Haha. I am alive, I promise. This chapter is a tear-jerker, and I'm not really a fan of how I ended it. However, I wanted to get this chapter to you guys finally. So enjoy.
"No, we need to talk now."
There was a fire burning in those teal eyes that made it hard to look directly at them. However, Sasuke knew he had to if he was going to be believed. He allowed the slightly taller man to bring him back into the classroom, where they could speak alone.
"Can I tell you a story?"
Bewilderment was written across the other man's face as he just did one long blink and a minute shake of the head.
"Is this really a good time for a story, Uchiha?"
Anger, the go-to emotion for when someone doesn't understand what's going on. Anger, the current emotion displayed on the redhead. His fist was tightly clenched, his jaw locked.
"I understand your apprehension, but I promise you this story is one you need to hear. A story I think you'll want to hear. It's the story of a famous convicted murderer, but more specifically, his little brother. Will you please hear his story?"
A moment of hesitation, a moment that managed to vacuum out every last molecule of oxygen from the room, a moment that lasted a century. A moment that finally ended with a slight head nod.
"Now, our main character we'll call Little Brother."
"Little Brother?"
A soft chuckle escaped the raven-haired man at the question.
"It'll make sense when I get to the end."
"Oh."
"Anyways, Little Brother lived what he thought was a pretty average life. His older brother had just begun university as a sixteen-year-old. His dad ignored him as always, but he seemed to be a little more fond of him recently. His mom was the sweetest woman alive as she had always been.
Then, in October of his eleventh year of life, his brother suddenly came home for a visit. It was odd because it was the middle of the school week, but Little Brother really didn't think anything of it. After all, he worshipped the ground his brother walked on; he could do no harm. The boy was just happy to have his amazing brother home, and he was excited about the field trip he was going on the next day. He went to sleep quickly that night, with the last thing he remembered was being poked on the forehead by his brother.
Sasuke startled awake in the middle of the night. He wasn't sure what woke him up, but he decided he wanted a glass of water. Half-awake, he wandered his way into the kitchen. Once he had his cup of water, he slowly began to make his way back to his room. A noise caught his attention, a noise that was so quiet he almost missed it. Was that a hiccup?
He walked towards the source of the sound, his parents' bedroom. The door was cracked, something out of the ordinary, but his sleepy mind failed to question it. He leaned in towards the entrance to locate the sound's origin. Once he poked his head in the door, he realized it was pitch black, and he couldn't make out anything in the room. However, the sound that caught his attention was finally able to be defined. It was sobbing, muffled sobbing, much like when he had broken his arm a year earlier but didn't want anyone to know how bad it hurt.
"Shh. It's okay; it'll be over in just a moment, Mom. We wouldn't want to wake up little Sasu-chan, now would we? Can't have him witnessing this, or there's no telling what I'll have to do."
The boy knew that voice; it was his favorite voice in the world. It was the voice that belonged to his beloved brother. What was his brother doing in his parents' room? Why was his mom crying? He pushed the door open just enough to slip into the room. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out his brother looming over his mother's side of the bed, and he was touching her. He moved further into the room as quietly as possible. He held his breath because he knew it would be bad if he got caught. He had almost made it to the foot of the bed when his brother made a quick slashing motion across his mother's throat.
"MOM!"
Sasuke pushed past his brother to his mother's side. He instantly began hugging her, trying everything he could to help her. She was suffocated on her own blood, coughing it up onto his face. He wailed for help, but she was gone within a second. There was nothing he could do. Wait, why was his dad still sleeping? Sasuke felt around the bed to see if he could shake his dad awake. He barely swallowed the scream as he stuck his hand in a lukewarm sticky puddle. He didn't need to see to know that he just stuck his hand in blood and a lot of it.
"Oh, Sasuke, I really wish you hadn't seen that," whispered his brother from behind him.
The next thing he knew, a hand was over both his nose and mouth, blocking his access to air. He tried to fight back, to get free from his brother's grasp as he was dragged out of the room. Even so, the seventeen-year-old was a whole head taller and 30lbs heavier. The boy just wasn't big enough to have a fighting chance. The last thing he remembered right before he lost consciousness was being tucked back into bed, a gentle poke in between his eyebrows.
A large hand resting on his cheek pulled Sasuke out of the memory. He apparently had managed to repeat what he saw as the teal eyes across from him had lost their edge. As the redhead slowly wiped away the tears that had managed to escape, the owner of those tears found himself nuzzling the hand on his face. The comforting gesture gradually quelled the violent images playing behind his eyes. As his mind reached the end of the event, again, he unconsciously touched his own fingers to his forehead.
