Out Of It
IX
Sasuke never thought he would wish to be interrogated by Iruka. But then, he never thought his brother would murder his parents and land them both in a mental institution either. Goes to show you.
He didn't like the way Tsunade peered at him over her slim folded fingers. Then again, he didn't like many people. He got the feeling she could see right through him. He didn't like that feeling either.
"You've made progress in your communication skills. Pretty good for a guy diagnosed with sociopathy a year ago. You've been sitting in my office for nearly an hour and have answered my questions...well enough."
Sasuke scowled. "Just because I'm not talkative by nature doesn't mean I'm crazy."
"You're right," she said evenly. "You could...actually you could probably be out of here within a few weeks, depending on how you act in here and in the ward."
Sasuke's eyes widened a fraction. A detail he was sure didn't escape Tsunade's notice. A surge of panic whipped through his chest, but he managed to somehow curb the urge to gulp in fear and race for the S-class ward.
"Leave," he said numbly.
This woman who looked ridiculously good for her age was his ticket to being proven sane. Sasuke knew this. He just wasn't sure he really wanted this ticket.
"Something wrong?" The good doctor asked, a small, knowing smile on her face implying that she had already guessed the answer.
"I...I know I can fight the sociopathy now that Itachi is locked in a padded cell and Orochimaru is locked in jail. But I don't...no, I want to get better. I am getting better. There's just..." Sasuke's voice got softer. "...nothing waiting for me outside."
"It's your choice," Tsunade said. "You can let yourself be stuck here or you can create a place for yourself out there."
"Create a place," he repeated.
"Yes, get a job or go to college--your file tells me you finished high school."
"I missed the last month," Sasuke muttered.
"But graduated regardless," Tsunade added. "You didn't apply to many colleges. What do you want to do with your life?"
Sasuke got a keen feeling of deja-vu. He had been plagued with this question so many times before, especially after his parents had died. Twelve years in school and nearly a year in a mental hospital hadn't given him the answer. But how difficult could it be to get a job somewhere?
"I'll find a job in a bookstore or a library. It'll be quiet. And I like books," Sasuke said, over-simplifying the answer.
Tsunade appeared mollified regardless.
Someone rapped on the door. Kakashi came in before Tsunade opened her mouth to call a greeting.
"You're late," she said, sitting up straighter.
"Onions," Kakashi said, dismissively waving a hand, as though that explained everything. "Well, you know...Ready to go, Sasuke?"
The doctor's smooth brow crinkled in confusion. Sasuke stood up and thanked her over his shoulder. Kakashi gave her a jaunty salute and followed his dark-haired patient into the hall and down the stairs at a calm pace.
It was raining lightly and the sky was the colour of chalk. Kakashi paused just inside the glass double-doors that led to the outside of the building. Sasuke was staring up into the smudged clouds.
"Contrary to popular belief, mental patients don't melt in the rain," Kakashi said, leaning forward and speaking in a conspiring voice.
"Popular belief says that?"
"Well...word on the B-class ward. Come on," he said, opening the door and holding it.
As they jogged across Konoha's grounds, Sasuke realized his days among the wet scenery around him could be numbered. And he got the incredible urge to find something that was solely his. So, first thing Sasuke looked for when he got back to the ward's rec room was the colour orange.
Naruto was sitting on the green couch that was pushed against the wall underneath the barred windows. He gripped a little pad of paper and was scribbling on it with a pencil. Kurenai was perched on the couch's arm, keeping an eye on him. It figured that after what had happened last time Naruto had a writing utensil that he'd be allotted supervision.
Sasuke felt Kakashi pat him on the shoulder before heading back to read his book in the nurses' station. The dark-haired teen stood watching his roommate for a second. The blonde's emotions were extraordinarily lucid thanks to his rapidly changing facial expressions. He would appear to have gotten a good idea and then he would exasperatedly cross out whatever he had just frantically written down.
Eventually, Naruto's shoulders sagged and handed the pencil back to Kurenai in defeat. She took it and returned to the meds station to chat with Shizune.
