Hi everyone, I finally had time to look into this story again. I am very sure I want to finish it, so fear not, it's not abandned:) Enjoy!

That'sexactly what you did to Itachi.

Yeah, it was. It is. His father pushed Itachi to his limits. He demanded the impossible. Itachi, being Itachi, managed to meet his expectations, but at what cost?

He wishes he could talk to his brother once more. Just one more time. So his nii-san could once again explain to him just how their father worked. How he acted. What on earth he thought making all these heartless, cold decisions. Because it is beyond Sasuke's understanding.

But Itachi would know.

…right?

From their last encounter Sasuke remembers him mentioning their parents. But it was short. It did not reveal how Itachi felt about them. Not apart from that he wished for them not to agree for the coup.

Did his brother die convinced that their father really supported this idiotic plan?

No, Itachi was smarter than that. He would have known. He would have known that their father in fact sided with the village. That he approved of his firstborn's actions.

…or he did not. He would continue to live thinking that he really betrayed his parents. That he went against their wishes and they let him finish them off out of pure pity and… love.

Did Itachi know that he was a sacrifice? Or has he been so blind that he has never really noticed just how royally manipulated by his father he let himself be?

Sweet, sweet havens and dear gods if there existed any in this world. Has his brother died oblivious to what his own father did to him?

He gets up from the sitting pillow and quietly wanders in the corridors. He slowly passes rooms, searching for his father. He finds him in the main bedroom, stretched out on the large futon. He gets a tired glance from him as a greeting. The man sits up somehow reluctantly and runs his fingers through his hear.

"Come here" he says silently, patting the mattress next to him. "There are some things I would like to talk to you about.

Sasuke can feel his guts instantly twisting in his abdomen. For a moment he stands frozen at the entrance, hesitant to take any step inside.

Then suddenly his father's eyes are on him again and he flinches as if the man yelled at him unexpectedly. He lowers himself on the futon next to his father and carefully pulls his legs to his chest, sticking his eyes to the open door.

The silence is heavy between them. Sasuke risks a glance at the man, but he does not notice it.

"I don't know" he starts slowly "how well you can read me, Sasuke. Your mother always could do this, and so could your brother, or at least that's what I've always thought. I would speak to them in one short sentence and they heard a whole monologue. Shisui could do this, too. But the longer we speak here, the stronger I can feel that it's not the case with you."

Sasuke bites his lips. He feels small. Like each and every time his father has ever told him off for something.

"Like now for example" Uchiha Fugaku looks at him openly. "I am not trying to scold you. But you can't tell. I guess this was always the thing between us. I said something to you and you believed that what you heard was your father being… angry with you. Or tired of you."

This hits hard, Sasuke decides. Because it was true. It was exactly how he felt while around his father. Like he was some kind of a nuisance. He clenches his fist.

"Meanwhile I cannot remember a single situation when I was angry with you. I can hardly recall any moment when I was displeased with something you did. You were an obedient child, energetic but obedient. You never caused troubles, you always knew how to behave yourself in public, and at home as well. You and Itachi both. I remember some of my friends complaining about their children, how hard it was to get them to behave or enforce any kind of discipline on them. I always considered myself lucky because we never had such problems with either of you" the man shifts slightly to turn his front to him, but Sasuke does not move an inch. They're almost touching. "And that is why it is difficult for me to deal with… all the things you told me about."

Sasuke stays silent. He stubbornly stares at the entrance, feeling his heard pounding widely I his chest.

"I am angry with you, that you already know. What you probably don't know is that more than angry, I am disappointed. But the real problem is that I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to talk to you or what to tell you, because on one hand I want you to know how I feel about all of this. But on the other it… seems to me that that's all you notice about me. That I am angry" his father stops for a few seconds. And Sasuke very much does not fight any wetness in his eyes. "I wish you could trust me more than to think that I want to hurt you. Or cause you pain. Because I do not. To be honest, I would rather not argue with you at all. I don't enjoy yelling at you or retorting. I got carried away more than once during our meetings and I regret it. But believe me when I say that I try to be patient with you."

