My Illness, My Cure Part 1

My Illness, My cure

SasuNaru Yaoi (AU)


"Your next patient is a real doozy, Doctor."

Two men walk toward an oak office door. Pausing outside, the eldest of the two took a moment to regard his companion. He was of a lightly shorter stature, a meager five-foot-eight, something the elder took great pleasure in teasing him about. He had broad firm shoulders but shapely hips that gave him a certain feminine flair. He was undeniable a man though. His round face was topped by untamable sunflower blonde spikes, edged by a firm jaw, a narrow slightly upturned nose and two eyes that surely must have belonged to Kami-Sama himself, then given to the boy at the time of his birth.  They contained such wisdom, such eager hopefulness, such an indescribable innocence despite the horrors they had witnessed – all encapsulated in endless depths of sapphire blue.

His inescapable eyes, along with his uniquely happy personality and endless patience had given him the opportunity to get through to more troubled souls than all of the other doctors in the facility together, and he had only been here for three years. Patients opened up to him almost instantly and something within his miraculous companion seemed to change the once distressed, seemed to calm them from within and allow them to regain themselves. And yet, despite his obvious talent and success, the boy, Naruto, remained effortlessly humble.

When he had first met Naruto three years ago, had first seen his amazing gift, he had asked how and why the blonde remained single. Surely the girls, and probably the guys too, were besotted with him. He had immediately regretted his curiosity though, when lively cerulean depths turned suddenly dark, cold, bleak, and stormy; not unlike a typhoon crashing upon a desolate and rocky shore. His face had paled slightly, his fists clenched and through pursed lips he quietly forced out, "Kakashi, I understand you mean no harm with your question, but please understand now, I will not date anyone. Ever."

At the time, Kakashi could only nod, a still curious eyebrow raised, totally unprepared for the quiet outburst. He had wanted to ask more, and overtime he did, but the blonde would never say anything more on the matter and Kakashi could no longer bear to be the cause of that tumultuous look that would arise every time he mentioned it. With a sincere heart, Kakashi dearly wished that Naruto would find his happiness. Though, with his attitude and the obvious follow through he had seen over the years, Kakashi was beginning to wonder if the blonde would ever be able to meet someone.

"The patient, Dr. Kakashi?"

The graying man gave the youth before him  a sad look for a moment, before regaining his impassive mask and returning Naruto's inquiry. His formal address was a subtle reminder of their current location, though the blonde, he was sure, had come to think of him as a father figure of sorts. The elder man could not suppress a snort at his thoughts. 'Yeah right! An uncle maybe... and a crazy perverted one at that!' He looked at the file in his hand or a brief second and then met the blue gaze directed at him.

"Patient 296-AZ38; age 26. All facilities he's been to have unanimously come to the same conclusion. The short version being that he suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. Each personality seems to embody a different emotion: anger, sadness, happiness, etc, etc. There are ten in all, including his stable persona, though some are more aspects of personality than emotions, in my opinion. Says here, it seems to stem from childhood; years of forced emotional suppression. The estimated time of his first persona split was ten years ago. The file indicates that for all intents and purposes he appeared fine, a bit socially stunted, but fine, until sometime during his sixteenth year. That's all they've been able to discover. He refuses to talk about it."

Naruto looked pensive for a moment, letting the information relayed to him soak in. In the room just beyond the door they stood in front of, sat a youth in trouble. Well, perhaps 'youth' was the wrong word. The man was 26, a year older than Naruto himself, so he was most definitely a grown man. A man who had spend his entire childhood told not to feel, not to love, not to cry, not to hope or despair. Nothing. This man was starting to sound a lot like someone Naruto had once known, someone who had vanished, someone who he had spent the last ten years trying to forget. Someone who was unforgettable.

This man though, had been able to cope with his unnatural repression of the very things that defined humanity. He had caved in on himself. His emotions, which until now had been buried deep within the confines of his soul, came bursting forth. Each a manifestation of the feelings he was denied.  What could have caused such an apparently random outburst? Could the pressure have finally gotten to him? Sixteen years was a long time to deal with such trauma, had he simply reached his limit? Could some event, a tragedy perhaps, have triggered his split? Perhaps his parents...

"What about family? Friends? Did they get anything from them?" The blonde asked.