Sasuke strolled over. Naruto was now staring into space, lost in thought with the manhandled notebook on his lap; he didn't notice when Sasuke's knees entered his line of sight.
"Writing about me in your diary?"
Naruto jumped a foot in the air.
"S-s-s-sasuke! No, no, I'm just drawing little pictures for the fun of it, y'know," he stuttered, quickly hopping to sit on the notepad. "Doodles..."
"Whatever," Sasuke said, bored already.
He sat down next to the blonde and noticed the blue eyes staring at his legs.
"What?"
"You still have a bruise on your knee."
Sasuke eyed the grainy purple mark made all the more dramatic by his pale skin. Just then, Lee pirouetted by, accompanied by a whirlwind of little pink and red hearts. He was clutching a letter to his chest.
"I guess Gaara came through. How's your brother?" Naruto asked a little nervously as he rocked back and forth, squashing the notebook further.
Sasuke sighed. "Crazy."
"Good. Good," Naruto said distractedly as two girls' voices rose sharply.
"Shut up, Ino!" Sakura screamed as she stood up from her chair.
"I just want to go home!" Ino shrieked back.
Sasuke winced, hoping this argument wouldn't last long for his ears' sake.
"Eat something," Sakura said almost viciously.
Ino shook her head in distress and seemed on the verge of getting hysterical. But rather than burst into tears, she just fell into depressed silence. Sakura huffed and angrily stomped off to the room she shared with Hinata, who cringed from her spot on the hallway floor when Sakura slammed the door.
"Ino, you okay?" Naruto asked, ever the concerned friend.
Sometimes it bugged Sasuke, how easily Naruto forgot the times Ino had raked him over the coals for Kyuubi's actions.
"We used to have flowers," she said, her hands twisting in a distressed manner. "Now all I ever smell is flowers." She let out a sob and then sank back into a distant silence.
Naruto sighed and Kakashi appeared out of nowhere. He hovered over Naruto like a storm rife with black clouds and lightning. Sasuke and Naruto looked up at the scowling orderly with trepidation.
"Naruto. You snuck out of your room again last night. Where were you?"
An image of Kakashi and Iruka snuggling dominated a thoughtbubble that had appeared over Naruto's head. And he just couldn't help the loud laughter that burst out unexpectedly. The orderly had no chance of getting anything through to Naruto at this point. The blonde was shaking he was laughing so hard.
Kakashi sighed his I-nearly-forgot-I worked-in-an-insane-asylum sigh. "Alright, I'm upping your checks to every ten minutes," he said with finality before going to supervise Chouji and Shikamaru, who were playing cards at one of the tables.
Sasuke waited until Naruto had calmed down a little. He was mildly irritated that he'd now have to put up with an orderly every ten minutes and he didn't even know why.
"You snuck out again?" He tried not to sound curious. He wasn't sure what bothered him more: the fact that Naruto had snuck out or the fact that he hadn't noticed.
"I wanted to see what Iruka thought of Kyuubi's recent jackass escapades," Naruto admitted, wiping his eyes, which were still wet from laughing.
"And?" Sasuke prompted.
"And I nearly walked in on Kakashi and Iruka." A grin grew on Naruto's face again.
"Talking?"
"Smooching."
Sasuke contained his surprise by folding his arms, closing his eyes, and stating, "Well, it was obvious."
Naruto's jaw dropped. "What?!"
Sasuke smirked in a way that made Naruto's stomach dissolve into butterflies. His dark-haired roommate's next words sent the butterflies into the air.
"Good idea, though."
Naruto ran his eyes over his friend, taking everything in: the lean body, the ivory skin, the hair that was so black it was blue in places, not to mention the look Sasuke was giving him. Sasuke bit his lip and Naruto licked his.
Simultaneously, they stood up and tried not to run to their destination.
"Hey, would you rescue me if it meant putting your own life in danger?" Naruto asked, attempting to be casual as they tried to nonchalantly leave the rec room together.
