I don't know what happened, I wasn't planning to write at all today and I ended up finishing this chapter. But I guess it's all good. Anyway, I forgot to add until now in the previous AN that no character is an OC unless I specifically say so. Yugito is the two-tails, Yurika is some decoding expert from one chapter only, and Baki is that sand guy hanging with the sand siblings all the time. Heh. Itachi's wife though, as you may know from Results, is an OC but on the other hand she's not really taking part in the story.

Well, this chapter we're starting to skim the edges of the plot. I hope you enjoy it, even if it's a little angsty in the beginning...


Chapter two: For my brother

xxx

-7th September 1996-

When Itachi heard the doorbell ring, he hadn't bothered checking to see who it was. He was busy studying, he had certain expectations on him after all, and if he wanted to be on top he couldn't afford to slack off. It didn't matter that he easily got perfect scores, knowledge was power, and so he studied things above his year despite being three years ahead already. The unmistakable sound of glass breaking made him pause though, and faintly he could make out his mother's upset voice.

Dropping everything he ran downstairs, headed towards the living room but stopping when he realized his mother's voice was coming from the ball room, as they called it, a large room with ceiling-high windows overlooking the harbor that served as dining room normally.

"You're lying!" his mother shouted, and Itachi ran towards the closed door at the end of the corridor, thinking only something extreme would make his mother raise her voice like that. "There's no way he could have done that! Not with you!"

Opening the door a crack Itachi peered inside, tiny pieces of colored glass littering the floor, most likely having made up the vase usually on the dinner table in front of the windows before. His mother stood facing him, and with only his back visible a man stood calmly in front of her.

"Ask him yourself" the man answered, sounding bored. "He should be back soon, or is he working overtime much? Neglecting his precious family, how sad."

"You-" Mikoto started, seemingly at a loss for words, clutching at her heart. "Saying something like that right after-"

She paused, looking straight at Itachi who averted his eyes in shame. Eavesdropping was a terrible thing to do, after all.

"Is everything alright?" he mumbled, glancing up at the intruding man.

"Go stay in your room, Itachi. I'll call you down for dinner later."

He nodded, but hesitated for a moment in the doorway. The man turned a little, looking at him over his shoulder. Itachi couldn't remember much of what he looked like later, trying to forget as best he could about the incident and how he later found his mother hysterically sobbing in his father's arms after Sasuke had come to him complaining about being hungry, but he remembered the cold burning in those eyes, as if swirling they saw straight into his soul.

It was the first time he and Sasuke were allowed to eat take-out food.

-19th December 1996-

"But mother, I don't need medicine, I'm not sick!"

Itachi froze outside the kitchen, hoping he'd heard his little brother wrong.

"But if you don't eat them, you'll get sick. Sweetie, I know what's best for you."

"But they taste bad."

Itachi peeked around the corner, seeing his mother stroking Sasuke's dark spiky hair tenderly, her expression as always lately tired and empty. Sasuke was pouting, eyeing a handful of pills with suspicion. Something uncomfortable squeezed Itachi's heart, and suddenly swallowing was very difficult.

"Sasuke" Mikoto said reproachfully, immediately silencing Sasuke and making him take up a pill and place it in his mouth, washing it down with some water.

"What are you giving him?" Itachi asked, stepping inside.

"It's just some vitamins, go to your room and study" his mother answered dismissively. "I'm worried he'll catch a cold."

Not entirely convinced, but desperately wishing he could be, Itachi remained rooted to the spot. His mother had been acting weird lately, his father insisting he was imagining it.

"Can I have one then?" he asked, nervously, not used to making requests or going against his mother's words.

Mikoto was still caressing Sasuke's hair, watching him with a dreamy look, nodding encouragingly at the seven-year-old to keep it up.

"You're stronger than Sasuke, there's no point now for you to take them." She turned around to look at him, the smile not quite reaching past her lips. "You'll be strong for me, won't you, Itachi?"

Confused, brain working on overload with different scenarios speeding through it, Itachi didn't have time to react before Sasuke placed his glass onto the table with a determined look, his little head turning towards their mother for acknowledgment.

"I finished!" he exclaimed, and Itachi's heart sunk deep, deep in his chest.

"That's good" Mikoto said, standing to pick him up. "Let's get you in bed, it's getting late."

