For the love of my father
Author: YumiAngel
Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me
Rating: An exaggerated T
Summary: Sasuke-centric "Mikoto laughs freely at her youngest son, and his fathers eyes pass right through him, always seeing Itachi, Itachi."
A/N: A one-shot originally mean to bind together a short story that could have been left unwritten, but wasn't.
------------------------------
Intellectually, Sasuke knows why he looks good. It is the result of both amazing genes and being skilful in battle. One generally tends to look better in clean clothes. It is also the result of careful grooming. He got his hair from his mother, a shiny black colour so dark it looked blue, and his eyes from his father. They are big and black like the abyss, and a carefully wielded weapon when he is young.
When Sasuke is four, he is irresistible.
Sasuke loves his mother more than anything, but doesn't admire her the same way he admires his father. Wherein his mother is soft and kind, all tender smiles and smothering hugs, his father is cold like the summer night, a dark and imposing presence at the end of the dinner table. It is that imposing presence that makes him look down silently at his food as he eats, and those dark glances that make him shiver with fear every time he catches his fathers interest.
Uchiha have always been attracted to power, and Sasuke is no exception.
Fugaku is a strong presence hanging over the whole Uchiha district, and even his own sister shivers and glances nervously at the ground as he passes by. Sasuke thinks his father looks very lonely on those moments and decides to never be like him. Then Mikoto grabs Sasuke's hands and they hurry to reach the Uchiha patriarch before he walks too far from his sister. Sasuke's mother is breathless, but hurries to invite her for a cup of tea the next Saturday anyway.
Fumiko hesitates, and Fugaku turns his head away. Sasuke can feel his mother's hand shaking, and despite being so small, he realizes that his mother really, really wants her to accept the invitation. Despite knowing that it isn't the kind of strength Fugaku looks for in his sons, he shyly looks at his aunt up and down before tugging on the side of her loose kimono. Her head snaps down to look at him with surprise, and Sasuke gives him the look.
No word is uttered, but the please hangs in the air nevertheless.
Fumiko accepts the invitation, and with a nod to the family hurries away. Fugaku gives Sasuke a sharp look, and the boy pouts to the side, and thinks silently to himself that his father is stupid. It's obvious that he misses his sister like Sasuke misses Itachi when his big brother is gone.
Weeks after, Sasuke goes on ignored, except for the sharp looks his father sends him when the four year old doesn't notice. Itachi comes back from a mission with another comma in his Sharingan, and Fugaku smiles. Envious, Sasuke wants to throw a tantrum for the attention. But he has been raised Uchiha, and he knows better.
Over the next year Sasuke watches from the side Itachi come more and more powerful, and his silent footsteps start to trail his brother more often than not when he's in the house. Itachi is seeping of power now, and Sasuke is attracted by it. His father never says it, but Sasuke's grand parents do, and he comes to the realization that everybody wants him to be like Itachi.
Sasuke's greatest wish is to be acknowledged by his father, so he does his best to copy his brother, for it is obvious for the whole clan that Itachi is loved and respected. The clan no longer shivers when Fugaku passes the streets, the fear reserved now for ten year old Itachi who glides darkly along the streets. Sasuke doesn't understand why Fugaku seems both sad and happy at the same time, and stalks after his brother, imitating his walk.
Mikoto laughs freely at her youngest son, and his fathers eyes pass right through him, always seeing Itachi, Itachi.
When Sasuke is six, he decides to surpass his brother and become the son in his fathers eyes. It's hard, because Itachi is a true genius, the presentation of a new age for the Uchiha clan and as opposed to his little brother, is actually taken seriously. Sasuke doesn't give up, but when being better than his big brother doesn't go well, he tries other ways to get his fathers attention.
His mother learns him to cook and when Sasuke is seven, he helps his mother to make his cake. Fugaku is looking at him now, but there is no love in his eyes, only silent contemplation. Sasuke gives up cooking and puts more effort into his training, and slowly, but surely, he starts to gain his father's attention. Fugaku no longer looks down at Itachi as his favoured son; the dark eyes of the Uchiha patriarch are now filled with suspicion and fear.
