This is probably my favorite chapter. I think it felt really good to write it; like a breath of fresh air and a weight off my back :]
Chapter Ten: Marvin's Room
The clock on his wall said it was twelve hours that he'd been here, lying on his bloody sheets in a world of pain he couldn't have imagined possible.
But Naruto swore it was much longer – it felt like much longer.
Kyuubi and his faithful puppets left after a few hours, but they came checking in around the clock and they never left the apartment.
They didn't want the doctor escaping; Naruto knew they weren't worried about him – he probably wouldn't be able to get up on his own: the doctor, however, was uninjured and very capable of getting away.
It was hot for a minute, so sweat beaded across every expanse of his skin and he shivered as the crisp morning air hit his drenched and trembling skin; but then he desperately wished he could dry off so he could warm back up so he'd be able to stop shivering because it was painful when the torn muscles around his vital organs shook in response to the drop in his body temperature in an attempt to preserve any homeostasis left in his body.
His breathing wasn't right...or something.
He was far too tired to scream or yell, but he clenched his teeth together anyway to muffle any of the pain he couldn't bite back; he didn't want to bother the doctor.
As if to spite his effort, he felt the material of a t-shirt against his forehead and he opened his eyes to glance over at the man held hostage with him as he attempted to dry his skin before his shivering got worse.
But it was like using windshield-wipers once for a drive in a rainstorm; by the time he moved toward his neck, the skin on his face was breaking out into a cold sweat once more and Naruto felt really hot again and he wished the doctor would leave him alone.
Until he was shivering and he just didn't know what he wanted.
The doorknob turned and the bedroom door opened with a creak and both sets of eyes glanced over as Kidomaru kicked the door open lazily.
"This is your opportunity to use the bathroom, doc," he explained in a mocking tone, the barrel of his gun pointed toward the man who stood after a moment in acknowledgement and left down the hallway as directed and Kidomaru remained in the doorway, eyes resting directly on Naruto who shot him a hateful look before shifting his gaze to the opposite wall.
He wished he could lie still, or quietly, or both because he knew Kidomaru's criticizing eyes were watching, but he couldn't do either for very long and he felt pathetic for it, but it was beyond his control.
"You look like you're feeling better," Kidomaru mocked from the doorway, words curved by the smirk on his lips.
"Fuck off," Naruto breathed contemptuously.
"Y'know you're not really in a good position for pissing people off."
"Tell Kyuubi – that he'd better take care of my school. They'll call," he grit out as he turned to glare at him defiantly, "And they'll know something's wrong."
The man didn't respond and it wasn't long before the doctor returned and the door was slammed shut behind him and they were left alone once more.
The doctor pulled something from the pocket of his jacket and Naruto felt his breath hitch for a moment when he caught sight of the bottle in the man's hand.
"Where'd you get that?" he breathed, the anxiety clear in his tone. He knew who that belonged to and he wished the doctor didn't have it in his hands.
That was the stash of heroin Kyuubi used to keep his mother addicted because she was much more worthless to him if she wasn't addicted. Things like that didn't work no strings attached.
"I found it in the medicine cabinet," the man explained swiftly as he pulled out the short, glass cup from the bathroom sink that he used to keep his toothbrush in and a second pill bottle, "I also dumped out the rest of the pills in this bottle and filled it with water."
He didn't explain why and Naruto didn't need him to because he also pulled out a cotton ball and a syringe and he knew what all of those things were for.
"No, don't – he'll kill us both," Naruto protested softly.
"We're both already dead," the man admitted mercilessly while Naruto's blonde eyebrows furrowed in distain and he glanced toward the man, for all it was worth, forsaken and a small part fearful, "People in my situation don't leave alive-" with gritted teeth, Naruto shifted his gaze away. Hearing the doctor, his only link to survival, predict his oncoming death, felt like the final nail in the coffin and he was close to losing it. He draped his forearm across his eyes and turned his face away completely from the man beside him. The anxiety was choking him, "-and your left lung is punctured. Your chest cavity has been slowly filling with blood and air, and when your lung collapses from the pressure, you'll suffocate in minutes without a hospital setting. We're both already dead."
Naruto only managed to choke down half a sob before it could escape, the tips of his fingers clenching against the heel of his palm; he didn't care who he cried in front of anymore because he was going to die and he was in so much pain and the doctor's brutal confession ignited his anxiety and kindled his unease and he was just plain running out of hope.
His mother would probably be next – if she wasn't dead already; he didn't know. He hadn't seen her since the night of open house at the school.
And Sasuke – Sasuke was involved too, which was the thing he felt the worst about because he never needed to be; and Naruto would have no way of regulating that situation if he was dead. If he died here, there was a good chance Kyuubi would hunt Sasuke down in spite of him – maybe to kill him, maybe not, but by the look on Kyuubi's face when he was sitting in that cop car and he realized the weight of the relationship between himself and Sasuke, Naruto knew Kyuubi wanted at least a little bloodshed and not just from Naruto.
He probably already knew everything about him – Kyuubi would probably be coming in any time to tell him about something terrible planned for his piteous friend Uchiha Sasuke.
"I'm sorry – I'm stressed too," the man apologized softly as he grinded up a chunk of the substance from the small medicine jar at the bottom of the glass cup before grabbing the syringe and the pill bottle half full of water to measure out a specific amount of water, "But I'll do everything I can to keep you alive and one of the few things I can do includes medicating you to slow your heart rate. The slower your heart rate is, the slower your body pumps blood into your chest. And the slower your chest fills up with blood, the better the chance you'll have to survive."
Naruto moved his forearm up slightly to rest on his forehead so he could shoot the doctor a strange look; was he trying to send a mixed message? Maybe it was some backhanded way of preventing Naruto from getting his hopes up on some sort of miracle.
He emptied the syringe into the bottom of the cup and tilted it so the powder and the water mixed at one side before setting it on the bedside table so that almost half of the base hung off the edge. He sparked a lighter beneath it and pulled out the plunger of the needle in his hand to help mix the drug until it was dissolved before kneading just a small piece of the cotton ball no bigger than the pill had been between his fingers to get it as small as possible.
The doctor tilted the cup and dropped the piece of cotton into the area where the liquid collected and watched as it absorbed all of it so easily. He cleaned and replaced the plunger before placing the needle within the cotton and drawing back slowly until the syringe sucked a little air.
With a practiced tap, he removed the trapped air and moved toward Naruto.
"You're just a kid," the man whispered somewhat dolefully as he grabbed the wrist of the forearm draped across his forehead and guided his arm to rest at his side gently, "And if easing your suffering, even if only a little, was the last thing I did, it'd be worth the risk on my part."
