Close Your Eyes, The World's Still There

chapter two

by a quirky little tune

Sasuke's fingers limply froze where they were, his tie hanging loosely around his neck, his broad shoulders rigid. The entirety of his body, which had just been begging for sleep a mere minute ago, suddenly became alert, his muscles tightening unnoticeably as he subconsciously reacted to the… whatever the hell that had been.

Warily, as if his own actions would bring about the horrible noise once again, Sasuke finished unknotting his tie, throwing it carelessly off to the side. The silence of the room now seemed almost unnatural, almost foreboding, and Sasuke cursed to himself as unwarranted feelings of apprehension arose in his chest without his permission.

He violently grabbed his duvet cover and sheets in a tight fist and wrenched them free from his bed. This was utterly absurd, he thought as he slid easily into his bed, trying hard to suppress his shot nerves.

Screaming. Screaming, in the Uchiha Manor. Seriously? What was this, some sort of crappy, B-rated horror film? The raven-haired male sneered slightly as he rested his head against a pristine white pillow. He brought slightly unsteady hands to cover his eyes, feeling exhaustion sweep heavily over his mind, fighting against the tension pulsating through his body.

Ridiculous. There was no screaming. Because if there had been screaming, that would mean a lot of different things, things that Sasuke wasn't sure he could deal with. It meant that there was someone else in his house. It meant that that stranger was undergoing pain (and really, no other sort of situation would produce such a loud, hoarse scream… in theory). It meant that someone had to be inflicting that pain on said stranger. Someone other than Sasuke.

No, Sasuke could not possibly deal with something like that. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Almost against his will, Sasuke strained his ears, as if to give his imagination the reluctant benefit of the doubt; a full three minutes passed. He heard nothing except for the slight quiver in his breathing. God, he must be more tired than he originally thought – it had probably just been a figment of his own imagination. After all, his imagination used to play countless of cruel tricks on him as a child, owning to the fact that kid-Sasuke had been so small and sad and lonely and the manor so big and empty and hollow.

Sasuke frowned distastefully. This was not the time to take a pity journey down memory lane. He had just had one of the longest fucking days of his life (fuck, he still had to argue with Haku about the damn lawsuit) and he deserved the right to relax in his own bedroom.

Sheer stubbornness kicked in. He forced his eyes shut and, with one last demand that his mind just stop fucking thinking, he uneasily drifted off into a light oblivion.

"Will you play cards with me, Itachi-nii-sama?"

Pause. "What kind of cards?"

"Hm… is… 'Go Fish' okay?"

Small sigh. "'Go Fish' again, huh? Should have guessed." Chuckle. "Alright, Sasuke, shall we play a few rounds then?"

...

"Aniki, why does otou-sama never hug me anymore?"

Frown. "… otou-sama is just very stressed and frustrated these days with his work. Also, you're growing older – surely you're not a little baby that always needs to be held anymore, are you Sasuke?"

"No way! I'm a big boy – I'm turning six in a couple of weeks!"

"Well then, as a big boy, just keep in mind that otou-sama doesn't need to hug you to prove he loves you. Remember when you were sick last month and otou-sama made you those banana pancakes for breakfast?"

"Yes…"

"He made them specially, just for you, and was even a little late to work that day. See, Sasuke? As you grow older, the signs of love may not be as obvious as a hug or a piggy-back ride, but they're still present if you look hard enough."

"I think I get it now… thank you, aniki."

...

"Aniki… aniki… w-why did this h-happen?"

Silence.

"Aniki, tell me! Tell me why this happened! Tell me, you… you… you big jerk! W-wh-why them? Why US?!"

Silence.

Quick breathing. "Tell me, Itachi, please, I don't understand and you're the only one I've got left and I need to know, need you to tell me—"

Murmuring. "Quiet."

"… W-what?"

"QUIET."

...

"Tell me straight … going on lately? You've been disappearing into the basement for … at a time during all parts of the day."

"Hm? Really?"

"You are infuriating … know as well as I do … the third time today."

"Oh, I … not know I … being investigated."

"You're not being investigated; cut … crap. Up until recently, you … room, the kitchen, and the master bedroom – this change of pace… curious."

"You needn't worry about it, Sasuke… doesn't concern you."

Growl. "The hell it doesn't. You… a fool?"

Smirk. "If I were you," deliberate pause, "I … before you find yourself in over your head."

"… the fuck is that supposed to mean? It is … to believe –"

Pause. Swallow. "Why… blood on … sleeve, Itachi?"

Consciousness slowly and lazily drifted back to Sasuke, bit by bit, piece by piece. The strange solemnity following the hazy images of his dream made him frown as he pulled himself upright. He always dreamt lucidly and in great detail, only for said details to become blurry and indistinct by the time he fully woke up. Tonight, however, he was certain that he had been dreaming of his family. No other memories made his head ache so hollowly as memories of the old days did.

Tossing the covers off his overheated body, he glanced at the clock and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose to coax the headache away. Eleven twenty-two. Almost two and a half hours of sleep and he still felt like shit. Sasuke growled to himself.

