The next chapter will be longer. A lot longer, like double; if you've read my other stuff, it's more like those chapters.

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I do not own Naruto.

2Of the Late Summer Storms


The metal on the table was unnaturally cold as always. Naruto figured that no matter how many times he sat on it, he would never truly become used to the chill. Tsunade flicked off the rubber gloves, frustration glowing through her white hospital coat.

"I need an answer, Naruto."

The boy didn't answer, looking down at his intertwined fingers. Three days. Thunder boomed outside the single little window that overlooked the office, flashing just as the first droplets began to patter to the ground. It was too late in the year for thunderstorms; they were supposed to have ended weeks ago.

"Well, Naruto? I can't keep him in there forever; unless you would rather I just execute the bastard and have it over and done."

Naruto didn't answer again, looking up at the woman. Was that what he wanted, to just have the asshole die and forget about him forever? The flame in his stomach flared unbearably hot and Naruto winced, clutching his aching stomach. Obviously not.

No, he just wanted…he just wanted to curl up into a time machine and go back to before all this had happened, to when they were happy and together. He hadn't visited Sasuke since that first time, which was almost four days ago now.

Tsunade seemed to read into Naruto's expression.

"Fine. But I can't keep him in jail any longer; it's illegal since I had already cleared his name for what he did, fusing you. Technically, he's allowed to walk the streets freely, with a guard, of course."

Naruto didn't twitch. He didn't want to think of the possibility that he could just walk into Sasuke on the street one day.

"Alright well, back to business. I called you for this appointment today for a reason. I've finally found out what's wrong with you."

He almost didn't want to know.

"As you probably already know, I've been sending out teams to gather info on your… condition, seeing as such a thing was previously unprecedented in the Fire Country."

Naruto didn't look up, half the woman's words simply slipping through one ear and straight out the other side. The Hokage brought up a folding chair to sit at the little table in the examination room, amber eyes fixed on her charts.

"The scroll was found a few days ago, and it's very old. The situation is not exactly the same, but rather similar from what I can tell. The writing is mostly faded, you see."

The woman swiveled the chair to face the shirtless boy. No, he didn't really see at all.

She tried to start over.

"Naruto, you haven't activated your chakra in a while, have you?"

"No. You said not to."

"Do it now. Run a check through your entire body and then tell me what you find."

With a questioning glance at the old woman, Naruto complied, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. Starting at his head, the blonde checked every nerve and chakra opening, feeling the mixed chakra of his and Kyuubi, that is, until he reached his abdomen. There he found a dense, unnatural cloud of pure red chakra, Kyuubi's chakra that danced thickly around something else. Naruto's blonde brows furrowed in frustration as he tried to breach the wall, to feel what was inside, it wouldn't give, it wouldn't-

A sound echoed in the boy's inner ears. It was a gruff, light grunt. Kyuubi? He hadn't heard from the fox since…since… well, since before they were fused. Naruto felt around the casing again, to find a small opening.

Inside was… inside was a cloud made of the purified form of his own chakra. But there was something else too, something so painfully familiar…

"What the hell is that, Tsunade?!" Blue eyes seemed to bulge. This wasn't possible, it was… was this actually the source of his pain?

"Why is Sasuke's chakra inside of me?!"

"Quiet, brat! Do you want to wake the whole damn hospital?!"

But Naruto could feel his features getting desperate, his hands starting to shake as questions plagued his mind. What the hell was that? What did this mean, was it a fluke from the fusing? Was this why it wanted Sasuke so badly, because it was a part of him, some strange mutant injection of the Uchiha's power?

Before he could hold back his entire thin frame was shaking almost violently, but a sound smack across the face snapped the blonde back to rationality.

"Uzumaki Naruto, get a hold of yourself. This thing inside you is not only Sasuke's chakra, but your own and it is being infused with Kyuubi's power. Whatever it is, I don't think, from what the scroll writes that it is human."

Shock wide glass eyes gazed, in shock, at Tsunade as the Hokage continued.

