Chapter Text
He hadn’t presented yet. He was fine with it.
Naruto had presented when they were eight, the first one in their class, and Sasuke was sure it had stunted his growth considering how short he was. He was also sure it hadn’t benefited Naruto at all, becoming the only dom at the age of eight in a classroom of people who hated him. It was like a switch had been flipped. Instead of the somber attitude interspersed with bouts of attention-seeking he’d turned into, well, a bit of an asshole, using every opportunity to take out his frustrations on unsuspecting victims through his infamous pranking. He was alone, Sasuke knew, and it must have been hard not to have anyone to even speak with, let alone try to play those dumbass alpha-male games, where two doms fight for dominance for kicks. When Kiba presented he finally had someone always ready for one of those, but before the only domination he could get in was dominating class-time and picking fights with people significantly older and more skilled than him. He’d gotten beaten a lot, Sasuke having done some of those humiliations himself.
Sakura, shame of all shames (apparently), was a domme. There was a general understanding that women became subs and men became doms, even though there was enough variation of the hormones for it to be a separate category than gender. She’d had a crush on him, still has a crush on him, and had been devastated when her ratio was eighty-eight percent dom, well beyond the threshold where she could call herself at least a switch. Ino hadn’t stopped laughing for weeks, rubbing her forty-five percent dom ratio in her face as if she was the paragon of submission and therefore the one destined to be Sasuke’s wife. Sakura had never been gloomier until she’d decided to be absolutely insane and fight her orientation, making herself demure and girlish around Sasuke as if he couldn’t see how she snapped and snarled as a matter of course the second his back was turned.
It was obnoxious, the steady trickle of presentations affecting how people treated each other, everyone fighting to satisfy their new orientations as well as just the normal juvenile romps into romance. People chased their satisfaction through relationships they didn’t understand and were ultimately inadequate because all twelve year-old’s had the social skills of, well, children. The constant fighting of the shinobi lifestyle didn’t help in the least as well.
He thought his genin team was going to be a powder keg, and wondered if that wasn’t the point. Naruto was constantly trying to prove himself and trying to out-dom Sasuke, trying to win Sakura’s affection because he was too stupid to realize they’d never work. Sakura was equally stupid, trying to out-dom Naruto due to how often he tried to fight Sasuke, completely ignorant to how futile punching him on the back of the head was to projecting the idea she was really a sub to Sasuke. For himself he didn’t care about the whole thing, and he was right to, dreading the day he’d present and become a slave to his hormones like the dumbasses he was forced to entertain. Sure, Naruto could rile him up and Sakura could piss him off, but the addition of his own hormones into the mix would just make their team implode.
Sasuke was going to be a dom, obviously. Even taking into account wider trends towards men being doms, the Uchiha bloodline was even more explicit in their genetic rules. Men were doms, and that was that. The women could be subs, but were usually switches, his clan’s power ruining the ratio and creating a clan with too many with the desire to dominate. They’d never studied the phenomenon, it was just accepted as fact. The men were always doms, no one ever getting a ration lower than eighty.
Once he presented there would be three doms on a team headed by a dom. They were so fucked.
Or, well, he’d thought that before the land of waves mission. After only ever having had a combative relationship with Naruto it was..weird that they could sink into cooperation so easily. Even when they competed on the chakra controls exercise it felt like that was its own form collaboration, like they were training together instead of against each other, supporting each other in their race to the finish line despite technically being competitors.
And then…Naruto had been about to die. Sasuke wondered if he was the stronger one for having the power to save him, or the weaker one for having died.
He came back though, it was fine.
It was still awkward as shit on the way back though, because Sasuke had thought he was in his last moments and said some things he’d wished he hadn’t, and Naruto had apparently sobbed over his body so, er…
They weren’t speaking.
Sasuke huffed a breath, bringing up a hand to wipe away the sweat on the back of his neck. They’d stayed in Wave long enough to recover, so he shouldn’t be having any trouble with the leisurely walk home, except he could feel this absurd pressure in the air between his team. No one spoke, and that wasn’t unusual for a long journey but it felt pointed. They’d just witnessed something horrific, their first taste of the real shinobi life, and it was more than they were prepared for. Yet, they’d done it. They were coming home, survivors.
