---
March 8th
46 Days since Initial Infection
18 Days remaining
---
Itachi scowled down at the case study in front of him. All the highlighted parts, all the little notes that he’d written to himself had made sense when he’d gone over it in discussion section, but now they were totally incomprehensible to him. This lack of concentration was unnerving, considering that this semester was his second-to-last, and if he didn’t pass his classes now he wouldn’t be eligible to graduate, and he’d have to stay on another semester and delay taking the Bar exam. And his father would be pissed.
Running his hands through his hair, Itachi went back over his conversation with his father last Saturday.
“Focus on your own schoolwork,” Fugaku had said gruffly. “You can’t keep up this little fling with the Hyuuga kid any more if he’s affecting you negatively. It is not conducive to your future prospects.”
“It’s not a fling, Father,” Itachi had snapped. His patience with his family had worn thin over the years, and now it was close to breaking. “I wouldn’t call a three-year relationship a fling.”
“He’s a Hyuuga, and a rich brat,” Fugaku had replied. “He’ll dump you for some up-and-coming star and you’ll never see him again except for in gossip mags. Find a nice girl, Itachi. Get out of law school, pass your exam, get a job at a well-known firm, and get your life back.”
“I’ve got a life—you just fail to see it, old man,” Itachi shot back. “It’s out of your understanding, so you do all you can to block it out. That kind of avoidance and escapism isn’t going to work with me.”
“Watch your mouth, son,” his father had said icily. “Don’t forget who pays your bills.”
Shaking his head a little, Itachi sat back on the couch and wearily went over the study again. There was a test on this at the end of the week, and he had a grade to maintain. It was hard to keep his mind on things, however, when it was continually wandering off to various places—notably, to a room in LA Memorial, with a single occupant.
Was it worth his schoolwork to keep up a relationship with a dying man? He hadn’t known anything until Tsunade had told Orochimaru the details. He hadn’t known how bad it really was until then, and even the baleful glares of his kid brother couldn’t distract him from the grim picture that Dr. Hisano painted for them. By her calculations, Neji had a little less than three weeks left to live, but once they entered the final week any chances of a vaccine working were slim at best. It would be painful, she’d said, in her clinical doctor’s voice. Painful for Neji and anyone around him.
The Hyuuga family had come to stay in LA, in a fine hotel near the hospital. They had already been to see him, and had called Itachi and given him an update. Neji had vomited twice while they were there. Bloody, they’d said. And his coughing was deeper and worse than before. For the first time in his life, Itachi had felt utterly helpless, and he hated it.
Maybe Father’s right, he thought.
Do you really want the old fool to win? Another part of Itachi cut in. Do you want to give in to his demands and prove him right?
Scrubbing his face, Itachi put his work aside and picked up his car keys. It was time to go check in with Tsunade.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Orochimaru’s routine had changed, Sasuke noted.
Since he’d gotten all the material he needed to start work on a vaccine, or at least figure out how the virus worked, Orochimaru had been at the labs from sunrise to well past nine at night. Last night, he hadn’t come back until after Sasuke had drifted off to sleep already, curled up alone in their bed. He’d woken briefly when the scientist had slid in next to him, reaching out with a chilly, disinfected hand to touch Sasuke’s arm. When Sasuke had woken up that morning, Orochimaru was already gone.
This project would make or break his career, Sasuke thought to himself. Staring into the fries he’d gotten from the In N’ Out near the police academy, the younger Uchiha wondered how much longer it would be, or if Orochimaru could beat this case at all.
Of course he will, Sasuke growled at himself. Genius, remember?
But then again…there were geniuses, and there were smart people, and whether or not Orochimaru had the capability to not only recall facts but reason them out and come to a conclusion was up for debate. All his research was geared toward this, but it could just as easily be the second author on all the older man’s papers that had come up with the actual theories. Yakushi Kabuto was a smart, dangerous man. Smart enough to think of these things on his own and give them to his boss to test out. That way his theories got publicity from the very well-known name of Haruki Orochimaru, he got recognition as Second Author: Yakushi Kabuto, and the science community went nuts over it.
Sasuke’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out—BioCon Systems, it read on the little front screen, and he flipped the phone open. “Hello?”
Afternoon, Sasuke. Just wanted to check up on you.
