sunshineverse | [open] 05/10

Who: Sasuke and friends, the children's television show that no child should watch
When: 05/10 - 05/13
Where: A hospital room shared with Kakashi and all the adults expressing affection that surrounds him
Notes: Physically, he's pretty healed up. He's mostly under observation, and his charts are very basic due to classified information.

In some ways, quarantine had been relaxing. Most of the time had been spent feeling his bones knit together in the right ways, the delicate ligaments healed in stages and left to find their natural flexibility. They still felt fragile, though no longer as hesitant as they'd been holding the pen to write his brief report, and tired faster than normal. But that had been part of basic T&I training. Hand damage. He was lucky they hadn't taken any of the fingers off.

He was lucky they hadn't done any number of things. They'd wanted to convince him more than extract intel, he thought, and had tried to convey to the interrogator -- masked, voice coolly professional but familiar. It spoke to confidence in more than one way.

It was something he might have liked to chew over with more than the silence of the cell, or the simple scrolls left to him to entertain himself.

But he hadn't been trusted. Wouldn't be for a long time, perhaps; he'd seen as much in the tight drawn lines of the faces that passed through, assessing. Even after his two agents had materialized the day before his release, smiles brittle but voices firm, one with the terrible white twist of bandage still covering his eyes: Uchiha didn't act of his own volition. He hadn't, but he'd been susceptible to control.

That was the word that kept flickering through even in the relative comfort of the hospital. The medic-nin had tsked at him but rigged him with an IV for hydration, and it was maybe irrational to want to see the tamper-proof seal on the saline drip. Definitely irrational, but ... he'd been susceptible.

He closed his eyes briefly at the knock on the door, waiting to see if the footsteps wound around to his curtained half of the room, if he'd need to -- the most relaxing thing about quarantine, ultimately, was not needing to think about what his face did.

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Fugaku was not good at consoling people. He didn't have a good bedside manner. He didn't like hospitals. He was also swamped in the fall out of having a child captured and interrogated. Sasuke hadn't come back maimed, all body parts intact, but physical was only one side of things. Physical was easy to fix, most of the time.

"Visiting hours are over. The patients need their rest," A young medic said uncertainly as she found Fugaku wandering around the floor. The irony was he'd almost found Sasuke's room by that point. She probably expected Fugaku to be belligerent or insistent that he be allowed to visit his child.

Fugaku shifted the bundle he'd been carrying instead. "I am aware of that. Would you mind giving this to Uchiha Sasuke? He's in room 573." She knew who he'd been here to see. The medic looked at the neatly wrapped blanket and pillow and then to Fugaku.

"Would you like to come back tomorrow and give them to tomorrow?" She asked hesitantly. Fugaku decided she must be younger or newer to this than he'd thought.

"That won't be necessary. Just see that he gets them when it won't interrupt his rest," Fugaku instructed. The medic took the soft bundle with a still confused look on her face. Fugaku couldn't think of anything else to say to impress the importance of the request on the girl.

"Good." Fugaku tried to convey in tone that he would certainly know if she hadn't done what he'd asked and that she would certainly be in a great deal of trouble if this thing didn't come to pass. This tone usually worked excellently with young Uchiha and rookie officers, so Fugaku left it at that.

"Have," Fugaku said, feeling there was some irony in the phrase. "A pleasant evening." The girl squeaked something in return. Fugaku gave the closed door one last look before nodding to the girl and turning to go.

Sasuke had only been half-asleep; the transition from T&I quarantine to hospital had been the first time he'd seen daylight directly in two weeks, and it had startled him with how direct it could be. And then, immediately after, with how quickly he could forget something his body knew as familiarly as how sunlight felt. The lack of a lock on the door and the presence of large, open windows had been disconcerting as well, even as the rational part of his mind reminded him that he was an Uchiha and known to hospital staff besides; they could hardly have put him in the basement rooms used only when in dire need of space.

He'd noticed the seals, however, triggered to alert staff if he left by the window or the door. It shouldn't have made him relax.

But he had, up until his dozing mind registered a voice he knew, and not just any voice -- one that made him straighten up in bed as if he were about to be inspected and, most likely, found somewhat disappointing. That it lingered made him step out of bed after a moment, concerned mostly for whatever night staff might be unaware that Fugaku was unlikely to be deterred by things like "visiting hours".

Yet, oddly enough, when he cracked open the door (making the orderly down the hall jump at her station and direct a startled glance in their direction), Fugaku appeared to be leaving. The nurse, her arms full of linens at what was an odd time for a change, gave him a look no less surprised, but Sasuke only stared at the retreating back.

"... Father?" The address finally slipped out, more hesitant than he ever liked to sound around his father.

Fugaku had begun to turn when he heard the door open. He came around as he heard Sasuke's voice. It was an odd relief to see Sasuke awake and standing on his feet. An oddly physical sensation deep in his gut too, compounding the general unease of being in the hospital. Fugaku hesitated, then marched back to the nurse. He gave her a little bow and took the stack of linens from her, before turning to Sasuke.

"From home. They're clean." It occurred to Fugaku then that Sasuke might not be well enough to carry bedding--either hand injuries or instability walking. Fugaku couldn't chastise Sasuke for being up when he should be resting. Fugaku has never been easy resting, even when he had an injury.

"From home. They're clean." Fugaku frowned at Sasuke. All at once he thought of how tall Sasuke had gotten, but how small and young he still seemed. Sixteen had seemed much older when Fugaku had been sixteen, but these were different times. Perhaps not for much longer, but times had been different. This might not be the first time Fugaku had to hear one of his children had been captured.

"Don't make the medics job harder by wandering around when you shouldn't. Rest when you're supposed to," Fugaku chastised somberly. "You mother is waiting for you to come home."

It didn't register for a moment, Sasuke staring at the linens that had been transferred from the nurse to his arms, and then he recognized the scent -- the dryer sheets Mikoto liked to use (he'd helped her fold laundry when very, very young), the softness of the fabric in comparison to stiff, starched hospital bedding. And Fugaku had brought them for him ...

... had his father been worried?

It was a weird thought, one that left Sasuke blinking blankly at Fugaku for a long moment -- not so much because he didn't think that Fugaku could, but more because ... a very old, very familiar voice inside him supplied: but Itachi's fine. And he was. And so was Sasuke, physically, all the injuries long healed up, even the remaining bruises mostly invisible. He was still young enough, the medics had said.

"Thank you," he said, belatedly, stumbling now that the silence had stretched into awkwardness, and slipping unconsciously into the more familiar form of address for Mikoto. "I'm not -- I'm no longer injured. I'm fine. You can tell Mom not to worry."

[open] 05/10 - 05/13

5/10 - Mission: Linens

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