He felt twitchy.
“Let’s break for a while,” Kakashi called out, gesturing to the small clearing adjacent to the road, an obvious stopping place.
Sasuke resented him for the stop but was the first one to sit down, settling himself below the shade of a tree and upending some of his water on his head. It didn’t cool him.
“Sasuke-kun…”
He looked up into green eyes, too close for comfort. He didn’t feel dizzy, the heat not the kind that sucked the energy out him. Instead it simply felt uncomfortable, and it actually seemed to give him more energy, making him restless and annoyed. It was an itch he desperately needed to scratch, but Sakura didn’t need to know that.
“I’m fine.”
Sakura pursed her lips. She reached out and put a hand to Sasuke’s forehead, increasing his annoyance tenfold, but considering the new dynamics of their team after the last mission he allowed it.
“You’re burning up!”
He rolled his eyes, but Kakashi had caught on to the scene and was slowly making his way over, like it was only because of the technicality of his job requirements that he was coming to their aide.
“I’m fine,” Sasuke scowled, but too late as the hand on his forehead was replaced with a bigger one.
Kakashi made a sound, his single eye staring into Sasuke’s pupils like he was measuring their dilation. Annoying.
“What, is he sick or something?” Naruto asked, his blond head peeking over Kakashi’s shoulder, having just caught on to the scene. Idiot.
Kakashi hummed, taking his hand back. “How do you feel, Sasuke? Be honest.”
He rolled his eyes. “I feel irritable, so I’m fine.”
“No dizziness? Pain? Discomfort?”
He pursed his lips. “Some discomfort. Itchy.”
Kakashi leaned back on his heels, a strange glint in his eye. He wiped away a tear that didn’t exist, something mockingly proud. “Seems your teammate here is becoming a man. Nothing to worry about.”
Oh.
The other’s got it at the same time he did, Sakura blushing furiously while Naruto just leaned away with a huff, his hands behind his head. “Mah, took you long enough.”
“Shut up.”
Since he wasn’t actually sick or in pain, their break was a short one and they were back on the road in fifteen minutes, Sasuke in the lead, his extra energy trying to propel them home faster so he could just take a bath and go to bed. It was silent again, but the heavy feeling was mostly gone, and Sasuke couldn’t help but feel like his team was watching him with mocking curiosity.
“You know…Sasuke-kun…” He bit his lip, refusing to look at the girl who’d caught up to him. “If…well this is just my experience but, well, if you want to feel better I would maybe, er, fight? Or argue. Get loud, if you know what I mean…”
He gave her an odd look, a bit floored she would acknowledge her orientation enough to try and give him advice on how to deal with the new hormones coursing through him.
“Yeah!” A hand clapped him on the back and Sasuke recoiled, curling his lip at the boy smiling sunnily at his other side, just barely concealing the teasing he could see beneath the grin. “You gotta get out all that new tension! Welcome to the life of a dom, it sucks!”
His lips twitched despite himself.
“Kids,” Kakashi sighed from behind him, his nose no doubt between that awful book. “Let’s not make a habit of asking for fights outside of spars, mmmkay?”
“Aw, come on,” Naruto whined, grabbing at Sasuke’s elbow. “This trip is basically over anyways, and it’s totally doctor recommended to get into petty fights when you present. I think. I know I did a lot of that…”
“It doesn’t count if you do it outside of presentation. That’s just bad self-control.”
Naruto rolled his eyes, his grip tightening on Sasuke’s arm. “Sensei~ please? Just, like, an hour for a fight.”
Sasuke chose then to look back, letting his gaze join his teammates in an effort to pressure their sensei. He was honestly sick of feeling like there were bugs crawling under his skin, and he was always up for a spar. Naruto seemed particularly eager and Sasuke let himself indulge in the idea that maybe presenting wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe Naruto would put up a better fight and he’d actually have a challenge.
Kakashi let them fight, lolling his head in quiet acquiescence before disappearing, only to reappear in a tree, his book propped open on his lap and completely unconcerned as Naruto and him jumped apart, circling each other like they’d done a million times before. Sakura rolled her eyes, but backed away nonetheless, not one to give her all in a fight against Sasuke.
