Sasuke wakes up slowly. The light stings his eyes as he blinks them open.
The ceiling above him is white. This feels wrong for some reason. The room is quiet, smelling faintly of ammonia. This also seems wrong.
His mind is hazy. Fragments of thought float through his brain, slipping through his fingers. It feels like being at the bottom of a dark hole, with only his fingernails to claw his way up. Nothing makes sense, and the light around him burns.
He blinks, and the ceiling above him turns red. He blinks again, and it's back to white.
He takes a breath, slow and shaky, and moves the fingers of one of his hands. His muscles feel like pins and needles, and it makes him wince. He struggles to move his arm and get his hand beneath him, to push himself up. His entire body is weak.
He attempts to move his other arm, and immediately winces as pain shoots from his wrist to his elbow. There's a faint bruising around his wrist. Broken.
It sparks a memory—a flash of blue lightning, a harsh snap. But it slips away before Sasuke can grab onto it.
He squints his eyes, the light still unbearably bright. There's a figure in the chair by his bed, a book in their hand, and Sasuke has to blink a few times to properly make them out.
"Kakashi?"
His voice is hoarse and scratchy, and it hurts when he speaks. Kakashi startles, the book slipping from his fingers. He catches it before it hits the floor.
"Sasuke!" The man straightens in his seat, focusing on him. "You're awake! How are you feeling?"
Sasuke isn't sure how to answer that. His mind is blurry, and he doesn't know what he's woken up to. He registers the hospital bed that he's laying in, the IV that is taped into his arm. He frowns.
"Confused," he answers. Once again, speaking hurts. "What happened?"
Kakashi looks at him cautiously. "What do you remember?"
Sasuke pauses, trying to make his muddied thoughts crystallize. What is the last thing he remembers? Running—a long hallway-hatred burning hot in his veins, pain—
Itachi.
Blood-red eyes cut through his memory, and all of it floods back. Sasuke's breath catches, his heart stopping, stuck in the memory of a hand at his throat. His mind falls away from him.
(Foolish little brother—)
Blood on the floorboards and spilling from the sky. Staining his nails, his fingers, his hands. His father's eyes, his mother's face, his brother's voice—
(Foolish little brother—)
Screaming in his ears. His mother's fingers reaching. Blood, blood, blood, in his nose, on his skin, he can smell it, feel it, taste it—
He gags on it, chokes, bile rising in his throat. He leans over, feels it dribble past his lips, his throat burning. There's a hand on his back, a voice in his ear, and Sasuke gasps through the smell, through the taste, blood blood blood—
(Foolish little brother—)
The hand on his back is warm. It rubs circles into his skin. Sasuke clings to it, to the smell of antiseptic, to the sheets beneath his fingers. He locks onto the voice speaking to him, kind and soothing, nothing like the cruel one echoing in his head—
"Breathe… just breathe… you're okay…"
There are fingers brushing his face, pushing back his hair. Sasuke's throat burns, and his eyes sting, tears blurring his vision. There's a bin in front of him that is taken away, and something wipes at his mouth. The world is slow to realign.
Kakashi's face is in front of him. His expression looks slightly panicked, even as the hand on his back remains solid and steady. He reminds Sasuke of someone else in that moment, and the memory of a ten-year-old Itachi flashes through his mind.
There had been an accident with one of their mother's swords. Sasuke had gotten a hold of one and had ended up nearly impaling himself. His brother had been yelling at him, sharp phrases like are you stupid, you could have died, what were you thinking, and Sasuke had burst into tears.
Itachi had been completely startled. Sasuke remembers his alarmed expression, the way his hands had fluttered around him, desperate apologies spilling from his lips. No—sorry—don't cry—I didn't mean it—
The world goes fuzzy again. Ten-year-old Itachi becomes thirteen-year-old Itachi, and his panicked eyes become hard and cold. His voice becomes cruel.
(—cling to your wretched life.)
Blood on the streets. In the sky. Tripping over a body, scraping up his palms. Eyes searing into him, the pattern of a curved shuriken—
(You're not even worth—)
His nails dig deeply into his palms. Kakashi's face comes back into focus. The smell of blood fades.
"Are you with me?" Kakashi asks, his hand under Sasuke's chin.
Sasuke twists his chin out of the grip, shutting down whatever expression is on his face. Kakashi's hand drops.