Sasuke's throat is too clenched for him to say anything. He does not move.

"It's difficult when you sometimes raise your voice at me. Or make accusing comments. You don't hold back your thoughts, not when they're about something you don't like about me. At first it made me angry. Despite your age you are still my son and I am not fine with you disrespecting me in such a manner. But eventually I realized that my reaction riles you up even more, so I try not to get irritated. Still, sometimes when you get so worked up about things… I don't know what to say anymore. I have no idea what to tell you because it seems like whatever I say, it will only make you more pissed than you already are."

"And… you want me to do… what about it, exactly?" he asks in a suffocated voice.

"It's up to you. I merely try to give you any insight into what I am thinking. Because it occurred to me that you may struggle with understanding me."

"What I've just heard from you is that you are pissed with me for what I did in the past and when I'm being disrespectful."

"Did you also hear that I want you to be at ease around me and that I care for you?"

…no. To be honest, he forgot about that part.

He swallows slowly, clenching loose bedsheets with his sole hand. His heart is racing and his lungs seems not to work like they should.

"It has always been… so… difficult" he starts quietly. "To be around you. You always managed to tell me off for something, whatever smallest, stupidest thing it was. I wasn't sitting right. I held the chopsticks in my left hand. I was talking too loudly or not loud enough. I was bothering others, you, mother, Itachi… Shisui… Every single time we spent more than two minutes in the same room, there had to be something I did wrong according to you. It all led to a paradox when I wanted your attention so badly, but dreaded the moment you would be around."

The feelings of uncertainty and anxiety that he managed to shut down some years ago slowly fill his chest once again. Oh, he remembers. It is impossible to get over old habits.

"And then… you died. You all died and I was all alone. But even then when I imagined… somehow being reunited with you, imagining waking up from a nightmare and finding you all alive downstairs… I couldn't help but felt relieved that I would never see you being displeased with me ever again. That maybe I would finally be enough because the only person that has never… appreciated my efforts was no longer there. But I hated myself for those thoughts. I was supposed to love you and to miss you. To wish you'd come back. So I tried. I lied to myself that I hoped to have you back so we could spend more time together" he clenches his jaw and watches as the knuckles of his hand turns white. "And here I am, talking to you years after. I have spent nearly a decade trying to convince myself that I missed you, that I wanted you back. But now, for the last weeks, I had probably the biggest mindfuck in my whole life. Because just what did I miss about you? You never once gave me any sense of being accepted or acknowledged. What the hell did I miss about you?"

He does not dare look at the man. His words must hurt, he is aware of that. But he needs to let them out.

"I just wish you died for good. I wish I had never met you here. I screwed up two missions because of that… torment that our conversations caused me. What are you doing here? Just move on to the afterlife and don't harass me anymore. I cannot handle it. And I am past the point of being ashamed of that.

The silence that falls between them is heavy. It lasts seconds. Minutes. The tension builds up, becomes intolerable and eventually, Sasuke just gets up from the mattress. Anything just to increase the physical distance.

He looks at the garden through the window – as alive as it has always been, now it seems dead. All he can see in the green leaves and colorful flowers is stagnation. Lack of movement. As if they are all artificial and simply not real.

Because they aren't.

He fails to notice his father getting up and approaching him. There is a hand, a firm, strong hand, squeezing his left shoulder in a half-hug. If it is possible, it makes Sasuke tense even more. His eyes widen and he has to stop himself from jerking away.

"Don't" he utters, freeing himself from his father hand.

His father hesitantly pulls his hand back and rests it on his side.

"You've never hugged me ever since I was a toddler. So don't do this now either."

"…Sasuke… I will not if you don't want me to, but-."

"No, you didn't…" Sasuke looks at him but sobers up when he sees a plain consternation on his father's face. "I… don't remember. You doing this. Not exactly."

