title: before December
disclaimer: I do not own Naruto- just the plot (or, perhaps in your opinion, lack thereof).
dedication: happy nineteeth birthday, les! I love you & I hope this next year is as wonderful as the last one. :)
prompts: "You stuck it in wrong, doofus." (which I modified, for the sake of staying in character)/ catching fireflies / and she smashed the keyboards with angry fingertips / "You didn't call! You promised you would! I was *worried*!" / something enchanting
notes: this is in the same verse as breakdown in the chain of command, however it was posted separately as... well, it's funny & everything, but the whole... meaning, is different. still a bit funny, i think, but at the same time, i hope you find some meaning in it? or something. idk anymore. what was i even trying to say?
When one of the highest ranked officers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department came home to his apartment to find his younger brother parked in his favorite red recliner, he merely says, "You don't live here. Get out," before walking into his kitchen to make himself a drink.
"I'm sick of sleeping on the couch," Sasuke mutters from the living room.
Smirking, Itachi grabs a small bottle of tonic water from his fridge and adds it to the gin already chilling over the ice cubes. It's not like Sasuke doesn't know that it'll be any different, staying at the older Uchiha's. The only difference will be he'd be sleeping on the floor without blankets or pillows. "You do something to upset your girlfriend recently?" After cutting a wedge of lime and dropping it into the glass, he takes a sip of it as he walks behind Sasuke and dumps him out of the recliner only to sit in it himself.
"Oof!" Rubbing his ass, he glares at his older brother balefully. "What the fuck was that for? Isn't there some rule about treating your guests well?"
"You're my younger brother. You're the anti-thesis of guest- like a rat in my food." Leaning back in the recliner, Itachi peers over his glass at Sasuke. "So why are you here?"
"Like I said, I'm sick of sleeping on our couch with Sakura and a bed only one room away," he mutters, laying on the ground and facing the ceiling. "It's been a week- and I don't even know why she's upset with me."
Itachi snorts but was otherwise silent. Knowing Sasuke, it is probably because he had left the toilet seat up again.
Yet at the same time, he has a feeling that Sasuke has a vague idea as to why Sakura saw fit to make him sleep elsewhere. The catalyst for such a thing, anyway. He is a little curious; they haven't had a free night at the same time in a month. Maybe tonight is the night- the night to catch up with each other's life.
Some stupid brotherly bonding shit, like the things suggested in self-help books.
"Can I have a drink?"
"I'm not sure you can handle it. You are, after all, my baby brother."
"Itachi, I'm twenty-three. I can surely drink-."
Sasuke is cut off by the phone ringing on the table by the wall. Standing up reluctantly, Itachi stalks over and picked it up. "Uchiha Itachi speaking."
"The chief superintendent wanted me to inform you that there has been a suspected hostage situation." Nara's voice is a little sketchy over the wire, he thinks idly, swirling his glass in his hand.
"I'm off duty for the night." He feels Sasuke's gaze on him, almost suspicious of something. But he knows the feeling- it is intuitive, like seeing smoke in front of your vision yet knowing there was something behind that smoke- that the smoke was a screen and trouble was bubbling beneath it.
Sometimes you weren't sure you event want to know what it is.
The feeling is creeping on him too, and their gut instincts are rarely wrong.
"It concerns you." There is still static, but even Shikamaru's customary drawl can't cover up the way he seems rather serious about whatever is about to come barreling Itachi's way.
"How so?" Itachi demands coolly. Resting his elbow on the black concert piano by the window, he gazes out on to the quiet street. Around midnight, all of the good children are inside, but the rebels- the ones who live on the other side of reality- are there on street corners, smoking their cigarettes with all of the care in the world. On the other end, he hears the strategist shuffling papers and finding the crucial information.
"There have been several calls recently saying that there's a house on Elm Boulevard where shots were fired-."
"Rather irrelevant," he interjects.
Taking a sip, he hears Shikamaru sigh. "Just… stop getting your panties in a twist, Uchiha, okay? God, you are all the same, aren't you? So troublesome, the lot of you- so just listen. Anyway, some people have been calling, saying they saw a flash of colored lightning and maniacal laughter and screaming-."
"What's the address?" Itachi is already by the front door, pulling on his shoes before Shikamaru can even give him any definite address, the cup sitting on the piano seat.
