AN: My apologies for not getting this chapter out last weekend but it was my nephew's birthday so we had to travel for most of the weekend and then I got sick. Anyways, lots of drama this chapter so enjoy!

A thank you to everyone that read and reviewed last chapter, you guys mean the absolute world to me.

13: Sasuke

My skin is too hot; my heart feels like it's been skewered inside my chest by something sharp and cold, imbedded now in the back of my spine. I'm starting to hyperventilate against the phone, my erratic breathing almost matching his as he takes in another shaky breath of air over the receiver. There's a pressure on my shoulders and lungs that seems almost impossible to bear, like something invisible is trying to crush me into the dirt and I can't take this, I can't.

Naruto…

There's something wrong with my Naruto.

And I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life.

My stomach is churning, my legs feel like jelly. What do I do now? How can I help him? Why did he call me?

I need to reign in this panic, I need to think logically about what I need to know, what I need to do. I can't fall apart now while he actually needs me.

Damnit Uchiha.

"Naruto, I need you to tell me precisely what's wrong and if you can, I need you to tell me where you are," I explain to him, my voice almost cold as I prioritise cutting off my emotional response to this whole ordeal in favour of focussing on practicality, functionality, usefulness.

There's another agonisingly long pause over the phone and I can hear more urgent voices.

God, please don't let him be in a dangerous situation. If he's sick then please let him be with somebody that will help him rather than hurt him…

As I wait for his response, I turn my attention to the doorway leading to the kitchen, painfully aware of my surroundings, how empty this house is, the high quality shimmer to the pages of the leaflets still on the table – a recognisable side effect to a mass output of adrenaline. On impulse, I stride through the doorway towards Tobi's room, praying that he'll actually be home.

"Uh…they gave me caffeine," Naruto tells me thickly. "Sasuke, I can't breathe."

A jolt in my chest and a cold rush of fresh panic rampages through my system. The feeling is sickening, overwhelming. My hand falls on Tobi's door in a soft knock rather than the crisp, firm movement I was trying for.

"How much caffeine did they give you?" I ask over the lump that seems to be trying to cut off the air supply in my throat.

Thankfully, I'm not alone here. Tobi opens the door with the usual expression of delight on his face only to have it fall almost completely away when he catches sight of me.

"…I dunno…it was supposed to be an experiment…"

An experiement…

What the hell has this loser gotten himself into?

"Where are you?" I repeat, motioning Tobi forward and slipping my hand over the mouth piece of my phone.

"Tobi, I'm sorry, I need you to contact any of your friends that can drive. Tell them to come here and pick me up, I'm going to need to be taken somewhere urgently. I'll reimburse them for any petrol."

"What's the matter?" Tobi asks immediately, the authority figure in this situation because he's the elder even though he probably doesn't have any more experience than me in crisis situations. I may actually be more qualified than him considering what happened to my parents…

No, this is not the time.

"Naruto's in trouble," I tell him simply and he nods sombrely, disappearing back into his room to find his phone.

If possible, Naruto's voice sounds even more laboured as he finally responds and my hand tightens around my phone so much that I'm afraid I'm literally going to pincer it in half.

"We're in the basement…it's too hot…I think my heart is exploding. Please Sasuke, please get Iruka. I need him to come get me."

Iruka…Iruka…

A hazy picture seems to collect in the back of my mind of the man that first appeared with Naruto the day he moved in, the guy that apologised on Naruto's behalf, his obvious father figure.

I have no idea what his number is and Naruto is obviously in no condition to be recalling complicated details like someone's telephone number.

I think my heart is exploding.

"I'm coming for you now," I tell him, fumbling with the shoes I left in the living room, jamming them onto my feet as fast as I can. Kudos to Tobi for being someone reliable because out of the window in the living room, I can see as a car pulls up and a guy about Tobi's age slips out, looking at the house seriously. I swear less than 5 minutes have passed.