"…"

"Sorry."

"No, it's-"

"It's just… a tender subject. It was. For both me and Itachi."

"…me not hugging you?"

Yes. You not hugging us.

They stand in silence for long minutes and it feels like Sasuke built a wall between them. Another wall. To separate him from his father, as if the man was some kind of a lethal threat. Maybe Uchiha Fugaku was right. Maybe Sasuke could mostly see bad things about him. Was it… fear?

"You two actually talked about… things like that?"

Sasuke's head snaps and he looks at his father disoriented.

"About me hugging you" the man clarifies.

"…yeah."

"What else?"

"Why do you want to know…? It's stu-"

"Even if it is stupid, let me make my own judgement."

"But…" he searches for any strong arguments not to tell the man about that part of his past, it being as embarrassing as it is.

"Why not tell me?"

"I don't want you to know."

"It concerns me, so why not?"

"Cause it's…" he wants to find the right word, but fails eventually.

"You don't remember me ever hugging you?"

"…I… do. Or… no, I don't, I… Damn, let's drop this, can we?" He wipes his eyes with his finger, feeling as if he will start shaking in a moment. "It doesn't matter."

"Judging by how much trouble it causes you to simply think about it, I would say that it pretty much does."

"Fine, I don't really remember you hugging me, I can hardly remember you carrying me on the day of my third birthday. I only kinda… remember that it happened on like two, three occasions. But not what it felt like. There. Happy?"

"No."

"Why, you…" Sasuke sends an irritated glare at his father, but the man does not seem to be joking.

"What does Itachi have to do with this?:

Sasuke's mouth hangs slightly open for a moment. He closes them slowly, thinking what he should and should not reveal. He looks away from his father.

"You stopped hugging him when he became a chuunin."

"… That is true, but-"

"It hurt him" he interrupts him. "That you stopped. He hoped you would start doing this again, but you never have."

"He told you that?"

"Yes" Sasuke mumbles.

"Why?"

He looks at his father with mixed feelings of uncertainty, irritation and uneasiness.

"And who was he supposed to talk to about such things?"

"…right,"

Fugaku furrows his brows and Sasuke wishes he has never as much as brushed the subject. It is not the right place, not the right moment. His father is dead. Why would he waste his breath to tell the man such… stupid things.

"What about you?"

"…what about me?"

"What did you talk to your brother about? Concerning this matter?"

"…"

"…"

"I… asked him what it felt like. To be hugged by you, Cause I couldn't really remember."

Fugaku's eyes finally leave his face and Sasuke watches his profile with a numb feeling of embarrassment and… guilt.

Guilt.

Why would he feel guilty for putting his father through a hard time? When all their relationship ever has been was a constant struggle?

His father slowly opens his mouth but does not initially say anything.

"It is…" he pauses. He furrows his brows and leans against the frame of the big window, eyes fixed on the garden. "It's hard to listen. To all of it. Cause it never as much as crossed my mind that… well, Itachi maybe, but you… I never once thought that it may be an issue."

"Why was it different with the two of us?" Sasuke asks before he can think.

"Because your brother was very… well, needy when it came to physical contact. He has always looked for it, ever since he was a baby-"

"And you suddenly stopped hugging him knowing that?" he turns and looks at the man with an incredulous expression. All his anger at Itachi being pushed to the side, his mind is flooded by a memory of one of those rare moments when his brother allowed himself not to be perfectly perfect and be human for just ten seconds. One of those moments when Sasuke felt that he could do something for him, help him somehow. When he could feel important to his nii-san.

"I believed it was something that needed to be done-"

"Why on earth would you think that…?"

"Because Itachi became a chuunin and I didn't consider it appropriate… no" he stops himself. "It wasn't that. I was… under impression that if I continued like this, I would spoil him" he swallows slowly. "I decided to be harder on him from then on. He was going to be my heir in the future. I needed him to become fierce and decisive."

