A/N: A new story on a new account. I feel refreshed. I also post under darklove4ever ( HUGE SHOCKER! Who would ever believe it?!? Not even me! This is my serious account . . . . ) I have mainly focused on the Twilight pairing Edward Cullen & Bella Swan, but I think readers will also enjoy this story as well. I've already explained that I'm busy around this time of year with party planning and school, so forgive me if I can't update Ashes right away. Please review - I appreciate each and every one of them. First chapters are always lengthy for me, so do not worry - I promise that the second chapter will be a little shorter, and even better than the first after I read your kind and or critical feedback notes. Thanks for all of the support for my multitude of fans on my darklove4ever account - I appreciate your kindness and generosity, and Vampire Boy/Gothic Girl will not be forgotten!
Side Note no. 1: The basic plot is slowly developing. I'm working on it! I've never done an angst fic besides VB Meets GG. I'll try my best, since our mains are in a mental rehabilitation center in this fiction. I'll explain more about Sasuke and Sakura ( and eventually Naruto's ) lives, mistakes, tragedies, etc. Give me time, and I'll do my very best. That's how it always is for a perfectionist like me . . . *sigh*. . .
Standard Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, and I never shall.
Ashes : Part 1
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Chapter 1
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In the place where he was, Sasuke knew that you waited for death.
Of course, you weren't always the lucky one, because Death had a way of easing itself into your life, your mind, and slowly made you slip into insanity, begging for release to leave the world even though it would be a longer wait.
This, Sasuke was sure of, was Death's way of taunting its next victims, and Sasuke knew that when he wished for it to drag him under its bleak, dark surface during the beginning of the third month at his wretched mental rehabilitation center in the heart of Konohagakure, he would not be allowed such a pleasure for a long while.
During his days, Sasuke would force himself to taste – barely, and he minded doing so, though it was a natural process he couldn't avoid – and chew and swallow their food. He would read Crime and Punishment. He would worry the nurses.
During his nights, Sasuke would hear the moan or scream of another patient. He would sneak his way to the bathroom mirror, staring at his reflection in disgust and hatred. Most of all, he would wonder and think and wonder even further until dawn came and the Night gave him a fond farewell of dark circles.
Insomnia was a problem, but a racing mind was worse, Sasuke knew.
The doctors asked him to keep a diary, a journal of some kind. Sasuke, of course, refused ninety percent of the time.
What, you ask, did the raven haired disturbed young man do the other ten percent?
Sasuke would eventually drive himself into a corner of boredom, and soon it became almost unbearable, along with the cold and unforgiving stare of his head nurse and the dank, gray color of his room's walls, being forced to take his complete unnecessary ( in his opinion ) depression medication, and on top of that, having to re-read books.
Thus, the Uchiha would write and write and write. He would scribble down random nothings, terrible dark things, sketches of himself in a noose while preparing to jump off of his hospital bed, his brother and himself hanging tied up over a tank of rabid sharks, the rope about to be cut by a raging fire.
"Not good, not good in the least", Sasuke heard his doctor murmur in a very amused way as he gazed over the drawings. And strangely enough, Sasuke didn't have the will or effort within his mind and body to stop the quirky, handsome man who went by various titles.
Call-me-Kakashi Hatake was not the kind of man you really could befriend, per say. But nonetheless, Hatake never seemed to degrade Sasuke like the others. Like the nurses, who would shoot him odd looks for his being so disagreeable concerning just about everything – the therapy sessions, the book material they gave him, even having to eat.
"You're very thin for a boy," Kakashi said with traces of humor in his voice on the first day of Sasuke's admittance to the Konoha Mental Health center.
"You're a bit gray for your age," Sasuke managed to muster, a bite to his velvet voice that was unusually distraught from the course of the events that had taken place in the last few months.
Over his hospital mask – one that Kakashi Hatake never truly removed while in the building, and many other places, really – Sasuke could swear he'd seen an outline of a grin on the young doctor's hidden lips.
The days seemed to grow longer after Sasuke's first three weeks in the monotone setting of the center. It was told to him, first by a rude nurse and second by Dr. Hatake, that the center's purpose was to be calm and relaxing and most of all, very, very plain.
