AN: I seem to have an abundance of plot-bunnies running around inside my head. Unfortunately, they have no particular order and I can't call upon at will. So, I suppose I'm going to lay another one out, and try to gain from it what healing I can. That's right, this is going to end up being a self-healing fic for me. A dip into my experience into the loony bin and all of the people who helped and hurt and healed me there. Of course, this is completely a fictional piece of literature. But I can dream that this is what happened.

Inside

Today is Friday. Friday is visitors' day. Just like Monday and Wednesday. Three times a week. Got to keep us freaks in touch with the outside somehow. I know I'm not going to see anyone today. No one ever comes for me. I don't have anyone left.

But still, it doesn't stop me from standing at the window and watching as the visitors walk off of buses and out of cars, trudging up the curved pathway to our front door.

I glance down at the paper and pen in my hand, reading the clue to number twenty-seven across.

"Ten letters," I say quietly to the man sitting in the chair behind me, "Amontillado, for example."

He picks at his loose sweat pants while simultaneously tucking his hair behind his ear. The man was always moving. A fact that used to bother me, but now it was just a blur of movement that happened in the background of our interactions.

"Pale sherry," he said, his soft smile curling across his lips. The word fit perfectly into the puzzle, and I filled in the corresponding blocks, moving on to the next one.

"Six letters," I sit on the arm of his chair, leaning back against him as if he were a tree. That's kind of what Itachi feels like sometimes. A tree. He's the only one in the ward who's been here longer than me, which is saying something. I've been here awhile, "Passes over."

I can feel his hum rumble through his shoulder and into my bones.

"Elides."

I scribble in the letters and stare down at the completed work. Just in time.

"Congratulations, Itachi. You finished the New York Times crossword in pen."

"Again."

We both chuckle. It was part of our routine – "and routine is recovery" – that we performed every visitor's day. Itachi, like myself, doesn't get visitors. Well, he does, he just doesn't every see them. Three times a week, two men stand on the lawn of the sanitarium and stare up at the windows. One tries and fails, three times a week, to make it up the path. It's been like this for the entire year that I've been here.

I stand up from my perch and flop the pen and paper down onto one of the side-tables and cross my arms with a shiver. It's April, and it's chilly this close to the windows. It makes people watching a little uncomfortable, but I can always count on Itachi to throw a blanket over my shoulders, like he's doing now.

Itachi likes to take care of people; a fact that certainly doesn't always fly with the staff and almost never flies with the patients. It's not that he's trying to be condescending, it's just his instinct to care for people. You see, Itachi might well be the most loving guy alive. That's why he did what he did. Hell of a lot better than what I did and why, if you ask me.

We look down on the lawn, and Itachi waves politely at the incoming guests. Some of them – mostly little kids – wave back at him. The two men on the lawn stare up at us. I know they have to be chilled out there. Even in their wool dress coats. The fog still hasn't burned away, and there's a breeze that's strong enough to ruffle the trees on the front lawn.

"Who do they think they are?" Itachi asks, like he does every time he sees the men.

"I don't know," I lie.

I know exactly who those men are. They're Itachi's only living relatives: his cousin and his baby brother. I asked a nurse once and she told me. We both got a scolding for her loose tongue. You see, it was on a day just like today that Itachi asked me and I answered.

Itachi spent four days in solitary doped out of his mind. It took weeks for us to get him back. That's why I lie, three times a week, and listen to his speculations over who the men might be, and who they might be visiting.

"They must be here for one of the older patience. After all, if they're not here to see me, and they're not here to see you, then it has to be one of them. Everyone else has been released, right?"

"Right," I mumble and pull the blanket closer to me. I look over at Itachi and his placid expression. He always looks so calm and collected: pristine and perfectly poised, like a statue.

"I wish Sasuke would come and see me," he says with a sad smile, "He'd love you, I just know it. He's always been really good with my friends. Always so grown up. You'd never know he was only twelve, with the way he talks."

'He was twelve eight years ago,' I want to say, but I don't. Instead I just babble something about how I bet he's a really cute kid, and that yeah, we probably would get along really well.

"Sasuke loves puzzles," he says softly, picking up another book of crosswords.

"I know, Itachi."

"I miss him."

"I know, Itachi."

The two men on the lawn get back into their car and drive away. This time the car skids off so quickly, that bits of gravel fly up around the wheels. They must be late for a meeting.