Sasuke finds it funny, but doesn't comment. Even though Itachi is stronger than Fugaku now, at the age of twelve, he still has no time for Sasuke and he feels like their relationship is lacking that something. He continues to please his father by mastering the Grand Fireball in a short span of time, and Fugaku messes with his hair and advices him to be nothing like his brother.
Some time after that, Itachi goes and kills the clan, every aunt and uncle, every grandchild and grandmother. That something that was missing from their brotherly relationship is now filled with hate, and Sasuke starts to hate himself.
Years pass, and he becomes stronger, smarter, and more beautiful with each passing day. He thinks of the clan every day, from sunrise to sundown, and makes a poem out of the names of his relatives and what made them unique in an effort not to forget them. He is appalled to notice that just a week after their deaths, at the funeral, the giant tomb stone is a missing a name.
The missing name is Uchiha Fumiko, and even though the Hokage expresses his apologies for the mistake, Sasuke's faith stumbles.
Even though his father is dead, he continues to work for his acknowledgement, always getting stronger, stronger and more obsessed. He trains his body to the edge and spends the time his body is too tired to do anything but spasm painfully to study. He is third best in his class after Sakura and Shikamaru, but does not let himself wallow in it.
Uchiha Fugaku didn't admire smarts. He admired power.
Sasuke thinks of people his father looked straight at, and can only think of his mother and his brother. The memories are already fading, and when he thinks back to the poem he though for all the clan members, he is startled to notice that he can't recall why he thought Jun rhymed with fun. In fact, he can't recollect Jun at all.
Itachi was strong and silent. Mikoto was beautiful and submissive. Sasuke ends up trying to become both, and he forces himself to groom his hair and to practice taking commands from his superiors. When he is eleven the academy instructor he has before Iruka thinks he's given up on his hate and revenge, because he meekly says;
"Yes, sensei."
The next day the academy teacher shows up for work singed, and the rumours begin to spread. It's not all about the last survivor, or That Uchiha boy any more. Now it's prodigy, genius; ninja. Personally, Sasuke prefers his own name, and he's not really as annoyed as he seems when all the screaming the girls go; Sasuke-kun! Sasuke-kun!
Sasuke feels that maybe he's done something right after all, and maybe all that careful scrubbing and bathing is starting to show. His hair is dark and luscious and he trims it every three weeks so that the spikes fall around his ears perfectly. When he is running the washing cloth over his toes in the bathtub, he listens carefully through the echo of the curtain of long hair that falls to cover his ears. Being beautiful is Sasuke's darkest, not so hidden secret.
His hair reaches long past his shoulders when it's wet, and when he looks into the mirror he looks exactly like a girl, except his nose is too long and his lips are a bit too wide, as per his father. He tries to think of Itachi, of that serious face his brother was always wearing, Before, but only laughs himself silly. Even though Sasuke is burdened by the weight of his dead clan, he is only twelve, and sometimes he has to remind himself not to call his existence when he comes home.
He tries for his fathers frown, but his lips only twist into that childish pout he used when he was half the size of himself. He looks in the mirror long and hard, from his big black eyes to his high cheekbones and wet, flat hair, and gives the mirror one of those smiles his mother used to give to his father.
He shudders and smashes the mirror into pieces, the anger running out of him faster than the blood trailing down his fingers. He stitches his hand together carefully, because he doesn't want to scar, and goes on with life like before.
Years pass, and Sasuke no longer takes long baths in his apartment, but plays the game in the darkest pits of Orochimaru's headquarters, running his hands along the surface of the hot spring while trading twisted ideas and half-lies with Kabuto. Kabuto thinks him narcissistic, and tells him so, always eager to explore any holes in the boys emotional defence.
Sasuke lets out an incorrigible sound and continues to wash his hair. On the other side of the shallow spring, Orochimaru, resting in body number four, laughs. The sound echoes in the bathing cavern and Sasuke counts the bouncing sound of Orochimaru's laugh until his chakra enforced ears no longer can detect it. He counts to fourteen, before Kabuto makes a splash in the water and send ways of painful sound waves to his sensitive ears.
