Naruto had gotten the call from the hospital the next morning as he was getting a coffee from Starbuck before going to the office. The man on the phone, a doctor, had told him that they had a patient of him at the hospital and that they needed him to come by since he had been requested. The doctor had not given any more specific indications, only saying that the so told patient was Hidan.
He encounter quickly the good room, easily noticeable with the two bulky men standing guard in front of it. He made his way to them and asked for a brief description of the situation as to not go in blind. They told him that the prisoner's cell mate had started screaming earlier that morning and when they got there they had found Deidara trying to prevent Hidan from dying hanging at the end of the rope he had made out of his bedsheets. The man had still been alive, but passed out, and they had to have him transferred here from the jail hospital since Hidan was suffering from low blood oxygenation. Once he had woken up at the hospital two hours ago, the man was declared as suffering from no sequel but he had refused to talk to anyone, he only asked for Naruto when he woke up and had not uttered a word since then.
Naruto blinked a couple of time after hearing the story. Hidan had certainly not seem like the suicidal type when he had met him the day before. The guy was arrogant, completely full of himself, and had a huge god complex. Naruto had almost automatically thought that he had Grandiose Delusional Disorder, but maybe it was not only that. This disorder was known to have a high comorbidity with schizophrenia and bipolarity after all.
He thanked the two officers at the door before rapping his knuckle softly on the door and pushing the door open. "Hey, I was surprised to hear that you requested me."
The man in the bed seemed to feel relief when he saw him. Naruto looked at the red mark around Hidan's neck and felt a wave of sadness overwhelming him. He might not know Hidan very well - he had only met him yesterday after all - but he felt an ache inside of him. It was the first time that one of his own patient had tried to hurt themselves willingly.
"Naruto, man, you need to help me."
"Of course, Hidan. That's why I'm here after all." He came to sit on the only chair next to the bed where Hidan was laying, looking pale in contrast with the vibrant red of his neck.
"I can't go back there, you have to help me."
"I'm going to do my best to help you. I'll request a transfer for you the the Regional Psychiatric Centre."
"You're moving me with the crazies?" Hidan screamed indignantly. "You fucking traitor! I'll kill you the second I'm out of this bed!"
Naruto only stared back. "No you won't. You know that this is not one of God's plan."
Hidan started thrashing on the bed, his cuff clinging against the bar where it was tied. "You understand me! I know you do. Why won't you help me? Please, aide moi..."
The noise attracted the two correctional officers that were standing outside and they both entered the room menacingly, bringing a nurse with them. She got close to the bed, although not close enough to be reached if Hidan decided he wanted to. "Sir? I'm going to give you something to relax." She said softly, a small tremor in her voice.
"Don't you fucking drug me, bitch!" He hissed at her before shifting quickly his gaze on Naruto, looking at him pleadingly. "Don't let her, please!"
Naruto stood up to walk to the trembling nurse. He put his hand lightly on her shoulder. "You should go back outside, I'll call you if we need anything."
She looked at him with scared eyes before nodding and walking out of the room briskly, almost colliding with one of the C.O. still standing near the door. Naruto looked at them next. "Same things apply to you, guys."
"You sure, Doc'? I know you're tough, but there's always someone tougher."
"It's fine, just go wait outside. Don't come back in unless I am the one screaming."
The one who had addressed him seem to hesitate briefly but he finally agreed to leave after another reassuring look from Naruto, quickly followed by his partner outside.
Naruto returned to the bed and brought his chair closer to Hidan before sitting back down. "Are you going to tell me why you tried to kill yourself?"
"It wasn't my decision." Hidan pointed exaggeratedly to the ceiling. " Dieu, it was his plan."
"You felt that it was what he would want?"
"No. No, he told me."
Naruto frowned, perplex. Yesterday Hidan had seemed adamant that God did not talk directly to him, that he could simply feel what he wanted. "What did he told you? His exact words."
"He said that all his deeds on Earth were done." Hidan beamed, a smile so huge on his face that it was almost scary. "He said that I'd be able to join him in heaven."
Naruto hummed, thinking about what he could answer to that. "Maybe he didn't mean right now, Hidan. Maybe he simply wanted you to know that he'd be ready for you when you were done doing your own things, not only his. You've accomplish everything he wanted. Now you can do what you want and he'll be keeping a place right next to him just for you."
Hidan frowned. "Do you really think so?"
No, Naruto did not think so. This was probably the craziest lie he had ever said in his life but no way was he going to admit it right now. Hidan was sick, and Naruto thought that it was possible for him to get better. If he had to go along with the man's hallucinations to push him on the right path, he would do so. Even if it was not particularly pleasant. "I do."