Itachi is only allowed to see one page of the newspapers: the crossword puzzles. Everything else just upsets him, and the doctors are sick of medicating him. You see, despite the fact that Itachi is probably the nuttiest nut in the bunch, he's actually very good for everyone in here. He's a kind and generous guy: the kind of guy you want on your side. He helps and he heals, and he does it all with a head full of knowledge built exactly for the job. He was, after all, a psychiatrist. Well, before he bit the big insanity bullet and totally plunged off the deep end to become a murdering psychopath. In fact, he had invented many of the practices that the organization used, and run one of the most successful psych wards in the country. Funny how a little thing like serial homicide can make one unacceptable in public.

I myself am here on an attempted suicide. I nearly succeeded – a fact that I still don't know whether to be grateful or remorseful for. So here I am now, a man with nowhere in particular to go, waiting to get permission to leave this place.

I slump down onto one of the sofas, pulling the blanket tightly around me and staring at the wall. I know I'm ok, but I also know I'm not. That's why I haven't been released. Sure, I'm no harm to anyone else, but I have a rather shaky record when it comes to my own self-preservation.

"You're sinking off into your headspace again, Naruto," Itachi says softly, and I look up at him as he sits beside me. I let my eyes roam over him again, and once more find myself thinking that Itachi is exactly my type. He's tall, dark, and handsome. Not to mention sincere, intelligent, and funny as hell.

'Too bad he's a nut,' I think, and reach my hand out to my side, catching Itachi's and lacing our fingers.

Months ago he would've told me that the contact was inappropriate, but now he simply squeezes my fingers back. I only ever hold his hand when I need to hold it. And right now, I need to hold it.

"What happens if you get out of here before I do?" I whisper. I know it's impossible, that Itachi will most likely never leave this place.

"Then I'll come and see you," he looks at me with a smile that fills his eyes with reflected bits of sunlight, "And I won't just stand outside and creep on the lawn."

We both laugh and as it ebbs away, I lean my head on Itachi's shoulder and watch blossoms getting knocked off the trees by the wind. It's almost romantic.

"Why don't you draw me something, Naruto?" he says quietly. It's a frequent request. I of course know that he's using my drawings to psychoanalyze me, but what do I care? What's one more doctor thumbing through my sketchbook?

I nod and lift my head, and he scampers off to find my sketchpad and pencils. I'm not allowed to have my own private sketchbook or box of pencils. Not really, anyway. That is to say, my pad and supplies have to stay in the main seating room at all times, tucked away in their little cupboard. You see, I'm not allowed to have anything sharp. I might eviscerate myself with a sharpened pencil or the metal coil of the sketchpad if I'm left unattended.

Sure, right now, that seems like a pretty idiotic idea. But sometimes, and I know it happens, my body slips away from me. It's almost like an out of body experience, and during those times, anything sharp will do. That's why I'm covered in scars, head to toe. Not even my face has been spared, and I see those six scars each day as a reminder to how stupid depression can really be.

I almost jump as the pad and pencils are placed in my lap, and I flip through until I find a blank page and start to sketch. At first it's just lines; abstract and floating across the page like feathers. But over the course of the next hour I manage to sketch out the torso of a man in a suit. At first this sort of drawing alarmed my psychologists, until I finally made them understand that I'm a gay man trapped and celibate, and I'll be damned if clothed men are the tamest things I draw. And, in fact, many of my pages are filled with far-from-tame drawings of men. The drawings range from artistic nudes to outright pornography. It's not that I'm obsessed with men, I simply miss sex. A lot. And it's not like I have enough privacy to jack off, either.

Itachi looks down at my drawing and laughs.

"Well, thanks for drawing me a nice Armani suit."

"I was going to get you the real thing, but I couldn't think of a subtle way to get your measurements."

Another shared laugh.

"How about you draw me something pretty."

I snicker at the request. It was something I'd heard a thousand times in art school from every girl I'd ever tried dating. Of course, those had never really ended well. Nevertheless, for Itachi, I scoured my brain until I could come up with something "pretty". The first thing that comes to mind is an anemone. They're my favorite flower. I let my pencil glide across the page and draw out the image hidden within the paper. I'm good and I know it. There's no sense in beating around the bush. I was just about to graduate art school when I had my nervous breakdown. Oops. Sorry. Severe manic-depressive episode.

I manage to bang out a few more sketches while I talk quietly with Itachi, before we are separated for the rest of the day. Time for therapy. My sketchbook comes with me.

"Anemones," my therapist says matter-of-factly, "I'm sensing a theme."

I chuckle. I draw and paint the flowers a lot. In fact, one of my paintings hangs in my therapists' office. He has a lot of artwork in there, but most of it is the creepy kind of art you get from someone who's definitely not all right. I'm at least mostly all right.

