[accidental video] Week 3, Day 7
[ Death.
Begins and ends like a lightning strike, like a cavalcade of crows rushing from the trees, like wind wrenching the branches until the leaves tear at the thundering grey sky. (It was raining; Kisame had been there, had commented on -- )Bleeding profusely, from his eyes down his cheeks. Falling into his mouth. Salty. Thicker than the rain ( Read more... )
Begins and ends like a lightning strike, like a cavalcade of crows rushing from the trees, like wind wrenching the branches until the leaves tear at the thundering grey sky. (It was raining; Kisame had been there, had commented on -- )Bleeding profusely, from his eyes down his cheeks. Falling into his mouth. Salty. Thicker than the rain ( Read more... )
This is an absurd thought - but perhaps this whole thing is absurd. Not that it necessarily strikes him as impossible, or even terribly unlikely. The dead are not really dead in this place. They are mostly like everyone else, breathing and walking and dreaming. People die, people return. Nothing is ever settled in this world. And intellectually, Sasuke has known that Itachi might return.
Still, this is - too much. The gnawing hollow feeling that ate it's way right through him when he found that Itachi's Hitomi was gone, and what he had thought was the bottom, the absolute lowest point he could reach, fell out into a wide chasm where he would just keep sinking and not stop. Drowning and never drowned. And when he thinks he'll be crushed by it, compacted - he breaks a surface. And breathes.
And is unsure.
What to think. There it is. How to feel. He can't identify an emotion exactly. Just - something sharp. Like cold. Ice water on bare skin. Itachi speaks, and the words are strange and meaningless. Is this because Sasuke can't think straight, or because Itachi can't talk straight. Who actually fucking cares. Itachi speaks, and the words are everything.]
Itachi.
[A stab of giddiness. Relief that cuts him open, saws his sternum and in half and straight through. He is still fucked up and awful and wrong but it doesn't matter. It's nothing.]
Where are you?
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[ ( Is Sasuke whole?
His clothes had been torn, eyes streaked with animal panic; Itachi had seen eyes like those before {hated the wars which produced them, the losses whih lent them to orphans}, but Sasuke, Sasuke's eyes -- he had created Sasuke's eyes, the look in Sasuke's eyes, and he had reached, and the eyes had grown, wide and lined with red that as not Sharingan but blood, blood vessels, but Itachi had only thought: Poke. )
Poke. ]
Sasuke, you won. You will not experience the darkness, after all. [ He could smile at it; he had thought his time of saying those words had come to an end. ] I am the obstacle you overcame. Had I not faltered, I would have claimed your eyes, torn them straight from their sockets and left you in shadows -- but you defeated me, and so you have accomplished what you desired. I congratulate you.
[ Sasuke should not be speaking to him. Sasuke should be recovering his comrades and resting; Itachi supposes it would be best if he said worse words: hateful words, enough to drive Sasuke back to them. Words are infinite and simplistic, and the words are easiest for the emotions he does not feel, for they are there in so many books; words in the bodies of shinobi trained to deceive, and the right words, circulate in the mind, the right commands, the mantra; they keep the tears away, for a stray thought of misfortune is reformed -- practice, stealth, turn the eye of the mind to the vision of solace (Sasuke in the doorway; his smile) -- and the thought replaced, the tears do not come, and the mouth presses to a line. The weight of it wearies the eyes. A smile would look more sad.
Hateful words are effortless. Easy to recite.
It is harder to say them to him, but Itachi reconciled this with a methodology that worked: imagine you are chaos, the Death God itself, in your mind's eye, your vision; he will die near you; he must be expelled from you, pushed backwards with all force. Reconfigure the impressions of "hateful words:" hate is love if you are the Death God and to love you is a touch of death, then hate is the word for pushing toward life. Then hatred is the language of salvation. Re-configure the semantics. Nothing could be easier. ]
Do you call on me with one of Orochimaru's jutsu?
[ He had far too many which communicated with the dead. Forbidden worlds. But this --
There is a device. That would be strange for a jutsu.
