"What have you got, Alex?" Itachi's voice broke me from my ardent examination of the camera I'd found. It looked old, I bet it wouldn't even take photographs anymore, but it was still interesting enough to mess with. Photography had always looked like such an interesting hobby to me, especially whenever my parents or sister had let me sit down with magazines and cut out all the pictures I liked best. Imagine going to all those exotic or dangerous places, meeting tons of unique people or wild animals, and getting to take photographs to make those moments permanent.
You could show the rest of the world where you've been and what you've seen, it was a modern superpower. I held my hands up to show Itachi the camera, wearing a sheepish grin on my face. He normally didn't mind my curious venturing through the house; what, with him mostly gone, I had little else to do aside from explore and read the plethora of books Itachi had in his room. While I could spend days plastered to a good book, even I could get restless.
That was why I was pretty confident about having gotten the layout of the house down. For me, it was easy skulking around and escaping unnoticed, but there were hardly any people around this place to worry about. I'd seen Itachi and his family here, and aside from the occasional guest, it was empty. It was eerie, thinking of the giant place only having a small handful of occupants. It made for way less answers whenever I heard a weird sound late at night, though Itachi reassured it was only the walls settling.
Coming closer, Itachi took the camera from my hands and turned it over to get a better look at it. "I don't believe it's in working order," he mused with a smirk, "but perhaps we could find something for you to actually take pictures with." He looked so sincere as he said it, that even my initial spike of doubt didn't gain much traction.
My ears pricked up with interest. "You think so?" I asked, perking up at the thought of a real, working camera. I'd never been able to afford one, and even if I had, it would still cost money for film and such. When my sister and I hadn't even had access to the simplest of basics for several years, something as extravagant as a camera felt as exciting (and frivolous) as a car. Itachi reached out and pushed his fingers through my hair, brushing it out of my face. It was a benign action, so much so that the heat threatening to rise to my cheeks was borderline ridiculous. It wasn't the first time he'd done it, and in fact, it was becoming something common. I didn't mind it. If anything, I found a sense of normalcy and comfort in it. Both were such a rarity in my life that it was hard not to want to cling to them while they lasted, because as calm as things were now, I couldn't help but feel it was fleeting. Good things could only last so long; as could the bad. If I'd learned one thing as an orphan, as a vagabond, it was that nothing was forever.
"Of course," Itachi said, "you need something to keep you busy, you'll grow bored of those books someday." A good-natured chuckle punctuated his statement when I cast a glance towards the bookcase, where I'd greedily pored over the many titles. I was an avid reader, and couldn't begin to recall how many days I'd spent cooped up inside libraries. The people there were nice, and they didn't kick people out for staying a while. It was the best place during winter or rainy days. Since becoming a part of this home, I'd spent most of my time either reading or slinking about the house to explore it. Itachi was so often out, busy with his work and family, what else was I going to do? My sister seldom came out the first few days, and even though I'd seen her presence increasing, she could never stay with me for long. That asshole always had something for her to do, or something to grow angry with her over.
A well of guilt opened inside me, then, reminding me of how awful I was for feeling so happy and comfortable here. I couldn't help it. I couldn't even remember when food was so easy to come by, nor the last time I'd slept in a real, warm, clean bed that wasn't covered in bed bugs or at least six other people trying to cram into it. I felt safer here than I had since I was a child, and that was shameful. I wasn't a guest here, and I knew that…Amaya had warned me about that. I was a slave, property, regardless of how gentle Itachi acted or how warm his smile was when he looked at me. It was purely pacifism. It was my fault that I saw it in any other light; I guess once you got so used to people treating you like trash, someone's kindness seemed like the greatest gift. I should be embarrassed for believing for a second Itachi would ever feel anything aside from pity for me—that was probably why he wasted so much kindness on me at all, he felt sorry for me.
If only he felt sorry for my sister, too. It wasn't fair for me to feel so content and wish to stay here, wish that for once, things would work out, when my sister was dealing with a very different person. If I could get my hands on Sasuke, he'd never lay his hands on Amaya again.