Sasuke sent an unsure look towards Itachi, having learnt to read the clock long ago but wondering if maybe he was wrong, and it wasn't only four in the afternoon. It was difficult to tell during winter after all, since most of the time it was the same pitch black darkness outside.

Forcing himself to take even breaths, Itachi smiled reassuringly at Sasuke, getting the usual giddily happy one back, the one that always appeared whenever his little brother saw him. Waiting until they had left he swept his eyes around the area, scanning it for what he knew must be there. If those pills were vitamins, and he hoped they were, he'd never look at dirty pictures again in magazines that his older friends showed him after school.

Eyes zoning in on a pill bottle standing beside the sink he almost stumbled as he ran over to read the label. Dizziness assaulted him, and he forced himself to read the prescription several times before the truth finally hit him.

These weren't vitamins.

Heart pounding he walked in a trance over to the phone hanging on the wall, pressing the numbers with trembling fingers, his father's office number that was only to be used in emergencies.

"Father" he breathed out, interrupting the familiar gruff voice mid-sentence.

"Itachi? Did something happen?"

"Yes" he answered, hands clenching the phone tightly. "Mother, she…" His voice caught, and he had to take deep breaths to regain control of it again.

"Speak up, son, I can't hear you when you're mumbling like that."

"I think mother did something terrible" he breathed out, feeling shaky, so shaky and he couldn't think what to do, but knowing every second was precious at this point. "She gave Sasuke her pills."

His voice was so low that Fugaku almost couldn't hear him, but the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line alerted Itachi to the fact that this was, in fact, reality.

"Itachi, listen to me closely. Tell your mother I need to speak with her, that it's urgent, and then you must take Sasuke with you and lock yourself into the bathroom, do you hear me?"

Itachi choked out an affirmation.

"And then, you need to make your brother throw them up, all of it, until there's nothing left. I'm calling an ambulance. Now, son."

Fumbling to place the phone on the counter Itachi bit the inside of his cheek, focusing on the pain. He wasn't a child anymore, hadn't been for a long time, and his brother needed him. No matter what, Sasuke needed him right now.

Taking a deep breath he ran, feeling as if everything around him was so far away, blurred out, the voice of his father echoing in his ears. Now now now he chanted to himself, up the stairs, slamming the door to Sasuke's room open.

"Father wants to speak with you" he panted, not from exhaustion, but from the adrenaline burning in his veins. "He says it's really urgent."

Mikoto nodded, placing a kiss to Sasuke's forehead before standing up from her seat on the edge of the bed.

"Watch over him, Itachi. I want him to have a nice sleep without any nightmares."

He nodded, every fiber in his body on edge, tense, boiling.

"I don't have nightmares" Sasuke mumbled from his position tucked underneath the sheets, only his face visible, hair in a dark Gloria framing it.

Itachi stared at him for a second, his precious brother, looking completely normal. Was this just some sick mistake he'd made? But then Sasuke yawned, and Itachi felt cold dread creep up his spine.

"Sasuke, do you remember the movie we watched a while back? The scary one with the aliens, that I swore you couldn't tell anyone?" he said on a hunch, not wanting to tell Sasuke what was going on, but needing a reason for what he'd make him do.

"I don't have nightmares about it either!" Sasuke insisted, puffing out his cheeks.

"Of course not, but you know, it was a real movie. I didn't want to scare you, but those aliens exist."

"Father says believing in those things is really stupid" Sasuke said with doubt, Itachi moving closer and pulling off the covers, urging him to get out of bed. "And mother said it's time to sleep."

"I know, I know, but the thing is, adults can't see them okay? And they're here, they… remember how they put their babies in peoples' stomachs? They changed your pills for baby alien pills."

Itachi was definitely making up a terribly bad story right now, but thanked whatever deity was out there that Sasuke was still childish enough to believe him, still looked up to him as the perfect big brother who knew everything and always told the truth.

"What?" Sasuke asked in a small, frightened voice, eyes wide and his hands gripping Itachi's shirt tight.

"Don't worry little brother, I'm right here, you'll be okay I promise. We just need to get them out, alright?"

"Hurry Itachi, hurry! I don't want alien babies" Sasuke wailed, on the verge of crying now, sniffling as he ran and stumbled after Itachi on their way to the nearest bathroom. "What do I do?!"

"Shh" Itachi hushed him, watching the stairs worriedly. "Come on, in here."

He ushered Sasuke inside, locking the door behind them with more force than necessary. Taking a deep breath he knelt, gently pushing a few strands of hair behind Sasuke's ear.