"Mah, well... As I said before, he was unsociable. His... conditioning, if you will, prevented anyone from getting close. He apparently didn't have many, if any, friends. As for his family, his mother and father died in a train wreck when he was sixteen. The tragedy caused his older brother and him to move from their hometown to a city near the elder's collage. Shortly after moving, the patient began showing symptoms of mental instability. His brother threw him into the nearest facility and has been out of contact ever since. Money was placed in a trust fund in order to pay for his expenses, so we've no idea where the brother is at all." Kakashi snorted. "The guy's a real piece of work. His parents die, and his brother flips out so he throws him in a nut house, shoves a wad of cash at the issue and bails." He shook his head. "Now he's got no obligation, and he's free to do whatever he wants with the crazy inheritance that was left to them."

"Them?"

"Yeah, apparently the inheritance was supposed to be divided equally between the boys. The patient's half was to be monitored by the older, but with the onset of his medical condition, the elder went to court and had the younger stripped of his rights to his money."

"What a weasel." Naruto growled out. His calm blue eyes were awash with the intense look familiar to Kakashi, one meaning Naruto was angry. Not at any specific person really, just the general injustice that the world seemed only to happy to dish out.

Though Kakashi could recognize the serious nature of the current mood, he couldn't help but snort at Naruto's ironic choice of insults. The blonde had a peculiar quirk when dealing with new patients. He never looked at his patients name and he requested that his staff not refer to them by name until the patient themselves had told the blonde of their own will, their family included. In this case, the blonde had hit dead-on with his name-sake. Weasel was very fitting indeed.

Naruto looked at the aging man before him. Kakashi was a well built man, and a bit enigmatic when he wanted to be. He was also the second biggest pervert the blonde had ever known. He was in his late forties, had gray hair as long as Naruto had known him, and despite his many and varying vices, he was highly intelligent and completely sane. This being the case, Naruto decided the snort was nothing of real consequence and continued on.

"What about his triggers? What makes him shift from one personality to the next?"

"Some of them are unknown, seemingly sporadic. Most notably he responds negatively to anyone who looks like any of his family members. On the positive side, he responds well, or at least slightly better, toward blonde haired, blue eyed people. Part of the reason he was sent to you."

"Hmm... what about is stable personality? The original him?" Naruto asked, scratching his chin in thought. Already a multitude of treatments were rattling around in his head.

"He's indifferent. To everything. He doesn't speak or acknowledge you with more than a casual glance. If negatively stimulated, he scowls. If positive, he'll smirk. His shifts are marked by five second 'black-outs'. His other personalities however, are not so tight-lipped. Though there are certain things all refuse to talk about."

"Got it." Naruto nodded, steeling himself for the beginning of another arduous journey. He had to banish the thoughts of the one whom mustn't be remembered that continually tried to surface. Certain aspects, behaviors, and triggers of his next patient were so eerily similar to the unremembered one that Naruto had a hard time calming his racing heart, slowing his quietly heaving breath. The unremembered was the very reason he had chosen this line of work, and anytime patients were similar he felt a searing pang of longing and regret.

Once he had prepared sufficiently, in his mind, to face his next challenge, he opened the door to the room beyond.  He had decorated his office in bright warm colors. The walls were covered in a warm peach colored wallpaper, the occasional creamy line running throughout, small swirls speckled here and there. There was no desk in his private office, he didn't want to put up any sort of boundary or barrier with his  patients, they were to be his equals while together.  When Naruto was your doctor, you felt as if you had gained a real friend, not another crack-pot shrink. The room contained two couches, one facing the other, a coffee table in between. A large overstuffed recliner sat at one end of the coffee table, the other was left open and unobstructed. The soft deep brown leather of the furniture, the deep cherry wood of the coffee table, even the carious paintings depicting calming nature scenes, all gave off a feeling of warmth, comfort, safety, and security. It wasn't unlike many family rooms that were in homes all across the country. The only item in the room that betrayed its true purpose was a small framed diploma, certifying Naruto's psychological capabilities.

Amongst all of this warmth and comfort sat a straight backed man. His features were dark, his skin pale, his clothes black. It was as if he had stepped out of an old black and white photograph, and into the world of color which he didn't belong. As Naruto, technicolor embodied, stepped through the threshold the monochromatic figure raised his head. Naruto absentmindedly cursed himself for never asking his patients name, but it wouldn't have mattered either way. He never turned away a patient. Even given years of forewarning and the time to plan, prepare, to fortify his defenses; he knew in that split second none of it would have helped in the least. His breath, heaving moments ago, would have left him once again, as it had now, just the same. His heartbeat which he had so foolishly thought he had calmed was now racing with insane speed and he was sure it would never slow, no matter the warning. His very soul, strong and confident, brilliant and calming, would now tremble and crack, would be just as brittle and full of longing all the same.

Two bodies froze, two sets of eyes widened.

A smirk.

"Hn. Dobe."

Two sets of eyes closed.

One body hit the floor.