Itachi withdrew his hand and cleared his throat, reclaiming my attention. "Speaking of busy," he started, with a weary look towards the door to his room, "I have some…company arriving soon. You're welcome to stay, it's nothing too serious, but I have to warn that they can be a bit intense."
Intense had too many connotations for me to not be somewhat hesitant, but curiosity tended to win out over my inhibitions. "I'm used to a little intensity," I replied dryly. Itachi's immediate smirk told me he'd caught on to who I meant. I guess he was familiar with it, too. As much as I hated his brother, they seemed as unbreakable as Amaya and I were. At first, that had been a point of suspicion; would Itachi turn out like Sasuke? Now, though, it was a different aspect of suspicion. One that led me to force myself to question if Sasuke had something good in him, too. I sneered at the thought, but...as I'd shared with my sister, I wasn't sure I could view anything in black and white anymore. "Are they friends of yours, or is this a business visit? Because I'd hate to be in your way," I said, fiddling with a string that had come undone from my sleeve.
Itachi pressed two fingers to his temple with a low sigh. "A little of both. They're friends, but they're only coming to drop something off," he explained, "they shouldn't be here long." He didn't sound too enthused, for him to call them friends.
Right after he'd finished, as if on cue, I could hear the dainty dinging of the doorbell. Privately, I thought that any company of Itachi's couldn't be that bad, considering how mellow he was himself. Of course, that could also prove to be an erroneous assumption that would get me punched with surprise. Itachi set the old camera down and beckoned me to follow him as he headed out of the room we shared. I trailed some ways behind him when he neared the door, skeptical of exactly what I had agreed to. I hadn't ever been that great with people, much less nobles, who had so many etiquette rules that I'd never remember them all. I had picked a couple of things up from Itachi by watching or listening to him, and it wasn't as if I was some sort of barbarian, but...even before losing my parents, we hadn't been of the higher class by any means.
A hand on my shoulder made me start some, and I looked up to find Itachi looking down at me with a reassuring smile that made the anxious butterflies in my stomach wane. "Try to relax, they aren't worth your nerves."
I covered my mouth to hide a snicker, "I'll try." The fact that it was easy for Itachi to drag his friends like that spoke volumes for me to calm down a little. They weren't there to see or talk to me, anyway, so I had no standards to uphold, now did I? Nonetheless, I still stayed behind him when he went to open the door. Behind it stood two men; the first was leaning against the entryway with his shoulder, his blond hair tied half up to keep it out of his way. The other stood with his arms crossed, looking every bit like it was the last place he wanted to be. Around his neck hung a silver pendant, shaped into a symbol that was unfamiliar to me. It looked like a circle with another shape carved inside of it, but the man moved before I could get a better look, and barged inside.
"I don't have time for any bullshit pleasantries," he grumbled. "Let's get this out of the way fast. Kakuzu's gonna have my fuckin' head on a pike if I'm late." I could feel my eyes widening at the litany of expletives that littered the man's language, too stunned to properly react at first. In three seconds, the guy had shattered my perception of what nobles had to be; prim and polite, and, you know, able to talk without a swear every other word.
Behind him, the blond snorted and rolled his eyes, following his friend inside. "As if you've ever cared about pissing him off, yeah." The blond man held a brown folder in his hands, something that I was sure should make it look inconspicuous actually made me think there was something important hidden in it. Maybe that was the problem when something became commonplace like that; brown folders made things look suspicious instead of benign. For half a second, I forgot my anxieties amid my surprise. They came flooding back when the blond turned towards me. His visible eye narrowed, but I couldn't see his other one behind the curtain of hair he had in front of his face. "Who's this kid, Itachi?"
I narrowed my eyes when he called me a kid. "Name's Alex, kid," I answered instead of Itachi. The other man didn't look any older than I, maybe around one or two years, not enough to count. Even Itachi was only a few years older, about six.