The needle pierced his skin and heroin was a little different when it was given to him in a less lethal dose than the ones Kyuubi gave him; even still, it didn't really touch his pain – it mostly just made him still in pain and really high. But it did help a little, and he was grateful for it.
The day progressed as slowly as the night had, and Naruto wondered if Kidomaru ever delivered his message about his school or if Kyuubi even heeded his warning if his message was delivered. Sasuke knew where he lived now; he prayed he didn't do something stupid like come looking for him – he prayed Kyuubi just called his damn school and took care of the people worrying about his absence.
Every few hours the doctor would administer the only thing that could actually take a bit of the edge off of his anxiety and he felt his opinion about the drug sway drastically.
It was nearing the early evening when his bedroom door opened again, and this time, Kyuubi was with the group that entered the room.
"You have 'mono'. So you've been withdrawn from school for the remainder of the semester," Kyuubi began with a crooked sort of smirk, "And our doctor friend here is going to help us fax over a doctor's note to make it seem real," he continued with confidence as he smiled in a threatening sort of way toward the man who raised no objection.
He turned his gaze on Naruto who glared back defiantly – even if he wasn't feeling all that defiant or confident or much of anything really.
"Sit up."
He was pulled up and sat at the edge of the bed when he failed to do it himself and he clenched his jaw to silence the anguished yell his screaming injuries wanted him to convey from the movement. If it wasn't for the drugs, he most likely would have.
"Where's my mom?" he breathed before Kyuubi reached for something in his pocket.
"Are you wondering why she wanted you to come home?" the man asked as he flashed the cell phone that belonged to his mother for him to see with an evil smirk on his twisted lips.
Naruto just stared back contemptuously, eyes glaring heatedly at the man before him.
"Wipe that look off your face," the red haired man threatened as he glared down upon Naruto intimidatingly who stared back with eyes narrowed.
"I don't have a look on my face; I'm just not afraid of you."
There was a gun in his face before his voice could fade but Naruto didn't seem as fazed by it as Kyuubi wanted him to be.
"You won't shoot me–"
But before he could finish, Kyuubi was pointing the gun at Kidomaru instead and he looked a little startled.
"You," he addressed rudely as he gestured with the gun pointed at aforementioned 'you', "Would you rather go to prison or get a bullet through your forehead?"
Kidomaru didn't respond verbally because he didn't really need to.
"Put a gun at his temple and kill him if I tell you to."
The cold barrel pressed against his skin and it felt a little more difficult to breathe when he was afraid to move as the safety was clicked off. Or maybe it was that fluid building up in his lungs, who knows?
All he knew was that Kidomaru really might kill him.
Kyuubi wouldn't shoot him – no, because Naruto was still a kid and there would be more of an investigation like there was with Haku; and Kyuubi didn't want to deal with that.
But he very might indirectly put a bullet in his head by forcing Kidomaru into doing it for him.
Naruto was frightened and he was pretty sure it showed.
"Ah, it's starting to click."
Blue eyes lifted up to meet Kyuubi's and at that moment, he held up a picture of himself and Sasuke at what could be considered an intimate distance; the photo seemed to be taken from a distance and without his knowledge and he glanced away again, unable to raise his vision any further than Kyuubi's feet. He felt horribly embarrassed.
Not that Sasuke was anything to be embarrassed about; it was just Kyuubi – he knew how to twist information into sharp words.
"This is the same boy who showed up that night you fucked me over and he looked pretty concerned – y'know I never pegged you as a faggot."(1)
Blonde eyebrows furrowed and Naruto bit his tongue and a phone was in his hands before he realized Kyuubi was handing him one.
"Call him. End it. It'll only get in the way."
Naruto clenched his jaw in an attempt to reign in the setback in his features; he didn't want to come off as frustrated – showing the fear he already had was bad enough. He didn't want to make his situation any worse.
His eyes shifted to the home-phone on his bedside table, and he grabbed it while depositing the one that belonged to Kyuubi on the wooden surface in exchange before dialing a number from memory, but not without blocking the number first to prevent Sakura from ever trying to call back; he only waited two and a half rings before she answered with an inquisitive 'Hello?'
"It's Naruto."
With a startling jump from the heart in his chest, he realized, Kyuubi still hadn't used Sasuke's name – so, just to test a theory; he wouldn't either. Maybe Kyuubi wasn't as informed as he'd assumed. Maybe he'd overestimated Kyuubi's abilities. Maybe he knew nothing more than what Sasuke looked like.
"I need to talk to that asshole who never answers a phone."
"Naruto? How're you feeling? And you know, he has a name and it's not an offensive word in any language. Is everything alright? You sound upset."
"Everything's fine. It's probably my fever," the blonde lied easily, eyes darting to the floor in disquiet when the phone was handed over – or probably grabbed away without her consent from the sound of it.
"Naruto?"
It was Sasuke.
"How are you feeling?"
"Go somewhere where you're alone."
It was quiet for a moment before he breathed an irritated 'ok' as he set off for his room, the door clicking shut behind him over the receiver of the phone.
"It's not working."
"What's not working?"
"Us. We're not working. I think we should–"
"No you don't. Something's going on. Are you alright?"
"Nothing's going on! I'm just not – it's just…I think we want something different."
"That's just not the vibe I was getting."
Sasuke wasn't buying it.
"Well then maybe you aren't as smart as you think you are."
Naruto hung up, features completely unreadable and monotone in his detachment as he set the phone on the bedside table without looking up.
There was an edge to his tone that Sasuke wouldn't misunderstand.
"So what's his name?" Kyuubi inquired with an edge of frustration to his tone that had Naruto smiling in triumph – so that was Kyuubi's motive and he had nothing on him.
And unfortunately, for Kyuubi, now that Naruto knew his motive behind that phone call was to get a name, he would never speak it, no matter what – even staring down the barrel of a gun.
Kyuubi had nothing! He had Sasuke's face and the knowledge that Naruto openly thought of him as an asshole, but Kyuubi didn't even know his first name. He probably had no idea Sasuke was part of his foster family either. Kyuubi had nothing and he was just bluffing.
As long as he kept his mouth shut, he'd be ok.
And for Sasuke, he didn't mind dying.
So he stared back up at Kyuubi with just as much confidence and fearlessness as he always had.
"Ha!"
He was backhanded on principle but Kyuubi wouldn't dare beat him any further, at least he assumed not – not with how poorly his wound was doing; the doctor continued to show concern about his condition.
Plus, he didn't care. Nothing would knock the smirk off his lips; he felt like he was on top of the world.