It was fun, fighting with Naruto was always fun, but the buzzing under his skin wasn’t decreasing in the least. He put Naruto into the dirt and kicked away shadow clones but he only felt more restless the longer their fight went on, and his elation at the spar was slowly lost the more it went on. Sasuke was winning, had already technically won if Naruto would just accept defeat, but he only felt worse.
“Ugh,” he grunted, watching as Naruto tumbled away. He clenched and unclenched his hands, sucking air through his teeth. He didn’t feel satisfied in the least. “This isn’t helping.”
Naruto gave a cry of outrage, as if it was a slight against him, but Sakura cocked her head, genuinely confused. “It’s not?”
Sasuke jerked his head. The restlessness had crawled up to his chest. He felt like his heart was beating too fast. “No. I feel worse.”
Sakura hummed. “I guess Naruto isn’t much of a challenge to you…”
Well, apparently the fact it wasn’t working was a slight against Naruto, the boy looking genuinely pissed now. It didn’t feel accurate though. He’d always enjoyed sparring with Naruto.
Sakura went up to Kakashi, tugging at his pants to get him to bend down from his perch in the tree and let her whisper in his ear, before she simply grabbed him by the arm and bodily dragged him off of it. Kakashi followed her back out to the main road where Sasuke was trying not to shake apart, completely resigned as he put away his book.
“Here,” Sakura said, pushing Kakashi forward. “I brought you a nice juicy challenge.”
“Mah, I’m not a piece of meat.”
Ugh. He took it back. His team sucked.
Either way Kakashi got into a fighting stance so Sasuke did the same. He had a few tried and true openers for how he liked to start his fights against his sensei, and they settled into a rhythm he was familiar with, Kakashi giving more spirit to the fight but just barely. He made a few moves, and Sasuke copied them with relish, thoroughly enjoying his new sharingan without the threat of death hanging over his head.
But it still didn’t help.
“This isn’t working,” he snarled, spinning away to throw a kunai with deadly accuracy at the nearest tree. “I still feel manic.”
He was breathing heavier now, and he hoped it was just because of exertion but he wasn’t an idiot. He felt like he was shaking out of his chest, and though he didn’t feel nervous, it still felt like how nervousness presented itself.
Kakashi fell back on his haunches, inspecting Sasuke with more consideration than he had before. His visible eye twitched, and he straightened up. “You still feel restless?”
“Yes!” Sasuke said, throwing his arms in the air. “Like a fucking hummingbird is making a home in my chest.”
Sakura wrung her hands, her eyes flicking from Kakashi to Sasuke nervously. Naruto was just looking at him like he was stupid, which was just insulting.
“Sasuke.”
He snapped to attention at that tone, noting how Kakashi had straightened his posture and his eyes were narrowed, like there was a genuinely dangerous enemy around. Sasuke’s eyes flicked to the tree line, looking for the threat.
“I want you to sit on the ground and put your head between your knees,” Kakashi ordered.
Sasuke pursed his lips, but there was obviously no threat if Kakashi was asking this of him so he did as he was told, dropping to the ground and wrapping his hands around his ankles, his eyes on the ground. He breathed deeply, and immediately felt better, which confused him. He hadn’t been genuinely anxious, had he?
He heard Kakashi move, steps almost deliberately heavy as he circled Sasuke, coming up behind him to put two hands on Sasuke’s shoulders. “Breathe in through your nose, hold for three seconds, then exhale through your mouth. Do it now.”
He breathed in, and felt better. He held for three seconds, and he felt better. He exhaled, and the buzzing retreated away from his heart to just his gut, less a live hummingbird and more just a small jitter. He stretched his head back and forth, sighing in contentment as the feeling retreated. Kakashi circled him again, kneeling down in front of him with both hands still on Sasuke’s shoulders. He relaxed even further, giving Kakashi a rueful, yet grateful, smirk.
“Thank you.”