The other man let out a raucous laugh at that, and from the corners of my eyes, I thought I saw Itachi turning his face to hide a smile of his own. The blond's lips pulled back in a sneer, I briefly expected an upcoming argument. But, soon his expression broke and he started to snicker. "Trust a kid to have a childish response, yeah," he teased, putting one hand on his hip.
"Deidara, don't antagonize. He's…new here," Itachi explained, struggling to tiptoe around the circumstances of why, exactly, I was there. I couldn't fault Itachi for that, I wasn't keen on revealing them, either. It ended up not making a difference either way.
"You finally got a slave, huh? Didn't think I'd see the fuckin' day," the man with the pendant approached me and reached out, towards my ears.
I winced when he flicked at one of them, and before I could stop myself, I'd knocked his hand away from me. "Hands off, asshole," I snapped, my ear still stinging from the sudden flick. The ears of most ibrida were sensitive and I doubted anyone appreciated having some stranger flick at them. I had an abrupt moment of realization that made me look towards Itachi to gauge his reaction, if I had gone too far, but he didn't appear to look fazed in the least. If anything, he looked more amused than anything else. It was another part of our odd set up that I'd yet to get used to. I wasn't naive, I knew that most servants or pets lived with strict rules and few rights. Sasuke himself had demonstrated as much, but Itachi wasn't the same. He'd not once corrected or remonstrated me for my behavior.
Beside me, the vulgar man retracted his hand. "Fucking cat," he hissed, "shits like you belong on a leash."
I lifted my chin and pinned a glower on him, but Itachi put a stop to the absolute hell brimming at my lips. "I didn't say that, Hidan," Itachi sighed. "You can save your insults for Kakuzu. Leave Alex alone," he warned, and a well of warmth bubbled inside me at hearing Itachi take the time to defend me.
Hidan muttered a few choice words under his breath. "You think I don't know a fuckin' slave?" he asked, "where the hell did you get him, that big shithole where the richest fucks go to spend their money?" Hidan crossed his arms over his chest, the more he spoke the more I could feel the sidewalk outside bursting into flames. I bet even my sister would've gotten appalled at this guy's mouth.
Itachi didn't seem fond of it either, but he didn't castigate Hidan for it. I doubt the man would have listened, had Itachi bothered. "If you must put it that crudely, yes," Itachi admitted. "After my father's incessance, I agreed to visit. After seeing Alex and his sister, Sasuke and I couldn't leave them there."
I felt out of place listening to Itachi share that story. I'd never heard him say why, precisely, he had chosen to purchase me out of all the people in that horrible place. After hearing that fraction of the reason, I was aching to ask more about it, but I couldn't with everyone else there. I wasn't certain I wanted to know, maybe it was something better left unspoken, but I couldn't deny my curiosity. The way Itachi had worded it only made my hunger to know even greater; they couldn't leave us there? Why? Was that the pity I'd waited to hear?
Deidara came closer to me, giving me a once over. With one hand, he reached to shove his fringe away from his face. The sight of the eye-patch covering his left eye made me cough on a gasp, struggling to swallow it back. "He's not bad, un. Where's the girl at?" Deidara, too, went to touch my ears. Or so I thought, he stopped short of them and picked up a lock of my hair. "Interesting color. You don't see many ibrida around these parts, yeah."
My jaw clenched. "We aren't from here. But, you know, a lot of shit happens when you get picked up by some asshole slave hunter," I commented, my voice wry and saturated with sarcasm. I couldn't tell if I liked Deidara or not, there was an inherent charm about him, but also something that acted like a barrier. It was like he had a surface that hid most of him from face value. Deidara cracked a smirk at what I'd said, and off to the side, I heard what sounded like a bitter scoff from Hidan.
Itachi came to stand beside me, his shoulder close enough to nudge against mine. "The girl is with Sasuke, most likely. They're…still getting used to each other," Itachi explained, hesitating in the middle before weaving in a light version of the explanation. Sourly, my tail flicked behind me in ireful twitches.