Until Kyuubi pushed him roughly back onto his bed and gave him one good, solid fist in the abdomen, very close to his injury, and there was a sharp pain near his shoulder before his chest hurt worse for a moment than any other injury he had and he gasped for air but he couldn't breathe and he tried to sit up but he somehow couldn't manage to; the doctor understood instantly and he reached over to pull him up because he wouldn't be able to breathe lying down anymore.
His breathing was quicker now and far too short and he looked unable to take an average or deep breath and Kyuubi stared at the doctor accusingly.
"He has to go to the hospital. His lung collapsed."
"Can you fix it?" Kyuubi asked in a threatening tone, but the doctor ignored it, two fingers pressed against the pulse in Naruto's wrist, eyebrows furrowed in unease.
"I can't fix him anymore – he's close to going into shock! And he has a fever so there's probably an infection."
"Well what do you need for something like that?"
"He needs a surgeon; and a hospital setting – he's not going to live without those things. He has minutes!"
As if to plead his case, Naruto coughed wetly, leaving a trail of blood down his chin which he wiped away with the heel of his shaking palm.
And just like that, he was pulled off his mattress and Naruto didn't remember much of how or when they got where they were parked before Kyuubi turned around to glare at him threateningly from the front seat of a car he didn't remember getting into in the first place.
"Say anything and you're dead. Get treated, don't speak, and get out."
The door was opened and he was pretty much shoved out of the car and he barely caught himself before the door was shut and the car took off in haste; he was left standing there at the sidewalk before the hospital and he felt like he couldn't breathe – he was curled forward a little, one arm grasped across his abdomen in an attempt to ease the pain.
He should walk forward – toward the door; but everything felt heavy and he felt sweaty and cold and a little bit hesitant on what to do once he did get into the hospital. He wasn't supposed to say anything and, right now, he was having a difficult time separating rational thought from scattered, insignificant concepts. So he worried about if he'd be able to talk at all without slipping up about something.
And did Kyuubi really just drop him off at the hospital?
He should walk forward – toward the door; but everything was still heavy and he was pretty sure that the tingling edge of darkness creeping over his vision wasn't going to stay at just the edge for much longer. Plus, he wasn't breathing very easily at all.
"Hey," a young woman addressed in a soft tone from somewhere to his left, "Are you alright?"
Naruto glanced over at her – she was medical personnel of some sort; he didn't know if she was a nurse or a doctor or even just someone who worked at a desk somewhere. All he knew was that she was in scrubs and she was someone affiliated with the hospital which was better than no one noticing him at all like the way it usually went.
His eyes rolled back and he was unconscious before his knees hit the ground.
oOo
When he woke up, or at least regained memory of legitimate cognitive thought, he had a flexible tube up his nose and down his throat and he instantly hated it; there was an IV in one arm and a blood pressure cuff just several inches below it, wrapped around his forearm. There were several electrodes stuck to his chest and back and the heart monitor they were attached to beeped quicker than his heart should have been beating; he had a second IV in his left arm, but it was unhooked and currently unused.
What the hell was going on?
He felt his lungs expand but it was different than naturally and he exhaled against it while he tried to move, but a hand on his forehead stilled him momentarily and he felt his chest ache when his lungs expanded again, and again he resisted by exhaling against it.
"Don't do that or we'll have to knock you out again. Just let it help, you need it."
Naruto glanced up, a little unsure of if he was awake or not, at the woman at his bedside – it was the same woman from outside; apparently she was a nurse. He was in the hospital, in a room lined with beds separated by curtains, machine's beeping loudly and frequently and medical personnel to outnumber the patients.
Was he out of his mind on drugs or was that a half-inch diameter tube in his chest?
He let his head fall back against the pillow and decided he didn't need to see anything beyond that. He felt out of it but glancing down helped him remember what happened and he knew where he was.
He was in a trauma center.
He was in a trauma center and a lot of pain – not just where Kyuubi stabbed him anymore either; he was aching everywhere. His muscles felt like lead and he couldn't talk. He couldn't make a single noise at all; the tube in his throat went right through his vocal chords and he couldn't even figure out how to try to speak – he just couldn't.
He was trapped in a silent box where all he could express was the agony he felt through his tightly clenched fists, his resolutely sealed jaw, and the way his eyebrows furrowed while he shut his eyes firmly in an attempt to escape the pain radiating from his searing injury. He wanted to move but there was a weight pressing down on his frame and he couldn't explain it, but he felt like he wasn't quite inside his body, and unsure where he'd move to even if he managed to do more than raise his hand further than a few inches before letting it fall back to rest at his side.
"I'm sorry if you're still in pain," the nurse apologized gently as the machine next to him continued to beep a little faster than when he'd been unconscious, or closer to it, "I can give you your next bolus in two hours."
What? He was already on pain medication? He was already on pain medication and still two hours from his next infusion and he still felt this horrible? That meant he would only continue to feel worse until then.
"Don't forget you can use your button," she reminded him in a tone so patient, it must have been something she told him routinely.
He glanced down toward the hand she was gesturing toward – oh – he was holding something connected to the IV pole next to him and it had a little green button at the top that was lit up in a friendly gesture for the go-ahead.
He pressed it with his thumb and felt a small rush that probably would have taken his breath away if he wasn't on a ventilator regulating his oxygen intake. It helped ease some of the ache for the wound in his lower chest – but it did almost nothing for his chest tube and now he was high and in pain and he didn't really like it.
But he wasn't complaining about what little the drug did for him and he went to click it again but nothing happened and his nurse patted his hand gently.
"Every six minutes, remember? It'll light up when it's ready."
He stared at it; the light was dull for what felt like much longer than six minutes before lighting up again and he pressed it the moment it did. Because there was nothing more he wanted to or could do other than lie there and stare at it while he waited.
He felt lightheaded.
And the feeling was so strange – because he was lying down and using no energy whatsoever; but he was still so dizzy.
He shut his eyes in an attempt to make it go away but it did little to ease the feeling and he pressed his upper body back against the bed behind him; he was lying with the top half of the bed pulled up enough so that he wasn't lying flat but he wasn't upright – probably better for his lungs and easier on his injuries.
"We're checking your hemoglobin. The test should be back any time; you may need another unit of blood. It's probably making the room spin if your blood count is too low."
Another unit of blood? How many had he gotten before now then? Had he really lost that much?
Was he even going to live? He wasn't all that sure right now; and it didn't look like his nurse was all that sure either.
"Your fever's still very high, but not like before," the nurse continued as she brushed back the sweaty bangs plastered to his forehead and he cracked blue eyes open to acknowledge her, "But the infection seems to be responding well to the antibiotics. You were running a hundred and six for a while there but while you were asleep it fell all the way down to a hundred and four. Some good news, finally," she delivered with an optimistic smile. He just stared at her – he didn't know what the hell else to do. That didn't sound like all that great of news; it seemed more substandard.