"…You're coming?..." Naruto asks, his voice lined with a disbelief that actually cuts into me a little. Did he honestly think I would leave him there? Do I really come across so heartless?

"But…we fought…you hate me again…you're coming?" There's sincere desperation and a long lived loneliness in his voice that can't be masked with his usual cheerfulness in this situation and it makes my stomach flip

Naruto…

Please please be okay.

"Yes, I'm coming right now," I tell him. "I just need you to tell me where you are, an address, a name of a street, anything."

Tobi's friend greets us as we move outside, a fairly tall guy with a thick mop of blonde hair tied back in a high pony tail. His blue eyes are a few shades different to the blue I'm used to seeing in Naruto's, less vibrant somehow and less full of depth. He ushers us into his car, Tobi taking shot gun and waits for further instructions.

"…We went to C block…" Naruto mutters vaguely and miraculously that's all I need.

"C block, uni," I tell Tobi, my eyes fixed straight forward through the two front seats as Tobi's friend pulls away. As we make it to the end of the road, turning left, Naruto's voice sounds out as a whisper against my ear.

"Please don't hang up on me…don't leave me. I don't want to die alone."

I don't know if it's because we're finally moving, if it's because I know that we'll be at the uni in literally 10 minutes or so and I'll be able to see him, to judge for myself what's going on or if it's simply the sound of his voice so completely reliant on this phone call, on me being there but the emotions that I've been fighting so hard since this call began and Naruto asked for help, the blind panic, the desolate fear, the frustrating feelings associated with being helpless and the anger at him for doing something so stupid all erupt upwards and outwards until I'm nearly choking. My eyes burn with their potency, stinging painfully and I blink in rapid succession, trying to clear the uncomfortable haze.

Since this whole unfortunate love drug fiasco started, since the very first moment I met him at the party and he punched me for calling him a moron, I don't think I've ever really let myself realise what it would be like to lose him. It's different to the way I felt about losing my parents…and yet exactly the same. How could I let myself get this attached to another human being again? How could I allow myself to be subjected to this weakness?

What would I do now if I actually lost him?

"It's okay Naruto, I'm right here."

In the mirror hanging from the top of the window screen, I catch a glimpse of Tobi's friend's blue eyes as they flick upwards and lock on me for a split second before turning back to the road. The spark of recognition I see in those eyes has me frowning suspiciously as we follow the road round and the university looms before us.

I'm out of the car and bolting across the tarmac of the car park before Tobi's friend has finished pulling into a space. My heart starts to jackhammer against my rib cage as I race up the steps towards C block, shoving my student pass at the reader and flying through the darkened halls. Thanks to Naruto's ramblings, I know that he's down in the basement and as I draw closer, my footsteps echoing like thunder claps in the mostly empty building, I can just make out the frantic voices resounding along the corridors, repeated a fraction of a second later through the phone still pressed to my ear.

As I fly down the last set of stairs, a stream of light from a set of open double doors catches my attention and I barrel straight into it, pausing in the doorway to let my eyes adjust.

Then I see him.

He's completely unmistakable with that shock of blonde hair and that eye sore of a shirt he decided to wear this morning.

My battered heart seems to swell within my chest and burst inside me, causing my vision to swim. It takes me a couple of seconds to remember to breathe, to remember to function normally…

…because he's lying hunched over on the floor, his angular face sheet white and his beautiful blue eyes glazed, dulled – like they're no longer reflecting the endless swirls of limitless ocean I've become accustomed to, like the colour has suddenly become two dimensional, dead. There's an angry rubicund flush to his cheeks and his mouth strains slightly as he takes heavier gulps of air. One of his tan hands is twisted into the yellow of his shirt, clutching white-knuckled at his chest and every so often, his legs spasm violently beneath him, jerking him forward slightly.

The world slows just as it did when I first laid eyes on him at the party.

All sounds seem to muffle into an unintelligible string of nonsense.

His eyes find mine but they don't focus, like he's completely beyond seeing me and while that in itself is horrifying, I'm glad that he probably can't see the look unadulterated terror warping my usually stoic features because it would probably just freak him out.

