Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. I'm making no profit off of this fic.
AN: Rated K for general audiences. Fourth in When the Wind Blows. This is set about eighteen months after A False Assumption.
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A Passing Chill by luvsanime02
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Someone elbowed Naruto sharply in the middle of his back. Sadly, this had become a common occurrence in the middle of the night for the past twenty-four weeks. He was so tired that his only protest was a soft groan.
Not that he had to worry about being quiet in order to avoid waking anyone up. Sakura-chan was already clambering over him, elbows and knees digging into his ribs, her bones feeling much pointier in the middle of the night than they did at any other time of the day, and just the motion of her moving had to be enough to wake up Sasuke on her other side. No, the reason why Naruto wasn't making a bigger fuss was because he was too tired to care if Sakura-chan used his body as a kunai training post, as long as she didn't insist he actually get up and move.
Finally, she finished crawling over him and off of the bed, and Naruto heard the soft patter of her feet before the bathroom door closed. He sighed, shivering slightly from the cool air the covers had let in when they were lifted, and he heard an echoing sigh from the other side of the bed. His lips quirked up in a half-smile, and he curled up on his side and quickly fell back into a light slumber, despite knowing that Sakura-chan would be clambering back over him in just a few minutes.
Sure enough, his doze was broken by someone poking his chest. This time, his groan was a little louder, almost a whine of protest, but in his defense, Naruto hadn't come back from his latest mission until the middle of the night. He was sure, if he could be bothered to open his eyes, that the clock on the bedside dresser would let him know it hadn't been more than an hour or two, at the most, since he first fell asleep. At least he'd had the decency to carefully climb in beside Sakura-chan lightly enough not to wake her up. Too bad she wasn't returning the favor, if the insistent finger still poking his chest was anything to go by.
He gave into the inevitable and cracked open one bleary eye, tried to open his mouth to speak, but was only able to let out a sleepy grunt. There was a soft sigh from above him, but at least the finger ceased its brutality. "Move over," Sakura-chan whispered. Naruto closed his eye again, because he couldn't move and have his eyes open at the same time or he would have to admit that he was awake.
Feebly, he rolled over onto his back, which he realized a second too late was a mistake because the movement made him feel even less asleep than before. He didn't have the energy to continue shifting, and settled for throwing his right arm over his eyes, thinking that perhaps he could just fall asleep here.
Hands cool from being up in the pre-dawn chill, Sakura-chan slid her fingers under his side and attempted to roll him over again. Naruto didn't help, but he didn't stop her, either. Not when her nudging meant he didn't have to move himself. A warmer arm slung itself over his stomach and grabbed his side. Unlike Sakura-chan's gentle maneuvering, Sasuke simply latched on and pulled.
A harsher grunt escaped Naruto's mouth at the rough jostling. "Just shut up and roll over," Sasuke muttered into the pillow. "Sakura has to be up early for work." Still, with three hands between them, they managed to roll Naruto over by themselves, even if the combination of pushing and pulling resulted in a dull ache along his hip.
Naruto simply breathed, his body immediately sinking into its new spot on the bed, the mattress wrapping and conforming itself around him. There was some slight movement behind him, but nothing he needed to be concerned about.
Until cold feet touched his legs, which caused him to jolt, and he wordlessly grumbled. The warm arm still slung across his waist twitched, and then Sasuke's hand started moving up and down his back in a caress. Despite his extreme tiredness, Naruto couldn't help but let out a pleased hum. After a minute, Sasuke's hand moved over to Sakura-chan, and even though Naruto was still trying to pretend he was asleep, he also reached one of his arms back, joining Sasuke's hand in rubbing over Sakura-chan's stomach.
The grumbling came from Sakura-chan this time. "'m trying to sleep here." Naruto could hear the grin in her voice, though, and one of her hands joined theirs for a moment, patting lightly, before she stopped. "Don't wake up the baby, you two. There's no one kicking in me right now and I'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much."
Reluctantly, Naruto and Sasuke's hands slid off, and Naruto brought his arm back around to curl it in front of him. His other arm had already wormed its way underneath the pillow, elevating his head just that little extra bit so that he was more comfortable. "Thought you weren't still nauseous," he mumbled, slightly worried now that he was a little more aware than before.