The device is like the information systems utilized in the tournaments, but it is an uncharacteristic addition to the clothing of a shinobi; no ANBU would leave on a mission in the night with such an object. It would be a security risk. The potential for sounds, for images -- an enemy-nin would be trained to see, to hear; would find it. It is a liability.
But he is dead. Perhaps it is a liability that does not matter. ]
Or is this all your doing?
[ ( No, the statistical likelihood of his being alive is very slim indeed. )
Poke.
If he could shift it like the fabric of a genjutsu -- make it warm and semi-solid, then he could reach his hand in, and touch him.
There it keeps beating below every other rationalization.
And he cannot sufficiently suppress it beneath clean, demarcated lines: the urge to touch, throbbing like a heartbeat. Like a pulse of need. One touch. Anything. Anything. Sasuke. Like a long cry in the dark night, amid a thousand crows, a thousand staring red eyes: Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke. ]
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Well. He can't exactly bring himself to think anything snide about Itachi right now (Itachi - his voice now is as sweet as ever, as when he would call Sasuke inside for dinner, as when he would tell Sasuke that he was not even worth killing) but he is close. He is practically thinking the words - god damn you you nonsensical fuck - but they are tinged with such absolute worshipful affection that they are reshaped beyond recognition.
His words, his thoughts, are cut short. By that dominating need, to see him. It asserts itself over all else. It sinks in its teeth. It will not release its hold.
To face him in person, so that he can have more than just that voice. Itachi speaks, and the words are - perfect, just to feel his chakra, a glow, a presence which never leaves him, which Sasuke can just reach for, even when he is out training, even when Itachi is on the other side of the village, it's right there - strange. Itachi is...? He is speaking about Sasuke winning. Winning, and losing. That is an old and familiar pattern, and Sasuke could - kill, to see those eyes. He should turn the video on. But he doesn't want Itachi to see him like this, he can't keep a straight face, not like this - fall back into it easily.
He just - he doesn't want that. He wants - to see him. Those eyes. Itachi in the kitchen, cutting tomatoes, staring at them intently while Sasuke stares at him and watches those eyes, the pupils dilate and contract, small movements like controlled breathing, the restricted in-and-out breath of watching but not wanting to touch, not wanting to break the moment. Sasuke watches and knows that in an instant Itachi could turn and look and see him staring, skewer him with those eyes. And he aches for that. For Itachi to look at him, with those eyes which make the world, for Itachi to make him real - to see him. Because things will make sense then, because he will be able to think then.
To make sense of those words. You will not experience the darkness, after all.
Do you call on me with one of Orochimaru's jutsu?
Sasuke wonders at these words. At how little sense they make. He wonders - but his wondering is swept away in other words. Where have you been, Itachi? What strange place has he seen? Has he been anywhere at all, or did he cease to exist, for a time? What has happened, that has made him talk this way? Sasuke is somewhat inclined not to care. Past is past is past - Itachi is here now. Sasuke is somewhat inclined to listen to his last broadcast again, now. Like he's been doing with the dreams. Itachi and Itachi and Itachi again.
Do you call on me with one of Orochimaru's jutsu?
They are indeed having two different conversations. Each a conversation with themselves. Talking themselves in circles. What does Itachi mean?Where was he called from?
One of Orochimaru's jutsu?]
Itachi. [His voice quivers. To see him, face to face. He swallows hard against it, that torrent which threatens to spill over.]
There is a function on the Hitomi to send your coordinates.
[He is not sure why he says this. Not sure at all. Itachi already knows this, of course. He must know - but Sasuke says this to him. Because without even thinking it consciously, he has come to a conclusion. One of Orochimaru's jutsu? He suspects.]
Send them to me.
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Understands. Recognizes. In life, he made a decision. A choice. He adopted a pretense, a reality; he did it, yes, him. One wrong. A thousand wrongs. That unspeakable dead. Itachi did like this: The idea that others would find it unspeakable, would find him a thing to detest, because if shinobi are tools, this is the perfect capacity of the tool, because so long as they detest him, they are spared of the action, and therefore his action spared someone. Spared more than it ended. In the grand scale.