The confusion in his mind rapidly clearing, memory is setting in more firmly now. He remembers. Cold eyes. A steel grip on his wrist. Hand around his throat. Pain—
Desperation erupts, a seething anger right on its heels. "Itachi," he snarls, shaking his sensei off him, "where's Itachi?"
He rips at the IV on his arm, yanking the needle out and ignoring the pain in his wrist. He struggles to stand from the bed, his muscles weak, kicking at the sheets encasing his legs. He finally manages to get his feet on the floor, but there's no strength in his legs. He nearly falls.
"Whoa, hey!" Kakashi stops him with an alarmed expression, pushing him back down on the bed. "Slow down, you've been asleep for two weeks. Your body is weak. And your wrist is broken, stop moving it like that."
Sasuke wants to shove him away, to snarl at him, but he's too tired. And the words are too shocking, snapping him out of the haze of anger that settled over his brain.
"Two weeks?"
It doesn't feel like it's been two weeks. It can't have been two weeks. It feels like hours. Like minutes. Like seconds.
It feels like forever.
Blood. Screams. His parents kneeling on the ground. The glint of a katana slashing down—
"You've been in a coma for thirteen days," Kakashi tells him. "You woke up a bit earlier, but… you had to be sedated."
Sasuke bites the inside of his cheek, his hands shaking. He struggles to process the information. "Itachi—"
"Your brother escaped," Kakashi says. Sasuke grits his teeth. Not my brother, never my brother— "His genjutsu had you trapped. We haven't been able to wake you up until now."
The jounin pauses, seeming caught between saying something else. He closes his mouth, an odd look on his face. Sasuke remembers a stretching hallway, lightning at his fingertips. He remembers sharp knuckles and hard fists, a loud voice and blonde hair—
"Naruto!" Sasuke says, sitting up sharply as he remembers. "Is he—?"
"He's fine," Kakashi says. He pushes down on Sasuke's chest again. "What did I tell you? Stop trying to get up. You'll just fall over."
Sasuke scowls, refusing to acknowledge the wave of relief that crashes over him as he hears that the idiot is safe. He thinks of Itachi, eyes cold and ruthless, and the memories of blood rise up again. He buries them as deep as he can, forcing the coppery smell from his nose. Forcing the image of the Mangekyou from his brain.
(Foolish little brother—)
Sasuke's hands shake. He can't seem to parse out what he's feeling. Fear, yes. Anxiety. And anger. Always anger.
"What happened?" he asks. "You said he—he put me in a coma. What does that mean? How did you wake me up?"
He despises the way his voice shakes. The way his hands tremble. Stupid, he tells himself, tightening his grip on the pale sheets. You're being stupid.
Kakashi looks at him warily. There's a look in his exposed eye that Sasuke can't quite read. "Your brother trapped you in a genjutsu. In it, he's able to fully manipulate space and time—"
There's that word again. Brother. Sasuke's vision goes red around the edges. Brother, brother, brother. I have acted like the older brother you desire—
"I know how it works," he snaps, his nails cutting into his palms. "I've been through it before. Why didn't I wake up?"
Kakashi looks deeply sad for a moment, for reasons Sasuke doesn't understand. Then he shakes his head. "I don't know why you didn't wake up. Why the genjutsu didn't release. Itachi's abilities are… I don't have the faintest idea how they work."
This isn't a surprise. Sasuke doesn't understand much better. There's so much about the Mangekyou that remains unknown.
Three tomoe swirling together, becoming curved. A hand at his throat. Falling, falling, falling—
(For twenty-four hours, relive that day—)
Sasuke feels his hands shaking again as he struggles to combat the memories, to keep them from sucking him in. A blinding rage fills him, threatening to migrate to his eyes. Twenty-four hours. That was way longer than twenty-four hours, you bastard—
His chest feels tight. Every time he closes his eyes, all he sees is blood and bodies, and it makes him terrified to even blink. He wants to cry. He wants to scream. He wants to punch Itachi right in his perfectly-straight teeth—
He wants to dig his thumbs into that man's eyes, wants to rip them from his skull—
(Foolish little brother—)
There are hands on his shoulders again. Kakashi is suddenly very close to him, with that same alarmed look on his face again. "Sasuke, breathe."
