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Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah, blah, blah

Sleepless Nights

Chapter: 9

You Found Me

Naruto tilted his head back and sighed, leaning back in his chair and shoving the mountainous stack of paperwork in front of him in the opposite direction. There was so much left to do that there weren't enough hours in the day to finish it. Much to Naruto's dismay, though, there would definitely be more where that came from if Lady Tsunade had anything to say about it.

Naruto rubbed the tired out of his eyes and yawned, throwing his arms up to the sky for a much deserved stretch.

He really needed a break.

The blonde turned to gaze out the window at the bright blue sky, void of clouds and the full green trees of a smolderingly hot summer day. The only reason he hadn't escaped and gone outside yet was because the Hokage's mansion had air conditioning.

Lady Tsunade had run off approximately an hour earlier to run some errands and wouldn't be back for most of the rest of the day, she'd only told Naruto that if he needed her she'd be at the hospital around four. Whilst watching birds frolic and play just outside the window Naruto suddenly found himself thinking of his home, well really what was in his home rather than the place itself. He felt awful just leaving Sasuke home all by himself on such a beautiful day but lady Tsunade quote un-quote "doesn't allow pets in the office".

He wondered what the raven was up to, smiling as he remembered Sasuke'd been complaining about his cooking for a while and would probably have dinner ready when Naruto got home.

'Just like a married couple, making dinner for the other before they get home.' He shook his head suddenly, 'no, Sasuke wouldn't do that, he's fine without me-'

'No he isn't!' Naruto started, nearly falling out of his chair at the sound of that little voice at the back of his mind.

"Kyuubi? Where the hell have you been? I haven't heard from you in a while." he laughed at his own rhetorical question.

'Enough with the small talk!' snapped the fox, 'look alive kit, the kid needs you!'

"What in the world-?" before Naruto could even finish his sentence the door burst open as Kakashi let himself in. even behind his mask he looked almost frantic and rushed into the room with one of Naruto's favorite people following closely behind.

"Old man! What are you doing here? I'll bet you're here to tell me you've got a new kind of ramen for me to try out tonight right? Sorry but I can't come over and try it I have a date tonight." Naruto reveled happily at the sound of the word date and grinned at Ichiraku's shopkeeper. The old man shook his head.

"Please listen to me Naruto, it's got nothing to do with me or the ramen," the sullen look on his face sobered Naruto right up and he became serious as well, "its Sasuke, I'm worried about him."

Naruto grinned again and waved his hand dismissively.

"Sasuke-kun's going to be fine, he'll adjust to city life soon enough." The shopkeeper shook his head again, faster this time and with more urgency.

"No you idiot!" Naruto flinched, never having been called anything other than Naruto by the man, "Sasuke's in trouble, he was by the shop today and some thugs attacked him!"

Naruto's eyes widened and he held the arms of his chair in a white knuckled death grip. The old man held up an object in his hand that Naruto had not noticed with him earlier. It was a baseball bat, broken in half and covered in blood.

"This is all they left, I knocked the leader pretty hard but they both got away." He looked away as Naruto's continuously elevating enraged stare bored through his skull.

Suddenly, without warning Naruto was up and out the door so fast that his movement acted like a vacuum pulling all the documents he was supposed to go over off the table and scattering them on the floor.

'Damnit, damnit, damnit! I never should have left him alone! He's probably crying in some corner alone somewhere because I was being selfish and left early for work!' he bolted around the corner onto market street and veered to the left and right to avoid running into the crowd of people packing the street.

'I can't believe anyone would jump him! What if they broke him, what if they – if they had killed him!' Naruto's momentary spaz attack only ceased when he realized that Sasuke was stronger than that, he wouldn't die so easily.

The shopkeeper at Ichiraku had told him everything, from how happy Sasuke had seemed that morning to the far off broken look in his eyes as he begged the old man not to tell Naruto. The blonde gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes, if he didn't calm down soon he'd kill somebody.

"Hey, Naruto!" he heard someone call his name but he didn't stop to chat or even to explain why he couldn't stop in the first place but plowed through the throngs of people on a straight shot path over fences and buildings to his apartment. As soon as he began to get tired he started burning Kyuubi's chakra to go just a little bit faster.

"Can you feel if he's hurt?" Naruto asked Kyuubi, he panicked at the short silence that followed.

'Kit… I can't feel anything.'

Naruto skidded to a stop in front of the apartment building just as he was coming down from his adrenaline high. After his anger was gone Naruto's entire body became cold and he shook so hard that it was difficult to stay upright.

'It's going to be alright… alright,' Naruto repeated to himself, 'the only reason Kyuubi couldn't feel anything was because he was out of it, yea, he's been sleeping all day, he's too tired to tell.'

Without so much as a minutes pause in front of his door Naruto grabbed the handle and yanked. Hard.

"Sonofabitch! He locked the door? Goddamnit!" in too much of a hurry and panic to call the landlord up to unlock the door for him Naruto whipped out a kunai and started frantically cutting the hinges and lock off of the door. He didn't have time to pay attention to the few of his neighbors that were home coming out into the hallway as he threw himself against the door again and again until it broke open.

