Az: And I'm here again, with another update. This time Naruto appears out of the blue, and I reveal one of the other ways in which I am screwing with the plot (mwuahahaha). Just don't immediately leap on me for it, m'kay?

START CHAPTER

Before he entered the room or rather, decided whether or not he wanted to enter the room, the blonde hid behind the partially opened door and peered suspiciously into the dining room. There was everyone, on time and waiting. Eyes narrowed to slits, he almost smiled. What a 'family' gathering.

There was his father, sitting at the head of the table and at least three feet away from the other diners, official hat discarded for the time being, but robes still on. Around the middle of the gargantuan wooden table sat his elder brother, hair out from its usual pony tail and dressed nicely. Opposite him, but still about four feet away as the table was so damn wide, sat his brother's boyfriend (bleargh), nicknamed 'The Guy with the Creepy Eyes', dressed like he had just come back from a mission. At the opposite end of the table, a grand total of about twelve feet away from the other end, sat an empty place where he guessed he was supposed to sit. To add to the 'homely' feel of the gathering, in a chair shoved off on one of the corners of the table, sat that guy with the white bushy hair and a sardonic smile that followed The Guy with the Creepy Eyes.

One of the two ANBU guards at the door shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and the spy's attention was drawn from the occupants of the table to the wide double doors. Having two armed ninjas in masks really didn't help the mood, either.

"Naruto-kun, are you going to keep standing at the door, or are you going to come in?"

Wide mouth turned down at the corners and eyes narrowed to suspicious slits which blended well with the three marks on each of his cheeks in his trademark scowl, the blonde reluctantly opened the door and stepped inside. He could almost feel five sets of eyes instantly turning to him. The only one who didn't look up was the bushy-haired, smiling guard, who continued to stare almost vacantly at the wall, head propped up on one hand.

At this stage, Naruto felt rather foolish. Why on earth did he think that he could hide from the Hokage, the Hokage's adopted son (a very good medical ninja, said to be on-par with any jounin), the boyfriend (bleargh) of said son, his guard and two ANBU? Scowl still firmly in place, the Hokage's other adopted son practically stomped round to his place and sat down, arms crossed stubbornly over his chest.

The Hokage turned the corners of his mouth up, but the rest of the smile seemed to get lost somewhere between his mouth and his eyes. "So nice of you to join us, son."

Typically, Kabuto waited until his father had spoken before speaking himself, offering Naruto a smile of his own, but this one seemed to actually hold slight fondness for the kitsune. "Hey Naruto-kun, how're things?"

"A lot better if I wasn't all alone in a palace of boring people," he grunted in reply.

The white-haired doctor's smile turned slightly guilty. "You can come and stay with us for a few nights if you want, any time."

Naruto was amused to watch as Itachi gave his brother as close to an incredulous look as he had ever seen on the stoic man's face from the other side of the table, and catching that, Kabuto threw another look back. Communication continued to crackle between the two, and the 'Copy-cat' ninja finally looked at the Hokage's younger son, smiling, though it was hard to tell with the mask on his face.

"Come now young-master, if you're so bored, you can come out with me for some company any time you want."

If there were two things that Naruto resented more than his father, it was people being nice to him because his father was the village leader, and being called 'young master'. "No way, you're creepy."

There was silence at the table, broken only by the sound of Kakashi chuckling.

Orochimaru put down his chopsticks and pushed his appetiser away, strange, slitted eyes stern.

"Naruto, if you're going to be rude to a guest, you can leave the room."

Chair scraping loudly against the marble-tiled floor, the blonde pushed away from the table and stood up.

"Fine. It's not like I enjoy your company anyway."

Making a rude face at his family and various other uninvited guests, Naruto stomped out of the room again, forgetting his dinner.

There was silence in the room again, punctuated by a pointed slamming of the dining room door.

"… Teenagers, ne?"

Kabuto forced a quiet laugh at his own comment, trying to lighten the atmosphere, but the Hokage had already slipped into a dark mood. When he was in 'one of his moods', it was better to shut up and keep your head down. He was quietly glad that the table was so damn big.

For three damn days, he had been sitting in a hospital bed, bored out of his mind. Apart from daily visits from his 'parents', no one but the nurses had been anywhere near him.

This was it, whatever had happened to him, he was officially recovered enough to leave.

Removing the needle from his wrist once more, Sasuke laid it to the side and cautiously slipped out of bed. And flat onto his face.