Naruto…

When I eventually manage to move towards him, I do so on auto-pilot, taking a harsh breath in and suddenly finding myself sprinting across the room with abandon, falling down beside him with a hard thud as my knees connect with cold tiles. My hand finds its way to his and grips tight. It's cold and clammy against my own.

"Sasuke…" he sighs out, his agonised face suddenly swamped with relief. Seeing that relief, a respite from his obvious panic and pain, calms me enough to inspire the world to start moving at normal speed again though my blood continues to circulate my system at an alarming pace, pumping adrenaline.

"It's alright Naruto," I tell him softly, moving my free hand subconsciously to brush through the coarse golden locks of his hair. "I'm going to get you out of here."

My stomach jumps up violently as he smiles and that smile turns into a grimace of pain. The hand in his shirt tightens until the fabric is almost balled up on his chest and he curls in on himself tighter. I watch, feeling completely impotent as he lets out a choked sound and heaves wretchedly, keeping my hand firmly in his hair as he did for me when I was sick the other night.

I can't stand this.

I can't stand to see him like this.

How much caffeine did they give him to put him in this state? What if it's a dosage that does irreparable damage?

God…

My eyes fall into scanning the room when Naruto relaxes slightly again beneath my fingers, analysing the situation and taking in the visual of a dark haired girl in a lab coat kneeling over the prone body of Kiba Inuzuka, tears streaming down her face.

Anger, hot and wild and more explosive than I have ever experienced before even in the presence of Itachi completely overwhelms me, makes me see more than red and the only thing anchoring me to the floor, stopping me on going on a destructive rampage is Naruto's desperate hand in my own, his shallow breathing. Instead, I glare daggers at her, a look so potent that despite her obvious distress, she must sense the maleficent intent and turns to look at me, dark eyes glistening.

"Have you called an ambulance?" I bark at her, stroking Naruto's hair as he begins to shudder more violently, my fingers trailing down his hot neck.

There's a pause where she hiccoughs uselessly, fat drops of salt water leaking over the edge of her eyes and trailing down her cheeks in a display that makes me almost sick with fury.

"N-no…I sh-should do that…I should do that…" she mumbles, her fingers shaking as she reaches for a bag on the nearest bench.

I watch her for a moment with my eyes narrowed; the familiar black ball of loathing mixing in with the brutal red taint of this powerful anger until I feel like I've been completely overrun, like a host body with a festering pestilence so potent that I'm more pestilence than person.

"Did you give him the caffeine?" I ask her darkly, everything depending on her answer.

Her eyebrows furrow slightly as she grips her phone, an expression of confusion.

"No…I d-didn't. It's my experiment b-but Kabuto was the r-regulator. He was the one th-that checked the dosages and gave it to them. I…I d-don't know where he went…he just left us here!"

Kabuto…

The name resounds with a menacing air and my ears start ringing with the sheer force of my reactive hatred. Kabuto, like the name of my friend in high school though this can't be the same Kabuto. It can't be…

Growling, I start searching the room for this supposed regulator even though the girl has literally just told me that he's conveniently disappeared but the vibration of my feral intonation alarms Naruto. He peers up at me, still panting heavily and my expression softens immediately, the scramble of negativity inside me melting away in the face of his fear.

…Since when has my immediate anger been so easily diffused? Since when was comforting Naruto more important than any sort of revenge? What is this love drug doing to my personality? Was I ever really my own person to begin with or just a collection of chemical reactions – never anything more than reactive feelings to a given situation?

Does any of it mean anything?

Naruto's hand twitches in my own and my thumb traces absent circles on his wrist.

Beside us, the girl has managed to get through to the hospital and is giving them stuttered instructions. Outside, the light is starting to dip away in earnest.