"193 Elm Boulevard- by-."
But Itachi has already tossed the phone to Sasuke who catches it and puts it down in the phone cradle, ignoring the dying protests of the person on the other end of the phone. He knows where that is- he doesn't need directions because, dammit, he's been there too many times as it is. His blood is cold- but he doesn't know if it's the lack of heat that spread from his ear or if it's the chill of early December breathing itself into life from within.
"What's going on?
He looks back at his younger brother- his partner, on the field- for only a second, but his glimpse is analytical. Wondering if his brother could handle it- what he has to say yet doesn't want to.
"Madara was spotted about a block from your house."
He has never seen Sasuke move that fast in his life.
"You are being stupid again," remarks Ino, fingering her necklace again. When she receives no response, she blinks.
Sakura Haruno is currently wearing her favorite black skiing hat as she clicks away through the World Wide Web, ignoring her blond friend completely as per not-usual.
This is new.
Giving up on fiddling with the filigree chain around her neck, Ino takes her hair out of her ponytail and begins braiding it loosely into a French braid. Out of the corner of her blue eyes, she observes the way Sakura's are fixated on the same spots of the X-rays on the screen and how the little taps normally made on the keyboard are a little more forceful than absolutely necessary.
The question of the minute: what is wrong?
In an attempt to get a reaction, Ino continues, "Totally not earning your nickname, Forehead. There's apparently nothing behind that wide slab of skin on top of your face, despite all of those rumors. How disappointing. It reminds me of when I was-."
"Be quiet," mutters the other young woman. After a closer peek, Ino sees the slight glaze to Sakura's eyes and the fact that the Google search bar is filled with miscellaneous letters, numbers, and symbols.
Tying up her French braid and throwing it over her shoulder, she stands next to Sakura and leans against her desk, arms crossed. "Okay, what's up? I mean, I know that you and Sasuke are having a little argument, but are you sure it's not just a hormonal pregnant thing?"
At that, Sakura presses into the keyboard with vehemence that was more characteristic of her boyfriend on a bad day, making her friend jump. Sakura hides her face behind a curtain of her hair, silent once again.
Forehead creased in both thought and concern, Ino looks at Sakura. "He didn't say he didn't want it, did he?"
Bitter chuckle. "I don't know."
"Didn't you tell him? I mean, you found out two weeks ago- I'm sure you told him almost right afterward; you were so giddy about it, remember? So what happened?"
"He said, 'That's nice.' In that weird stupid voice of his."
Ino sighs loudly. "You know as well as I do that Uchiha's are hardly the most emotive people. Hell- look at Itachi and Sasuke's relationship- Itachi insults Sasuke, Sasuke either gets sulky or sarcastic, and then they just do that guy thing where they nod their head and everything is okay. You knew what you were getting into the relationship with Sasuke. I know I knew it when Itachi asked me out."
"But it's just… he knows that I'm not like that," murmurs Sakura, green eyes glassy as she stares at her hands resting against her belly and the tiny life that is growing underneath that. "He knows- at least he should- that a baby is a big deal. Yes, we aren't married- yet. But…" Her voice trails off.
"But…?" prompts Ino. If she had to tell the truth, she is mildly worried about her best friend- and it is Sasuke. It always is Sasuke with Sakura, it seems. Why she is digging into the cookie dough, why she is tired every morning, why she laughs, why she cries- it is always Sasuke. Everything he makes her best friend feel is big, but it isn't always good big. He is made of extremes and that is how he affects Sakura, whether he realizes it or not.
Instead of answering, the pink-haired girl digs into her pocket and tosses something in Ino's general direction. Snatching it when it went a little bit too low to catch naturally, Ino is surprised at the weight in such a small thing.
Such a small ring.
"… You really are silly," Ino says faintly, forget-me-not eyes examining the shiny circle critically. It is a dainty silver band with two small rubies on either side of a larger diamond. The size and clarity are better than decent and… well, she really wonders if all of the hormones have been addling Sakura's brain.
"Ino," she yelps. "You're supposed to be on my side, not his!"
"I am on your side. I just can't help but wonder if you know what your own side is, let alone if there is but one side." Ino pauses to think, cocking her head to the left and looking at Sakura.
"So why didn't you say yes?"
"How do you know I didn't say yes?"