He had an infection? If he was responding to medication then that probably explained why he was finally able to form some sort of coherent thought for the first time since he arrived; he didn't know when that was – hours or days: no idea whatsoever.
All he remembered was that a significant amount of time passed in an odd state of mind – one he didn't wish to return to.
"Is there someone you want us to get into contact with? We do have ways of communicating. I know I keep saying it, but I'm not sure you hear me sometimes."
Naruto didn't remember her saying it before; he didn't remember much of her speaking at all, what the hell? But he shook his head softly in negation and the woman furrowed her eyebrows, features somewhat taken aback.
"What?"
By her reaction, it might not have been the first time she asked, but it was definitely the first time he responded and she seemed a little speechless.
"Are–are you sure? Most children – most people don't want to be alone…"
But again he shook his head and this time he shut his eyes tightly, maybe in some sort of attempt to escape from her, and the woman furrowed her eyebrows at the situation before her.
"Well can I have your name? Do you think you can tell me that?"
But again, he shook his head and he kept his eyes shut as he avoided her in any way he could.
Most people didn't react the way he was in a situation as serious as this; most children and even most young adults wanted their parents – even a good proportion of middle-aged and elderly patients had someone. So the fact that he so badly didn't want anyone here made it instantly suspicious.
Plus, he was a minor, so if he was refusing to give them contact information, she had protocol to follow.
"Hey, I'm gonna need CPS on a patient," the nurse requested through the small receiver attached to the sleeve of her shirt.
"Which patient, Shizune?"
"Uh, patient zero-seven-one-two," she replied as she lifted Naruto's forearm gently to check the number on the band around his wrist.
Naruto couldn't really cry – but tears poured down his face with his frustration because even though he kept his mouth shut, CPS was getting involved and Kyuubi was going to kill him; he could make no noise of protest and he wanted to speak or at least communicate his discontent.
He wouldn't go home with Sasuke or anyone from that household; he wouldn't get put in any foster home at all – if he remained as silent as he planned on being, he would go straight to a group home the second he was discharged while they tried to figure out who he was and where he came from and which family he belonged to, if any at all. They just didn't have funding to spend time on finding another nameless sixteen-year-old from one of the worst neighborhoods in the city a good home; it'd be different if he was nine, like when he found the Uchiha's.
Well, more like when Sasuke found him.
And it'd be different if they didn't assume his injury was gang related like Naruto expected they would.
"I'm sorry, you're probably so scared," Shizune soothed in a soft voice as she brushed away the tear tracks from his whiskered cheeks. Should he be scared? She sounded confident that he should. It made his anxiety spike, "But you should feel optimistic. Your surgery was very successful," he had surgery? "And you're doing much better today than when you got here on Monday."
Monday? When was Monday? He just stared at her because all of that was useless information to him with his state of mind.
"It's Wednesday," she continued, as if she read his thoughts right off the paper filling the file in her lap; there wasn't a machine that did that, right? No way, that was impossible. Those were the drugs putting corrupted thoughts in his mind. She was probably very experienced with people in Naruto's situation if she worked in a trauma center. She understood a thing or two about his ability to retain information with the amount of drugs he was on; especially if he was put under for surgery sometime within the past few days, or if he was running a temperature of a hundred and six degrees.
"We're going to see about getting that tube out after seeing those test results. If your blood count is low, we're going to keep it in until after your blood transfusion is finished and we get a new read on your numbers. So just be strong a little longer; the worst part is over."
His tests came back and his hemoglobin was still low, so his nurse had the second IV going with a transfusion while the other pumped fluids into his bloodstream and every few minutes the blood pressure cuff would tighten around his forearm and the machine would beep for Shizune to warn her that his blood pressure was too low and his heart rate too high, and the machine hooked up to his chest tube clicked softly at different intervals as it pulled the excess fluid from around his collapsed lung, and the machine breathing for him would hiss every few moments so softly, it was mostly drown out by the other noises filling the air; but Naruto heard it – honed in on it – and all of it was so overwhelming because he couldn't get away from it.
He couldn't help but feel anxious and restless and uneasy, especially with the way his heart raced, even though he did nothing but lie there while everything connected to him survived for him. He wished he could just…briefly escape from it, even if only for a small moment, just to catch his bearings and reign in his sanity a little.
But that was impossible so he laid there and did nothing but feel how much pain he was in.
Four and a half hours later, as the transfusion finished itself off, his blood pressure raised a bit but his heart rate didn't change; he was in too much pain for that to drop significantly, and Shizune took that into consideration when deciding whether to pull the tube or not.
He wasn't sure how long it would be between his blood transfusion and the removal of his breathing tube, but he was pretty sure a significant amount of time was passing. He had a strange dream that felt more like choppy recollections of the past few days and he wondered if those days really happened or if he just dreamt they did and when they happened – if they happened – he didn't know; he was having a difficult time sorting out strange memories of events he wasn't sure happened from reality and the day he was in right now. It was all very strange.
And then there was that thing Shizune did with the machine attached to the tube down his throat that suctioned all the excess fluid from his lungs. It made him cough and it was painful as it agitated the fresh wounds in his abdomen in a way that made his eyes water without consent and he really didn't give a fuck if he cried in front of Shizune; he'd already done it once before and nothing horrible happened then.
It didn't matter; Shizune seemed genuinely apologetic the entire time she had to do it and for several minutes after – so he felt safe assuming that he wasn't overreacting. She had a way of reassuring him without even knowing it.
When she was done, he laid there completely winded, and it felt like he couldn't catch his breath. What should he do? She returned the machine to normal; it was breathing averagely for him – but he felt short-winded and unable to do a thing about it. It was uncomfortable, and he felt dizzy again, like when he was low on blood and he wanted to say something but he physically couldn't: not until the tube was gone.
"You might feel out of breath – it's ok. You'll feel better soon. I'm sorry."
She kept apologizing; like it was her fault he was hanging on to life by a tendon when he never would have had a thing to grasp on to if it hadn't been for her.
When he did finally get the tube out, he still needed oxygen through the mask over his lower face and it was more difficult to breathe than he'd anticipated but he'd been assured that it was normal and that the fluid around his lungs was receding and his collapsed lung was doing well despite how frustrated he felt with how hard it was to keep his oxygen level normal. He needed a lot of assistance with breathing throughout the day when those numbers dropped.
But that's what the nurse assigned to him solely twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week was for.
He could talk now – not that he spoke a word; he was just able to express his pain more openly which he resisted from doing as much as possible.