"I'm sorry…I called you…" Naruto manages to huff out, smiling a semi-disarming smile for a moment before it falls away to make room for a new wave of pain. "I was…trying to get…to Iruka…"

If there was anything fucntional left of my heart at the moment, I'm pretty sure that apology would have disintegrated it. Unable to restrain myself, in a moment of complete vulnerability, I fall forward until my forehead is resting on his, feeling the heat and sweat of his fever seep into me. He stiffens beneath me, probably unsure of what to make of this, even through his caffeine induced haze.

"I'm not sorry you called me," I tell him gently and to my absolute surprise, his fingers tighten around my hand, shaking just that little bit more violently.

We end up waiting for about half an hour for the ambulance to arrive – the longest half an hour of my life. In that time, Naruto's hand doesn't leave my own but after a while, he starts having waking hallucinations, losing all semblance of rationality and panicking about stuff I can't see. He cries out violently a couple of times, screaming the names of people I've never heard him mention and every time he does it, it feels like a knife wound to the lungs. His eyes pool with fearful tears that he has absolutely no control over and I end up cupping my hand beneath his cheek to catch the drops before they run into his ears.

It's the worst experience of my life outside of what happened to my parents – at least on a par with the events of that night.

Because I love him.

I really do.

Even if this is just a chemical reaction, something meaningless inevitably...

I never want to go through this again.

I hardly notice that Tobi and his friend have been standing guard at the door until the paramedics burst in, moving swiftly over to both Naruto and Kiba to check them out. One of them immediately tries to remove my hand from Naruto's but I go berserk, half screaming at him to get him to back off, unrelenting until he does so. Tobi is at my side in an instant as they lay Naruto out in the recovery position and start checking his vitals, spouting off urgent medical jargon that I don't understand. One of them rolls up his shirt to check his heart beat, exposing the sculpted artwork of his chest and for once, I don't feel the need to admire, to take a mental picture for later.

A couple of them try talking to him but he doesn't respond intelligibly and this lack of response has them throwing grim looks at each other. Sometimes I really hate being intelligent. Though I don't know about medicine or about medical emergencies, I know what looks like that mean and my resulting panic is like a tsunami, an unstoppable wave that crashes over my eyes making spots break over them until I'm doubled over trying not to pass out.

"Hey, we need you to tell me just how much caffeine he's taken," one of the paramedics is saying to me but I don't know, I wasn't here when this started. Seeing that I'm not really in a position to hold a conversation at the moment, Tobi steps in, explaining that Naruto called me afterwards and that we came to help him.

After that, the paramedics go about quickly moving both Naruto and Kiba onto stretchers. Kiba is still more or less coherent though his body is also flinching so harshly that his movements alter the momentum of the paramedics carrying him, almost throwing them off course. With my hand still clamped in Naruto's, I'm forced to walk shakily beside his stretcher as he's taken up the stairs and through the corridors into the open. The cold air hits me like a punch in the face and I stagger against it, watching strands of Naruto's yellow hair weave about his vacant face in the late evening.

The ambulance is parked next to a wreck on wheels in the car park and it already has an audience, students working late on projects that just can't mind their own damn business, making this even more of a terrifying experience and this is the part where I will be forced to let go of him. I try to release my fingers as they start loading him into the back because as a general rule, only family rides. I know this from back when the ambulance finally showed up at my house on that day…I can't go with him now. I'll have to follow behind in Tobi's friend's car if he wouldn't mind driving me up there or a taxi if that's a problem.

I let out an involuntary sound of distress as his fingers slip from my own, almost limp now because he barely realises I'm there and one of the paramedics gives me a strange look before hoisting himself in and closing the doors. The last I see of Naruto is the heel of his shoe on the stretcher, his feet still blanching sporadically as the doors close in my face and the sirens start.

Every minute that ticks by is like the toll of a bell, a slow, mournful occurrence heavy with moody implications.

I sit dead straight in the plastic chair in the waiting room listening to the sound of the clock ticking away the time with a plastic cup of weak tea in my hands, slowly getting colder. Tobi and his friend have long since vanished to get something for dinner. I don't think I could eat if my life depended on it right now.

