Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Best Days ❯ Chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4

 

Sasuke's first instinct these days when he felt in any way threatened was to activate sharingan. In this case, this was a good idea for two reasons. The first was it meant he had ample time to get out of the way when three ANBU came through the door faster than most people could blink. The second was it allowed him one very good look at his guard, which needless to say did not leave him very happy. Naruto, who had been fine just the night before, was in shock and quite possibly in a coma.

 

Then he caught sight of one of the ANBU moving to obscure his vision and redirected his attention, moving into a fighting stance. The shinobi in front of him either didn't notice or didn't care. “Uchiha-san, I would appreciate it if you disengaged your sharingan and went back into your room. I will be your guard until Uzumaki-san can resume his duties.” Sasuke opened his mouth to argue, but from the way the ANBU stiffened he had orders to restrain his new charge if he felt the need to do so, and Sasuke really did not feel like fighting his way out of his own house at the moment. He did as he was told.

 

Once inside, he weighed his options. Two of the ANBU had picked Naruto up and left quickly towards the entrance to the compound. He could either sit in his room like a good little captive and let the Hokage think he was scared of her and the people she commanded or he could sneak out and find out what the hell was going on. Those ANBU had reacted too quickly to the chakra flare to have been doing anything other than waiting for a signal of emergency. Sasuke wanted to know why his guard had passed from fully functioning to comatose in a night. He was also rather curious as to why Sakura, the Hokage and three ANBU had known of the possibility while he hadn't.

 

“I know what you're thinking,” a familiar voice said from the door, “and it's not a good idea.” Sasuke spun, inwardly cursing, to come face-to-face with Hatake Kakashi. Sasuke's former genin sensei was leaning up against the door frame, a green book in one hand and a distinctly bored expression in his one visible eye. Sasuke was not happy to see him.

 

“What the Hell is going on?” he gritted out between clenched teeth. “I haven't seen you at all since I entered the village!”

 

“I'm just here to tell you that trying to sneak out is a stupid idea,” Kakashi told him, shrugging. “You're under house arrest, remember. Or rather, compound arrest. I'm sure Naruto wouldn't appreciate having all his hard work undone simply because you are incapable of sitting in one place and letting someone else handle the situation you are not equipped to handle.” Sasuke glared murderously at the jounin. Kakashi was unmoved.

 

“You look much better than when you first got back,” the grey-haired man stated, smiling with his eye. “The Council was betting you'd not be alive next year to worry about. Good to know that none of my former students live up to their low expectations.” He pushed off the door, stretched, then formed the hand seal to activate the teleportation jutsu. “Stick around until Sakura shows up,” he told the incredulous younger man, before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Sasuke was left in his suddenly quiet house with nothing but the dubious company of an ANBU. Coming to a decision, he strode towards the door.

 

“I'm allowed outside the house so long as I don't leave the compound. Ask the Hokage if you need verification,” he told his new guard as he passed. He didn't wait for any protests, but continued to walk with purpose out of the house and toward the main gate of the Uchiha complex. Sakura had consistently shown up at about four thirty with breakfast since that first day he'd been out of prison. She'd be here soon, and when she showed up Sasuke would see if Kakashi's hint she might tell him something had any merit. If it didn't… his eyes narrowed. If it didn't, well, Sasuke would make sure everyone remembered he was the missing-nin that had killed a Sannin with his own jutsu at fifteen.

 

* * *

 

Sakura was late.

 

Sasuke reached one end of the gate into the complex for the 317th time, turned on his heel and began pacing (well, limping, his knee was still injured) back to the other end. It was now about 7:30, which meant Sakura was still not here three hours after she usually came. He reached the edge of the other side and turned around to walk back. Sakura had never been late before. Late meant there was something rather horribly wrong that needed her expertise, and that something was likely Naruto. The young man scowled inwardly. There better be a really good explanation coming.

