Highs and Lows

Sorry I haven’t been as good about updating as I would like. Funny how life gets in the way of things.

WARNINGS: Yaoi. Mixing of present and past tense. Usage of second person.

Highs and Lows

Chapter 3: Not So Dumb Blondes

(Uzumaki Naruto’s point of view)

I couldn't help but grin widely when I saw the number of the guy I had just entered into my phone appear on the screen. I was slightly surprised that Sasuke had decided to call back so quickly; I had thought he'd wait another twenty minutes at least, but whatever.

When I answered I let him know that I had just typed his number in, let him know I did care and that I had thought that I would hear from him again.

It’s good to be right. I’m just cool like that. I know how to read people.

With what he told me, he seemed like he had never had anyone to really talk to before about being diabetic. The whole burst of angry words with him spilling his guts seemed like it had surprised him more than it had me.

He gave off that "I don't want to need anyone" type of vibe. The keyword there was the he didn't want to need anyone. I bet finally spilling his guts had felt good. Even if I hadn't been able to get the information that I wanted to give him, I still would have called him back. His broodish nature bugged me. I hated seeing people looking so upset, and I guess since he was a fellow diabetic, it made me more determined to make sure that someone talked to him.

Of course, when he admitted that he thought that he might need an emotional support group verified that he needed help.

We talked for several hours. Well, mostly I talked. He just made these weird ass "hn" noises every now and then to show me that he was listening.

I talked to him about some of the other diabetics I knew which included Gaara. Sasuke didn't talk much at all, but at the same time I got the feeling that he didn't want to get off the phone with me either. From what I knew of him (which wasn't that much, but hey, didn’t I say I’m just cool like that at knowing how to read people?) I knew he wouldn't feel bad blowing me off and saying he had other shit to do if he didn't want to talk to me anymore.

In fact, I was the one at 1:00am who finally said that I had to go so I could take a shower before bed. I let him know tonight was a site change (aka when I need to replace where the needle from my insulin pump goes), he understood.

When I finally got off the phone with him, I sat on my bed thinking about a bunch of things.

I didn't have class till 11:00 the next morning, so I could probably call and speak to my doctor before class to get the information I wanted. I could always go on the internet and try and look up some of the information myself, but my doctor just seemed to know more about how it affected people.

It’s also easier to ask questions to a person than to google. Less typing, more asking.

Of course, as a doctor, she sees lots of different cases every day, so she has lots of first hand knowledge with how the body works differently for different diabetics. She’s also never steered me wrong yet, and I have a feeling she’ll be able to help Sasuke figure out why he’s having so many issues.

But first, before I call her tomorrow, I do need to go on the internet to get something; I need to find some new blonde jokes to tell her.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"Thank you for calling Central Medical. If this is a true medical emergency, please hang up and dial the local medical emergency number. If you are calling from a physician's office, please press-"

I bypassed listening to the rest of the message, knowing it by heart. I pressed zero to get me to the operator and Central Medical. A different voice responded that the previous recording.

Ah, real people.

"Central Medical, how may I help you?" the familiar voiced clipped.

"Yo! This is Central Medical’s most awesome patient-"

"Naruto?! Do you really have a medical problem this time? Last time you distracted Dr. Tsunade for over twenty minutes chatting about nothing at all. The patients were not happy waiting."

"Aww, Shizune-nee-chan! Don't be like that! It's Tsunade-baa-chan's fault anyway. She'd rather talk to me than any of her other patients. And we were talking about medical stuff!"

"Talking about an episode of Scrubs does not clarify as medical stuff!"

"There was a diabetic in the one episode," I grumbled.

"Naruto." The warning tone in her voice made me grin. It wasn't my fault that Tsunade loved to get away from certain patients that were difficult to work with. I knew for a fact how annoying some of them were having worked at Central Medical part time. Tsunade did her best to bypass the rude patients and hand them off to someone else, and I was pretty sure Shizune knew that too.

