, Sai was tentatively allowed back on the list of people Sasuke wouldn't detour to kick when they were down. (Mind, Sasuke made no promises if he happened to be down in his path.)
(The list of people Sasuke would make a detour for was pretty small in the first place, so Sai should be honored to have been on it, however briefly and drunk-inducedly. Itachi used to be there, and Tobidara and the village Elders. ... And Naruto, yeah, but Naruto was pretty much on all his lists. Every single one of them.)
"W-we wouldn't cheat!" Naruto protested. He still lied like ass.
"Sai, how could you -- why would we?" Sakura chimed. She probably thought she lied better, but she was wrong.
"Enough," he declared, and gave them both a cold, unimpressed look over the rim of his glass. "This isn't brain surgery. Hurry up already."
Naruto's face went ruddy red; Sakura's a delicate pink. They wouldn't look at each other even as they leaned in, which pissed him off.
Their pupils were blown with something he sure as fuck hoped was arousal. He shifted a little so his pants would stop digging in pertinent parts of his anatomy. God he loved that butt-cape. So many uses.
Naruto went on hands and knees to breach the gap to the other side of the circle, pants straining at the seat under Sasuke's nose; Sakura shifted into a sideways seiza, tilted her head to meet his lips -- graceful white neck, strong gloved hands.
They had at least three false starts and two attacks of nervous giggles before they actually kissed; Suigetsu had long taken to throwing them uprooted patches of grass and Karin was calling out helpful tips to Sakura about what Naruto liked best. The kiss itself was awkward; all half-hearted lips, no tongue, and even from there he could tell they were stiff and didn't mesh at all. Goddamn it. Goddamn it.
And he was too far away to influence Sakura's next spin. When Naruto settled back at his side scratching the back of his neck and going ehehe like a moron, Sasuke closed his eyes and drained half his next drink to gather the strength not to kick him in the knee for messing it up so spectacularly.
Mnrgh. He should probably allow them a little bit before his next manipulation, anyway.
"... Okay, which one is this pointing at now," Naruto said with a strange edge of dread. Suigetsu started laughing his ass off. Had Sakura landed on Karin? Okay, that might be interesting. Sasuke opened his eyes again, and...
... the bottle pointed pretty much in that perfect mid-point between himself and Naruto.
Huh.
When he looked back at Sakura, she looked mortified (stupid medic things, she was way too sober.) Sai was smiling vacuously at her side.
Sai was smiling at him.
Sasuke eyed the bottle again. The perfect angle of it. The tendril of killing intent so, so light on the breeze, straight from Sai to him -- mess it up and I'll kill you.
Huh.
Okay.
Okay, fine, if Sai was ever down and blocking his path, Sasuke would be the soul of generosity and go to the effort of stepping over him. He handed Juugo his glass and snapped his fingers in Naruto's face. "Stop babbling. By the end of the night everyone'll have kissed everyone else at least twice. You said it yourself. That's the point."
His eyes were on Sakura. He could see only the smallest ring of green around her pupils now. ... He could work with that.
"Sakura."
"Y-yes?"
He leaned forward and hooked his fingers in her collar and yanked her onto her knees so she had to brace on his shoulders not to topple onto him, and he kissed her, fast and maybe a little too hard but he was so annoyed with the both of them and goddamn it, this was how you kissed someone, it wasn't rocket science. Her chakra felt like mint and snakes shedding skin and the first blades of grass through the last snow, tingling on his tongue. He fed her some of his, heat and crackling power and things circling in the dark, and he bit at her lips until she stopped holding back and bit him back, until her fingers clenched on his shoulders hard enough to bruise.
"Good," he said in the sudden silence. His voice was rougher than he'd meant it to be. Alcohol, had to be. He wanted to drag her on his lap and tell their teams to fuck right off, he wanted to see where else she might bite if he pushed her, how far he'd have to push her before she pushed back. Couldn't. Couldn't. "Now kiss him again. Just like that."
Naruto made a noise like a lost, dying beast. When Sasuke glanced at him he looked beautifully devastated.
Turned on, too, but in a way which only made the devastation worse. Goddamn but he was a moron.
And Sakura was hesitating again, face flushed, breathing so fast he could feel it on his skin, little puffs of her breath. She still braced on his shoulders; he fancied he could feel the leather of her gloves. Neither one of them made a move.
Maybe they would have if he'd left them another second or three to psych themselves up, but he was so utterly out of patience with the both of them suddenly, so incredibly pissed off, for going and making things weird while his back was turned, for twisting things out of true that should have fit like key and lock.
Lip curled up in a threat that had Naruto's eyes flash ruddy-purple in animal reflex, Sasuke hooked him too, twisted his hand in Naruto's collar and pulled him in. Naruto flopped against his shoulder, flailing to avoid landing his hand on Sakura's side or Sasuke's knee and only unbalancing himself worse, and Sasuke accompanied him the rest of the way to the ground with a twist from his waist that had Naruto flat on his back and Sasuke with an elbow to his collarbone, and then his mouth was on his and it was nowhere close to an accident.
Naruto went mrrrpth in his mouth, hands batting ineffectually at his shoulders; Sasuke growled a low threat in Naruto's mouth, down his throat, and slipped his tongue in to follow.
Naruto's chakra was wild things, and fire too, familiar, well-loved unpredictability, a roaring inferno, but a fire that was alive and would not be tamed. Sasuke dived in, wanted to laugh with the breathless exhilaration of it, the danger.
"Is that all you can do," he whispered in his mouth, "dead last, loser, you suck at this."
Naruto snarled and then there was a hand in his hair, fisting, pulling hard. Sasuke snarled a challenge and refused to yield, strained against the hold to kiss him again, to bite at his lips and his chin and anywhere he could reach, only then that hand dragged him closer, mashed their mouths together and he could feel the surge of chakra fill his mouth, invade his throat, spiral all the way down his spine.