As soon as he truly met the other man's gaze, the redhead instantly went rigid and pulled his hand back. It seemed he had also gotten lost in the moment. Sasuke took a few deep breaths before continuing, "When he woke up, he was in the hospital; he recounted his story to the police, and an all-out chase began for his brother. He was in a state of shock, his parents were both dead, and his brother was responsible. How was this even real? It had to be a dream. Why did it happen? Why?
The hunt continued for about a year. Throughout that year, his brother had seemed to have become a serial murderer. He killed eight more people that year, including the political rival of the current Hokage, Orochimaru. None of the people seemed to be connected. He earned the moniker Weasel Killer because no one ever knew where he'd pop up.
Then, one day he just waltzed on into the police station and turned himself in. When asked why he did it, he just responded, 'If you do not know by now. You will never be able to figure it out, and that means I have succeeded in my mission.'
He revoked his right to a trial, fully admitting his guilt. However, he didn't do this to avoid the death penalty. In fact, he insisted that he deserved the death penalty as he felt no remorse for what he did. He told the court, 'There is no point in a trial. I did it, and I am not fighting that fact. I also feel no remorse for my actions, so please feel free to do with me however you please.' He was eventually sentenced to death. That should have been the end of the story, but nothing ever is that easy.
Journalists followed little Brother for the rest of his childhood. The kid brother of the Weasel Killer was a hot topic for years. They wanted to know every single detail of his life. The lone survivor of his family's massacre, but really they just wanted to know how fucked up he was. Some even speculated he'd become a killer as well. Then, they released that he was gay. He was only thirteen when the article came out. He lost all but one of his friends in a day. I mean, he wasn't popular in the first place. After all, everyone thought that he'd kill them one day. However, that article just made it worse, and the boy began to fight often. He had to prove he wasn't just some pissant fairy.
One fight he got into was during his high school entrance exams; he fought this psychotic redheaded weirdo," the comment got a small snort of laughter and a quirked eyebrow.
"I bet that kid started it and deserved the subsequent hairline fracture of his jaw."
"Oh, it seems like you already know the story. Then, I guess I just won't bore you with it, and we can just go on our merry little way then," Sasuke gave a half-hearted shrug.
"Continue...please."
The raven-haired man couldn't help but smirk, "Well, alright, but only 'cause you said please...
They came at each other like they were going to kill each other. Little Brother didn't even know why they were fighting; they just were. Of course, then Little Brother's best friend kicked both of their asses and befriended the other guy. That fight was a changing point in his life.
Little Brother's knucklehead convinced him to leave the city for high school. Go and be anonymous for a few years. With Little Brother's test scores, he could get into any school in the country, so he listened. He left everything he knew behind, including his knucklehead; that was the most challenging part about it. He went to Otogakure to attend the prestigious STEM school there. Little Brother finally started to get his life back on an actual path that was at least a little normal. Eventually, life moved on, and he became an adult and was living an average life. Yeah, he still was not the life of the party, but he had the people he was close to.
Then one day, just a little over eight months ago, he got a collect call from Konoha Maximum Security Prison. It was his brother, and he wanted him to visit. Initially, Little Brother refused. How dare he just fucking call after over ten years? He hung up on him. Then he saw in the newspaper that his brother would be put to death in the fall. He needed answers before that. He decided to go to the prison. When he got there, he saw something that made his jaw drop to the floor."
There was his brother. His strong big brother. His brother, who had viciously murdered his parents. His brother, who had killed eight more people after that. His brother, who was now laid up in a hospital bed attached to all kinds of IVs and monitors. His big brother, who was now small and frail, if there were a light breeze, he'd be carried away with it. His brother, who looked like he was knocking on death's door and had been waiting for him to answer for some time now.
The fluorescent lighting bathed the room in a bright glow that made everything look sickly; it was almost blinding. Almost. The smell of the disinfectants that cloaked everything in the room almost choked him. Almost. The sound of the machines monitoring his brother's vitals was almost deafening. Almost. His senses overwhelmed him to the point he was ready to break down; he wanted to break down. To be perfectly honest, he might have had the sight before him not reminded him of his dead parents, had the scene not taken him back to that awful night, and had his emotional side not remembered that the man in front of him was responsible for it all.