"The patient recorded was a Jinchuuriki like you, and he was also fused with his demon. But it seems that his symptoms were similar to yours, however he was not treated. His lover realized that there was something inside the man after about four months, but not having the technology nor the experience, and being a man, whatever was inside him had no way of getting out."

"About ten months of this thing inside him, already half dead from the thrashing of the creature, the man died of poisoning a few days after whatever was inside him died and rotted."

Naruto shivered. Died and rotted inside him?

"Does…does that mean that whatever this is, this bunch of chakra and cells is… it's alive? If it isn't human, what could it possibly be?"

Blue eyes glittered in dumb wonderment and a strange numb high as lightning flashed outside.

"Did you not hear what I just said!?" Tsunade's eyes were flashing something more frightening than the lightning outside.

"This thing inside you is not human! It is utterly unnatural, Naruto. We need to remove it as soon as possible."

"Like… kill it? But, do you even know what it is?"

"What is there to know?"

"Maybe…maybe it is human, and that other time it just died because it couldn't find a way out, obviously."

"Obviously what, Naruto? That sort of thing is not possible. You are a man."

"Well, of course I am but-"

"But what?"

The boy's husky voice dropped to a whisper. Why was he even defending this thing?

"There has to be some explanation. Just… I don't know, just…" To be completely honest, even if it was partly made of Sasuke's chakra, he didn't want to get rid of it. Maybe that was why; because it would remind him of Sasuke. Was that really something he should be willing to risk his life for? The answer was already undeniable.

"As soon as possible, Naruto. I'll see you again as soon as i get more information. Until then, I'll do my best to find out more about this." a gruff hand shoved something black towards him; an umbrella.

"It's raining." Naruto nodded, too much on his mind to be functioning properly as he walked through the door, not looking back to see Tsunade take her aching head in two hands.

When the boy reached the little space right outside the doorway he opened the somber black umbrella, pausing to take in the grey world around him. These near autumn thunderstorms were becoming more and more frequent, wetting already overflowing crowded streets, busy despite the bad weather. It felt as if the whole village was out in their multicolored umbrellas, the brighter shades dulled by the clouded skies. Naruto stepped into the puddle-covered dirt road, taking a deep breath and clearing his mind of everything but the sound of hard droplets against the shade above him.

He couldn't think of everything now, maybe after some cup ramen and a good night's sleep things would become clearer. The boy tried a smile; he failed miserably. As he trudged through the pounding rain a light cracked the sky, blinding him.

The wind was chilly, but Naruto was warm. So very, very warm; it was a heat that burned as much as it comforted, emanating from his stomach. The boy unconsciously rubbed it, secretly wishing like the idiot he was that the maker of the other half of the little heat in there was walking with him, maybe even holding his hand in support. He wished he didn't have to go through this alone, have to make this decision alone.

And he wished that the world could be simple and uncomplicated, that this damn loneliness would just go away.

The blonde looked up from his toes to face the entrance of his apartment; just to find a soaking wet boy asleep, propped up against the side of his doorway. Thunder rumbled overhead, lightning revealing a pale, glistening face through the pouring rain. Sasuke slept soundly through the storm, only shuddering unconsciously each time the thunder boomed. Naruto stood frozen even when the shock passed, the fire in his belly tearing, compelling him forward until he was crouched an inch away from the sleeping raven, umbrella covering them both.

Huh.

The Uchiha looked so harmless when he was sleeping, face utterly peaceful as he dreamt of something nice. Naruto found himself smiling when the boy sighed and shivered. But then his face turned serious again as black hair fell over thick lashes, wet and shining in the grey light.

As if it had a will of its own, one tan hand reached tentatively, not wanting to wake the boy, and stroked the Uchiha's fair cheek, then brushing that midnight hair back to fully reveal his face. Biting his lip and not knowing what the hell he was doing, or why, Naruto leant down the final few inches to barely, just barely, eyes half closed, brush their lips together for more than an instant; the boy leaned back on his haunches to feel the punishing shockwaves ride his body.

It had been stupid but, looking back at that beautiful pale face, it was worth it.

Naruto stood and walked into his apartment, leaving the tall Uchiha to sleep in the rain, alone.

