part i of the desecration series.
warning(s): sibling incest one-sided, cannibalism, canon divergent in a sense.
pairing(s): sasuke/itachi
summary: What he holds in his hand is the entirety of his brother's love, having been stopped by its own shortcomings.
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It's a memory he would've looked back on with a sense of comfort once. He was five, rosy-cheeked from the summer heat, a wet towel around his bare neck, his skin prickly with sweat. Mother stood at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables for today's lunch. Sometimes she'd bring her arm up to wipe her forehead with the back of her wrist, staring outside of the window for a brief moment of respite. His gaze was drawn to the five tomatoes strewn across a sheet of paper. They were still wet from being washed. Sasuke had licked his bottom lip reflexively, looking on unblinking, taking a tentative step towards the counter.
Tobi doesn't disturb him, but observes him silently from a short distance instead.
He remembers standing on his toes and stretching out his arm to try and reach for one of the tomatoes. Unconsciously waiting for the blade coming down curtly on the chopping block. But the sound never came. His mother was looking at him, smiling in a bemused manner at his furrowed brow and the taut line of his drawn-together lips. His fingertips brushed over the tomato, but he couldn't seem to grab onto it.
"Sasuke, are you that hungry?" She'd asked, having put down the kitchen knife.
Rocking back on the balls of his feet, he'd replied earnestly, "I'm just curious what they taste like without all the other things."
Blood drips down from in between his fingers. His gaze falls onto the heart in his hand, larger than an apple, slicker than a wet teabag, then down to the body stretched out on the ground. Tobi had gouged out his brother's eyes, for safekeeping. It's strange to look into the empty sockets, dark and raw, the streaks of blood having dried on gaunt cheeks. Involuntarily, his fingers clench and squeeze the heart.
"Well, you can have one then." His mother had conceded kindly, picking up the tomato and giving it to him. Her eyes had looked as if they were sparkling, bright and alive.
His attention is drawn to Itachi's chest, hacked open along from the right breast downwards to the kidney. Ribs cracked and pulled aside to expose the worn-down lung, the abused liver, the curve of the sternum and beneath a hollowed-out space. Sasuke had done that himself, sliced through the skin and pushed and pulled his bloody way to his brother's heart. Broke off the ribs from the breastbone to get to the heart. His mind had been cautiously blank, relying only on his senses: on the sensation of cold blood on his hands and underneath his fingernails, on the sight of torn flesh still hanging off and between the ribs, on the sickening smell that nearly brought him to his knees.
Tobi tilts his head, almost in invitation. His posture suggests a state of relaxation, the arms by his sides, his shoulders hunched.
Suddenly the thought that he's standing on the exact same spot where he collapsed after the fight hits Sasuke so hard that he visibly recoils. He backs off, away from the stone wall and away from his brother's body. Itachi's heart is slippery, bracketed between his own clenched fingers. Aorta torn and crowned with coagulated blood. He licks his bottom lip reflexively, feels something ugly rise up from his throat and tries to swallow it back down. What he holds in his hand is the entirety of his brother's love, stopped short by his body's own shortcomings. His gaze drifts from the heart back to the corpse to the ground and eventually to Tobi's sandals, to Tobi's mask.
"Well, you can have one then." He hadn't even heard his mother's words, too concentrated on the tomato in his small hand. The texture of the skin was so smooth and he thumbed the curve all the way to the green crown.
Despite his hesitation, there's nothing to wait for; Tobi remains impassive, canopied by the gray of the skies and the scenery around them, standing out only with the red on his cloak and the orange of his mask. Sasuke can't ignore the weight in the palm of his hand, can't ignore the feeling clenching down low in his gut, can't ignore that the feeling is a burning curiosity. He steels himself for what he's about to do, uncaring that there's somebody watching, and brings the heart to his mouth. It's a soft press of his lips against the whitish membrane draped over the right ventricle, a nudge to push it away and kiss the meat itself. His mouth opens and the flat of his teeth press against it.
No sound aside from a stifled gasp. His nostrils stuffed with the smell of blood, of raw meat, and his eyes open wide and unblinking, startled, and his body struck as if by lightning, still and dazed by the knowledge of what he had just done. This is what his brother's love feels like: a little bit like death, a little bit like nausea clamoring its way up his throat. Sasuke rubs his thumb along the soft-serrated tear of the aorta, smears the clotted blood open the best he can. The fresh chill of the air barely registers when his mind is reeling from what he's done, from what he's about to do. His tongue skims almost playfully over the seal of his mouth.
Sasuke bites into the tomato like he would into an apple, but the flesh is much more yielding, much wetter too and the taste explodes in his mouth. This is what it tastes like without herbs, without spices, without the oil of the pan and without all the other vegetables his mother would use to prepare a full meal. He likes it. His bottom lip and chin are wet.
Tobi turns his head, gazes off into the distance. Five birds form a 'v' against the backdrop of the sky, flapping their wings loudly as they fly past. Sasuke doesn't know whether he's looking at them or at the light of the sun peering from behind the clouds.
He touches his mouth back to the heart, drags the flat of his tongue along the left ventricle to the torn-off bulge of an artery. Now Sasuke understands why the pair off morbid with curiosity, to satisfy a want as unholy as the one in his own heart, in his stomach. Clotted blood slimy on his tongue. His canines prod against the meat, but it doesn't give as easily as he had hoped. He opens his mouth wide, like he would when biting into an apple, into a tomato, the muscles of his jaw straining. It takes effort to cram his teeth into the meat, lean and tough and stone-cold.
It's instantaneous, the nausea hitting him in waves as soon as he's struggled to tear off a shred. The texture of the meat is chewy, hard to grind between his teeth, even harder to swallow down. His shoulders lurch forwards, but he soldiers through and tries to sink his teeth into the heart again. Gnawing into the lean meat like a dying dog. Sasuke licks over the outline of an artery, but the taste is too much. He jerks his head away and convulses pathetically, clamping over his mouth with his other hand. Takes a shaky step backwards, screws his eyes shut.
Tobi doesn't comment, but also doesn't look away. There's no goading or taunting, only a clinical detachment.
Sasuke spits out the tidbits meat and vein, the mixture of his saliva and the blood; it feels slick on the palm of his hand, on his chin and bottom lip. Thread of reddish spit making a bridge between his index finger and his mouth. He opens his eyes and sees Itachi's corpse, chest like a cabinet with one door open. There was no space in there for anybody else but him. He takes a sharp intake of breath, tries to settle into the vile taste in his mouth, turns his gaze back to the chewed-up heart. There will never be any space left for anybody else but him. He ignores the tears wet on his cheekbones. Light breaks through the cloudy skies but the sun doesn't appear.
He brings the heart back to his mouth and rakes his teeth over the bud of the torn-off aorta, tests the stretchy texture of the artery with his tongue before sliding his lips down to where he bit last.
"Do you like it that much?" His mother had asked with a playful smile, a hand light on the crown of his head.
Even now, Sasuke doesn't manage to tear off more than three clumps of meat, but he swallows them down raw, covered in membrane and clotted blood. His body is shivering all over, goosebumps on his skin. Tobi tilts his head, as if to inquire if he's done. Sasuke kisses the bulb of the left ventricle gently, all too tender for the abuse his teeth brought to the heart. Face free of any expression, he walks back to his brother's body, crouches down and puts the heart into the hollow of his chest. Pushes the broken-off ribs towards the breastbone. His fingertips linger over the stomach, his gaze on Itachi's collarbones, his throat, his face.
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I am fragile and unholy
Open. Ravage. Eat
- Tanaka Mhishi, Literary Sexts II
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