This, Sasuke pondered over. To the onyx-haired boy, nothing in this place made any sense. His dark and disturbed thoughts and, surprisingly, his nightmares of fires and the fire that burned his parents and relatives to death coursed throughout his mind constantly.
Nothing plain would help him here. Plainness, in all of its boring aspects, didn't soothe him in any way at all. Irrationally yet truthfully, the boy knew that the only thing that would end this was death itself, or the repression of his memories, or something, anything that would make him forget or make It have never happened in the first place.
So with each day, Sasuke bit his acid-sharp tongue. He ignored everyone and everything, though he managed to admit to himself in extreme annoyance that ignoring Kakashi Hatake was much more difficult than he'd ever imagined.
According to Sasuke's logic ( which was hardly ever wrong but cost him with the difficulty of forming stable relationships with others), this would help him remain a wallflower in the true sense of the word . . . Just blending in, never causing any attention so he wouldn't be annoyed or bothered.
And with his mundane routine, Sasuke did the best that he could muster.
There was a multitude of various activities buzzing about at KMH, and Kakashi had even tried to encourage Sasuke to take part in them more actively at one of their recent one-on-one therapy sessions.
At the center, there was group therapy, art classes, book clubs. Knitting circles and music classes. Naturally, there was Personal Skill building. Personal skill building was often a bigger, more important focus, something Kakashi, Dr. Iruka Umino , and other therapists and psychiatrists would help patients with frequently during their stay.
Undoubtedly, the Uchiha had a problem with mainly all of these things. For the boy did not want to partake in the ridiculous book club with the books he'd already read or simply detested, or the imbecilic art class sessions where the hopeless patients didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever creating something worthwhile, and group therapy? Forget it. That was all there truly was to it for Uchiha Sasuke.
"Perhaps if you tried new things, you'd enjoy them", Kakashi had said calmly at their last session together, where Sasuke had accidentally made the error of telling his doctor how awful he thought the activities here were altogether.
"I'll never like them," was all that Sasuke could say to that useless suggestion. He needn't explain any further. How foolish of any person to think that the Uchiha would ever be able to enjoy anything again, to smile, to feel the hopeful fleeting sparks of happiness in his heart again.
How very foolish, indeed.
- - -
It was a Wednesday, which only meant one dreaded thing.
Another visiting day Sasuke would be forced to endure.
At the mental rehabilitation center, patients would usually be encouraged to visit family members or close friends, whoever was special and loved in their lives, throughout their stay at the hospital at least twice a month.
But no one truly knew what visiting time was like for Uchiha Sasuke. First, the cold hearted boy didn't really have anyone left that was special and loved, besides, of course, his obnoxious brother.
Maybe if Itachi would actually try to understand Sasuke's pain, it would all be easier for him to endure. Each and every Wednesday, Itachi would drop by at extremely random and unpredictable times of the day - once, his brother had come by at nine in the morning. This - this was what Sasuke hated most of all.
Of course, Kakashi refused when Sasuke asked the young doctor to prohibit Itachi from stepping foot in the center again.
The elder Uchiha traipsed in at his leisure, the time reading three in the afternoon almost exactly. He'd actually brought in Sasuke another book. This time, the title was The Life of Pi. Sasuke scowled, knowing in the back of his mind that Itachi was sure that this time of the day was his most favored and he liked to be left alone in the late afternoons.
"I hate this place, " Sasuke said gloomily when Itachi took a seat in the visitor's chair,. From the time he was little, Sasuke had never truly had the passion to yell or cause anything close to an uproar. Itachi looked thoughtful upon hearing this, and played around with the atrocious. . .Thing Sasuke had created, against his will, in the knitting circle he'd been forced to attend when the outdoor art class was canceled from heavy downpour..
Sighing, Itachi had said, "Maybe if you hadn't attempted to kill yourself you wouldn't be miserable and suffering in here." Sasuke, in response, had only shot him a warning glare with tired nightshade eyes that clearly spoke of the fatigue, exhaustion and emotional and mental pain he was going through.
This was all something Itachi would never know.