"That's a riot. Now, hurry up and let's get this shit out of the way so Uchiha can get back to his cat," Hidan snapped, nudging Deidara forward to head to Itachi's study. I waited until the pair were gone before huffing out a stunned laugh. That...could have gone worse, I guess? At least I hadn't made any enemies, today.
"You keep strange company," I muttered to Itachi. He hummed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders to give me a small squeeze.
"Not all of it. You did well," he praised. "I'm sorry for the way they spoke to you. I know none of this is ideal, but I'm glad you two are here instead of still stuck there."
Yeah, so am I, that's part of the problem.
Everything hurts. No matter how I move, I can't ease the ache traversing through my body in cold pangs. My wrists and ankles both are bloody, bruised messes, shredded by the tight steel manacles that continue digging deeper into my flesh to ensure I can't escape. With each breath, my lungs fill with sharp pinpricks and it makes me try and hold my breath to avoid the pain. It only leads to me gasping for each breath, desperate to avoid both the stabbing pains and the crushing burn of suffocation. I can't catch my breath anymore, I'm gasping and hiccupping and I can taste salt on my open lips.
From beside me, I hear muffled voices speaking words I can't understand. They make no sense and hold no value to me. The sound of glass clinking sticks out through the clamor, and I try to focus enough to pick apart what's happening around me, but I can't get my mind to cooperate with me. Every time I try to concentrate, I feel sleepier and sleepier. A sudden pain erupts in my arm as a needle pierces into my flesh, and the next exhale that leaves me is a scream. The tiny pinpricks in my lungs burst into a wildfire of agony. From the injection site, a scalding pain spreads up my arm and bleeds throughout the rest of my shivering body.
"Quit your squirming," a grating female voice snaps. My back arches off the metal table in a frantic attempt to escape the torture wracking my small body, but it's all in futility. A shadow consumes the light above me, and I want to open my eyes to find the source, but try as I might, they remain welded shut.
A waxen, icy hand touches my forehead, smoothing my hair away from where it had stuck to my skin with sweat. The action itself, something comforting to me usually, feels threatening and damning. I flinch away from the touch. Above me, a sharp, under-the-breath sounding laugh sounds strikingly clear amongst the haze of everything else. "There's no need for this, my dear. It will be over soon," a sanguine voice whispers, casting a blanket of dread across my prone body. It speaks again, but this time, not to me. "Is she ready?"
Ready for what? I hear no response, but the hand moves away. A nauseating paroxysm of relief and foreboding boils in my belly. For several chest-tightening seconds, everything was silent and still. A quiet, unassuming "click" from up ahead of me, behind the table, makes my ears prick in alarm. In the aftermath of that click, a blinding, white-hot pain engulfs me whole. It feels like my bones and nerves are shattering inside of me, tearing me apart from the inside out and leaving my insides a wasteland of agony and shards. A scream launches from my throat, scraping against the dry soreness from days without water.
My brain erupts with memories and understanding, supplying me with so many things I want to forget. The injection was to keep my heart steady, it will prevent it from bursting in my chest as the bolts of electricity travel through my body, generated and passing through the wires strapped across my skin. I can't keep doing this, my body can't handle this anymore! They're killing me, you're killing me!
No one answers my screaming. No one here cares, none of them see me as alive. I'm expendable, a weapon, a conductor, and they are all starving for power. To everyone in this room, I'm an experiment.
I am not a person.
Phantom pain ghosted beneath my skin when I awoke, a gasp still in my chest. The sheets stuck to my skin, where a cold sweat shone over it. Seldom was I in the dream like that, so active and vivid; most of my dreams were like watching everything unfold. I felt helpless in those dreams, unable to prevent or help those I was watching, but in that dream, there were no little children or faceless figures. There was only me, strapped to that frigid, unforgiving table. And that voice, that horrible voice that twisted deep into my head...