"How are you feeling today, Naruto?" he says, setting my sketchbook on the coffee table between us and picking up his own pad and pen. He slides the end of the pen on the edge of the scar that crosses his nose. A scar he got when he fell of a bike when he was young. The story is actually quite humorous.

"I'm fine, I guess," I tuck my legs up into my chest and rest my cheek on them, "Bored. Really bored."

Iruka nods, scribbling something down on his pad.

"And how do we feel about visitors day?"

"The same. Still wishing I had some visitors, but not particularly broken up that I don't have any. After all, if I don't have anyone on the outside, then the chances of a visitor are really slim, right?"

When I first began these sessions, Iruka had pried for weeks that there must me someone in the outside world who wanted to come and visit. Someone they could contact. But the truth is that I really don't have anyone. I wasn't exactly a social butterfly in college. I had a few acquaintances, but no friends. I was comfortable with my professors, but not friendly. I didn't have a roommate or a boyfriend at the time. My parents were killed when I was little, and my guardian had passed away just before I got accepted into art school. I genuinely have no one. Which is probably why I make friends with just about every patient that comes and goes in the ward.

"Well, I guess there's no point in dragging this appointment out," he says with a smile and a sigh. That's something you never hear from a therapist. They always want to find something to jaw over.

"What?"

"Naruto, you're being released this coming Wednesday."

I stare at him, blinking and gaping like a fish. I'm leaving. I'm leaving.

As I exit the small office and make my way back to my bedroom, I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience, only it's not the bad kind. Instead I just feel like I don't know how to react. Of course I want out of here, but I've also grown so accustomed to being inside that I'm not sure what it's like to be outside anymore. In my left hand I'm holding the packet of papers Iruka gave me back in the office. I rake through the information that's just been shoved into my brain.

On the outside my apartment is waiting for me, just the way I left it. Since I had been working for the older man who ran the place, he'd saved it for me. Apparently he hadn't been able to find a renter for it after my messy incident. Iruka recommended that I stay there just long enough to collect my belonging sand move to a better "healthier" space. My job was waiting for me too on the outside. Apparently Iruka had made a phone call, and the owner of the small office – where I worked as a secretary – was more than happy to have me back, and just happens to have an opening. I could literally step back into my old life, like I hadn't missed a beat.

I stare out across the small room, and I feel myself swallow. When I look at the clock, I see that it's already been another hour. A tapping at the doorway signals Itachi's arrival. He's got a smile plastered from ear to ear and two cans of root beer in his hands. The drink has become our sort of celebratory drink that we got into the habit of drinking every time one of the ward-members got outed.

"Congratulations!" he sing songs and practically prances into my room, flopping down on the bed, barely managing to keep from flying off the other side with his momentum. We laugh and he hugs me and I blush and fumble and try to make myself look and feel normal.

"It's really happening, Itachi. I get to leave," I say breathlessly, feeling my own smile start to spread and my chest begin to swell.

"Looks like you'll be the one coming back to see me, eh?"

I look over at Itachi and start to cry. He gives me an alarmed look and begins to stammer about how I don't have to visit if I really don't want to, and I just throw my arms around the guy and hold onto him as tightly as I can. He brings his arms up hesitantly to wrap around me, and I can hear a passing nurse ask if everything's all right. Itachi whispers that everything is fine and that I'm just overwhelmed by the good news of my release. The nurse claps and congratulates me before continuing on her rounds.

I stay there for as long as I can, holding onto the broader male and breathing in his scent. He smelled like the same soap I used, that everyone used, but his own unique body chemistry also peaked through the crevices of clean. He's warm and firm and solid. He's routine.

I pull away shakily, and force myself to laugh as I wipe the tears and snot from my face with the sleeve of my hoodie. He smiles and ruffles my hair and everything seems wondrously ok. When I finally manage to pull myself together, we grab our cans of soda and go back out to the sitting room with my packet of papers to flop onto our usual spot on the sofa. The light outside is warmer but fading. An entire day has passed, as quickly as it always does in here.

We sip our sodas and skim through my release papers and everything else that came in the packet. I really, truly, honestly can't believe that I'm leaving at last. It seems surreal and scary at the same time. I have been living in an entirely different world for a year. Adapting to this place was so hard, and now I have to adapt again in reverse. I find myself hoping that it's just like a bike, and that I haven't forgotten anything of what it's really like to be outside, and that I'll just fall back into place without a hitch.

My gut tells me that it won't be easy. My heart tells me it's going to be a journey.

AN: The more reviews, the faster I update.