He'd always been the lucky one, his older brother; in bitterness, Sasuke recalled the many times Itachi had won awards at the academy, of the wonderful praise he'd received openly and warmly from everyone, especially their -
All at once, Sasuke had closed his eyes tights and curled his knees to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, almost drawing blood when he clenched his ragged fingernails into his thin, weak limbs.
He refused to think of any such thing. Ever, for the rest of his life.
"Damn it . . . ." Sasuke muttered it over and over to himself, feeling a foreign ache crawl into his chest as it began to prepare itself to travel upward and sink itself into his thoughts, eating him away there later, saving the best for last -
"You're worrying everybody, Sasuke. How . . . Selfish," Itachi chose his words carefully as he retied the pony tail his inky black locks were gathered in.
"You're even talking to yourself now! Isn't that a little troubling? What are they giving you, anyway? Prozac? I'm sure you know," Itachi said with the furrow of his eyebrows and a small smirk-like smile as he stared at Sasuke intently, like he was the journalist ready to expose his subject's latest shrouded scandal.
Sasuke grimaced as he realized that whenever his brother turned up to see him and interrogate him about random nothings, like his medication or what he was reading or what useless things he did throughout the day, a new gaping, ragged hole was formed in his chest. It was a terrible, awful feeling, and the boy wanted nothing more than to remove his brother from the room. Permanently, of course.
For the past two months, the useless and stoic twenty-one year old Uchiha had come and gone as he pleased, seeming to taunt and tease Sasuke as he sat pathetically in the center, regardless of his "condition". And for the past two months, it never did any good to Sasuke, anyway. It wasn't as if his you-know-what ( mother ) would come in and actually lend out a bit of her - their kindness, like other normal, fortunate patients would get to have.
It was all almost humorous to Sasuke, in a bittersweet way, how Itachi could act so calmly act as if nothing had ever changed.
Jealousy was powerful, and it managed yet again to take Sasuke in its unmerciful grasp. For Sasuke wished nothing greater than to trade places with his elder brother, to feel a weightless mind. A pair of shoulders without the gauntlet of pain sinking deeply within him to reach his heart and send him into turmoil.
A deep frown rested upon Sasuke's features. It was for this reason that he loathed visiting hours. It was Itachi that was the only person left in his clan, the only remaining member that had only felt a temporary distaste and sadness at the loss of their family.
For many days as Sasuke tried to force sleep upon his weary, restless mind, he had wondered how Itachi had escaped this fate, how the depression had taken him over instead of his wretched brother.
It was all a mystery to the raven haired Uchiha, something that, for such a very long time, he would never truly understand.
- - -
Survivor's Guilt. Hn. It was a strange term, two even more strange words set next to one another to create a classification of his disorder, a never-ending condition that haunted Sasuke each day.
It's never the victim's fault, Kakashi had claimed, but Sasuke could never quite believe what the doctor said to him. Ever since the incident, Sasuke always managed to find a reason to be suspicious with everyone. In his mind, it was simply a shield against everyoneelse's completely irrational and uncontrollable emotions. But so far, it was not doing the Uchiha a great deal of good, though he couldn't realize it himself.
That was what Kakashi was apparently striving for, to help him heal, the young doctor explained many times. It was that, Dr. Hatake said, that made Sasuke sink deeper and further into a so-called "shell of despair".
It was so incredibly thoughtful that no one had ever considered asking Sasuke if he minded being in this shell. Often, it brought him terrible pain and would keep him awake during the nighttime . . . But other times, it helped him become considerably numb and uncaring to the rest of the world, letting his tired mind rest peacefully for a few hours or, if he was lucky, a bit longer.
In his mind, it pained Sasuke to think of what Survivor's Guilt truly was. It was why he was in the center in the first place. Everything wrong with him, mentally and emotionally – the condition took the blame.
Why can't I be normal?, Sasuke would think throughout the course of the day, as he sat through all of the pointless group therapy sessions, and the array of activities he was forced to take part in . . . Though he never quite could force himself to do anything except scowling, standing and or sitting ( it mainly depended on what the pointless activity was), or staring at the walls.