If one sees it as inevitable -- the coming-together of ends, then. Someone would be the one to enact it.
His Father had wanted him to be the perfect shinobi. To be the perfect shinobi was to kill his father. A contradiction?
(Only sometimes his thoughts slip in another direction, and the old feeling returns, and he could feel the tug, the blood, inside of him. The bad blood. Blood fed a little more with every day, with every reshuffling of this):
His Father had wanted him to be the perfect shinobi. To be the perfect shinobi was to kill his father. A contradiction?
Re-shuffle. Re-shuffle. A perfect shinobi. A perfect shinobi. Orders.
Itachi is not a religious man, but he knew himself damned for this act. Accepted the damnation. Others would not be damned. This was only logical. Only sane. So he prayed to none of his family gods, for the gods answer him no longer; to give affront to the parents was amongst the most grave of offenses (but Father had wanted him to be his child, truly, the finest shinobi, truy, and truly, shinobi do whatever they must, whatever is needed -- ), and so he knew hell would come. A hungry hell. A sad hell. A weeping hell. A hell of tortures. Monsters. Demons and spirits like Susanoo.
He is in this hell, and now he sees, he sees his fate:
He and Sasuke will battle forever.
Sasuke will kill him endlessly.
This is the hell the gods created for Itachi. ]
I see.
[ He gives the coordinates.
(It is an appropriate fate. He will have his blood shed by his blood. He and Sasuke will touch once more. And he will feel, even if this feeling is pain, even if Sasuke's hands and feet and arms and swords hurt, come into him, they will be Sasuke's, some piece of Sasuke; [in all these years, so few wounds he sustained, so rare to bleed; a shadow cannot be hit, nor a genjutsu] and his body, this body, this once sick, dying, blinded, ravaged body, it will live, will acknowledge life, will define life in the opposition of its opposite: death. To create by dying.
For without that word, that event, death, no word life would be made. There would only be one state. One existence. Meaningless. Sasuke will affirm his meaning. He will be meaning. Will be something to Sasuke.
This will be completion. ]
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He has to wonder, shameful as it is, if Itachi missed him. Thoughts like that are hardly unfamiliar. Those days before he knew the Truth (another life, another Sasuke - there are so many Sasukes now that it becomes difficult to keep track of them) he would wonder, hating himself for wondering. They were irrepressible despite his best efforts, those thoughts. Sasuke's mind can be guided easily enough - all it really took was 72 hours in Itachi's world and a few numbing months with Orochimaru to stamp out all but the most stubborn vestiges of affection for his old team. And how long after the massacre did it take for him to decide, to truly resolve himself towards the goal of killing (murdering) his brother? Weeks, he thinks. Not much longer than that, surely.
The mind is malleable. Trainable. Emotions can be harnessed. You think things like - if I think about wanting to give up on revenge today, I'll go without dinner. If I think about any of those three today, I'll punch solid rock until my knuckles are worn to the bone. And you learn. Your mind learns to shy away from those things, like a dog slinking from a master who kicks. You make yourself strong by making yourself suffer for your weakness. Father would have done the same, would have taught Sasuke a lesson he'd not soon forget for being so soft. Itachi was the same - Sasuke had been weak and so Itachi had instructed him on strength, held him up against a wall and showed him the price of weakness.
And Sasuke remembers the lesson, and his mind, with all its tendency towards wildness, towards attaching itself inextricably to the rot of excessive emotion - his mind honors it.
But sometimes it will get caught on something, and no matter how many times he buries it, no matter how badly he punishes himself for these thoughts, it will surface, if only in brief flashes. If I worry about whether or not someone cares for me, I am pathetic. I am disgusting. I am worthless. But he does. He wonders - did Itachi miss me? When Sasuke approaches, does Itachi feel that same relief? When he feels Sasuke's chakra, trickling into the edge of his mind - does it send a small chill up his spine, blood calling to blood?
Sasuke stands before his brother, hesitating, hesitating (it is Itachi who makes the first move, Itachi who decides how this will be, always), though he knows what he wants to do. Still - he stands, not truly relaxed, not truly settled into this spot, but not moving, either. On the precipice, in a position that he cannot maintain for long. He can only step back from it, or fall.
