Upon a Fool
In which love conquers all.
The Uchiha home was never a sad or dreary place, it was neither quiet nor complacent and it had relatively happy residents. It had a loving mother, a stern but fair father, a protective older brother (and all that entailed) as well as an adoring, annoying younger one. All families have their faults; their secrets, but despite their deepest darkest and most ancient ones, this home was made and built upon the foundation of an idealist's heart and soul.
Their mother was a believer; in the good in others, in the world, in god and in love. Mostly love.
Her sons took after her, they watched her love with every fiber of her being and learned from her how it was done.
She set that unsurpassable bar, just out of reach of their grasping fingers.
Itachi loved with everything he had, there was no risk because he knew he'd lose, so he chose what he loved more; most. He chose his home and his brother's safety. His mother's dead eyes seemed fixed on him as he walked out the door. The dramatic irony was there, 'I was just doing what you always told me to do.'
Sasuke loved memories in the sick dead sort of way that we miss our childhoods with the knowledge that it's something we'll never get back but we'll gladly die trying anyway. And we do this, every day of our lives is lived trying to return to the moment before last, each step one closer to death. Sasuke, as he often does, takes this too far.
It is years still before he stumbles upon a love so unconditional and binding that he questions his reality. He'd thought he'd lost the contents of his mother's fairy tales once her lips could no longer form the words that told them. He was right in the sense that this was not a love that was shared automatically; that was his by birthright.
And yet, deserving it was so effortless, on the contrary, he put all effort into soiling the purity of their intentions.
Later still, in the present, he can't utter their names out loud. For if he even whispered them in his mind, they would conjure up sweet pain and shortness of breath, what is he to feel when the truth- their names- are spoken?
An idealist in theory, he believes such things exist, an ignorant skeptic in practice he doesn't know it when he sees it.
Love, love, glorious love.
Foolish man, blind to treasure gleaming in his pocket. He carries the people he loves around with him in his heart, like tokens for good luck.