"None of this is really your fault," Kakashi said, sighing and trying to reach through the young boy. Lately, their progress together had been at a stand-still, though Kakashi very well knew that Sasuke's progression, both mentally and emotionally, from the start wasn't at its best in the beginning, either. It was their session of the day, a typical Friday, and Sasuke was more unwilling and detached than he normally was.
Sasuke looked at the silver haired doctor, and snorted lightly. "Sure, sure, none of this is my fault. Maybe if I actually had a goddamn backbone I wouldn't be in a godforsaken ward."
The doctor seemed to look thoughtful, adjusting his mask and then scribbling something down in his notebook. Sasuke narrowed his eyebrows at Kakashi's actions, feeling a spark of anger jump in his stomach.
"What the hell do you write in there, anyway? That I need another type of medication? That I'm classified as 'disturbed'?" Sasuke said, his voice cold and biting, like frost.
Out of every thing in that side of hell Sasuke was in, the medication was the worst. He couldn't seem to sort out his emotions when he took it. It was called 'Cymbalta', or something. Eventually, after six and a half weeks, Kakashi had looked at Sasuke's feedback and decided the . . . 'Depression' was only growing worse with time, that he would need to take something else . . . .
A smile crept its way to Kakashi's face as he answered, "That's for me to know and you to never find out." Of course, the man was teasing his patient in good humor, but what a mistake it was. Most of the people Sasuke had encountered throughout his life knew very well that the boy had a rusted, terrible sense of humor. To Dr. Kakashi, it didn't matter.
At this, Sasuke scoffed wearily, knowing that Kakashi was simply enjoying the torture he was being put through.
The session ended typically, with Kakashi asking the same kinds of questions with newly added variations, and even asked Sasuke how his recent visit with his brother had went. Sasuke, trying to remain neutral throughout the one-on-one therapy meeting, said nothing, but made his typical throaty grunting noise.
That wasn't a very good sign, now, was it?
Sasuke went straight to the cafeteria, only wanting to seek out solace, somewhere he could be alone. The back table in the very secluded corner near the window with the best natural light was unoccupied, as usual. Sasuke had stated very clearly to the group of patients who sat there around the beginning of his stay at the center that it was his table and his only, and to get the hell away from it and him.
He sat down slowly, feeling rather weak from the previous night's dose of medication. This time around, Sasuke wasn't sure what it was that they were forcing him to take, but the onyx-haired Uchiha didn't have enough energy or will to rebel against them. Curling his pallid fists in anger, Sasuke let out a low sigh, feeling a sadness pass over him once more.
Perhaps it was because of Kakashi's blatantly asking him about Itachi and the meaningless visits. Maybe it was due to the fact that Sasuke knew quite well that Itachi forced himself to visit his brother at the center. It could very well be both, but whatever it was, Sasuke wasn't in a good mood any longer, because he'd been relatively indifferent when he'd awoken that morning.
And that, to Sasuke – indifference – was considered a good mood.
As the raven got quickly absorbed in his thoughts, ignoring the quick darting stares and curious glances of the patients around him ( Sasuke was sitting there in frustration and anger and wasn't even eating, after all ), a strange girl with cherry blossom hair suddenly broke him away from his seperate world of misery within his mind with the clatter of a metal lunch tray.
Onyx orbs glared up from beneath pale and purplish-bruised eye lids to meet emerald, jewel-like exhausted ones, a somewhat bizarre silence pervading the table. There was no perky greeting from the girl with the weird colored hair, and of course there wasn't one from Sasuke.
She was unlike the nurses and the other female patients. There was an uncanny air about her, an aura of shy, bold, angry, depressed, sad, and pain all mixed into one to create her, her overall personality.
Sasuke finally blinked and managed to speak in an annoyed voice, "Go sit somewhere else." He didn't need this.
Cherry-blossom head blinked for a moment and said, "No. All the other tables are filled up."
Taken aback by the girl's blunt, rude attitude towards him, Sasuke scowled and replied in an agitated , offhand tone, "This is my table. No one else is allowed to sit here."
A strange look swept across the girl's face, a sad kind of expression. Sasuke almost rolled his eyes in his sour mood and hoped, in sarcasm, that she wouldn't start to cry, or something.