Naruto leapt up off the ground and whirled around, quickly inspecting the room.

"Sasuke? Sasuke where are you?" suddenly the blonde spotted the sort of pile of splintered wood on the floor by his couch and rushed over to it thinking that Sasuke had been tired after a small bout of destruction and was just taking a nap. He wasn't.

With the couch being bare and there being no sign of Sasuke in either the living room or the bedroom, which he could clearly see into from where he stood the blonde panicked again. He wildly searched his mind for anyplace the Uchiha might be hiding.

Naruto paused unexpectedly, keeping completely still as fear churned in the pit of his stomach. It was almost a mix between a gurgling sound and a moan that had grabbed his attention. Naruto bolted through the house, holding no regard for the vases and books that toppled to the floor as he flew by. Merely in passing the blonde noticed the scribbled upon notepad and the pile of money but it meant nothing to him, as far as Naruto knew Sasuke had just left his money there while he was taking a shower or something.

"Sasuke!" he stopped dead in his tracks upon entering the kitchen and an uncontrollable shattering panic consumed his mind. Naruto dropped to his knees as tears spilled from his wide unseeing eyes, frozen in place, he screamed at his body to move but his muscles wouldn't listen to his brain.

There in the middle of the floor lay Sasuke, face down in steadily enlarging twin pools of deep crimson blood that originated from his wrists. Naruto could clearly see the black and blue splotches covering every inch of his skin and hear the sickeningly soft sound of the man's life slowly leaving him.

Naruto was brain-dead; he could neither move nor think so as one can imagine it certainly wasn't Naruto who sprung into action. "Naruto" ripped two strips of cloth from his robe and wrapped them securely around Sasuke's slit wrists, immediately analyzing the wounds with experienced red eyes and knowing immediately that they needed to get to the hospital.

As "Naruto" gently gathered Sasuke up in his arms the raven wheezed and lazily opened his bloodshot eyes, his lips moved quickly before Kyuubi silenced him.

"Shut up and go back to sleep kid, Naruto's not here right now but he'll be there when you wake up."

"Naruto" glanced at the large pools of blood and the welt on Sasuke's head from falling onto the floor and frowned, 'how the hell was this kid still awake?' on his way out of the apartment – making sure not to hit Sasuke's head on anything – "Naruto" picked up Sasuke's notebook and took it with him, Naruto would probably want to read it later just in case… in case Sasuke didn't make it.

X

'What do you mean I fell asleep? I would never fall asleep when Sasuke was in so much trouble!' Naruto raged at Kyuubi, the demon had gotten them to the hospital and Naruto was sitting in the waiting room when he "woke up".

'Okay, maybe asleep wasn't the right word… you checked out, as soon as your mind was in shock I took over because I knew you weren't going to be able to do anything about it.' Naruto groaned and covered his face with his hands. 'You should sleep kid; you've been awake for hours.'

"I can't sleep," Naruto mumbled, "seeing Sasuke on the floor like that… the image is burned onto the insides of my eyelids."

'Well if you're not going to sleep I might as well tell you what he left for you.'

Naruto arched a golden brow in confusion, "he left something for me?"

'Yea,' said Kyuubi, 'I'm surprised you didn't see it when you got in the house. I put it in your robe; it's still on the page he wrote on.'

Naruto immediately dug the folded notebook out of his pocket and scanned over it with his eyes which watered and spilled over, smudging the ink and soaking the page.

'Dear Naruto,

I know I've been nothing but a burden to you since I came home but don't worry; I won't cause you problems anymore. Thank you for taking me in even though you didn't want to, and thank you for staying my friend all these years. Maybe now you'll be able to forgive me.

Sasuke'

"Is that really what he thinks?" Naruto finally choked out, "That I didn't want him? That he was causing me trouble?" he shook his head and gripped the notebook in his hand as though it was the last piece of Sasuke he had left, and for all he knew it very well may have been.

'And that's not all,' Kyuubi interrupted his host's depression, 'when I got to him he was talking.'

Naruto perked up, "Talking? Tell me what he said!" everyone else in the waiting room turned to him after his outburst. Naruto looked away and lowered his voice, "what did he say?"

'He said something that really didn't make sense. He said "I'm sorry, Hinata"'

Naruto's eyes widened suddenly and he growled a low feral sound in the back of his throat as he stood abruptly and stomped out the door.

'Kit, calm down!' Kyuubi warned as red hot chakra leaked off Naruto's skin, 'if you don't get a hold of yourself you might lose it and kill someone!'

Naruto leapt down the flight of stairs outside the hospital door, shattering the concrete and shaking the earth as he landed. His eyes bled bright red and Naruto began to change.

"I want to."

Author's note: Hmmm, is this another cliff hanger I see on the horizon? Thank you for all you kind, uplifting, and inspiring reviews but alas I must ask for more! More I say! I'm not planning to let this story end any time soon but I need your thoughts opinions and reviews to keep the rusty gears in my mind turning. :3