 

He caught his guard's shift in weight out of the corner of his eye. The man had been standing in one place for about as long as Sasuke had been out here, probably rather uncomfortable about his charge's close proximity to the edge of his allowed area of freedom. Sasuke quite frankly didn't give a shit. He was still inside the complex (about two inches inside was still inside), and thus there was nothing the guard could do unless he proved to be a danger to himself or someone else, or was threatened by someone else in some way. He considered moving another inch towards the gate for amusement's sake.

 

He didn't get the chance, because right then Sakura came into view, her eyes tired and her lips pressed together, and carrying something that looked like it might be breakfast. Sasuke stopped pacing and Looked at her.

 

She didn't react the way he'd hoped she would. “Hello, Sasuke-kun. Sorry I'm late, there was an emergency at the hospital and I was called in right as I was leaving to bring you something to eat. I hope you don't mind that it's just some rice; I didn't really have time for anything more creative.  Your knee looks a bit better.  I'll do some more work on it back at your house.” She smiled at him and walked past towards the house as though he met her at the gate every day. He stared at her retreating back, until she was almost out of sight around a corner, then shook himself into motion and followed. His guard did the same.

 

Sakura was waiting at the door when he finally caught up with her, still cheerfully acting as though there was nothing particularly different about today. He glared at her, but let her in, and she went straight to the kitchen, chattering about how she'd just warm up breakfast and he should go change into something. He blinked at the last part, just now remembering he was still in the clothes he'd slept in. Rolling his eyes, he went to shower and change.

 

He managed to re-enter the kitchen just as Sakura was setting food on the table. She smiled at him, then sighed when she saw the expression on his face. “Alright, Sasuke-kun. You can stop looking at me like that now. I can't tell you anything,” she declared as she sat down at the table and picked up a pair of chopsticks. Sasuke sat down as well and raised an eyebrow at her. “I'm a medic-nin,” she snapped suddenly, clenching the chopsticks in a fist. Sasuke didn't let the sudden change in mood faze him. “We don't take the Hippocratic Oath, but we are required to follow confidentiality rules. The only person I can tell when a patient explicitly asks me not to is the Hokage, and that's only in a state of emergency. This isn't an emergency, you aren't the Hokage, and Naruto isn't in any position to give me permission.” She punctuated this with angrily taking a mouthful of rice.

 

“He also wasn't in a condition to ask you not to tell anyone,” Sasuke pointed out logically as soon as the unfortunate rice had been swallowed. Sakura bit her lip and looked at her bowl. Sasuke felt like he'd been hit with a brick. “Unless this has been going on for a while?” Sakura picked a little at her rice, not looking at Sasuke. Then she put her chopsticks down and met his eyes determinedly.

 

“Look, I can't give you any details, but I can tell you not to worry too much. He's not so bad that he won't wake up.”

 

Sasuke blinked. He wasn't worried. “I'm not worried,” he said aloud to her. She looked at him skeptically.

 

“…Alright, then don't `not worry',” she said finally, shaking her head.

 

“I'm just annoyed nobody will tell me why the guard who was supposed to be watching for threats to me as well as from me passed out in the middle of the night,” Sasuke clarified.

 

“Fine, Sasuke, you're not worried.” Sakura gave him a smile that bordered on patronizing. Sasuke looked back at his food and took a bite. Sakura sighed again, then got up and moved over to the side of his chair.

 

"Let me see your knee," she ordered. “I'll tell you as much as I know while I work on it if you'll stop trying to burn a hole through things with your eyes,” she said wearily. Sasuke looked down at her. Sakura had her head bowed and was rubbing her temples as though she had a headache.

 

“Hn. Whatever,” he responded nonchalantly, taking a bite of rice and offering her his knee while trying not to feel slightly guilty about pushing this when she was so obviously stressed and upset. She'd known he'd want information when she showed up, after all.

