An Unexpected Visit Chapter 2: To Stay or to Flee, a naruto fanfic

An Unexpected Visit

Disclaimer: I still don't own Nartuo

Everyone seems to thinkI should continue it, so I'll give it a shot...please keep reviewing!

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Naruto blearily opened his sluggish eyes as pale predawn light began to fill his cluttered bedroom. Feeling a bit disoriented, the blonde began to slowly separate dream from reality, a task that was proving difficult due to his fever and pounding headache.

Dancing ramen bowls…Dream.

Sasuke dropping by with a care package…Naruto surveyed his bedroom sleepily, spotting a foreign bottle of pills on his nightstand that he hadn't purchased. Alright, reality then.

Sasuke massaging him to sleep…The groggy kyubi boy actually let out a derisive snort of laughter at the thought. Definitely dream, and a weird one at that. Though he was finding breathing a lot easier and less painful this morning…

With a sigh, Naruto slowly swung his feet over the side of his bed and onto the cold wooden floor, shuffling unsteadily out of his room. However, halfway to the bathroom, the young genin froze in surprise, spotting a very foreign and yet oh-so-familiar head of black spiky hair peaking out over the edge of his battered sofa.

Approaching with extreme caution, the blonde peered down at his sleeping teammate in confusion. 'Sasuke is…on my couch?' Frowning, he shook his head and tried again. 'Sasuke is…sleeping over at my apartment?' His frown deepened.

No, no matter how he phrased it, this situation was not commuting. Unless the very fabric of space and time were unraveling, Naruto could find no plausible explanation for the existence of a slumbering Uchiha on his sofa.

Perhaps he was hallucinating from his fever again, then? But this also did not seem likely, as the dancing ramen bowls were no where to be seen…

His feverish mind unable to comprehend the paradox before him, the young kyubi container simply stood over his teammate, staring dumbly at the slow rise and fall of the other boy's chest. 'Funny, he looks almost peaceful like this…'

"It's rude to stare, dobe," came a monotone drawl from the prone figure on the couch. Almost jumping out of his skin, Naruto glanced down and found himself meeting the annoyed glare of twin obsidian pools.

"S-Sasuke," he managed to sputter, embarrassed that he had been caught. "I was just…and then you were…what are you doing here?" he finished lamely, collapsing into the vacant chair next to the couch.

Heaving an impatient sigh, the Uchiha rose gracefully from the couch, running fingers through tangled spikes of unruly black hair. "I thought we already went through this, baka. Kakashi sent me to check up on you." Alright, so his sensei had really only sent him to make a quick delivery, but Sasuke wasn't about to openly admit his concern for Naruto, or try to explain why he stayed the night; he wasn't even sure he knew the reason himself.

Still wearing a confused expression, Naruto opened his mouth to ask another question, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Sasuke sent a silent prayer of thanks for the distraction.

Naruto began to struggle out of the chair and towards the door, but Sasuke stopped him, pushing him firmly but gently back down. "Sit," he ordered sternly, leaving no room for argument as he began to undo the never-ending line of locks on Naruto's door.

"Wait," Naruto rasped, shifting in the chair but obeying rules and staying seated. "Check first, don't let anyone but Mai or Iruka-sensei in."

"Really, because I was going to invite this nice burglar waving a kunai around in for tea," Sasuke quipped sarcastically, trying to jiggle a particular stubborn chain loose.

Naruto rolled his eyes at the sarcasm. "Teme," he muttered darkly, leaning back and pinching the bridge of his nose as a headache continued to pound through his temples. So he was a bit overly cautious, so what? The genin had a learned at a very young age that people in the village were not always…hospitable towards the kyubi container, and in a neighborhood like this, he often received visitors that were interested in more than "checking up on him"…

Leaving the last three chains fastened, Sasuke cracked the door open cautiously to peer out into the hall. The fingers of his right hand drifted slowly towards the weapon pouch on his leg, ready to pull a kunai instantly if he need to. However, instead of finding a burglar or even worse, one of those rat-dogs, he was instead greeted by familiar figure of Mai, her trustee baseball bat absent for the moment. Giving her a nod of acknowledgement, the young Uchiha shut the door and began unfastening the last few chains.

"Why don't you just install a peep hole?" he tossed carelessly over his shoulder, partly in exasperation with the locks and partly in curiosity of his teammates living conditions.

Naruto didn't even blink. "Ninja needles," came the instant reply. The older boy tried not to wince at the painful mental image that suggestion created. Obviously his companion had put a lot of thought into this already.

"Hn," was the only response he gave as he finally swung the door open.

"Well look whose here," Mai sang out cheerfully, marching past Sasuke into the apartment in one fluid motion, her eyes crinkling merrily. Raising and eyebrow at the Uchiha's signature blank expression, she shook her head in exasperation. "Well don't just stand their, you baka, shut the door before the rats get in."