He is unsure. And he finds himself unable to summon the concentration necessary to hide it. Unable to care. ]
Itachi.
Where have you been.
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[ Here he faces Sasuke. Here he faces judgment.
( Years ago, himself: Standing over them, and Sasuke, Sasuke before him, Sasuke's tears, Sasuke and one thousand miles of death and nightmare between them; ten feet or ten thousand miles, three seconds or seventy-two hours. The space between them minute and infinite. )
Hate me. Detest me. He praticed those words. Recited those words. Like the throw of a knife. Like hitting a mark. Said them to himself in the moonless night while the rain fell, softly. He knew something of being purged from weakness.
(Shinobi arts, jutsu, Father said, were akin to language acquisition; what you learned young, you learned best. At two, in those earliest memories, he remembers his father directing him; if one could walk, one could kick. If one could reach for a toy, one could hit. One could strike a pressure point. And these are your ABCs and this is the heart chakra and this is how you will think like a man, like an Uchiha, are you listening to me Itachi --
Weakness, that is the word you will abandon. Weakness, and when you are three, you will hold this blade, and do not hold it as you hold your chopsticks for your rice. And your hands will be hard like Father's. Your hands blistered the first time, and boiled, and you cried, and I told you crying is not permissible; consider something else, and do not cry, and I will bandage your hands, and when you stop crying, you will truly be my child. If I am hurt and your Sharingan defends me, if you use Sharingan, you will truly be my child. Weakness, that is the word you must abandon.
Sasuke in the crib. He is the tiniest thing Itachi has ever seen. He wants to reach down and lift him out and press his body against him, nose to his hair, and walk about the yard, but his hands. His hands are hard. Too hard for something so soft. He wants to lean over Sasuke's crib and watch him, but there's Father calling again -- )
The chasm between them.
There were moments, moments between the endless years of re-shaping his humanity, submerging himself, moments when he wanted Sasuke to come to him, to find him, to pull him from his exile, his suffocation, but it could never be, and he was wrong for indulging the thought. His brother, his weakness.
Itachi can become anything. He cannot become this.
Sasuke can never hear the only words he truly wishes to say. ]
We fought. You killed me and emerged victorious.
I suppose you must feel gratified, having achieved that which you set out to do years ago.
Are you the real Sasuke, or are you an image of him that has been created to exist before me?
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You don't remember anything after that, then.
That fight.
[ That fight.
You killed him. Don't forget. Never forget that. ]
It's been a year, you know. At least a year since then. But you don't remember it.
[ We lived together, Itachi. This is what he wants to say. We were in the same house. You cooked me dinner while I was out training, and I did the dishes. He can't say that. He won't say that. We slept under the same roof. You would ask me what I wanted to eat. That happened, right? He remembers it. He wouldn't remember it if it hadn't happened. Sasuke is blind and stupid and Itachi toys with him and fools him and flips his world upside-down and lies and lies and lies. But surely. Surely this time - because otherwise he is done. He is just finished. He will close his eyes and not open them, he will sleep and not wake up, he will just stop all of this. Everything. There is no after that.
No, no, that's not - it's not that. It was real. As real as when you were a child, and he was perfect. As real as when you hated him, and he was cruel. But he can't think that way. Even if it is all a lie, even if Itachi tells him now that it was nothing, that it was a figment, that Sasuke is truly nothing to him, that Sasuke is worthless, not even worth - still. It was real. It was fucking real. The dinner. The calm conversation. That the walls of that house, which to Sasuke usually seemed so far away, separate from him by an infinite emptiness, a wide exposed space where he could not sleep without fear - that they should close in and be closer, more secure. Reachable, if he needed to lean on them.
That echoes would not seem to catch in the empty corners of his life. That the only sounds he should hear at night were frogs and night sparrows. That he should wake up without his jaw aching from clenching and grinding. It was real. ]
I'm real. [ That was real, all of it. ] And you haven't been dead. [ A lie. He was dead, certainly. Sasuke had killed him. But he had been here. Alive in this place, and everything else was so far away, it was just like he'd never been dead at all. He was always there, just as he had been back in the real world. Always, always. Behind everything else, every other person, every memory, every moment, every world - tear it back, throw it away, and still Itachi is constant, unmoving and unchanging. ]
You've been here the whole time.