Even so, I knew I was getting on Shizune's nerves, so I figured I'd better tell her that I really did need to talk to Tsunade-baa-chan.

"Listen, I really do need to talk to her this time about something important," I said, still grinning, but making sure Shizune understood that I was serious.

"Well, she's with a patient right now-"

"She knows my number. Have her call me back soon puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeease!" I sing-songed happily.

"Goodbye Naruto," Shizune said as she hung up. I chuckled. It was so much fun to rile up Shizune. Shizune was actually a nurse at Central Medical, not the real receptionist. In fact, she was one of Tsunade's apprentices or interns or whatever they are, but she doubled as receptionist when needed. The support staff never lasted very long through Tsunade's random temper tantrums.

I know from first hand experience working there.

Last summer I started working there late May until the end of August when school started up again. I was the only one of the six people hired at the beginning of the summer who was still there at the end. A total of fifteen other support staff workers had been in and out during my three and a half months there.

Tsunade’s a great doctor, don’t get me wrong, but she’s got some weird quirks – like her temper and her tendency to drink right after getting off work.

Now, it’s not like she uses a scalpel to slice people open or a needle to sew somebody's head back together and she’s drunk off her ass when she does it – in fact, like I said, she doesn't even drink till after work. But as soon as 5:00 hits, the bottle comes out. If you're not out of there early, being on the end of her temper after a bad day is painful. Literally.

Of course, getting thumped around by your boss is never a good thing, but it's only if you do something really stupid like lose somebody's insurance card.

That bump on my head lasted about a week!

Okay, so she’s not that violent all the time after drinking, but seeing her like that even once or twice isn't good for a lot of the workers. Thankfully she's such a great doctor that she hasn't ever messed a patient up. She just doesn't accept failure from her staff.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was 9:34. Dad was going to pick me up on his way between job locations in a few minutes. I'd get to college early, but since I don't drive, I don't complain.

Besides, I like getting a chance to talk to my dad. He's an awesome guy, and due to his work, we don't get to talk as much as Mom and I do since he's so busy. The fact that he makes it a point to drive me somewhere so we can talk at least once a week might not seem like a lot, but if you knew how much my dad does, and how much he works his schedule around so that he can spend time with Mom and me, you'd find it amazing too.

Usually Mom drives me in at 7:30 before she goes to work. I usually just go to the computer lab and play games online...er, I mean, do homework until class starts.

I do my homework! Honest! I just don’t usually do it at home; just at school because I hate homework at home. The thought of doing it at home makes me cringe, so I make sure to finish it at my University.

Anyway, on Fridays Dad picks me up at 9:45, so I can sleep in a bit. He travels between working at the main office and going to over-see things personally at the other office branches on Fridays.

I jumped when the phone rang again. I didn't even bother saying hello when I answered; I knew who it'd be without even looking at the caller ID.

"Why did the blonde helicopter pilot crash?" I asked with a grin.

"Why?" she prompted.

"She got too cold so she turned off the fan!"

Tsunade cackled at the lame blonde joke. They really weren't all that funny, but I think she got so wound up with some of the patients that the jokes put her at ease. At least, that's what Shizune thought when she let me know how dumb the jokes were. One former member of the support staff said she laughed so hard because she drank too much.

He was fired on the spot for that comment.

"Alright brat, what do you need?"

"I met this guy last night-"

"Is that so? Well Sakura will be secretly upset you've found someone else, and a guy no less," Tsunade interjected lewdly. I rolled my eyes. Sakura was one of the nurses that worked with Tsunade. I've been trying to get her to date me since I met her. So far, no such luck. I get turned down all the time. First she wouldn't go out with me because I was her "patient." Then when I started working there she said, "We definitely can't go out now! If we break up, how awkward will working together be?"

I don't work there any more. Her new excuse is, "I'm too busy for a boyfriend."

