For goldendoe06, who gave me these prompts: jealous and affectionate Sasuke, mistletoe. I hope it's to your liking. :D

Non-chronological vignettes, rather drabblish. Largely affected by my headcanon on post-series Sasuke/Sakura. Set far into the future, perhaps in a whole different reality altogether, depending on how Sasuke acts at the end of the manga. If he's even alive. (Kishimoto, I'm looking at you.)

Anyway, Sasuke and Sakura are already in a sort-of-established relationship here, and domesticity plays a role. A big role. Enjoy.

our days of absolution
we spin the skies into diamonds

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i.

Sasuke's armchair was, and still remains, the ugliest piece of upholstered furniture Sakura has ever seen.

It sits by the window in their living room, the legs creaking and shuddering with a horrible squeaking sound every time he moves, the mattress sunken for hours after someone sits on it. The cotton covering has faded into a dull, washed orange, and despite how many times they have it sent to a furniture cleaning service, the stains on the arms prove to be more persistent than the strongest detergent in the world. Not to mention that the back is stone-hard, and Sakura often catches Sasuke moving to their much nicer sofa every time she leaves the room.

Sasuke insists that it's the most comfortable armchair they can find in Konoha, but Sakura suspects he's just being stubborn and unnecessarily prideful. The armchair cost him six months of his salary and he bought it against her wishes, after all. She lets him pretend, of course, simply because she enjoys popping into the living room every now and then, forcing him to sit there for hours.

ii.

Paying the bills, restocking the fridge, calling the repairman—these are all Sasuke's chores.

This isn't to say that Sakura has never tried. During their first year together, she tried; she really did. It's just that while she remembers how to suture a wound in great detail, she keeps forgetting to pay the electricity. It's just that she has no concept whatsoever of sufficient supply and kept buying way more than necessary that their fridge was literally bursting with food every time she went to the shops. It's just that rather than calling the repairman, she'd rather fix the microwave herself, and more often than not, this leads to her setting fire in the kitchen.

The last time she tinkered with oven, the kitchen exploded in her face. She walked around with soot in her hair for weeks and they were forced to replace every single appliance they had.

iii.

Once, Sakura received a thank-you present from a patient, a thirty-year-old shinobi whose punctured lungs she operated on. The package arrived about three weeks after the surgery, containing a spice rack, large and mahogany, painted in green so hideously ugly it reminded her of vomit.

She hated it at first sight.

But she kept it anyway, just because Sasuke had become uncharacteristically vocal about his dislike the moment he learned who sent it to their home.

No, he said. No, of course he's not jealous. It's just that looking at it physically pains him, so why don't they just get rid of that, right now, please?

Unfortunately for him, however, it's actually here that Sakura realised how much she likes watching him squirm. "It's the most convenient thing ever," she said cheerfully. "It keeps our kitchen looking so neat, and it's just so pretty!"

Still, this did not stop Sasuke from 'accidentally' burning it one afternoon when he was cooking dinner for himself. The moment Sakura got home from the hospital, he brandished his wallet at her and suggested that they remodel the kitchen. When she agreed, he was so pleased, he permanently gave up a patch in his (overly humongous) side of the garden for her to grow some more medicinal plants.

Sakura, of course, takes advantage of this. All a day's job.

iv.

The mistletoe hanging in their back porch is Naruto's full responsibility.

It's one of Sasuke's best and worst memories. Best because, well, it's Sakura, and worst because, damn it, it's absolutely Naruto's fault that the first time he kissed Sakura is when he was a) completely naked save for his silk boxers, the one with tiny Uchiha fans sewn all over it, b) wearing said boxers inside out, and c) so drunk that he passed out immediately afterwards.

When he woke up twenty hours later, he discovered that while Sakura did take care of him, she was also the one who punched the living daylights out of him.

v.

They didn't get together that Christmas. They got together about a year later, on a day that involves Sasuke's naked butt coming in contact with a particularly thorny pineapple.

When Sakura jokingly pointed out that most of their pictures have Sasuke being naked in some form, he didn't talk to her for three days straight. He still has nightmares about the pineapple to this day.

vi.

Perhaps surprisingly, Sakura is the neater one between the two of them. Sasuke reasons that it comes with the job (of course she's neater; you can't after all leave syringes and blood samples all over the place), but both of them know he just doesn't want to admit it.

Even so, both of them do their fair amount of cleaning. It took a lot of getting used to, especially when Sakura first moved in to the Uchiha estate, but now they work together like a well-oiled machine. The garden is Sasuke's responsibility, along with the back porch, the kitchen, and the dining room. Sakura takes care of the rest: the living room, the hallways, the study.

The bedroom, meanwhile, is unquestionably theirs and to be cleaned together.

vii.

Sakura works way more hours than Sasuke does.

Some weeks she spends more than a hundred hours working at the hospital, only going home to get a change of clothes. Sasuke's not proud, but those weeks he has to put effort into not feeling jealous—just because it almost feels like Sakura cares more about the hospital than she cares about him. Almost.

Still, he understands. This is why whenever those weeks come, he puts effort into being at home as much as he can just to make sure he'll bump into her, even if it's only for about ten minutes each time. This is why he's always at the front door several seconds before Sakura arrives. This is why when she actually opens the front door, actually enters, actually is home, he does not say anything.

He simply cups her tired face in his hands, simply kisses the tadaima from her lips, simply falls in love with her a little bit more.

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end.

1) tadaima: I'm home.

2) Of course, the moment I decided I'll write for other fandoms is the moment I remembered I still have requests. I guess this means you'll be seeing a little bit of me still, haha. Well, that, and I guess I can never let go of this completely. Not yet. Oops?