PREAMBLE: Angsty to-be Three-Shot is Angsty. Will concern Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura.
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Summary Proper: One night, one car crash, and one loss. Tallied up, it might be enough to get Sasuke to control his growing alcoholism. But it might be too little, too late.
M for language and themes of death.
Warnings: Angst up the whazoo.
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No…no…this can't be happening, this isn't happening, it ISN'T HAPPENING….!
The tiled floor beneath his bare feet is cold. The walls are white. His ears are ringing and he's crying. There's a weight on his chest and he's confused, disoriented, scared. There are doctors and nurses rushing about him, and then he's led to another room, white, white, white, and there's a woman standing next to him. She's talking, asking for contact information, and maybe Sasuke answers and maybe he didn't but he's too shocked, too scared, to damn drunk to focus. Then there's a sharp pain at his temple, and someone's talking again, and there's more rushing and beeping and noise –
Before Sasuke blacks out, he has one more coherent thought:
Itachi's going to kill me.
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When Sasuke wakes, he's hooked up to an IV. There's a flash of panic – why the fuck is there a needle in his arm? -and he screams. This is his how he discovers that his voice is hoarse, his throat raw, his mouth dry.
A nurse rushes in, tries to make him drink some water. Sasuke waits until she takes the IV out; he takes the proffered cup, sips it, all very civil. Then he throws it at her and fucking books it out the room and down the hall.
She might be calling after him – she might not be – but he follows the signs on the walls best he can at his break-neck pace, and he rushes up to what looks like the front desk and demands to know where Naruto Uzumaki is.
This is how the nurse finds him: hands slammed down onto the desktop, looming over the intern, and screaming bloody murder. In Sasuke's frantic mind, however, he's being relatively calm given that his best fucking friend could be dead and this bitch wasn't helping him at fucking all.
The nurse tries – and fails – to pry him from the desk. Sasuke is tall for his age, and, though whipcord-lean, not an easy person to physically best.
Even in his current state.
"What is going on?" A blonde woman in a white labcoat demands sharply as she comes into view. She is a stern woman, looks younger than she probably is. Her hair is held back in two pig tails, and she has a no-nonsense air about her that's reminiscent of a school principal.
Sasuke turns toward her in one swift motion, effectively throwing the nurse off him. "Doctor!" she cries, "He's –"
"Where is Naruto Uzumaki?" Sasuke demands. At her blank look, he elaborates. "Blond, skinny as hell, sixteen but looks twelve –"
"The young man that arrived with you?"
"Yes."
The doctor purses her lips. Sasuke is growing impatient, and it takes her too long to answer. "Follow me."
The nurse protests. "But Doctor Senju, the boy is in – "
She is silenced with a sharp look. "Perhaps he can provide some information. You," she addresses Sasuke, "Come."
And Sasuke does. The sound of her red heels clack-clacking on the linoleum floor is the only noise for a while, then, once on an elevator, she jams the button and says, "According to the – what I assume – fake ID you had, your name is Sasuke Uchiha. Am I correct?"
Sasuke's answer comes through gritted teeth. "Yes."
She nods. "Your brother has been notified and is on his way. However, you managed to cause quite the traffic jam. There's a suspected two-hour delay. As for your companion –"
"Naruto Uzumaki. You're going to have to contact his godfather, his –"
"I already did. Sasuke," she says, eyes narrowed, "Do you know what the legal blood-alcohol content for a driver in this region is?"
Sasuke was silent, because you know what he knew, he knew but he wasn't about to give this bitch the satisfaction of an answer.
"Point-zero-eight," she fills in, voice clipped. "Do you know what your BAC was?"
"..."
"Point-two-six. Do you know what that means?"
He can't help the sarcasm. "I was really fucking drunk?"
"You're lucky to be alive."
Sasuke grits his teeth and clenches his fists. "Where's Naruto?"
The elevator dings! and she leads him out. "This way."
But Sasuke notices something.
They're not in the lobby, or the waiting room, or even the fucking OR ward.
It's the ICU.
Fuck.
