A/N: Not my longest chapter, but a lot happens.

Needs and Distractions

For the fifth morning in a row, Naruto woke a good two hours before classes started and raced through showering and getting ready to go. Then he immediately logged onto the student Net to look up a few pertinent scores. And broke into a shit-eating grin.

He was now in the top ten. Number seven, to be exact. At the beginning of the year, he'd been in the bottom one hundred. Sakura was number two, beaten out by Temari for the top spot.

Then he pulled up the Coordinator scores. Gaara was still unchallenged as number one, but Hinata had worked her way up into the number two spot. Naruto felt a burst of pride toward the shy girl. She may not be the most social of the Coordinators, but he knew she worked her ass off. And Sasuke had improved, too. He'd gone from number six to number four.

We're both doing better. Guess it was a good idea after all, mixing up our partnering. He grinned to himself.

"Hey, man," Kiba called groggily, "you goin' ta go practice with Tsunade-sensei?"

"Yep!" Naruto confirmed.

The wild-haired dog lover shambled out of bed. "Wait," he said, covering a wide yawn. "I'll come with you."

"I'm gonna go ahead. Hurry and join when you're ready!" So saying, he bolted out of the dorm and sprinted across the grounds to the sparring wing.

For days now, he'd met up with Tsunade first thing in the morning. She had a way of teaching that just made everything seem so brilliantly clear. She was the most powerful Coordinator he'd ever seen, and when he linked up with her it felt as though he could do anything.

She was waiting for him, and she smiled when she saw him, arms folded under her ample chest. "Finally, brat. I have some good news for you. The Hokage decided to host the bonding ceremony at the end of the year. I told him we had remarkable talent this year, and he wants to meet them."

"What!" Naruto exclaimed, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Really? I can't believe it! Now I can show him my stuff!"

Tsunade snorted. "Try not to get too ahead of yourself. You've got a long way to go until then. You ready to start working with your third form?"

Taking a deep breath, Naruto nodded. They'd done so only once before, but despite the destructive power of his third form, Tsunade had handled it with skill. Not ease, she'd admitted to him. But she'd taught him a meditative exercise to help improve his overall control, something she'd promised would help with that dangerous form.

The Director held out her hands to him. She was too tall for him to embrace from behind, but for this transformation, it wasn't needed. They simply linked hands and began.

o0o

Kiba, Sakura, and Ino had been quick to capitalize on their friendship with Naruto when they discovered his private lessons with Tsunade. The Director had surprised Naruto by easily agreeing to them joining these training sessions. Not only had she helped each of them develop new jutsu, she'd helped every one of their scores improve. Naruto liked her a helluva lot.

During their first session she'd asked, "You already have a Coordinator picked out, don't you?"

"Yep!" Naruto had replied.

She'd nodded. "You remind me a little of Kakashi when he was your age. Instantly developed a fixation, and even though he partnered with just about the entire class, he never lost it. I like your conviction. So who've you chosen?"

He had a feeling she already knew that, just wanted to hear him say it. "Sasuke," he'd told her, "Uchiha."

She'd pursed her lips as she studied him. "When Kakashi told me of his teaching method, and that you had your eye on Sasuke, I started watching you both. I have to say, you two have very . . . well, how shall I say it. Your chakras clash. They always will, I think. That said, I'll only as this once: are you sure Sasuke's the one you want?"

"Yes." He'd said it in a clipped, firm tone structured to sound neither defensive nor airy. He was dead serious about his choice.

"All right," she'd said with another nod. "The pair of you will have unique challenges ahead of you, because you both struggle with the same thing. It means you won't complement each other. You won't have his perfect control to balance out your lack of it. I'm not saying these things to discourage you, I'm only saying them to warn you. You will have to work very hard to improve, otherwise the Shinobi program will have a difficult time accepting your decision to bond with him. His Sharingan makes him very desirable to the Imperial Army, and so far you don't really stand out."

Then she winked. "I'm going to help you change that."

The first thing she'd done was introduce him to four Coordinators and have him partner with them in quick succession. One of them, Hinata, he already knew but had never worked with. All four of the Coordinators had excellent control but couldn't match his chakra levels. It turned out to be a very good thing.

It encouraged his partners to rely on his strength, which in turn allowed Naruto to focus more on honing control and not so much powering up destructive attacks.

Of these four, Hinata suited him the best. She turned out to be extremely proficient with both his first and second forms, which was a novelty. Most could only handle one and not the other. It was because of her skill and Tsunade's excellent teaching that Naruto developed (with incredible speed) the ability to incorporate parts of his second form into his first.

"Only one-tenth of all Controllers with multiple forms can do that," Tsunade had told him, her face calm but eyes proud.