I sat up from my spot in the window-seat, where I'd come to favor falling asleep. I hadn't slept in the bed since that night over a week ago, when Sasuke had taken from me. I was too wary to ask, and far too anxious to try just crawling in. Sasuke was almost never in the room, but he was in and out enough to notice my presence in the bed, and getting woken by someone kicking me out of a bed was on my list of "worst ways to wake up" by far. It wasn't like I would be disrupting him, Sasuke himself hadn't slept in the room in the whole time I'd lived here. I was itching to ask him if he even required sleep the way most did. Or, I wondered if he slept so little that I didn't notice it at all.
In the course of the past several days which, when I stopped to consider, was but a meager week (plus half a day), felt like a much longer stretch of time. The contention between Sasuke and I had dwindled into a somewhat quiet sense of acceptance; we couldn't rid ourselves of each other, after all, so we had to learn to tolerate. Sasuke could have gotten rid of me, I suppose, if it had come down to it. But, I didn't believe he had gotten me out of his own volition in the first place, so I doubted he'd get rid of me that easily, too. I'd resigned myself for now, largely because of Alex. He looked so healthy, so content here, in a bubble of comfort that seemed so basic to most. It was a luxury to my brother, and if I had to steel myself and learn to live with Sasuke and what else had befallen my brother and I, I was going to, just to keep Alex safe and comfortable. As unfortunate as it was, he'd gotten attached to Itachi, who seemed to enjoy indulging Alex, too.
I still felt bothered by that, but I couldn't tear away something that bestowed Alex any sort of ease. What was I going to do, drag him away from a place that kept him fed, clothed, and sheltered? All for my own selfish reasons? I had done a lot of things wrong, but if I could make up for any of it by providing Alex with that much, I was damn sure going to. Itachi kept him safe, comfortable, and more than that, happy. I'd only had hopes for the former, the latter two were something from a very graceful god. I could only hope that Alex wouldn't allow his heart ahead of his head. Itachi was older, a noble, people like Itachi had lines of potential arranged marriages to sift through. His parents would likely wed him to a woman from Lumen, if he were lucky to marry within the country at all, but that might not bring as much benefit. To people like that, they viewed marriage and relationships as a financial and political obligation, not an emotional one. If Itachi were ever caught with my brother, his own slave and someone outside of his race…I shuddered to think of what would happen.
It just wasn't how things worked.
I was getting way too far ahead of myself, but after seeing the way Alex looked at Itachi, and the way Itachi smiled at Alex... It was hard for me not to fear the worst. As a child, my mother would read me fairy tales from a leather-bound book, with golden pages that whispered when you turned them. I could remember thinking about how much fun it would be to live in a castle or palace, like the exorbitant homes described in the many stories. I wanted grandeur and excitement, as any curious and imaginative child wanted. Never did I think anything like that would happen—had I, I might not have wished so hard—and I certainly didn't think it would turn out to be such a deceptive lie. I didn't yet know that the world functioned so oppositely of books; that instead of marrying or saving the world to get into a castle, you got kidnapped. Instead of a prince or princess who treated you like you hung the stars, it was someone who treated you like an animal, someone who confused you. Someone whose smile could send a shudder down your back, and sometimes, you didn't know which emotion it was due to.
My life no longer had any rhyme or reason. I felt trapped in an hourglass; one moment I was standing upright, unsteady and sinking, but with a clear view. The next, I was tumbling upside down and my entire view was changing, an ocean of sand dumping on top of me and leaving me crushed by everything. It was chaos. Even when all I'd known for so long was chaos, everything here was a new extent. For so many years, I'd taken care of myself, of Alex. After breaking out of the place that scarred us and so many other children, we landed on a path that only left more marks and carried several other hollow people on it. I'd thought I was immune to getting shaken, but I was beginning to think I wasn't as strong as I'd believed. Sasuke was starting to make me doubt myself, my head, and a lot of what I had ingrained into it. I was starting to question the way stories always seemed to work out; could you hate someone so much, it just started to come full circle?
A sudden voice broke into my thoughts and snapped me from my inner conflict. Good thing, too. That wasn't a road I was yet willing to step foot onto, if ever. It was far too foggy, and I was lost enough.
