The Smell of Orange

By: Black DragonDiva

Publishing Date: 12/26/05

Spoilers: up to Valley of the End

Summery: Sasuke is rendered powerless by a fierce jutsu, one that confuses his mind and inhibits his rationale. When Naruto finds him at the mercy of the Akatsuki will the blonde have the strength to help him through his sorry state, or will he die alone, weeping in the name of mercy?

Chapter Three: Coherency… ?

Naruto was scowling, the expression twisting his whisker marks and smooth lips. His narrow eyes added to the irritated look he was going for, long dark lashes enhancing the brightness of his eyes, bringing out the silvery strips of flaunted 'see but don't touch' prowess, that screamed 'deadly' to even his closest friends.

However, beneath his badly executed scowl was a glow that not even a stranger could miss. One of apprehension, of satisfaction and pride, shinning like the moon behind a thin cloud, its light spread as one struggled to suppress it.

Tsunade raised a brow at the blonde, her hands clasped tightly before her in both uneasiness and relief. The boy was alive, but at what cost? To escape the Akatsuki, and with a prize such as the one he had carried in on his back, had to have cost lives, forced sacrifices. The report lay at her elbows. She hadn't read it yet. No, instead she studied this man before her, noticing, not for the first time, how much he had grown over the long years. She observed how shinobi life had pulled at his essence, how other such things were killing him, tearing him apart from the inside as enemy nin tore him apart from the outside. She shoved the thoughts away forcefully; it was no time to be calculating his life span.

She picked up the report, reading through it carefully through tired eyes. Infiltration to the Akatsuki lair had been a success. Naruto had been 'imprisoned' for a total of 6 days as they prepared to extract the Kyuubi's essence from its chamber. He had been 'drugged', or so they thought. Even if Itachi's Mangekyu Sharingan had been cast upon it, the Uchiha would never have known it was a fluke, that poisons effected Naruto not at all, much less a simple drug meant to render his Chakra useless. But by playing along he had studied his surroundings and sent messages to allied nin using seemingly senseless whistled tunes and coded laughter. Really, it was ingenious, using something as natural as the boy's own fluid laughter as a code that echoed through hallways and open windows to be caught by nin dogs, frogs, and other animals, who reported back to the group that was camped nearly two miles out, away from detection of the Akatsuki. The day before the Kyuubi was to be ripped from his body, Naruto and Co. struck, one of great power shredding the insides as nearly fifty Kohona ninja attacked in groups of five at different intervals along the compound, reducing its outside to rubble. The place collapsed nearly half a day later, taking all still trapped within down to a dusty grave. Among those lost were 8 still inside the lair, whose bodies were being recovered as she read the report. Also, anything pertaining to the Akatsuki was being detained, any dead or nearly living members hastily set to fire and ice and jutsu and fists, dying by the hands of determined soldiers.

Upon returning the night after the building had gone down in shambles Naruto and select members who were wounded headed back to Kohona for rest and observation. Tsunade cursed her inability to be there herself, but it was for the best. It was too risky, Naruto had told her, it'd be better if he went with select shinobi to take down the terrorists. So that is what happened. And be damned if the brat wasn't right. If she had been there Sasuke would be dead, not laying in a hospital bed hooked up to contraptions that monitored Chakra (or lack there of) flow, a catheter, an IV drip, a tube that thrust mushy semblances of food and vitamins into a shrunken stomach, a personal nurse (Tsunade's own disciple no less!) to care for and bandage his wounds. No, she would have killed him herself given the chance. But it would have been rash of her. In truth, she hated Kohona's third biggest threat for more than just his power. No, she hated him for his own hate, for his own disregard and lack of human compassion.

But his death wasn't the case. Naruto had brought him back, just as he had promised all those years ago. Because of this, the Hokage was pressed. She couldn't kill him; Naruto stood vigilantly over his prone form, and then pled his case personally. It was not something a shinobi was supposed to do. It was just like Naruto to be like that, the little stubborn brat.