Naruto couldn't help asking, "Can Kakashi-sensei?"

She chuckled. "Yes. But of the last forty Controllers with at least two forms to enter The Academy, he was the only one. Now he's one of two." She winked.

The hardest part of the rigorous training was being separated from Sasuke. As two days turned into four, he started to worry about his Coordinator. He tried not to, reminding himself Gaara and Suigetsu would take care of the raven.

Even so, as he finished his fifth morning with Tsunade, he promised to himself he would find Sasuke at lunch. He needed to remind the other teen of his continued devotion. And he really, really couldn't wait to partner up with him again.

When Tsunade unraveled their link, she shook her head. "You sure learn quickly once you apply yourself. I'm thinking about asking Iruka if he and Kakashi wouldn't mind sparring with me as your Coordinator."

"Oh, hell yes!" Naruto exclaimed. "Please!"

Chuckling, she ruffled his hair. "All right. I'll try to set up a time before Iruka leaves."

"All right!" Naruto crowed. "I can't wait!" Waving, he bolted out of the sparring room.

o0o

Feeling rather nervous, Sasuke paced down the halls of The Academy's central building until he reached the infirmary. Shizune's assistant, who ran the infirmary most of the time, had sent him a message to come down. Trying to convince himself it was nothing, he walked in.

Kabuto looked up from the desk in the office, and he stood up. He was a young man, maybe only twenty five. Sasuke didn't know much about him except he'd entered The Academy like all hopeful Shinobi. Only, he hadn't bonded at the end of his year despite high overall scores.

"Ah, Sasuke," he said. "Come in." He smiled. "Don't look so nervous. Shizune just asked me to do a little blood work to make sure there weren't any complications with your injuries."

Nodding, Sasuke followed him into a small exam room and hopped up onto the bed. Due to his severe case of hemophilia, he honestly should have expected this. "I'm current on plasma treatments," he offered, obediently taking off his shirt when Kabuto gestured he should do so.

"Yes, I saw that in your file," Kabuto agreed, putting one hand on Sasuke's chest and the other on his back to make him sit up straight. "Given the nature of this school, Shizune thought we shouldn't take any chances." He kept a kindly expression as he put a stethoscope to Sasuke's upper back. "Deep breaths."

Sasuke obeyed, grateful the young medic had warmed the instrument first. After a few seconds of listening to both heart and lungs, Kabuto took Sasuke's blood pressure. And frowned slightly.

"A little low for someone your age. Have you been feeling dizzy lately? Fainted?"

"No," Sasuke replied. Unless being almost knocked out by Naruto's crappy chakra control counted.

Nodding and seeming distracted, Kabuto tied a rubber band around Sasuke's arm just above the elbow and prepared a syringe. Sasuke looked away while the medic drew his blood, then Kabuto removed the rubber band and put a swab on the puncture site.

"Hold that for a few minutes while I go run the sample," he said. "Barring anything unexpected, you should be good until your physical in three weeks." Another mellow smile.

"Thanks," Sasuke said, pulling his uniform shirt back on.

While he waited, Sasuke stared blankly at the wall in front of him. His mind wandered over this and that, finally settling on his talk with Iruka yesterday. Kakashi had promised he would take the band off today, so would his interaction with Naruto resume as usual? Part of him hoped Naruto had found someone he wanted more than Sasuke so he would stop with his ridiculous assertions that they would bond at the end of the year.

Then Sasuke could focus on Controllers better suited to him.

The door opened and Kabuto walked back in with a digital chart. He looked troubled. "The clotting factor levels in your blood are satisfactory," he said a little slowly, "but I'm concerned about something else. There isn't any easy way to ask this, and please remember anything you tell me will be held in confidence, but are you using any illicit substances?"

Sasuke felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. "Why would you ask that?" he managed to ask in a relatively normal tone.

"Your blood work shows several hormone imbalances associated with the beginning stages of withdrawal," Kabuto said, his voice soft and very gentle. "I'm under no obligation to discuss anything you tell me, not even with Kakashi-sensei. I'm asking you because, these levels indicate you're already feeling adverse side effects, and they will increase in severity over the next twelve hours."

Feeling paralyzed, Sasuke could only stare at him. I could have taken a dose tonight, then this would have gone away. Why couldn't you have waited one more day to call me in here? Feeling jerky, like a marionette with a particularly poor controller, he nodded.

Kabuto straightened. "The addictiveness of the substance you're using seems to be very high," he said. "I may not be obligated to tell anyone, but I am obligated to help. I don't want to see any student relying on chemicals, and I'm well aware of the past that must have driven you to this." He turned to the stocked medicine cabinet and extracted a few things. "I'm going to make you a drug cocktail that will help with the symptoms of withdrawal. And I will keep your secret with one condition. You come back here every three days for another dose, and you never use whatever you're using again."