 

Sakura gave him a Look of her own, but bent over the injury and continued anyway. “His chakra was reacting to a lung injury he obtained during the two of your little impromptu sparring match. Apparently, you broke one of his ribs and it punctured a lung. The excess of chakra it took to heal this so it wouldn't impair his movements, combined with the inevitable lack of oxygen associated with a lung injury, eventually caused him to lose consciousness. His condition should improve when his lung completely heals and his chakra levels return to normal.” She stood up then, having finished the healing for the day, and picked up her dishes to carry them to the sink. “And on that happy note, I need to get back to work. I'll be by later with something else for you to eat, but it probably won't be at lunchtime. I'm not sure I'll make it to dinner at all, so don't wait for me if I'm not here by eight, alright?” Sasuke, who was busy analyzing the information he was just given and only half paying attention as a result, shrugged. His former teammate sighed again, and slowly put a hand on his shoulder. He jumped at the contact and tried to shrug the hand off, but only succeeded in earning a sad little smile.

 

“Really, Sasuke, don't worry too much. This is as under control as it can be.” She squeezed his shoulder, then turned on her heel and left before Sasuke could get past the `not' of `I'm not worried.' Sasuke frowned and turned back to the bowl of rice, staring at it as though it may hold answers he was obviously not going to be given. He was, he decided, getting very tired of unanswered questions.

 

* * *

 

Sasuke didn't sleep well that night, or the night after that. It wasn't because he was worried, because he wasn't despite what Sakura seemed to think, but it may have been because Naruto wasn't there to guard him. Sasuke wasn't so far gone that he couldn't admit to something when it slammed him repeatedly in the head, and suddenly going from the type of sleep one got when one felt safe to the kind of sleep one got when alone behind enemy territory was pretty convincing evidence.

 

He wouldn't have been surprised if Sakura hadn't noticed, since she looked like she was getting even less sleep than he was (she worked on his knee the next day and informed him that if he was careful with it for another day, it would be little more than tender in the morning), so he was rather surprised when the Hokage herself showed up at his door at two in the afternoon on the third day to pay a visit. The blond woman took one look at the missing-nin, rolled her eyes, and said “Fine, you can go see him. Only during visiting hours, though, and you have to go straight there and back. It probably goes without saying, but if you don't follow the rules, you'll be back in this house faster than even your pretty eyes can follow.” Sasuke looked at her, unimpressed, and she glared back, before shaking her head and turning to leave.

 

“Your guards will be here in a few minutes. You are to stay with them and follow their orders. You're lucky Sakura and the brat like you so much, or I wouldn't be bothering with this at all.” Sasuke watched her walk from the compound, and then went back into the house to change into something appropriate for walking about in public. The Hokage may not have cared that he'd just woken up (he'd almost slept last night. He was rather proud of himself, actually), but he was fairly sure he didn't want to know everyone else's reaction to him walking around in pajamas.

 

Kakashi and three ANBU had let themselves into Sasuke's kitchen by the time he'd changed. Sasuke resigned himself to a lack of privacy for the rest of the day. “They chose you to be my guard?” he asked his old sensei caustically.

 

“Nope, I volunteered. They chose them to be your guard,” Kakashi said, nodding at the stoic masked figures behind him. Said masked figures didn't seem particularly annoyed about being talked about while they were still standing in the room. A very Naruto-esque voice in the back of Sasuke's head snickered and wondered what one would have to say to get a reaction. It then went very quiet when Sasuke remembered why they were here at all.

 

Kakashi, with his strange ability to always know exactly what Sasuke was thinking, nodded towards the door. “We'll follow you from the shadows.” Sasuke resisted the incredible urge to mention that in a ninja village, following anyone from the shadows was both pretty useless and needlessly dramatic, instead choosing to put on his sandals and walk out the door.

 

For all the over-dramatization (seriously, Kakashi needed to lay off the Icha Icha), the walk over was fairly uneventful. Sasuke was slightly disappointed. A well-meaning attempt on his life would have spiced things up a bit. As it was, the most exciting event was his vague surprise that he remembered exactly where the hospital was after five years of absence. That probably said something about how much time he'd spent there.