Tsunade's eyes scanned the report again, searching for something she had missed. Naruto had been thorough this time, as he was every time, and left no loopholes for her to exploit. She sighed inwardly; she had lost her hate upon watching Naruto's face, so full of worry and anxiety, soft with compassion and something gentle as he watched Sasuke's chest rise and fall. Steady with breath. Steady with life. No doubt he had been listening to the Uchiha's heartbeat become stronger, steadier.

This time Tsunade did sigh out loud, just a little. She looked up at her soon-to-be successor. Two more years and he would sit at this desk. Would he one day be forced to make the choices she had? To pit friends against one another, baiting Death, luring shadows to snuff out their hopeful candles and darkness to clog their throats, slowly choking them, obscuring their senses until death stole away their souls, sucking out the breath of life that sat in their chests…

"How is his condition?" The deep tenor voice jarred her thoughts. She was staring at him as she thought, but now looked up to his face, where the voice had come from. It did a horrible job at suppressing the blonde's curiosity. There was no worry there; he knew Sasuke was alive, and it sated him… for now.

She took a moment to study him more closely, noting his ragged appearance. He was handsome even in his disheveled state, something beautiful about the feralness that clung to his body when he was so filthy and wet. Shaggy blonde hair was damp from the rain that, even now, continued to pour down outside her window, giving the room they occupied a haunting gleam. His skin was clammy-wet from it. The smooth, tan flesh glistened slightly from the wet and was… marred. She didn't ask about the love-bite on his neck; the blonde's sexual indulgences weren't her concern.

The Hokage took a deep breath, then released it quickly in relief that she wasn't feeling.

"He will be fine as far as I can tell. He was under a strange and powerful jutsu that tangled his senses. Shizune, Hyuuga Neji and myself have gotten them mostly straightened out by blocking certain passages and regulating his Chakra, but he's still very disorientated." She kept her face straight as she continued, but set her eyes to straightening papers instead of the man standing on the other side of her desk. "He kept muttering about apples, for example, but when we gave him some he said they tasted wrong, were too sweet and card-board-like." She scrunched up her nose in amusement, but minutely, she doubted Naruto noticed. "He kept smelling orange."

Naruto's hand stopped rubbing the marks on his neck that he had acquired the night before, willing them away. Kyuubi was too drained of Chakra to heal the simple bruising that littered his neck from unsuccessful attempts to get at his blood by Sasuke. Healing wounds that kept opening along Naruto's throat and on the muscle that connected his neck and shoulder for as long as he had, which was almost six, seven hours, plus the energy it had cost Naruto to do away with the Akatsuki, was draining even for the kitsune.

"Give him an orange then," he muttered. He wasn't a fucking fruit dammit! An apple, what the hell?

"No," she shook her head a bit, straightening a stack of papers that had been thrust aside when she had put the book on genjutsu and psychological manipulation pertaining to it on her desk. "He smells the color orange."

Naruto raised a brow, absently allowing his thumb to rove over the small 'hickeys' absently. They guys had laughed a little when they saw the results of Sasuke's endeavor and the reason for Naruto's sudden annoyance, which was embarrassing and enlightening. He hated it when ninja sank into themselves after a battle in which they had lost comrades, when the wound was still thick with salt concerning said deaths. He had just snorted and demanded that they kindly stop sniggering at him and get him provisions. They had fallen silent, but only after Sasuke had spoken, as to catch his words with Naruto.

'Fucking jutsu'. Now he knew. He received no more snickers after that. They moved out immediately after.

"Damn, the bastard was pretty fucked up." She nodded, ignoring his lewd language, and sighed.

"I don't know what to do with him. He needs someplace familiar to help sort himself out. It may be several days or even weeks before he understands even simple things such as where he is or who he is enough to talk to us about what happened, to help explain himself." She paused and looked up at Naruto, who didn't seem fazed by her words, if not for his sudden stillness. He seemed curious about the last part, but confident about it, because he ignored it for another matter.