"You need to puke them up, okay? Then they'll go away."

Sasuke nodded, gnawing on his lower lip, hesitantly placing his little hands on the toilet ring and supporting his weight with them as he leaned over it. The sight nearly broke Itachi's heart. This wasn't supposed to happen, wasn't supposed to be real. How do you even begin to formulate the thought in your head, that your own mother, to your own brother, that something like this could happen.

In the end, Sasuke of course couldn't force himself to do it by will alone, so Itachi had to help him. His little brother may think that nightmares were about monsters hiding underneath your bed, or aliens taking over the world, but Itachi knew now that it was definitely possible to live your own, personal nightmare. Living through it while awake, knowing there was no escape, and the only thing you could do was hold on to that small part of yourself that kept calm, that rational part, and Itachi was clinging to it desperately.

He talked calmly, reassuringly, everything was alright, you'll be fine, don't cry Sasuke. His hands were now steady, holding Sasuke's hair back, his breathing slow and automatic. If he just didn't think, just acted in this relaxed-on-the-surface crisis mode, then he could get them through this. And when it was over, they would…

He faltered, feeling his chest squeeze tight again and fighting the feeling. He wasn't a child. Enough naivety had been forced out of him, for him to realize things would never go back to normal. Where there had been a family, a unity, something he'd always thought of as a whole, as a barrier against the world, there was now disruption.

Not a family.

You don't do this in a family, and so they simply couldn't be a family anymore. From now on, there was his father, still very much a reliable father, but not enough to protect them. There was his mother, an unstable element, a cause for worry and pain.

And then there was his brother, the one person in his life that mattered more than anything. His precious person that he needed to protect against the world, and now also against his parents. Because how could he trust his father, that the same thing wouldn't happen to him?

Rubbing Sasuke's back for a long time after he'd finished, he wished, not for the first time in his life, that he was older, smarter, more reliable.

If only the future could come faster.

-June 18th, 2012-

"Then let's get started" Gaara said, and Itachi carefully placed his glass back on the table.

Started. Sure. But where? What did he know anyway? Not enough his mind provided him with. Nowhere near enough.

And what was he supposed to make of this Gaara person, the wrinkled shirt, the obvious authority? At this point though, Itachi almost wished that this stranger would know everything, would lift a burden from his shoulders. Heaven knows he'd been carrying too much for too long.

"Do you know why Baki went to see your father?"

Itachi took a slow breath, letting it out just as slowly. Did he?

"I have my guesses" he replied carefully, not wanting to get into topics that might be unrelated. He still wasn't sure he could trust Gaara, and he needed to know just what the other was getting at before going into details that could potentially ruin his entire life and career.

"You're a careful man, good" Gaara replied, those pale eyes boring into his underneath ridiculously thin eyebrows. "I'm talking about Akatsuki."

Itachi felt the knot in his stomach tighten a little, making itself known, as if he'd forgotten about it during the car ride here. No room left for small talk indeed.

"You think my father was connected to them."

"My colleague thought so, and now he's dead, unfortunately not leaving behind enough of his suspicions to give me any clues as to why."

"Perhaps I need another condition" Itachi said after a few moments of silence, thinking fast. "I'd rather not get punished for my father's possible actions."

"Unless you murdered Baki yourself, I don't really care what you've been involved in. This is in my spare time, as I said, I'll follow whatever rules I want to and let the higher-ups know what I think they need to know."

"Are you sure you're not a gangster in disguise?"

Gaara let a tiny smile ghost over his face, so quick Itachi almost didn't notice.

"I ask myself the same thing at least once a day. Perhaps I am, but in that case I'm a gangster with the officials on my side. Anyway, back to the topic. At the moment, Akatsuki is causing a disturbance in the world, and I'm convinced they started out here. My gut feeling tells me the origin is the key. Judging by your need for a second condition, I'll assume you might know at least something related to them?"

"I might" Itachi said, letting Gaara's words sink in. Glancing around the restaurant he had the uneasy feeling that it would be easy for someone to listen in on their conversation. Maybe going to a public place wasn't a good idea after all.

"Let me put it like this: If I pay for this lunch, am I wasting my time completely?"

Their eyes caught, another silent measuring of each other. They both treaded on thin ice here, not knowing what could be admitted, what level of trust could be there between them. But Itachi was tired, tired of lies, tired of guessing things about his father.