The word doesn't seem to properly encompass the dread he's feeling right now. The feeling in his stomach – the sheer anxiety, coupled with desperation and helplessness and made worse by a single shred of hope.
Sasuke thinks he's going to be sick.
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The room is white, white, white. There's the heart monitor – the one that beeps – and it's going steady. There's an IV, and more machines, and a bed, and in that bed is Naruto Uzumaki. Blood mats his yellow hair and scratches cover his face. He's hooked up to oxygen and draped in wires, and this time Sasuke actually is sick. He heaves up everything in his stomach, and when he's done he tries to hack up the dismay, the dread, the fucking guilt but he can't, he can't. And now he's crying and the doctor – merciless dragon-lady that she is – is hauling him up by his shirt collar.
It should have been him. It should have been him. He was the unlucky one, he was the distraction, he was the fucking drunk without a seatbelt.
"That should be me," he think-speaks, sobbing. "I SHOULD BE FUCKING DEAD, NOT HIM!"
"Sasuke. Sasuke. SASUKE!"
The doctor – merciless dragon-lady that she is – forces him to sit down and hands him a plastic cup of water. "Drink."
It takes him three tries, but he finally manages to swallow it. It tastes nasty as hell, but it gives him something to do. He's no more calmed down, though.
He – Uchiha Sasuke, phlegmatic, unflappable Sasuke – is shaking.
He sits on his hands to make them stop, but his knees only start up again.
"Sasuke," the doctor says, and Sasuke gets the impression that she's been trying to get his attention for a while now, "Answer me honestly: Were you the driver."
And Sasuke, the sick fuck that he is, starts laughing.
Because that's the funny part, isn't it? He wasn't the driver. Naruto wouldn't let him drive. He'd been unbuckled, in the passenger seat, drunk as a skunk – and he was the one who was okay.
"Irony," he finds himself saying, "Is a bitch."
The doctor manages to look sharp and quizzical at the same time. Sasuke finds this funny too, and he laughs. "You – you see, Naruto's the lucky one, right? And he was sober, and driving, had his seat belt on, following all the rules like a good boy. Tell me, Doctor, did you find out his blood alcohol content? It was zero, wasn't it? He never liked me drinking. But he drove me home, anyway – and – and now he's dead, he's dead isn't he? He's going to die because of me, because I'm such a fuck-up, but it should be me! It should've been me, not him the bastard!"
The doctor purses her lips. "Are you sure?"
Sasuke glares up at her through his bangs, eyes red and puffy. "Of course I'm fucking sure," he snarls. "I was drunk, not stupid."
"You still are drunk, by my count," she quipped, picking up a clipboard. "The accident happened two…three hours ago. Are you going to ask me about his condition? Or yours, for that matter?"
It's all Sasuke can do to not rip the bitch's throat out. "Well?" he growls.
"You suffered minor head trauma and a sprained wrist; I suspect that the painkillers are working, given how you've upset the staff. You're covered in bruises, too, though I suspect that's a given. We had to pump your stomach so we could give you the painkillers, and if it turns out you were the driver, you're facing criminal charges. You're friend, on the other hand, has suffered severe brain trauma and has broken his ribs, which in turn punctured his left lung. He's bleeding internally from several organs; should he regain consciousness within the next twenty-four hours, he'll be put in a medically-induced coma."
Trauma…punctured lung…coma… "He won't be playing soccer anytime soon," Sasuke says profoundly. The doctor gives him a look that could only be described as nasty.
Sasuke is feeling bad – he's feeling terrible, like fuck-all, and all he can think of his how he's going to have to atone for this. He needs to make it up to Naruto, somehow. "Can you do that to me?"
She narrows her eyes. "Do what?"
"What happened to him. Do it to me. "
Tsunade is giving him a strange look. "Whatever gave you the idea…?"
"It's only fair," Sasuke tells her. There's an incessant pounding behind his eyeballs, so he shuts them. "Now I'm blind. You've made me blind, haven't you, doctor?"
"Sasuke, I think it's best for you to lie down," she says, but Sasuke's head has already collected with the floor.
