Important! I went back and rewrote parts of Chapters 1 and 2, so you should go look at them so you aren't as lost. I made Sasuke less emotional and more 'stoic'/'asshole'. Please re-review and tell me what you think!!


Mad World

Chapter 3 - Dad


"Sa-kur-aa." Naruto tasted the name as though it were very bitter medication. His face scrunched up into one of displeasure and determination.

Flower-er, Sakura had told him she knew Sasuke didn't think he was stupid. But Naruto knew Sakura was just saying that to make him feel better. She didn't want him to feel stupid, so she said nice things. Sasuke couldn't care either way so he didn't pay attention to the faces he was making, or what he said. Naruto was going to make sure that Sasuke didn't look at him like that anymore. So while Sakura went and got Sasuke, Naruto was spending time working on his first step: Using Sakura's actual name instead of the nickname he'd given her. Naruto wasn't sure if it would be more embarrassing to start using her real name and have her call him on it, or to continue calling her Flower girl and have Sasuke make those mean smiles at him. Either way, he had to try.

"Sa-kur-aa." He stuck out his tongue, "Ugh."

"Sakura ugh? Since when has that been my name, huh, wise guy?"

Naruto whirled around and took a step back. Sakura stood at the door with Sasuke a few steps in front of her. She chuckled and strode into the room. Sasuke looked as impatient as ever. Naruto felt compelled to curl up in a ball under his covers and hide but chose to stay where he was. Sasuke wasn't a bad guy. He just was bad with people when he first met them. Naruto fell back onto his bed. He decisively ignored the easy escape route now close to him and allowed Sakura to sit down next to him. Wait, that wasn't Sakura. Naruto saw Sasuke's lean muscular form lying on the bed next to him in the exact same manner as Naruto was. For a moment, Naruto forgot why exactly Sakura had brought Sasuke back. But then as Sasuke turned his head to the side and gave Naruto an expectant look, Naruto remembered with a blush.

"'m sorry, Sasuke." Naruto muttered. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"Apology accepted." Sasuke replied smoothly. This was something else Naruto noticed, Sasuke hardly ever meant anything he said. If Sasuke said it, don't believe it until you see further action to prove his words trustworthy.

Naruto giggled, but decided to hold in his comment for fear of it yielding an angry Sakura or an angry Sasuke. However, Sasuke didn't seem intent on letting Naruto's laugh go away without scrutiny.

"What?" Sasuke grunted at him.

"I'm sorry, it's just…" Naruto laughed again, "Everything about you is so grown up-ish."

Sakura snorted from a few feet away and Sasuke scowled severely. So Naruto held in the rest of his opinion. He didn't quite feel safe enough around Sasuke yet to say anything he wanted. Sasuke turned his face away from him, electing instead to stare at the ceiling. Naruto rolled his eyes and lifted his head a bit to look at Sakura. She was staring at the two of them in an 'awwww' way, and Naruto scowled, making him feel too much like Sasuke. He made a face, trying to get across to her 'what should I do now?' Sakura subtly gestured to the papers that were peeking out from under the covers. Naruto's eyes widened at the silent suggestion, even though he knew 'Sasuke wanted to help'. It still made him nervous, the idea of showing Sasuke something so personal to him. They'd only met today. But, knowing he could trust Sakura, if not Sasuke, Naruto reached over to his drawings and pulled them out. Flopping back down on the bed, Naruto held the pictures up above his face to look at them. In a moment of hesitation Naruto nearly held them to his chest covering them from sight. But, a breath of a second later, Sasuke had subtly inched closer to him on the bed to look up at the drawings. Naruto's breathing hitched for a second, and he coughed, Sasuke lying that close to him was making his tummy have ticklish feelings he didn't like.

"Who's that?" Sasuke asked, pointing up to the stick figure lying on the ground in the first picture.

Naruto stared at the little stick figure he'd drawn probably months ago. He had short crayon scratches black hair, and blue lines coming off his face to show he was crying. Naruto had drawn red blotches along the stick figure's body to show he was bleeding from the kicks of the bigger stick figure. His face felt clammy and cold, and Naruto closed his eyes for a minute trying to relax himself before he looked at the picture again.