Sasuke didn't realize his breathing sped up. He attempts to return it to normal, to blink the red from his vision. Kakashi's face blurs with Itachi's in his mind, concern into cruelty, and Sasuke presses his hand against the mattress beneath him, putting pressure on his broken wrist.
(You're not even—)
The pain causes his vision to go white. The images fade.
He's left with a hot burn of shame, hating the look on his sensei's face. Like he's a skittish cat, like he has to tread carefully around him, like he's something fragile. "Sasuke—"
"I'm fine," Sasuke snaps, before he can even finish the question. He shrugs the man's hands from his shoulders. "How did you wake me up?"
There it is again. That pause. That reluctance. Sasuke feels himself bristle. "Kakashi—"
"Promise me you'll remain calm. When I tell you, you can't freak out."
"Tell me what?"
Kakashi pauses again, his gaze searching Sasuke's face. Then he tells him, "Your brother woke you up. He was the only one who could. Jiraiya and I tracked him down."
There's a faint roaring in his ears. The world becomes less focused again. Sasuke doesn't understand. Itachi—that man—helped him? Why—why would he—
Blood. Screams. The floor beneath his cheek, fingers scraping against the bloody wood. Icy eyes staring down at him—
(To test the limits of my ability.)
Sasuke's eyes bleed into red. Rage-anger-hatred-fury burns through his veins like a fire, like a match against a line of gasoline. His heart beats it, a litany of Itachi-Itachi-Itachi.
"Where is he?!" Sasuke snarls, ripping back the sheets and shoving himself from the bed. His Sharingan brings everything into sharp, vivid focus, seems to paint the world in red. "You said you caught him?! Where is he—Where—"
His mother's fingers reaching out. Why didn't… you save… us?
He tries to push past his sensei, tries to make it to the door. But a sharp pain spikes through his chest, punching the breath from his lungs. He gasps in surprise, coughing, pain pain pain, and he finds himself stumbling. Kakashi catches him just before his knees hit the hard floor.
"That is enough," he says. Vaguely, Sasuke registers that he hasn't ever heard the man be so sharp with him before. "What did I tell you? You're aggravating your injuries, sit down. You'll puncture a lung."
Kakashi pushes him back down on the bed. Sasuke is in too much pain to fight him. Tears sting at his eyes. Tears of pain. Tears of anger. Tears of helplessness.
"That—that man—"
(And one day, when you possess the same eyes—)
Sasuke's chest burns. Breathing hurts.
"Itachi is locked up," Kakashi tells him. "He isn't going anywhere. Calm down."
Sasuke wants to snarl at the words. Calm down? Calm down? But all his previous energy seems to have left him. All he can do is sink back into the mattress, a helpless rage burning through his veins. It lights his blood on fire, but there's nowhere for him to direct it.
It fizzles out, leaving a wave of despair behind it.
(Foolish little brother. You're not even worth killing.)
Sasuke's bones feel heavy, like they're made of lead. The back of his throat burns. He closes his eyes, and he sees his mother's gaping neck. He sees his father's bloody lips. He sees blood, and bodies, and cold, cold eyes.
"Why?" Sasuke asks. Speaking hurts, and he resists the urge to reach up and touch the finger-shaped bruises he knows are around his neck. "Why did he help me?"
Kakashi is silent for a long moment. He sighs. "I don't know."
The ceiling above Sasuke is white. He blinks, and it turns red. He blinks again, and it goes back to white.
"I want to be alone," he says.
He doesn't look at Kakashi, just stares up at the ceiling, but he can feel the way the jounin hesitates. The way his gaze lingers. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Kakashi hesitates a moment longer. Then Sasuke feels his gaze drop. "Okay. But Tsunade will want to examine you soon. I'll have to tell her you're awake."
"Tsunade?"
"Fifth Hokage."
"Oh."
After another pause, Sasuke hears the click of the door opening. Kakashi slips from the room. Sasuke closes his eyes, placing his arm over his eyes. He thinks about that man. About how close he is to him right now. Only blocks away—
Behind his eyes, he sees streets stained in blood. He sees bodies littering the ground. He sees a glowing red moon, and whirling pinwheel eyes. He sees his parents crash to the floor, over and over and over.
Tears sting at his eyes, choking him. He bites them back desperately.
Why, Sasuke thinks. A single tear escapes, slipping down his cheek. Why would he help me?