Arms straining, the dark haired boy managed to lift his upper body off the ground, teeth gritted in determination, and feeling like a new-born kitten.

The door to his room opened, and a familiar orange-clad figure stepped into the room, muttering darkly to himself about 'damn disappearing brothers'.

"Naruto!"

The blonde looked up from his grumbling, glancing suspiciously around the room.

"Who's there?"

"Look down, dobe!"

Naruto looked down at Sasuke's prone form, delaying his surprise as an eyebrow twitched. "Do- dobe?"

"Oi," the Uchiha growled, thoroughly sick of looking so pathetic in front of someone he knew (he'd never hear the end of this), "shut up and help me up."

The partially angry, partially curious blonde crouched down next to Sasuke, expression a puzzled frown. Naruto reached out a hand, but instead of offering it to him, poked him in the forehead with a finger. "Who're you calling dobe, aka-chan?"

Sasuke snarled, but refused to rise to the insult. The kitsune had called him worse things than 'baby' before. Sucking a deep breath in and consoling himself with the thought of embarrassing the hell outta Naruto later, once he remembered how to walk, Sasuke closed his eyes and resigned himself to his fate. "Naruto… please help me up."

Feeling merciful for the boy that before Naruto had only seen lying in a bed, looking dead, he carefully helped the thin, pale looking boy back into his bed, then stepped back. He could ignore how rude he was for now, so long as he didn't need to be in the same room for too long. His brother would have to turn up eventually; this boy was Kabuto's pet-patient.

Dark eyes focussed on his lap and hands clenched on his knees, Naruto watched, head tilted to one side as the boy slowly worked up the courage (or maybe the humility?) to ask a question that was so obviously bugging him.

"Naruto… how long have I been here?"

He decided to counter that with his own question: "How do you know my name?"

The dark-eyed boy looked up, surprise written all over his face. His expression turned grim, eyes lighting up with a strange kind of recognition. The boy nodded solemnly. "I understand, Naruto. They've gotten to you too. Please help me to the window."

The feeling that the blonde was overcome with could only be described as morbid curiosity. He knew that this wouldn't end well, but his brother's patient was obviously crazy, and in a way, it was enthralling to try and figure out what he'd do next.

Naruto obediently helped the crazy boy to stand again, and cautiously helped him over to the open window, glancing at the three-story drop to the ground, and wondering.

His brother's patient pushed gently away from him, then took an unsteady step forward, bracing himself on the windowsill. "I'll be back, Naruto. Hold out until then."

The dark-haired boy pulled himself onto the window sill and jumped …

The green glow of healing-chakra lit up Kabuto's pale face and make him look not just furious, but sick as well. "What were you thinking!"

Standing on the opposite side of the bed, also leaning over Sasuke's really broken leg and looking intensely guilty, the green sapping some of the tanned-glow from his features, was Naruto. "I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time!"

Through the veil of pain that seemed to blossom out from his leg and soak through the rest of his body, Sasuke watched the two bicker.

"That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard! Sasuke could have been killed! Killed!"

"I didn't know he'd jump out of the window! Why'd he jump out the window!" Naruto screamed back, pointing a finger rudely at Sasuke's nose. "What's wrong with this idiot!"

Kabuto snorted, then retorted, "Idiot? That's rich, coming from you."

Naruto stuck his lower lip out, eyes slits once more. "Kabuto-anikiiii…"

The doctor sighed as the blond continued to wail, pushing his glasses back up his nose with his free hand. "Yes, alright, I'll drop it, just be quiet so I can concentrate."

Naruto closed his mouth, still pouting, and watching the boy, who he now knew was Sasuke.

The pain in his leg slowly started to lessen, Sasuke opened his eyes fully, his brain starting to function again properly, at least for the moment. He had never known pain to feel so… painful. Not for a few years, at least. And he'd been in worse scrapes than just a broken leg…

Wait a second. Sasuke's mind leapt quickly through the conversation that had just taken place, and his eyes widened. 'Kabuto-aniki'! What was wrong with the world?

The Uchiha struggled to sit up, fighting waves of healing-induced lethargy. "Wait, he's your brother? Who told you that?"

Failing against the encroaching sleepiness, Sasuke leant back on his pillows again, glaring at the ceiling. "Itachi, you bastard…"

Not caring if anyone answered any more, Sasuke shut his eyes and let the comforting darkness prompted by the healing take over.