"Because you're here, looking completely miserable and Sasuke hasn't been looking any better as of late. Just… why say no? Are there any good reasons to not say yes?"
Sakura sighs as she seems to be swallowed up by her black swivel chair and a deep black sweater. "I… I don't think he loves me," she murmurs, her eyes hooded as they looks at the invisible dirt in her fingernails carefully with the kind of blankness that Ino had dearly hoped with all of her heart that Sakura wouldn't pick up from Sasuke.
"Then I have a question for you," the other young woman says, almost exasperatedly.
"This is not the time to ask if Sasuke and I are compatible in bed, Ino. You'll have to come to that conclusion on your own- and it isn't helpful."
She can't hold it back anymore- Ino rolls her eyes. "You're being so ridiculous you would make a boggart disappear just by breathing."
There is silence for a moment before Sakura chokes on the words- and maybe even laughter- in her head. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It's supposed to mean…" Ino pokes Sakura in the forehead before the girl can swat her finger away, "that you're being a silly girl and you deserve all of the sorrow you are putting yourself through. You can't expect the tide to change just for you. It'll change when it wants to, when the moon says so."
Before she can continue waxing on poetically, there is a knock on the open door. Twisting to see who it was, Ino smiles and waves at her old childhood friend. "Shika-chan! Come here and tell Forehead how lame she is for not telling Sasuke yes with me."
But there's that look on his face- like a man staring right into the storm and trying to tell the earthquake to hold on until next month please- that makes her flesh crawl and- Ino just wants to hide under a desk. Sakura is too enveloped in her indecision to see any of that though, so she offers Shikamaru a wan smile.
"What's up?"
When he opens his mouth to tell her, Ino knows Sakura wishes that she had left her stupid little mouth shut.
There is nothing Ino can do but watch as her mouth flips and flaps and she falls out of her chair in an attempt to stand up and run for the door (if she doubted Sasuke's love for her, she honestly had enough to last for the two of them, Ino thinks), trying to deny what had happened- what is happening-
What is going to happen.
They are skulking behind some bushes a few blocks down from the house Sasuke lives in with Sakura and Itachi is already wondering if it was a mistake to bring him along.
Correction: Itachi had always known it was a mistake.
The only question on his mind had been whether it would be a mistake worth making.
"Yes, breathe louder," Itachi instructs him sarcastically. "So he knows we're here."
"Shut the fuck up." Sasuke is hissing, Itachi observes dispassionately. He sounds like a snake that had swallowed a chipmunk on helium and ignores how foolish it sounds when it opens its mouth.
Honestly.
"Follow your own advice," he says lowly before he slipped around the bush. He knows that his partner knew what that meant- the second you leave shelter, talking is forbidden. The stories of the curses exchanged at the wrong time have been pressed upon them at the earliest spots in their careers- they have learned something from all of that.
The house is ominous, like a river in the dead of night. The night isn't dead here, yet, but tides of fear just rush at Itachi and he-
He can feel him. The joy he has when he holds fear by the reins and whips it into a horrible frenzy, the joy he gets from the screaming of the people inside-
He's a monster.
But Itachi knows that calling him that would be more than a little hypocritical- he tells himself that he is nothing like him, because he hadn't choose to be an instrument of Nightmare and Death- he chose to the puppet of Dreams and Justice. Deep down, though, he knows- that monsters crawl and live behind the faces of humans- that he is just as capable of embracing that which Madara is.
He does not consider it a triumph that he hasn't, because the older man had taught him about the darkness that lay underneath his… love for the people in his life.
As his mind talks, his body is crouched low from the way he's become accustomed to after his seven years on the force. Itachi nods at Sasuke before they begin to make their way past the walkway to the front door.
Their feet do not make sounds on the stairs; the old wood just creaks from all of the journeys made on them, each step breaking it a little more each time. Every movement, by now, is pre-meditated yet not deliberated upon too much, but they can only claim so much skill from each crack of the stairs beneath them.
When they reach the top, they see an old bicycle chained to the bars on the patio, the lock a mess of rust. The windows are still flashing with the same lightning Shikamaru had described in the call.
But everything is silent, save for the small cackling of laughter. It isn't bright- it's old witch cackling and Itachi feels the old familiar adage upon him as he felt his skin creep under the power of someone else.