I haven't heard a word since we got here and with the more time that passes, I go over what might have happened if I had chosen to ignore my phone, thinking that it was Suigetsu, repeatedly.

When a dishevelled man that I recognise now as Iruka, Naruto's father figure, bursts through the doors, half running up to the reception desk with a look of manic fear in his eye, I almost find the energy in the recesses of my exhausted body to stand and greet him.

"Uzumaki Naruto," he spews out breathily, half leaning over the desk to peer at the records the secretary is thumbing through. "Is he okay?"

"And you are?" the secretary asks promptly, regarding Iruka over the rim of thin reading glasses, her polished nails providing a bookmark for the file she obviously has.

"Umino Iruka," Iruka confirms quickly, "his legal guardian."

The secretary's eyes skim down and then light up in relief.

"Mr Umino, please go on through the door to your left," she tells him, indicating with a sweeping hand the set of double doors in my direction. Iruka's dark eyes trail round and fall on me, widening in surprise. I simply stare back at him, my hand held up in a vaguely limp greeting.

"Sasuke?" he asks and the sound of my name makes me wince.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, ignoring the secretary and striding towards me, his eyes alert and full of panic.

"I…" I start, trailing off spectacularly. Speaking to someone now requires a substantial amount of energy, energy that I just don't have at the moment so instead, a let out a puff of air and try to fix him with my best apologetic look, something not quite up to standard but it's the best I can do.

Iruka watches me calculatingly for a few moments and I can see that he's drawing some intense conclusions from my current state but I just don't care at the moment. I don't care if he realises that I love his adopted son. I don't care if he wants to judge me for that in this moment. Any social torture I have to go through here will be nothing in comparison to what Naruto's going through.

I'm waiting for Iruka to say something else or to turn tail and leave through the double doors, potentially forbidding the secretary to let me through when the time comes for me to actually see Naruto but instead he rubs the back of his neck the way Naruto tends to do when he's feeling particularly sheepish and takes a seat next to me.

"You were with him when this happened?" he asks carefully, his voice so much older than I've heard it before, so serious. I shake my head.

"You found him?" he asks again, his voice a little hopeful now. I nod, glad that Iruka at least isn't a moron, able to figure out what happened without a huge explanation.

And then suddenly, before I can really comprehend what is taking place, I've been tackled into the hard back of the plastic chair, Iruka's form draped over my own, my sight completely obscured by a cascade of brown hair. His shoulders shake as his arms grow tight around my shoulder blades and back and I can feel a telltale heat on my collar bone, a wetness that tells me Iruka is crying freely.

I have no idea how to react to this.

No-one touches me intimately if they want to continue living without missing body parts but this is a markedly different situation to the norm.

I immediately become absolutely still, afraid to react lest it provoke this awkwardness to run on longer than necessary but Iruka honestly doesn't seem to notice.

"Th-thank you so m-much for finding him," he splutters out, distraught to the point of hysteria.

His over-emotional reaction to my presence at the scene of disaster spurs something inside me to start burning and my hand lifts up under its own freakish power to rest on Iruka's quivering shoulders, tugging lightly to try and get him to pull back. At first, nothing happens and I'm about to panic myself but then it appears he's got the message and he lets go, hoisting himself back up into a standing position, his eyes flicking to the double doors.

"I have to go and see him," he tells me, like that wasn't obvious, "but after I've made sure he's alright, we can go and grab something in the hospital canteen alright?"

I blink at him steadily, feeling a jolt like a firework going off in my system when Iruka smiles at me the same way Naruto would after suggesting something less than appealing so I find myself nodding despite myself. I'm not hungry, I won't eat anything but I can't say no to this man, this man who so very obviously raised Naruto, who shares some distinctive traits with the one person I really care about.

With an encouraging, 100 Watt smile, Iruka pivots on one foot and scrambles through the double doors, disappearing into a world of white and disinfectant.