Kabuto sat back with a sigh, the knitting of the broken bone finally done. "You two take years off my life, you really do."

Naruto frowned slightly, glancing at his bag, in the corner by the door. "What do you mean by that?"

Smiling wearily, the doctor tugged lightly on a lock of his own hair. "I'm going grey already."

The frown on his brother's face lightened slightly, changing from a sullen look to the look of a teenager who thinks he's being treated like a kid. "Ha. Ha ha ha. Very funny."

If there was one thing that Kabuto appreciated having a slightly goofy younger brother for, it was comic relief. Before Naruto had been old enough to speak (and therefore talk back), his life had been rather humourless. His father, Orochimaru had adopted him when he was young, but being the Hokage and similar to Itachi with his emotional problems, Kabuto had been raised by a nurse, then a caretaker before and after attending the academy. Being with the blond seemed to help him relive and improve his own childhood, to the extent that the doctor had found himself, on the odd occasion, crouched with Naruto around the corner of a corridor, waiting for one of the various advisors to fall into one of their elaborate traps, made that much more effective (and evil) by the use of practically jounin skill levels.

When Kabuto had started dating (if you could call it that), and decided that his talents as a doctor were more useful than his skills at killing things, he had moved out from where he lived with Naruto and their father, and began to focus a lot of his spare time into studying. For the last few months, Kabuto had only seen Naruto at family dinners (meaning they saw each other for about five minutes, in-between Naruto stomping into the room, insulting someone, then stomping out of the room), and the times that Naruto had decided he needed company and came and sought his brother out at the hospital.

"Ne, Kabuto-aniki, can I stay with you tonight?"

The doctor nodded. He had noticed his brother eyeing a bag that he had left by the door as they argued, and each glance had been getting more and more anxious. "Of course you can. I said you could come whenever you wanted to, didn't I?"

With a squeal, Naruto launched himself at his brother, and Kabuto stood patiently still as the blond caught him with a flying hug, practically knocking the two over.

A strangled noise escaped from the doctor's lips. "You're getting too big to do this, you know."

Grinning and pulling back, Naruto fondly ruffled his hair. "Nah, you're just short, Kabuto-aniki."

Before another brotherly argument could ensue, the door opened again.

Itachi looked from his sleeping brother to the other set of siblings in the room, giving them a semi-quizzical look as the younger (slightly taller, and still growing) hugged the elder enthusiastically.

"He's asleep?"

Kabuto pulled away from Naruto and adjusted his glasses. "Well, actually Sasuke-kun had a slight accident."

"Accident?"

"Well, accident as to say… threw himself out the window…"

Slight? Itachi doubted that counted as a 'slight accident' in anyone's books.

The elder Uchiha took a deep breath in, eyes closed, then opened them again. "Why did he do that?"

Kabuto pointed at his younger brother. "Ask him. He was there at the time."

Itachi turned to the blond. "Naruto, same question."

"Ano…" Naruto looked away from the elder Uchiha's piercing black eyes, scratching the back of his head uncomfortably. "Well, I came into the room, and he was lying on the floor. He…" giving the sleeping boy a searching look, Naruto trailed off for a moment, "couldn't move properly, so I helped him onto the bed. Ano-sa, Kabuto-aniki, have you told Sasuke-kun my name?"

The white haired doctor shook his head slowly. "Not that I know of…"

The blond looked perplexed. "Sasuke-kun knows my name…"

Itachi looked hard at Naruto, who was looking confusedly at Kabuto, who glanced at Sasuke's prone form.

"I see," Kabuto finally muttered, his expression vague.

From extended contact with the young doctor, Itachi knew that was his 'scheming' face. He was thinking of something that would probably be clever, efficient, but not necessarily merciful to any party involved. He wasn't sure whether he should be encouraging him, or beating him down with a stick before it got too bad.

His eyes, filled with indecision to anyone that knew how to read them, flicked from Sasuke to Kabuto, then back again.

If it would do something about his brother …

Itachi decided to ignore the significant looks the scheming doctor was throwing at his completely unaware sibling, and hope for the best.

He would have to trust Kabuto.

Just this once.

CHAPTER END

Az: Well, that's it for this time… I hope people enjoyed it, and will review… I love getting reviews. They fill my inbox with joy, that lights up my otherwise dreary day. And don't kill me for being weird. It's a hobby.