"That's the boy in my nightmares that the…bad man…goes after when he's not trying to hurt me." Naruto explained with a bit of a stutter. "I think I knew him once, before I woke up in the hospital."

"But you don't remember him?"

Sasuke was very close to him now, though Naruto could somehow tell Sasuke had no idea that this might be uncomfortable for him. Naruto was holding the pictures up with shaky arms, and Sasuke's head was right next to his, so close that his long bangs were tickling Naruto's ears. He had one arm thrown over Naruto's head, and he was lying on his side while Naruto lay on his back. Still, despite their closeness, they remained not touching. So close were they that Naruto felt that if he turned his head to the side, their noses would clunk together in an Eskimo kiss.

"Well, I don't remember his name but I remember funny things." Naruto felt immensely awkward, if he told Sasuke more after this point, than it would be more than he'd ever told Sakura before. He didn't want to make Sakura feel like she was less important to him, because it wasn't true. She was his world. It was just that, Sakura was like a mom to him, and there were things that no kid wanted to talk to their mom about.

"Funny things?"

"Like we went to school together and that he didn't like ramen very much." Naruto started, with Sasuke's hair tickling his ear it was very hard to concentrate, "And I think he called me dobe a lot. But it wasn't mean; it was just kind of…joking."

"Why is he on the ground in your picture?"

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief; that was a question Sakura already knew the answer to. "Because the bad man is hurting him. In my nightmare he hurts him and says nice things at the same time."

"Do you have this nightmare often?"

"Sometimes…I just had it last night, but it was different than usual." Naruto mumbled. The ticklish feelings in his tummy were starting to overwhelm him and make him squirm a little.

"How so?"

"For the first time…the bad man used snakes to hurt him too, and the boy talked to me."

"That's why the snakes bothered you so much today?"

"Uh huh."

"What did the boy say to you?"

Naruto writhed in his place, and he felt pinpricks behind his eyes like he was going to cry. Then the tears spelled out and rolled down the sides of his faces onto the blanket beneath him. Naruto tried to continue staring at the pictures but he was quickly losing sight of them through his blurry eyes. He dropped the pictures and covered his face with his hands, curling into a ball facing Sasuke. To Naruto's comfort and further distress he realized that this had caused several parts of him and Sasuke to touch. His knees were poking into Sasuke's chest, and his hands which were wrapped around his shins were pressed against Sasuke's stomach. Worst of all, their noses were touching, and all the pictures were fallen on top of them. Naruto wanted badly to stop crying, to be able to move himself away from Sasuke and make it into Sakura's arms. But somehow he was paralyzed, he couldn't move. He could only sob, and shudder, and gasp as his throat hurt from the crying.

"Oi, dobe, you're touching me." Sasuke growled, and Naruto blushed profusely.

On an instinct Naruto didn't know he had he rolled away from Sasuke immediately and rubbed at his eyes to stop himself from crying. He wiped the tear streaks off his face and took a deep breath to calm himself down. When his gaze fell back onto Sasuke he almost wanted to laugh. Sasuke was covered in the papers, and there were some surrounding him that had been wrinkled and rolled on. Naruto smiled bashfully at him, and shyly he crawled back to pick up all the papers. Sasuke didn't make a move to help, and that was probably a wise thing. Naruto had just managed to make his tummy stop tickling, and he didn't want it to happen again. After all the papers had been straightened out, Naruto turned around to look to Sakura for comfort. However, he noticed she had left without either of them noticing. Naruto sighed in frustration.

He slumped back onto the bed where he'd been before, with the tiny gap between Sasuke and himself. Naruto crossed his arms and glared at the ceiling. How dare Sakura leave him alone with Sasuke again? It wasn't fair. Feeling Sasuke's eyes on him, Naruto knew he was probably still waiting for an answer. This made Naruto's chest tighten with no small amount of anguish. He hadn't liked what the boy had said to him.

"The boy…he asked me why I didn't help him, and if I cared so much why I hadn't seen from the beginning what was happening to him. He asked me a lot of those things, and I didn't like it, it only made me feel bad because in every nightmare I can't move! Even when I try, I'm not strong enough, just like the bad man always says." Naruto blushed, embarrassed at the truth he knew was there. He wasn't strong enough. If he was, than the bad man wouldn't hurt him or the other boy.