You really don't...
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[ In his mind's eye, where they are a family, where Itachi is a brother and he is perfect -- the ideal Itachi, the Itachi of his mind, behaves differently. Scrubbed clean of the flaws of his mortal body, cleansed of the filth of his rotting heart and his tiring eyes, his eternal form opens his arms to Sasuke, and Sasuke is always there. Running, running, running into his embrace. His mental self, his eternal self has the right words to comfort Sasuke, to shield him against the pain -- the pain he would inflict, himself, because that is all the true Itachi can do, and he knows it. Turning the Uchiha compound into a grave. Twisting Sasuke's mind, Sasuke's body. Itachi has no words. No apology. No excuse. He cannot offer those things, and he will try.
The truth is, they are no family. The truth is, Sasuke does not belong to him. Itachi does not belong to himself, and Sasuke does not belong to him, and Itachi cannot reach him; the pain, the silences, between them are too immense. Can never be breached. Nothing Sasuke is saying makes sense. But this entire world is without meaning; incomprehensible, and perhaps it does not matter, because in any world, they are still Sasuke and Itachi, forever and never family. Forever and never. Forever and never. It is hard to be doomed to make the same mistakes. To live mistakes. To be forced to live as a mistake, because you can never get it right.
Can never be right. ]
Really.
Then I suppose it is true what I said before, about your reality. That is not my reality.
[ But he does not disbelieve Sasuke. He is willing to believe something beyond the limits of human understanding has transpired here. Perhaps this is his own doing. Perhaps in coercing his brother to kill him, he crossed a taboo of the gods. Perhaps they have chosen to place him here, to show him this, for that reason. Although if that is the case, Itachi is not certain where to go from here -- what plan to rely upon.
He is, for once, at a loss. ]
So what will you do now, Sasuke.
[ Meaning: My life is yours, bought and paid for. ]
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Sasuke is naturally inclined towards bitterness, so he thinks - now you care. A lifetime of manipulation, but once the truth comes out, Itachi is dying to know Sasuke's opinion.
Still. Still, he would not have it differently. Even now (especially now) it gives him a little bit of a rush, honestly. Just - Itachi. Itachi waiting for his decision.
What will Sasuke do.
What would Itachi have him do?
The answer - Sasuke knows. Itachi thinks he is dead. This means - the last thing he remembers. It's dying. He knows nothing else. Nothing beyond that, not in the real world and not here, meaning: he does not know that he failed. Sasuke knows the Truth. They are brothers again. They are (are), just, Itachi doesn't know, he still thinks that Sasuke hates him (he does - only a little, its grip has weakened enough that he can move within it, redefine things, but - only a little) and that they will fight now and Sasuke will kill him.
That is what Itachi thinks.
Sasuke has to tell him.
He will tell him. He is going to tell him. He is - he has to, just. Think of how to say this. He has to figure out the words that will describe what the fuck has happened. He can do that. He has the words for it. What happened? You dreamed the truth, and I saw it. I watched it, all the things that happened. I saw that they made you do it. I saw that you spared me, and not for my eyes. I saw that you had lied to me, that you had lived a long terrible lie and it was for me. I saw that you suffered for my sake. And then things happened, and you died for me and then - then you hurt yourself and blinded yourself and I was angry and I came to see you and then I saw you every day, and then we were like brothers again, and it was not quite the way it was but it was not awful anymore and it was just - just -]
What would you have me do?
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[ ( He is living.
He is living. )
Itachi can feel the sunlight on his skin, can feel the warmth the air lends to the black cloak with the red clouds, the symbol of the depths of his treachery against Konoha, the quintessence of everything he has come to mean; to the Hokage, to Sasuke, to himself, with the secrets of his mind locked behind the strip of scarred metal, the cut digging deep -- as deep as the furrows and mysteries of these years during which he has worn these things, these symbols, these swaths of betrayal.