 

Even getting the room number was surprisingly easy. Sasuke didn't think they'd hand over such information to a traitor of the village quite so easily, but the receptionist didn't even seem surprised he was there. The Hokage, apparently, moved rather fast once she decided to do something. Sasuke wasn't quite sure how this fit into his view of her, but decided to put it aside for later musing. He had a much more important self-appointed mission than figuring out the Sannin Tsunade at the moment.

 

The corridors, like all hospital corridors, were long and white. If they had voices, they would sound somehow both wispy and harsh from all the sickness and antiseptic they'd seen since their creation. Sasuke practically marched down them, looking straight ahead and ignoring the whispers of memory that tugged at the corners of his thoughts. Waking up waiting for word of the family members not in the compound staring at the ceiling after failing to kill Itachi again challenging Naruto to a fight… He reached Naruto's room and walked in, back straight and proud against his own reminiscences. He wasn't ashamed of his decisions, despite the fact that things didn't work out the way he'd wanted them to, and no damn hospital corridors would convince him otherwise.

 

The sight that greeted him upon entrance brought him up short.

 

Naruto was, as expected, still unconscious. He had some type of breathing contraption over his nose and an IV tube in his arm. He was motionless, which was probably the best indication there was something wrong. Sabuku no Gaara, Godaime Kazekage, was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed, head bowed over some paperwork.

 

Sasuke vaguely remembered Naruto mentioning he'd have a different guard for a few days because a friend was coming into town. The blond shinobi had failed to mention who that friend was. The Uchiha gritted his teeth and went to sit down in a chair by the door.

 

“That is Kakashi-san's seat,” the red haired Kazekage said without even bothering to look up at who he was addressing. Sasuke stopped and turned his head sharply to face Gaara, a retort on the tip of his tongue. Fortunately, he hadn't so much as opened his mouth before Kakashi stuck his head around the door frame.

 

“I'm on duty today, Kazekage-sama,” he said cheerfully, visible eye closing in a smile. “Sasuke can take my seat if he wants it.”

 

“Hn,” Gaara responded, lips thinning. Kakashi nodded a farewell and exited again. Sasuke, pleased to discover that Gaara was about as happy with Sasuke's presence as Sasuke was with his, pointedly sat down in the seat he had chosen and equally as pointedly leaned his head against the wall, eyeing the ceiling nonchalantly. He, after all, had every right to be here, as he was Naruto's former teammate and current responsibility. Gaara was the leader of another Hidden Village and as such should be out doing diplomatic activities instead of hanging out in the hospital room of someone he had once tried to kill.

 

Needless to say, the silence that descended for the next few hours was distinctly uncomfortable.

 

It was Sakura who eventually broke it. The pink-haired kunoichi breezed in at about 6:00, balancing three hospital meals and a full IV and smiling cheerfully. Her smile widened when she saw Sasuke sitting in the seat that was apparently usually filled by Kakashi. “Oh, so you did get permission, then! I'm glad,” she told him, beaming. She handed him one of the meal trays. “Here. I brought an extra one just in case someone else was here besides Gaara and me.” She turned to the Kazekage in question, who was looking up at her (would miracles never cease) with an expression that was blank, mildly interested or slightly annoyed at the disturbance her entrance had caused. Sasuke would have bet money on the latter.

 

“At a good stopping point?” Sakura asked, her voice implying the answer better be yes. Gaara continued to look at her for a few minutes before shrugging and setting the stack of papers on a low footstool next to him. Sakura smiled at him and handed him a tray, before setting the last one down on a seat at Naruto's bedside and moving to change the IV. The smile dropped almost immediately once she let her eyes rest on the blond man in the bed. “He's still not awake, then.”

 

“The estimated timeframe was four days,” Gaara responded.

 

“Yes, but I'd hoped maybe…” she trailed off and sighed before picking up the tray and sitting in the chair, replacing the food in her lap. Sasuke looked at his own hospital food, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of an outsider witnessing an oft-repeated conversation between others. The food looked either plastic or sentient. He poked some with a chopstick, and when it didn't attack him, decided it was plastic and took a bite.

