Honesty
“Niisan!”
Sasuke clambers onto Itachi’s bed, bouncing up and down to wake him up. Naruto joins in, and they continue to pester him even as he groans and stirs into consciousness.
“I was having a good dream,” he mumbles into the pillow, annoyed but awake now.
“Niisan, do you know how to use a bow and arrow?”
“Wha? Not really, why?”
“I wanna show Kidomaru that you’ve got the best aim of anyone I know but he doesn’t believe me!”
Itachi rolls his eyes, hidden in the pillow so Sasuke can’t see.
“My aim is fine, I guess. But what’s it matter who’s better at it?”
“Cause we’ve got a contest goin’ on dattebayo !” Naruto declares. “Everyone’s tried it but you n’ Kimimaro!”
“Can this possibly wait until tomorrow?”
“Aww come on, you’ve just been stuck in here for two days already!”
Itachi sighs, burying his face in the pillow and wishing he could just fall back asleep despite their pestering.
He reaches out blindly, still managing to jab Sasuke square in the forehead.
“Some other time, okay?”
Sasuke grumbles, annoyed at being denied. Naruto mutters something about him being a killjoy.
It makes Itachi feel guilty. But he feels far too shitty to give into their demands. At least not today.
“Come on, coming here was your idea anyway wasn’t it?”
Itachi manages to sit up, sighing as much as he can with the ache in his chest.
“I didn’t bring us here just for the fun of it.”
“Huh?”
He figures it’s about time he came clean about why they’re here. Now’s as good a time as any.
Sasuke must tell that it’s serious just from his face.
“I didn’t bring us here just for fun.” he says again. “I brought us here because I needed to keep us safe.”
Naruto and Sasuke glance at each other skeptically.
“Safe from what ttebayo? ”
Welp. Cat’s out of the bag, no turning back now.
Now, to see if he can manage to word this right so that he can actually say what he wants to say.
“There was something bad going on back home. Some bad people were trying to do some very bad things. Trying to get me to do some very bad things. They said that if I didn’t they would hurt you. And I didn’t want that to happen. So I decided it would be better to leave until the clan can figure things out.”
The boys squint skeptically, puzzled by the sudden confession.
“...Do Mom and Dad know?” Sasuke asks.
“I told them, yes. And I told them that we wouldn’t be able to go back until I know that you two will be safe.”
Sasuke wrinkles his nose, clearly not understanding.
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” he asks.
“I was in a hurry, and I didn’t know how to tell you. I’m sorry.”
“...So when do we get to go home?” he asks, worriedly.
“I’m not sure,” Itachi says, hating the scared looks on both of their faces. “Whenever it’s safe. Or whenever you’re strong enough to protect yourselves.”
Sasuke and Naruto glance at each other, trying to figure out how they should feel.
They don’t particularly understand, but after contemplating it for a moment, they nod in unison.
Maybe they don’t need to understand. Anyway, Itachi knows more than them, right? If he says something is dangerous, that they had to leave, then it must be true.
It’s not like things are bad here.
“Okay. I trust you, Niisan,” Sasuke says, putting on a brave face.
Itachi puts on a forced smile of his own. Tries to tell himself that everything is going to be alright in the end. That the other stuff can be dealt with later.
“Now what is this about archery you were going on about?”
Tsunade knows she’d told the kid that he was a wreck when she’d looked him over. But she didn’t realize just how much of a wreck until the scans and blood work were finally done and printed out for her to look over.
This kid is a walking genetic disaster. It’s a small miracle he was even still upright and walking, and the only reason she can think of for it is that sheer stubbornness.
She lays her mess of papers out on the table, wondering what the hell she’s going to do for him.
(She vaguely recalls her grandfather telling her about his old friend’s brother. He’d supposedly been in poor health too, but it’s been so long ago that it’s hard to remember anything specific.)
God, her head hurts…
“Tsunade? You don’t look well…”
She nearly jumps out of her skin and wonders how the fuck she didn’t notice anyone enter the room with her. She whirls around to face him, expecting him to be smirking at her, smug that he’d snuck up on her. But instead, he looks totally serious.
Orochimaru lays the back of his hand across Tsunade’s forehead, frowning.
“I’m fine,” Tsunade insists, swatting his hand away from her. “I’m just-”
She sways on the spot, a horrible throbbing behind her eyes nearly blinding her.
Orochimaru knows what’s happening. Of course he does. But knowing that doesn’t make it any less difficult to see her in pain.
“When was the last time you’ve gone without a drink for this long?” he asks, forcing her to sit down and noticing how badly her hands are shaking.
“Don’t remember,” she admits, a little embarrassed.
“Okay. stay there for a moment.”
“You brought me here to take care of the kid, not for you to take care of me-”
“I can multitask.”
In about a minute, Orochimaru returns with a handful of tablets and a glass of water.
Probably sedatives. Some sort of anxiolytic. Painkillers. Stuff to keep her from dropping to the floor or having a seizure while her body gets used to running like a normal human again.
Of course he’d know how to treat this. She supposes she should be grateful, but saying thank you feels wrong.
“Well, what do you think?” Orochimaru asks, thankfully not dwelling on the matter. “Will I be telling our little friend he’s dying?”
Right. She’s here for a reason.
“Hard to say. He’s in bad shape for sure, but he’s made it this long and that’s already a small miracle on its own so who knows.”
Orochimaru peers over her shoulder.
“Alright. Well, what about what we can do for him?”
“Well if you look at this-”
She practically slaps him upside the head with some of her papers.
“His main problem is that his own fuckin’ body is doing its best to mummify his own lungs in scar tissue. So that’s not ideal.”
“Oh? What would be causing that, you think?”
