Warning for language, nothing else. SasuNaruSasu + Itachi. Canon timeline. Just Sasuke introspection. Short.
Odious Adoration
by vernajast
sasu x naru x sasu
You've been at each other's throats for years.
And asked yourself many times, why me?
He wouldn't go away, no matter how often he claimed to hate your guts and you insulted, kicked, punched, ignored him.
He let you: reveled in it, wallowed in it, soaked it all up for the day when he would need to remind himself that your disdain was real and palpable and completely aimed at him. Not the mix of hatred in with fear that the villagers broadcast; bitter, cowed emotion lunging out of the darkness to take a swipe at a blond little boy.
You didn't hate the thing inside him. It was Naruto himself that raised your ire and made you run faster, push harder. React.
And perhaps—when deprived of acknowledgment and affection for so very, very long—it's easy to mistake hatred for love. Just maybe...oh gods, maybe...he looks to you as you look to Itachi. With the same combination of odious adoration and affectionate hate that gets you out of bed each morning.
It's twisted, yes, fuck yes, but it's real and palpable and completely aimed at you.
For every single utterance out of Itachi's mouth, that stupid blond asshole has two. For every insistence that you hate that bastard brother of yours, Naruto's screaming, LOVE ME!
...