A/N: I was thinking of writing something more light-hearted and cheerful but still a bit sexy (we're talking about Madara here!)

This little one-shot is dedicated to two awesome MadaSaku writers:

- Of Healing Love: I hope this is heartening and fun to read. May this story bring a bit, if not more, of a smile to you in rough times :)

- moor: This was supposed to be a sorta congratulations on hitting 5000 hits for your story, Orbit, on AO3… Which I'm about 600 hits too late for xP oops. Congratulations anyway! :) And all the best for your work on chapter 4!

Sakura returns home to find her fiancé already back before her – and by the sounds coming from the kitchen, he's cracking eggs into a frying pan. She spies his discarded boots tossed next to the door and his bandanna with the Uchiha Division emblem flung over the back of the sofa.

Removing her own shoes, she starts peeling off layers – her coat and scarf – en-route to the kitchen.

"You're back early. I thought you'd be later than me, with the huge fire Konoha Academy," she says as she casually undoes the top button of her blouse and grabs a glass of cold orange juice from the fridge.

"I thought so too. Then again, 'huge' is an exaggeration. We put it out in no time. It was in a secluded chemistry lab after all." Madara replies with an air of equal casualness, serving the eggs onto plates atop an island counter in their kitchen. His gaze, however, is focused on the sight of Sakura's tongue licking a bit of orange juice from the corner of her lips.. Then it drops to the now-low neckline of her pale cream blouse.

"I left the follow-up work to Shisui and Itachi," Madara continues. He forces himself to turn away to put the pan back on the stove. "I thought you would have been done since there weren't any casualties and I didn't want to start dinner too late."

"You just left the work to them? That's a bit… irresponsible, isn't it, oh-great Head of the Uchiha Firefighters." Sakura raises a brow at him.

Madara raises a brow right back at her. "They were eager to take on the job. Rumour has it that there's a promotion coming up to replace Fugaku now that he's retiring. Who am I to burst their happy bubble?"

"You could tell them the truth: the candidate has already been decided upon. You're going to milk their enthusiastic energy for all it's worth, aren't you?" Sakura sighs and rinses her glass under the tap.

A pair of arms encloses her waist from behind, and a nose nuzzles her neck. She yelps in surprise and the glass slips out of her hand.

She manages to catch it with her other hand but the awkward angle in which the glass was tilted splashes water from the running tap over her blouse.

"Madara! Be caref-"

"What's your excuse, dear wife-to-be?" Madara cuts across her speech. He turns off the tap with one hand and then takes the glass from her and puts it aside. His other arm never leaves her waist.

"Huh?"

"You were home later than me even though no one was injured." He kisses her neck before whispering in her ear, "you kept me waiting, Sakura."

Quelling the shiver that ran up her spine, Sakura forces her voice to remain steady as she replies, "you know we have to run checks on the children. They could very well have inhaled toxic fumes." She twists deftly out of Madara's embrace and leans against a counter a couple metres away, facing him with a small, teasing smile gracing her lips. "You shoved your duties onto others and left your fiancée behind at work – and you dare to complain about waiting?"

"I prefer to think of it as.. Sharing the workload. A team effort, if you will."

"What you did was more like Batman. Only there for the dramatic heroic moments and leave the clean-up to the others." Sakura hopes she sounds curt. She should have picked a better analogy, because the truth is, Batman has too many plus points Madara could use as a counter.

Although if he tries to bring up the 8-packs that he has too, she'd walk out of the kitchen.

"I happen to know that you think Batman is cool anyway," Madara responds with a smirk of his own as he looks up and down her soaked blouse. "As for my fiancée and work, I like to think that we're a great team. Like a dynamic duo, really."

Sakura raises her eyebrows at his unspoken flirting and smiles at the Batman reference he made.

"You see," Madara continues, "I run in and save 'em and you work your magic with your scary paramedic instruments of torture…"

"That last bit doesn't sound very heroic."

"Indeed. I must have been thinking of Tobirama when I said that."

"I don't see why you don't like him."

Madara snorts. "No kidding. You don't see him eyeing you up when he's supposed to be helping instead. I hope he doesn't work with our division for a long time." Turning to the fridge, he pulls out some ham and tosses them into the frying pan.

"Glad to see you're so into teamwork." Sakura starts bringing out veggies she'd chopped the night before to make salad.

"The Uchiha Division is the best when it comes to firefighting. We don't need anyone else. They say that fire fears us. Probably because we're as hot as it gets around here." Madara turns and gives Sakura a quick wink.

Sakura's partially glad she'd cut the vegetables beforehand. If Madara did that when she was at the chopping board, the salad might have a few fingers in it.

She's also partially exasperated at her husband-to-be. "He's Izuna's friend, you know. You could try to get along."