He broke away. His eyes were probably Sharingan red. He didn't care. He sneered, schooling his face best as he could so he'd look cold, unimpressed. (The tenketsu at the base of his spine was burning, radiating tendrils of heat and need all through him from hip to hip, from inner thighs to navel and higher.)
"Good boy." Contempt. He sat back up. Naruto pushed himself up on his hands, unsteady and eyes half-wild, punch-drunk. Sakura still knelt at their side, staring, leather straining and creaking over her tight-clenched fists.
He wanted them both, shit, he wanted them both, he wasn't supposed to want anyone but he did, but it didn't matter so long as they fucking fixed it, between the two of them, it just didn't matter what else happened, or didn't happen. (wanted them, wanted them, shit and fuck, could he? should he?)
"Do I have to hold your hand any farther than that? Your turn now. Properly." He leaned in, breathed almost silent. "Now."
"Does it surprise anyone here that Sasuke is a total bitch dom?" Suigetsu mused, making Naruto blink dumbly like he'd forgotten they weren't alone and Sakura flinch in mortification. Had Sasuke still had his glass in hand he'd have brained him with it. He contented himself with a quick, narrow-eyed glare. If that asswipe had broken the mood he'd--
"Nah," Naruto drawled back, though his voice shook and his heartbeat fluttered too fast at the base of his throat. "He's just a really pushy bottom."
A wide, fangy grin. Not even sure of his footing, but challenging Sasuke anyway. Laughter broke out of Sakura's throat, surprising even her, but the breathless, sudden joy in it had Sasuke turn to listen, to watch the way her eyes lit up, distracted from his upcoming fight.
She was the one who kissed Naruto first this time, hands sliding around to the back of his neck, carding through his hair, and then she kissed the tip of his nose, and while Naruto was still blinking she stole his lips with fierce, laughing enthusiasm, not anything like the dark intensity Sasuke had pushed on either of them but something he... something he wanted wondered what it'd be like to experience.
Naruto started laughing too as he guided her to straddle his lap, as he tilted his head back into her hold, trusting. It wasn't a challenge between them, or only a light, playful one. It wasn't... it wasn't awkward anymore, not the way they giggled and licked at each other's palate and dropped tiny little kisses over each other's face in the cutest most irritating way before going right back to liplocking.
When Sakura made a breathy little moan of appreciation Sasuke turned away and picked up the bottle. "Alright. Naruto had the turn before that, he doesn't get two in a row. My turn."
He didn't want to look at Juugo's oddly sympathetic face, he didn't want to see the way Suigetsu leered playfully at Sakura and Naruto, or Sai's empty, meaningless smile, or Karin's anything. If he kissed one of them he could have his eyes closed and not see anything for a little while. It'd be fine. He gave the bottle a spin.
The earth trembled. A crack ran across the grass. The bottle bounced weird, jerked up. Landed on its bottom, and wedged in the crack.
Sasuke looked back along the crack, to Sakura's leather-clad fist. He looked up along her arm.
Two glares, green and reddish-purple.
"Whoops," Suigetsu drawled, falsely innocent. "Bottle's pointing straight up. Now how did that happen? Act of God? Wonder what's the rule in that case."
Sasuke couldn't look away from Naruto and Sakura, entangled and staring at him, faces flushed, lips damp. He wasn't even a sensor but he could feel their chakra from where he was, like an aftertaste in the air.
Sai nodded ponderously. "If it's a message from God, I feel I should point out this looks a lot like a bottle erection. The message is pretty clear."
Karin hooted out a laugh. "That was so bad. So bad! Sai, you dirty-minded asshole. Lucky you're so cute."
Uh. What? Where was the jealousy and the trying to get into his pants? Sasuke briefly felt strangely disoriented.
Oh. Oh! Earlier, she hadn't tried to make him jealous of Naruto for kissing her, she'd been trying to make him jealous of her for kissing Naruto. Oh. Huh. ... Wow.
Yeah, like fuck that was happening.
Also Sai didn't get to call Sakura Ugly and have her smile at him indulgently and only punch him a little.
Someone nudged his back, between his shoulderblades; it took Sasuke an instant to remember Juugo was there (oh so that was why he hadn't had a twitchy reflex and killed him. Juugo felt safe.) Juugo gave him the barest little smile and nudged him forward again.
Sasuke glowered grumpily at him for a second (damn it, he was team leader, he was the Kakashi figure, he didn't need mothered) before he gave in (Juugo had very good ideas some days) and climbed to his feet.
"Um. Sasuke-kun?"
"I don't know about you two," he grunted. "And I don't care. But I am going to that closet over there. And it's nobody's business what the fuck happens in there."
The second he was sober, he was going looking into memory-erasure jutsu and testing it on the witnesses no doubt perving out there, or gathering blackmail material or both. Right now he was pleasantly buzzed, and the closet was very soothingly dark and quiet -- up until the door opened again and spilled two breathless teammates in, after which it wasn't very quiet anymore but who the fuck cared, seriously.
Their hands all over him. All over each other, shy and awkward at first but there was laughter too, from the both of them, laughter until it wasn't awkward at all and then maybe there was some tickling and maybe he laughed a little too, and maybe that wasn't because of the tickles at all because it so happened he wasn't ticklish, just happy.
Drunk.
Happy.
--
The morning after he had a hangover the size of Konoha and his lips were so bitten and puffed up it looked like he'd caught a toothy fist in the face a little. Naruto was perfectly fine on account of his unfair furry asshole metabolism.
Sakura healed Sasuke's hangover, but not the marks. He was strangely okay with that.