"No," Sasuke said bluntly as he checked to make sure no one was nearby or watching them.
"Whhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" Naruto whined. Then as an afterthought added, "Bastard."
"That's below me."
"You can 'below' me," Naruto stated hotly.
Sasuke stopped peering around. " ...what?" He said with an amused frown.
"Uh..."
"Huh," Sasuke said, quickly opening the art supply closet. "Full of good ideas today."
And with that, he shoved Naruto inside, pulling the door closed after them.
It seemed the rain had driven all of C-class's patients into the rec room in search of entertainment. Kakashi idly scoured the busy room from behind the nurses' station window. Every patient except the one patient he was searching for, that is.
"Yes, I'll get him down there. Give him fifteen minutes," Kakashi said into the phone. He hung up, placed his book on the desk, and then stood up with a stretch.
He headed out into the bustling rec room. A quick check of the blackboard assured him that Sasuke hadn't signed out for a walk. He was in the building somewhere.
"Hmm," Kakashi said to himself as he ambled past Chouji and Shikamaru's card game, which seemed to be on hiatus. Shikamaru was tiredly calling over Asuma to help remedy the fact that Chouji was eating some of the cards.
A dark head of hair caught the corner of his eye but it took less than a millisecond for Kakashi to realise it belonged not to Sasuke, but Hinata, who was...doing a headstand?
Kurenai stood by, debating on how to react as Lee, in all his green spandex glory, was balancing on his head and shy Hinata was attempting to mimic him. She was doing surprisingly well; the girl had a good sense of balance, Kakashi noticed. Lee was calling out encouragement to her as he opened his envelope and pulled out the sandy letter again. He started to read it upside down to her; she looked delighted.
Kakashi continued wading through the patients and orderlies on his search.
Ino was still curled up in her chair, looking forlorn. She resembled Kiba, who was sitting on the red couch in a daze thanks to his visit to electrotherapy this morning. Akamaru was loosely clutched in his arms.
Kakashi's attention was drawn to Kin's loud laughter. She seemed to be getting along well with C-class's newest additions: two brothers named Dosu and Zaku, both of which had schizophrenia.
Still no Sasuke.
"Sasuke," Naruto gasped out, hands scrabbling for purchase on the shelves behind him. "God," he moaned.
He threw his head back, rattling the plastic bottles of paint, and was thankful he was sitting. He looked down and felt even more heat splash across his cheeks and along his veins.
The vision of Sasuke's dark head buried in his lap was enough to shove Naruto over the edge. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. There was just the shudder of release, a spasm that made his entire body vibrate until he was completely drained.
"Where the fuck did you learn to do that?" Naruto said, still trying to catch his breath.
"Could ask you the same thing," Sasuke said, indicating his own body, which was chaotically undressed and sated. He wiped his mouth with his customary smirk in place.
"Guess we're both fast learners," Naruto said with a breathy chuckle. He liked Sasuke devoid of his shorts with his boxers half-off. "Was yours...I mean, did I do okay for you?" He questioned a little nervously.
"Yeah, you were good," Sasuke reassured honestly.
Sapped of strength for the moment, he leaned forward to lie on Naruto's bare chest. The blonde wrapped his arms around Sasuke's pale shoulders and messily cradled him close.
Sasuke mentally reminded himself not to fall asleep here. Here in the dim light, snug against Naruto's heat, wearing nothing but their boxers and sweat. Sasuke was so comfortable, the cynical part of his mind wasn't surprised in the least when Kyuubi showed up to ruin it.
Sasuke's only indication of Kyuubi's arrival was the tightening of Naruto's grip on his shoulders.
"You forget don't you? You kiss him and you pretend I'm not hiding inside. You pretend like you're some miracle-worker, that if you love him enough, I'll fucking disappear."
It didn't pass the dark-haired teen's attention that instead of the usual snarl and snap, Kyuubi's hiss seemed...weary, sad almost. Sasuke was still in the blonde's embrace, but so far, nothing aside from the tightened grip had struck Sasuke as a threat. So it was with confidence, he said softly, "You will disappear."