"Anyway," Hidan shook the hand that was cuffed to the bed. "It's not like there's lots of things that I can do now, I got a fucking life sentence. 25 shit years without parole eligibility."
"Well, I am no lawyer but this isn't necessary set in stone. You could always appeal, ask to be retried."
"Doc, I got my freaking sentence 2 months ago, nothing has changed since."
Naruto sighed, Gaara would probably be trying to choke him with his bare hand if he could see him right now. Helping criminal to get lighter sentence was not Gaara's favorite thing about Naruto's job. "They don't mention anywhere in your file that you have a psychological disorder. If you get that transfer I mention, they can diagnose you properly there and help you. After a year or two of good conduct you should be able to appeal and get a reduce sentence."
"'Psychological disorder' is your fancy as fuck way to say that I'm crazy, right?"
"Not crazy, but sick. This is probably due to an imbalance of neurotransmitters in you brain and - "
Hidan interrupted him violently. "Enough! I don't wanna hear it." He tried to cross his arm on his chest but his movement was cut short because of his restrain. "I'll do whatever you fucking want. You'll have to get me another lawyer though, they gave me a fucking shitty one last time."
"Deal!" Naruto said, extending his right hand to Hidan so they could shake on it. The gray haired man took it, a surprised look on his face. "And I know the perfect person to handle your case!" Naruto added quickly, however his excitation dropped pretty fast when he remembered that the person he was thinking about would not necessarily still be alive by then. What a sad world we live in, he thought to himself.
30 minutes later found Naruto at the jail, rapidly making his way to the warden's office. He knocked sharply on the door twice and entered without waiting for an answer, a gloomy look on his face.
"Hey, kid!" Jiraiya said when he saw him in the door, closing his portable computer in a flash. "What can I do for you?"
A frown of reproach appeared on Naruto's face. "You were watching porn. At work. Again."
"Hehehe, only doing some research."
Naruto sighed, nothing could ever change his godfather, not even old age. He entered the room and closed the door behind him before going to sit in one of the chair in front of Jiraiya's desk.
"I'm here to request a transfer, I'll need the paperwork."
Jiraiya pouted, and lifted his computer screen. They both ignored the soft moans that came from the speaker before Jiraiya could closed the open tab. "Of course you're not here only to talk to your dear old man. When you were young you couldn't shut up about it every time a little girl or boy fell into your eyes, now I need to get the information from other sources."
"Did my dad call you?"
Jiraiya shook his head negatively, searching the files on his computer for the proper papers to print.
"Konohamaru?"
"A professional never reveal his sources, Naruto."
"I'll take that as a yes, then."
"Transferring to Saskatoon again? If you continue like this I'll start believing that you're sending all you patients there to not lose them when you move away."
Naruto accepted the change in subject with relief. He was in a bad mood due to what had happened this morning with Hidan, and he did not want to speak about Sasuke when he was feeling like that. He'd be glad to talk to his godfather at a better time when this little transfer problem was solved.
"I'm surprised you remember. I haven't spoken about moving there to work since I was halfway through my PhD, 4 years ago."
"We might not speak that often, especially considering that we spend two whole days in the same building, but I do listen when you talk, kid."
Naruto smiled brightly. "We could have dinner with granny Tsunade sometimes soon. I could tell you about my boyfriend without having you fishing for secondhand informations."
"Ah! Got them!" Jiraiya exclaimed as he found what he was looking for. He walked toward the huge printer in the corner of the office. "I'll let you ask your godmother. If your brat of a brother hasn't share the information with her she'll be mad to know that I found out first, and I don't want to be the one to tell her."
Naruto laughed. "How can you fall asleep next to her every night knowing that you hide such dark secrets?"
Jiraiya coughed a little before answering. "What she doesn't know, doesn't hurt me." He turned his back on Naruto to grabbed the stake of papers from the printer.
"You have no shame."
Jiraiya could only smile at him, happy with himself since Naruto seemed to be feeling a bit better than when he had entered his office if he was to belief the laughing look on the younger man's face.
"Here." Jiraiya quickly bent over his desk to sign his name at all the appropriate places on the forms before pushing them toward Naruto. "I'll let you fill out the rest, I have work to go back to."
"Have fun!" Naruto said with a wink as he took his leave.
Sasuke was sitting at his huge oak desk in his office, turning on his chair with contemplation. Yesterday, he had forgotten to ask Naruto about his job again. It's not like he did not have the occasion or anything, he was meeting the man between his work shift, him asking what he did would not have been weird. It would have been normal. But he had not. He had plan on asking the other man right after he had come in, but Naruto had come and had kiss him to say hi and every thought of the other's job had left his mind.