Not quite able to believe what he was hearing, Sasuke searched the young man's eyes for a trick. "Why are you doing this?"

Kabuto gave him a kindly smile. "Because I, too, have a really crappy past that drove me to make some pretty crappy decisions. Someone helped me back then, and it saved my life. I understand what you're going through, on some level." His smile turned rueful. "And I really hate to see students with so much promise throw their futures away. A lot of people have their eyes on you, and I'd like to help you succeed."

Overwhelmed, Sasuke felt himself start to tremble. "What's in this drug cocktail?"

"Basically, I'm just going to mix up some hormone boosters with a huge dose of key vitamins, a mild steroid to boost your body's hormone production, and a pretty serious painkiller. It will also be safe to take with anti-nausea medication." He started preparing it in a single bottle. Once done, he filled a syringe.

Then faced Sasuke. "The only side effect will be a significantly increased appetite. Just from looking at you, you're a good twenty pounds underweight anyway, probably more. And I should think you'll only need to do this for about three weeks before your body recovers."

Sasuke watched him inject the serum, then the man put a small Band-Aid over the small puncture site. The room practically spun his emotions were so tangled up.

"Why aren't you going to tell Kakashi?" he demanded when Kabuto gestured he could go.

The medic smiled again. "As long as you keep that promise never to use again, there's no need. What good would it do? He might even insist you go into rehab again. With my help, you won't need that. So take care of yourself, and this will be our little secret." He reached out and cupped Sasuke's chin, stroking his thumb over the teen's jaw.

Surely, this was too good to be true. I was already trying to think of a way to quit, anyway, Sasuke thought, getting up and hoping he wasn't visibly shaking. "Thank you," he said, voice weak and faint.

Kabuto gave him a strange little smile before holding the door open for Sasuke. He left the infirmary, and since there were still forty minutes before classes started, he ran right back to his room and slammed the door shut. The dorm was quiet, and he felt a pang of disappointment. He could really use Gaara's embrace right about now. He hadn't seen a whole lot of his roommate, both of them working harder than ever this last week.

The repaired comm panel by the door caught his eye, a blue light blinking to announce a waiting message. Instantly, his whole body tightened in dread. All thoughts about drugs and Kabuto went right out of his mind as he stared, frozen, at the panel.

Go tell Kakashi, a small voice whispered to him. Watch it with him there. If it's Itachi, you don't want to do this alone.

Trembling like a new fawn, Sasuke reached over and logged into his student account to play the message. Itachi's face immediately appeared on the screen.

"Hello, little brother," his almost raspy voice said, grating on Sasuke's ears. "I'm told you aren't taking very good care of yourself. You're far too thin and pale. Make sure you're resting enough and eating properly. Nothing is more important to me than your well being. I've been watching your scores, and I see they're rapidly improving. But of course they are. You're my little brother." His red, red eyes flared with pride and avarice. "I cannot wait to see you. It won't be long now. Take care of yourself, Sasuke."

The screen went dark.

Sasuke's stomach, already in knots, went completely sour. Bolting to the bathroom, he barely had time to flip up the lid on the toilet before his gut turned itself inside out and he vomited. It passed somewhat quickly since there was nothing to expel, and Sasuke rinsed his mouth before staring at his reflection in the mirror.

How the fuck could he know any of that? How could he have access to my medical files and student files? More than incredulity, however, he felt rage. His hands tightly gripped the edge of the counter as his eyes squeezed shut, trying to breathe normally and not put his fist through the mirror.

I hate you so much. His rage was so potent, so helpless, he felt tears build up behind his eyes. His body felt numb, and he slumped down to the floor, folding his legs to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. It gave him the perfect alcove to hide his face, and it prevented him from destroying everything he could see.

o0o

Loving Kakashi Hatake wasn't the easiest experience of Iruka's life, but it was probably the most rewarding. The man was complicated like all human beings, but he was effortlessly charming. He was also a closet romantic, and he was definitely the most attentive lover Iruka could imagine.

And he was an incredible kisser.

Kakashi broke their kiss to peer up Iruka, who was currently straddling his hips. "What are you thinking about?"

Iruka playfully nipped his jaw. "What a wonderful lover you are," he replied. Like all men, Kakashi needed to hear the one he loved compliment him, and Iruka had no qualms.

"Oh?" Kakashi said, grabbing two handfuls of Iruka's ass. "Wanting a demonstration right now?"

Grunting, Iruka grabbed his hands and pushed them away. "We're in your office." With some regret, he picked himself up off Kakashi's lap.