Shizune was his favorite nurse; she was so empathetic to him – his other nurses were nice too but not like she was. She actually talked to him about what was going on. His other nurses didn't seem to have the same type of patience. Or maybe they just thought he couldn't follow what they were saying so they didn't bother trying to give him details. They probably thought he was stupid; especially with the way he just stared at them, somewhat distantly thanks to the drugs, any time he was asked a question.
He felt more at ease when Shizune was working; he couldn't explain it – he was just grateful she worked a lot. She had been his day nurse pretty consistently.
Still, no matter what, he couldn't say a word. He knew if he began communicating about one thing, it would lead to another, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to shut his mouth before it was too late, and he knew it by the way he desperately wanted to just unclench his teeth and scream for someone that gave a shit – Mikoto, Sasuke, his mom if she was still alive; anyone willing to sit there and lie to him about how this was nothing and how he'd be better really soon if he just kept his eyes forward and stayed optimistic.
He really wanted to see someone he knew just to have something to lean against – someone to carry just a fraction of his burden so it wouldn't seem so bad anymore.
He had always shouldered a respectable amount of responsibilities, even at a young age; but this was different from a scraped knee or a broken arm or bills to pay or Kyuubi's imprisonment of him and his mother – and he ached for his father worse than he had since he was a child and the wound was fresh because everything he did failed horribly and he was realizing with a profound amount of trepidation that maybe he couldn't do this on his own.
Especially when the ache progressed to that stabbing pain in his abdomen and he realized it wasn't loneliness burning his chest, it was his sore lungs, and the wound running an inch and a half long and four inches deep just under his ribcage; the chest tube hurt sharply and it felt raw, with the way his skin ached around it every time his chest moved with each breath he took and his muscles shook with the effort it took not to scream or yell.
But even then he couldn't have stopped that pathetic groan from slipping out, or the way he whined softly for his father before he realized that he'd mumbled it aloud and he tried to shut his mouth but a new wave of pain sort of forced him to forget and he groaned a little more in distress when his breathing started to quicken.
These drugs were fucking with his head.
"Deep breath," Shizune coaxed as she sat his bed up a few degrees closer to upright; not so far that he had to support himself, but enough to help open up his lungs, "Remember about breathing too quickly?"
Yeah, it was bad for him; he got it.
But it was really hard, if not just downright impossible for him to slow down at times – times like now when every inhale was painful because he was coming down off his bolus of pain medication so every breath sent his cognitive spiraling with mixed signals and every synapse firing with response to pain, pain, pain!
All he could do was gasp, groan, and gasp more for air while Shizune coached him back into a normal breathing range, one shaking, pale hand clenching at his bare chest while the other clutched the breathing mask over his face; sometimes it felt like it was suffocating him and he tried to pull it away just to relieve the feeling of claustrophobia before Shizune would redirect it over his mouth and he would leave it there for a while because it was easier to breathe with it on, even if his poorly running cognition wouldn't allow him to perceive it that way. He just understood it better after taking a few gasps at the same air Shizune was breathing.
"Do you want us to call your dad?" Shizune asked gently, when his oxygen level was returning to normal and he was breathing less harshly.
Naruto just stared at her for a moment before glancing away to stop himself from talking.
Shizune was so nice to him – there was no irritation or impatience in her tone; she was merely asking should he be too afraid or winded to voice the question himself. He was lucky to have her.
Yeah, he did want them to call his dad – he wanted them to call him back from the dead so he could have some concrete ground to stand on in this fucked up world he lived in.
But that was impossible so he shook his head softly and he refused to meet her gaze for a while.
A few days showed him incredible progress and he was able to sit up – if he wasn't lying down completely flat – and scoot to the edge of the bed. It was strange how exhausting holding himself up was, and he wasn't even on his feet; it was a little startling that it made him this dizzy.
He had spent a total of five days in the trauma center so far and Shizune kept saying he'd probably be ready to transfer to the pediatric ward by tomorrow which would be a lot more comfortable considering he'd have his own room.
That was something he was looking forward to.
"Shizune."
Naruto glanced up at the familiarity of the voice addressing his nurse in complete disbelief to see the large-chested woman approaching.
"What the hell? Naruto?"
Naruto sighed for himself as he avoided Tsunade's inquisitive stare, features twisted with incredulity; Shizune seemed taken aback by all of it.
"You know his name?" Shizune asked while she turned more fully toward Tsunade.
"Of course I know his name! He's a student at the high school."
"What the hell are you even doing here?" Naruto breathed with a good amount of difficulty; the question left him winded and breathing a little quicker than before he'd opened his mouth.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Tsunade countered as she approached his bedside without hesitation.
"I'm sick; we faxed you the doctor's note already so go away."
He was trying to pull the sheets on his bed up to cover his chest, but he seemed just as hesitant to lie the material across his wounded abdomen and Tsunade shot the ceiling an unamused look for his attempt at playing it off.
"Naruto, you don't get admitted to a level one trauma center for 'mono'," she replied easily, while Shizune stared oddly at both of them.
"Mono?" the brunette questioned, eyebrows furrowed, "He doesn't have mono."
"No," she agreed in an imposing tone, "He doesn't."
"Why are you drilling me? Fuck. I'm in the hospital," the blonde complained with enough frustration in his quiet tone to make his point as he closed his eyes and released his sheets with an irritated edge, one hand rising to rest on his chest; all this talking was getting him winded and he was wary that his breathing rate would escalate.
"Deep breath," Tsunade instructed, earning an odd stare from the blonde in the hospital bed – he was expecting the order to come from Shizune.
He focused on trying to get his chest cavity to expand far enough to count as a 'deep breath' but it was difficult to do when every small inhalation horribly irritated the incisions along his chest.
"Shizune, let me see his chart."
Naruto's head popped off his pillow and he stared at Tsunade like she was mad.
"You can't just look at my medical records! That's against the law!" he reminded in a breathless tone; he was getting lightheaded.
"I teach a class at this hospital in the evenings and I have a valid license to practice – I'm not breaking any laws."
"You are if I didn't consent–"
"You're a minor, and a ward of the state. So it doesn't matter which doctors you want to see your case file. Plus, emergency and trauma situations have similar exceptions due to the inability of the patient to consent to life-saving situations."
"I'm conscious enough now to make decisions for myself," he argued steadily.
"But when you factor in all the drugs pumping through your system and tickling your little brain, you can't really assume that you'd be able to make the rational decision in any given situation; like now for instance – I'm a very good doctor. Maybe I could save your life. This series of events is a situation where I have reason to look in your file," she explained while flipping open the manila folder like she owned the place.