"It's not like that! Ew. Geeze. I met this guy last night at that group thing Mom made me go to. He's another diabetic and is having some major issues with his blood sugars. He's on an insulin pump, but he's having troubles now that he's living on campus. Apparently his doctor hasn't been able to help him much either. I thought you might be able to see him and figure it out since you're such an amazing doctor."

"Cut the crap flattery. You must really feel bad for this guy if you're trying to flatter me like that. You know just like everyone else that comes into the office he'll need a referral from his general doctor if he wants to switch to me as his endocrinologist."

Yeah, I did know all that. I had worked there after all. Just because it had taken me a little longer than the other people to get what the hell a referral was didn't mean I was stupid.

And just because I still am not a hundred percent sure what it is also doesn't mean I’m stupid.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll let him know all that. But seriously, can you help him?" I asked her.

"I don't know what his problems are, but if he is a diabetic, I'll work something out."

"Did you get any of those...umm...sticker things in? I thought they might help Sasuke."

"So your new friend has a name. Sasuke eh? And what do you mean sticker things?"

"Yeah, his name's Sasuke, and you know. The sticker things," I said, wishing I could remember what they were called. I had actually helped talk to the insurance company to get the office some trial ones. Do you remember me telling you about Gaara's sister, Temari, who works for the insurance company? I talked with her about seeing if she could get some sticker things for the office to lend out to patients.

"What. Sticker. Things?" Tsunade demanded.

"The sticker things that test blood sugar!"

There was a long pause before she answered, and I had a feeling she was trying to keep herself calm.

"Naruto, you idiot, those are called CGMS's. They're not sticker things! They're electronic devices that attach to the skin and continuously monitor blood sugar."

"Yeah, yeah. But they have a sticky thing on them that makes ‘em stick to the skin. Sticker things."

"I have never been able to understand how you remember so much information about diabetes yet can seem so retarded at times."

"Hey! Don’t say retarded. That’s rude." I yelled into the phone indignantly.

"Whatever. And yes, we got the "sticker things" in. I've turned those over to Sakura. I'll talk with Sasuke and then if I feel he can handle one, I'll give him one for the five-day trial. And you should come in with him too and learn more about it. Sticker things," Tsunade grumbled to herself about the term. "Honestly Naruto. I'll explain how they work to you too."

"Cool. Thanks!"

"No problem. Hmm..."

I waited as she paused over the phone, wondering what had made her thoughtful all of a sudden.

"What is it?"

"Do you know the name of his doctor?" she asked me. I scrunched my forehead thinking. We had talked a fair amount the night before, but he hadn’t mentioned his doctor. Well, I guess that was because I had done most of the talking.

"He didn't say." Come to think of it though, I had a feeling I knew where she was going with this.

"Alright. Find out. Let me know. I have to go now. Shizune is not so subtly trying to tell me my patients are getting annoyed. For heaven's sake I was only on the phone a couple minutes," she grumbled. I laughed.

"Later old Hag!"

"Why you little-"

"Bye!" I said, laughing to myself as I hung up. I could imagine her cursing at the phone as she slammed it down in the office.

I was still laughing to myself as my dad arrived to pick me up for school.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Class ends at 2:00 for me on Fridays.

I hadn't thought to ask Sasuke what time he got done class (I think he mentioned having Friday classes if “hn” means yes.) I also didn’t think to ask if works. I wanted to call him, but I didn't at the same time.

Tsunade had said to find out the name of his doctor, so I needed to call him sometime. Yet I didn't want to call him just in case I started to annoy him.

People tell me I can get annoying. Can you believe that?

Me – annoying! Yeah right.

Still, I didn’t want to bug the guy. He seems like he can be an ass if you get on his bad side.

But I’m not very patient, so I decided to throw caution to the wind, and I gave him a call. It rang a few times before it went into an automated voice message stating that he was Uchiha Sasuke. No personal message, just his voice stating his name followed by that recording of a woman's voice telling me he was unavailable and blah blah blah.