He fights against the memories and he just manages to keep them at bay. It helps that there is not anymore resounding noises from inside, Itachi decides from his post next to the front door. Sasuke is on the other side and their eyes meet for one second. In the other's eyes, he sees the quiet desperation and determination that he has come to depend on.
No matter what he says can take away the way he needs Sasuke's will and optimism to balance his skepticism- his negative realism. That is what keeps him from flying around in the wind, like a loose plastic bag in the air. It's a dark job, theirs is, to see the darker side constantly and try to beat it back with sticks and guns- paltry weapons in comparison.
But then they're nodding at each other and the door is being pushed open and he's holding his breath, afraid of what he'll find on the other side-
That's him.
Itachi sucks in his breath sharply, and he knows the other occupants of the room can hear it.
He hasn't seen the man in the five years since that disastrous case that ended his cousin's life, since he had faced the quandary- stared at family and justice or someone who had become something of a second father to him in the face.
However he has heard tell of him- each time he hears of the signs, he's there, and no one has ever understood why- why he felt like he must go and stare at a choice he made once, and repeat the process again and again. Each time, he isn't any close to that closure he knows he's looking for, but he goes looking before it finds him.
"It's been a long time, Itachi-kun." The raspy voice with mad delight is familiar, he admits. Not necessarily because it haunts his dreams on a bad day, but because he doesn't let himself forget. Itachi can never let himself forget such a thing, because it has made him who he is.
"Uncle." The word is terse in the air and he can feel Sasuke tense next to him, impatient to end the whole thing once and for all. Nothing is in the room; there are no signs that it's ever really been lived in except for the scuff marks in the dust.
"Sasuke-chan, I haven't seen you since, oh, since you were a little boy." It's in a coo, like that of a doting relative, but Sasuke shudders at the mockery as if it is something slimy in the air that's touching him.
Itachi steps in front of his bother, barring all protest with the back of his head. "Your fight is with me," he reminds the ex-policeman. "Not with him. Don't you dare drag him into this."
"But I don't want to fight you." His voice is distressed, and maybe he isn't lying. The man wants to fight with Itachi by his side, not face-to-face, on two different sides of a moral battle (who is right, who is wrong- where is the muddled line). "I came here, figuring you would see reason."
"I have seen reason," Itachi assures him. There's a crick in his back, from all of the energy he's trying not to just throw in Madara's face, restraining, restraining.
"Reason is for civilized people." The voice is from behind him, and Itachi doesn't bother turning around to give his brother a shut-up-do-you-like-making-things-worse look.
"Exactly. That's why I'm the one talking and you're being silent." The rebuke is sharp and he wants Sasuke to understand exactly what was going on. Which he obviously was rather oblivious to. Their combined attention is focused on their older relative still, and he seems amused at the situation.
"Now, Itachi, you should be…. familiar with your brother. Don't treat him so harshly. And let a great-uncle talk with one of his only family, don't you think?"
"Do you even understand the concept of family." It isn't a question. Itachi knows it as such, and he knows that Madara is equally sure of it. "You tried to kill the whole of our family, yet you claim to be appreciative of their value."
"They were holding you back," Madara hisses. He is losing the façade of a well-meaning adult to the monster he had bred in his own mind. "I was doing you a favor, don't you see?"
His eyes are wide and bright and maniacal and they make Itachi feel like a child again, open to the possibility that there is a monster under his bed, just… waiting… for the right moment to pounce.
Then Madara's eyes narrow and his smile grows and Itachi wishes that there he could make Sasuke leave (get him out out out of there).
But… Sasuke has always been willful, and maybe at some point, Itachi had been thankful for his loyalty in the face of overwhelming odds, but this fear… He hasn't quite lost it and Sasuke has never had it.
There was nothing to do.
"My choice has not changed." It's whispered on top of Itachi's breath and the safety of his gun is off. The barrel is pointed Madara still, but it is no longer shaking as his eyes connect with him. Sasuke's is also trained on him, as he ducks around Itachi's body.
Madara's gun is lazily flicked towards Sasuke and Itachi's temper is flaring. His little brother is off the table- not a target for Madara to practice on. It has been an unspoken rule, leaning off of Itachi's weakness, and the breaking of it will not be tolerated.
