Title: Sick

Rating: R

Summary: Sasuke hates his older brother more than he can ever put into words, but the line between hate and love sometimes get blurred.

How twisted can a person become in their search for revenge? Sasuke knows… yes, Sasuke knows all too well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters.

Warnings: One-sided incest, one-sided malexmale relationship, slightly AU

"Foolish brother… if you want to kill me… then hate, spite… and survive pathetically. Run and run… and desperately cling to life."

– Itachi Uchiha, Naruto

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Sometimes people screamed at eachother, sometimes they fought, it was normal – especially between siblings. Almost everyone who wasn't an only child had fought with his or her sibling (or siblings). You said stupid things to hurt eachother in the heat of the moment, some people even went as far as saying they hated eachother when they didn't. Most of them hadn't ever hated anyone. They didn't know what a horrible, wonderful feeling it was. But some people… some people hated for real.

Sasuke really hated his older brother. Hated him so much that he felt like he was burning up inside, so much that it made him feel like he was freezing to death in his heart. His hate never let him rest. Every day, every second it was there. Whatever he was doing he could never forget it: the hatred. It whispered and sang and screamed and wailed and roared inside his head. It lurked just beneath his skin, just beneath his eyes – waiting, waiting for Itachi.

Breathe in.

Hate.

Breathe out.

Hate.

Breathe in.

Hate.

Breathe out.

Hate.

Breathe in.

Hate.

Breathe out.

Hate.

Breathe in.

Hate.

Sasuke's nights were plagued by nightmares of the past. Those who heard him tossing around on his blankets assumed he was dreaming of his dead clan. They were right – just not in the way they imagined themselves to be. Sasuke would dream of his father's calm, low voice speaking to him – telling him never to let go of that famous Uchiha pride. He would dream of his mother's soft arms around him, drawing him closer. And sometimes –sometimes– he would find himself playing games in the garden with his brother. Silly little games that shouldn't have meant anything at all but were so very dear to him back then. Those dreams were pure bliss, a lost paradise, but the love he felt in them –the love he felt around him– made him want to scream. Made him want to tear his eyes out, rip his ears off and peal his skin off, anything to make himself blind, deaf and numb – whatever it took so he wouldn't have to see or hear or feel their love.

Some would find it sad when someone had hated for so long and so intensely that love, to them, was pure agony.

But his dreams were not always nightmares filled with the love of family. Because no matter how much Sasuke wanted to deny it, he was a living, breathing human being –a human teenager at that– not a stone-cold weapon, and like every other creature: he was growing up. He had needs like most people did, only he tried to refuse them, tried not to acknowledge them. And sometimes his repressed needs would speak to him in dreams.

Passionate kisses and butterfly touches. Sasuke hated those dreams more than his nightmares. They flaunted his most secret, his most disgusting weakness, and shoved it in his face. It was always the same, pale body that moved beneath his. Always the same deathly pale face framed by inky black hair, with those blood red eyes staring up at him.

Itachi's body.

Itachi's face.

Itachi's sharingan eyes – always his sharingan.

Sasuke felt sickened by it. To desire his own brother that way, and what was worse, to desire the murderer of his entire clan like that. Sasuke kept quiet about those dreams, dreams he couldn't quite bring himself to call nightmares, and did his best to push them out of his mind. He never told anyone of what he dreamt. Even though he didn't really care if anyone knew that he wanted to fuck Itachi, but it would make everything much more difficult – it was taboo, after all.

Sasuke knew how people would react, they were human and so very predictable because of it. They would be disgusted by him, they would hate him, loathe him, despise him and some would even pity him. It would force him to lessen his focus on Itachi if he had to deal with their need to stick their noses in were they didn't belong. Bothersome, but it didn't really matter. He would never tell anyone the truth about it, even if they asked.

The only one who mattered was Itachi himself. It had been like that for as long as Sasuke could remember. Of course he had loved his parents as well, and his clan had always been dear to him, but Itachi... Itachi was the center of the universe. Sasuke had, before the massacre, practically worshipped the ground that his older brother walked on. But Itachi had been –and probably still was– cold and distant most of the time, usually ignoring Sasuke – rare were the times when Sasuke had seen the softer side of his brother.

Sasuke had done anything to break through the impossibly thick walls that surrounded Itachi's heart, had done anything to make Itachi notice him, to make Itachi proud of him. In the end it had all failed. Itachi couldn't even be bothered to kill him, because in his eyes Sasuke was hardly worth noticing. That day – it had killed any love or admiration Sasuke had ever felt for his brother and hate built a cosy little nest in his heart.

Everyday now, killing Itachi was all that occupied Sasuke's mind, because killing Itachi was all that mattered. Sleeping, eating, training and allies were only a means to an end. Every breath, every step he took was for Itachi, for the beast inside his heart, his mind and even inside his soul. Sasuke would do whatever it took to beat his older brother, to kill him – nothing and no one was more important than that.