"Were you happy with the result?" Sasuke can hear a mocking tone in his own voice. It gains him a displeased and somehow surprised look from his father. "Was an impassive Itachi with ever-blank face something that you actually worked for?"

Fugaku blinks with slightly furrowed brows.

"It obviously.. what do you mean" he shakes his head tiredly and shifts his stance more towards Sasuke.

"It is beyond me why you would think that this was something that needed to be done" Sasuke slowly takes a tiny step forward.

Fugaku watches him with focus, straight in the eyes and Sasuke is not sure if the man remembers about breathing.

"You are actually angry" the man speaks finally, his features unreadable.

"Of course I am" Sasuke says incredulously. "What do you expect?"

"Not you caring much for your brother."

"We were close once, how would I not care…?"

"I thought you hated him."

"…I do" Sasuke breathes out. "In a way… In many ways. But there was the time he was my closest person and hearing you being so… clueless about something this important…" he stops for a moment, observing his father's face. "I can't forget how hard it was for him back then."

His father looks at him motionless for long seconds and Sasuke feels like disappearing again. It gets on his nerves.

"What is it?" he basically spits out, irritated. Fugaku blinks and looks away, standing straight and making some steps back into the room. Sasuke watches him, on edge.

"I guess I did not expect that. That's all."

It clearly is not all. But let it be. It is not that Sasuke wants to dig any deeper into this matter anyway.

He leans back against the window frame. The roses in the garden shine with the light of the unreal sun. Crimson roses not moving of an inch because there is no wind in this strange place.

"I don't believe he knew" Sasuke mumbles quietly, eyes pierced to the deep red flowers. "That he actually took the path you expected him to take."

The floor creaks behind him and he can sense his father's eyes on the back of his head. His heart starts to pound in his chest.

"I think" he continues through clenched throat "that he believed he betrayed you. Until the end. You said that he did what was expected of him. Well, I am pretty sure that this time he believed he went against you. For the first time" he stiffens more if that's even possible. Because there comes a bomb and there is no way to find out what it is going to result with. "And that's why… he just accepted his destiny. Because it was the result of his own actions. That's what he believed. And having you here thinking that he… accepted being a sacrifice, I can't just listen to it and accept it. Because as much as your will was important to him, I refuse to believe that he would be fine with you leaving him in all this mess on his own. He would feel betrayed. And rightly at that. He has always given you everything he could and it was never enough. He died convinced that he betrayed you, but it was still better than knowing that his own father used him" he ends with a firm not. He quietly exhales and slowly turns around to meet his father's wary eyes. "He would not be fine with that" his fist clenches. "I am not sure if he would obey you or not, but certainly he would never accept it cause it's absolutely not acceptable. And I am not fine with being a sacrifice either" he growls. "You had no right. Itachi had no right."

"Sasuke" his father stresses slowly, first signs of anger staring to show. "I will not repeat myself and waste time on explaining to you what this mess would result with had your brother not taken the role he took. But I will tell you this: being an heir of the Uchiha Clan comes with responsibilities no matter which place in line you take. Your brother may have been my successor, but you were his. And with that you had an obligation to fulfill. Preserving the honor of this clan was one of them and at that you failed."

"You expect me to live up to the role of the second heir, yet this is the first time that you actually call me an heir at all. You have expectations for me to act accordingly to the situation, but when that situation took place, you didn't see fit to explain to me what was going on. You never taught me what it meant to be an heir. You never told me I was one. But that aside, I refuse to accept this responsibility. It was wrong. On so many levels."

"It is not about accepting or not accepting it, Sasuke. That was just how it was. You can hate it. You can have your opinion on it, you can refuse to accept it. But it was your obligation."

"Do you honestly believe that you had the right to use your own firstborn son in such a way?"

His father freezes with his mouth half open. His expression shifts to one of disgust for just a tiny moment, but Sasuke sees it nonetheless.

