NaruSasu pairing, AU/AH, slash, yaoi, romance, mature, hurt/comfort -

A/N:

This is set in the real world, 2005. Characters' personalities may differ from Kishimoto's as they have different experiences.

In this story, Naruto is a 23-yr-old police detective and Sasuke is 17, six months prior to the beginning of this story his parents were in a fatal car accident.

~dusk.

Disclaimer:

I do not own any of the characters; they belong to the brilliant Kishimoto.

Chapter One

Saturday, June 4, 2005 – 7:43PM

The police radio buzzed in the quiet of the car and a voice sounded through the static.

"Vehicle number 291, do you copy? Over."

"Yeah, this is Naruto, vehicle 291, I copy. Over."

"Please proceed to number two, Orchard Street. Twenty-two year old male, Itachi Uchiha, suspected suicide, no visible note or witnesses, pronounced DOA by medics on site. Over."

"Yeah, okay, heading to the scene now. Over." Naruto sighed. Yet another wasted life. Sometimes he wanted to bang his head against a wall – the suicide victim was just a year younger than himself...how could he possibly not have something or someone to live for? He had been close by, having just finished dealing with a domestic dispute that got out of hand. He suppressed a smile as he thought about walking into the small apartment kitchen to see a middle-aged man in nothing but his underwear being chased around by his wife with a frying pan and hair curler as her weapons, screaming like a banshee. Some days the job was good; some days the job made the world look like a bleak place to be.

Looking up ahead to his right, he saw the tell tale flashing lights of the ambulance, indicating the house where he would be stopping. Pulling up to the curb, he took in his surroundings. Messy flower beds, lawn that needed a good mowing, weeds that were beginning to outgrow the small plants, a letterbox whose hinge was unfixed and leaves left over from autumn scattered throughout the yard. He frowned. The house didn't match the rest of the neighbourhood, which was a pristine suburban paradise.

Walking in through the front gate, he approached one of the medics. Ah, what was her name again? Inuki? Ino? That was it – Ino. He'd seen her around a few times – cops and medics invariably met up at one way or another. He smiled and said, "Hey Ino. How's things? I'm guessing this'll be a bad one today." She looked up from her clipboard.

"Oh...Hi. Yeah," she nodded towards the front porch at a slim, pale teenager with black hair who was wrapped in a blanket. "Bad, going on worse. Twenty-two year old male, deceased, was discovered by his seventeen-year-old brother. As if that's not tragic enough, their parents were in a fatal car accident just six months ago. He's on his own now...he mentioned that there was no other family we could contact." She shook her head grimly. Naruto was beginning to see why the house was falling into disrepair. Both boys were really just kids trying to cope with the death of their parents. Evidently, the older brother hadn't felt ready to play parent to a teenager.

"What are the details? I need to get a move on. Victim's name was Itachi, right? I need to know," he paused to think about which details would be important. "How did the deceased die, how certain are you that it's suicide, how long has he been dead and what is the name of the younger brother, etc."

Ino glanced at her clipboard before responding, "Ummm...Itachi Uchiha, died due to blood loss – appears to have slit both wrists in the bath. We are almost completely certain it was suicide. There were tell tale false starts which were inflicted prior to the deepest wound on his left wrist, and Sasuke – that's the younger brother – had to break the door to get in, as it was locked from the inside. It's hard to tell as he was sitting in a warm bath full of water, but we estimate that he's been dead for at least two hours. The only things we moved when we arrived where the towels and bath mat, and we couldn't find a note in the immediate vicinity, but...there could still be one in the house somewhere. Uhh...is there anything else I can help you with? It's just that...we need to transport the body back to the morgue, you know?"

"Huh? Ah, yeah that's fine. Don't worry about...Sasuke?...Sasuke. I'll work out something...find him a place to stay. Thanks, Ino. See ya." He finished scribbling down the known facts on his notepad and then, with a brief hand raised in farewell to Ino, he turned and walked over to the boy sitting on the steps of the porch. He spoke softly, "Hey...Sasuke, right? I'm Detective Naruto Uzumaki, but…don't worry over formality and just call me Naruto. Have you got any friends or relatives that you could contact and stay with?"

Sasuke stared at him with large eyes that were a shade of dark, liquid brown that was almost black and said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "No...There's no one. It was j-just...us." A tear rolled down his cheek unchecked and Naruto, feeling insensitive, passed him a tissue and waited for the boy to dry his eyes before he spoke again.