"You want to take him back to the Uchiha mansion?" he asked skeptically.

"No, the place is a mess. It hasn't been tended to in a long time." She paused, heaving a huge, exhausted sigh as she pressed the fingers of one hand to her eyes to help relieve the ache that was beginning to form behind them. She sat back in her chair bonelessly. "It's been eight years."

Naruto said nothing as she pulled her hand away and stared him straight in the eye, as though weighing his potential.

"Naruto, I want you to take him."

There was a stillness in the air that wrapped around their hearts, even as the organs began to quicken their normally steady pace with uncertainty. Naruto shifted his weight onto one hip.

"Why?"

"I can't keep him here, it will cause too much trouble. I will tell the elders, but it will remain secret as to where he is until we can better assess his condition. A familiar face will help him and he needs an adequate guard. Who better than yourself?"

'Good question. He'll probably kill anyone else. Hell, he'll probably try to kill me too.' Naruto turned away from the sobering thought. Sasuke would be dead before he was coherent enough to think of killing anyone. Naruto would be careful to ensure it.

"Alright, hag."

When he awoke next, Sasuke immediately knew he wasn't in that painfully white room, where things prodded and beeped at him, suffocating his already boggled senses with pristine, disgusting purity. The smell had been sickening.

But now everything wasn't so strong, his nose less apt to find sharp, specific scents that addled his brain. He did, however, inhale, more relaxed as his normal, duller senses washed over him. He almost panicked when the smell of orange overwhelmed him, memories of those chains and that darkness and the candle blinding his brain. But when the scent did not fade in and out of his reach as it always had previously he remembered that the smell had been with him leaving that room, leaving to sweep into the clean, beautifully free and luscious forest. He bit back everything, the memories, the panic, the rage and, most of all, the taunt of past pain and helplessness. He was elated to discover that he could do this, something that was impossible for an indefinable amount of time ago.

Carefully he peeled open eyes that were caked with fluid that was not his tears, or anything his body made for that matter, something synthetic and fake. He was, however, pleased to note his eyes focused. For the most part.

There was less pain now, which was centered mostly on his arms and shoulders and less so on the wounds that had been laid open, gaping and festering, over the expanse of his sticky, feverish body. The bandages on them itched against his clean skin that smelled of fresh soap and water. He expanded his senses further. The damn gloves hadn't been taken off and held his joints stiff. However, at one point the fingers had been rolled back and his joints flexed and cracked to relieve their ache. The joint locks had been replaced afterward.

He took a deep breath, relishing the clean, dry air that was so unlike that in the dingy, damp cell he had been tossed into, his chest rising against bandages and thick blankets that oozed warmth.

It all smelled… familiar. It was darker, duller than the orange and apple, but undeniably close to it, which is why his nose had probably thought it smelled the same scent from the Akatsuki lair. Impossible. No, this was close, but not quite it.

Black eyes focused on a chipped ceiling, where it looked like kunai and shuriken had been thrown into an odd pattern. If he squinted and tilted his head just so, the characters looked similar to the ones that made up his own name.

His mind suddenly swam with dizziness and he closed his eyes against the dull white-yellow of the ceiling. He focused on his limbs instead, searching for the severest wounds and measuring how capable he was of fighting at the moment.

He twitched his fingertips and toes, pleased when there was minimal pain. He moved his arm above the covering, bringing it to his forehead cautiously, searching for the heat he knew should be there if the fever still thrummed through his body. It was warm, but not too feverish, he noted.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing!"

Sasuke winced. Gods, that loud, annoying voice hurt his head. His head was playing tricks on him again, he knew, because when he opened his eyes, an image that looked similar to Naruto milkily played before hazy eyes. He blinked to clear them.

The blonde entered the room, causing Sasuke to scowl.

Blonde? That hair was real.