"My name is Haruno Sakura. My parents passed away in a car accident and I was the only one that lived. I'm trying to get over it, but, you know, it was only three months ago. Life has really been sucking lately. So . . . What's yours?" The girl named Sakura said this openly with nonchalance and stuck out her pale hand, which Sasuke immediately noticed was covered in stitches and tiny little scars.
Though she seemed to be a complete freak, Sasuke couldn't help but note her bravery for even bothering to talk to him. He could imagine, with a subtle wince, how unfriendly and cold he most likely appeared to be to anyone around.
He stared with narrowed eyes at her hand and Sakura hastily took it away. Sasuke, regardless of whether he liked a person or not ( though it was usually the latter ) refused to shake hands with anyone. It was disgusting and germ-y, and it made him feel incredibly awkward. It was difficult to believe, but it was entirely true.
"Uchiha Sasuke," he managed to grunt, and settled on saying nothing else. The girl – Sakura, to be precise, could drone on about her pitiful little sob story, her parents' tragic deaths, the lone survivor thing that was nothing new to him and didn't make him feel completely at loss anymore, because he was all used to it, but Sasuke didn't plan on doing so.
The quiet returned, and as he rested his head against a folded arm on the table, Sasuke watched as Sakura picked around at her food, and he took the moment to scan over her features.
Odd pink colored hair that obviously earned the girl her name. A slightly pale face with soft, elfin features and a small, slightly curved nose. Some stitches in the neck and clavicle area. Two barely present scars on the lower jaw line. Jade colored orbs filled with traces of despair. It was naturally because her parents were dead and all, and Sasuke could understand that.
But, truthfully, what was she doing over here? In that moment, Sasuke knew he had nothing to offer. He wasn't going to take her pain away by making stupid bits of small talk or being . . . Nice. That would truly be nauseating. Even as he took the strange girl in, Sasuke knew somewhere deep within his mind past all of the anger and annoyance and loss he was suffering from that she didn't really expect it anymore.
There was once a time when that would have all been, well, sort of nice to Sasuke – all of the pity, kindness, sympathy. As time passed, he was sure that he would receive it from someone, any one at all. . . Though he quickly discovered that not even Itachi had anything to offer. And after all of the horrible things that had happened in his recent past, Sasuke didn't want to think about happiness anymore. Maybe the girl didn't either.
Lunch soon ended. Sakura seemed grateful, for Sasuke noted that she didn't seem to have much of an apetite. He'd already been through the same thing. Maybe I can show her the ropes of being an orphan, Sasuke thought with bitter humor. If only someone had been there to do that for him.
Yeah, right. Life didn't work that way. It never would, either.
Both patients lingered near the table, Sasuke staring out at the bleak sky that reminded him of a drop of ink mixed with water, giving off a beautiful, pale natural light that shone across his skin. Sakura gathered her tray quickly and dumped a barely half-eaten meal into the garbage can and stared out the window, too.
"What are you looking at? The sky?" Sakura asked, fiddling with the hem off her pinkish-red shirt. When she was around the Uchiha, it seemed that she became increasingly uncomfortable from his enigmatic ways.
Who wouldn't?
Even though he heard the girl's question, Sasuke didn't care to answer. Lately, he didn't care to do anything, and he couldn't refrain from showing it, which worried his doctors and the nurses who cared for him. Well, not so much the nurses, but more Kakashi and the other psychiatrists at Konoha's Mental Health center.
It was time to part. As Sasuke walked away from the girl, Sakura, he felt something flutter in his chest, as he could have sworn he'd heard, "Good-bye, Sasuke Uchiha."
For the first time in a very long time, Sasuke could acknowledge that someone truly cared. And to his greatest reluctance, deep within his mind, he knew that he actually liked it.
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End of Part 1, Chapter 1. Forgive me if there are any errors in names, because it's after midnight and I'm not sure about the spelling with everything in this chapter. Ugh - I cannot seem to perfect my Sasuxsaku friendship/romance developing here. Sorry if their scene was a bit, er, rough. Any ideas? Feel free to post in a review. 20 up? Whatever happens will happen. Thanks for everything, everyone! I appreciate your kind support. :)
-Alexa