The slap had been shockingly arousing. Immobilized from the jolt of the contact, Sasuke wiped his face of its stunned expression and gathered enough composure to formulate an ordinary response.

Hinata had slapped him in order to inflict pain, not pleasure. He settled on glaring at her, and shoved her so she was thrown to the ground in an undignified heap. He climbed off the bed and stood before her, watching as she scrambled to her feet. As usual, she panicked, and thrust her hands out, "Hakke-!"

He grabbed her by the front of the jacket and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her to bind hers at her sides. They remained like that for a while, Hinata pressed to his chest and frozen in his hold. He watched as her blush built and built, spreading down her throat, to her chest, and beyond, like she was allergic to intimacy, or something equally bizarre. It was amusing...attractive...a combination of the two it would pose difficult to describe? Adorable? Like a kitten? Hinata wasn't a kitten. She was...

...pressed against him, her body firm and soft, and curved in all the right places.

"I win," he said against her ear. She stiffened, and began to struggle to escape, when Sasuke suddenly became heavier. His hold on her eased.

He began to sink, and her, with him, unable to hold him up for more than a few seconds. She wrapped her arms around his torso.

"S-Sasuke?"

His eyelids began to lower, the cloudiness from the edges of his vision encompassing the rest of it. As the world slipped away, it was he who was being held tightly.


Sakura's eyes snapped open.

She attempted to sit up, only to find the task to be near impossible. Her chest was aching, and her breathing felt shallow. What happened?

"You've been out for a few days."

Sakura turned her head slightly. "Sensei," she said hoarsely.

The gray-haired jounin approached, his hands in his pockets, cradling no editions of Icha Icha that afternoon. "I had a feeling you would be waking up soon."

Sakura closed her eyes against the bright lights over her head. "I'm in...the hospital?"

"Yes."

"What happened?" Her hands shook as she brought them to her chest.

Kakashi stopped her, pulling them apart and down to her sides. "Don't," he warned. "You don't have the strength to heal yourself."

He was right, of course. He always was. Sakura repeated her query, acknowledging the pain in her fists with familiarity. It was a hazard of her power-packed punches, and judging by their soreness, her victim couldn't have survived.

"You were attacked during your last mission." His answer was true, in a sense. Naruto and Sakura had both been attacked, mentally. "Do you remember?"

"Not much," Sakura mumbled. "The others?"

The others were entirely the reason Kakashi was visiting the hospital. While the strange noises Sasuke was making in his bedroom the Hyuuga heir had driven Kakashi away from his home, he had been meaning to check up on his injured pupils anyway.

"They're fine," he said dryly.

"Who's responsible for this?"

"Sakura, you have to relax."

"Is that Naruto!?" her gaze had come in contact with the bed across from hers. The blonde hair and bronze skin was unmistakably Naruto's.

Kakashi hesitated, then sighed. "We need to stop sending the three of you off together. You always end up trying to kill each other."

Sakura stared at him, not fully comprehending. Had Naruto and Sasuke-? She lightly shook her head. There would be a later time to discuss what had gone wrong during the mission. "How is he?"

"He's...declining."

"Decline" was the one thing she had never heard in association with Naruto. It was his nature to ascend in strength, health, and vitality. The thought that Naruto was physically declining was disturbing to her. "Tsunade-sama, hasn't she-?"

"She does what she can, every day," Kakashi interrupted. "Everything that she can for Naruto, as well as every other dying patient in this hospital. You have to understand, Sakura, the Hokage cannot work herself sick. We are on the brink of turmoil now that we're in the wake of the war. The moment Tsunade is weak, we are-"

"Off guard. Yes, I know." The room was spinning, the word "decline" continuing to haunt her. "Take me to him, Kaka-sensei?"

"You can't – you'll exhaust yourself. You might even kill yourself."

"Just take me over to him!"

She didn't know whether it was the determined look in her eyes, or simply his awareness that she would find a way to get over to Naruto with or without his assistance, but Kakashi wrapped an arm behind her and ushered her over to Naruto's bedside. Her body tightened in pain with every movement, her bandages dampening with blood in their slow progression.

When she finally reached him, she instructed Kakashi to release her. Sakura then raised her shaking hands over Naruto's chest, healing him as much as she could. When every last bit of her chakra had been devoted to restoring her friend, Sakura smiled to herself, and allowed the darkness to consume her again.


