Here and Now

Sasuke sat on the bed, staring down at the tray of food as though if he stared hard enough, maybe he could transmute its contents into something much more desirable. Unfortunately, even a Mangekyo Sharingan lacked the ability to allow that to happen and thus, Sasuke was left with the hospital's choice of cuisine.

"I'm not eating this," he finally declared, actually turning away with his nose in the air.

Naruto had already dug in and was halfway finished. "It's not that bad. What's wrong with oatmeal?" It certainly wasn't his first choice for breakfast but he'd spent too many days hungry as a child to be picky.

"It's boring. And this one is even more boring. No cinnamon and barely any sugar," Sasuke said disgustedly, poking the bowl with a spoon. "And why oatmeal anyways? I haven't had that since I was a kid."

Naruto licked off his spoon, indeed lamenting that there wasn't more sugar. "Sakura once told me that they feed you based on your medical needs. You have a sore throat so they gave you something easy to swallow." He'd noticed that Sasuke's full-body shudders when he swallowed had been scaled down to a hard blink in place of flinching. Talking seemed easier now, but he was still in quite a bit of pain.

Considering his words, Sasuke realized his blonde idiot was right. He ripped open the single pack of sugar that'd come with the tray and poured it in, then stirred it together. He took a small bite but just as he was about to swallow, a fear crept over him. This was going to hurt. It was already mush, but he chewed a few more times before taking a small swallow. It still rubbed his throat roughly but was better than the pure, raw pain from before.

Naruto smiled encouragingly at him, both lapsing into silence as they ate. Near the end of the meal, the door was tapped on before being opened. Sasuke's doctor from the day before came in, followed by a nurse. The same nurse Sasuke had violently snapped at. She wasn't too much older than them, in her early twenties, and nervously kept her eyes pointed away from the Uchiha.

"Well now, how convenient, both of you are here," the doctor said, nodding to the two of them. "I just wanted to do a quick check-up to ensure you're healing well, Sasuke. And Naruto, have you felt any symptoms?"

"Me? Nah, I'm much more resilient," Naruto assured, giving a knock on his head as though to show his durability.

The doctor huffed a smile. "Glad to hear that. The virus is thankfully only contagious during the first twenty-four hours so if you've not felt anything by now, you've likely nothing to worry about. As for you, Sasuke…" He walked closer to the bed, sitting down beside the boy. "Let me see how you're progressing."

Sasuke looked down at his food, then back up. "You might not want to look in my mouth right now…I'm still eating."

Naruto and the doctor laughed and even the nurse let out a tiny giggle. Giving that crinkle-eyed smile, the doctor said, "Clearly, you've not looked in your mouth recently. What's going on back there is far more upsetting than seeing food in your teeth."

Figuring it was futile to resist, Sasuke quickly passed his tongue over his teeth before opening his mouth. The doctor shone a light in for a while before giving a rueful quirk of the mouth. "It certainly looks better than before, but I'm happy Lady Tsunade gave the okay for you to remain here. In the meantime, we'll go ahead and change out your medicine…" he trailed off as he noticed that neither of Sasuke's exposed hands had the IV in it.

"It got in the way of taking a shower," Sasuke went ahead and confessed, not looking the least bit ashamed.

Instead of being rebuked, the doctor only nodded at him in understanding. "You can actually unhook the bag from the top to make it easier to get out of any garments, but I can certainly see how it'd be troublesome to take it with you everywhere you go regardless. Would you much rather prefer the antibiotics in a pill form?"

"Definitely," Sasuke agreed. "I don't mind popping pills."

There was a moment of brief quiet, filled only with Naruto's gasping cackles. "I see…so I'll have the nurse bring your medicine to you alongside your meals from now on. Other than that, looks like you're on schedule to getting out of here on time." He stood up and patted Sasuke on the knee. The quiet nurse bowed quickly to them before following him out the door.