While I wondered to myself whether or not he had the default ring tone set on his phone or another song, I got distracted and wasn't ready for it when the phone prompted me to leave a message.

"Did it beep? It beeped didn't it? Umm, uh, hey Sasuke. This is Naruto. Give me a-"

"Message has been deleted." The same automated woman's voice came over the phone, stating.

"What? Erased? What the-?"

"To leave a new message, please press one now."

Crap. I fumbled with my phone, accidentally hitting the four below the one instead of the one. I didn't have the phone to my ear, but I could hear the woman's voice come on again, faintly giving me more directions.

"I am sorry. That is not a valid option. To leave a new-"

I hung up the phone, cursing at it and the stupid woman's voice.

I dialed again, hoping that he would answer on the second ring. When he didn't, I made sure to pay a little more attention to when the voice mail came on.

"Hey Sasuke. I just called. Your phone's stupid. It erased my first message. Anyway, give me a call back alright?" I went to hang up before I realized that he might not know who I was. "Oh, yeah, wait. This is Naruto. Right. Call me back. And change your voice mail message. It sucks."

I hit the end button, listening to see if it told me it was going to erase the phone message or not. Thankfully it didn't say anything, and it seemed to go through normally.

Stupid messed up voice mails. I hate leaving voice mails in the first place, and I never know what to say for people that I don't know that well.

I went to put my phone back in my pocket, but before it was in all the way it started ringing loudly. I grinned when I saw Sasuke's name appear on the caller idea.

"Yo!" I greeted him.

"You called?" he deadpanned. I snorted. For some reason, the way he said it came out very cliché. He seemed slightly annoyed when I didn't answer him right away, and I began to snicker instead. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing. Sorry. Um, yeah. So Dr. Tsunade, the endocrinologist I go to, suggested that you come in and talk with her. She's an awesome doctor, and she thinks that she might be able to help you. Of course, normal fees and all that apply. Umm...what else did she want me to ask you about?" I wondered out-loud thoughtfully.

Sasuke muttered something that sounded like "dobe" but I didn't ask him to clarify.

"Your doctor asked you to ask me something?" Sasuke asked, sounding curious.

"That's it! Doctor. Your doctor. You're a genius Sasuke. You made me remember that she wanted me to ask you who's your endocrinologist now?"

"I’m a genius, hm?" He sounded amused for some reason. "My doctor is Dr. Orochimaru," he replied. I made a face and a disgusted sound when I heard that name.

"You go and see that asshole?"

"Excuse me?" Sasuke asked sounding offended that I had insulted his doctor.

"Trust me, that guy is crazy. No wonder you're having issues. That's probably why Tsunade asked me to ask you. She knows things like that. Kinda creepy she just knows things. You know what I mean?"

"No, not really."

"Oh, uh, well..."

"Is there anything else?" he clipped. I narrowed my eyes and frowned.

"You know, I'm helping you here and you're acting all cold and snappy."

"I'm supposed to be doing a physics lab right now. When I felt my phone vibrate I went to the bathroom. I don't have much time to talk," Sasuke explained.

"Oh. Whoops. You should've just waited until the end of class," I told him.

"Fine, I'll call you later."

"Later!" But he had already hung up.

I played with my phone in my hand, wondering if I should call Tsunade now or not. She'd be interested to know that Sasuke's doctor was Orochimaru. One of the things that Tsunade had often been upset about over the summer was the number of patients who Orochimaru had originally seen and who had transferred in to see her. Their blood sugars tended to be horrible if they were diabetic. She claimed that Orochimaru wasn't really an apt doctor, and that his assistant, Kabuto, was the one who could actually treat patients; but Kabuto didn't have a practitioner 's license anymore because he lost it due to malpractice.

He now worked for Orochimaru as an “assistant.”