Naruto waited for Sasuke's next question. Any other question than that would be easier to answer. Naruto waited, and waited, but the silence stretched on. After a while, Naruto turned to face Sasuke and was surprised by what he saw. Sasuke's face was greatly pained, and his eyes were cold, and harsh as if they were trying to make the pain go away. He was frowning, and when Naruto looked at him Sasuke stared intently at the blanket. Naruto lifted a tentative hand and was about to put it on Sasuke's face to make him look at him, but he stopped. He was afraid. He didn't want to make Sasuke angry with him, but it looked like he was already unhappy, so what would the harm be? There would be a lot of harm, Naruto knew. He let his hand fall onto the blanket in front of Sasuke's face instead. Naruto yawned, right in Sasuke's face, he realized. He smiled weakly in apology but felt his eyelids droop. Their conversation had left him very tired.

He curled up and snuggled closer to Sasuke for warmth, far too tired to crawl under the covers. Just as he'd made himself comfortable with his head tucked easily beneath Sasuke's chin, Sasuke growled again in warning. Naruto ignored him.

"Dobe, you're touching me." Sasuke stated in annoyance. "Again." He added.

"I know." Naruto mumbled sleepily. Even through his fatigue he tensed a little, expecting to be thrown or hit or something terrible.

Instead, to Naruto's surprise, Sasuke merely pulled away from him and got up off the bed. Naruto glared at him weakly, and Sasuke glared right back. As Naruto scowled, Sasuke went and gathered the stack of papers and set them on the table. Then, awkwardly Sasuke picked him up and pulled the blankets back before putting him back down on the bed. He deftly lifted the blanket again and tossed it over Naruto's entire frame even covering his head. After this Sasuke ordered in a stern voice, 'Go to sleep, dobe.' Naruto poked his head out from under the blankets to tell Sasuke 'No, I don't want to sleep' only to find that Sasuke had left the room without making a noise.


This time, when Sasuke entered the lobby he was tired. He removed his new name tag and neatly dropped it in the trashcan. Noticing his other one that hadn't quite made it in, he picked it up and also put it in the garbage. The whole room, unlike the rest of the facility was quite warm and welcoming. The walls were a less dull shade of white, and the floor was tiled with marble. There was a fireplace on the left wall when you entered the front doors, and near it were two couches and a coffee table. Across from them was the sign in desk where the receptionist was eyeing him wearily. Sasuke kindly walked over and signed himself out, apologizing for his behavior earlier. Though he truly hadn't given a damn what the lady thought, it would probably be best to improve relations if he was going to be visiting often. The woman smiled thankfully and told him it was no problem and that she'd be happy to see him again tomorrow.

Sasuke nodded and made his way out the front doors into the dark evening. Due to his probation he wouldn't be allowed to take on any missions for at least a month or two, and it wasn't like he had anything else he could be doing. So, naturally, if Sakura didn't force him anyways, it would probably be the sanatorium where Sasuke would spend most of his time. This had certainly not been the meeting he expected to take place between him and Naruto when he'd first woken up back in Konoha. Sasuke had thought of course that Naruto was perfectly fine and would probably shower him with humiliating quantities of affection, or argue with him. But instead, here Sasuke was, rebuilding a relationship, trying to make the dobe remember him.

Whereas when Sasuke had first discovered through Sakura that Naruto was having dreams about him, even if they were dreams of him being hurt, he'd felt important. Somehow he'd felt proud that Naruto had managed to remember him, in some abstract way, when he had remembered no one else. Then, of course he had mentally smacked himself and removed the feeling of pride from his brain and felt curious instead. Why was Naruto having these nightmares? What happened in them? Then, when he'd felt close to getting an answer. The boy had spoken to Naruto in his dream last night. But, when Naruto finally told him what he'd said, Sasuke had felt frozen. Things he'd directly said to Naruto years ago, things he'd thought but never spoken aloud and then banished from his mind. Everything his nightmare self had told Naruto had struck him unawares.