He is living.
He is alive.
The sunlight confirms it. Smiles over him. The feel of his heart within his body. The thrum and flow of his blood. His pulse against his throat; not sputtering weakly, lungs not clogged with red, eyes not draining the substance of himself from his body, from the red and the black that he lives within, is still within, even now; for Itachi was dying, was dead, broken and blind and rotting up from the inside, coming apart in blood, coming apart at the seams, all grooves and clouds and tomoe, all blood and his heart was too weak to handle this, to handle life. (He has been such a disgusting coward; courting his own demise.)
Living.
Standing, a lie, in the face of his only truth. Too unable, too unwilling, even now, to tell Sasuke -- to tell him everything, to fall to his knees and plead for absolution (that is what he wants, what he wants; lift me, Little Brother), if Sasuke had the strength, the wings, like the wings Itachi stole from him; Sasuke, who has been in the lair of hell, who has emerged to bear the mark, the scar, and they, both of them, have been cut to pieces, scarred and marked and made unrecognizable to one another. By one another. Holding only their blood, only their eyes as their memories. The confirmations of themselves.
Itachi was supposed to die.
That was Sasuke's only goal.
Living.
How can he live?
How can he lie?
Or not lie? What is even the truth now? He has been lying for so long; it is living that is false, that is wrong, and this, all of it, is wrong, unprepared for. This is the judgment Itachi, in his coward, his self-denial, had sought to forestall. To avoid. But here it is. Here it is.
And he knows.
He has his answer. ]
Live.
I would have you live.
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He feels exposed, suddenly. Itachi, as usual, cuts through his defenses - or slips in unnoticed. Sasuke tries to keep himself protected, goes in and tells himself - this is still Itachi. But he just - he keeps thinking absurd things, about Itachi cutting tomatoes in the kitchen, about Itachi's eyes - and suddenly he finds that he has opened himself. Itachi has hit a nerve. And - seen through him, perhaps. Has he? Did he randomly stumble upon this weak point, or has he seen, somehow, Sasuke's weakness? Has he, against logic, ascertained that Sasuke has craved death lately, in Itachi's absence? That he has needed his brother? That he has known...?
Has Itachi seen it?
No. Maintain. Maintain - he just control himself. This is like a battle, which Sasuke understands. If he just thinks of it in those terms - you don't flinch after the first hit. You take it and strengthen your defense. You keep going. You train yourself to do this naturally, thoughtlessly. Itachi has caught him off guard, but he just - he just has to fix it. Guard himself. No expression - as a shinobi, your face is also your weapon, your shield.
But Sasuke finds, quite suddenly, that he has absolutely no idea - no concept whatsoever, nothing - how to hide from Itachi. As though he never could in the first place. As though any attempt to control his face, to remove expression from it, would just twist and corrupt it and just somehow leave him even more open in the end. There is a disconnect between his brain and his face now. It just does what it wants, just, whatever, completely disregarding that he can't, he cannot leave himself open like this. He has to freeze himself, to remember how. He learned to do this. At the academy. With Orochimaru, he made it his art. The widening of eyes, quirks of the mouth - banish them. Don't move.
His gaze wavers - and breaks, off to the side. He turns his head, angles it, hides what he can. A desperate move. He can't look Itachi straight on. Not seeing him, not facing him - he can maintain, then. ]
I have lived. I will live.
[ The truth. Tell him the fucking truth. That's all. It's easy. So easy, just - open your mouth. The words. You have them. They are right here, on the tip of your tongue. I know everything, Itachi. I know all about you. But that's a lie because you know nothing. You understand nothing.
You will never understand what has happened here. ]
You told me to do so before. To live, to cling to life.
And I did.
