A/N: Inspired by the counting rhyme, the song "Murder of One" by Counting Crows, and my love of picking Sasuke and his issues apart. Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own a plushie Naruto and Sasuke I can use to act out scenes, but the real deal still eludes me.
one for sorrow
Mikoto's younger son is beautiful, with his crow's-wing hair and his ink-black eyes and his face as pale and delicate as a Noh mask – he is beautiful, and she hates it.
There is no place in her husband's hard-as-steel heart for a boy as glass-fragile as Sasuke looks; and Mikoto knows better, knows that he is growing into beauty like a knife, cold and deadly, but Fugaku will not see how useful that could be, too blinded by his own idea of strength.
And Mikoto will not tell him, will not give him the chance to break another child as he broke Itachi, but it still pains her to see Sasuke, too-pretty and not-good-enough and unable to understand why there is so little love for him in this family.
The Uchiha have no place for a child who is not a genius as Itachi was a genius; sometimes Mikoto wishes she had smothered him in his sleep.
two for joy
"My brother the little raven," Itachi calls him, and Sasuke, clinging to his brother's back, obediently chirps, opening his mouth like a baby bird begging for food and giggling with delight.
"So I really do have a little bird on my hands," Itachi says with a dry chuckle. "Now that's too bad – I was going to take Sasuke out to the practice grounds and do some target practice, but birds can't be shinobi."
Sasuke twists, wide-eyed, trying to see his brother's face to see if he is joking – it's so hard to tell with Itachi sometimes though, the way his voice and expression never change, especially lately, and Sasuke doesn't like it.
"So sad…my little brother was looking forward to training so much, too. He knows our father won't really care about him until he's a proper shinobi; I don't know what he'll do now."
"No, no, Itachi, I'm your brother, I'm not a bird!" Sasuke sobs, half–hysterical. "Look, see, no wings, no feathers! I'm a boy! Can we still go training?"
"Of course, little brother," Itachi says calmly, shifting Sasuke a little higher on his back, and Sasuke beams, tears already forgotten; he loves spending time with his older brother, more than anything.
three for a girl
"Good morning, Sasuke-kun," Ino calls when she spots him walking across the street. "I didn't know you were back already! You should come with me to lunch, I want to hear everything." She examines her nails, buffs them on her shirt, and smiles at him coyly.
Sasuke has never liked girls, because girls have always liked him so very, very much. He is used to girls with shrewd-limpid eyes, fake-innocent smiles, sugar-sweet voices when they call him Sasuke-kun like it needs to be drawn-out and savored. They follow after him and try to be helpful, try to be eager and sweet and exactly the kind of girl Sasuke would fall in love with. But he can see through them, see through their too-bright smiles and their too-big eyes, and underneath is something ugly, predatory; it makes him feel like so much meat.
He can see Ino feasting on him, like a carrion-bird; can see Ino's nails as claws, digging in his flesh, streaked sticky with his blood, plucking out his eyes as trophies.
Pale-faced and queasy, he turns away without a word, and runs off to find Naruto, who may be annoying and stupid but at least never wants anything from him.
four for a boy
"Just a little boy," his opponent crows, gleefully spiteful, and Sasuke wipes the smirk off his face with bare fists and lightning but can't find the words in himself to refute what the man said. He is a boy, and all too aware of it.
It is the litany in his head when he trains, every blow driving home the refrain –try harder, do as you're told, be a good boy – the echoing whispers of his family, his past, reminding him that he lives only for his obligation to the dead. It is the look in the eyes of Kakashi-sensei when he tries to pull him back, keep him from learning the things Sasuke is sure he needs to know to defeat his brother.
It is the way Itachi makes him feel. No matter how hard he trains, how skilled he becomes, Itachi just smiles at him and he is a fledgling before a cat, squawking and terrified and oh-so-pathetic; he hates himself for it, but he can't keep from cringing at that smile, like a child.
Orochimaru calls him a man and treats him like one, and while that is not a good reason to go with him, it is a reason nonetheless.
five for silver
Orochimaru's robes rustle like the wings of a bird when he approaches him, so that Sasuke always hears him coming, a split second before he would have been in view, and Sasuke knows that he does it on purpose. He has seen Orochimaru be silent, when he wants to be, moving through the trees like a ghost, and so that slight betraying sound can only be deliberate.
Were he more naïve, Sasuke might have thought it a kindness, Orochimaru's misguided attempt to put him at ease. As it is, though, Sasuke has little doubt that Orochimaru takes pleasure in seeing him stiffen in abrupt fear at the sound, tensing in sick anticipation of Orochimaru's cold fingers lingering over his skin and his snake-like tongue flicking against his ear as he whispers orders.
Orochimaru, Sasuke sometimes thinks, loves watching the dread as his victims contemplate their fate more than he loves inflicting it.
six for gold
Since he turned fifteen, Sasuke has only rarely dreamed of killing Itachi. Instead, he dreams of sweat-slicked skin and corn-silk hair and a hot wet mouth kissing him hungrily, and he wakes up, more often than not, sticky and aching for something he can't quite name.
It is these dreams he thinks of when in the middle of a fight, instead of the blow he was expecting, Naruto drags him close and kisses him.
They have sex for the first time on their knees in a muddy field, rain cascading off Sasuke's back, and it would be wonderful if Sasuke didn't hate him so much it makes his heart pound.
He hates Naruto for making him want this so badly, for being always in his head when he'd do anything to get him out, for being so much a fool that he still thinks this means something, that it will make everything better, that it will bring him home. It won't, and with every thrust he prays that Naruto will finally understand, and hate him, as he should have from the start.
But afterward Naruto, hair still songbird-bright despite the rain and falling into blue eyes that haunt Sasuke's dreams, just smiles at him, like he's won – and Sasuke, as much as he wants to, cannot run far or fast enough to prove him wrong.
seven for a secret never to be told
Missing-nins aren't supposed to come back, not alive, and there's no precedent for a trial. But Sasuke stands there, stiff-backed and hollow-eyed, regardless, so the heads of ANBU, and the Military Police, and the village elders gather, force him into a chair, and batter him with questions for endless hours.
He answers, voice a dry, toneless whisper as he gives them names and dates and places. But he can't make them understand, the what and how and why too tangled in blurry memories of his mother's voice and his father's anger and his brother's everything, and all of it tainted by the bitter grief and guilt and biting envy toward his brother that festered in his child's heart and became sick obsession.
He falters, words heavy and confused on his tongue, as he tries to describe his only brother's – his last brother's – blood slick and heavy on his hands as his breath rattles in his throat and he closes eyes that even at the brink of death hold no acknowledgment of what he's done, no remorse. And there are no words, none, for that moment Itachi went perfectly still and silent and he should have been filled with victorious joy and only felt heart-breaking loss, but he tries.
The only thing he refuses to tell them – and maybe it's a mistake but he doesn't care – is the only reason he came back. They can have his hate, his anger, his past, but the memory of Naruto's arms wrapped around him as though he'd never let him go is for Sasuke alone.
A/N: reviews are greatly appreciated