"Alrighty then, Sasuke...you just wait here a moment. I'm just gonna go inside and look over a few things and then you can come back to HQ with me, at least until we work something out." The only acknowledgement the boy gave was a slight nod of the head before hugging he knees to his chest and turning his head away.

He headed into the large single story family home. He noted down that much like the garden, the house looked as though it had once been a warm, welcoming, tidy family home whereas now it was dank and dark, all curtains drawn and in need of dusting and airing. He briefly looked at the bloodied bathroom with distaste, bagging the razor as evidence. He closed the door, then moved down the hallway opening doors as he went.

The first door to his right led to an unused master bedroom. Obviously the boys' parents. Moving on, he next door on the left led to one of the boys' rooms. He assumed it was Sasuke's as the desk was strewn with text books, work books and stationary. At the very end of the hallway on the left was the last bedroom. It was immaculately clean – the deceased probably wanted to be remembered as neat and considerate, Naruto thought – and there was a single sheet of paper in the printer. He snagged it with gloved fingers and read:

"Dear Sasuke,

My little brother...how are you going to understand why I couldn't stay anymore? Mom and Dad...they are gone...gone...from this world. I don't know what to do anymore. The bills just keep arriving and I can't afford to pay, your school fees are due and I can't afford those either – but you are so damn smart, so I can't pull you out of school; Mom and Dad always said you were going somewhere – their "smart little achiever" – and who am I to pull you away from it? After all, I'm just the older brother who doesn't know what to do with his life.

And then, there was a falling out between me and my friends. "Why can't you go out? Come on, it's just a round of poker...stop being so tight...geez, your no fun anymore, Itachi." It's...it's just too much, Sasuke. How much do I have to lose? What happened to my life? You...would probably be better off without me...all we do is fight since Mom and Dad died. I don't understand you and I'm too young to take care of you through high school and university. I just wanted to live my own life and not worry about all this. I'm not good at this whole family thing, and instead of having a proper back up plan for if they died, our parents left it to me to deal with. I don't know how to deal with this. Money wise...I'm sure someone will take you in and provide for you...you'll be much better off. Better off, for sure.

I'm sorry. You're smart, you'll manage.

I love you.
Goodbye.
Your Loving Brother, Itachi."

Naruto re-read it. He glanced pityingly towards the front door...it would probably break the kid to read this. Well, there was really nothing he could do about it. He bagged the note and took the laptop as evidence, as proof the note was really made by Itachi. Making the decision that what he had was more than enough, he headed back out to the porch.

The boy was still sitting in exactly the same spot and position as Naruto had left him in. He thought about asking the boy to grab some clothes, but decided that he probably wasn't ready to re-enter the house. "Sasuke. We have to get going. That blue car on the curb is mine...go ahead and jump into the front passenger seat; the doors are already unlocked. HQ...that is, the police headquarters, are about twenty minutes from here, so I'll just lock up here and we can head off." Sasuke stood and moved silently towards the car while Naruto locked up the house.

As soon as he had hopped into the car, Naruto turned off the police radio and flicked on the normal radio. He flicked until he hit a classical music station playing light, bland music and left that to run as background noise. No way was he sitting in awkward silence for a twenty minute drive to the police headquarters.

Sasuke sat huddled in the passenger seat. To distract himself from the grief in his heart, he slowly started to take note of his surroundings. From what he could see of it, the car was quite clean, smelled like pine needles and there was a small, cute fox plushie hanging from the rear-view mirror...he wondered if the officer had a girlfriend who had put it there. Then he moved onto the man driving. His name, he remembered, was Naruto Uzumaki. From his observations, Sasuke decided that the man was probably quite young, somewhere in his twenties. He had a calm demeanour, and looked like someone who laughed more than they frowned. He was a little taller than Sasuke's 5'7'...perhaps 5'10'? His eyes were blue and he had the slim, toned build of an athlete…

So far, this man had been quite kind and there had been no probing questions into his brother's—He squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to stop himself from thinking about it. If he didn't think about it, he couldn't worry. There were so many things to worry about now – where to live, living expenses, school. He felt the car come to a gentle stop and the engine click off. Naruto said quietly, "We're at HQ, Sasuke."