Only to be yanked back down. Kakashi fused their mouths together in an eating kiss, sucking on and nipping at Iruka's tongue. It went on and on until Iruka yanked his head back to gasp in a deep lungful of oxygen.

"Keep that up," he threatened, "and you're sleeping on the couch."

Unrepentant (nothing unusual there), Kakashi nuzzled his throat. "Would you really do that? The only person who loves my skills in the bedroom more than me is you."

Unable to help a soft laugh, Iruka shoved his head away. "Self-satisfied brute. Why aren't you in the infirmary? I thought you wanted to be there for Sasuke's follow-up this morning."

"Nah, the kid gets uncomfortable if I hover too much," Kakashi said, fastening his mouth to Iruka's earlobe.

A shudder ran up the entire length of Iruka's body. He was getting hopelessly turned on, and his ability to protest would rapidly diminish if he didn't stop this silliness. They were in his lover's office. At school. Where students could walk in at any moment.

So why was he grabbing Kakashi's face to kiss him again? Why wasn't he pushing away the hand working up under his shirt?

Something on Kakashi's comm panel warbled. The taller man stopped at once, frowning down at it. The look on his face brought Iruka alert instantly.

"What?" he asked softly.

With his incredible strength, Kakashi gently lifted Iruka off him, setting him on the desk. "I set that warning so I'd know if Sasuke got another message from Itachi."

Iruka leaped to his feet. "What? Then this means he just received one?"

Kakashi stood up, taking Iruka's hand and pulling him out of the office to lock it up. "Worse," he said quietly. "It means Sasuke just listened to it."

"Shit," Iruka cursed, feeling very uncharacteristic anger well up inside him.

The pair all but ran to the student dorms, and Kakashi pressed the announcer on the small panel by door to Sasuke's room. The man only waited about five seconds for a reply before using his instructor's override to open the door and rush into the room.

"Sasuke?" he called.

Iruka could smell the sour, acrid tang of vomit, so he hurried to the bathroom. Sasuke was there, curled up on the floor. "In here," he said, dropping to his knees beside the boy and putting a hand on his arm. "Sasuke?"

The boy twitched and lifted his head, and Iruka was relieved to see no injuries. Neither were his eyes red to indicate he'd been crying, but he looked haunted. And when Iruka tried to embrace him, he pulled away. Iruka heard Kakashi playing the message, which made Sasuke grimace. When it was over and Kakashi entered the bathroom, the two adults shared a long look.

Sasuke stared at the wall. "How did he know, Kakashi?"

Iruka looked helplessly up at his lover.

"I don't know," Kakashi said, voice low, "but I will find out."

His tone suggested his suspicions mirrored Iruka's own: was there someone here at the school watching Sasuke for Itachi? It was a chilling thought.

"I hate him," Sasuke whispered. He finally raised his head to meet Kakashi's gaze. "I want to go after him. Now. I can't wait, Kakashi. I have to kill him. I have to." He choked on the last two words, eyes closing. The bitter hatred etched into his countenance was matched only by the pain.

Iruka felt like his heart was breaking. He had a feeling what Sasuke wanted more than revenge was answers, but he also had a feeling Sasuke would never get the closure he so desperately needed. Kakashi moved to stand at Sasuke's other side and dropped a hand to rest on his head.

"All right, kiddo," he said softly. "I'll work out logistics with Tsunade. But we aren't going on a mission to kill him. We're going to take him into custody for questioning."

Sasuke looked up at him, ebony eyes glimmering in the dim light, bright with unshed tears.

Kakashi ruffled his hair. "And you aren't in this alone, all right? Iruka and I are right here, and I wager those friends of yours would be too, if you opened up to them a little more."

Iruka loved Kakashi just a little more. "That's right," he said, trying one more time to tug the boy into an embrace. This time, Sasuke let him. "We're right here."

After a few seconds, Sasuke pushed himself out of Iruka's arms and up to his feet. "I . . . I'm gonna go to class."

Neither adult protested, but Iruka really didn't like how dull Sasuke's eyes were. When the boy was gone, he looked at his lover. "You need to find ways to keep him busy," he said. "I've been watching Tsunade's lessons with Naruto, and she paired him up with different Coordinators of her choosing. Do the same for Sasuke. It'll be a good assignment, and it'll also take his mind off this.

"And," he said firmly, grabbing Kakashi's left hand, "partnering with only you isn't going to help him. He needs to work with students at his level."

Kakashi sighed, his only visible eye looking troubled. Then he grabbed the edge of his mask and pulled it down below his chin so he could smooch Iruka. "You're right. Let's go do a little research and find a few Controllers best suited to our boy."

Iruka smiled. "No need. I've already found four."