It was hard to tell through the mask, but he could still see Kakashi purse his lips, his visible eye way too serious for the small bit of coaching he’d just done. Sasuke looked up and saw Sakura, one hand on her mouth as she watched him with wide eyes, again, an incomprehensible reaction. Naruto was the only consistent one, his look of blank confusion so familiar at this point Sasuke saw it in his sleep.
“What is it?” he asked, always one to get to the point.
Kakashi twitched, getting to his feet. “We need to get back to the village.”
It was framed as a statement, but Kakashi still had that bleak tone about him that made it feel like an order so Sasuke got to his feet, brushing the dirt off his shorts and grabbing his pack. He felt better than he had in hours and wanted to take advantage of the feeling to push himself the few kilometers left of their journey. He took the lead again, ignoring Naruto whines to be included as to what was going on. As far as Sasuke knew he’d had an anxiety attack, but it was hard to feel embarrassed when he hadn’t actually felt the anxiety. It was probably just a side effect of presenting that was rare enough only Kakashi knew about it.
But the more they walked the more that feeling grew again, and he felt the strangest need to look back to make sure his team was following him. They were, every time, Naruto’s brow furrowed and watching the ground with confusion, a contrast to Sakura’s wide eyes trained completely on him. Kakashi didn’t let him inspect his teammates long.
“Sasuke,” he said sharply. “Keep going.”
So he did, that restlessness soothed by the surety of his voice for a few minutes before he had to look back again, only for Kakashi to give the order again. And again. Continuing in a cycle that even Sasuke was starting to find suspicious.
Until one time he looked back and Naruto was looking at him with shock mixed with something grim and, even worse, concern. What the fuck?
He turned around bodily, his arms crossed.
“Sasuke,” Kakashi warned, but Sasuke shook his head.
“What’s going on?”
Both of his teammates turned their head to Kakashi, anxious. Sasuke’s lip curled. He hated being out of the loop.
“We’re an hour away from Konoha,” Kakashi said dully. “I’ll tell you then.”
“No, you’ll tell me now.”
The buzzing increased in his chest at his words, his flush returning, but he wanted answers more than he wanted that feeling to go away. Kakashi said nothing, so he looked at Sakura, relying on her crush to force her to explain but all he got was blankness, her face completely white. He moved on to Naruto, who was looking at him…ugh.
He was looking at him differently. Sasuke hated that feeling, having felt that look on his back the whole way back to Konoha from this cursed mission, only now the look had grown more potent. Like a piece of Naruto’s world had come undone and it was somehow Sasuke’s fault.
“Face forward, please,” Kakashi begged, but he didn’t lose the tone of a commander. “You’ll know soon enough.”
Sasuke spun on his heel even while he rolled his eyes. Whatever. It wasn’t like he’d ever been able to get their sensei to do anything he didn’t want to do before, and an hour wasn’t that long.
Except it was then, in the easy, obeying way he went to turn towards Konoha, that he understood.
No.
He spun around again, inspecting his team with new suspicion, gleaming new insight from their reactions.
It wasn’t possible.
“Sasuke,” Kakashi said again, and he wondered at how many times his sensei had said his name in the last hour. “Walk.”
He let the word rumble through him. Not word, command. Order. He felt his body respond, how he wanted to follow, how the command felt like a nice hot bath he could climb into and melt away the shivering feeling he’d been battling all day.
“No,” Sasuke whispered, his own eyes blown wide at the impossibility threatening to choke him. His rejection made the bees nest in his stomach revolt, his shivering growing stronger. He was going to be sick.
Both his teammates turned to look at their sensei at his rejection, but Kakashi just grimaced. “You’ll make it worse if you do that. Just turn around and walk, please.”
Kakashi was saying please. Had Kakashi ever said please when giving an order? No, he barked his orders, got right to the point. It was the few areas of Kakashi’s personality Sasuke respected.
He shook his head violently, ignoring how he started hyperventilating despite having just done his breathing exercises. Kakashi was suddenly within arms reach, grabbing his wrists and peeling them away from grabbing his stomach.
“Sasuke, I get it, I understand-”
“No,” he choked, and thought he actually might throw up.
He could still say no. He could disobey. That meant something, right? Kakashi was wrong. He had to be.
“-you need to calm down.”