It took him another full minute to persuade his body to leave his bed completely. He retrieved his school bag and withdrew the books he needed for his assignments; he sat himself in his wooden desk chair on the opposite side of the room and his body insistently called out for the softness of his mattress once again.

Sasuke ignored it and flipped his Biology textbook – dry and unnecessarily wordy as it was – to the correct chapter. He got as far as the section concerning RNA and DNA before his headache worsened and his stomach protested against the mere lousy apple it had been fed for dinner.

Quickly, in the privacy of his own room, Sasuke let his shoulders hunch and his pale hand run through his dark hair in a show of weariness. He sighed, letting that one breath rattle his frame entirely, before straightening his back once more and resuming his stoic expression. He just didn't have the time or the luxury to be tired anymore.

Tired from lack of sleep or tired from life, it didn't matter. Uchiha Sasuke could just not afford it.

I'll go down and get something else to eat, he decided firmly, then come back up and work for another hour on Biology. After that, Calculus and Psychology. For a split second, he wondered idly what it would be like to procrastinate, to attempt to finish his work during the school day as many of his peers did. He knew that many of the students would be doing so tonight, as the homework was unusually light and easy. They would slack off, celebrate the end of exams, consciously or subconsciously shove their work off to the side and forget about it. He wondered what would it be like if he lived like that.

The very idea immediately lost its appeal and struck him as humorous. Why let yourself slip when you were clearly the best? Why stay idle in your growth when you could surpass everyone around you? How could his classmates settle for mediocrity, for ignorance?

Sometimes, Sasuke just didn't understand people.

Stretching as he stood away from his desk, the raven-haired boy made his way out into the hallway. His footsteps were near completely silent and it almost felt as if his own existence was evaporating into the void that was the silence of Uchiha Manor at night. Of course, the house was quiet at all times of the day, having had no servants or butlers attending to it since… since… a very long time ago. Even so, the manor still seemed to shift into something else during the evening, something indefinable; a horrible sense of coldness always invaded the building (for he could not call it a home, not really), flooding the halls and filling the rooms until the words that could never be said almost seemed to scream in the air.

Sasuke reached the stairwell and froze, all morbid thoughts put on pause as he spotted the dark figure dwelling at the bottom.

"Itachi…" he murmured, the name tasting particularly awful on his tongue. He suddenly felt sick and tired and anxious all at once. When had the sight of his brother stopped giving him feelings of warmth and security? When had those sensations turned into dread and something resembling fear (Uchiha's were not afraid, never terrified – Sasuke wondered how long he could keep lying to himself)? He forced his mouth to open once more. "What are you doing up?"

His elder brother slowly climbed the stairs, one by one. A vague wisp of a smirk was plastered on his face, revealing the presence of someone not fully there. "I was just taking a midnight walk, little brother."

Sasuke's mind went into overdrive. That had been the most blatant lie he had ever heard; Itachi didn't even seem to mind that he was caught. It almost felt as if he were mocking Sasuke, seeing Sasuke as powerless over him. Pushing his anger aside, Sasuke continued thinking. Itachi never left his room unless it was to go to the kitchen or to the basement – and Sasuke was willing to bet an unholy amount money that Itachi hadn't just ventured downstairs to get an evening snack before going to bed. Call it a gut instinct (or common sense).

That meant he had been in the basement again, doing God-knows-what down there. Unbidden, the screams that had so badly startled Sasuke earlier that night came rushing to the forefront of his mind.

As did the memory of the last time he had confronted Itachi about his basement activities.

"You needn't worry about it, Sasuke. The matter doesn't concern you."

Growl. "The hell it doesn't. You think me a fool?"

Smirk. "If I were you," deliberate pause, "I would drop this line of questioning before you find yourself in over your head."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean? It is moronic for you to believe –"

Pause. Swallow. "Why… why is there blood on your sleeve, Itachi?"

Fuck. Fuck. No, no, no way. This couldn't be possible. The screams had just been a figment of his imagination – some cruel trick his brain had come up with to mess with his sleep deprived psyche.

But the pieces reluctantly slid into place.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and gave his brother a discreet, cursory look-over. There was no blood on his shirt, but his sleeves were rolled up tight to his elbow, as if to hide the evidence.

It didn't truly matter at this point, Sasuke had to admit, any evidence he found would just point to what his mind had been trying to tell him all night. Truthfully, Sasuke found that he was not so much searching for evidence to prove guilt as he was searching for evidence that would prove him wrong. Anything… anything to tell him that his assumptions were baseless pieces of trash.

"You were in the basement again, weren't you?" he asked, mouth dry but voice strong. He stuffed all the raging emotions deep inside him and let a calm expression of mild disinterest take over his sharp features.

Itachi's brown eyes focused a bit more and the smirk become more prominent. "Perhaps."

Sasuke snorted. "There's no perhaps about it, aniki, I know you weren't just getting some warm milk to stave away the nightmares."

"Clever, little brother," the older Uchiha said blankly, "but I tire of your inane babble. This conversation is over."

Itachi began walking past him, but Sasuke grabbed him tightly by the wrist, an almost inhumane burning sensation growing in his stomach. "What is down there, Itachi?" he asked, his voice an icy contrast to the fire he felt inside. "What the hell have you done?"

