sunshineverse | [02/05

Entry tags:

zz old game: naruto

[02/05 - 02/07] open

Who: Sasuke and the consequences of his choices
When: February 5th through February 7th
Where: Chez Uchiha
Notes: Look at his life. Look at his choices.

He was mostly succeeding at not having any regrets. Even though the storm outside was still blustering out its tail end of snow and sleet, the skin-crawling buzzing had died down somewhat with the thorough expenditure of lightning chakra, leaving him with only the usual vague oppressed feeling that fire chakra sulked with in wet conditions.

The problem was less the chakra exhaustion and more the way Mikoto had taken one look at him and tsked him into a hot bath as if he were eight years old again, throwing chopped ginger into the bathwater and -- though not actually saying anything out loud -- speaking volumes with the disapproving angle of her neck.

It hadn't been ameliorated any when Sasuke had woken up with a head that felt as if he'd filled it with earth -- not even earth, maybe, dust, something that settled into crevices and left his hearing distant and head afflicted with the sort of hazy headache that made him want to do nothing more than crawl underneath his covers and ignore the world at large. If he was lucky, his mother wouldn't even have mentioned the problem to anyone else.

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Fully unaware of the state of the Sasuke, Obito had just decided to swing by and talk to Sasuke just for the sake of checking on him. After all, he'd gotten word of the big battle and he was curious to see how his student was doing in the wake of it.

The last thing he'd expected was Mikoto looking thoroughly disapproving of everything, an expression he knew well, and waking him inside to go peek in on Sasuke himself. He peeked around his student's doorframe when he got to his room.

"Hey there."

... Sasuke was a full-fledged jounin, he reminded himself, and the second son of a clan head, and also the student of the sitting Hokage, all of which meant he was much too old to give in to the urge to groan emphatically and roll himself underneath the pillow. Even if said Hokage was the one currently peering into his room, Mikoto's still-displeased face appearing briefly at his shoulder before she headed back downstairs, likely to concoct some other horrible but effective medicinal soup.

"Sensei," he managed. "Did you need something?"

With how congested he was, it sounded a great deal more like sedsei, did you deed sobding, but he was going to ignore that with what little dignity could be mustered while prostrated in bed.

He blinked a few times, thoroughly shocked by what he was seeing. It didn't look like Sasuke had a broken nose so that just left one other option. His student had u and gotten himself sick.

"The weather was a bit too much for you I take it?"

He debated letting that blow to his pride -- unintended or not -- slide, taking the time to try to push himself into sitting upright. A few seconds of propping himself up on an unimpressed and shaky elbow later, he decided that Obito had seen him in diapers and therefore could handle seeing him sink gingerly back onto his pillow and scrub uselessly at bleary eyes.

"Sparred in the storm," he explained in a mutter. "Won't last long."

He hoped.

He huffed a breath, only just restraining a burst of laughter. He moved over and checked on the level of the water by his bed. "Be glad you're the medic or you'd be being bitched out by you right now. Or Tsunade, if she were around currently."

"Shishou knows what it's like," Sasuke said, petulant enough that even he couldn't deny it. He wasn't actually sure how Tsunade handled her lightning chakra when the weather conspired against it, but given that she had free rein of nearly anywhere she wanted to go, he could only assume it was easier for her to give vent than those trapped in villages with notions about property destruction and that sort of thing.

"It gets all," he made a vague hand gesture, something meant to indicate a mixture of congested and possibly also explosive. "It's worse keeping it in than anything."

"Can't say I know the feeling. Earth and water backing up my fire, remember? Can't say rain thrills me, but none of the crazy over the top stuff you and Kakashi suffer." He shook his head, flashing him a grin. "But hey, think of it this way, at least you got it out of your system, mm? Even if at cost."

Earth and water, Sasuke thought with some glumness, steady and respectable chakra natures. Not that Obito could be called respectable, really, even if he'd managed to become the Hokage, but steady was probably true enough.

"Better out than in," he said, emphatic. "We didn't break anything important, anyway."

At least, he was pretty sure they hadn't.

He reached over, putting his hand on his head for a moment. "Except yourself a little bit apparently. Get better soon, mm?"

"I can handle it," he muttered, just before having to engage in a series of highly unpleasant snorts in order to try and get some clearance to breathe. "Were you looking for me for something, sensei?"

"Of course. I wanted to see how you were." The look he gave him made it clear he wasn't talking about the cold. "That's all."

He frowned at first, the tone not quite registering through the fuzziness, and nearly responded: I'm going to be fine. But something about it made him look at Obito, and the expression there was obvious enough, Sasuke going still.

"I'm fine," he said, serious despite how congested his voice was. There was no other way to express it, really; what else was he supposed to be?