He says good-bye to his teacher- the teacher he remembers from his first days on the force, when he was the rookie and the feel of a holster on his hip was new and his nose was raw from breathing in powder at the range- while shots are fired and he can't see through the smoke and gun powder. Itachi isn't firing blindly; he can feel his brother at his side and he wonders what kind of masochist he has to be in order for him to bring Sasuke, like a walking target on his back.
(It is a mistake and he's willing to admit that but would he make it if he had the chance to take it back?)
It's when he's laying on ground and he's run out of bullets that Itachi looks up. There's a small shuffle in front of him and he just waits for his great-uncle to come out of the dust and demolish him.
But it's just Sasuke, hacking around the particles of grime in the air, sitting up.
"So is it done?" he asks, his attention on his older brother.
Itachi just looks at him quietly for a second. It made him feel young again, when he had to tell Sasuke that everything is just fine, don't worry, you're a foolish little brother- all of those quips that made him sound like a completely heartless bastard. "Yes, it is."
They walk out the door and just sit on the front steps of the house. What they're waiting for, they don't quite know, but it'll come.
Tired and dusty, Itachi and Sasuke rest. He feels like coughing out the dirt he had breathed in inside that old house, but it's a time for silence, and it's not one for him to break. From the corner of his eyes, Itachi can see a few neighbors poking their head out of their doors with caution, probably drawn by the gunshot like every other curious cat who ever had an adage written about them.
His mind is wandering, and he's thinking about his glass of gin and tonic, how there the condensation on the glass has dripped onto the leather of his piano chair already. It wouldn't taste good by now, he bemoans, and the seat will be ruined. What a waste of good alcoh-.
That is when Sasuke opens his mouth.
Like every other Uchiha, he doesn't catch Itachi's attention by coughing- he just goes right into what he meant to say.
"Sakura's pregnant."
Itachi blinks, rather nonplussed, but he covered it up. "Did you forget to check the condom to make sure it wasn't broken or something? Or did you stick it on wrong? How careless of you. I thought you were taught better than that."
Sasuke half-heartedly aimed a punch at his older brother who promptly dodged it. "No, you dumbass. There's… that stupid point one percent chance that it won't be effective, right? Talk about…" his voice trails off as he tries to describe exactly what it is that had happened.
"Tch. Still say careless."
The silence comes back, but it's short-lived.
"What happened back there?"
It's the question that Itachi has been waiting for, yet an answer is not prepared. Not even in the back of his mind.
To buy himself some time, Itachi drawls, "I believe you were there too, foolish little brother. You heard everything I did."
"Yeah, but…" Sasuke struggled for a second before finding the words, "there was this… undercurrent. Not just words. There was something going on between all of the shooting and words."
"Didn't Kakashi teach you to read underneath the underneath?"
To tell the truth, Itachi doesn't know. Doesn't know how to explain it in terms and figures that his brother will understand. So he tells him that there is something there in less words, and that it's not something that he can be told and understand. Sasuke is chasing fireflies- the light guiding him forward, but Itachi can't catch them for him.
He grumbles, "But I can't just read underneath you and him. You're too… complex for that. I'd have to read in-between and underne-."
He is interrupted by the flash and growl of sirens and a girl who is jumping out of the squad car and running up the walk. Sasuke stands up and walks down the stairs, meeting her about halfway.
Sasuke had- has- some love, a sweet something that was enchanting in Sakura, Itachi thinks idly. She's in his arms and she's sobbing, gripping him tightly to her. There's a ring on her left hand, and it's glimmering in the dull burning of the streetlights.
"You didn't call! You promised you would! I was worried!" Her voice is raised over the sound of sirens around them and he can only see Sasuke chuckling before he bends down to kiss her.
For Itachi, Sasuke has always been that thing- his first… not love, exactly. Yes, he loved him- he was his little brother- but… his priority in life will always be him, Itachi suspects.
His brother- partner in fate, partner in choices, his opposite in so many scenarios…
There's something bright in the world on this latelate night, this earlyearly morning, like the children who catch fireflies in jars, bottling them up to light their way for a little while in the dark. Their own Pandora's box, so to speak, holding onto hope.
He will be okay.
A small smile on his face, Itachi walks away in the direction of the rising sun.
finite
A/N: The title comes from "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice. An amazing song- I highly recommend you listen to it.