Once the shock wave had left his system, his absolute rage over losing his parents possessed him, pushing out all semblance of rational decision-making. He stormed over to the bed and decked his brother square in his nose. If Itachi was surprised at Little Brother's actions, he didn't show it, even as blood began spewing from his nose like lava from a volcano. Itachi just slowly reached out and grabbed a tissue. He applied pressure to his nose, then inspected if any blood had gotten on the robe he was currently wearing. Satisfied that the article of clothing was blood-free, he finally raised his head to look his brother in the eye, "So you came."
Sasuke hadn't really given much thought to how it would feel to see his brother again. However, he didn't expect the whirlwind of polarizing emotions that coursed through him like a tornado: there in an instant, destroying and rearranging everything in its path.
"I have questions that only you can answer."
"Wrong, you have questions that you think only I can answer."
"Don't pull that mysterious, all-knowing elder bullshit with me. I deserve some fucking answers as to why you imploded our pretty good lives for no apparent fucking reason!"
"Sasu-chan," there was an awkward pause where it seemed the man in the bed was contemplating his following words, "Have you done well for yourself?"
"The fuck kind of question is that?"
"The kind that will get you answers."
"So you're holding the only reason I am here hostage to ask questions about my life? You sick fuck."
"I killed ten people, Sasuke. I think holding information hostage is the least of my crimes."
This man was trying to get punched again. Was he always this much of a prick?
"Why do you want to know?"
"Well, the last thing I heard about you was when you were outed by the tablets. Call it my brotherly instincts; I just want to make sure you are okay after that."
"That happened a decade ago, and you just now reach out to ask if I'm okay? Bullshit."
"Please Sasu-chan-"
"No, don't fucking call me that! You don't get to call me that anymore."
"Fine, Sasuke. Please just tell me whether you've been able to have a good life. Of course, I couldn't reach out; I wanted you to live a good life. You couldn't live a good life if you were hanging around a prison as a child."
"Yes, I've been able to make a normal life for myself. Dobe and all."
"You're still friends with Naruto-kun?"
"Yes, he's my family now."
"Oh, I didn't realize he swung that way."
He almost gagged at that remark, "Ew, no. He's my brother."
"Oh. Sorry, I shouldn't have assumed. However, he was such a precious little boy; I'm sure he grew into being an amazing man."
"Alright, that's enough about me. I want my answers. Why did you do it?"
"Simply? I did it all to protect you."
"Bull-fucking-shit! I am not listening to this dumb fucking shit. I'm out of here," and with that, The younger Uchiha turned to storm away from his only living relative, his perfect older brother, his treasured nii-san. However, he was still in a prison and had to wait for the door to be opened.
As he walked out, a resounding "I love you, Sasu-chan!" echoed throughout the hall behind him.
"Little Brother went home, determined to forget everything he had just experienced. However, it just kept gnawing at him. He decided he'd go back and hear what his brother had to say. The next week he went, but when he got in the room, his brother was- was..."
"You do not have to continue. I do not need to know everything. Not tonight," Gaara pulled the other man close. Red hair tickled Sasuke's nose as the slightly taller man buried his face in his neck. The sudden affection shocked the Uchiha. After all, the man currently holding him was ready to punch him not even an hour earlier.
"What do you mean? You gave me your everything. I have to do the same."
"No, you do not. You are being vulnerable with me. That is enough for me to believe you." While the red head's words were muffled, Sasuke could hear every word clear as day as they rang true in his heart. Tears threatened to escape their prison as he realized he had been accepted. He wasn't being rejected. The tension in his body he hadn't realized he was carrying washed away. Since when had he been so moved by little things? Except this wasn't a little thing, now, was it?
"HEY, GAARA!" Temari screamed as she barged in. Surveying the current scene before her, she corrected herself, "HEY GAARA AND COMPANY! GET YOUR ASSES IN THE CAR; WE'RE GOING DRINKING!"
Sasuke couldn't help the soft chuckle at the woman. It was such a difference from the professional woman he had seen earlier in the day. These siblings really knew how to throw a guy for a loop.
"Do you want to go?" the growth that used to be the redhead mumbled from Sasuke's neck. Another chuckle escaped. Apparently, they were attached now.
"Yeah, sure, why not?" instinctively, he reached up and started petting the other man's hair. Before he could even think of how the recipient would feel about it, the redhead nuzzled his face further into the pale neck. He made a sound that sounded like a mix of a purr and a growl. Seeing as he wasn't pulling away, Sasuke decided it was a sign of him liking it. Since when has this terrifying edgy man turned into a god damn puppy?
"YAS! LET'S GET FUCKED UP!"
Update: who the fuck let me update this without the transition lines? Don't drink and publish y'all.