There was movement behind him, and then Sakura-chan's stomach was pressed against his back as her arm joined Sasuke's on his waist. Naruto enjoyed the extra weight, letting it anchor him down even more securely to the bed. There was a slight shrug, her hand brushing against Naruto's stomach. "It wasn't that." There was a short pause, before she said, quietly, "I had to pee." Then there was an even longer silence.
Naruto chuckled before he thought not too, but luckily, her only response was a tired giggle. An amused sigh, barely audible over the two of them, came from Sasuke. "Laugh now," he murmured. "That's only going to get worse, you realize? Especially when it comes to hauling yourself out of the bed before you burst."
The sudden stillness behind him sent a chill down Naruto's spine. "Are you trying to tell me that I'm going to get fatter?" Sakura-chan hissed. Naruto's eyes shot wide open in panic.
Sasuke didn't even bother to lift his head up from where it rested face-down on his pillow. "The baby's not even due for a few months. Of course you're going to get bigger." He'd barely finished speaking before a punch landed on his back, right over his kidney, and Naruto winced. Not from sympathy, although he didn't think anyone deserved to be punched in the kidney while trying to sleep in the middle of the night. Really, it was lucky for Sasuke that Sakura-chan hadn't packed any chakra into her fist first. No, Naruto winced because Sakura-chan had leaned over him to get to Sasuke, and having someone lean their entire weight on your ribs was never pleasant. Especially a pregnant someone.
"What was that?" Sakura-chan muttered, but she didn't seem to want to argue anymore, thankfully. Sasuke hissed at the jab, and his head turned towards Naruto enough for him to see that, pulled or not, the punch had sufficiently hurt. Sasuke didn't answer back this time, and Sakura-chan flopped back down with a sigh, her belly returning to warm up Naruto's back nicely. "Oh god, I'm never getting a solid night of sleep again, am I?" she despaired.
"It's only a few more months," Naruto muttered, trying to sound soothing but too busy rubbing his hand over his much-abused ribs to sound sincere, noticing with amusement that Sasuke had pulled his arm back from across Naruto's waist to do the same with his back.
"'It's only a few more months,' he says!" Sakura-chan exclaimed, her voice starting out hushed but working up to a normal volume with every word. "Have you forgotten what comes after those few months?"
Naruto's brows scrunched in confusion. "The baby," Sasuke answered tiredly, sounding like he was amused all of the sudden. "A newborn baby that might be up at all hours of the night."
"Yes, a baby," Sakura-chan agreed, fervently. "A crying, screaming baby that will need to be fed and changed, and won't want to sleep normal hours, and if you think I'm going to be the only one getting up-"
"'Course you're not, Sakura-chan," Naruto chimed in, finally figuring out what the two of them were getting at, and why Sasuke seemed so amused. "Like we'd put everything on you like that. It's our baby too, right? We already agreed." And they had, even though it hadn't really been a discussion so much as a firm declaration by Sakura-chan that they'd both immediately agreed with.
"You say that now," Sakura-chan grumbled, but she sounded happy again, and Naruto knew she was remembering that moment as clearly as he was. "Some children take years before they settle down into sleeping all night. It'd be just our luck if that happened to us."
Naruto blinked in horrified astonishment, because if that would happen to anyone, it would be them, and Naruto liked sleep. Was kind of addicted to it. Even now, although he was fighting to stay awake, Naruto could feel his exhaustion trying to pull him back under.
"We'll draw up a schedule," Sasuke said, and Naruto relaxed, vaguely realizing that he had been tensing up while his mind painted pictures of him walking around with bags under his eyes, looking disturbingly like a blond-haired Gaara.
Sakura-chan sighed from behind him. He felt her breath ghost softly across his neck. The sensation caused his eyes to close again. He really was tired. "A schedule," she mused. There was silence in the room once again, and Naruto felt his whole body growing heavier by the second. "I guess that could work," she whispered. A loud yawn came from her direction right after.
Naruto yawned in response, and they both chuckled. "You have to be up early," Sasuke reminded her, his arm coming back to flop bonelessly across Naruto. Sakura-chan hummed in agreement, her arm rejoining Sasuke's, and her stomach pressing against Naruto even more firmly.
Naruto stretched out his legs, no longer forced to cringe away from her feet now that they weren't so cold. The bed was warm, his side covered under both of their arms. He was warmer still against his front and back, where Sasuke and Sakura-chan were lying against him, and Naruto basked in that languid heat as he finally drifted off to sleep again.