She sunk with Sasuke's weight, until she was on the ground, and he was upon her, against her, his face buried in the crook of her neck. His skin was burning up. So was hers, but it had little to do with fever.

"Sasuke?"

He was taller, broader, and heavier than she was. Getting out from beneath him would pose some difficulty.

She gazed thoughtfully upon his head of dark hair, and her thoughts shifted. She suddenly regretted slapping him – and trying to strike him with the gentle fist. She hadn't known he was sick, and had probably exacerbated it just by the stress of her visiting.

The sun was setting, the shadows growing across the room. She wanted to try to get up and find a medical nin, but with Naruto and Sakura as injured as they were, she doubted anyone could be spared for a boy with a fever. She also considered finding Sasuke some medicine, but his skin was so hot, she was scared to leave him alone. The sheer fact that he had lost consciousness was worrisome as it was.

Her father would be expecting her soon, but Hinata dismissed this. She would worry about keeping up appearances after she was sure Sasuke was safe.

It took her some time to rouse Sasuke to a vaguely-awake state and pull him up. He didn't even seem to notice the way they had been positioned as she guided him to the bed. He sat on its edge, with his head bowed and body slumped. Hinata helped him out of his shirt, then got him to lie down, his drowsy eyelids lifting in the process. He stared straight at her.

"Leave."

Hinata bit her mouth. "No," she said stubbornly.

She watched his eyelids lower again as he slipped back into unconsciousness. Hinata pulled off her jacket, dumping it to the floor beside her. Next she pulled off the black tanktop she wore beneath it, then her pants, deciding that she would have to absorb Sasuke's fever. When she was down to just her bra and panties, she climbed into the bed on top of him, pulling the covers over them both.

It was the attire she might have gone to sleep in while sharing a bed with another female, like her sister. At that moment, she forgot that Sasuke was a boy and she was a girl, knowing just that he was sick, and she had to make him better.


When she awoke, she was still against Sasuke's muscled chest, as it rose and fell with his steady breathing. She sleepily traced his pectorals with her fingers, more childishly than sexually, unaccustomed to her close proximity with the male anatomy. Judging by the dim light outlining the curtains, it must have been early morning.

Hinata could tell from Sasuke's body temperature that his fever had gone down. She slowly raised herself, wondering how he looked as he slept at that moment – whether he seemed dead or alive, right then.

She was surprised to meet half-lidded onyx eyes. It seemed that Sasuke was already awake.

Suddenly aware of her lack of dress, Hinata was rushed with an onslaught of emotion, the greatest of all, embarrassment. Alarmingly enough, Sasuke initiated the conversation. He leaned up to her lips.

The kiss was addictive, like all his others, bewitching to the extent that she kissed him back.

When Sasuke's hand slid up her back to finger the hooks of her bra, she was awoken from her trance. She roughly jerked away from those fingers before they could reach anything else, consequently falling off his bed for the second time in as many days. Oww...

Through the bit of the daylight that penetrated the curtains, Sasuke peered down at her, looking slightly annoyed. Hinata did her best to cover herself up. "I have t-to go!" she declared.

"Wait until sunrise," he argued, "Hinata?"

Her name rolled off his tongue with such meticulous care, with the familiarity that made her blush, because it was a profession in itself. She could see why his voice might prompt some girls to walk into trees.

"O-okay," she said.

"Okay," he countered.

They might have been agreeing to stay with each other for long past sunrise, but neither took notice. Instead, they occupied themselves with staring at one another, because it was the most enticing thing that the moment presented.

Hinata was the first to divert her gaze. "But I-I'll stay on the f-floor," she mumbled, missing the flicker of irritation that crossed Sasuke's face.

He dropped to his back and out of her view, knowing there was no use in arguing that they should sleep together.

His sheets were ripped off him.

"And I'm t-taking these," Hinata said, wrapping herself up in his comforter.

Gritting his teeth, Sasuke glared at the ceiling. This wasn't what he'd had in mind at all. Closing his eyes, he entertained the concept of smothering himself with a pillow. Hinata was clueless of her affect on him.

On the ground, Hinata curled up and closed her eyes as she mused about how interesting Sasuke looked when he was so disheveled. She would awake shivering, some time later, to find that Sasuke had stolen his sheets back, on the ground beside her.


Author's Note: The "absorb his fever" concept is stolen from one of the Fushigi Yuugi stories. I don't think it's legitimate, but who cares?