"Like hell I will!"
Ah, thought Sasuke. There's that temper.
But Kyuubi still hadn't violently shoved Sasuke away or pulled him closer hungrily. This was starting to make Sasuke nervous. He didn't know what to expect and he didn't like it. So he took control of the situation. He unwound himself from Kyuubi's embrace and grabbed his crumpled shorts and shirt from the floor. He untangled Naruto's black t-shirt from his own and threw it at the blonde's face. Kyuubi caught it and glared but pulled it on.
Sasuke dressed quickly and with his back to Kyuubi, though he could feel his eyes boring into his back. When he was done, he turned to find Naruto's glum blue eyes watching him. He was only there for a second and then Kyuubi stood up. Sasuke reached for the doorknob and the blonde batted his hand away. They glared at each other, Sasuke went for the handle again, and after Kyuubi knocked his hand away for the second time, Sasuke shoved him irritably.
Unfortunately Kyuubi grabbed a fistful of Sasuke's shirt as he careened backwards. They hit the shelves with a thump, sending bottles of paint and boxes of markers and crayons and pencils spilling off onto the floor.
Suddenly, the door opened and the blinding light immediately cut off the scuffle. Both boys squinted up into the dark form of Kakashi. Sasuke and Naruto froze, still gripping each other's shoulders and necks.
"Sasuke, you have a visitor," Kakashi said after a pause.
Sasuke coughed, disentangled himself from Naruto (dropping him to the floor a little heavily in the process), nodded once to Kakashi, and exited the closet with as much dignity as he could muster.
The other two watched him walk down the hallway until he was out of sight. Then Kakashi turned to Naruto with a raised eyebrow.
The blonde looked up at the tall orderly like a fox at a hunter. He scratched behind his head.
"Ehehehe..."
Kakashi leaned forward with a cheeky smile. "I guess this makes us even," was all he said before turning to follow Sasuke.
And Naruto, sitting on the floor in nothing but his messy boxers and wrinkled shirt, surrounded by various art supplies, turned a violent shade of red.
Sasuke stood in the doorway of the visitor's room, staring with a puzzled look at the woman standing in there. She had her back to him and was reading something tacked to the bulletin board on the wall. As such, she hadn't noticed him yet.
Her odd, purple hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail and she wore a worn khaki coat that came to a little above her knees. Sasuke stared hard at her. He knew he knew her from somewhere. The coat was very familiar, and he knew she'd be wearing an inhuman amount of mesh clothing under it, but he couldn't remember her name.
A finger prodded the centre of his back hard. Sasuke threw a glower over his shoulder but Kakashi wasn't even looking at him; his face was blocked by that obnoxious orange book. Sasuke moved into the room and the woman turned around. His eyes immediately glued themselves to the tattoo on her neck. It took a few seconds before his attention shifted to her face.
"Hey there, Sasuke," she said, a sloppy smile forming on her face.
Having only met her a few times in his life, Sasuke wondered if he was hallucinating.
"Anko," he said emotionlessly. "Mitarashi Anko."
Her smile widened.
"Surprised you remember me. I left Orochimaru, what, a week after I met your brother?"
"Not to sound rude, but why are you here?" Sasuke asked.
"I'm offering to take you in," she said bluntly, folding her arms in a way that reminded Sasuke of Naruto when he got an idea he meant to carry through.
"As in live with you?" Sasuke said incredulously.
"No, as in tango with me," she deadpanned as she settled into one of the uncomfortable chairs. "I recently adopted Kaguya Kimimaro and you remember Tayuya, right?"
"What are you, starting an orphanage for Orochimaru's fuck-ups?" Sasuke said from his rigid standing position.
Anko frowned. "What is your problem, kid? Like you want to stay here?"
At this, Sasuke glared fiercely at her. She merely smiled intuitively.
"We're done," Sasuke said before turning to stride past the still-occupied Kakashi.
Anko wiggled her fingers in what was surely not meant to be a final goodbye.
End Part Nine