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"Tsunade," one of the nurses whispers as the boy is being transported back to his room on a gurney, "That was…highly unorthodox. Especially given the boy's condition…"
Tsunade sighs. She knows. "That was the only thing that was going to calm down. And we need a statement from the police. Who knows what he's going to be like when he's awake."
Or when he's going to wake, she thinks to herself. That dose of oral anesthesia – the kind given to child-patients before surgery –was obviously taking affect.
The nurse bites her lip. "Even so, he could've lied."
Here Tsunade shakes her head. "He was so doped up on painkillers, I'm surprised he woke up. Must be shock. But…" here she looks at Naruto. "Look at the injuries on Naruto's hands."
The nurse doesn't need to ask what Tsunade meant. Injuries like that were the telltales signs of an airbag being activated when one was clutching the steering wheel.
Think what you will of Mr. Uchiha, the nurse muses, but at least he was telling the truth.
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When Sasuke next wakes, he can tell it's daylight. He's been moved to a private room, and he's no longer hooked up to an IV.
His brother is sitting on the chair by his bedside, hands folded in his lap and staring at him.
Itachi! Sasuke tries to speak, but his mouth his dry and his voice is hoarse. Before he can even react, Itachi is on him, gripping Sasuke by the jaw and forcing him to look Itachi dead in the eye.
His brother wasn't a big man. He was tall and slender, a bookish type – but in that moment, he looked positively dangerous.
"Answer yes or no," he says in a clipped voice, carefully enunciating every wordy, "Were you driving the car?"
"No," Sasuke rasps. Itachi frowns and tightens his grip. "Are you sure? Are you positive of that, Sasuke?"
He shoves Itachi off him. "I wasn't fucking driving!" Sasuke shouts even though it hurts. He can't help but getting a feeling of Déjà vu as Itachi, placated for the moment, nods and sits back. Itachi offers Sasuke a bottle of water, which he takes gratefully.
Unlike the bitchy-dragon-lady doctor, however, Itachi has reason for questioning Sasuke, though Sasuke wishes that his brother had greater faith in him.
Sasuke scowls at his brother. "Well?"
Itachi arches one fine eyebrow. "Well, what?"
He's going to make me say it. "Naruto."
Itachi looks at his brother, then sighs. "The boy is…stable."
Stable. Not 'good' not 'better,' not even 'alive.' Stable.
Suddenly, Sasuke feel sick. He feels himself heave, but there's nothing in his stomach but a mouthful of water. He can feel disappointment rolling off Itachi in waves, and that disappointment fills the room, threatens to suffocate Sasuke.
Because Itachi knew that Sasuke had a problem. But Itachi let it be, mildly disapproving from a distance, because Sasuke knew better than to drive drunk, knew better than to drink before a game, was smarter than that.
Being smart sucks, Sasuke concludes bleakly. When you were smart, you weren't allowed to make the normal teenage mistakes – because you knew better. You were too smart not to try this, or do that, or go there. Everyone assumed you were omniscient just because you knew what omniscient meant.
Just because I'm smart doesn't mean I always make smart choices.
Sasuke is, in fact, only human.
Just a boy, really.
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Itachi was seventeen when he killed his parents.
There was this party, right? It was a Christmas party, hosted by one of his father's business partners. It would be in bad form not to show up.
Itachi accompanied his parents. He was, after all, almost eighteen and was friends with the son of the man hosting the party.
Sasuke – eleven at the time – stayed over Naruto's.
His parents both wound up drinking more than they should have – more than was safe to drive, at any rate. It was an easy mistake – his father was under the impression that his mother would be driving. His mother had thought that his father would be the designated driver.
This was how Itachi – not-yet-eighteen, fresh off the permit Itachi – was made Designated Driver.
But there are a few things that Mr. and Mrs. Uchiha didn't take into consideration. One of them was the notion that Itachi would be drinking.
Which, on the part of the parents, was awfully naïve. A seventeen year old? Bored at a party with other seventeen year olds? And an open, private bar? Not even bothering to ask him if he was in condition to drive?
Well. It would be awfully embarrassing not to be able to drive home – what kind of message did that send?
Itachi – though much more sober than his parents – was still in no condition to drive. It was raining heavily, for one, and past his legal curfew, for another. But, the dutiful son he was, didn't say anything.