Sasuke kicked another rock in front of him, staring at the ground as he wound his way through the village. The night air was warm enough to be comfortable without a jacket, and cool enough to be refreshing after breathing so much of the stuffy air inside the sanatorium. He watched as some teens (who clearly hadn't gone on to further their ninja training) stumbled their way down the street, all obviously drunk. When they noticed him they laughed loudly and jeered at him, knowing that he couldn't really do anything to them for it. He was already on probation, and everyone in the village pretty much wanted him dead. Why give them a reason? That's all he had to do. Give them one reason, and that would be that. With a great show of willpower he ignored them completely and carried on through the town, finally coming to the Uchiha estate.

When he entered, it was empty of course, and dark. He flicked on the entry hall light. The bulb flickered several times before turning on completely. Sasuke moved into the living room, where some of the first furniture to be brought in had been put. The estate was so large that they were slowly moving in furniture by the room. The first few days they'd covered the basics, moving things into the closest master bedroom, the kitchen, the dining room, the living room and the office. So now he wandered into the living room, not keen on sleeping in his parents' old bedroom. He collapsed onto the couch, one arm hanging off the edge, his face buried into the pillow near the armrest. His first day with Naruto and he was exhausted. Was every day going to be like this? As Sasuke closed his eyes to go to sleep; he sincerely hoped not.


The next day, Sasuke was woken up bright and early. Someone was in his house. He kept his eyes closed and listened. The person walked through the entry hall comfortably; there was a certain sureness in their step. They entered the living room and walked straight up to him. Then they paused, Sasuke continued to feign sleep, waiting for their next move.

"Sasuke, wake up!"

He cracked an eye open, and lo and behold, Sakura stood before him. She was hunched over so they were face to face. Sasuke rolled over, facing the back of the couch, and away from her. Sakura clucked her tongue at him and went over to the windows where she promptly yanked open the blinds. Sasuke groaned as sunlight streamed in, slicing through the musty darkness and hitting him right in the eye. What was wrong with this bitch? Couldn't she see that he was sleeping?! Sasuke tried to ignore her, but she just kept talking. Sakura began telling him that he needed to get up, showered, and dressed quickly. Breakfast at the sanatorium was served at eight in the morning. She pleasantly informed him that it was seven. Sasuke glared over his shoulder at her and she remained unfazed.

"Sasuke, get up now or I'll make you get up." He rolled his eyes and continued to ignore her. He didn't hear her walk away, so he assumed she was still there.

"What?" He asked her. "I thought we had this discussion already. You aren't going to make me do anything."

"Sasuke-" Sakura replied primly.

Sasuke considered his options. He could continue to ignore her, and wait for her to leave. Or he could just get up and humor her, allowing her to think she had an influence over his actions. The second option sounded terribly unbecoming and potentially frustrating in the future. But if what Sakura said was true, and it probably was, breakfast started at eight and after that Naruto would be busy. Sasuke scowled but stood up and wandered towards the bathroom to shower. Sakura followed him all the way to the bathroom, and remained standing outside the door after he'd gone inside. He considered masturbating to waste time and to embarrass her, but realized that by wasting time, he was actually missing out on opportunities to make progress with Naruto. Instead he grudgingly removed his clothing and stepped into the shower, washing himself in an amount of time surely no girl could accomplish. Sasuke had never quite grasped why showers could possibly last nearly an hour. What was the appeal of standing in there? What on earth were they doing if not washing their hair or dousing themselves with overly strong smelling body wash?

Sasuke hurriedly dried himself off and then gathered up his dirty clothes and towel and stepped out of the bathroom. Sakura was waiting outside with her arms crossed over her chest. In an effort to prove that he didn't care if she was there or not he'd not worn a towel around his waist choosing to bare all. As her response to this Sakura stated, "I've seen bigger."

Sasuke scowled, retorting, "I bet you have, you've probably slept with every guy in Konoha while trying to pretend you aren't obsessed with me."

Sakura screeched something or other after him as he slammed the door to his parents' bedroom shut behind him and stalked over to the dresser, attempting (without success) to push Sakura's comment out of his head. What happened to that long haired weakling who blushed when he so much as breathed near her? Since when did she become this confident, frighteningly strong, smirking bitch? He was used to the one who he could easily push around and ignore. He could still ignore her. But this Sakura, he couldn't push around without her pushing back, and as he was slowly pulling on clean clothes she warned him that if he didn't hurry up she'd dress him herself.

