Naruto could hear an indistinct man's voice coming from the other side. As he talked, Sasuke turned away from Naruto, sat up fully and stared at the wall in front of the bed. But after only a few seconds, he interrupted the other speaker "It's not going to happen."

He listened for a few seconds, before snapping "Because I don't want to see you."

Naruto blinked, feeling a little awkward. Who would Sasuke be talking to like that? Naruto had never heard him sound so… affected, by anything.

Then, whatever the other man had said made his posture change, his spine shot straight up, any remnant of relaxation disappearing "So it was you?"

He listened for a bit longer and Naruto saw his expression looking angrier and angrier. Then, unexpectedly, he moved toward the foot of the bed and getting off it, started pacing. "What did you expect would happen?"

Whatever he heard made him let out a bitter chuckle. "You think I care about the money?"

Sasuke continued to pace across Naruto's room, which was not big enough for pacing. It made him look like a caged wild animal, a panther, maybe.

"No" Sasuke said, "I don't care, it's not going to happen."

Naruto watched him, growing increasingly worried. At no point had he raised his voice, but the sheer aggression rising from the conversation was making Naruto want to stand up and pace too.

He laughed again "Why would I? I told you what I wanted already, and this is what you do" And then without any sort of goodbye he hung up the phone.

Then abruptly stopping his pacing, Sasuke just stood there, facing the other wall, his back to Naruto. Naruto watched him quietly for a second, debating what to do.

"Sasuke?" He called, hoping the other would turn towards him so he could see his expression.

"I should have let you leave." Sasuke said quietly.

Naruto, still staring at his back, asked "Are you okay?"

There was a tense pause for a moment, and Naruto wondered if Sasuke would lash out at him. Instead, as he watched Sasuke's shoulders slowly moved down, but Naruto couldn't tell if it was in relief, or if they were sagging under the weight of what had happened.

"I'm fine." Sasuke said "I'm used to it." His tone sounded close to normal, but Naruto couldn't shake the feeling that he was very much not fine.

Naruto stood up and cautiously approached him.

"Hey, Sasuke?"

When Sasuke still didn't turn back, Naruto reached out and grabbed his shoulder gently, slowly turning him towards himself. Sasuke tensed at the contact, but Naruto didn't let go, and Sasuke didn't resist the movement.

He looked pale, his lips pressed into a line and his eyes looked pained again, like they'd done in the car. Naruto felt his stomach clench at the sight.

"Hey, talk to me, okay? What can I do?"

"What can you do?" Sasuke repeated distractedly.

"Yeah, anything."

"I don't know. I'm really tired Naruto."

Naruto squeezed his shoulder "Alright, let's go back to bed. Okay? Let's just sleep."

Sasuke nodded, but just continued to stand there until Naruto gave him a gentle push towards the bed. This time when he laid down, Naruto pulled up the cover over him and then slipped under it too.

They were quiet for a moment, and then Sasuke said "I'm going to tell you something."

"Alright." Naruto said easily, watching him as he stared at the celling.

"Today was my mother's birthday."

Naruto felt his stomach drop, though Sasuke hadn't said anything concerning. He waited, sensing that Sasuke wasn't done.

"She used to take me to this one park by the beach when I was a child, that's where I went today."

"I see." Naruto said carefully.

"She died about two years ago, with my father, in a car accident."

Naruto nodded. They were silent for a moment.

"What was she like?" Naruto asked when it became clear Sasuke didn't have anything else to add.

Sasuke seemed to think as he glanced at the ceiling. "She was very gentle, on the quieter side, especially if there were a lot of people around, but she had a great sense of humor."

"Is that where you get it from?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Maybe, but hers was different, she liked saying the oddest most bizarre things she could think of with a straight face."

Naruto smiled, thinking that even if their specific brand of humor was different, the poker face sounded similar.

"And your dad?"

Sasuke's expression changed, a different kind of pain flashing across it. "It was complicated."

Naruto stayed quiet, for once, not wanting to push Sasuke to say anything he didn't want to. The other boy looked lost in thought for a while and Naruto wasn't sure if he was going to say anything else, then he suddenly said "He had set views about the world, about how his life was going to go, and having a gay son wasn't a part of that."

"Oh" Naruto said, feeling suddenly so stupid for not having thought of that as a possibility. "That's…Yeah, pretty terrible."

Sasuke didn't say anything to that. Then after a long pause he said "I'd only come out to them for about a year at that point, so me and my father weren't on the best terms when it happened. We weren't really speaking"

He said it as if he was talking about the weather, or something that had happened to someone else, and that, more than his words, made Naruto hurt. He wished he could reach over and hug him, but he didn't think Sasuke would appreciate it.