“Afternoon, ‘rochi. I’m eating lunch right now.”
Me too. Oh, Sasuke—I’ll be working late again tonight. I’ll try not to the rest of this week, but…
Sasuke had gotten his hopes up that they’d have a normal evening together, but just as quickly as they’d risen they were gone again. “Okay. I understand.”
Thanks, Sasu. Enjoy the rest of your day. Love you.
“You too, Oro. I will.”
Goodbye.
“Bye.”
Click.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
“You lied to both of us.”
“I didn’t lie to either of you. I simply don’t want Neji to get worked up—“
“That’s why you say I can’t visit him. What do you think I’m going to do, give him head?”
“Itachi, that isn’t necessary. Don’t be childish—I know you wouldn’t give head to your sick lover here, but I’m still not going to let you see him.”
“Why not? You said it was blood-borne? I’m not going to smear his blood all over myself and hope that I get sick, either. I see no logical point in keeping me from visiting him, other than I’m not family, but you should know that gay couples don’t have as many rights as straight ones anyway—“
“Itachi—“
“Don’t try to comfort me. You wouldn’t trust me with the truth, and then you took me along and told Dr. Haruki in front of me. Dr. Hisano, aren’t you under oath to tell your patients exactly what’s wrong with them?”
“What makes you think I didn’t tell Neji and ask him not to tell you?” Tsunade snapped back at him. “He loves you, but he respects authority. If I asked him not to tell you, he would trust me because I am a doctor. This is precisely the reason I don’t want you to know, either. I didn’t have a choice when I brought you along to ask Orochimaru for help—but I should have expected you to do this. But for Chrissakes, Itachi, I’m trying to save his life. Don’t come in here and accuse me of—“
The alarms went off, blue and red lights flashing. A string of colorful curses on her lips, Tsunade grabbed her coat and ran down the hall, pulling on a pair of gloves as she ran. Somehow, she’d known that it would be Neji.
“What’s going on?” she yelled, over the cluster of nurses surrounding his bed. She knew Itachi would be outside watching, and she didn’t care. Her patient demanded attention.
Neji was scrabbling at his throat, eyes wide with fear and panic. His nails left long red marks across pale skin. “His lungs are full of fluid,” one of the nurses said. “He’s choking!”
“Suction!” Tsunade ordered, and the nurse reached over to the wall and plugged a long plastic tube into the wall, tossing the end with a mask over to Tsunade. She fitted it over his mouth and the nurse flipped the switch. Mucusy, vaguely pink fluid was sucked up the tube and disappeared, but it stimulated Neji’s gag reflex and he vomited. Bright blood filled the inside of the mask.
Swearing again, Tsunade shoved it back at the nurse to clean out and reached into his mouth, pulling out his tongue so he wouldn’t swallow it. Blood coated her gloves and stained her coat as she worked to clean out Neji’s airway. At last the suction came back and she fitted it to him again, sucking out more fluid until he started convulsing with coughs and tried to jerk away.
“He’s clear,” Tsunade said. The nurses who had been holding him down slowly backed away; Sakura left to get a new set of sheets and things to clean Neji up with, and a new hospital gown for him, and as she was at the door Tsunade asked her to quietly get some sedatives as well.
She caught Itachi’s eyes through the glass and raised an eyebrow as she started her normal procedures, taking his heart rate (slowly coming down from the panic of choking), his blood pressure (elevated), temperature (climbing back up; he’d need another dose of the medication for that), and everything else she could think of. Sakura brought everything back and she hung the little plastic bag of sedative and ran a thin plastic tube from it, fitting a needle to the end. Neji glared hazily at her.
“More drugs?” he asked disdainfully.
“Yes, she said, making sure the needle was connected right. His eyes drifted around, settling at last on Itachi, standing outside the window. Tsunade caught the look in his eye and sighed, capping the needle.
“Sakura, help him out of the bed so we can change the sheets, and put him in a chair over there—and let Itachi in,” she said waspishly. With a strange grin on her face, Sakura did as asked, and gave Itachi a pair of gloves to put on and a smock. The blue paperlike material crunched between them when he knelt so Neji could more easily return his tight hug. Neji was weak, and thin too; he’d dropped almost eight pounds over the course of his hospital stay, and Itachi could feel his ribs beginning to poke out.