It had been a freak accident. The other driver was drunk. The car had hydroplaned. Itachi was more than a little buzzed.
His parents hadn't been wearing seat belts.
They died on impact.
Their eldest son had sustained moderate injuries and was rushed to the ER.
He was told the fate of his parents by a nurse.
Their younger son was safe at a friend's house.
He got a phone call.
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So Sasuke knows. He knows better than to drive drunk – partly because he's not a fucking idiot and partly because he can't do that to his brother and partly because what his brother would do to him if he ever found out.
But that doesn't stop Sasuke from drinking.
Nothing, it seems, can stop Sasuke from drinking.
Look at you, he can hear Them say. Seventeen and already an alcoholic.
Naruto would humor him, because they were best friends and best friends stuck together, right? And Sasuke would pretend not to see the pain on his face, because, idiot, do you see what you're doing to yourself? What you're becoming?
Sakura was there for the aftermath. She'd try her best to avoid the moral high ground, but it'd happen – and a cranky, hungover Sasuke would be patronized and worried over, subjected to many a Lecture and desperate plea go get help.
She was always more direct than Naruto. In fact, she'd been the first to use the A-word.
Addict.
Addict. So much worse than 'Alcoholic.' Because Sasuke wasn't some addict. What he liked, what he wanted, would be legal in five years, and no one would make a big deal out of it. He wasn't on heroin or cocaine or even weed. It was just booze.
He'd made the mistake of sharing his logic with Sakura.
Needless to say, the girl hadn't appreciated that.
Not.
At.
All.
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"Sasuke…" Sakura said, biting her lip and looking at him with those doleful eyes.
He was sitting on his bed. His head was hurting in more ways than one and he knew he looked like seven different shades of shit. He cradled his head in his hands and looked up at her through his bangs. "What?" he said. He didn't mean for it to come out as snappy as it did, but his head hurt and so did his side and he didn't remember what happened last night and –
The last one was a lie. He did remember. Some of it, anyway.
Enough to know that he'd gotten the shit beaten outta him.
Kimimaro's gonna GET it…
The eyes went from 'sad-but-sympathetic' to 'peeved' in about two seconds. But she caught his expression and deflated. "Sasuke…what are you doing to yourself?" She reached over and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. The mannerism reminded him so much of his mother that it hurt.
He pushed her away. "Not now, Sakura."
He had a game in less than an hour. He already had a killer hangover to deal with, and now he had to have Sakura of all people harping on him? And reminding him of his mom?
Not cool.
Sakura, however, wasn't quitting. Her eyes narrowed. "Not now, huh? Then when? When, Sasuke? When's the time for you to wake up and realize that you're just another addict?"
The words cut.
They cut deep.
Sasuke stood, so quick and sharp that he nearly fell over and his head reeled. He ignored the splitting pain in his head – it was secondary to his injured pride.
"What?" he growled, eyes narrowed. He couldn't have conveyed tread with caution better if he'd painted the words across his chest.
"You heard me." Sakura refused to be quelled. "You – are – an- addict. An addict, Sasuke."
Sasuke did what he did best. He laughed, cruelly, and set out to hurt her. "Don't be such a prude. It's just booze, Sakura."
But Sasuke, brilliant as he was, sometimes forgot that Sakura was a girl.
And girls were masters at the art of mental terrorism.
"Yeah, and it was 'just booze' that killed your parents."
Something inside the cranky, hungover Sasuke absolutely snapped.
"Get – OUT!"
Sakura must've realized that she'd effectively sent herself up shit creek without so much as a paddle. A second later, however, she had the air of satisfaction that came with a girl who'd just realized that she had the perfect ammunition.
"It's true, you know," she said in that same smug-as-hell tone. But he knew she knew she was treading on thin ice, because when he took a step forward she headed towards the door.
"Get out!" Sasuke acted on impulse. He picked up his size-ten soccer cleat and launched it in her general direction. It didn't hit her – thank god – but it came pretty damn close, hitting the door frame and falling to the floor.
Sakura cast one last disgusted look from the cleat to Sasuke, shook her head, and left.