Apparently Orochimaru became an endocrinologist to work specifically with patients who had thyroid problems. (Endocrinologists see other patients besides just diabetics.) Seeing just those patients apparently hadn't brought in much money, so he'd opened his doctor's office up to other patients as well.

Hmm...

Why was I remembering all of this stuff that Tsunade told me about Orochimaru again?

Oh yeah.

Sasuke.

Now, should I call Tsunade so close to the end of the workday or not?

"Ah hell. I'll just bug her again," I muttered to myself as I dialed the office number, once again bypassing the initial option to get to a live person to talk to while hoping she was in an okay mood to talk to.

"Thank you for calling Central Medical. How may I help you?"

"Sakura-chaaaan!" I sing-songed happily drawing out the name of my favorite nurse. It wasn't often that she answered the phone. Things must have been pretty hectic if she was answering.

She, like Tsunade, had a temper. She (also like Tsunade) lost it at times. It wasn't pretty when Sakura got mad at the patients, especially over the phone. It was like a whole other personality emerged. They kept her away from phones when they could help it – but don't let her know that. She thinks they don’t like her on the phones because she’s more useful elsewhere.

"Na-ru-to," Sakura said, drawing out my name in an exasperated voice. "You can't keep calling and distracting Tsunade-shishou from her work just because you feel like it."

"Oi! Oi!" Did they only think I called to bug Tsunade? "I have a problem! Tsunade's trying to help me help out another diabetic. A new patient transfer from Orochimaru."

"Orochimaru?" Sakura gasped. I knew mentioning that name would make her see I wasn't joking around.

"Yeah. This new patient's having some big problems. Tsunade asked me to get some information to give to her."

"Alright, let me get her."

Sakura put me on hold as I listened to a local soft rock station play over the phone. The only time I had ever almost gotten fired had been when I had changed our on hold music to a heavy metal/rock station. Tsunade nearly skinned me alive when a mother called the office in hysterics because her twelve-year-old daughter had asked what the singer meant when he said he couldn't "get it up."

How was I supposed to know a twelve year old would call the office? Isn't that a little young? Shouldn't the parent do it? Besides, she'd probably learn about that kind of thing soon anyway.

The music abruptly stopped, and Tsunade's voice came on instead.

"Well?"

"Hi to you too," I muttered.

"What was that?"

"Uh, nothing," I said quickly. Tsunade seemed to be in a bad mood. Must have seen an annoying patient or something. "Sasuke's doctor is Orochimaru."

Tsunade snorted.

"I almost bet money on that."

"You're horrible at gambling," I said smiling.

"Yeah, yeah. So did you talk to him about getting a referral?"

"I explained all that to him, and he said he would."

"Have him in here by Thursday of next week."

"Sure thing. Later!"

"Wait just a minute. Where's my blonde joke?"

I laughed to myself. I knew she loved those jokes.

"Why are blond jokes so short?"

"Why?"

"So brunettes can remember them."

When I hung up the phone, I could still hear Shizune's squawk of indignation as Tsunade retold her the joke.

Next Chapter: New Friends

General information about diabetes:

Endocrinologists are the specialty doctors that see diabetics. There are quite a few “specialty” doctors that diabetics should see (such as a podiatrist aka a foot doctor, not to be confused with pediatrician aka a child’s doctor).

A CGMS (Continuous Glucose Monitor System) is a new device that is not yet covered by (most) insurance companies. It’s a little machine that attaches to a diabetic that monitors the blood sugar every five minutes. Instead of using a pinprick of blood to measure blood glucose, it uses an electrical current. Not quite sure how it works exactly, but it does work. It lets diabetics know if their blood sugars are going too high or low. A few select endocrinologist offices offer them for free trial periods.

Notes about my life:

I have actually tried a CGMS. They’re neat, but annoying. They’re also funky looking.

Oh, and the blonde joke thing – I really do tell my endocrinologist blonde jokes. And just for the record, I am blonde, and I love blonde jokes.

Hope you liked the chapter! Let me know what you thought. ~ Jelp