"Izuna's an idiot sometimes. His brain doesn't always work right," Madara replies without missing a beat. "That reminds me. Before we starting dating, he told me about this lame pickup line-" A pause. "On second thought, nevermind…"

"Ooh I like a good pickup line. Tell me!" Sakura abandons the salad bowls and dressing and approaches Madara who promptly retreats back to the island counter to add generous servings of ham to the plates.

"I was supposed to use it on you. You'll be glad I didn't. I'm glad I didn't."

"Now I'm curious. Tell me!" Sakura hugs Madara from behind to coax him.

"No." He walks back to the sink to soak the frying pan and Sakura is half-dragged along with his massive frame.

"Aww… Come on Madaraaaaaa…"

"..."

"Pleeeeeeease?"

"My brain has blocked out most of the details for safety." Madara strides into the living room, trying to dislodge himself from her arms halfheartedly. Her soft body pressed up against his did feel rather good, after all.

He turns back to say more but stops short at the sight of her bosom pressed against him.

"Hmm…?" Sakura gives a cheeky smile and slides up against his body on tiptoes. Her arms smooth over his torso gently…

Then…

"Ah! Damn that tickle!"

"Caught you off-guard, didn't I?" Sakura can't help giggling at Madara's brief embarrassment. "Pleeeeeease tell me?"

"Oh, alright. So there's this long-winded preamble about the fireman-"

"How apt."

"Uh huh. And the punchline is 'Can I put my water hose in your cavern of fire?'"

"Did you just say 'water hose'?"

"Yep."

". . ."

"Told you you'd be better off not knowing."

"Izuna and his weird ideas," Sakura sighs as she lets go of Madara. "Well, I always knew you two had more than looks in common."

Madara narrows his eyes and towers over her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Um…" Madara didn't deal with shy emotions well. He was dangerous whenever he got too embarrassed by suggestive remarks.. Which he would try to hide by being aggressively perverted. Or pervertedly aggressive. Sakura wasn't sure which was worse but a diversion was in order. "I'm just saying that when you two talk, you both can be creative in very um… unique ways." It wouldn't hurt to fan the fire a bit, though. How often could she get her lover to be shy about something?

It was sort of amusing to see Madara try to hide this bashful side of him so when Madara raised his eyebrow at her reply, Sakura dared to smirk back.

As she slowly took backwards steps to the living room.

"Don't you back away when saying something like that…"

"Then don't keep stalking towards me when you're asking confrontational questi-"

"Gotcha!" Both of them landed on the large, plush, living room sofa.

"Ah! No fair! You just pounced out of a sudden... I didn't have time to move away!"

"That's kind of the point, sweetheart." Madara was practically on top of her, enjoying the feel of her under him. He caught sight of his bandanna from the corner of his eye.

"You killed my brain cells with that lame line and now you're holding me captive."

"Well, my dear, you asked for both of those," Madara replied as he swiped the bandanna and pulled Sakura's wrists above her head.

"I did not ask to be glomped on the sofa!" Sakura replied with as much confidence as she could, as if they were having a normal conversation.

As if her lover wasn't tying her hands together while straddling her hips.

"Sure you did," Madara grinned as he tugged her bound wrists left and right with a fistful of excess bandanna to mock her. "It was in your body language," he added, stroking her blushing cheeks.

"I'm pretty sure my body is getting crushed right now." Not to mention aflame with another kind of fire she could use Madara's help in putting out..

"Oh no, we can't have that." A teasing tone laces his voice and his grin spreads a little wider. "Can you feel this?"

"Ahnn! Madara! Don't tickle me!"

"But you make such cute sounds… How about a different type of touch then? Over here…"

"Um... Stop that…"

"How about there?"

"Mmph. Madara."

"Don't bite your lip now. Makes me want to bite it too." A dart of pleasure runs through Sakura at Madara's words. "Now, how about here?"

"Ooh…" Sakura turns her head sideways to bury her face in a cushion.

"Sounds like all the important bits are working. But just to make sure, I'm going to give you a thorough inspection."

"..."

"Oh, you're blushing sooo deeply now."

"Madara," Sakura forces her expression to be serious. "Are you going to put your wat-"

"Don't even think about finishing that line."

"I meant your watch. It scratched me last time so put it… away." Sakura doesn't bother to keep the teasing smile off her face any longer. Madara's face, on the other hand, seems to be stuck in a comically expressionless arrangement.

" . . ."

"You seriously thought I was gonna use that line."

" . . ."

"Did your brain cells die?"

Recovering, Madara replies nonchalantly, "maybe. But I'm pretty sure the rest of me is still functional."

"Hmm… Actions speak louder than words."

"Well said. A better 'come-get-me' line than Izuna's." All conversation ceases as Madara devours her lips with a searing kiss and his free hand reaches under her blouse.

Contrary to Madara's opinion, Sakura thought that Izuna's words did plenty to ignite something between her and her man of fire.

[20 Aug] A/N: From the views, it seems like a lot of people are reading but leaving without a word D: Do leave a review if you have time! Would really appreciate some constructive criticism or even a quick comment! :)