Sasuke flopped belly-up on his mattress and ran his fingers through his hair.
He groaned.
What the fuck are you doing?
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.
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"Can I see him?" Sasuke asks. His voice is strangled. "I – " he cuts himself off as the same doctor from before enters, flanked by a dark-haired male nurse.
"And how are we feeling?" the dragon-lady asks, too-too-brightly.
"Like shit," Sasuke grounds out. Itachi throws him a dark look – watch yourself – but Sasuke doesn't care. It's true.
"Understandable, given how you were rampaging around my hospital last night." She narrows her eyes at Sasuke, then extends her hand to Itachi. "I'm Dr. Tsunade Senju. I'm going to need to talk to Sasuke's legal guardian – insurance information as well as technicalities and treatment. Also," and here her attention turns back to Sasuke, "The police are here. They need a statement. Now, you're allowed a lawyer, but you're not suspect. Lucky for you." There is no joy in her tone as she tells Sasuke this; just disdain.
Itachi stands. He gives a nod – of encouragement or warning, Sasuke can't tell – and follows Tsunade out of the room.
Not ten seconds later, a tanned, thirty-something cop enters. "Asuma Sarutobi, at your service." He grins amicably at Sasuke and turns Itachi's chair backwards, mounts it and props his arms on the back. "You're awfully beat up, aren't you?"
Sasuke looks at him flatly. He's been in the hospital a total of fourteen hours and he just wants to fucking punch something. Crushing the happy mood of the cop would have to suffice. "Can't we just get on with it?"
The man shrugs. He smells faintly of cigarettes, Sasuke notices. "It you want. First," he pulls a pad and pen out of his pocket. "Name?"
"Sasuke Uchiha."
"Age?"
"Seventeen."
"Are you an athlete, Sasuke?"
The hell does that have to do with anything? "Yes."
Asuma nods, looking at Sasuke. "I can tell. What do you play?"
Sasuke grits his teeth. "Soccer. Year-round."
"Do you have a girlfriend, Sasuke?"
What is he getting at? "…Not exactly."
Asuma mhms, like he understands. "What's your relation with Naruto Uzumaki?"
Sasuke swallows. "He's my best friend." He curses himself – his voice fucking cracked when he spoke.
Asuma takes this in stride. "How about Hidan Yugakure?"
"What does Hidan have to do with it?"
At Asuma's look, he answers. "He graduated a year above my brother."
"Mizuki Tsubaki?"
"…who?"
"So you don't know him. Alright. Now, Sasuke: tell me what happened the night of July 2?"
Sasuke shuts his eyes. He wills himself to get his thoughts together, to form a choherent story, but wordvomit comes before he can put a stop it. "It should've been me. I should be half-dead, not Naruto. He didn't even want to go, right? He just wanted to get pizza with Sakura…but they came with me anyway. Him and Sakura. The party's low-key, not even really a party, just twenty kids and a bonfire."
"And booze?" Asuma prompts gently.
"Yeah." Sasuke's answer is strangled. "Enough booze. Typical, right? Nothing…" Sasuke swallows. "Sakura stayed with Ino. I – I was drunk, so Naruto…giving me a ride."
"Naruto was sober?"
"Yeah."
"And driving?"
"Yes." As an afterthought, Sasuke adds, "He even had a seatbelt on."
Asuma scribbled some things on the pad, then stood. "Well, lucky you. Your story matches the evidence found at the crash site and your painkiller-induced psychobabble. Kudos."
And Sasuke scowls. "How about you tell me what happened?"
Asuma regards at him lazily, eyebrow arched. "You don't remember?"
"I was fucking drunk, the next thing I know I wake up in this dump and my best friend's fucking comatose."
"Mizuki," Asuma answers simply. "Was the driver that hit you. He's dead, if that's any consolation. Natural causes, officially, but between you and me he had it coming to him. Hidan was the one who phoned the ambulance."
There are more questions Sasuke wants to ask, things he wants to say, but he sits there in the hospital bed, silently staring at his knees. With a sigh, the officer leaves.
And Sasuke is left alone.
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.
.