With them gone, Naruto turned his full grin to Sasuke. "Guess that means you're stuck with the bland hospital food. Bon appétit!"

Sasuke stared glumly into the depths of the bowl. "Shut up and eat your oatmeal."

~.~.~

The days passed slowly at times, quickly at others. Time dragged by when Sasuke was asleep, which, either due to the medicine or it being his body's way to help fight the illness, Sasuke spent much of the time doing. When he was awake though, things often fell into a regular pattern that Naruto was getting better at handling.

Sasuke would first seem surprised that he was still there and would demand he go home. Naruto would always refuse and could usually gain leverage by asking if there was anything Sasuke wanted him to go get. With him being stuck in the hospital, Naruto knew he was his only link to the outside world. So, it made him happy when Sasuke would ask him to go pick things up, such as a newspaper or a few sticks of sweet dumplings (Sasuke's favorite treat, a trait he said he'd gotten from Itachi). They'd even managed to sneak in a cheap coffee machine, which was put to use to quickly heat water for tea.

By the end of day two, word seemed to have spread that Sasuke was being hospitalized. From then on, there was no shortage of visitors. The first one was Kakashi, who came bearing pictures of the twins. He still looked rather tired, from what Naruto could tell, but his eyes shone proudly as he talked about his children. "They're already starting to show more color to their hair," he said, beaming his ray of happiness at Sasuke as the teen politely flipped through the photos. "Kaiya looks like she'll have my hair but there's a hint of red…maybe from the mother. But Isao is clearly going to take after Iruka. Just look at that beautiful brown hair!"

"Yeah, it sure is…something," Sasuke forced a smile.

Kakashi didn't catch his lack of enthusiasm and continued on with several tales of his experiences with early parenthood. By the end of it, one of Sasuke's eyes was beginning to twitch.

By day three, most of their class from the academy had stopped in, bringing with them so many flowers and cards, the room looked more like the ground-floor gift shop. "I'm half tempted to ban anyone else from entering," Sasuke groaned, looking around the room. "What's with all the flowers anyways? They'll just die. And I'm chucking the cards as soon as I get out."

"Toldja people were concerned," Naruto happily nagged him. "And hey, someone left a bonsai tree! If you don't want it, can I have it?"

"Take it," Sasuke waved it away.

"Really?! Awesome!" Naruto shouted, already planning where to put it in his home.

The tree wouldn't last the week.

~.~.~

The last group to visit also consisted of the person Naruto had been thinking about the most aside from Sasuke and that was Sakura. She arrived on the final day in tow with Sai. Her gift was a basket of food pills, to which Naruto wondered if that was really a gift or if she'd made them as an insult as her last batch left much to be desired. The basket made him swallow nervously and instead, he looked to Sai's present, which was a large and beautiful bouquet of sunflowers.

"Oh wow, Sai," Naruto said, taking the flowers from him to put on the already crowded windowsill. "These aren't even in season yet, they must've been expensive. You really didn't have to go this far…"

"It was no problem," Sai told him, giving his usual enigmatic smile. "I read in a book once that the more expensive the gift, the more it shows you care for a person. Since Sasuke is so special to you and Sakura, I thought the high price would be a gesture of goodwill. Besides," he turned to look at the bed. "Sasuke and I have never properly gotten a chance to introduce ourselves."

Sasuke too must've been concerned about the food pills as his eyes lingered on the basket before looking up at Sai. "You're the one who replaced me on Team 7, correct?"

Sai closed his eyes, tilting his head as that smile became that much wider. "Oh no, I could never do that! I suppose you could say I was only saving your spot. Sakura and Naruto never stopped believing that you would return."

Naruto blushed and he saw Sakura do the same, busying herself with setting the food beside the bed. For a moment, Sasuke was quiet, probably trying to process if Sai was being serious or not. In the end, he seemed to not care, sighing and saying, "Well then, thanks for that." He shifted his attention instead to Sakura.