 

Yep. Plastic.

 

The Kazekage was eating the food mechanically, as though taste and texture didn't register at all, his eyes back on one of the papers he was holding in the hand not moving food from tray to mouth at even intervals. Sasuke resisted the urge to ask why he was here if he was going to do nothing but sit and work anyway.

 

Sakura finally broke the silence again. “Did Iruka-sensei come by yet today?” Gaara looked up from his papers.

 

“Earlier. Around 7:00. He could only stay until class started, though. He's apparently saving the last bit of his leave for keeping Naruto sane and in bed when he wakes.” Sakura blinked, then laughed both at the words and the flat tone in which they were delivered. Gaara gave a sarcastic little smirk that may have been a smile in another life. Sasuke chose to take a bite of his plastic instead of joining the conversation.

 

The silence after that was much more comfortable.

 

* * *

 

Sasuke had to leave when visiting hours were over at 8:00 PM. Sakura, who came in to inform him of this, assured him he could come back when they started again the next day. So Sasuke left without complaint.

 

Gaara, of course, wasn't asked to leave. Either kazekages were now considered family or the hospital staff didn't want to cause a diplomatic incident. Sasuke felt his presence at all was inappropriate, and thus did not form an opinion.

 

He quite predictably couldn't sleep that night, though he did a little better than he had the previous two. He managed about two hours of intermittent sleep before giving up and trying to find something to keep himself occupied. Thus, when his guards showed up at 7:30 the next morning (sans Kakashi, who was presumably late), Sasuke was sitting up in the middle of his bed and in the middle of his 412th paper crane. True to form, the ANBU didn't comment, but when Sasuke came back from the shower in clean clothing, many of the paper birds appeared to have been opened and carefully refolded. Sasuke didn't roll his eyes at the obvious show of distrust, but he wanted to.

 

Kakashi showed up an hour after Sasuke was due at the hospital, and then spent a while giving Sasuke that "you amuse me" look that had always made the young man want to explain his actions in such a way that they would seem less childish. Thus, when they finally left the house it was already 9:30 and Sasuke was in a considerably bad mood.

 

Unlike the day before, Kakashi didn't fade into the background and leave Sasuke the illusion of being by himself. He walked beside the younger nin, nose in his book, somehow completely ignoring the death glares Sasuke was sending his way. The Uchiha wondered if he was losing his touch.

 

Halfway to the hospital, Kakashi spoke. “Have you ever heard the legend about the 1000 paper cranes?”

 

Sasuke stopped walking and turned to look at him incredulously. “The what?”

 

Kakashi shrugged. “Legend says if you fold 1000 paper cranes for someone who is sick, they'll get better.”

 

Sasuke blinked. “That's completely illogical,” he told his former teacher. “If you could cure anyone by folding cranes, nobody would ever die of long term illness.”

 

The masked man nodded, looking away from Sasuke and at the hospital building that had just come into view. “I'm glad you don't put any stock in it. If a person cares about someone that sick enough to make a thousand cranes for them, he should probably be spending that time with the sick loved one instead of folding paper.” Sasuke opened his mouth to ask what Kakashi meant by that, but they were at the door to the hospital now and Kakashi was opening the door and entering before Sasuke, not bothering to hold it open for the younger man behind him. Sasuke frowned and added yet another addition to his mental list of indications that Naruto had some long-term illness about which he'd told everyone but Sasuke.

 

* * *

 

Gaara wasn't in the hospital room when Sasuke entered. Sasuke felt somehow triumphant. The triumph was dampened somewhat by the presence of Umino Iruka, who was sitting in the chair next to the still-unconscious Naruto.