It's a good thing Itachi paid attention to Tsunade when she was going off about concussions and head trauma and staying still and prescribed medication for the shock, because Sasuke didn't. He sat there all the while and stared out the window, contemplating life and chance and irony.
He has to wait another hour before he gets an all-clear from the doctor.
The all-clear isn't much, though. Basically it means that Sasuke can get up from his bed, move around the hospital with an aid, and have non-family visitors.
Like anyone would want to visit me.
As far as Sasuke's concerned, he's half a killer.
Besides. They're only keeping him for the next two days.
Getting any kind of status on Naruto was like pulling fucking teeth, but eventually Tsunade gave in – partly because not telling him was only adding to his head trauma and partly because he'd already made two almost-successful escape attempts to find the boy himself.
Naruto is, straight from the dragon-lady's mouth, "Stable. Not unconscious long enough to be proclaimed comatose, but that's where he's headed. There's no brain bleeding or fractured skull, and his other organs are being treated. He's not responding to audible stimuli, but he squeezed his godfather's hand, which is promising."
Stable.
Comatose.
Not responding.
Fuck.
And because Sasuke is 'mildly concussed,' he can't have 'too much stimuli.' Which means no 'engaging' TV, reading, running, smoking, jumping, sharp movements of his head or spine, and/or music.
Itachi – the bastard that he was – decided to 'help' by buying Sasuke a sixty-four pack of Crayola crayons and a Disney coloring book.
Both had been promptly thrown against the wall. Sasuke was seventeen, and his best friend was half-dead. He didn't want to fucking color.
That day was hell, full of Itachi's Itachi-ness and blood test and asshole doctors and bitchy nurses and icky hospital food and a half dead Naruto.
Around six PM he is saved, however, by none other than Sakura Haruno.
Who is, coincidentally, the last person he wants to see.
She appears in the doorway, catches one look at him, and says, "Are you…how are you doing?"
Sasuke gave a bitter laugh because he knows what she was going to say. Okay. Do I fucking look okay? But because Sakura wasn't a total idiot, she amended at the last second because of course he wasn't okay. He looks up at her and answers a question with a question. "Did you see Naruto?"
Hitting her where it hurts the hardest. Like always.
She bites her lip, nods. "He…they say he's stabilizing."
Yeah. Stabilizing. "Did they tell you it was my fault?" he asks viciously. He wants her away, wants her out, out OUT because this is him, at his worst, and Naruto, at his weakest, and she can't see that. Sakura didn't bounce back like Naruto, didn't pretend not to care like Sasuke. She was her own brand of emotional, and this –
This would kill her. Sasuke knows it, he knows it as well as anything, and because she needs to leave right fucking now or he'll kill himself with self-loathing, he says, "Did they tell you that because I was drunk, that because I'm fucking addicted, that I killed him?"
Tears are welling up in her eyes, and Sasuke feels everything but that sick satisfaction he'd been hoping for. He can feel himself start to cry too, because gods, this isn't fair. Naruto – Naruto would know what to do, or say, or feel. Right now Sasuke can only sit there and be mean and gods, he doesn't know what the hell he's feeling anymore, only that it's going to give in an ulcer sooner rather than later.
"Oh, Sasuke," she says, and hugs him.
As if somehow, he's the victim. As if somehow, she can fix it. Like this was just a normal hangover that required an Advil and water and her own particular brand of TLC.
Her arms are around him and his face is pressed right above her chest and she's squeezing him tight, too tight, and Sasuke's crying now, he's actually fucking crying –
"It's not your fault," she's whispering, over and over. "Not your fault. The other driver was on heroin, Sasuke, heroin, and it was dark, it was a freak accident –"
And Sasuke is torn between pushing her off the cot, out of the room, out of his life because how can he face her, he killed the one thing they have in common, the one thing they both love and now –
And pulling her closer because though half of Sasuke is convinced that he's a killer and no one should be allowed this close to him, the other half is convinced that there's no place safer.
.
.
.
What have we learned from this?
Don't drink and drive, asshats. Kay? Kay. ^_^
ANYWHORE….
There should be…two or three chapters following this.
Thoughts?