“I apologize,” Neji said. They talked quietly so Tsunade wouldn’t hear them. She did anyway, but said nothing. His lips were still red from the blood in his vomit, and they looked out of place on his colorless face.
“For all that?” Itachi asked. He hated having to wear the gloves, but he could still feel the unnatural warmth of Neji’s body. “You are ill. It’s to be expected.”
The Hyuuga leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together. “I heard about your visit with your father over the weekend,” he said. “Itachi, I don’t—“
“Who told you?”
“Sasuke. We’ve been talking a lot lately—Dr. Haruki’s been very busy lately, working on a vaccine. Sasuke’s lonely.”
Maybe this’ll teach the little snot some compassion, Itachi thought, but kept that to himself. Neji and Sasuke were close. “Father must have called him up. Sasuke doesn’t go home except for holidays anymore.”
“Itachi, I don’t want to hold you back. I am a hindrance to your career—your future. In our families weakness is unacceptable. I—“
“Shut up, Neji. Father just hates having two gay sons. He’ll do any dirty, underhanded trick to help out his own position and his own company.”
“But—“
“I thought Hyuugas were supposed to be proud when facing adversity.”
“We are—“
“You’re not weak. Anyone else would have given up by now. Don’t prove me wrong, Neji.”
Sakura put a hand on his shoulder. “Dr. Hisano says it’s time for you to go now,” she said. Itachi leaned up and kissed Neji’s cheek, fingers brushing over the Hyuuga’s face. Neji looked at him, and the Uchiha was secretly pleased to see some of the fight back in his lover’s grey eyes.
“Love you, Neji,” he whispered.
“Love you too.”
“Hurry up and get better.”
“I will.”
Sakura pushed him out of the room and shut the door. Itachi watched as they moved him back into the bed. Tsunade slid the needle into his arm, and left with Sakura in tow; she let Itachi stay, watching as the sedative slowly took effect and Neji’s eyes closed.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Naruto was doing homework in his room when his cell phone went off, playing some loud and tinny rap song and lighting up. Checking the display, Naruto grinned.
“Hey, Sasuke! What’s up?”
Nothing much. How you been, dumbass?
“Fine.”
Still a business major?
“Fuck yeah. Declared a poli-sci minor, too.”
Sure you can take it? You are blond, Naruto.
“Hey!” Even though he was alone, Naruto screwed up his face at the picture of himself and Sasuke and Sakura—they were fourteen, all three, and Mr. Hatake was standing behind them. It’d been at Homecoming that year; everyone’s faces were bright and shiny with grease, makeup, glitter or happiness, or some combination of them. He sometimes missed that closeness they’d all had. This kind of good-natured teasing made him feel close to his friends again.
It’s true, idiot.
“I’m not an idiot!”
Whatever, Naruto.
“Aren’t you busy with something anyway? Horses, or police stuff, or something? What about your creepy boyfriend?”
…Orochimaru’s at the labs again.
Something in Sasuke’s voice made Naruto stop dicking around on the computer and listen. “Something wrong?”
He’s just busy. He said he’d be late tonight but he’d try to get home on time the rest of the week.
“You sure you’re all right, Sasuke?”
Yeah, I’m fine. Just lonely.
“I’m not busy, let’s talk!”
…Naruto?
“What?”
…nothing. So, how are classes?
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Tsunade checked in on Neji one last time before she left at about 11 PM. Walking into the room with the lights still dimmed so he could sleep, she called, “Neji?”
There was no answer. He was probably still out from the medication and the stress of his attack. She pulled the blanket on the bed up to his shoulders and smoothed it. His brow wrinkled for a moment before he stilled again, breathing as steady as it would get at this point in the progression of the disease.
“Sleep well,” Tsunade whispered as she left.
---
March 9th
47 Days since Initial Infection
17 Days remaining
---
“Sakura, comon. Tell us what’s wrong with Neji. Please?”
“I can’t, Naruto,” Sakura said, exasperated. Unfazed, the blond turned to his girlfriend.
“Hinata?”
“I-I can’t, Naruto,” she said. “Father told me not to tell anyone. Dr. Hisano didn’t want me knowing anyway.”
“You guys,” he whined. “Neji’s my friend too!”