 

“Sasuke,” the academy sensei greeted the new arrival, rising and smiling pleasantly (Sasuke privately decided that Iruka could still forgive anyone anything, and was strangely comforted to know that there was at least one person in the village who was likely to think of him in exactly the same way for the rest of his life). “I'd heard that you'd been given permission to visit.” He looked over at the chair Sasuke was eying. “Oh, the Kazekage had something to take care of this morning, so he probably won't be in until about two in the afternoon. I left my class with a substitute so someone would be here if Naruto wakes up today like he's supposed to. Unless you'll be here…?”

 

Sasuke shrugged and took the seat he'd (grudgingly) vacated last night. Iruka beamed. “Oh, good. I can go and relieve Anko-san of the class then. Or, rather, relieve the class of Anko,” Iruka corrected, rubbing the back of his head in a familiar show of embarrassment. “It was good to see you Sasuke.” And with that, he left the room. Sasuke blinked, realizing he hadn't actually said a word during the whole exchange and inadvertently agreed to take up Iruka's spot as sentinel. He wondered if Iruka had learned that trick from dealing with the disgruntled parents of disruptive students. A quick look out the window revealed that it was only 11. He sighed and prepared himself for a long and boring watch.

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, Sasuke was still alone in the room with a comatose blond shinobi and nothing to do. He was also getting a cramp from sitting in the uncomfortable chair for so long and was beginning to feel rather hungry. Overall, the situation did not help his already poor mood.

 

He sighed, then did it again when he noticed the sound covered up the debilitating quiet in the room. After all, Naruto was present, and any place Naruto was should somehow be unbearably loud and distracting. He glared at the young man in question as though it was somehow his fault he was not louder while unconscious.

 

“You can't even be an annoying dead last right,” Sasuke complained at his still companion. “It was the one thing you were good at when we were on the same team. You seem to have only become more incompetent while I was gone. I hadn't thought it was possible.” Naruto didn't respond. Sasuke glared harder, as though the silence of his former teammate was an insult.

 

“What kind of guard passes out for no discernable reason during his shift, anyway?” he snapped. “Did you really learn absolutely nothing in the academy? You had a job to do, you moron, and going from perfectly fine to being in shock is not actually doing it. There wasn't even any warning. I just went to sleep, and when I woke up you'd passed out. You should have gotten another guard and gone the fuck home if you were sick. What if someone in the village with a grudge against missing-nins had attacked while I was asleep? After all the time and energy you put into tracking me down when I didn't want to be found and you had goals of your own, I'd think you'd be a little more serious about keeping me alive.

 

“You're damn lucky I don't actually care if I'm in Konoha or not,” he continued, turning away and looking at the ceiling. “If I'd wanted to leave right then, there'd have been nobody to stop me. Then what would you have done? Followed me around like a lost puppy for another five years until I took pity on you again? Che, dead last.” Naruto still didn't answer.

 

“You're inconveniencing everyone,” Sasuke continued, still refusing to look over at the still form of one of the few people he might one day let be his friend again. “You say you care about everyone, and then you pull shit like this. I've got four guards watching me just to be here, and one of them's Kakashi. Plus, it's not like being in your company right now is particularly intellectually stimulating. Not that it ever is, but right now you aren't even annoying. I'm sitting in this damn chair, which I'm convinced came from an interrogation room, by the way, and talking to someone who's fucking comatose, for crying out loud!”

 

“Shut up, bastard,” Naruto muttered from his place in the bed.

 

Sasuke didn't even remember standing up. One moment he was sitting across the room about ready to complain about the progressing cramp in his left leg, and the next he was standing over Naruto's hospital bed. “What was that, dead last?” he said, wondering if he was finally tired enough to begin hearing things.

 

Naruto opened his eyes just enough to glare. “I said, shut up. I have a headache and your bitching's just making it worse.”