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[ Yes, he remembers. The old words, recited thousands of times in his head, probably in both of their heads. The hateful speech he created himself, honed and practiced as one would hone and sharpen the edge of a knife. The words he had used to cut into Sasuke, even as he had been cutting backwards into himself. ]
Foolish little brother. If you wish to kill me, hate me, detest me --
[ The smile that begins to form comes through the words, around the words, over and beyond. Like sunrise. Like living, because the world fell down and the fires of Uchiha have burnt themselves out, extinguished themselves, and Sasuke's war is won, and Itachi's purpose is achieved; they have done nothing besides destroy one another for years, but here they are; here, living, against all odds, against all expectations of death. Simple, cold, and clean. ]
And yet survive in an unsightly way. Run, run and cling to life . . .
[ And now he feels it --
Streaming down his face. What is not blood, not the rain, not the after-effects of over-use of the Sharingan. But he is smiling, smiling even so, wearily, but alive. Impossibly, physically, seeing, with both eyes open, and alive. With Sasuke, beyond time. And perhaps it is all a dream, still. (But what a glorious dream this may be.)
If he wakes now, if he wakes now. He can live with himself. Can prepare to die again. ]
Because if you do not live --
The memories of all those we have loved, you and I, will be extinguished.
So many have died here. Your eyes must remember them.
[ He is already reaching forward. Come a little closer, Sasuke. ]
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There is a reason, or was. That reason rings hollow now.
Because what the fuck is he good for, besides killing Itachi. What other thing has he ever in his life accomplished. (As though he even accomplished that, really. To kill a man who wanted to die. That is what Sasuke is worth.) What the fuck is he even doing, besides killing Itachi - and what is he, if he can't?
Because he can't. He can't, can't, can't - he did, and he knows what it feels like. There won't be a next time. The spin of the world creaks and slows to a crawl. Itachi's voice goes quiet. Worst of all - Sasuke is left to deal with what is left of himself, alone.
He has nothing to do but either try to make something out of himself or die. As the former would require him to look at himself, really, truly look at himself, look at what he has done, what he has given up, the people he has hurt, the bridges burned, the mistakes, the fucking lies he has told himself and everyone else, the falsehoods he has swallowed, the selfish stupidity and uselessness, the people to whom he has been a dismal disappointment - with that in mind, death seems not only preferable but inevitable. Itachi closes his eyes and the world goes black. That is what comes from Itachi's death.
Foolish little brother.
If you wish to kill me-
- Hate me, detest me.
He does. It's not that he doesn't. He has hated Itachi, just like Itachi told him to. He is just so very tired. Tired of hating and tired of what comes after. In truth - he is fucked tired of being without Itachi. He spent eight years that way, all the while quietly, secretly, in an unspoken and unspeakable way wanting him back.
Even if it was just (it was never just though) to kill him. Still, still. But he endured. He did. It's not that he didn't. And it was a long time. No one could blame him for not wanting it. It doesn't make him weak to want to stop living like that. Or maybe it does, maybe he is worthless now, maybe he is pathetic for even thinking this, for even allowing these thoughts to enter his mind - maybe he deserves to die for being so pathetic, but he can't, he fucking can't. He can't do it.
Itachi is reaching out to him - but Sasuke has already stepped forward, already grasped his brother's sleeve, already pressed his forehead against Itachi's chest. The movement is achingly familiar, moreso than it ought to be (because Itachi was so much taller then, because he wore short sleeves then, because Sasuke should not be thinking about those times), and this is not what he should be doing, this is wrong, he knows it is. Lots of things are wrong. It doesn't matter.
And even if it did - he can't stop.]
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Sasuke, warm and alive, pressed against him. Against Itachi. Who ruined his life. Who bears the weight of everything. Who killed them all. And lives with himself. And only with himself. Who plays a role, always. Is still playing it. And yet Sasuke is against him, as if that does not matter. Sasuke. Like a whisper. Like a prayer. Sasuke. As if he could be forgiven. As if all of the hurt, the numbness, of a lifetime, is nothing, beside the life and the feeling of Sasuke. His precious brother. His dream after death. His dream -- that he would close his eyes, someday, and see him once more. Once more, as they were all those years ago, when Sasuke's smile was Itachi's joy.
His singular joy. Sasuke is here. Like no pretense mattered. It never could. Never did. Not in the face of his brother's life. Not in the face of those adoring eyes -- the only eyes which can see him and see through him. ]
Sasuke.
