It had been a year of the same actions daily, Fugaku knew exactly where to find his youngest son. While he wanted to drag his son home, he knew a public confrontation would not bode well for either of them, and so he waited for Sasuke to arrive. He knew the state Sasuke would be arriving in, the difference of today from yesterday, was that now he had confirmation of why Sasuke was acting so out of character. Fugaku was waiting in the kitchen, the small box he had found earlier sat in front of him on the kitchen table. He wondered then why his son said nothing, why had he allowed them to think so little of him?
His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the front door open, he could hear Sasuke stumbling through, confiming what he already knew, Sasuke was once again drunk. When Sasuke reached the kitchen, he had no interest in his father, not even sparing him a second look, "what I don't get a hello?"
"He- what the hell? You went through my things." Seeing the box was the equivalent of throwing ice cold water at him. "You had no right." He was was speaking to his father but his eyes never left the box.
"I didn't go looking for it, if it mattered so much you wouldn't have left it on the floor."
"I didn't leave it on the floor-"
"If you didn't leave it on the floor I wouldn't have stepped on it." He didn't want to give Sasuke any advantage, even drunk, Fugaku knew his son was no idiot, "she said no." Fugaku stated, as calm as man would speak of the weather. He noticed his son's face scrunch up at the words, and Sasuke laughed without humor.
"Why do you care? You never liked her anyway." Fugaku said nothing, hoping the alcohol would loosen Sasuke's tongue, his son was broken he wasn't going to push him down unnecessarily. "She didn't give me the chance to ask her. I had everything ready….and she ended things before I could… I was planning our future together, while she was leaving me in the past." Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the fact that he was tired of everybody thinking it was him that broke up with Sakura, maybe he wanted someone to know the truth. "She fucking left me, without looking back."
"And you decided that getting drunk and bringing strange girls home was the way to deal with it?!" Sasuke flinched at his words, even in a drunken state he had some sense.
"Everyone thinks I broke up with her, you think I haven't heard mom tell you how stupid I was for ending things with her? Even Naruto, even he thinks I ended things."
Fugaku sighed then, "we will speak of this tomorrow, but know that things will change, if you ever…" If he ever what? Was heartbroken again? Fugaku realized then, that this was indeed Sasuke's first true act misbehavior, he had always been a good kid, the only time he was ever in trouble usually involved Naruto. Fugaku choose to leave then, and pretended he didn't see how tense his son looked as he reached for the box, he would keep it from Sasuke, it clearly affected him too much.
His son wasn't entering a phase of late teenage rebellion, he was simply broken, which he could deal with. He no longer felt the urge to yell at him, instead he came up with the first thing that came to mind, "be ready in the morning." He would give Sasuke the time to mend, but he would be damned if he didn't help speed things along.
To his drunken self, speaking to his father and telling him everything was the best thing that could potentially happen. To his hungover self it was hell, his father took no mercy on him in the morning, Fugaku cared not if Sasuke's head was pounding as he opened Sasuke's bedroom door, he did not care that the sunlight he had permitted to enter Sasuke's bedroom when he opened the blinds only made Sasuke want to throw up even more. In fact, Sasuke was positive his father was enjoying this, covering his eyes with one hand, and mustering as much composure as he could, he finally asked the question that would confirm how much of his father's actions came from wanting to punish him, "what time is it?"
"To be perfectly honest, I don't think you want to know. I will wait for you downstairs; we leave in ten minutes." His father was already walking out the door when he stopped, "Sasuke, your mother is already downstairs." Sasuke knew his father's last words really meant "take a shower, your mother does not know, she does not need to know."
A/N: this was originally titled broken, but I figured recovery is a much more fitting title for multiple reasons... this would be SasuSaku...with a lot of scenes with Fugaku as a father