But now , now that he was all by himself in his office, and that the high of their kisses, had mostly dissipated, he was curious. Naruto was a doctor, he knew that, that was one of the first thing the man had told him. However, these days, being a doctor could mean anything - Sasuke himself had a doctorate in human biology and you can have PhD in mathematics and all other fields of science, or art. The doctor title didn't help him much, but there was not much job for a doctor in a prison, right? He was probably a doctor doctor as in practicing medicine with the prisoners. He'd definitely look good in a lab coat, Sasuke thought. That was the most probable idea.
Nevertheless, Sasuke had done some research on how jail life worked for his book and had found that sometimes they would have guest at the prison to entertain the criminal. So maybe Naruto had some kind of PhD in sculpture and was giving pottery course. That sounded stupid even to him.
Sasuke sighed and stopped the movement of his chair, he was getting a little dizzy after all this time. He wanted to know what Naruto did, and honestly he didn't want Suigetsu to keep bugging him about it. The man had gone back to London Friday night and had succeeded in extracting the promises from Sasuke that he'd write to him everyday, and that he'd tell him as soon as he knew what was the job of the 'mysterious criminal you have a crush on'. Suigetsu had already texted him about it thrice today, and it was only 9 am - although it was probably around 15 now in the UK. Curiosity and annoyance made him pull himself closer to his desk and open his portable computer. It was time to do some research then.
He quickly opened a search tab on internet and typed Naruto Uzumaki, Kingston . He was not planning on doing a lot of research on him, just maybe look if he had a linkedIn page or something similar.
The first result on the top of the page seemed to be from an article of the local newspaper. He thought about not opening it for a moment but the title catched his eyes and he resolved himself in opening it.
December 14, 2009
The Uzumaki family mourns
Today is a sad day for the entire community of Kingston. The mayor, Minato Namikaze, had given his resignation from his post to focus more on his family. Sources say that this sudden decision is due to the recent death of his wife, Kushina Uzumaki. The man did not mention in details the reason of his departure during the press conference, only saying that it was time he took care of his own family and -
Sasuke stopped his reading abruptly, feeling like he was intruding in a part of Naruto's life that he had not been given access yet. He stared at the words on the page and scrolled to see how long the article was. There were still several pages left, most of them seeming to talk about how great of a mayor Namikaze was and all of his exploits. At the end of the article, there was a picture of two men, both with bright blonde hair and blue eyes. The taller one was looking at the camera with a sad smile and had his left arm draped around the smaller man, Naruto.
Sasuke zoomed in on the picture a little and was surprised to see how young Naruto looked - yes this was from almost 10 years ago but it was still a little surprising to see. The young man was half turned toward his father and tears seemed to shine at the corner of his eyes. Sasuke's breath caught in his throat and he closed the tab and his computer abruptly. He should definitely not look at this, even if it was public knowledge.
He pushed his computer on the corner of his desk and took out one of his notebook. He was not sure if he'd be able to write anything good in his state, but at least it would distract him a little from his own thoughts.
Itachi was nervous today and it was starting to reflect on his behaviour. The day had started as usual, with him going over some cases in his office inside his law firm. He had had everything under control, he had met with several clients, still remaining his usual self, but as the day advance he started feeling jittery. Just fifteen minutes ago he had spilled his entire cup of coffee over important documents while he was having a reunion with some partners of his firm.
The looks the men and women in the room had given him when he had dropped a loud 'Fuck!' would have made him laugh if he was not already so overwhelmed with other emotions. Instead he had excused himself from the reunion and had sent his secretary to clean the mess, telling her that he would be leaving early that day.
The reason of his nervousness was about to explode in his face. Today was the day he would get a look at the first result of the experimental treatment that could possibly remove the type of tumor he had. The doctor in charge of his treatment was also one of the doctors in charge of the project, and she had said that she'd be ready to share with him what they had found today. He was currently waiting in her office, having been told that it should not be long since she was just scrubbing out of an operation.
He was at the point of pacing on the ceramic floor of the office, when the door finally opened to let through the pink haired doctor.
"Mr. Uchiha." She saluted respectfully with a nod when she saw him.
"Dr. Haruno."
"I'm afraid that there is nothing good to say." She said going to her desk to open the top drawer and retrieve a letter for him to open.
He took the envelope in his shaking hands and read through it quickly. Out of the five individuals that had already had the surgery, 3 were dead on the table, 1 had died after 3 days of coma, and 1 was still in a comatose state. Fuck , Itachi thought, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, that's it, I'm dead.