He moved so quickly, Sasuke barely had time to register the movement. In a moment, Itachi had his younger brother pinned to the wood banister, eyes radiating a certain kind of madness while the rest of his face imitated stone.

"Do not," he said in a low, low voice as he applied more pressure, "go down there. You will drop this matter at once or you will find yourself very regretful that you did not heed your brother's warning."

Despite the painful amount of strength that Itachi was exerting on his chest, Sasuke smirked the Uchiha smirk. "I didn't know you cared so much about me as to give me a warning, aniki… unless, of course, that wasn't a warning and you were, perhaps… threatening me?"

Itachi smiled with all his teeth. "I just want what's best for my baby brother." He took a step back and the madness receded from his eyes, though not completely. Never completely.

"I see," Sasuke said quietly, thoughtfully, "I see." He turned to continue his journey downstairs. He made it down three steps before he finally felt the burning gaze of Itachi disappear. Food forgotten and his stomach be damned, Sasuke turned all his attention to the curious encounter he had just had.

Itachi had never openly threatened him before, not like tonight. Whatever he was doing in that basement had to be pretty awful, Sasuke thought casually, knowing that when all this was over he would probably just fall apart completely. His thoughts shifted away from the notion of his impending break down and he swerved to the left where he normally would have made a right to enter the kitchen.

The basement door was not even placed at the end of the hallway; it was located between a hall closet and a guestroom on the right wall and could easily have been mistaken for any of the other rooms. Sasuke hesitated in front of it. He did not want to know what he would find behind the seemingly innocent slab of wood.

He did not want to, but he knew he had to.

Brushing off his own anxiousness, he grasped the doorknob and pulled before his nerves failed him. The last time he had been down here… the things he had seen… the things he had forced himself to forget…

The room smelling of antiseptic and chemicals; metal instruments strewn all over the desks; cages, small cages, all lined up against the wall; blood soaking the lab table.

Itachi apparently had a lovely penchant for illegal and inhumane animal testing. Sasuke had had to see it for himself before he could even begin to wrap his head around the concept; the last experience had opened his eyes to a different side of Itachi that he had never expected to exist.

No. No, that was atually a lie. Sasuke had expected it, somewhere deep inside his mind, but he had refused to see it, had kept himself blind for as long as he could. Because that's what brothers do, isn't it? Keep each other safe, look the other way, always accept the other. Even when you hate your brother and pity him from the bottom of your core, even when you know he's far gone and that the pieces that used to be your brother were long lost in that empty shell -- that's what you're supposed to do.

Isn't it?

Sasuke flipped on the light switch and watched as the faulty light bulbs flickered feebly to life. He took the steps one at a time at a brisk pace, simultaneously wanting this over with and wanting to take his time. This would change his life, he knew it (later, he would think back on how dramatic he had been at this very moment, but would never be able to completely scoff at his train of thought).

He surveyed the main room, trying to ignore his own brain as it compared the position of the lab tables to how they were situated the last time. His sharp gaze stopped on a large cage barely visible from the small back room, the somewhat closed door almost obscuring it completely.

He walked in, paused. Tried to comprehend what it was that he was seeing, couldn't. Froze. Sound of something fragile breaking into a million pieces – probably his mind. Or the beaker that had been on the table he just collapsed against. Numb. He couldn't feel a damn thing.

"What have you done, Itachi?" he whispered hoarsely, uncharacteristically thinking aloud as his whole brain overloaded.

For in the corner of that cage, the lean figure huddled up in a small ball with a chain around his ankle and his street clothes torn was no animal. It was a boy.

A human boy. A human boy with blond hair and tan skin and a shirt with a smart-ass phrase and beat up converses and a personality and a life and a heart.

Sasuke could not look away.

"What have you done, Itachi?"

Sorry for the delay, all, but I kind of have a lot on my plate. Three subject tests, college applications (all those essays), three AP classes, several clubs to manage, a rambunctious puppy to take care of (not that this last one is too much of a chore, but still)... I have virtually no time and stayed up until quarter to three in the morning to finish this for you.

Eventually, I shall go back and fix up their confrontation. Because it sucks and it came no where near to the level I wanted it to be. Itachi acted a bit too hastily for my liking and I felt I didn't explain why he let Sasuke go so easily as well as I should have.

At any rate, if you think these two are OOC, then, well... I'm doing something right (unless they are TOTALLY off the mark, then I'm failing). Their core personalities should be the same, but the environment and time in which they were raised differ from their canon counterparts and that makes a HUGE difference. If he grew up in our time, Sasuke would still be an uptight bastard, but something like a mentally unstable brother would freak the shit out of him. The more important aspect of his personality, I believe, is how he hides the fact that he's afraid, not that he IS afraid. Do you get my meaning?

Anyway, it's quarter to three, I'm exhausted, I need to get up in basically two and a half hours, and I have to take a Psych test. Please leave me some feedback for all the toil I went through to get this chapter to y'all. Goodnight (morning?) and thanks for tuning in!

a quirky little tune