SasuNaruSasu, no warnings
Seeing Is Believing
by vernajast
sasuke x naruto x sasuke
Team 7
(a sequel to The Martyrdom of Saint Me)
Kakashi took comfort in the fact that his emotions were safely hidden behind the cloth mask that he always wore and the Anbu mask he had taken up again more recently. The scene his squad had stumbled upon minutes before inspired a conflicting sense of despair and relief, intermingling, and he was sure it would manifest outwardly as the fear he could feel festering deep in his chest.
Lying in a wet mess of blood and mud and shredded earth, huddled together...those were hifs kids.
With tongue thick, he called for a status report, and the medic nin on his team (Why didn't I bring a second?) raised three fingers. Three heartbeats. "Stabilize them." Kakashi felt his knees weaken slightly and shifted into a steadier stance.
"But, sir, the Uchiha is a—"
—a shinobi of the Leaf. Kakashi's (Obito's) sharingan raked over the bodies of his former teammates. "Do it."
But there wasn't much for the medic-nin to do. Sakura seemed to have staunched their bleeding before finally losing consciousness to her own shock and exhaustion.
Prying Naruto's hand from Sasuke's, Kakashi lifted the blond boy from the ground. He carried the son of his sensei through Konoha's gates bloody, beaten, and broken for the third time.
It took twenty-two hours of surgery (Tsunade-sama! His heart's stopped again!), but eventually Naruto was wheeled into a recovery room. For fifteen days, he remained there, most of which he spent sleeping while the demon tried to heal the last of his wounds.
It was the quietest anyone had ever seen the blond hurricane, and every moment was torture for those who knew him best.
"Dobe..." Sasuke leaned against the doorframe, and Naruto smiled at him from across the room. Both were aware of the hidden Anbu escort just down the hall, another outside the window, but neither could bring themselves to care. It was a formality, at best, or an appeal to Sasuke's pride. He was no threat now.
"Where have you been? It's been so boooring and-"
"Tch. Some of us have work to do..."
"Yeah, I bet, 'tebayo. You've probably been foolin' around while I'm all laid up here. You're so-"
"I've been training." Sasuke's tone left no reason to doubt, and in case Naruto didn't understand, the Uchiha walked effortlessly across the room to sit in a chair he couldn't have known would be on the opposite side of the bed today.
Blunt fingers grazed over the gauze that covered dark, useless eyes. "Sasuke..."
"Shut up." The Uchiha turned his head, nose slightly raised.
It was a move that called to mind twelve-year-old boys and rivalry and innocence that was only ever a mask, itself. Naruto could see the accompanying look in Sasuke's eyes despite the gauze; it would always be burned into his mind. "Bastard."
"Idiot." An automatic response coupled with a smirk.
Kakashi arrived to find Sasuke clasping Naruto's hand, as he had every day (Wake up, Naruto, goddammit...), and he backed away from the door slowly when neither seemed to notice his presence. In the hallway, Sakura shot him a questioning look, and rather than hold her back, he pushed her toward the door.
Realization spread across her features like a tidal wave, and when a lone tear slipped from the corner of her eye, it was her sensei's finger that caught it and brushed it away from her cheek.
"They're going to be okay," she whispered in the hallway.
Kakashi made a quiet noise of agreement as he shut the door.
[ .end ]