"I want to know the truth about my father" he answered, mirroring Gaara's narrowed eyes. "I don't know much about Akatsuki, but I know they're responsible for things that have happened within my family. Very personal things."

"I'll be discreet" Gaara said, a gleam in his eyes, as if finally hearing good news in a dark world.

"You'll have to be."

"Is that a threat?" Gaara had raised an eyebrow, but didn't seem bothered. "Or is it the third condition?"

"I'm putting a lot on the line here, Gaara. I don't care much for my job, but I'd rather not traumatize my brother if things were to leak."

Nodding, Gaara held out his right hand.

"A deal then" he suggested. "Neither of us will tell anyone else, and in return, we'll tell each other everything."

"Everything that concerns the case" Itachi agreed, causing Gaara to give him a questioning look as they shook hands.

"If you say so" Gaara said, not objecting like Itachi thought he would.

Their food arrived, not that Itachi had much of an appetite.

"I'm paying for this with my hard-earned money, so you'd better eat."

Itachi looked up, Gaara most likely having noticed the doubt in his eyes as he regarded his plate. He sighed, but did as told, wondering how he was going to explain to anyone that asked why he was having lunch with this man, of all people.

"This is the point we can have small talk" Gaara broke the silence with, placing an artfully cooked piece of food in his mouth.

"Oh, yes, how could I miss the perfect opportunity."

"Well, I guess I should apologize for Yugito's comment earlier, she's not the only one too interested in my non-existent love life. She just said it to annoy me."

"Hmm. I don't think anyone would dare to talk to me that way."

"Not even your brother?"

Itachi's lips twitched.

"He's not very happy with me lately. But no, he's not the type that would make jokes like that."

"You're free to hang out with her if you want, she puts a nice perspective to life when you're busy with self-pity."

"Somehow, I'm not sure that sounds like a positive thing."

Gaara shrugged, waiting to reply until he'd finished chewing. Once some of the tension had let up he realized he was actually starving.

"Depends, I guess. I've always found it refreshing."

"Is she more than a friend, then?"

Gaara snorted, looking to the side.

"I'm about as straight as a spiral, so that's a no."

"Like my wife then."

Itachi froze the moment he'd said it, feeling just as surprised as Gaara looked. Damn. How did he even let that slip?! He'd never told anyone, and here he was with a guy he'd known for maybe half an hour, already letting things go to hell. He must be more desperate for someone to talk to than he thought.

"It's… not much of a marriage" he added, losing appetite again.

Gaara didn't say anything for a while, just watched him with too absorbing eyes. Itachi was torn. Part of him wanted to leave, forgetting about the whole deal, maybe go for a trip to some nice secluded place and never return to reality. The other part had decided that Gaara was a very good choice to spill all his secrets to, and he could feel it all bubbling just underneath the surface, as if he'd pulled the plug by accident and caused a chain reaction.

There was a third part as well, the calculating part quickly going through the best ways to silence the red-head before he could cause any damage.

"When I was about twelve," Gaara started, scrutinizing the fork in his hand instead of Itachi, "I was taken in by my uncle. He wasn't a bad person, he just earned his living in a way most people would condemn. He didn't take me in out of pity, or any sense of family bonds. In short, you could say I really am a gangster in disguise. I was just lucky to get out of it in time."

He met Itachi's eyes, and something passed between them in that moment, as if to say, alright, here's something we can use against each other, and now we're bound by that knowledge.

"I really do hope no one else is listening to us" Itachi said, relaxing slightly when Gaara broke eye contact and started eating again as if nothing had happened.

"I won't question your motives for being married to someone who doesn't swing your way, if you don't question my methods."

"I guess I have no choice but to agree to that, do I?"

"And whoever breaks their promise gets to be on top."

It took Itachi a few seconds to understand the meaning behind the phrase, but once he did, he almost grinned. Almost.

"Why do I get the feeling you'll end up on top of that deal no matter who's the deal breaker."

Raising his glass of water in a mock toast, Gaara simply raised an eyebrow and smirked.


Gaara smirking is probably very ooc, but admit it seems very hot. I know I think so. Anyway, Gaara has already started with the innuendos! How sad that there's so much left before any of them turn into reality... Any thoughts on who should top? Haha jk, it's too early to think of that:p

On an unrelated note, I got a new cat last week, very adorbs. Next chapter we'll get something that might also be adorbs, namely teenage Sasuke!