He looked thoughtful, then reached over and ruffled up his hair, smile soft and fond. "Alright. I'll believe you. So. Has your mom been smothering you adequately over this cold?"

He'd believe him? Had there been a question of whether he was believable or not -- Sasuke's brow creased up until he found himself under an onslaught of hair-ruffling, unfair because he had no way to escape. He made a strangled, nasal sound and shoved Obito's hand away, definitely not pouting in any way.

"I'm going to be fine," he repeated stubbornly. "And Mom knows that. I'm not Itachi, I get over things fast."

"Yes, you do, but that hardly means she won't fuss, does it? I've met the woman you know." He was smiling though, pleased to see Sasuke's spirits high enough to be properly grumpy. "You should still sleep earlier tonight though."

"If you know that Mom can fuss, then you don't need to add to it," he informed Obito, grumpiness still in full force. "I'm not a kid; I know how to handle myself."

Muzzily, he'd thought for the first time about moving out like Itachi seemed to be doing when he'd had to face Mikoto's best I'm Not Angry, Just Disappointed expression for a fifth time, but the thought had faded speedily with the arrival of her winter soup.

"Yeah, you do. You're still my student though, and a Sensei is allowed to worry over his brats." He flashed a smirk. "And so is a cousin, so you get it twice."

"Do you bother Hinata and Naruto when they get sick, too?" He demanded, however nasal the demand was, and folded his arms over his blanket in an effort to look unimpressed by the rationale. "You can't pick and choose 'cause of blood ties."

"Yep. Naruto especially. He makes the best faces. Hinata... well I have to break into her family house to do that and they get kind of spiteful so not her so much, no." He wrinkled up his nose after saying that.

"Is this you telling me to get out or something?"

"It's," Sasuke started, and then had to stop short of finishing the thought of too bad we aren't more like the Hyuuga: there was a thought that he couldn't even think without recognizing the blatant lie. Of course it would be Hinata, who out of the three of them probably appreciated company most, who didn't get subjected to the Obito-smother.

Not that he was exactly telling Obito to get out, though he couldn't actually say that. He shot his teacher a slightly bleary frown instead. "Aren't you worried you'll catch it?"

"Nah. If I get sick I'm sure I'll have a half dozen or more people fussing over me and then I get to be the grumpy one. I don't get sick all that often though so it'd be pretty impressive." He laughed, raising his eyebrows at him. "I catch colds less often than you, after all."

"Are you sure you're not confusing me with Itachi, sensei?" It was a grumble, because now that Sasuke was thinking about it, he couldn't really remember the last time Obito had been to the hospital for any kind of illness. Not that that meant much in a village of shinobi who regularly avoided the hospital unless they were about to lose a limb, but still.

He smothered a laugh at that question. "Definitely no. I used the right comparison, thanks. I'm just not one of those people who really gets sick. No big deal." He reached ou, putting his hand on Sasuke's head and resting it there.

Kakashi still wasn't a hundred percent comfortable in the Uchiha district (despite the fact that he no longer got funny looks for wielding a sharingan all that much anymore) but the limited time he had spent there in the past after getting dragged on various babysitting excursions had taught him a lot about those certain few delicacies that one could only find in the company of the prominent clan.

One such delicacy, for example, was Uchiha Mikoto's winter soup and Kakashi had meandered his way at his most pathetic into her kitchen on the premise of apologising for putting her son in a state of bed-rest. His apology was sincere of course, and his charm faultless enough that a short while later he was ascending the stairs and entered Sasuke's room with two bowls in hand.

"Yo," he said, sounding just about as bad as he felt. "How you feeling?"

Sasuke slept lightly under most circumstances now, accustomed to taking rest in shifts, but home was still that -- home. And home meant a kind of security that left him in thorough insensible slumber when he could get it, only snorting inelegantly awake when he heard a voice that meant someone was in his room. It took a few bleary blinks for his eyes to register the shock of light hair that identified who the someone was, and considerably more time for his nose to identify a delicious smell.

"Like crap," he said, honestly, and just as honestly: "But worth it. Is that Mom's winter soup?"

Kakashi couldn't help but let out a small chuckle at the noise of greeting Sasuke made as he woke and carefully moved over to deposit one of the bowls on the side table, and then himself on the edge of Sasuke's bed.

"It is--" The rattle of his chest on his inhale was probably karma for laughing at the younger man and his words caught harshly in his throat, forcing him to pause in order to cough into his balled fist. The fruit of their reckless spar the night previous had made him short of breath, but even still, he didn't regret it, and gave Sasuke a wry smile as he continued.

"I thought we could both use a pick-me-up, and your mother agreed with me. You're welcome."