 

* * *

 

Sasuke would have said more, but just then a medic-nin ran in (likely summoned by a jutsu set to go off when Naruto woke) and Sasuke had to get out of the way or else be run over by a blur of white. Then Sakura came in and gave Naruto a full checkup over loud protests from her patient, all the while lecturing over him about how he knew he was supposed to be careful and what in the world was he thinking to not tell her he'd gotten so injured, she could have done some of the healing herself and he wouldn't have ended up in such a state. Sasuke glared at the back of her head and wondered what she meant by “herself”. Then Gaara came back and Kakashi popped his head in for a few moments to see for himself how Naruto was doing, and all of this effectively tired out the young man who'd been dead to the world for four days enough that he fell asleep again. When all was said and done, Sasuke had to wait another four hours to grill Naruto for answers to some of his questions (damned if he was going to ask the dead last what the hell was going on in front of Gaara of all people).

 

Finally, though, Gaara had to leave again, as he'd left his meeting with Tsunade rather abruptly, presumably with her blessings, or Sasuke had little doubt the bitch would have followed him, when the news had reached the Hokage's office that Naruto was awake, and Naruto, now awake again, had absolutely nothing with which to ward off the coming conversation.

 

Sasuke decided to begin rather simply. “So why, exactly, did you pass out in my hallway?”

 

Naruto scowled. “It's none of your business why I passed out in your hallway.” Sasuke blinked, slightly stung for reasons he couldn't understand.

 

“I think it is my business,” he insisted, standing up from the chair he'd returned to when the ruckus had started and walking back to the bed so he could loom over Naruto. “You're my guard. You're there to keep people from attacking me while I'm not allowed to defend myself under your stupid parole as much as you're there to make sure I keep to parole. If I'm being forced to place my fucking life in your hands, I think I have at least just as much right to know what the hell is going on as an academy sensei, a handful of various ANBU, a perverted jounin and the leader of another ninja village.” Naruto's eyes snapped to his, alarmed.

 

“What the hell do you mean, `a handful of various ANBU'? The ANBU don't know anything about it!”

 

“They reacted pretty quickly when I activated sharingan,” Sasuke snapped.

 

“They probably had orders from the Hokage, who does know because she's the leader of Konoha and needs to know if the people under her have any limitations,” Naruto snapped back, his voice rising slightly.

 

“I'm glad I have some company in my ignorance,” Sasuke responded sarcastically.

 

“What ever happened to `I hate the world and don't give a shit about anything in it'?” Naruto retorted angrily.

 

“What ever happened to `open your eyes and see all the people who care about you,'?” Sasuke countered. “You honestly think I'm going to rely on someone whose weaknesses I don't know? I'm not an idiot, Naruto!” Naruto went very quiet at that. Finally he sighed and threw the arm without the IV over his eyes, resigned.

 

“Truth is, I don't really understand everything about it myself,” he admitted wryly. “I could give you the dumbed-down version, but you'd get more information if you asked Sakura. She's the medic-nin currently in my care.” He moved his arm to glare half-heartedly at Sasuke. “You're a bastard, you know. That was fucking low.” Sasuke rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted when Naruto yawned.

 

“Go to sleep, idiot,” he ordered the other young man, walking back to his seat by the door as he did so.

 

“Don'…don' tell me whatta do, bast'rd,” Naruto muttered even as his eyes closed. He was out like a light by the time the last syllable left his lips. Sasuke settled in to wait the three hours until Sakura came to chase him out. After all, he now had permission to pry the information out of her and four witnesses currently stationed in places outside the hospital room with easy access to prove it.

 

* * *

 

Sakura came in at eight in the evening to tell Sasuke visiting hours were over. He started talking before she'd even opened her mouth.

 

“Naruto says to ask you about his illness.” Sakura paused, looked at him measuringly for a moment, then sighed and looked away.

 

“Alright,” she responded. “Go back to the complex. I'll meet you there in about fifteen minutes.” Sasuke nodded and walked out the open door. “Sasuke,” Sakura called suddenly, causing the young man in question to stop and turn to look at her. Sakura was biting her lip. “You…” she sighed. “Never mind. I'll be there in a few minutes.” Then she turned back to her patient, who had been feigning sleep for the past two minutes, and Sasuke left.