"Sorry I couldn't visit until now," she spoke first. "The clinic's kept me pretty busy. Naruto had told me you had a bit of a cold, Sasuke, but I never guessed you were this sick. Why didn't you say anything?" However, she instantly caught herself with a gasp, covering her mouth.

So Sasuke had finally spoken to her. It had to have either been the same day he had spoken to Sasuke or the day after. But she understood why Sasuke hadn't told her about being sick and it was the same reason Naruto hadn't. It would've been tasteless of either of them, considering the situation.

"Even if things are…how they are, I still would've helped," she said, already her eyes becoming misty. "No matter how I feel about you two, I still would never want to see you hurting."

Even though we hurt you. Naruto thought back on his wish for Sakura, hoping just that much harder for it to come true.

Controlling herself, she brushed a hand across her eyes and nodded to her basket. "I know you probably don't think I'm that great of a cook, but I worked especially hard on those. I couldn't convince anyone else to try them," she smiled and they smiled with her, even Sasuke. "But my mom and dad seemed to like them. Then again, they like anything I make," she shrugged, clearly dismissing their opinions. "You can take them with you for the next time you leave the village."

Sasuke was just about to reply when Sai suddenly asked, "Naruto, have you been here the entire time? I've not seen you around the village much."

Naruto almost gave himself away by choking but was proud of his recovery when he said, "Well, someone has to be here to take care of the idiot," and he threw a look at Sasuke. He was rewarded with an exasperated roll of the eyes.

"Sakura said something about how she felt about the two of you," he pointed out, and Naruto felt a cold sweat fall down his back. "What about the two of you, why say that specifically?"

Naruto's brain was racing and the best excuse that came to mind would've been rather horrible. He could spin it so that Sakura perhaps had been talking about her insecurities with keeping up with him and Sasuke, but he couldn't do that. One, the gig would be up if Sakura protested. And two, he'd always known Sakura was tough, and not just physically. Even if it'd taken her some time to find just what her strengths were, he'd never doubted her abilities. No matter how she spoke of herself, he knew he'd feel dirty if he used that as a defense for this situation.

With no one offering anything up, Sai finally surmised, "I'm guessing then that, Sasuke, Naruto is your lover?"

Oh no. "Don't tell—" Naruto blurted.

"I don't care if anyone finds out," Sasuke spoke over him. "I plan to make it clear that I'm not hiding our relationship."

"How brave!" Sai (likely falsely) cheered, shifting his eyes from Sasuke to Naruto and back again. "I truthfully don't really mind. But, well…not sure everyone else feels that same way."

Naruto refused to look at Sakura.

"Anyways, we should get going to give you some rest. Hope you get well soon!" Sai gently ushered Sakura to the door where they waved goodbye, his gesture being overly enthusiastic and hers holding a bit more warmth than she'd shown in the last few months.

With their privacy resumed, Naruto instantly turned to the Uchiha. "He's going to tell everyone. Sai doesn't gossip, but he's completely socially ignorant and probably doesn't know that something like this should be kept to himself."

"I meant what I said," Sasuke told him, completely unaffected as he ripped his pillow from behind him to fluff it. "I don't care who knows because I'm not hiding it. If anything, I'm actually looking forward to people knowing." He finished with the pillow, rolling it and stuffing it under his neck.

Someone other than him probably would've felt honored to hear that. Sasuke wasn't ashamed of him, completely confident in their relationship. But while he'd slowly been getting used to the idea of them as a couple, he felt it was still too early to blow the horn as an announcement to everyone.

Tomorrow, the two would leave the comfort of the hospital to confront the world once more. He didn't want to focus on his anxious feelings on that though and instead, he pulled the pillow out from under Sasuke, causing the other teen to open his mouth in complaint. Before he could get out a single word, Naruto nudged him to keep him on his side, facing away, and slowly began to knead his neck and shoulder.

It was a mindless task that had the extra benefit of calming Sasuke. Tomorrow was a day away; he needn't think about it now.