But he couldn’t. He felt like he was back on that bridge, feeling the life drain out of him and knowing there was only so much time he had left. His life was ending all over again, but somehow in a way worse than a senbon to the neck. More humiliating. More slow.
“No,” he said again, just to hear it. To assure himself. It didn’t work.
He was suddenly on the ground again, a big hand on the back of his neck forcing his head down while another came down on his back, like Kakashi was trying to beat the breath out of him. He gasped, and saw how dark stars filled his vision. He did need to breathe or he’d actually pass out, so he listened, letting himself inhale as slowly as he could manage, pulling air into his lungs like it was a privilege.
When he looked up again both his teammates were far away, running down the dirt path in the direction of the village, leaving Sasuke behind. It felt like an omen.
“I sent them ahead,” Kakashi said. His hand was still on Sasuke’s neck, and he used his grip to force Sasuke to look at him. “We’re going now. You can either run with me or I’m going to carry you.”
He didn’t want to be carried, so he got to his feet, too dazed to put up any fight. They ran, and Sasuke refused to think, shoved down his thoughts so he wouldn’t succumb to another panic attack. They were almost there, and some strange part of him assured him if he made it to Konoha it would all be over. Instead, as they approached the massive gates of his village, he saw his teammates again, watching him with such open pity that Sasuke snarled, gearing up to cut them down to size when a hand clamped on his wrist.
“Go home. You’re dismissed.”
The order wasn’t meant for Sasuke, something he knew as he was dragged through the village, leaving Naruto’s cry of protest in the dust.
They didn’t go to the hokage tower, as was customary and very needed after their C-rank had changed to an A-rank, but instead the hospital.
“I need a dom test,” Kakashi barked at the receptionist, uncaring as she raised an eyebrow at the rudeness. It was a common enough test, and most people chose to buy the kits themselves and do them at home, so she simply reached into a cabinet drawer and pulled out a small box.
“Just a drop of blood will do. Don’t get overzealous, it won’t change the result.”
Sasuke was going to be sick.
He was led to the waiting room and bullied into a chair. Kakashi read the package quickly, before pulling out the small square device and turning it on. He grabbed Sasuke’s wrist again, and he didn’t even fight. He already knew the answer.
His thumb pressed against the test, a sharp prick of pain at the tip which quickly dripped blood into the test. It was a higher-end test, electronic rather than the coloured papers. It would have his ratio.
0%
***
Sasuke was taken for tests. The at home kits only measured the dominant hormone as it was, well, dominant and easier to pick up on than the sub hormones. To get a zero could mean he simply hadn’t progressed far enough in his presentation for his hormones to register, so Kakashi had admitted him and explained his situation to the receptionist, who’d been extremely interested in the phenomenon. He was clearly presenting, having all the usual symptoms, but a full zero? That rarely happened.
(Hinata hadn’t even been a full zero. She’d had a ten percent ration. Hinata had more dom in her than him.)
The doctor had come back with his results within the hour. Maybe it was a slow day, or maybe the doctor had personal curiosity into the extremely rare ratio.
100/000 sub.
“Don’t faint,” Kakashi commanded, and he listened because that was his life now, wasn’t it? Listening. Obeying. Weakness.
Maybe Kakashi could see the way his eyes deadened, how he grew limp on the examination table where they’d drawn his blood.
“It’s not the end of the world,” he said quickly, trying to interject cheer. “No need to be dramatic.”
But it was the end of his goal.
Subs were medics. Subs were spies. Subs were pliant and obedient ninja who usually died first if their team encountered any danger. Subs were not front line combatants.
A sub could never beat his brother, especially not one without an ounce of dominance in him.
He was ruined.
“You’re not ruined.”
Sasuke shook his head, his eyes trained on the floor. “I can’t work like this. I can’t fight someone if my body reacts like this.”
“It’s only this bad because you’re presenting,” Kakashi explained. He narrowed his eyes. “Subs are not slaves.”
No, they weren’t. But they weren’t kage either. Could never be. It was like asking a housewife to be a ninja. It wasn’t possible.
“It’s not the end of the world, Sasuke,” his sensei said, but he wasn’t convincing. It was the end of something more important than the world.