"Was he different before?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke glanced at him for the first time. "He was, he was never the most obviously affectionate person, he worked himself to the bone, and we had to move a lot for his job, but he still did whatever he could to put some time aside for the family. He didn't approve of the music, but he came to almost every sports match and dojo fight." Sasuke sighed.

Naruto wanted to say that his father should have accepted him right away. That he had been wrong, but also that maybe with more time, he would have come around to where he should have been from the beginning and that Naruto's heart broke for the fact that Sasuke hadn't just lost him, but had lost that possibility with him, that he'd never get to experience what it would have been like to have his father be proud of him as he was.

But he didn't say any of that, he just inched forward on the bed, and then slowly pressed his forehead to the side of Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke didn't say anything, and they just stayed like that in silence for a long time.

The last thing Naruto remembered before he drifted off to sleep was the smell of his own shampoo wafting from Sasuke's damp hair. It didn't smell as good as Sasuke's had last night, but it was still calming.

"Naruto. Naruto. Wake up."

Naruto hazily opened his eyes, registering that not only was someone calling his name, but they were also shaking him by the shoulder.

"…What?" Naruto tried to get out, though it sounded incomprehensible.

"Please turn off your alarm."

"Sasuke?" Naruto murmured. Why was Sasuke here? Was this a dream?

"Naruto, that sound's giving me a new concussion."

Oh right. Naruto tried to blink himself awake, as he began to notice the rather insistent and loud music coming from his own phone. He patted the table until he reached it and managed to stop the alarm.

The sudden silence was deafening. Huh, so the alarm really had been loud

Naruto finally managed to fully open his eyes for a moment and was graced with the sight of a very annoyed looking Sasuke half leaning over and him.

"…Uh, you're feeling okay then?" Naruto murmured out, still not feeling completely conscious himself.

"Yes, I think your brain health is a much bigger cause for concern right now given how you were just sleeping through that."

"That's a big sentence for 4 am." Naruto yawned, already feeling his eyelids closing "Let's go back to sleep."

He flinched when he felt a sudden sharp pain on his forehead. He forced his eyes open again "…What?"

"Don't mind me, I just needed to express my utmost pleasure at your ability to simply fall back asleep."

Naruto groaned "Why do you use bigger words when you're sleep deprived?"

"Sorry, am I being too loquacious for you?"

"You're not normal." Naruto muttered. Then opened one eye to see Sasuke still glaring at him "And you're cranky."

Sasuke's hair was sticking all around his face at odd angles, and the look in his eyes was so murderous, Naruto swore they were almost flashing red. Naruto reached over absently and tried to make the strands of his hair go to their proper place. Instead, he ended up half petting Sasuke's head, half running his hand through his hair. "Don't be cranky." He mumbled, barely awake.

Sasuke had gone very still, but at least he didn't look quite as mad anymore, so Naruto ran his hand in his hair again, even as his own eyes closed on their own. "…I'll make you breakfast tomorrow." He said before he fully went back to sleep.

His alarm went off again at 8 am, but miraculously, this time he woke up when it had barely rung and hurried to turn it off. He took a breath and waited, but there was no movement from the other side of the bed.

Naruto let out a relieved sigh, and then realized two things, one was that him waking up was less a miracle and more a result of a desperate need to use the bathroom, and second was that he was relieved for no reason because the whole point was to wake Sasuke up every 4 hours so it's not like he could just let the other boy sleep.

Naruto looked to the side, where Sasuke seemed to be in deep sleep. His hair had fallen across his face, hiding it from view.

Absent-mindedly, Naruto reached over to brush it back, but caught himself right before his fingers touched him. He pulled his hand back and blinked down at it.

What was he doing?

The memory of waking up at 4 am came back to him suddenly. He wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or amused by himself, but he was surprised that Sasuke hadn't just rolled him off the bed after that. He shook his head, and then started to get up slowly. At least, since Sasuke had slept by the wall, Naruto could leave the bed easily enough. He figured waking up Sasuke was best done when his bladder was no longer bursting.

When he got to the bathroom, he could tell that Shikamaru, for whatever reason, had already woken and taken a shower, because water was still dripping everywhere. Naruto took care of his business and then turned to wash his hands when he saw what the steam had revealed on the mirror.

He'd written Sasuke sucks on the mirror the night before. Underneath, Sasuke had added Sometimes.

Naruto stared for a moment and then burst out laughing. Then, he only laughed more when he saw that on the corner, a third person had drawn a stick figure, hanging itself. Poor Shikamaru.