Sasuke sat up quickly, body tensing as he readied himself for attack, wincing at the dull flood of pain in his abdomen and shoulders. It felt too distant to be natural. He was drugged.

Shit.

"You idiot!" Naruto walked to the edge of the bed, gently taking hold of the brunet's shoulders, pressing on them lightly (Sasuke noticed he did not touch the bandages, where the pain was concentrated. How thoughtful. He wanted to sneer at the gesture.) to force them back onto the bed.

"Shizune worked hard on your pathetic carcass. Don't ruin her effort you dirty bastard."

Odd, he felt cleaner than he had in months…

The words swirled around the Uchiha's brain, struggling to settle down so that he could study them more closely and pick out the information they provided him with.

Shizune? Wasn't that Tsunade's assistant?

His head pounded.

He was in Kohona.

Fuck.

"Why am I here?" Sasuke's voice sounded foreign even to himself, too deep from the lack of use, thick with the confusion that bled into his voice, sharp with demand.

Naruto sighed, running a hand over his neck absently. Sasuke watched, his gaze intent upon the face, but he had noticed the slight red spots that adorned the throat Naruto now stroked. He had a vague feeling of nervousness upon seeing them, something he couldn't place.

"We couldn't help you anymore at the hospital and couldn't keep you there. Sakura would get upset if she found you."

Sasuke pursed his lips. They were dry, unused. Why did it matter if Sakura found him? Already his mind was forming a plan. He wasn't staying. Itachi was still alive. He would learn nothing here.

He pushed all of this away. He knew why they didn't want Sakura to know. If they were forced to kill him, it would be privately, and they wouldn't want to hurt her any more than they had to. The stupid girl was probably still stuck on him. Idiot. It didn't matter, he didn't care. Either he'd take to the forest or his executor's face would be the last thing he ever saw, a silly girl didn't matter.

He glared at Naruto now as he forced the eye rolling-worthy thoughts away. "Why did you bring me back here?"

Naruto leaned back against the wall next to the nightstand beside the bed with a sigh, his eyes intent upon the window on the other side of the room. He didn't answer Sasuke's question right away, thinking over his reasoning. Sasuke took the opportunity to observe his appearance.

The blonde hair was damp and combed in a hearty attempt at order, but it was still upright and vibrant. It was tinted with red, but that could have been the gentle sunset light in the window, or his still hazy eyesight. His face had become more defined since Sasuke had last seen it, but not sharp like the Uchiha's had gotten. His eyes had narrowed, become more cat-like, slitted and harsh, as though demonic, searing into whatever he looked at. It was from maturity and his demonic chakra, however, not from hate and malice (although the rage from the Kyuubi could have been part of it) as was the case with Sasuke. Shoulders had grown stronger, powerful, encased in a loose t-shirt to hide their strength. Slim hips connected lean, springy legs to a firm stomach and chest, over which his crossed arms lie. Dark pants clad said legs, obscuring them from view. Callused feet were bare on the clean wood, toes curled slightly against the wood as he thought. Past them, carpet dammed outside the room and into the hall.

"I didn't have much of a choice," he said at last, his voice soft and slow, thick like dark molasses. Sasuke let the words wash over him, the tone soothing, the words making him hold back his scowl out of sheer curiosity (which had always been his downfall). One always has a choice. He wanted to say that, but he couldn't. The jutsu was being a pain in the ass again and his head was becoming fuzzy. How long until the damn thing wore off? Better yet, how long had it been on?

He was getting tired again.

"Anyway, you should sleep," Naruto said, turning and blinking at him. Sasuke kept his eyes open, even as they begged to close, growling his fatigue away. As though he would sleep in the house of enemy nin. Did they take him for a fool? Never mind that he'd been her for a good long while probably, but it was different now that he was conscious. They might try to kill him, seeing that he was coherent.