"I'm not dying anymore. But you definitely weren't saving my life when I was – Shizune saved my life," he urged, his voice growing softer and more difficult to use with each word he spoke.
Her features grew more solemn the longer she read and for a moment, Naruto thought he might have finally shut her up.
But she flipped the record closed and handed it back before shooting Naruto a reassuring smile that caught him off guard.
"Then teaching her, alone, was worth my entire career in the medical field," Tsunade deemed easily, earning an odd look from the blonde; he seemed startled by the affection he heard there and her smile softened, "You need to stop talking for now until your breathing rate returns to normal."
He just stared at her – that's all he could do; he was taken aback by all of it and a little overwhelmed by the comfort of a familiar adult that actually gave him some solid direction to follow.
"I'll call the Uchiha's."
Naruto felt his heart jump – no! They couldn't call the Uchihas! Kyuubi would kill him if he found out.
"Just call my mom – she's my legal guardian."
"Explain to me what happened first," she compromised as she crossed her arms over her large chest.
"I got jumped. That's why I have no wallet."
What a convenient truth for the lie that his custody rested upon.
"It's true, he didn't have one on him when he got here. It's part of why we didn't know his name," Shizune supplied in a mostly convinced tone.
But he was on a lot of drugs, and he was finding it difficult to think as quickly as he usually did and he really hoped Tsunade didn't drill into details.
"Why'd you refuse to tell anyone your name then? What do you have to hide?"
"Because I know they wouldn't believe me! It's not the first time it's happened; I've just never been stabbed before."
It was true, he'd been mugged before – several times; and it was also true that CPS had checked up on him once after a nasty beating in a back alley sometime around the age of thirteen when he refused to give up his wallet, so it wasn't difficult to relay the information.
"Tsunade-sama…?"
"I know you're lying," Tsunade assured easily while he shot her an irritated glare.
"How would you know? You weren't there. You can't take me away for getting jumped; we just live in a bad area. Being poor isn't a choice – do you have any idea what it's like for my mom? You can't just move away somewhere better! It doesn't work that way! Where would we get the money?"
"This isn't about your family's financial state. Your situation is unique because of certain affiliations you and your mother have, not to mention that I know you; you're convincing enough to hoodwink someone like Shizune who knows very little about you – but I'm more familiar with your behaviors. I know you're lying. You didn't get mugged," Tsunade argued steadily; Naruto glared heatedly at her for what he knew she was going to pursue next, "Does the reason you got stabbed possibly have anything to do with your mother's boyfriend?"
He didn't even want to know how she knew about any of that and he felt his frustration spike.
"He's not her boyfriend," he denied heatedly.
"That's how you identified him to police in the past."
"I was fucked up on drugs when that happened–" he was too fucked up on drugs to wonder how she even knew about such an isolated incident, "–but even if he was her boyfriend, and even if even if it did have to do with him, how does that become her fault? Huh? If he wanted to, he could find me anywhere I was."
"But the fact is that you've never been taken from or hurt while with the Uchiha's; you've never even entered a threatening situation while living there. This isn't about whether or not your mother would ever hurt you – and it's not her fault she can't put you in a safe setting; but our main concern is that you're a minor and you're consistently in a threatening environment because you're far more accessible to a person who continues to antagonize you when you're living there. And I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. That's what the statistics show."
"That's not true, someone shot at us at the Uchiha's not that long ago."
"While you were in your mother's custody," she clarified in an unwavering tone.
"You've been looking for a reason to put me in foster care," Naruto accused with furrowed eyebrows and an angry fire to his glassy eyes.
"Yes, I have. You're grades are suffering horribly and you look sick half the time – not as much this semester; you've pulled most of your grades up to a C. But you downright failed most of your classes last semester. I know your potential and I know things aren't going well for you."
"They were before this! And they will be after," he insisted, the injustice clear in his tone.
"I'm calling the Uchihas," Tsunade finalized; Naruto's features twisted in disappointment and he let his head fall back against the bed behind him as he closed his eyes and released a noise of frustration.
"Tell them to just send Sasuke," he pleaded softly, eyes avoiding any person within his vicinity.
"I'll tell them that's what you want. Shizune finish out your shift; I'll make the call and you can meet me at the front desk."
With that she turned and left and there was nothing Naruto could have done to stop or even prolong the inevitable and he felt his frustration building and it made his throat feel much smaller and his breathing was getting quicker.
"Fuck!" he breathed as he forced away the urge to cry, but he was so frustrated and it was difficult to do, especially with all his pain and the drugs in his system.
"Everything will be ok," Shizune promised in a voice hardly above a whisper, Naruto stared at her quietly as he attempted to control his breathing because he wasn't sure how to respond. People didn't usually tell him that, "Things have a way of smoothing themselves over – you just have to give it time."
If only he had time; Kyuubi was out of prison – and he saw Sasuke's face before he went in: which meant he spent three months figuring out how to get back at Naruto.
"Deep breath," she continued gently when he started to wheeze a little.
"Good evening, you two," the night nurse greeted while Shizune turned before rising from her chair to meet her acknowledgement and return the salutation.
"Look, don't feel down, ok? You'll probably get to transfer upstairs very soon; I'll see you tomorrow, Naruto-kun."
"Naruto-kun?" the night nurse questioned as she turned inquisitive eyes on her young patient.
"Yeah, it's my name," he supplied between the deep breaths Shizune was reminding him to take, gaze resting somewhere around his knees and avoiding hers at all costs. The night nurse picked up where Shizune left off, and it wasn't long before he was breathing normally again and he tried not to let his frustration choke him up any more than his pain already did.
He was tired. He wanted to try and sleep.
But his foster family was probably going to be here soon after straightening everything out with CPS. He prayed they heeded his request; he wasn't sure he could see all of them right now.
"Is there a shirt or something I could get on?"
He was wearing hospital shorts, but a shirt would be nice. He really didn't want anyone to see his chest; it was probably gross – he hadn't really looked yet. He saw the chest tube and that was bad enough. He wasn't sure how bad the wound in his lower-chest looked. Either way, he wouldn't be able to downplay it if it was out in the open. So, a little cover would help.
"Sure, I'll get someone to bring one over."
Sitting up to get the shirt on had been the hardest part. It was light green and it slid on like a vest. His left arm went in easy as the IV on that one was unattached, but his nurse had to pause his IV and detach the lines for his right arm. It only took a moment and he felt better when he was able to drape the left half of his shirt over his chest to cover his injury and the entrance site to the chest tube. He couldn't pull the right side up to meet the left half; he was pretty sure he'd upset the chest tube if he did – although he wasn't positive and he wasn't about to give it a go just to find out.