Sasuke hisses and cuts the chakra flow and Orochimaru smirks at him mockingly. Sasuke smirks back equally disturbingly, and Kabuto can't hide his shiver in the mass of water where every movement is always felt by the other two.
Sasuke looks across the water at the not so imposing figure of his teacher, who is leaning against the stones with his limp hair falling over his face. The black dye is losing its hold and the faded roots reveal the original hair colour of body number four. Even though Orochimaru looks exhausted and pathetic, his chakra is still rolling off of him in deliciously strong waves, and Sasuke looks at him from under lidded eyes.
Orochimaru gazes back at him, his yellow eyes darkened by something far darker tinted with lust, and Sasuke fantasizes about choking him with the sannins own snakes. Kabuto, desperate to break the heavy atmosphere, begins to question Sasuke about his second dream, the resurrection of his clan.
Sasuke doesn't remember that well any more, it's been seven years after all, but he muses on his father's likes and dislikes some, and assumes that grandchildren would make Fugaku proud. He thinks of the padding of small feet across tatami mats and huge bright eyes and the innocent smiles of children. His eyes glaze over with want and he wonders if it is strange to feel this way at the age of fifteen.
All the while Sasuke has been reminiscencing, Kabuto has been going on about heirs and potential partners, and now has moved on to questioning him on his sexual orientation.
Orochimaru gives his version of a mad giggle on the other side and Sasuke looks blankly at the medic nin. Kabuto is feeling confident and meets the stare head on. Kabuto then resumes to rattle of all the ways to have a baby of his own without actually having the sex.
A year later, Sasuke is back in Konoha, his back against Naruto's, while the long grass rustles around them, and a butterfly lands briefly on his nose. Naruto is looking at the sky above them, his head heavy on Sasuke's shoulder. The air is heavy with unspoken words, but neither of them feels the need to speak. A particularly hard gust runs across the field of grass, and Naruto sings to fill the silence that to him is awkward.
His voice is soft but undeniably male, and Sasuke tries to remember the sound of his mothers voice, but isn't surprised when he can't. It has been so long, and the memories are fading like the colours his blind eyes cannot see. The warmth across his back is a comfort, and his thoughts run back to his father once again, a rarer occurrence these days.
He thinks back to that strong smile that failed to remove the small spots under Fugaku's lower lip and wonders if that is the way Naruto is smiling right now, lips drawn thin and teeth flashing in the sun.
Sasuke can feel the grass under his black pants, and shifts uncomfortably. Naruto may be comfortable, but the hard grass isn't. He assumes the pants are black, but he can't really tell. It wouldn't be the first time Naruto changed his clothes without him noticing either, but that was some while ago.
Tricking a blind man is not really anything to boast about, after all.
Naruto let's out a long sigh, and finally speaks.
"Was it worth it?"
Sasuke thinks of the names, the only thing he hangs on to as dearly as to his life, and wonders. The answer makes his tongue dry, and he thinks of his mother's spotless floors covered in blood and his grandparents store trashed, the sign hanging lopsidedly after the slaughter. He thinks of his father, of that strong presence at the end of the table, smiling at nothing in a way Sasuke could only hope some day to match.
Time is a peculiar thing, and maybe turning blind was really a blessing in disguise, because he can remember less and less of the bad things, and his mind is filling the empty spaces with conversations that were never spoken and smiles that were never shared.
Naruto, curiously turns around to look at Sasuke, only to freeze once he catches a glimpse of Sasuke's face.
"I loved my family very much."
And Naruto thinks that that pure and unguarded smile that has spread across Sasuke's face is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen and he can practically feel the love through the brunettes words.
"I get that." Naruto says, and then adds, carefully, "I think".
------------------------------------
A/N2: Whoa. After reading this for the second time, I just royally realized this sucks big time. I'll leave it up anyhow, I think it's slightly amusing to read what i've written, before.