"I'm hungry," he said quietly. Perhaps it would give him time to test his surroundings. He might be able to escape while Naruto was out… Who the hell was he kidding? He could sense ANBU within a dozen meters of the house, watching subtly, waiting for him to do something stupid. He'd have to bind his time. However, it felt good to defy the dobe, to have the power to control someone again (after all, it seemed the blonde was in charge of his care.). Besides, he could smell apples again, a scent he remembered from somewhere in his muddling mind.

Naruto turned to look at him, an annoyed look on his face. His expression twisted slightly, with what, Sasuke didn't know, his eyes weren't sharp enough to identify it, before he turned and walked from the room, his feet shuffling on the carpet in the hall.

Sasuke closed his eyes, settling the weight of his head into the pillow beneath it, willing away the swirl of color before his eyes and fog in his mind. His neck relaxed, his spine melting away from stiffness, letting the soft blankets snuggle to his chest. Absently, he ran his fingers over the soft material on his stomach.

He moved instinctually, something in his brain moving before his consciousness did. His hand moved from the fabric, jerking into the air and catching the objected aimed at him with ease. He opened his eyes in annoyance, glaring at the apple that rested in his palm. He grunted at the pain that hissed through his arm, pulling it down as fast as he dared without causing more pain.

"What's this?" Naruto snorted.

"It's an apple, bastard."

The corners of Sasuke's mouth twitched, in a smile or a frown, neither knew.

Suddenly, there was a violent throb in his head. He winced, bringing a hand to his head as his vision jumped and spun. He sat up a bit, the pads of his fingers digging into his newly-cleaned scalp. The other hand tightened possessively on the fruit in his hand, bruising its soft flesh.

Naruto was by his side in an instant. Something small and white was swiped from the nightstand by the blonde.

The throbbing thundered against his skull. He bit back a painful sound as Naruto put a hand on his head, smoothing his hair in a comforting gesture. A sudden spike of sharpness against the back of his eyes made his mouth open lightly in agony. There was a soothing voice in his ear, persistent but sounding forced and worried. Naruto spoke briefly under his breath about 'damn side-effects' and something else that was equally damnable that Sasuke couldn't make out. But the jutsu that had dismembered his mind formerly seemed to return with a vengeance. And after that white, sickening room, (the hospital, he understood) he had begun to feel better. He vaguely noticed the person beside him slip something into his still-open mouth. It was oblong and bitter.

"Swallow it damn you!" His mind came back to itself briefly to hear the distant roar. The voice was insistent, the undertone frantic with worry. Sasuke's mind was hazing over.

Gods, where was he? The pain was snarling through his blood like a wolf on the hunt, attacking everything in its way, its breath fire and its teeth sharp as ice.

Finally, he felt a hand on his jaw. He closed his mouth at the insistent pressure on it, discouraged by its hard clench to try to reopen his jaws to spit out the thing thrust within it. He bit back a wave of nausea it caused. The other hand was at this throat, choking him. No, not choking, applying pressure, rubbing in a way that was more than just uncomfortable. He swallowed, warding away the uncomfortable itch that formed at the rubbing, and the bitter thing slid down his throat.

As it hit his stomach a jolt of pain made a sound hitch in his throat, stopped only by his clenched jaws. His eyes bulged open as something howled through his veins, spreading away from his belly, tearing at his cells. He saw nothing, a blob of sunlight through the window, and darkness crept into the edge of his vision like tendrils of a voice. He clenched his jaw in this startling, more outstanding agony and fell back to the bed.

"I'm so sorry Sasuke, just go back to sleep for now. You know I wont let you die, just hold on. Hey now, just hold on…"

That voice…

This smell…

Where the hell was he…?

AN: it's been a while since my last update, yes. I got distracted because of a senior project I had to do. –embarrassed grin- I thought it would be easy to write a novel for it. Guess I was wrong :P. anyway, here's the next chapter. I'm going to get to updating my stories as soon as my brain returns to actually functioning correctly so I can write fanfiction again. please enjoy!

And thanks to everyone who reviewed my story! You are the best!

J+