All he knew was that he was exhausted and perfectly fine with just the left half of the shirt lying loosely across his chest because even that small amount of pressure somehow managed to hurt so it wasn't stretching it to assume he'd probably prefer it this way anyway.
It was less than an hour before he heard a familiar voice from very close down the hall and he looked up in time to see Sasuke only several steps away.
"This explains a lot," the brunette began as he approached the edge of the bed carefully and sat at the chair on his left side, opposite from the nurse.
"Please forgive me Sasuke," he breathed as he pulled the mask off his face to speak more directly at the person before him, "I didn't want–"
But he cut himself off there with a frustrated look and he furrowed his eyebrows as he broke eye contact; to Sasuke it looked like he wanted to continue – like he had so much to say. But his posture took Sasuke a little by surprise and he realized, for the first time, Naruto never wanted to keep him in the dark; Naruto was being threatened into keeping his mouth shut, and he felt excruciatingly guilty for his lack of empathy. He gave Naruto a lot of shit about the amount of information he decided to share.
"What happened, dobe?" Sasuke questioned softly.
"I'm sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing."
"What are you talking about?"
"Sasuke don't you even get it at all?" the blonde began, as he stared regretfully toward the brunette to his left, "Kyuubi saw you. When he finds you, he's going to fucking kill you – just to get back at me."
"First of all, he's in prison so what are you even talking about?"
Naruto's lips parted as he realized with a sinking feeling how the information he provided strongly insinuated that Kyuubi was out of prison and that he was directly responsible for his hospitalization.
"He's out on parole," the blonde mumbled as his gaze shifted away.
"So is Kyuubi the one who did this to you then?"
He did nothing to acknowledge the question Sasuke asked him and his downcast eyes shifted further away. His nurse glanced up to see his response; she saw a lot of this working in a trauma center – a lot of trauma patients had gang affiliations: especially with where their hospital was located.
But Naruto ignored Sasuke valiantly so she returned her attention to her paperwork and she read the machines and recorded his vitals; he'd been ignoring that same line of questions for a week.
"Ok, I get it," Sasuke snapped, when Naruto refused to recognize the question, "I get it," he repeated in a nicer tone, "I'll drop it."
Blue eyes lifted to meet Sasuke's dark ones and Naruto shot him an inquiring gaze with furrowed eyebrows.
"I'm trying to act more 'empathetic'," the brunette explained in a somewhat apathetic tone that contradicted his message. But Naruto knew he wasn't going to convey it in his tone – not if he was saying it too; it was one or the other if either at all.
Naruto parted his lips to respond but the pain around his chest tube flared and he shut his eyes, teeth clenching shut as he pressed his head back against the pillow beneath him. He felt himself break out in a cold sweat.
"Dobe, you ok?"
The nurse glanced up at the concern in his voice and she looked down upon Naruto, examining his features and the way he went to clench his chest with his left arm but only let it hover over the area where his chest tube was before curling his fingers and pulling back a little. He had the urge to grab at the area radiating pain, but he knew he'd only make it worse for himself, so he resisted and he hoped it would pass soon.
"I need to check your chest tube," the young woman explained before gently lifting and opening the shirt to reveal most of his chest.
Naruto glanced toward Sasuke and Sasuke looked up toward him a little breathlessly after seeing what lie beneath his thin hospital shirt; he wasn't expecting for it to be so bad.
Her fingers ran along the tube and Naruto felt unease rush up and down his spine because pain medication didn't even touch his chest tube, and he didn't like that she was touching it so much; any movement of it at all was horribly painful.
"There's a small clog," the nurse explained as she kneaded the tube an inch and a half away from where it entered his chest.
Naruto groaned from the way it irritated the skin around the tube as it bent in her fingers; it was enough to cause his sharp breathing to get a little quicker because he was afraid of expanding his chest cavity and causing himself any more pain.
"Try and breathe normally, okay?"
"Ok-ay," he grit out through tightly clenched teeth.
But it was just impossible and he was beginning to feel frustrated too.
"Naruto, look at me," Sasuke coaxed, pulling his gaze from his nurse's hands to meet Sasuke's dark eyes, "Last weekend, my parents took us hiking. They're on a nature trip since Sakura's retreat and while we were on this trail, my dad saw a fawn stuck in a pond – deep breath, dobe – It was supposed to rain that night and he didn't want it to drown so he went to help it out. As soon as he got it out, the mother showed up and rammed him into the pond and my mom made him sit in the trunk the whole way home because she didn't want him to ruin the interior. It was so great."
Naruto closed his eyes halfway through Sasuke's recollection and his lips curved into a soft smile for half a moment as he thought about it before the pain in his chest re-grounded him – he could see it; Mikoto was the only person alive that could actually intimidate a man like Fugaku into doing as she said.
His nurse sighed in relief and she released the tube gently as she grabbed for her paperwork to record everything she needed to and Naruto released the breath in his lungs in the small amount of relief it gave him.
"We're lucky – it came loose pretty fast. I was about to call the surgeon for advice," she admitted in a strangely optimistic tone that didn't really convey the message of her words; Naruto just dodged a bullet – if the clog was bad enough, there was a good chance they'd have to give him an entirely new chest tube and somehow, a third hole in his chest sounded unappealing.
"Hm," she hummed as she glanced toward the clock on the wall and again at the chart, "You're due for a bolus."
She moved toward the IV pole to press at the buttons on the PC pump where he got his pain medication.
The concentration of the drug in his blood stream increased as she administered his bolus and Sasuke watched as his eyelids slipped half shut and it looked like drowsiness was blanketing over him as the drug developed efficiency by the adjustment of the strength of it while it pumped through his veins.
He tried to blink away his fatigue before shifting his gaze to stare at his nurse with furrowed eyebrows and he prayed he didn't look as desperate as he felt. He was exhausted.
"I wanna go home," he breathed in an almost pleading tone – as if there was something his nurse could do about it. To Sasuke, it sounded like something he asked about a lot.
"You can't go home – not for a few more days at least; you're transferring out of here sometime tonight actually so that's something to look forward to. I'm waiting to hear back when a room opens up; they're about to start discharging a patient right now so it should be sometime tonight or early tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"
"Discharging takes a while – trust me, if they're just starting now, it'll be a while. Do you know how many signatures you need for that? And tracking down all the doctors that need to approve it–"
Naruto shifted his tired gaze back to Sasuke as she plowed on, eyes on the chart within the folder on her lap that she was filling out, and he tuned out the rest of what she said which wasn't too much as she returned the majority of her attention to her work.
"Sasuke, I wanna go."
"You can't," he reemphasized with an affectionate and somewhat sad smile; he was willing to try anything.
"Yeah, I can – I'll be fine; they can't actually make me stay here. It's not prison. You can help me leave."
