Sasuke nodded eagerly and smiled widely. He was excited for the first time in years. Naruto helped Sasuke to the bathroom and started the water. He sat on the edge of the tub while Sasuke sat on the toilet and started to unbutton the shirt. It now smelled like him and lavender with an extra hint of caramel.
The silence around them was easy and content. There was nothing that had to be said in that moment, because it was already said while they were on the floor in the living room. Naruto dipped his fingers into the water to test the temperature, when he felt it was right, he looked back over at Sasuke, who was sitting in his boxers on the toilet. Naruto felt a spike of honest hatred when he saw the netting of scars all over the mans body. It was worse now than any other time he had looked at them. But, he forced it down as he pushed up to stand and walked the three steps to the other man.
"In you go, teme," the blonde said with a chuckle. They had been calling each other names for as long as they had known each other, now it was more of a term of endearment rather than an insult. Sasuke scoffed in reply to the name.
After some struggle with his boxers, the final idea was to just cut them off. So, Naruto let the raven do this on his own, so he would have his privacy. After that was done, Sasuke settled himself into the water with a long sigh of content and relaxation. His casted foot, of course, resting on the edge of the bathtub, where it wouldn't get wet.
'''''''''''
Sasuke was in the bath, Sakura was lurking, and Naruto was placing chakra traps on the windows, which there were only a few of in the whole apartment. When that was done, he could hear Sasuke shifting about, working his way out of the tub and drying off. The battered man seemed to do well on his own, even with a broken ankle. So, Naruto left him on his own, only to keep a level of dignity and privacy alive for Sasuke, who had little of it when he was trapped.
Naruto plopped down on the couch and waited for Sasuke to need him, which didn't seem to take long as he heard a muffled thump. Leaping to his feel, Naruto ran into the bed room and saw Sasuke on the Fox's bed, tangled up in an old, raggity blanket. Naruto scanned the room as he advanced on Sasuke, the only thing that was odd was that the closet was open, and a few other things had fallen out.
"What happened?" Naruto inquired as he pulled the Raven free of the blanket.
Sasuke looked up at him with agitation in his eyes, "There was a noise in the closer, so I went to see what it was, and a cat jumped out and knocked everything over on me!"
A cat? How did a cat get in? If it had snuck in, then it must have done that days ago, when Naruto was cleaning up his room for Sasuke, he had opened the window to let in from fresh air.
There was a faint mewling under the futon and it make both ninjas look over with squinted eyes. A kitten, no bigger then the palm of Sasuke's hand limped out of the darkness. It looked at them with terror in it's eyes and looked ready to cry. Sasuke immediatly wanted to hold it and make it feel better, like Naruto did for him. He pulled on Naruto's shirt, effectively stopping Naruto from walking over and tossing it back out on to the ledge of the window.
"She's just a baby, Dobe, I want her," Sasuke said with a firmness in his voice that had not presented itself before now. Naruto was taken aback, but recovered and nodded. He walked over and scooped the kitten up. She hissed weakly and meowed a warning, but her little claws didn't do much to the calloused hands that held her. Sasuke held out his hands to take her when the Fox got near to him, and the kitten leapt for him, snuffling in under his chin when she landed.
Naruto smiled at the sight, then noticed that Sasuke was only dressed in his pants. He walked over and picked a shirt out of one of the bags from their shopping trip the other day and set it next to Sasuke, "Get dressed, we need to go get her checked out." Sasuke only nodded and snuggled his new friend even more.