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Close to an hour later, steaming cup ramen in one pink scrubbed hand, the blonde checked the window to the even more stormy outside; the trees were shaking the with violent force of the howling winds, thunder booming and lightning flashing in the now nearly pitch black sky. Something wet and glistening moved outside, shuddering and curling itself tighter.

Sasuke was still there.

Grip tightening on the little steaming cup, Naruto turned around to eat his dinner in peace.

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It was around two in the morning by the time he woke up again, he was sweating and feeling more than a little sick, head spinning. But there was something he had to check, even though it was really unlikely, who would stay through this storm? The winds were screaming louder and the rain was hammering even more aggressively, thunder shaking the foundations of the building while lightning cracked open the sky.

Naruto shivered in his thin little t-shirt and striped pajama bottoms, rubbing his eyes as bare feet shuffled across the cold hardwood floor to the window next to the door. The night was overwhelmingly dark; there was nothing there. So he had gone after all. It was only logical, what kind of an idiot would stay outside in this kind of weather?

Why was he so disappointed?

Just as the blonde turned to go back to bed, lightning flashed to reveal something large hunkered down in a tight, soaked black ball that shuddered in the doorway. In that instant, Naruto's heart had leapt into his throat, choking him with its deafening beat.

This changed things; he couldn't just leave the stupid bastard out there, right?

Well, he could, he just wouldn't because he was mature like that. Excuses kept popping one after another into the blonde's brain as he took deep breaths and flung open his door for a moment, getting completely drenched in the few seconds it took to drag Sasuke's heavy body into the dark apartment. If only for a moment, Naruto felt like he could smile at last as he held the large, shaking figure to his chest before that damnable face gazed up at him, paler than ever with what looked like blue lips against the black of the nighttime storm around them, Sasuke looked as beautiful as the moon. But that was why he made sure to be the first to break the silence.

"Sasuke you idiot, were you trying to kill yourself?!" Naruto felt chilled to the bone and he wasn't even the one who'd been out there for over eight hours, his hands felt numb as they gripped the frozen cloth that wrapped an even colder boy.

"You're freezing, get off me!" Naruto started to pull away, blue eyes widening in shock and horror as Sasuke didn't reply, instead dropping to the ground, body trembling. He was- he was going into… what was it called…hy- hy- hypothermia! Sasuke was going to freeze to death.

Naruto rolled the larger boy over unto his back, hands gripping the other's trembling one. What had the academy instructed to do in these situations, what was it…ah! Naruto felt his cheeks warm a little at the thought. He'd been the loudest one in the class, laughing his little ass off at Iruka –sensei when he had told them this, blushing and stuttering.

The blonde's heart was thumping rapidly, aching in his chest. Damn, he was really going to go this far for the fucking Uchiha. But despite his mental rejection of the idea, Naruto's hands began to strip the raven of his soaking clothes, all the while dragging the boy off the cold floor to his room.

Gently laying Sasuke down, Naruto closed his eyes, breathing near hyperventilation as he threw off his wet shirt and soaked pants, hesitating before slipping trembling fingers under the elastic of his boxers.

He's unconscious, he's unconscious, and he won't remember a thing of this… You're only doing it to save his sorry ass so you can rub it in his face later…

The chant repeated over and over in Naruto's head as he slipped off the remaining cloth and kneeled next to the viciously shaking, almost completely naked raven in his bed, keeping blue eyes on Sasuke's ghostly face as his hands carefully removed the Uchiha's last soaking wet article of clothing.

With one last deep, calming breath, Naruto wrapped his arms around Sasuke's shivering form and pressed himself completely to the other boy, muscled arms rubbing the pale skin raw in an attempt to warm him. Naruto's eyes squeezed shut as he pulled the covers over them both and kept on rubbing every limb, every finger and eventually toe until Sasuke was fully warm and the exhausted blonde fell into the first blissfully restful sleep in months, still pressed tightly against the raven's chest.


(AN)

a little chapter of nothing. But anyway, Reviews really help an author write!

next chapter the wheels will start turning a little, but I'm getting writer's block, so Review!

(Please and Thankyou)

Love.

Bright Eyed