Sasuke bristled indignantly, his eyes narrowing into the infamous Uchiha glare. Baka? Who the hell did this old hag think she was? However, Mai received and deflected the glare with a single easy glance, a skill Sasuke had only though Kakashi was capable of. Opening his mouth to say something truly nasty, the Uchiha found himself interrupted by a weakly suppressed cough, and then had to blink in surprise as all of a sudden Mai was gone, disappearing before his eyes as she swooped instantly to Naruto's side, fussing motherly over the younger boy.

Grumbling darkly to himself, Sasuke shut the door with a little more force than was needed and fastened all the locks once more, before turning to observe the odd pair before him.

Mai had a hand on Naruto's flushed forehead, tutting disapprovingly to herself. "I see your fever hasn't gone down much." Naruto didn't even respond, instead relishing the cool touch of her hand. Ruffling his curls again, Mai smiled kindly down at the young genin, "though your breathing does seem a bit easier this morning. That's a relief."

Ignoring Sasuke for the time being, Mai straightened up, glancing around the apartment casually as she continued her steady stream of motherly chatter. "Have you eaten anything yet?"

"No," Naruto replied, wrapping a blanket firmly around his shoulders, "but Kakashi sent over some ramen with Sasuke, I'll eat it later."

"Humph, that's what you said about the soup I made yesterday, and I found the whole lot of it in the trash."

The conversation continued this way for several minutes, and Sasuke found that despite his best efforts, he was becoming very amused watching this old woman verbally batter his loudmouthed, stubborn friend into submission.

Finally Mai seemed satisfied with her interrogation. After shooing the younger boy off to bed, she turned her attention at last to the Uchiha. "Right then, I need to get to work," she offered the brunette a genuine smile. "It was very kind of you to spend the night with Naruto, that poor child doesn't have enough people in his life who care that much about him." She closed her eyes sadly, speaking softly to herself, "imbecilic, short sighted people of this town…"

Shaking her head, she smiled again at Sasuke. "But it's good to see he has at least one good friend." Sasuke shuffled his feet, extremely uncomfortable with the way this conversation was going. Good friend? Caring? These were not the kind of words one would normally describe the young Uchiha with. He had no encumbering friendships. He cared for no one but himself. He was an avenger.

But then why had he stayed?

Mai interrupted his confused line of thought, opening the door back to the hall. "Make sure he eats something, alright? And watch that fever."

Sasuke almost choked in surprise, something akin to panic rising in his chest. "Me? But I'm not…I mean this was just a -"

"Thanks dear, I'll be back this evening!" And with that she was gone.

Sasuke stared at the closed door, sputtering helplessly, and for once in his life was at a complete loss of what to do.

When he had woken up this morning and discovered Naruto standing over him, staring groggily in confusion, Sasuke had been swept by a wave of embarrassment and awkwardness. What had he been thinking last night? Why had he stayed the whole night? Why had he stayed at all? He should have left as soon as he had delivered the package and confirmed that Naruto was still alive. And perhaps the most troubling of all, why did staying in this rundown apartment with Naruto all day sound oddly…appealing?

Brushing impatiently at a lock of black hair that had fallen into his eyes, Sasuke peered anxiously at the doorway leading into his teammates bedroom where the young boy was currently dozing in bed, still debating on what action to take.

To stay or to flee? After all, Naruto hadn't heard Mai ask Sasuke to stay, and the young boy obviously wouldn't expect his archrival to do so. Since the younger genin was currently asleep, he wouldn't even notice that Sasuke had left.

No, escape was not the problem. There shouldn't be anything preventing the Uchiha from leaving this shabby, rat hole of an apartment and spending his valuable time doing something much more productive, like training, or imaging creative and violent deaths for Itachi, or even angst-ing, another of the sullen boy's favorite pastimes. Anything would be better than babysitting Naruto.

And yet…

And yet for some reason he was having trouble abandoning the other boy in his current state. Suppose something happened to Naruto after he left? Suppose his fever spiked, or someone managed to break through his twenty-plus locks on the door? Suppose he woke up alone and felt…well, lonely?

But that was his Uchiha pride's last straw. It could not endure anymore of this disgraceful display of worry, concern, and dare he say it, affection. No, this weak thinking needed to end immediately, and with a powerful surge, Sasuke's pride flared and his eyes narrowed.

This was not his problem. He was not the dobe's keeper. Let the moron figure out his own problems, and let someone else wipe the moron's nose for him.

Satisfied with this acceptable Uchiha response, Sasuke squared his shoulders, hardened his heart against the coughs that were currently wracking his rival's frame, and walked out the door and down the dimly lit hall.

Five minutes and one massive guilt trip later, a very disgruntled and defeated Uchiha stood over a small stove, grumbling as he cooked ramen for a certain blonde in the next room.

The rats, he rationalized to himself, it was all the rats' fault. He didn't care about Naruto in the least, but what self-respecting ninja would allow his teammate, even one as annoying as Naruto, to get devoured by rat-dogs?

Not sure I like the way this chapter flowed...I decided that it was going to be out of character for Sasuke to voluntarily play nurse, so Iwanted to set itup in a plausible way...haha, the rationalization process is awonderful thing. Thoughts?