That was actually a large part of the reason for Sasuke's cold attitude towards those around him. He genuinly had no interest in friends or lovers, there was no purpose in that which could help him reach his goal. Which was also why Sasuke was completly indifferent to the heartaches of his admirers. They should have realized by now that he wasn't interested and that they were only waisting their time.

The only thing that truly made Sasuke any different from a dead man was Itachi, because Itachi was his reason for anything and everything – even though Sasuke hated him. In fact, Sasuke hated him even more because Itachi was his entire world. Hated him even more because Itachi didn't hate Sasuke, because Itachi didn't feel anything towards Sasuke. And hated him the most because he made Sasuke love him so much that hurt, so much that it burned his soul up more than his hate ever could.

Sasuke was so focused on his brother that he rarely even noticed that other people even existed. He knew they were there but he didn't see them as people. To Sasuke they were as animated dolls: walking around, ready to fight, and talking in the same language he spoke but that he couldn't quite understand. After all, to understand all the nuances of language you need basic emotions. Sasuke only had his hate and a perverse, twisted love that he couldn't even admit fully to himself.

Then Naruto came and Sasuke, somewhat surprised, noticed there was another person in the world besides him and his brother. Sasuke disliked him from the moment he first saw him. Naruto was an ambitious idiot with a lot of power – power that didn't belong to him, power that he had never really needed to lift a finger to get. Sasuke knew that Naruto didn't like having a demon inside of him, didn't like being the outcast of society, but in Sasuke's eyes the downsides of having all that power were more than enough to pay the price. And Sasuke would gladly harbor any kind of demon in his body if it allowed him to kill his brother – even though the thought of doing it using power that was not his own left him feeling slightly ill.

Naruto would just have been an average shinobi –perhaps a little above average with the right training– if it wasn't for Nine-tails. Average. Average. Naruto didn't even have a drive to direct his power. So he wanted to become Hokage, big deal. Naruto wanted, but Sasuke needed – that was one of the numerous differences between them. And Naruto was… annoying. He made himself into the perfect distraction, someone who repeatedly placed himself in the way between Sasuke and his goal.

All of this Sasuke could have learned to ignore. What really rankled him was that he knew that if Itachi ever came by, being his normal homocidal self, Naruto would try to stop him –along with the rest of the village shinobi– and (here was the real kicker) of course Itachi would pay more attention to the powerful dobe than to Sasuke. Itachi was Sasuke's enemy. He was Sasuke's brother. Sasuke's to kill. Itachi was his and Sasuke would kill them all before he let anyone change that. Itachi belonged to Sasuke.

But Naruto was an ally now, a real person, too, and Sasuke didn't kill allies before they had become redundant. So Sasuke took upon himself to watch Naruto so very, very closly. Watching for anything that could give Sasuke the upper hand, anything that could make him more powerful than Naruto. And, of course, Sasuke couldn't let Naruto die before he figured out a way to defeat the demon inside of him, couldn't let him die before Sasuke was stronger.

Naruto, though he had done little to endear himself to Sasuke's heart, genuinly wanted to be his friend – although rival was perhaps a more appropriate word to some. It was unwelcome friendship and Sasuke felt his loathing for the boy grow. Despite that, Naruto became important in Sasuke's world, became important because he could make those animated puppets into ghosts of real people. Against his will, Sasuke found himself lulled into a calm when he was around Naruto and the ghosts.

Sasuke's behavior had convinced half the village that he was madly in love with Naruto – the other, smarter half was more sceptical to his motives. Only Kakashi and the Hokage saw through him. Only they saw the horrible, ugly and wonderful darkness that had become his soul and knew, that even though the dragon slept, it was still a dragon. Normally, Sasuke didn't care who knew what about him but he also knew that people were more… co-operative if they didn't believe he was insane – and having Kakashi watch him like he was a loose cannon was irritating.

Once Kakashi had even taken Sasuke aside after training for a –as he called it– talk about responsibilities and community spirit. They were treating Sasuke as if he were someone that they could grow to fear, like they were worried – worried at what he could become after he killed his brother. Sasuke would have laughed at that if he hadn't been saving it for when –if– he killed Itachi. They hadn't really figured him out as much as he had thought. Killing Itachi was all that mattered, if Sasuke ever accomplished that... there would be no point in staying alive anymore. By killing Itachi, Sasuke would lose everything and gain nothing – but killing Itachi was all that mattered now so he would do it anyway.

Because he hated him.

Because he loved him.

Because somehow, Sasuke was now sicker, more twisted, than he had ever thought Itachi to be.

Hate.

Breathe in.

Hate.

Breathe out.

Hate.

Breathe in.

Hate.

Breathe out.

HATE.

The End.

Author note: If you think this was overly repetitive than I would just like to point out that that was the point. Sasuke isn't just a bit angry at Itachi, he's obsessed about him, and people with obsessions –especially as strong as I made Sasuke's in this fic– tend to think in circular patterns that always lead back to the object of their obsession.