Freetime is Tea Time [OPEN]

[uchihasavior]

 Where: Konohagakure, shop area
When: October 6th
Notes: (Totally open; make him share the tea)


A shift over before 4 PM alloted Itachi the time to drift into one of Konoha's better tea shops, where he'd been learning from travel that the better teas were often blended. Chamomile and Jasmine, he found, tended to soothe some of his worse muscle aches, and the flavor stuck with him for quite some time.

He could afford to dish out a little more Ryo, leaving with the neat light blue bag tucked under two fingers, the warm sunlight greeting his skin as he blended back into the traveling crowd. 

Comments

[not_thedragon]

As Itachi doubtless expected, Sasuke's expression shifted out of awkward uncertainty into skepticism in the span of a second. Setting his mug down with a firm clink, Sasuke pushed to standing in order to peer critically at as much of his brother as he could see from this angle and without putting him in a hospital gown, mouth set in a stern medic-nin's line of disapproval.

"What exactly does enough mean, nii-san?" He fixed a demanding stare on Itachi's face, satisfied that he still hadn't seen any visible signs of injury. "And when was the last time you filled your prescriptions?"

[uchihasavior]

Perhaps, in a way, he wanted this. To see just how focused Sasuke was on him, after his absence.

Itachi had ridiculous ways of showing that he wanted to be cared for. He was perfectly capable of taking his own medicines on time, and re-filling his own prescriptions, and monitoring himself for his flare-ups. Though he was busy, he had time for quick meals, he could plan out his sleep schedule around small naps instead of basically trying to stay permanently awake.

Yet, for all of his intelligence, wisdom, and capability, he did not.

"Before I left." he admits. Before he left originally. Which means by now, months ago. His excuse was that he was on missions, and he couldn't be taking pills every hour or so and expose himself to being taken advantage of.

Even though he could easily hide them in his drinks and food.

[not_thedragon]

Before he left -- Sasuke's expression hardened immediately, lips drawing thin with disapproval. For all that he could be intractable in singing Itachi's praises to anyone else, he was perfectly comfortable scolding Itachi to his face when it came to things like this, especially given how firm the hospital had been about this exact situation.

"That's been months," he said, both hands firmly set on his hips in unconscious imitation of Mikoto's lecturing stance. "I knew there was something wrong when I saw you hadn't put in a request for a refill yet -- that means you've been out of them for how long now?"

There probably should have been more shame about looking into someone else's patients medical records, but as far as Sasuke was aware, family was fair game when it came to rifling files.

[uchihasavior]

Months, yes, he knew. His gaze calculately lingers elsewhere, hands around his mug of tea as if that is his only security.

It wasn't surprising that Sasuke was watching his records.

"About six months." he admits, that's how long he's been without medication, and he thinks he'd been doing just fine, honestly. It isn't as if his spy work required a lot of stamina unless he was caught, and had to escape...

And a good spy was not caught.

[not_thedragon]

"Six -- that's half a year," Sasuke exploded, hands slamming to the table in disbelief. "You've been skipping your medication for half a year?!"

This was, at least, a much easier topic to focus on than the subject of Sasuke's personal failures, but he might have preferred being cornered on his own shortcomings if it meant that he wasn't discovering his brother's apparent laissez-faire attitude towards his own health.

"If you were busy, why wouldn't you just ask me to pick them up for you?!"

[uchihasavior]

By all means, anyone else would've flinched at Sasuke's sudden outburst. But Itachi was expecting it. Every movement, every inflection of his voice, even the way his teeth ground...he knew it would happen.

"You are not without your pre-occupations." he simply answers. Sasuke had things to do, too. And he was alive. And alright, as far as he saw. He didn't need to bother anyone else with medicine that he was...okay, without. So far.

[not_thedragon]

"Those don't take priority when it comes to you!" Sasuke leaned forward as he spoke, trying to express with body language as much as his words the extent to which Itachi was gambling with his own health. Was it not important? How could his brother, who had always been so precisely right, manage to ignore something like this?

"I work at the hospital all the time, I could have gotten them whenever instead of --" He hunted for words, too angry to think before he spoke. "Instead of you messing up your health!"