“We know, but…Naruto, we can’t tell you.”
Naruto scowled at them. “We’re friends. We aren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other.”
“Naruto, there are some things you just aren’t going to know.”
“But we gotta help—“
Sakura lost it. “We can’t help him, okay?” she yelled. “Not me, not Dr. Hisano, not Dr. Haruki—“
“What’s Sasuke’s boyfriend got to do with this?”
“None of us can help him Naruto, unless Dr. Haruki’s successful, and he’s untrustworthy, a real snake, and nothing any of us do otherwise will be able to save him, okay? Neji’s dying, and there’s fuck-all any of us can do about it!”
They all stared at her. Naruto, Hinata, Kiba—everyone stared at her in stunned silence while the news sunk in. Then, one by one, their faces all became determined.
“What does he need?” Kiba asked. “I know a doctor who specializes in rare diseases.”
“My family’s going to help fund Dr. Haruki’s research,” Hinata said softly.
“I can’t give money or anything, but I’m really good at making people laugh!” Naruto said. “I bet he’s all depressed, locked up in a smelly old hospital! That’s what’s makin’ him sick!”
Sakura looked around at them, exasperated. “You guys don’t understand,” she hissed. “It’s too easy for this to get out of control…”
She trailed off when she felt someone put a hand on her back. Turning her head, she saw Itachi standing behind her, expression unreadable as always. He was wearing a business suit and carrying a leather case. She remembered Neji had told her once that he did grunt work for a local firm, and that they were thinking of hiring him once he passed the Bar exam.
“I…thank you all for your concern,” he said slowly. “However, at this time your offers are not necessary. We are doing all we can to help Neji get better soon; two geniuses are working on it. I’m sure between the two of them, there will be a result before it’s—before it needs to go to someone else.”
They had all heard what he’d carefully avoided. Before it’s too late.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Tsunade looked in on Neji when she came back to the hospital the next afternoon. The sedative drip had been removed—he was napping, she thought as she took his vitals. Then she realized something…
“Neji,” she called, shaking his shoulder. He didn’t wake up. Anxiously she checked the monitors again—he should wake up, they were resting rates—a little on the low side, but…
“No,” she breathed, grabbing both shoulders and shaking him harder. “Neji, wake up!”
He didn’t respond.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Itachi gripped the railing hard, looking down at his unconscious lover. When he spoke to Sakura, his voice was overly steady, as though he was trying very hard not to let it shake. “Comatose?” he asked bluntly.
Sakura shook her head. “He’s just sleeping. But he won’t wake up.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t know.”
Itachi sighed irritably, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know too little about this disease.”
“It’s probably best you leave now. He can’t hear you or talk to you or if he can he doesn’t let on with it.”
“You’re probably right,” Itachi replied. Leaning over Neji, he left a kiss on unresponsive lips and left the room, creeping back to the dim hallway they always came in and left by. Sakura joined him in a minute, but instead of leading the way down to the door and opening it again with her keycard, she looked up at him with a strange expression on her face, one that he couldn’t read.
“What is it, Miss Haruno?”
She bit her lip, played with her dyed-pink hair. If he hadn’t been with Neji, Itachi would have thought her attractive—sexy in an innocent way, even, but he never would have asked her out on a date. She was friends with the loud blond friend of his brother’s, who Itachi detested. So when Sakura stood up on tiptoe, grasped his shoulders and kissed him, Itachi was completely blindsided.
Pushing her off him, he stared at her incredulously. “What are you doing?”
“I had to,” she blushed. And then she kissed him again. Her lips were so, so much like Neji’s—soft and yielding, but well-shaped and strong. She took his lack of negative response as a positive response, and pressed harder, trying to pull feeling from him.
Finally, though, he brought his hands up to her shoulders again and pushed her off and away. His eyes were hard and glaring when she met them.
“Don’t do that again,” he said quietly. She nodded, opened the door for him, and he left.
In the car he put his head in his hands and held back a scream.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Orochimaru sat back from the microscope, thinking. He’d scanned every blood sample ever taken from Hyuuga Neji, and saw no trace of anything that could possibly be thought of as a contagion. Not as many white blood cells as he’d like to see, but Tsunade’s theories involved immunity suppression, and that made up for it. But it was frustrating to know that something was going on and not see the thing that caused it.