In five minutes they were out the door heading to the sanatorium where Sasuke was going to have breakfast with Naruto, and Sakura was going to leave him so she could go to work. He hated her. She signed him in and made sure to take him to the cafeteria. Once she'd shoved him through the doors she'd disappeared, leaving him alone. Naruto looked up at him from his place at the table closest to the door. He didn't frown at him but he sure wasn't excited at the thought of his presence. Sasuke sat down on the opposite side of the table and stared at Naruto, and Naruto's breakfast. His stomach growled before he got a chance to.

Naruto laughed at him, "You can go get food from the cook ladies, Sasuke."

Sasuke thought of protesting the thought of begging food off people he didn't know. But his stomach was churning, he hadn't eaten lunch or dinner yesterday and he was really hungry. Before he could reluctantly get up and go search out some food Naruto had gotten up and wandered towards the food line. When he came back he set down a bowl of cereal in front of him and a glass of orange juice Sasuke muttered a polite 'thank you' and dug in. Well, he ate with as much enthusiasm as his Uchiha upbringing would allow.

"Why are you here this early without Flo-um, Sakura?" Naruto asked him.

Sasuke paused, holding a spoon a few inches from his face. Naruto had just called Sakura by her actual name. He arched an eyebrow in confusion and mentioned this to him. Naruto blushed, and didn't respond to that. Instead, Naruto told him that he had to go to group discussion this morning and that people visiting weren't allowed in so Sasuke would have to wait for him in his room. Sasuke nodded.

"Why aren't they allowed to go in with you?" Sasuke questioned, "I went into art group and that was fine."

"Group discussion is where we talk about our problems and how well we're progressing with our new tasks. It's private, and Miss Martha doesn't want any outside person's presence to affect what we say." Naruto explained, drinking the rest of the milk in his cereal bowl.

"Do you think my being there would affect what you'd say?" Sasuke smirked.

Naruto nodded, "Yep."

"Why?"

Naruto hadn't obviously expected Sasuke to follow up with another question and he fumbled with what to say next. Sasuke let it go when a bell rang, interrupting the conversation. He noticed that the other patients were all getting up and leaving the room. Naruto too was picking up his and Sasuke's food mess and throwing it away.

"You remember the way back to my room, right?" Naruto checked. Sasuke nodded, and that's where they parted ways.

Naruto headed off down the hall towards the group activity rooms, and Sasuke went in the opposite direction towards the dormitories. He almost got lost in the winding maze of doors and hallways but eventually came upon the door with the plaque that read 'Uzumaki, Naruto'. Sasuke entered the room and shut the door behind him. It was just as he'd left it yesterday, except that Naruto had left his dresser drawers open and his pajamas all over the floor. Sasuke chuckled slightly and set about picking up the dirty clothes and searching for a hamper. As he cleaned up the room (and the bathroom where Naruto had left the shower a mess and a towel on the floor), Sasuke wondered how different Naruto would be in that group discussion if he knew Sasuke was in the room. If he actually managed to sit in the group with Naruto, how would his answers differ? Probably a great deal.

Sasuke moved the armchair that was next to the bed back to where he'd found it by a small bookcase in the corner next to the door. He made the bed and arranged the pillows in their usual uniform way at the head of the bed. Then, finding nothing else to do he sat down at the table in the center of the room where Naruto's nightmare drawings still lay. He'd never actually gotten the chance last night to look through all of them. He'd only seen the one on top. Now of course they were jumbled as Naruto had let them fall over them and then put them back in random order. Sasuke examined each one intently, finding them all very similar, but yet the childish details were disturbing. The red dots in the bad man's eyes and his long roughly drawn hair, and the red splotches on the boy on the ground's body obviously intended to be blood. All of it was both intriguing and horrifying. When Sasuke had thought he'd gone through all of them, there was one with another drawing on the back that he hadn't noticed.