It definitely sounded like Kakashi was dealing with much the same consequences as Sasuke was, though the man had at least been able to get out of bed. Then again, Kakashi didn't have to live with Uchiha Mikoto's disappointed expression when her youngest son accomplished some truly upsetting misbehaviour. Sasuke was reasonably certain that it was actually some kind of mind-control jutsu.

He could put up with mind-control when it came with soup, though, and he pushed himself to sitting in order to pick up the bowl Kakashi had set down for him, inhaling the steam.

"Thanks," he said, tipping the bowl to gulp down several burning-hot mouthfuls of soup. "Bet you knew Mom would have something today, huh?"

"I had an inkling," Kakashi muttered with the slightest twitch of his mask to connotate a smile. He was much too lethargic to perform his usual trick of using speed to his advantage and eating so fast no-one even saw his mask twitch, so he slyly waited till Sasuke was drinking his soup again before lowering the white hospital mask about his face and taking a hearty gulp from his own bowl. Just in case, he kept one hand strategically placed beside his mouth to shield the view from the younger man.

Settled and once more masked, he gave Sasuke a look.

"Just to put my mind at rest... Despite the head cold, there are no regrets about what happened, right?"

This was how Sasuke knew he really was sick, other than the congestion and the ache and general unwellness: it wasn't until he'd set his own bowl down, mostly drained, that he remembered to try to see what Kakashi was hiding under that mask. Even then the effort was half-hearted, given how likely it was that -- and yes, there was already soup missing from Kakashi's bowl, and nearly no indication that the mask had ever moved.

There were times when Sasuke had theorized that Kakashi had to drink liquids through the mask, but the white gauze over his face today showed no soup stain. How did he even ...

His brain, preoccupied with consternated irritation over yet again missing an opportunity, caught up to the question late. "What?"

He blinked, then rewound what his ears had heard. "Oh. No," he said, as fervent as the blocked-up sinuses could allow. "This is still better than before."

He saw the twitch of irritation in Sasuke's eyebrow, and his mask shifted as his mouth curved in a smile. Keep trying, Sasuke. You might get there one day.

"Tell me about it," the older man muttered as he looked back to the bowl in his hands, swilling the contents. "Ironically enough, the only people who have berated me for my carelessness so far have been people who don't know what it feels like." He hitched in a deep inhale and held the breath for a moment, sure that he could feel the faint rush of relief brimming under his skin as he did, then let it go in a slow sigh that turned into a quiet wheeze.

Sasuke relaxed back against the headboard at the agreement, even as he took an unpleasantly noisy breath through the congestion. He was far from ungrateful for his secondary element -- it worked well with his first, and (though he would never admit it out loud) had enough cool factor that it was still a bit of a thrill every time he managed to make lightning chakra do something new.

"Same," he said, tilting the bowl for the last few drops of soup. If he ever moved out, this was definitely something he'd end up missing. "Do any other natures get like this? Even fire isn't this bad in wet weather."

Kakashi rolled a shoulder. "I'm not entirely certain. Lightning is the only one I feel so intensely. I suppose it's something to do with it being my natural affinity, and the fact that the others don't have the same, uh.. charge to them." His shoulders gave a little quirk, like he'd told a hilarious joke.

The last dregs of his bowl had disappeared while Sasuke's bowl was tilted, and he shifted to cross his legs as he sat on the end of Sasuke's bed, his chin resting in one hand propped up on his knee at the elbow.

"Wind gets a little lethargic sometimes, but I'm not sure if that's across the board."

Fire affinity was nearly universal in the clan; perhaps that was why secondary affinities seemed to stand out as much. Sasuke remembered Obito's easy discussion of his -- steady elements, none of this volatility -- but still couldn't quite bring himself to be properly jealous. It took a second for him to register that Kakashi was laughing, and another one to rewind the words to --

Really? Proper respect for even a sometimes-teacher notwithstanding, Sasuke delivered as disbelieving a look as he could manage when his face still felt like someone had blocked every tenketsu in it.

"Perhaps there are other circumstances where other elements struggle, just not weather-related."

"Maybe. Something to look into in your downtime, hm?" Kakashi mused, tilting his head and regarding Sasuke with an appropriately curious look. How he spared thought for such involved subjects when his head was full of cotton wool Kakashi could only wonder (and could only find endearment in considering it was so very reminiscent of himself in his younger years).

Without any time or energy for being sentimental, Kakashi rolled a shoulder in a shrug, changing the subject with a quick shift of his attention.

"I should probably go. The last thing we need is to incubate this by spending time together." Okay, that came out a little ruder than he'd intended, but it was the long and short of his excuse. "There's a time-waster back at my apartment with my name on it." And Jiraiya's name on it, but that wasn't the point.

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[02/05 - 02/07] open

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....way to make it sound questionable, kakashi. wow.

last night was so good, kakashi. don't worry

im glad it was good for you, it was good for me too

mutual good is that good good

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