Blind
The hospital room is sickeningly clean; all white walls, sheets, spotless tile floors, the bitter smell of antiseptics permeating the air made bearable by the slight fragrance coming from the wilting daffodil in a glass jar on the bedside table.
He sits propped up against blanched immaculate pillows, his clothes and hair a black blur in the sea of glaring white.
The room is silent and the air deathly still most of the day, a quiet sanctuary.
But to Sasuke, this is his cage, his prison, his lightless abyss from which there is no escape.
Escape. Power. Revenge. Oh, everything Sasuke has ever lived for, and all of it beyond reach now. He has no power if he cannot even see.
Naruto has long since stopped trying to heal him and moved on, and Sakura apparently has too, because she comes in only once a day to set fresh flowers on the bedside table—fresh flowers he can no longer see—and leaves, without saying a word.
Otherwise, excluding the periodic clicking of nurses' heels down the hall of his ward, Sasuke is alone—speechless, unmoving, trapped.
His waking time he spends willing his heart to stop.
--
Foolish brother, why are you so weak? Itachi asks. Sasuke knows this is a dream, and wills this dream Itachi to go away. Go to hell. Even better, take me with you.
A chuckle, and then slender fingers encircle his right wrist, the one broken years ago by the same man. Sasuke feels his arm being lifted, and a set of soft, cool lips press into the back of his hand.
Sasuke awakes with a start, eyelids fluttering wide open beneath the bandages, but eyes still blank and the world still dark.
And then the same silky, teasing touch brushes up his arm, past the elbow, tickling his neck until it rests at his jaw, and Sasuke wonders if he is still dreaming as the same lips press against the skin below his ear. A cool, calculated breath startles the ebony strands of hair that have grown so long—and this is so real that Sasuke is sure he is not dreaming.
"Why are you dying, little brother?" the whisper is soft, delicate, but Sasuke can feel the mocking undertone vibrating beneath his skin. He shivers, and Itachi chuckles again. "Amusing, I thought you wouldn't be as weak as to give up so easily…"
Cool fingertips trail up his abdomen, lifting the thin hospital gown softly, and Sasuke finds his breath becoming short and heartbeat quickening. And then lips press against his own in a chaste kiss, which quickly becomes a violent, possessive, painful—Sasuke gasps and groans as his mouth is attacked by teeth and tongue.
When Itachi finally draws away to shift around and remove the rest of his brother's garments, Sasuke is surprised and horrified to feel salty moisture streaming down his own cheeks.
I'm crying. Why am I crying? Sasuke's fists clench at his sides and he swings his arm blindly, suddenly wanting to hurt, kill, kill—
The same fingers wrap around his wrist once more, only this time roughly, painfully, and Sasuke winces and then both his wrists are pinned against the hospital sheets. Sasuke feels Itachi's bangs brush over his face, and he desperately wants to see the face of the one man he must but I can't kill, but the world is still as dark as ever.
Hands trace along smooth, snow-white inner thighs, taking in the silky smoothness, and fingers gently roughly hitch the thin legs over bony hips, and everything is vague to Sasuke because his heart is beating so fast and his mind is screaming, begging to see something, anything, to lift him out of this blind darkness as his world explodes in pain and feeling and existence.
"Foolish brother," the voice is slightly breathless, and Sasuke's heart flies from feeling power for the first time in so long—power over his brother, I can take away your breath, Aniki—"foolish little brother, I am blind too."
Itachi leaves, his touches simply fading like that of a ghost's, and the forbearing dark begins to dissipate, and then light—victory—is suddenly visible.
Even without his eyes, Sasuke can escape, he can avenge, he can win.
By sunrise, there is no trace of the last Uchiha in Konoha.
--
Itachi smiles, the sunrise reflecting in his glassy eyes, Chase me, Sasuke.
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