Genetics was truly Orochimaru’s strength. In genetic research, everything had a cause that could be seen and deciphered—baldness had one gene, height another, even dispositions for certain diseases like cancer were thought to be genetic. Slowly, humankind was discovering itself. When it did, it would know precisely how to manipulate itself to become perfect. And that was something Orochimaru coveted; perfection was his goal, and he demanded it of any tech that worked under him. Kabuto was the only one who completely satisfied his obsession with it, but the other techs under him were close to perfect.
And of course, there was Sasuke; beautiful, talented, intelligent, perfect Sasuke.
Turning away from the scope for now to give his tired eyes a rest, Orochimaru pulled Neji’s health records toward him to go over again, looking for something that he might have missed. As he did so, he glanced at the clock. It was well past nine at night; Sasuke would have already been in bed, probably watched something on the television for a bit, read something, and was probably just turning out the light. The boy followed such a predictable pattern. Scrubbing his face with one hand, the geneticist leaned forward and read over the last four months of Neji’s records again.
Things had been pretty quiet until about a month and a half or so ago—Neji had been skiing with Itachi and his family in the mountains when he’d hit a turn in the stunt course too fast on icy snow and freshly waxed skis. He’d struck his head on the edge of a metal pole used for grinding by the snowboarders, and suffered a concussion and blood loss. He’d been airlifted to the nearest hospital, where they’d given him a transfusion and stitched him up. He’d gone in once more so they could remove the sutures, a little less than four weeks ago.
He’d have already been sick, Orochimaru thought. He just wouldn’t have known it. But how?
He puzzled over this for almost half an hour more, until it was after midnight and Kabuto had already left. Shutting down the lab, he put all the blood samples and the slides he’d made in the freezer and locked up carefully. It was important to be careful about these things.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Itachi finally put aside his books and closed his laptop after firing off an e-mail to his father about how he was doing. To piss him off, Itachi put in a paragraph about Neji’s condition. Storing everything away in his backpack so he could sleep as long as he could the next morning and grab everything and go, the Uchiha padded into the bedroom and stripped to the waist.
The bed felt empty without Neji there to help fill it. They’d picked it out together when they were furnishing the apartment. It wasn’t huge, but it fit them both comfortably. The blankets smelled faintly of his lover, and on his back, Itachi reached over and touched Neji’s empty pillow. Then without a word or a crack in his mask of indifference, he rolled onto his side and fell asleep.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Stifling a yawn, Sakura picked up her bag from Dr. Hisano’s office. The older lady was typing up the day’s reports on her computer, face tired and strained.
“I’m going home,” she said. Dr. Hisano nodded.
“Okay, drive safely.”
“I will.”
“Oh, and Sakura?”
“Yes, Dr. Hisano?”
“From now on, just let Itachi in through the front door.”
A pause. Then: “I understand, Dr. Hisano.”
As she left, Tsunade smiled.
---
Blog Entry: Entropy
Posted by: in_sight
12:34 PM, 2006-9-3
I read about this great theory in Science magazine today (shaddup, I read it ‘cause my buddy’s a mad scientist, like I said, and I like to see what he’s up to every now and again ‘cause he tells me nothing) called entropy. It’s the decay of stuff, right? Well, get this—some shit can’t happen without other shit happening first, that’s what the second law of thermodynamics says about entropy. ‘Spontaneous changes’ they’re called, occur with an increase in entropy—kinda like ice melting.
This is great. This totally fucks with all the nihilists out there. “God is dead”, shit.
Kids, you can’t go through life like a frozen ice cube on Antarctica’s ass. You have to be willing to melt a little in order to experience some spontaneous changes.
Either that, or get really shitfaced. Both of them work.
[Reviews - 9]Chapter or Story
Table of Contents
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Chapter notes: Music:
“Loose Ends” “ Imogen Heap
“Between” “ Vienna Teng
“Surgery in the Sky” “ Venus Hum
“It’s a Disaster” “ Ok Go
“Deeper Into You” “ Trust Company
“Ombra (Ibizzare Remix)” “ Cirque du Soleil: Solarium/Delirium
“Gravity” “ John Mayer
“Every Day Is Exactly The Same” “ Nine Inch Nails
Usual disclaimers apply~