Something is waiting for him in sleep, now that everything has gone as he wished it to. Perhaps the unfinished pieces of the background plans in his mind were what had kept him up, not simply Sasuke.
He has come to the conclusion that there are things more complex than his little brother, and not everything can end in him.
Perhaps everything still does, everything about Itachi-, but the world is a separate entity from themselves and that has been what has kept the byakugan fading into the sharingan and prevented it from falling back again. They are not as pure as the Hyuugas- those monsters and devils sliding through the cracks of midnight during their best conversations, and hugs are more personal than family in the Uchihas.
Itachi does not know how to kiss-, he only knows roughness and blunt affection, like the blood running down his hands and out his eyes in the flawed perfections of his new vision (he wants to show it all to Sasuke, all the artwork he has created with the curve of his hips and the melted white of a color over his thighs- teach him what he can touch and what he can bleed- their bed can be a chalkboard for the wicked little sinning boys, narrow hips that rocked themselves all the way into the purity of the landscape of angels), and Sasuke's tentative repetitiveness as he tries to honor what normal love he has left for his brother. So his first is lost to Kisame, as his knees pool onto the side of a broad chest and his lips are pressed down with the same sincerity he only has in his cruelties.
It is cruel, that once he has what he has wanted to accomplish he can give away the things left so easily. It is cruel that he makes Kisame see him as he truly is, but he is as selfish as the blood on his hands and it makes him wonder if he should have died with his clan-, or if he already has.
And Kisame can keep all the affections he was showered in-, someday they will fade with his death.
Everybody dies, some are dead before they are given the chance to be killed, and it makes Itachi wonder where things began (the starting point which was not Shisui or the gentleness of insincerity-, and he would not be so truthful now if he had not been used to lying to himself).
Xxx-xxX
The child he used to be had more of a hold over Itachi than the Sasuke he has created.
There is nothing left but memories-, they have met only moments before and they are still strangers who have been alone with themselves and their thoughts too long to consider the things still living. The tombstones are straight-backed and unmovable, some twisted in their foundations like the gnarled branches of willow trees or the quivering fingers of each of them.
They will not move with time, will not age or decay like their human forms and within those solid, hard forms of rock and cement they are something Itachi never was.
Sasuke has been clinging to him all along, and it is the first time he sees his face.
Xxx-xxX
Sasuke moves in silence, like a man who knows his place or the ghost of a past swept away with the tide of some foreign cleaning fluid that has been sucked greedily into the thirsting floorboards of the Uchiha clan houses to someday clear away the blood and the remnants of who they were.
But they can only remain as the persons they were born as- people do not change, no matter the dry, blunted wholeness of tones used to present that they can. The Kyuubi holder should not be so hard to kill, but he understands them too well to let go.
Holding on is something unfamiliar to them, something they, in turn, must hold onto themselves.
Holding on to nothing, the remains of brokenhearted beauty and shapely ugliness that has fooled them into believing in it's supremacy, even for a moment, is a lonely job, even in the company of each other.
The Kyuubi knows their family tree and can recite it back to them, but it does not know Shisui and can never replace him. They are missing the fool with the fake smile (real ones prove something to yourself about your idiocy, something you can recognize but not change- and with the acceptance of the solidity of gravestones and things unchangeable all the same, realizations are the same as perfection), and it is not as easy as they thought to pretend they are stupid.
Holding on to nothing, the tombstones they have never visited, is the only thing that keeps them from being as dead as their clan.
Xxx-xxX
And perhaps the most disappointing thing-, is that Orochimaru only wants him for his eyes.
Xxx-xxX
-The dream of every man who has seen blood and the insides of another intentionally is to be able to sleep easily-, but dreams can be a part of themselves in such cases, and dreams don't come true when they are so impossible.-
Xxx-xxX
AN: I'm a little disappointed, that this chapter turned out more 'AU'-ish than I meant it to. According to the real Naruto anime/manga, this should've been about Itachi and Orochimaru, and Orochimaru leaving Akatsuki. Instead, I'm going to expand on that the next chapter, and possibly even one or two chapters after that for extra coverage. You don't see much about that, just mentions of it even in the fanfiction I read, and so I really want to go into detail about that. But the ending sentence sort of ties everything together in my opinion, and it opens up a nice, freedom portal for lil' tobi momma to get off my kaboose and write about oh dear, sweet, boy-ass-loving Orochimaru. This chapter may have seemed a little choppy to everyone, which it is, don't get me wrong, but I kind of like it that way. Fills in the cracks for the rest of the story, I think. Oh sinful, sinful liking for choppy chapters and overused metaphors. That's Burn for you, so deal with it.
Orochimaru: Is it time for my cameo yet?
Tobi: No. But if you REVIEW!!!, I'll probably get more inspired and get off my ass sooner rather than later on making it.
I wish Orochimaru-sama would review me…-Instead, I'll leave it to you readers. Your guys' reviews are a huge wish-come-true for me, too. If I was ever dying and the Make a Wish Foundation came to my hospital bedside…I'd ask for two hundred reviews. :D
REVIEW PLEASE!!!
(and ignore that the author's note, even in it's awesome and mighty and oh-so-superior-to-you importance was probably longer than the chapter itself)
(it's called cheating, DEAL with it)