Title: The Same Eyes
Rating: PG-13?
Pairing: Not quite, but hints of Uchihacest.
Notes: Decided to try writing in present-tense for once, and I've read over it a few times to make sure I didn't slip back into past tense. If I did, don't kill me? No major warnings here. Except for my low self-esteem kicking in and trying to convince me not to post this. Beware of Itachi-spoilers, but what else is new?
Disclaimer: OMGNARUTOISNOTMINENOWMAKETHELAWYERSGOAWAY! *cough*
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Another night, after another day of long, hard training. Still sweating from the workout, the moon drenching him further with her silver light, Sasuke walks back home, following a common path.
It wasn't too long ago that he had followed this same route home. A pair of eyes had greeted him from the darkness, bright and red. He pushes such thoughts to the back of his mind and tries to ignore them, as he had been doing since the incident.
A rustling noise in one nearby tree grabs his attention suddenly, and his head spins to search for the source of the sound. Twin spheres, each with an unmistakable crimson glow, stare back at him. Seized with something akin to a mix of anticipation, horror and shock, he takes off down the path, much faster than before.
When Sasuke reaches his home, he slams the door and flops down on his bed the minute he enters his room. A sigh of relief escapes, followed by a wave of self-loathing. Running from animals now, developing a fear of little forest creatures simply because of their eyes? Maybe he was going crazy.
He wipes away the few strands of midnight hair plastered to his face. He's beginning to cool off from all of that previous exertion. Maybe then, he would be able to think straight. Sasuke spends a few minutes just laying there, listening to the sounds of his own breathing. It's quite calming, actually...
This process is interrupted soon enough by the sound of footsteps. Who could have entered that silently? Sasuke wonders, as he cautiously rises. Maybe Naruto wanted to play a joke on his teammate? Well, Sasuke would be ready for that idiot any day. Or night, as it happened to be.
"I can hear you, you know!" he calls out loudly. "Stop playing around!"
"Okay," a voice agrees with him.
Sasuke can judge that the speaker is in the hallway. The foosteps are getting louder -- he's on the move. It's oddly familiar, yet the voice does not belong to Uzumaki Naruto. The boy's voice lacks the deep quality that this one posesses.
"Would you prefer I showed myself?"
Suddenly, the speaker is right in front of him, carbed in a cape, standing tall in front of Sasuke. Hair that's hard to discern from the darkness around them blows around a bit, as a slight breeze passes through the house from an open window.
And red eyes are watching him. Everything is clear in an instant.
Sasuke would move to leap at the figure of his brother. Even without a weapon in his hand, he can still make a first strike. Without meaning to, he meets the gaze that he sees only in his nightmares--and his dreams. They hold him in place, and he trembles uncontrollably, unable to do anything else.
Staring at him... Burning holes into his soul. Making him feel as if his skin was being flayed off and everything inside him put on display for that one's leisurely viewing pleasure. All he can see is those eyes. It feels like he is sinking quicksand, each little grain of bloodstained sand slowly devouring him even as he struggles to free himself of them. They make his skin prickle, and he shudders again and again.
The younger Uchiha mentally swears, trying to rationalize his emotions. He couldn't feel fear. Anger, yes. Hate. That's all he was allowed to feel for that devil's gaze. The very color should make that obvious. Rage-red, a spiteful scarlet.
Why, then, was red also the color of love? Circumstance forbid him to consciously experience such a thing, but it could not change what had already been in the boy's heart. Adoration from a distance mixed with a longing to be noticed as the one he admired had been. Had anything really changed? If he could gain the power to claim his brother's life, he would surpass him and surely be noticed.
Even before tonight, Sasuke seemed to see those eyes everywhere in his waking moments. In every reflective surface, his own face would blur, replaced with that of his brother. After all, it wasn't as if there was no family resemblance. Red lettering on shop signs drew the boy's attention quickly, and he would twist and turn to catch just a glimpse of the hue before walking off.
He just couldn't hate them, or the person they belonged to.
As if sensing this change, Itachi brings their faces closer together so that their foreheads are just barely touching. "You can hate me more than that, I know it. Don't lie, you don't feel anything for a single being other than yourself...
"Our eyes, dear brother, are the same."