Back in the room, Sasuke had rolled over to Naruto's side of the mattress. Naruto took a breath, walked over, and called gently "Sasuke?"

"Hmm?" He called back, sleepily "Get out of my room Karin."

Naruto was both amused and alarmed at the fact that apparently Sasuke's housemate had invaded his room enough times when he was sleeping for him to have developed that reaction. Still, Naruto was just relieved he'd called her name and not Suigetsus's.

Wait, why was he relieved about that again?

Naruto shook his head. Anyways, that seemed like enough proof that Sasuke's brain was working fine. He didn't think he had to wake him up completely. He wasn't sure how long it had taken Sasuke to fall back sleep after they'd woken up the first time.

Naruto could go back to bed. Normally, he would never get up this early on a weekend, but the laughing bout in the bathroom had really waken him up, so instead, he picked up his phone and quietly made his way out of the room.

About 20 minutes later, Naruto looked up to see Sasuke standing by the kitchen door and startled so badly he almost upended the cooking pan.

"Should you be allowed near a stove?" Sasuke asked. He looked fully awake and had clearly already washed his face and fixed his hair.

"Hahaha, very funny, maybe I should get you a bell." Naruto responded.

"You could, it depends on how much you value your life."

Naruto snorted "So violent Sasuke, and it's only 8:30", he checked that the eggs were fully done, turned off the stove and turned towards Sasuke "Good morning."

Sasuke gave him a suspicious look "Good morning…"

"What's with that face?" Naruto laughed "Did you sleep well?"

"…Yes." Sasuke said, "Thank you."

"I made scrambled eggs, I was going to make pancakes, but based on your reaction to my coffee order, I had a feeling you might not appreciate my pancakes the way they deserve to be appreciated."

Sasuke blinked "That's…very thoughtful." Then he walked a few steps forward and glanced at the pan "Is it edible?"

Naruto shook his head "Just get me two plates from that cupboard, will you?"

While Sasuke moved to get the plates, Naruto took out the instant coffee he'd bought yesterday and said "I'm afraid it's this or no coffee at all."

Sasuke stared at the bottle in dismay for several moments before he nodded his ascent. The prissy bastard, Naruto had known exactly how he would react. The thought made him smile as he plated the eggs and got the toasts for both of them, while Sasuke made two cups of instant coffee as if his soul was leaving his body.

They sat around the table and ate in companionable silence for a little bit, before Naruto asked "How are you feeling?"

"Good as new"

"Really? No headache?"

"Are you disappointed?" Sasuke asked dryly.

Naruto, refusing to be distracted, pointed to his own collarbone and asked "What about the…?"

Sasuke paused eating for a moment "I forgot you saw that. It's fine, it's an interesting shade of purple now."

Naruto shook his head, not finding anything about the injury interesting "How did that even happen?"

Sasuke shrugged "The man braked before he could fully hit me, but I still got thrown to the side a bit, my chest hit the pole of the road sign, and apparently getting thrown was enough to cause the concussion."

Naruto swallowed "How can you say all of that so calmly?"

"Because I'm clearly fine."

"But it could have been so much worse." Naruto snapped.

Sasuke looked up from his plate "Why are you getting worked up about this?" He sounded genuinely confused.

"Why weren't you looking!"

Sasuke paused "I thought I saw someone I recognized, that's all."

Naruto thought about it "The person who called you yesterday?"

Sasuke's whole body seemed to tense "I don't want to talk about it"

Right. It was two steps forwards, one step back when it came to Sasuke opening up.

Still, the comment made Naruto remember how much Sasuke had gone through yesterday, and he took a few breaths to calm himself down, not wanting to push him any more than he already had.

Just to be safe, he shoved a particularly big piece of toast in his mouth. When he looked up, Sasuke looked like he'd relaxed again and was giving him a half-amused look.

"Did no-one teach you table manners?" Sasuke asked after Naruto continued to struggle with the mouthful.

Finally swallowing, he answered automatically "As an orphan, no."

Then he immediately glanced at Sasuke, wondering if the other boy would be bothered by the comment, but Sasuke simply looked back at him and almost seemed like he wanted to smile.

After a moment, he said "Have you heard the one where two orphans have breakfast together?"

Naruto snorted "No, but it sounds fun."

"…It is." Sasuke said after a moment.

Naruto looked up at him in surprise, and then grinned so widely that he knew he looked obnoxious.

"You love me!" Naruto told Sasuke, who calmly continued to eat "You think I'm fun, you're having a great time with me. You totally love me."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

Naruto went back to his own food, still feeling the grin on his face for the rest of the meal.