A/N: Oneshot gift fic for my wonderful, amazing (insert more such adjectives here) beta BelleDragon.
Pairing: SasuNaru
Summary: One appointment at Konoha Psychiatry can change lives, if you go to the right psychiatrist.
Genre: Drama/Romance
A click echoed through the corridor when Sasuke closed the door. Staff were walking around and talking to each other animatedly while delivering the daily dosage of medication to the patients. A young woman with bright pink hair and emerald eyes stopped next to Sasuke before the door.
"It's so nice to see you here, Mr Uchiha." She said, her candy voice scraping inside of Sasuke's skull.
He paid her no mind, just continued standing there, refusing to move a muscle. Every time he went to see his brother, which was usually once a year on his birthday, Sasuke was left shaken. His whole being screamed to him that he should never return. Yet, he did. Every year on the same day.
June 9. Sasuke let out a long sigh and took notice of the fact the woman was talking to him.
".. are you sure you're feeling okay? Maybe you should sit down in the lobby and rest for a few minutes?"
Sasuke glared at the nurse and she flinched visibly. "Maybe you should go in and take care of my brother instead of standing here and worrying about me." He said flatly. "Do your job or I will get you fired."
With that said, Sasuke head for his car. The young man drove to his house in a daze. It was a miracle he didn't have an accident.
He stepped into the Uchiha Manor with numb legs and barely made it to the couch in the living room before collapsing and falling into a tired and dreamless sleep.
Sasuke was rudely awoken at nine in the morning. Well, as much as an alarm clock could be rude after it was set up by the woken person.
Normally, Sasuke wasn't a morning person and now his dislike for mornings was amplified a thousand times as images from his encounter with Itachi flooded his hazy mind.
Sasuke groaned helplessly, deciding that his morning was shit. And it didn't really go better when he discovered that he had no coffee.
Grumbling under his breath, Sasuke made his way to the bathroom and took what should have been a nice relaxing shower that is if the hot water had not run out when he had finished lathering in soap.
Had he been a lesser man he would have screeched under the cold water, spraying rivulets on his naked form.
A colourful string of profanities escaped his thin lips as he dried himself off. He glanced at his cell phone and it started ringing on cue, one would think Sasuke's look triggered it.
To make the morning even more magical, it was his personal assistant Sai. He was currently telling Sasuke that he was late for a meeting and Kakashi would fill in for him.
That might for a second seem like a good thing but appearance is deceiving. Kakashi would of course do his job the best possible way, answer all the questions Sasuke would, be polite and even cheerful - but Sasuke wouldn't be able to escape his questions.
Sasuke just knew the one eyed man would be waiting at his office. What a terrible day.
If Sasuke's aura could be described with one word - it would be malice. The events from the morning had made him feral and in a worse mood than usual. When he entered Uchiha Inc. - a few employees hurried to get back to their desks, shivering.
It had been a while since they'd seen their Boss in such a bad mood.
Sasuke stepped into his office and wasn't surprised in the least to find the VP sitting in his chair, reading one of his books. Sasuke always knew it was porn but never said anything about it.
Kakashi had been the President of Uchiha Inc for ten years, until Sasuke was of age to take the lead. He was eight when the incident happened. Sasuke shrugged the memory away. It had been twelve years and it still felt like it happened yesterday.
"Good morning, Kakashi."
A raised brow was the only form of a reply he got. Grunting unhappily, Sasuke took the seat opposite Kakashi which was usually reserved for co-workers and special guests.
"Is there any particular reason why you're in my office, sitting in my chair, Kakashi?" Sasuke asked, annoyance audible.
"I was worried about you, Sasu." His guardian said.
Sasuke smirked. Usually after the age of eighteen one did not have a guardian but in Sasuke's case, due to his unstable behaviour and anger management issues - Kakashi had continued being his guardian even though Sasuke was considered an adult.
"Stop worrying, Kakashi."
The older man didn't hear him or pretended he didn't.
"Did you visit Itachi yesterday?"
Sasuke's shoulders visibly tensed. He was lost in thought for a few minutes before finally replying.
"Yes, I did. You know that I go every year on his birthday... not that he recognises me every time."
Sasuke frowned and blinked away the tears that were trying to roll down his cheeks. Although Kakashi looked like he was still reading his book, he had noticed and it clenched his heart.
The older man chose his next words carefully, he always had to do that with Sasuke since he never knew what his reaction might be.
"Have you ever considered therapy, Sasuke?"
"What are you going at?"
The temperature in the room dropped to sub zero from Sasuke's tone of voice. It was laced with venom and danger.
Kakashi put away his book and frowned.