I'm left alone in the waiting room again listening to the clock tick away the minutes, each one of them like the toll of a bell, slow, mournful and full of the tremors of uncertainty.

Iruka is gone for almost another hour and by the end of it, I'm contemplating elaborate and completely insane plots to grant myself access to the area beyond those double doors. Some of the more hare-brained schemes include disguising myself as Iruka's unlisted partner and demanding access and feigning illness so that I'll be seen by the same professionals as Naruto and simply making a break for it even though it would be completely obvious if I did so considering I'm the only person here at the moment.

Just as I'm caught in the throes of thinking about impersonating one of the lesser admin staff, Iruka stumbles out and the last minute that ticks on that infernal clock thuds like a full metal hammer against a grand anvil.

I take a deep breath in, automatically reading into his body language and expression before he's managed to open his mouth to tell me what's going on – noting the slump of his shoulders, the bruises around his eyes, the downward tilt of the mouth.

Oh God…

"Sasuke?"

My breathing is unsettled, shallow, I'm inches away from the hyperventilation attack I've been staving off since this whole thing began but I can't let myself be overcome now. I need to know.

"How is…Naruto?" I wheeze agitatedly, rubbing my chest to try and ease my breaths.

"He's going to be fine alright? Calm, down."

He's going to be fine…

I sink back into the chair I'm sitting on, all good posture gone in light of the relief I feel bombarding my body. The adrenaline I've been living off of since I began that phone call with the idiot flushes immediately from my system, leaving me feeling weak and empty, almost high. My hands start shaking as I reach up to rake my fingers through my hair which is probably the most unkempt it has ever been before. The remnants of my heart seem to reform in my chest after the emotional explosion in the C block basement, pulling together from the shards scattered throughout my chest minus the crippling, squeezing pressure.

He's going to be fine…

Iruka sits carefully next to me, his movements silent and light, the first contrast I've seen with Naruto who is heavy footed and clumsy. He fixes me with a concerned look before elaborating on what 'fine' really means for Naruto.

"They figured he had a massive overdose and could have had a cardiac arrest," Iruka tells me solemnly, making a short shot of adrenaline circle my system again before I realise that he said 'could have', not 'did'. I remain quiet, mentally urging him to continue.

"The symptoms he suffered were pretty bad. His friend got off a little lighter than him because he drinks caffeinated beverages often. Naruto's always told me that it makes him feel a little too hyped up, that it doesn't agree with him…"

I have to reel in the urge to scowl because I'm not interested in Kiba's medical history; I'm interested in my Naruto damnit but I'm aware that Iruka needs to speak freely here, the trauma of this experience has affected him the same way its affected me after all.

"They've got him on a heart monitor because he had arrhythmia and gave him some medication to flush the caffeine from his system. They want to keep him in for a while to monitor his condition. He probably won't be back at the university for at least a few days but they say he should be coherent by tomorrow."

My head feels impossibly heavy, like I've just woken up from a long nap but I make myself angle my face round so that my eyes are locking with Iruka's straight on. We stare at other for a moment, reading each other, trying to understand each other before I speak up.

"Can I see him now?"

Iruka breaks eye contact and shakes his head.

"Not until tomorrow but you can come back as soon as visiting hours start. I'm sure Naruto will appreciate the company – he's always hated doctors and hospitals."

Tch, I bet he has. The moron can't stay still for 3 minutes let alone a few days. He'll go stir crazy before he's let out of here.

Iruka gives me another measuring look before letting his eyes swing out to the reception desk, currently empty. As we're the only ones in this particularly obscure part of the hospital, his resolve seems to steel and when he turns back to face me, his jaw is rigid with determination. It kind of freaks me out a little actually. He looks like he's about to lynch me or something.

"Sasuke, I don't mean to pry, especially under the circumstances but…what exactly is Naruto to you?"

The calm, articulate question has me stiffening in my seat, my breath freezing mid-exhale so my chest is angled slightly strangely. My hands ball in my trousers.