"Are you all right?" Sasuke asked. With a start, I looked up at him, as I hadn't heard him coming into the room. Trust the plague of my thoughts to manifest at the most inopportune of times, right? I hurried to nod my head before he thought I was ignoring him. Sasuke cocked a dubious brow at me, and I thought he might press further, but to my relief, he turned back to the bookcase. I watched him as he searched for something amongst the several leather binds; the way his slim fingers grazed along the spines of the books, the way his brow furrowed in concentration or his mouth in annoyance. Sasuke was, tragically, a vampire, and vampires tended to be beautiful. Greater the tragedy that other people saw them as such.
"Is there a reason you're staring at me?" Sasuke asked, amusement lining his voice. I blinked out of my daze to realize that he had turned away from the bookcase and was now facing me, and all I'd done was continue to watch him, lost in my own head.
Chagrined, I reached to rub the back of my neck. "Why does it have to be you?" I asked, delving face-first into a lie that was about as thin as a cotton slip. "I'm more interested in that bookcase." Well, that part wasn't a lie. The words on the covers leaped out at me every time I sat in front of the wooden shelves, but I'd still not grown bold enough to take any out. It'd be my luck that Sasuke come back to the room, see, and smack it out of my hands. We had made progress, but I was afraid of losing it all. I wanted to ease into things. Sasuke reminded me of a cagey animal that I needed to be cautious with, and to help understand what was happening.
Taken aback for a second, Sasuke's eyes widened a fraction as he cast a glance between me and the bookcase, considering. It only took him half a second to reach a verdict, but for me, it felt like waiting on what I feared would be another derogatory jab. I'd come to expect them so much that anything else had become jarring—so you can imagine how ground-breaking it felt when Sasuke raised his hand and beckoned me towards the shelves. "Then why are you just sitting and staring at it?"
My ears pricked up when I realized the explicit permission so perfectly presented to me. I hardly even cared about his dry comment. I'd all but bounced off the bed and almost directly to the bookcase before Sasuke could second guess his decision, or get another word out. Greedily, I skimmed my fingers across the books, taking in each of them. Some were pristine and didn't appear to have gotten picked up in some time; others were worn, with tiny nicks in the covers. "I've only seen bookcases like this in a library," I said, my mouth running away with my excitement before my brain could smash it into the pavement again. That was turning out to be a running issue with Sasuke. As I said, he wasn't that hard to talk to when he wasn't spouting off vitriol, which was happening less as of late. It was a rocky road, but that was a monumental step up from the beginning, where I'd compare it more to trying to walk sideways up a crevasse.
Selecting a book with maroon-colored leather, I tugged it from its home between two other books and drew it close. It was somewhere in the middle of looking unweathered, but well-read, with some of the pages looking like they'd gotten dog-eared. "I used to teach Alex, in a couple of the libraries over the years," I smiled at the memory. "They'd let kids sit and pore over books of all kinds."
Sasuke was quiet while I talked, something I wasn't sure was good or bad, until I felt his shoulder brush against mine. He was looking over my shoulder to look at the book I'd chosen. Soon, he ventured a hesitant question. "Which ones did you favor?" It was such a harmless question, something so inconsequential to some. To me, though, it represented the steps towards a fragile understanding that I was working so hard towards. And, it would seem, so was Sasuke.
I mulled the question over, along with my surprise that he'd have any interest, but I reminded myself this wasn't his first cautious question. Every time he spoke to me, it was either with tight annoyance or uncertain curiosity. I had to ask myself if I was the only one who felt so confused and jarred by the mess we were both stuck in. Had I not feared the answer, I wanted to ask him why he'd chosen to take in a personal slave at all, considering he hadn't seemed to want that in the first place. I feared that his father had played a huge role in it, and that man wasn't someone I wanted to permeate my thoughts for any length. My stomach churned at the mere mention.
"I like fantasy best, I think," I confided, stroking my thumb reverently over the book cover. "Fairy tales used to be the only stuff I read, and then when I grew older I graduated to some darker themes, but I never left the side of dragons and magic."