"If you had someone to talk to about this... a specialist... maybe it would make you feel better and get that load of your chest.. it's been twelve years, Sasuke. I am afraid what might happen when you visit next time. Please, just try it.."
Unrecognisable emotions flashed across Sasuke's face.
"Don't make me force you, you know that I can."
"The guardian card? How low of you." Sasuke sneered, shutting off any other emotion.
"I will call Dr. Uzumaki and arrange a meeting. Tomorrow at nine in the morning. You will report to me after that. Do you understand?"
There was nothing left from the normal cheery voice Kakashi usually spoke with. That was a command and Sasuke had to comply, no matter what he felt on the subject.
"It's for the best." Kakashi murmured silently after the door to Sasuke's office clicked.
"Cancel all my appointments for today and tomorrow, Sai." Sasuke said, rushing past his assistant's desk.
"Of course, Sasuke-sama." Sai replied, a look of concern on his face.
Sasuke stormed out of the building and drove home. He didn't like the idea of therapy the least.
His brother never got anything from it and he went regularly for years...
"Stupid Kakashi and his stupid guardian ways ... fuck..."
It was a very unhappy Sasuke that woke the next morning at eight in the morning. Kakashi had called to confirm his appointment with Dr. Uzumaki the previous evening. He gave the very annoyed Sasuke the address of the clinic and wished him a nice day. Hypocritical bastard. He knew all too well of Sasuke's attitude towards psychiatrists.
In a nutshell: he hated the bastards.
Not because they didn't try to do their jobs, they just failed with Itachi. What bigger proof of their incompetence?
More so, Sasuke didn't really have a problem. Sure, he was tense after visiting Itachi. Who wouldn't be? The man killed their parents and then he continued behaving like it never really happened. The bullshit doctors had said that his mind had blocked it as something unlikely, so he didn't believe that he had actually murdered them.
Now, he was so heavy on drugs he always stared at Sasuke with a vacant look. He talked very rarely, if he ever could from the depths of his deluded mind, he would say something along the lines of:
"You look well, little brother. How's Mom doing? Dad still giving you a hard time? You should tell him to fuck off. I did... I wonder why he never visits. Where am I anyhow?"
And then, before Sasuke had any time to form a reply, the glint of sanity would disappear from Itachi's eyes, only to be replaced with that vacant look.
Sasuke had a quick shower and dressed casually. He wouldn't need to dress up for a meeting he hated the idea of having. Huffing in annoyance, he drove to Konoha Psychiatry.
If there was such a place as hell on earth, it would certainly be the waiting room of Konoha Psychiatry. Thank God Itachi was in a private clinic. Sasuke had made sure he got the best treatment.
It wasn't the wait that bothered him, it was the looks he got from the people there. They were all curious since he was a newcomer. By the looks of them they were all regulars.
There was a girl with long purple hair that blushed when he looked at her and started mumbling something bellow her breath, a man with fang like tattoos on his face, who growled at Sasuke. He raised a brow and continued looking around.
A girl with long blond hair, tied in a ponytail, was giggling and pointing around. Sasuke shivered. He certainly wasn't that bad.
Before he turned and walked away, a woman with sandy blond hair and a stern look called out his name.
"Uchiha Sasuke. Room 12, floor two. Up the stairs and left. There's a sign on the door which says Dr. Uzumaki. You're up."
She gave him another look filled with boredom behind her glasses and fidgeted a little on her desk when he glared at her.
The whole place smelled of disinfectant and Sasuke wrinkled his nose in disgust. Since there was obviously no way around it, he followed her directions and climbed up a set of stairs.
He knocked three times before he heard a "Come in."
Dr. Uzumaki forever shattered Sasuke's stereotype for psychiatrists. He wasn't short, chubby and bald like he had to be. All psychiatrists Sasuke had ever seen looked horrendous and wore ugly glasses.
Dr. Uzumaki was tall, blond and had piercing blue eyes. He didn't even dress properly! Save for the white doctor-y coat, the man was wearing an impossibly tight orange shirt and it would have been a complete eyesore if it didn't define his six pack so beautifully. He wore dangerously low riding jeans which revealed a stripe of honey colored skin Sasuke wanted to touch and was smirking cockily at the astonished Uchiha.
"Good morning to you too, Mr. Uchiha."
Sasuke glared in annoyance, still standing at the door.
"Perhaps you would like to lie down on my couch? I actually saw one of those in a movie and thought why not? If it relaxes the patients."
The man grinned at Sasuke, who grunted.
"Hn, I wonder how a dobe like you got a PhD."
Nevertheless, he lied down on the couch, noticing with growing horror that it was the same shade of orange as the Doctor's shirt.
He heard a mumbled "Teme."