What exactly does he mean by that question? Naruto's my friend or…have I been particularly obvious with my problem after all? I suppose a friend would hardly react to positive news the way I just did…

And people wonder why I choose to erect a mask of stoic indifference all the time.

I have no idea how to answer him.

I don't want someone so close to Naruto to know the truth but the longer I stay silent, the more conclusions he'll simply draw on his own. Either way, this appears to be a lose/lose situation for me.

My heart is starting to thud wildly against my chest again and when I take a breath in it actually hurts as my lungs press up against the hard pulse.

What if I confess and he tells Naruto? What if Naruto doesn't want anything to do with me after this because he thinks I've been lying to him about being his friend? I have absolutely no power over Naruto, not really and if he chooses to disassociate with me…I can't stop him.

Iruka looks a little alarmed when I lean forward, spreading my legs on the chair and shoving my head between them, taking deep cleansing breaths to clear the spots that have started to creep into my vision. On top of what happened to the idiot today, a confrontation like this is a little too much. Things are moving too quickly and emotionally, I just can't keep up.

"Hey now," Iruka says softly, his warm hand resting on my back and making me shudder. What is it with him and casual touching damnit!

"I didn't mean to scare you with that question, I just…well I thought you guys didn't like each other too much and to see you waiting outside Naruto's hospital room then reacting the way you did to my telling you that Naruto was going to be fine…"

His hand starts moving in a slow, wide circle over my back and though the touch is wholly unwelcome; the rhythmic motion is soothing, helping to regulate my horrible breathing pattern.

"I guess I was just hoping that Naruto had made the friend he's always craved is all," Iruka finishes with a smile as I glance up at him through bleary eyes.

Huh, I guess he must be used to dealing with Naruto's particular brand of oblivious idiocy because I can see the underlying meaning to his words as clear as day. Though on the surface he appears to be thankful for my relationship with the blonde moron, something that surprisingly Naruto doesn't seem to have found elsewhere before if that last comment is anything to go by, beneath that he seems to be saying that if the relationship is as close as it appears from my reactions to this chaos then it's going to be a pivotally important one for Naruto and if I hurt him then Iruka will be aware of it.

I suppose in a way, he's sizing me up, like a true protective guardian.

Under normal circumstances, this behaviour might make me livid but due to the ever present complexities of the 'love drug', I'm actually pleased in a profoundly weird way that Naruto has someone who obviously truly cares about him somewhere in his life.

I'm honestly baffled by Iruka's comment about being the friend Naruto always craved though. How could someone so sunny, so warm, not have an army of wannabe acquaintances flocking him everywhere he goes? How can people miss his fiery determination? The way his eyes light up when he feels particularly lively? The way his shirt rides up to expose that tiny, taunting expanse of golden muscle-

Okay so perhaps that last one shouldn't be something for the general populace to notice but still, Naruto is a genuinely good guy. How has he not had a friend closer than me before? We're hardly really good friends now…

"What…exactly do you mean by 'the friend he's always craved'?" I repeat, aware that it's a little rude to answer a question with another question but considering what's happened, I'm not exactly going to be on top of appropriate grammatical etiquette here.

Iruka eyes me thoughtfully for a moment, removing the hand on my back to place under his chin, scratching at slightly protruding stubble.

"…It's a little complicated to try and explain," he says, catching me somewhat off-guard with this cryptic response. I was expecting him to say that Naruto's tactlessness often got him in trouble or something but this alludes to something that sounds a bit like a conspiracy.

"And I don't really think it's my place to give you the intimate details but basically, through no real fault of his own, Naruto was somewhat ostracised as a kid both in our neighbourhood and at his school."

My immediate reaction to this thoroughly interesting bit of news is to demand to know why Naruto was ostracised but of course, considering what Iruka has just told me about not really having the authority to divulge more of the details, I have to fight my curiosity.

"Even I neglected him in the beginning…" Iruka says, heavy shame and a little sorrow lacing his voice as his eyes flick away from mine.