It was a simple picture of two stick figures standing on a grassy hill with lots of trees, a bright blue sky and a sun with a happy face on it. The two figures were standing together, holding hands and smiling brightly. One had spiky yellow hair, and the other had longer black hair that was pointy around the edges. Sasuke's eyes flickered to the top of the page where the title of the picture was hastily scrawled by a child's hand. It read, 'I miss you'. At the bottom of the page beneath the two figures, the words 'Best Friends' was written. When Sasuke inspected the page closer he noticed there were old and dried dots where the crayon had faded. It was as if someone had been crying when they'd looked at it. The date in one corner of it said that it was roughly two years ago when the picture had been drawn. Sakura had probably hated this picture. Sasuke wondered why she hadn't thrown it away, or burnt it. Maybe Naruto had asked her to not lose it. She would have kept it, for Naruto's sake.

Sasuke placed the pictures in a stack back where he'd found them in the middle of the table. Just in time apparently for Naruto opened the door and entered the room. After casually shutting the door behind him he looked around at his now clean room in confusion.

"Did you clean my room?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah, is that a problem?" Sasuke said, watching Naruto inspect his room, his neatly made bed, and then the tidied bathroom.

"No, it's just one of my new tasks I have to do every day for a star."

Sasuke nodded, accepting the answer and not bothering to inquire as to why he got a start for cleaning his room. Naruto padded over to him and sat down next to him at the table. He seemed to freeze when he saw the picture Sasuke had left on top of the pile. Sasuke watched Naruto slowly reach for the picture and pick it up; looking at it as though he'd thought he'd never see it again. He wasn't sure if he should have regretted leaving that specific one on top where Naruto would notice it. Naruto shyly looked up at him and asked if he'd found this in the pile of nightmare drawings. Sasuke nodded.

"I was hoping she hadn't brought this one." Naruto said timidly.

Sasuke didn't ask why, he chose this time to allow Naruto to tell him if he wanted. The last time he asked 'why' he'd gotten no answer. Naruto set the picture down on the table in front of him and stared at it. Then he turned his gaze onto Sasuke and began to speak.

"I drew this after my first night here, not in the hospital. Because the first dream I had of the boy wasn't a nightmare." Naruto stated slowly. It was like someone was yanking his teeth out. But Sasuke waited not wanting to ruin it and have him shut up again.

"We were playing good guys and bad guys. We were in a place where I think we used to live." Naruto's face scrunched up in concentration, as though he were trying to remember his dream in as much detail as possible, "We were having a good time. But then, this grown up came to get us for lunch, I think he was my dad. But he took us to get ramen. We were really happy."

"Your dad?" This was where Sasuke was confused. Naruto didn't have any parents; they died shortly after he was born.

"Well I think he was. He really acted like I think a dad would. But maybe I was wrong. Hold on." Naruto stood up and went over to a desk on the opposite wall from his bed. There was blank paper and colored pencils sitting on it. He brought them over to the table and started drawing. "I think I can probably draw a picture of him for you."

Sasuke watched in interest as Naruto drew a picture of his 'dad'. But slowly as the drawing was nearing completion, Sasuke recognized the figure on the paper. Naruto was drawing a picture of Kakashi. Sasuke had trouble keeping a smile off his face at this new revelation. He remembered Kakashi as his father, and Sasuke as his best friend. Though he didn't relate them to these figures in his mind, they obviously looked similar. Suddenly when Naruto was finished with his drawing, he turned to Sasuke and said something that threw him off guard.

"You can't tell Flower girl that I told you about my dream, okay?" Naruto demanded.

"Why not?"

"Because I never told her about it and if she finds out that I told you and not her and I remembered for so long than she'll get sad." Naruto rushed out. When Sasuke stared at him in wide eyed bewilderment Naruto added, "Please?"

"Huh, oh, um, yeah. Sure. I won't tell her."

"Thanks Sasuke." Naruto fidgeted awkwardly, putting the picture of Kakashi in the stack on top of the others.

"It's time for lunch." Naruto said, looking at the clock on the wall. Sure enough a few seconds later the bell rang signaling lunch time.

Sasuke stood up and patiently let Naruto lead him out the door and down to the cafeteria by the hand. Sasuke wondered why Naruto hadn't told Sakura about the dream, and had instead two years later told him.

TBC…