One of his eyebrows arched as he looked at the man, silently asking him to start the damn analysis or whatever he was about to do so Sasuke could go home and angst.
"So," the man mumbled, grinning and scratching his neck. "Kakashi tells me you have some family trouble."
Sasuke closed his eyes, carefully going over what he was about to say. Many times he had thought how he would share the story with someone, if necessary but never knew he would be forced.
Sasuke didn't like talking about problems. He believed that if he thought about it long enough - the solution would come itself.
"You could say that. Seeing the fact the only family I have is a brother in psychiatry who had killed my parents. I would classify that as trouble."
"How did you deal with that?"
"I didn't." Sasuke replied flatly, opening his eyes and glaring the Naruto, as the card on his jacket said. "I was eight years old when it happened. I remember how I came home, happy that I got an A in calculus, I thought that would make one of the rare smiles flash on father's face. I was so excited about it since usually he only cared about my brother. He was only thirteen years old and father was preparing him to take over Uchiha Inc. whenever I did something good he only shrugged and said how Itachi had done better my age. It was always about him..." Sasuke frowned.
"It was eerily quiet when I stepped in. Usually I would hear Mother and Father talking or the TV, sometimes they would even play music. Of course, always something I didn't like but that's not really important. I called them for a few minutes before I heard Itachi's voice from the kitchen. He said: I'm in the kitchen little brother. I made some tea and left you some sweets. I only grunted unhappily, I had always hated sweets and he knew that. Nevertheless I went in and saw him sitting on a chair before the table, calmly sipping tea and smirking at me. You wouldn't think that's unusual and it wasn't really.
The fact that bothered me was that on the floor, in his legs were two bodies. Our parents'. There was a lot of blood too. I remember that Mother's face was turned to me while the rest of her body was facing the other direction. Her eyes were open, unseeing. Father's body lay beside her.
What have you done, big brother? I asked him, shivering. I don't know what you mean, Sasuke. I told you I made some tea. Why won't you sit and join me?
I called Kakashi, an old family friend and I think I fainted since the next thing I remember was laying in a hospital room. Kakashi was sitting beside me, holding my hand.
Mother and Father are dead. Is Itachi okay?
Even if it sounds ridiculous I didn't blame him for it back then. I couldn't realize it yet.
Your brother is in hospital, Sasuke. I'll take care of you.
I fell asleep. Itachi remains in the same hospital even today. The psychiatrists" He spat. "said that he doesn't know he murdered then. His mind had erased it as unlikely or some shit. Now he is so heavy on drugs he rarely recognizes me and if he does he asks how Mother and Father are doing, where he is and why. I never reply, there's no point. He looks blank after that short moment of supposed sanity.
Quite frankly, I have no idea why Kakashi sent me here. I have no problem at all." Sasuke huffed, finished talking.
Naruto was reading something and it took him a few minutes to reply. "Well, it says right here that you have anger management issues and suicidal tendencies."
"That's absolute bullshit. I never had anger management issues. Sure, I did beat up a few pricks but they were asking for it. As for the suicidal tendencies, I am an Uchiha. If I wanted to kill myself I would have done it. I fail at nothing." Sasuke growled.
"Oh? Then you had never thought that if you came home from school right after it finished and not wander around Konoha, training in the woods when you were supposed to be home and not a few hours after that - you could have done something? Called someone for help? Stopped your brother? You never blamed yourself, is that what you are telling me?"
"How the hell do you know when I got home?"
"Police reports. It says right here what you testified, a few days later. I came home at about eight o'clock it was hours past school but I was training a new set of kicks we learned at Martial Arts class."
"You couldn't have done anything, Sasuke. He was older, stronger you were just eight years old. Don't blame yourself."
Naruto's words should have been calming but the effect they had on Sasuke was unexpected. He burst into tears. he didn't sob or whimper, he just cried. Naruto wouldn't have known he was if he didn't see the translucent tears rolling down his pale skin.
Although it was unprofessional, Naruto went over and sat at the couch, hugging Sasuke so his head was on Naruto's chest.
"I should have been there earlier." Sasuke whispered, his tears soaking Naruto's shirt.
The blond just wiped away every new set of tears, murmuring softly in Sasuke's ear.
Sasuke started visiting Dr. Uzumaki almost every day so they could talk. It didn't matter if they talked about Itachi or Sasuke's daily problems at work, even if they bickered about Naruto's unhealthy love for ramen.
The important thing was they talked and shared. It was all Sasuke needed.
One day he kissed Naruto. The blond was immobile for a few seconds, in which Sasuke had feared rejection - before kissing back with an equal amount of tenderness.
They started living together three months after that.
Kakashi could be seen snickering in his office every day.
- Owari