A pressurised silence falls between us as I wait for Iruka to drag himself out of past regrets, itching to ask for more details though to do so would be to go against my personal moral code. Unlike Naruto, I actually pride myself on my discretion should people choose to tell me about a particularly sore subject for them.

Eventually, Iruka's eyes clear and he shakes his head, the long brown strands of his hair brushing out over his shoulders.

"I hoped that things would change for Naruto when he moved to uni but by then I suppose the damage had been done. Naruto's social skills were a little…lacking and he made enemies before he made friends."

I think back to last Friday night at the party when I called him out for being completely useless in light of his friend's obvious discomfort almost immediately and wince at my own aggressive stupidity. Sure technically at the time I was on 'natural drugs' and was hardly thinking straight but still, Naruto doesn't know that and never will.

"I suppose…that Naruto's issues with making friends are the reason I wanted to know about you two though I suppose in hindsight that was probably a little forward of me considering I don't know you at all. Sorry about that."

He bows his head a little and I blink at him, not sure what I'm supposed to do at all. I have absolutely no intention of hurting Naruto, which appears to be Iruka's main concern, but I can't guarantee it won't happen. I'm not exactly a social magician myself and I'm bound to get myself in trouble with the moron. If only I knew more about why he is the way he is…though I suppose knowing that he had trouble making friends as a kid is a start in the right direction.

I take a deep breath, thoroughly uncomfortable within my own skin at the moment because I'm about to try and be a little open with almost a complete stranger. He's been honest with me about Naruto so I should at least try and be honest with him.

"I…consider Naruto a friend," I tell him, meriting a look of surprise from Iruka who was obviously expecting me not to respond again. "I'm…the same as him I suppose; I'm not used to making friends…"

So when one comes along, it really does mean something.

I take another deep breath, trying to work this out because it's true, he is my friend…strangely but obviously it's made infinitely more complicated by my other feelings for him and I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to reassure Iruka that I'm okay and that Naruto's probably okay with me…unless he's still pissed about this morning and lunch with Hinata but after this afternoon I pretty much assumed all bets were off.

Just as I'm about to articulate something else that's sure to be profoundly personal and thus completely out of character for me to say, my stomach cuts me off with a loud groan and my jaw clamps tightly shut in sudden mortification.

Iruka's dark eyes widen slightly and suddenly, he bursts out laughing, making me jump about a foot in the air and start patting my heart now threatening to burst inside me again. The sudden spasmodic movement on my part causes a loose part of hair to fall into my eye, obscuring the world in black for a moment, making me realise in all surrealism how bad the unruly mop on my head must look at the moment. In a fit of self-consciousness, I try to sweep the rogue strand back.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh," Iruka tells me, clutching at his belly and letting a few stray giggles escape every now and then. "It was just the timing, it was brilliant."

His eyes are so friendly, so completely devoid of the mocking malice I suppose I'm expecting that I almost smile along with him.

"Come on, I said we should take a trip to the canteen when I was sure that Naruto was okay. My treat."

He stands, holding his hand out for me to grab and after only a brief second's hesitation, I grip it, standing on weak legs. As he leads the way out of Naruto's ward to the elevators, I don't actually have the heart to tell him that after the various stresses of today, the letter from the university, re-adjusting my finances, fighting with Naruto, that phone call and finding the person I care about most collapsed on the floor of the C block basement, my stomach isn't complaining because it's in need of sustenance.

So Naruto's gonna be okay (wipes forehead in relief) but will this little incident have changed anything? What exactly happened to Naruto to make it so hard for him to make friends?

NB: I googled the symptoms for Naruto's caffeine overdose and the treatment given, then decided to call on my own experiences from the time I drank a mug of espresso in second year when I was going to a con and had been up all night finishing the costume. That experience is the reason I no longer drink coffee (shudder).

NB the second: The financial adviser was indeed Kikazu, a prize to all those that guessed correctly and a note for Rikado - 'TB' means 'text back', sorry for not putting that somewhere at the end of the previous chapter :)