I smiled, and it was then that I noticed that the tension usually coiling my muscles tight wasn't present. I felt relaxed, despite Sasuke's presence, and despite how close he was. I couldn't say I wasn't waiting for the switch to flip and for his gentle demeanor to fall through the floor, but for the time being…I was comfortable, almost happy. Maybe I was genuinely happy, but too afraid to admit it. "Reading is one of the best vices. You can sink into any story and make it your own for a while, right?" I glanced behind me to catch a glimpse of Sasuke's eyes locked onto me, but he was quick to turn them to the bookcase. My shoulders sagged some.
"Why do you think I have so many?" he asked, and a rare smile graced his lips. However small it was, it was still a smile; one without any cold or secretive undertones, and it was beautiful. The mark on my neck twinged suddenly, making me reach up, but I wasn't brave enough to do anything but skim my fingertips across it. It had grown less painful, leading me to believe it was healing, but the spot still acted up occasionally, and I doubted the scar would ever go away. Sasuke had made no moves to drink from me since the first time. After allowing myself to look back at that night, I believed he'd been starving. His behavior reminded me of the desperate hunger I'd seen in wild animals, and even some people. Hunger did horrible things, I was no stranger to that. Not that I'd ever gotten confronted by the hunger of a vampire who'd gone too long without feeding, but that feral, purely carnal behavior hadn't exhibited itself again. I hoped it never would, not only for my sake, but Sasuke's as well.
Empathy felt like a mistress to me, after having sunk into my malaise for so long.
The cool, careful brush of fingers against my throat made me flinch. Sasuke slowed, but he didn't pull his hand back. With gentle caution, he stroked his index finger across the scar, the softest he'd ever touched me. "Does it…still hurt?" he asked, his voice catching some on hesitation.
Sasuke's concern manifested in such a cautious question was…unnerving, but equally comforting, and that only succeeded in making it more unnerving. It felt verboten, for a master to share concern in a servant, a pet, someone so beneath them. The walls between Sasuke and I were strong, and they were many, but I thought I could hear cracks making their way through the stone. On the side where the mark wasn't, I shrugged my shoulder. "It's sore," I said, "but it doesn't hurt much now." In fact, I was more upset with the arbitrary bouts where it would ache or burn; it wasn't quite painful so much as it was confusing and agitating.
Sasuke made a considering sound before he withdrew his hand, abandoning the gentle touch that I missed almost as soon as it was gone. The soft side of him was a stranger, but in that unfamiliarity, I felt an ease. I felt like this was more revealing of Sasuke's personality than the abrasive front he so often wore. As his hand pulled away, I thought to ask, "will it ever heal?"
It was a silly question, sure, but I was so curious. Did the marks scar for everyone, or did it take continuous use? Sasuke, too, appeared taken aback by my question, as if I'd forced him to think about something he hadn't yet. With a shift of his weight, Sasuke averted his gaze. It was funny, now that I thought about it, it was Sasuke who now had trouble meeting my eyes. "No, yours won't."
Well, I'd suspected as much, but–wait, mine? "Only mine—?" I'd started to ask Sasuke for further clarification, because yours? Had others healed over time, and they weren't left to cope with the odd after effects? But, Sasuke was already gone, leaving his answer lingering in the air and my curiosity a hot coal in my chest. Right when I thought we were getting somewhere, however minuscule the progress, one of us took a step back, too afraid to go too far and find ourselves unable to go back. It was like we were bouncing off those walls and still struggling to get over them. My mind was reeling, and I was too afraid to try and stop it for fear the resulting crash would knock me down. I'd hit the ground pretty hard the past few days, you know? I wasn't looking for another thing to warp my world. Sasuke alone was doing a perfect, chaotic job.
This started out like a game. A game of wit and raw will, a game of survival. I thought that was how Sasuke saw it all, like something trivial and wasteful. Now, I wondered who was really winning, and who was really losing.