"So if you don't" Sasuke says quietly "then why would you expect me to accept what Itachi did to me?" he watches his father and finally takes a step forward. The man looks at him. "How is it not fine for you to sacrifice Itachi, but for Itachi to sacrifice me for the cause is all right? Why is it okay for Itachi to make morally wrong choices like traumatizing his little brother, but it isn't fine for me to abandon the village? Why does he get to make decisions about what is right and wrong in this whole mess and I don't?"

"Your brother accepted his obligation-"

"I don't think he did. He accepted the result of his actions. I don't believe that he would accept his father sacrificing him in that way" he pauses for a moment. "Do you?"

"That's what I have always believed."

"What if he hated you for that?"

"For…"

"Using him like this. Would you grant him this right to be angry with you? To hate you?"

"I've never expected him to forgive me."

"So why is it not fine for me to hate him for what he has done to me."

They look each other in the eyes for a long moment. Fugaku opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say a word, an earsplitting crack from outside startles them and makes them recoil deeper into the room.

Sasuke takes an alerted look around the room. All of a sudden for half a second, their surrounding flickers. A moment later everything seems back to normal. Sasuke takes another cautious look around and moves forward to the window. But a strong hand pulls him back and keeps him in place. He looks dumbfounded at his father.

"What are you doing?" he asks surprised.

"Where are you going?" the man asks irritated.

"To look out the window. Why are you pulling me back?" he frees himself from his father and gets to the window. The garden looks normal. Nothing changed. Everything seems in place…

"You should be more careful instead of diving head forward into something potentially threatening."

Sasuke turns his head to look at the man in disbelief.

"Tou-san, I've fought in a war."

"Hard to believe seeing how easily you ignore a potential threat."

He is not serious.

"Are you… whatever" he shakes his head and looks out once again. Something isn't right. "Has it happened before?"

"No" and a strong hand pulls him back once again.

"What are you-"

"Heavens, Sasuke. Stay put" his father hisses, turning him around swiftly so they face each other. Sasuke sees his face, an irritated frown marking his eyes.

Is his father… being protective?

He is about to say something but suddenly, another crack deafens them and he feels that he is being pulled away from the window. When the noise dies, he looks up. He sees his father alerted gaze scanning the room. He lets him go and only then does Sasuke notice that they are standing very close.

It is both uncomfortable and comforting. And the most interesting thing is that Uchiha Fugaku doesn't seem bothered by it at all. As if it is natural.

Maybe it should be. Maybe it is just Sasuke who forgot how it is to accept people in his personal space. Maybe that's why every single time his father touches his shoulder now or sits so close to him that their arms brush… maybe that's why the man doesn't seem fazed by it in the slightest.

"It did not happen before" his father speaks, interrupting his analysis. "I have no idea what this is."

"The sky cracked" Sasuke lets out distractedly.

"What?"

He points to the window. It occurs to him that he actually looks at a huge crack on the blue sky… He blinks. He approaches the window to look closer at it.

"Weird" he mumbles in wonder.

"You don't seem too bothered by it" his father stops next to him and give him a doubtful look.

"All it does is making a huge noise. I don't see why I would be bothered any more than I am now."

"Then I don't even want to think what would need to happen for you to be actually fazed" his father mumbles and Sasuke looks at him incredulously.

He snorts. But he needs to see a surprise on his father's face to realize that the sound actually came from him. So he grunts and looks away. To the crack. He narrows his eyes to see it just a little bit clearer…

Only that he can see it crystal clear. He blinks once, but the sharp picture doesn't waver. Is that…

"Your eyes" his father comes closer puts his hand on Sasuke's shoulder to turn him a bit to the left.

"Chakra is working" Sasuke blinks again. With his bloodline activated he can see every single feature on the man's face. "I didn't wake up after the noise" he voices his observation. "I guess… I am now really here."

It is a casual thought, really. But the look his father is giving him suggests that they actually may have a problem.

Seems like they're stuck together now. What do you think? Any ideas what the future will bring? :)