"If you try and leave, I'll fifty-one-fifty you – you'd be out of your mind to misunderstand how badly you need to be here. You can't leave, especially not with your chest tube still in; you'll die outside of the hospital right now," his nurse interrupted without even lifting her eyes from the charts in her lap.
Naruto didn't turn to acknowledge her but Sasuke could tell her words sunk in by the sour look on his face as he glared with half-lidded eyes toward nothing in particular.
"It'll be over soon, dobe, and I won't leave so just hang in there."
And he didn't leave, even though Naruto kept drowsily insisting that he go home and sleep as it got later but he didn't waver and he sat there quietly even when Naruto drifted in and out of the small amount of light sleep he was able to get through the early morning; it was so noisy here – he was surprised anyone slept at all.
He usually only woke up to press the button in his hand before drifting off again and every so often he'd get yanked from sleep by the worsening pain when he'd neglected it for too long and Sasuke could see the frustration in his features when it woke him up.
It was somewhere near four-thirty when an administrator came to inform his nurse that the room would be ready within the hour and she thanked him for letting them know before he turned and left and she reached for something near the ground.
"Did Shizune empty this and forget to record it? Do you remember when she last emptied it?" the nurse asked as she examined the container where his chest tube emptied into.
"She didn't empty it today. She said she didn't need to – she said you must have emptied it just before she got here," he mumbled groggily, eye-lids heavy but cognition in motion at the idea of getting out of here.
"Well that's good news because the last time I drained it was this time yesterday and there's only 37cc's in here; that's a pretty good indication that you're ready to get the chest tube out."
When Naruto heard 'ready to get the chest tube out' he wanted it instantly, and he fixated on any attempt he could think of to sway her to just do it now – that he'd be fine and probably recover more quickly without the horrible pain of having it; especially if he didn't need it.
But she just smiled sweetly at his attempts and assured him that it was information she would verbally pass along to his pediatric nurse when he was transferred and they would probably decide when he got there. Plus, the low drainage could be from the blockage and they'd need time for more tests to be sure because they didn't want to pull it until they were sure.
It was about fifteen minutes before a pair of nurses came to move him and it took forever because they had to move his IV and the machine draining his chest cavity with him. But when he finally got there, he felt his anxiety ease by just the change of environment alone; it was far less intense on the pediatric ward and most of the hospital personnel walking around here seemed cheerful and bubbly. It made him feel like a kid, which he usually didn't.
His room was painted with big, bright otters near the top half of the wall and he loved staring at each of them as they wrapped around the walls, each as cute and unique as the last; it was way better than the pale green walls covering most of the rest of this place. It was a retro style of art that was probably painted sometime during their early childhood and it made him feel young and somehow more comfortable, and the drugs he was on made the colors so appealing – appealing enough to take his mind off his pain a small bit. It made him feel a little less like he was in the hospital.
He was glad he was still young enough to get on this ward.
"Somehow I feel nostalgic," Sasuke admitted, eyes glued to the wall where Naruto was staring as well.
"I was thinking the same thing," he breathed with a grateful smile through a drowsy yawn, "It makes me feel better."
It was another two days before he got his chest tube out, and it was incredible how quickly Naruto regained movement afterward. He was up and walking and when he was discharged just days later, he seemed to be recovering quickly. Physically – he was returning to his previous condition in leaps and bounds. He was right on track and maybe even a little ahead in his healing process.
But he had become detached – far worse than he had any time before; and none of them really knew how to approach it or even bring it up. Naruto twisted every explanation because everything was always ok and no big deal so nothing to worry about.
He spent his month of summer vacation staring out his bedroom window and agreeing to everything anyone suggested; he never said no and he never had an opinion on anything. He was so busy convincing everyone around him that he wasn't absolutely lost inside his mind that he forgot to act confrontational and witty. He forgot to point out every stupid flaw to anything that bothered him, even when none existed. He forgot to act like Naruto.
But still, he wasn't acting unhappy or inconvenient, so how did someone have the right to complain about his attitude adjustment. Until it was detrimental to the rest of them, none of them had any business asking about it.
Naruto felt like time was at an absolute standstill; he didn't know what to expect next – he didn't know what the next milestone was or how to reach it. All he knew was that sitting at whatever strange dead end he was at right now wasn't going to solve his problems or make them disappear.
Kyuubi was lurking around somewhere, he just knew it, and he was probably pissed as hell that he was in foster care.
He was just waiting for the right time to approach him about it.
It was one afternoon just before the end of his summer vacation, when he'd been walking back to the bus station from a visit with Gaara that Kyuubi found him.
He was grabbed by the back of his shirt and dragged into the alleyway as he passed it before he was shoved up against the brick wall of the building behind him and two hands were laced into the front of his shirt threateningly.
"You weren't supposed to speak! You idiot! I could have easily abducted you from a group home, especially if they didn't have your fucking name!"
"I didn't give them my name!" the blonde insisted, a pleading in his tone that sounded as genuine as it came, "My teacher showed up for something else and she told them my name! I didn't say anything I swear!"
"And how am I supposed to know that you're not lying?"
"Well no one's bothered you, have they?" Naruto shot back accusingly, "I didn't say anything! She just gave them my name–"
"Don't get comfortable because this isn't over. You'll be back before you know it."
He shoved Naruto back against the wall roughly before releasing him and disappearing around the corner and Naruto stood there, leaning back against the wall as he held onto his lower chest with one arm wrapped around his abdomen; they told him to take it easy – that his lung could collapse again if he was too active too soon.
And when his back hit the wall, it felt like he'd been punched in the chest and he worried about his lung collapsing a second time; they told him it was likely it could. And giving it a good shove sounded like a good way to provoke it.
Kyuubi probably knew that.
But he was able to steady his breathing and the sharp pain receded and he knew he was ok for now.
Kyuubi said it. It still wasn't over – so he was still at a standstill and he was still standing before the very same dead end he'd envisioned previously; only now, he was positive it existed and now he knew Kyuubi wasn't giving up on getting him back into his mother's custody.
And he realized – he had no dice to throw; all he could do was sit and wait for Kyuubi to throw his.
oOo
1. I hate this word. It offends me. But it fits very well into the exact thing I want Kyuubi to do to Naruto and that is, insult him. I do not extend that insult to you, the reader, and I definitely don't condone the use of that word in any way; my aim is more to make an example at how offensive it is.
Also, I know that in Naruto's situation while he's in the hospital, he would have a tracheostomy stoma and a breathing tube through his neck – not a nasotracheal tube – but for personal reasons, I can't write about former. So it is what it is :]
One chapter to go! See you next monday!