[ Before he can catch himself, his facial expression softens. Eyes soften. Relax around the edges. Sasuke. He could always and never be himself with Sasuke. Whoever "himself" is, but when Sasuke is here, it does not matter. Sasuke, alive. Alive in this place. Against him. Like he has wanted all these years. Like he never thought he would see again so long as he lived.
Itachi had reconciled himself to this reality: Sasuke would not never touch him again. Would never hug him, would never look to him with love as he had once done. And so long as Sasuke had looked at him with only hate, Itachi could live with that. He could pretend. But this.
He has no defense against this. And before he can think to muster a defense, he feels his hands lightly touching the top of Sasuke's head -- then his neck, his shoulders. Defenseless. Even he, Uchiha Itachi. For once.
And it is the best moment. ]
You cannot think of death. Not you, Sasuke.
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That's what he had planned. To die, when Itachi had told him - he had told him to live. And now Itachi knows, somehow, he just fucking knows and hates him, hates Sasuke, he must hate him for having been so weak. Fine. Fine, then. Sasuke deserves to be hated. And he doesn't need anyone to love him. He lived for years without it, without even friendship or affection, much less love.
But he is tense to the point of shaking, teeth clenched and eyes squeezed shut and his mind a blur of I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'msosorryItachi because he does. He does need it. Itachi's hand is on his head, his shoulders, and he has needed that forever. And it's wrong because he doesn't deserve it, he can't have it, he can never have anything like this, but he still has to have it. Just once, just for now, he needs this.
And the tension leaves him, slips into exhausted relief. Relief that clouds him, that fills him and weighs him down, holds him here, in this place, traps him. And he has no desire to be elsewhere. Nowhere he would rather be but right here, nowhere he can go, no way to resist, and the part that says you can't have this, you can never have this - that part is silent. One arm slips around to grip Itachi's shoulder, and the other is pressed between them, palm to Itachi's chest. Rising and falling with Itachi breath, the beat of Itachi's heart in his hand.
He closes his eyes, and somehow has the presence of mind to speak.]
I won't. I won't. Itachi.
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This Sasuke has been looking at him as if. As if nothing had happened. They have been behaving as if nothing -- but no, this is the impossibility of it all. Events happened. Years were lost. Itachi cannot return them. If what he has been hearing has been the truth, then a secondary side of himself had lived out an alternate life in this alternate terrain, but that is not him. Itachi is missing these pieces. Their relationship is not whole, not entirely placed together. It is old and yet young, a raw and still bloody whelp which needs to be licked into shape. And Itachi realizes that he has lost sight of the plan. The plan, originally, was to protect Sasuke. To give Sasuke his eyes. To help Sasuke defend himself against Madara.
There would be a war. Itachi had seen that. Had known about it. He had had to save Sasuke from himself. Give Sasuke something to overcome, after all. That was the role of a larger brother. To be succeeded by the younger one. To be trampled in the younger one's dust. He had made himself that sacrifice. In the war, Sasuke would find his own way. Now, the decisions were Sasuke's to make. Only Sasuke is here. Here and yet there. How? The war -- Madara, what does it all mean now? How have the parameters changed? There are too many pieces, and Sasuke.
Sasuke wants to be close to him, be near him. But Itachi is not certain that either can endure the friction of their separate spaces chaffing against one another. Itachi has lived a pretense for many years. He cannot merely drop it. Those years live within him. The silences are there, between them. Gently, he lets Sasuke go. Takes a step back.
Itachi wants to hold him, still. But the tears have already dried. How do you mourn for yourself. What do you do when you are dead but not dead. He had been about to smile, in death. To die happy, at least knowing Sasuke would survive. And now. And now, he is not certain he knows how to be a brother. Not any longer.
Perhaps he has wished to die partly because he is such a coward. Because, even now, he cannot keep cleave to Sasuke. Cannot tell him everything he is feeling. He wishes --
But. ]
Well.
You have defeated me. I have -- I have no more urge to do battle with you. I suppose, for now, my life is in your hands. Do you wish to leave this place?
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