“Not sure yet. But his immune system is all over the damn place so that’s got something to do with it.”
“I suppose that gives us a place to start.”
She finally turns to face him properly.
He doesn’t notice, intent on looking through the papers she’d thrown at him.
He also doesn’t notice when she spots the deep black-and-blue bruising running down his neck and disappearing beneath his shirt.
(how the hell hadn’t she noticed that before now?)
Tsunade pulls back the collar of his shirt, revealing the battery of bruises and claw marks all across his skin and examining his injuries with an increasingly worried expression.
“Who did this to you?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Tsunade would roll her eyes at him if she wasn’t so horrified.
“ This!” she declares, shaking him as if that would bring him back to his senses. “You look like-”
Tsunade trails off, too disgusted by the thought to finish it.
She accidentally pulls his shirt down too far, but he doesn’t so much as flinch at how suddenly exposed he is. As though standing there with a breast out in the open was a totally normal thing to do.
As if having deep, angry red bite marks across one’s breast wasn’t anything to make a fuss over.
She chews on her tongue until it nearly bleeds, trying to understand what he doesn’t seem to want to tell her.
“Who hurt you?!” she demands. “Who-”
“You don’t need to worry about that. Nobody hurt me.”
“Like hell! Look at yourself!”
“Hm? I suppose I let things get a little carried away. But I’m alright, Tsunade. Don’t worry your pretty head over it.”
“But you’re-”
-She thinks better of finishing that sentence, not wanting to piss him off or make him clam up, like he’s so prone to doing.
Changing tact is better here. For now, anyway.
“Here. Let me…”
Her hands are still shaky, though less so as the medication starts taking effect. She gets him to sit down so she can better look him over, cringing at the mess of bruises and claw marks all over.
(Maybe she’s just afraid of the answer.)
“It looks like you got into a fight with a tiger,” she remarks.
“You should see the tiger,” he tells her, with a forced sort of chuckle, making her roll her eyes.
Her hands light up with soft blue chakra, and she sets to work trying to clean up this mess.
The silence between them is painfully awkward, and she’s not sure why it should be. It’s not like they haven’t seen each other in every possible stage of undress more times than she can count. So there’s no reason it should feel so uncomfortably intimate now, but it is anyway.
She wishes he would at least tell her how he got these sorts of injuries, so that her imagination wouldn’t go quite so wild.
Or at least that he’d stop staring at her while she works.
She can feel his heart racing when she lays her hands over his chest, but she doesn’t let herself dwell on it for too long.
He tilts his head at her like a curious puppy might, like he’s trying to figure her out at the same time she’s trying to figure him out.
He lets out a soft sigh of relief as the bruises fade, and bites turn from open wounds to faint scars.
(They must have hurt. They looked painful.)
She wants to scream at him. To demand he tell her what the fuck happened, what was wrong, who hurt him like this, so she knows who to kill for it.
But when she does speak, instead she asks “so what’s up with all this?” making a noncommittal gesture at his body.
“Hm?”
Orochimaru shrugs, not taking his bright gold eyes off her.
“At first it was just a matter of convenience. But I think I like it. Is it bad?”
“Huh? I mean- it’s not bad it’s just-”
She shakes her head before she says something that might offend him.
“It’s just…different. I was curious. Sorry.”
“It’s nothing to apologize for.”
(she wishes he’d stop staring at her like some sort of starving animal. She feels like if she meets that stare she’ll fall under some kind of spell.)
She tells herself that she’s just dizzy because she’s detoxing. That once the medication fully kicks in she’ll be able to get her head on straight.
But when he puts a hand on top of her head, gently, almost fearfully, she wonders if maybe it’s something else.
“Tsunade.”
His tone is cryptic. After having known him for so long, she wishes she could read him better.
Instead, she mumbles “what?” and feels monumentally stupid for doing so.
The smile he gives her is that same lopsided, snaggletoothed smile she’s always been so very fond of. That smile that could melt the heart of anyone who saw it.
(This is stupid. That smile is hiding all the things he’d done that he’d run from in the first place, right? Isn’t it just some sort of trick? So why is it working?!)
He cradles her face in his hands like it’s some priceless treasure, rubbing the pad of his thumb along the curve of her jaw in a slow, deliberate way.
“I missed you.”
It’s such a blunt, sudden statement that she doesn’t have a response.
Gently, he tugs her in close. And despite her better judgment, she complies.
Their noses brush against each other- hell, their eyelashes nearly touch, they’re so close.
“May I?” he asks, almost sounding nervous.
She frowns, knowing what he’s asking, but confused as to why and too dumbstruck to ask.
“I-”
He swallows up whatever she was about to say, maybe thinking that if she kills him after this, it’ll be worth it.
It’s a short kiss- chaste, almost shy, though it’s been a lifetime since he’s been anything resembling shy.
A small, barely-audible laugh bubbles up in his throat at the stunned face she gives him in response.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he admits, waiting to see how mad at him she’s going to be. “I’m sorry to be so bold.”
She shoves at his chest with a faux-indignant huff.
“Idiot, what the hell are you thinking-”
“To be honest, I was thinking that I’d been wanting to kiss you for about forty years now, and I wouldn’t get a better chance.”
Honesty. That’s new for him.
“Are you angry?” he asks.
Tsunade shakes her head.
“Fucking idiot.” she says again, pulling away. “You couldn’t have picked a less awkward time?”
“I thought I’d lose my nerve by then.”
“You’re unfathomable.. Don't get so fucking cocky."
She grabs him and turns him around so she can look his back over and fix up that mess as well.
Later, she’ll need to get him to cough up who did this to him. And why the hell he’s being so evasive about it.
But she’ll worry about that when she gets to it.